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Sep. 4th, 2024 09:24 pmOn Saturday ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
genarti and I went for a moderately challenging mountain hike. Knowing that I would want frequent short rests but would not want to haul a book of any weight with me, I went looking for something pleasantly distracting that I could put immediately on my phone and ended up with D.K. Broster's The Wounded Name.
genarti may have had cause to regret this, as it meant that every time we started walking again she was favored with non-consensual Wounded Name updates. The first half of this book is, without exaggeration, perhaps the gayest and most dramatic thing I have ever read. (The second half is somewhat less dramatic but no less gay.)
The year is 1815; we are at the end of the Napoleonic Wars and we are VERY Pro Bourbon; our plucky young protagonist, Laurent has a brief meet cute with Aymar, the hottest and bravest and noblest young war hero that France has to offer, and has developed the world's biggest crush in consequence. In a breathtaking stroke of luck for our young fanboy, Laurent is captured on a routine mission and finds Aymar was captured before him! and is gravely wounded! and the doctor wants Laurent to help him tenderly nurse Aymar back to health, because Aymar has no will to live, BECAUSE! he's been credibly accused of betraying his own side for personal gain and leading his own men into certain death!
Aymar, of course, absolutely refuses to explain himself or say anything other than telling Laurent that he should leave him alone to die. The evidence against him, of course, is absolutely overwhelming. But Laurent, of course, refuses to believe that the hottest and handsomest and noblest young war hero that France has to offer could ever have done a single inappropriate thing in his hot and brave and noble life, and he is going to Save Aymar, yea, even unto the point of collapsing from exhaustion at his bedside, no matter the risk and no matter how many people tell him that Aymar Is Not Worthy Of His Deathless Devotion And Sacrifice. And though Aymar spends many, many chapters grimly resentful of said unwanted Deathless Devotion from this near rando who is always there staring at him with enormous shining eyes, he does eventually, inevitably, rebuild his will to live using Laurent's ardent trust and affection as his single emotional mainstay, without which he will simply walk into the sea.
I will note at this point that the enemy soldiers call Aymar Saint Sebastian while Laurent is compared to Patrocles and Pylades rolled into one, which really tells you that Ms. Broster, gleefully writing her little Napoleonic war angst fictions in 1922, absolutely knew one hundred percent what she was doing.
The drama escalates! there are daring escapes and near-death experiences and fraught hand and forehead kisses! Aymar allows himself to be tortured to save Laurent just at the moment that Laurent is finally experiencing agonizing doubt! This leads to perhaps the most interesting moment in the book, when Laurent contemplates the awful possibility that Aymar could perhaps have done something without honor in the past and still love Laurent (who, again, at this point, has spent several months as Aymar's single physical and emotional prop) enough to suffer heroically for him, and that Laurent has accidentally entered into inescapable romantic codependence with a Bad Person ... obviously this is not the kind of book in which there is much nuance between Honorable Good People and Dishonorable Bad People but it's a fun little glimpse at the Debrief version of this plot that could have been.
Anyway, Aymar finally consents to tell the truth, though not before begging Laurent to share his bed with him for one more night before learning the whole truth in case he hates him in the morning.
( The Awful Truth! )
genarti and I went for a moderately challenging mountain hike. Knowing that I would want frequent short rests but would not want to haul a book of any weight with me, I went looking for something pleasantly distracting that I could put immediately on my phone and ended up with D.K. Broster's The Wounded Name. genarti may have had cause to regret this, as it meant that every time we started walking again she was favored with non-consensual Wounded Name updates. The first half of this book is, without exaggeration, perhaps the gayest and most dramatic thing I have ever read. (The second half is somewhat less dramatic but no less gay.)The year is 1815; we are at the end of the Napoleonic Wars and we are VERY Pro Bourbon; our plucky young protagonist, Laurent has a brief meet cute with Aymar, the hottest and bravest and noblest young war hero that France has to offer, and has developed the world's biggest crush in consequence. In a breathtaking stroke of luck for our young fanboy, Laurent is captured on a routine mission and finds Aymar was captured before him! and is gravely wounded! and the doctor wants Laurent to help him tenderly nurse Aymar back to health, because Aymar has no will to live, BECAUSE! he's been credibly accused of betraying his own side for personal gain and leading his own men into certain death!
Aymar, of course, absolutely refuses to explain himself or say anything other than telling Laurent that he should leave him alone to die. The evidence against him, of course, is absolutely overwhelming. But Laurent, of course, refuses to believe that the hottest and handsomest and noblest young war hero that France has to offer could ever have done a single inappropriate thing in his hot and brave and noble life, and he is going to Save Aymar, yea, even unto the point of collapsing from exhaustion at his bedside, no matter the risk and no matter how many people tell him that Aymar Is Not Worthy Of His Deathless Devotion And Sacrifice. And though Aymar spends many, many chapters grimly resentful of said unwanted Deathless Devotion from this near rando who is always there staring at him with enormous shining eyes, he does eventually, inevitably, rebuild his will to live using Laurent's ardent trust and affection as his single emotional mainstay, without which he will simply walk into the sea.
I will note at this point that the enemy soldiers call Aymar Saint Sebastian while Laurent is compared to Patrocles and Pylades rolled into one, which really tells you that Ms. Broster, gleefully writing her little Napoleonic war angst fictions in 1922, absolutely knew one hundred percent what she was doing.
The drama escalates! there are daring escapes and near-death experiences and fraught hand and forehead kisses! Aymar allows himself to be tortured to save Laurent just at the moment that Laurent is finally experiencing agonizing doubt! This leads to perhaps the most interesting moment in the book, when Laurent contemplates the awful possibility that Aymar could perhaps have done something without honor in the past and still love Laurent (who, again, at this point, has spent several months as Aymar's single physical and emotional prop) enough to suffer heroically for him, and that Laurent has accidentally entered into inescapable romantic codependence with a Bad Person ... obviously this is not the kind of book in which there is much nuance between Honorable Good People and Dishonorable Bad People but it's a fun little glimpse at the Debrief version of this plot that could have been.
Anyway, Aymar finally consents to tell the truth, though not before begging Laurent to share his bed with him for one more night before learning the whole truth in case he hates him in the morning.
( The Awful Truth! )
