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Two reviews for the price of one
Oct. 26th, 2012 11:47 amFirst, a book:
Jo Graham: The General's Mistress. Set during the later years of the French Revolution and the start of Napoleon's Empire, this is the story of Elza, aka Ida St. Elme, a young adventuress - or rather I should say it is the beginning of her story, the first volume of several about her long and exciting life that had her go, as the author once put it, from party girl to the Napeoleonic equivalent of Judi Dench's M. Elza - who is a historical character, not an invented one - starts out in the kind of trap which you'd think doomed her in her era - married to a man who was after her money and ruthless enough to abduct and "seduce" her at age 12, two children before she grows up herself, no family support because her mother never got over the death of Elza's brother Charles when they were children and only accepts Elza when she's playing said brother. But Elza decides this won't be her life any longer. Her story is one of constant transformation - mistress, actress (she's not very good at it, but it helps paying the rent), con woman, soldier - and one in which apparant disadvantages are turned around. Being able to be "Charles" becomes part of her identity and freedom instead of a way to deal with her mother. Taking a job as a fake oracle in order to make some cash allows her to discover she actually does have psychic abilities, though this isn't easy for her to accept; being a child of the Enlightenment, Elza is a natural skeptic. (This is also what makes Elza's story part of the world created in the author's other novels, all set in different eras and based on the premise of reincarnation, though each novel also tells its own story.) Sex can be a commodity to trade with or a joy; it becomes her choice. Speaking of sex, the novel isn't coy about its sex scenes, and manages something that unfortunately not that many erotic scenes, either in fanfic or in pro fic, accomplish: make them (an important) part of the characterisation of the people involved instead of feeling random and interchangable with, as the saying goes Any Two Guys (or Gals).
Something else: rare (though not unheard of) for a heroine in a novel is that Elza really is leaving her children behind in order to achieve her own freedom (and with her detested husband). Most fiction in any media has the ability to be a a good mother who puts her child(ren) above everything as a make or break criterium for the likeability of a female character. (Whereas male characters who are lousy fathers but in other ways sympathetic are as common as dirt.) So letting Elza do this and not trying to excuse it, but also not punishing her narratively for it, was an unusual and I think honest narrative choice on the part of the author.
Lastly, Elza starts out having little to no interest in politics, no matter of which country, and then slowly and surely comes to care because the system of the society she lives in affects her directly. By the end of the novel, she's gone from drifter to active participant, and we get an inkling how she might end up as a legendary spy. I can't wait to read her further adventures in print!
Secondly, tv:
Elementary 1.04.: what I said about appreciating the show's way of playing the Holmes-the-recovering-drug-addict angle? Doubly applies in this episode. Damn, JLM is good. Ditto for the Holmes and Watson relationship, the way they start to affect each other, with Joan starting to apply the Holmesian method to people in her private life (and btw, the fact that Joan Watson interacts with a variety of handsome men as John Watson in many an incarnation did with the ladies is a neat gender equality circumstance) while Sherlock has started to play by her rules as far as the sober companionship is concerned and trusts in her intelligence. And this is where Gregson (btw, good choice to use Gregson instead of Lestrade, thus no Rupert Graves comparisons apply from the outset) and his relationship with Holmes, after some hints in previous episodes, gets fleshed out on both sides. That was a great scene in Gregson's office. ( Something more spoilery. )
Jo Graham: The General's Mistress. Set during the later years of the French Revolution and the start of Napoleon's Empire, this is the story of Elza, aka Ida St. Elme, a young adventuress - or rather I should say it is the beginning of her story, the first volume of several about her long and exciting life that had her go, as the author once put it, from party girl to the Napeoleonic equivalent of Judi Dench's M. Elza - who is a historical character, not an invented one - starts out in the kind of trap which you'd think doomed her in her era - married to a man who was after her money and ruthless enough to abduct and "seduce" her at age 12, two children before she grows up herself, no family support because her mother never got over the death of Elza's brother Charles when they were children and only accepts Elza when she's playing said brother. But Elza decides this won't be her life any longer. Her story is one of constant transformation - mistress, actress (she's not very good at it, but it helps paying the rent), con woman, soldier - and one in which apparant disadvantages are turned around. Being able to be "Charles" becomes part of her identity and freedom instead of a way to deal with her mother. Taking a job as a fake oracle in order to make some cash allows her to discover she actually does have psychic abilities, though this isn't easy for her to accept; being a child of the Enlightenment, Elza is a natural skeptic. (This is also what makes Elza's story part of the world created in the author's other novels, all set in different eras and based on the premise of reincarnation, though each novel also tells its own story.) Sex can be a commodity to trade with or a joy; it becomes her choice. Speaking of sex, the novel isn't coy about its sex scenes, and manages something that unfortunately not that many erotic scenes, either in fanfic or in pro fic, accomplish: make them (an important) part of the characterisation of the people involved instead of feeling random and interchangable with, as the saying goes Any Two Guys (or Gals).
Something else: rare (though not unheard of) for a heroine in a novel is that Elza really is leaving her children behind in order to achieve her own freedom (and with her detested husband). Most fiction in any media has the ability to be a a good mother who puts her child(ren) above everything as a make or break criterium for the likeability of a female character. (Whereas male characters who are lousy fathers but in other ways sympathetic are as common as dirt.) So letting Elza do this and not trying to excuse it, but also not punishing her narratively for it, was an unusual and I think honest narrative choice on the part of the author.
Lastly, Elza starts out having little to no interest in politics, no matter of which country, and then slowly and surely comes to care because the system of the society she lives in affects her directly. By the end of the novel, she's gone from drifter to active participant, and we get an inkling how she might end up as a legendary spy. I can't wait to read her further adventures in print!
Secondly, tv:
Elementary 1.04.: what I said about appreciating the show's way of playing the Holmes-the-recovering-drug-addict angle? Doubly applies in this episode. Damn, JLM is good. Ditto for the Holmes and Watson relationship, the way they start to affect each other, with Joan starting to apply the Holmesian method to people in her private life (and btw, the fact that Joan Watson interacts with a variety of handsome men as John Watson in many an incarnation did with the ladies is a neat gender equality circumstance) while Sherlock has started to play by her rules as far as the sober companionship is concerned and trusts in her intelligence. And this is where Gregson (btw, good choice to use Gregson instead of Lestrade, thus no Rupert Graves comparisons apply from the outset) and his relationship with Holmes, after some hints in previous episodes, gets fleshed out on both sides. That was a great scene in Gregson's office. ( Something more spoilery. )
