Georgette Heyer, Jane Austen: Plot & Story

*Repost*

I'm a fan of Heyer and Austen. They are alike in some ways but differ substantially in others. 

Comparison One
Listening to Pride & Prejudice [in 2005], I was struck by the hardheadedness underlying all that sensibility. Elizabeth gets angry over Darcy's interference with Bingley & Jane, but her anger is undercut by the fact that everybody is interfering with everybody all the time. Her aunt gives her advice. Elizabeth gives her sister and Charlotte advice. Charlotte gives Elizabeth advice. It's just an orgy of opinions. What is comes down to is: everybody wants love but nobody wants to be poor.

Georgette Heyer, who did a large amount of research on the dress and setting of the period, exhibits equal realism: she never marries her lords to peasant girls. 

However, although everyone is on the make, somehow that fact never entirely rises to the surface. Heyer keeps it carefully under control. Lovely young ladies turn out to be heiresses. Handsome young men turn out to her heirs. Supposed changelings turn out to have Viscounts for fathers. The right-sorts-of-people remain the right-sorts-of-people. 

Austen is far more aware of individual choice plus random chance: how easily people can cross the line into struggling to survive.  

Comparison Two
Austen is about story while Heyer is about plot. These terms are often interchangeable, so I define what I mean by them below. 

Plot is things happening: this happens, then this, then this, now this. Story is best described using a Stephen King image. He describes the process of writing as uncovering a skeleton. The story is already there, whole, intact. It just needs to be brought to the surface. 

With plot, the end is always a twist, a change of fortune, the turn of the wheel. In Heyer's These Old Shades, the non-changeling changeling gets captured by her despicable father, rescued by her saturnine lover, presented to all of Paris, confronted with the supposed fact of her illegitimacy at which she runs away to save her lover from her supposed bad reputation. She is finally recovered by her lover and restored to all her rights and privileges (I'm using lover in the old sense of the word; this is Georgette Heyer: nobody sleeps with anybody until they are married, although the dandies and members of the ton have mistresses that occurred offstage and long before the plot began).

The above book is a ton of fun! But it isn't the same as story. With story, the ending is incipient in the beginning. No twist is necessary to bring about a particular ending. The ending already exists, inviolate, known (although not necessarily revealed yet to the reader). The parts of the story hold together like a statue, a shape. As one reads, one gets a sense of an emerging totality. 

Take Elizabeth and Darcy. Both Elizabeth and Darcy undergo an enlightenment, a point when they reorganize their thoughts and feelings. Elizabeth is angered, then humiliated and aggrieved by Darcy's letter. Darcy is angered, then embarrassed by Elizabeth's accusations of "ungentlemanly" behavior. But the argument has been coming for a long-time. The mutual feelings of attraction (I side with those who think that Elizabeth was always attracted, or, at least, interested in Darcy) and irritation have been growing for awhile. Elizabeth's visit to Pemberley isn't contrived. Elizabeth's arrival there is, on a metaphorical level, simply one more piece of the relationship pie. Darcy's intercession with Wickham & Lydia isn't a lucky chance. It is forecast by Darcy's behavior at Netherfield Park where he purchases reputation at the expense of Lydia's future (who might not matter but Elizabeth and Jane certainly do), behavior he must rectify. 

This quality of inevitability is true of all Austen's books, including, especially, Mansfield Park. Much praise has been heaped up concerning Mary Crawford's wit with the follow-up implication that Austen admire Mary Crawford and that Austen only removed Ms. Crawford from the book as a kind of plot contrivance. But Edmund's disillusionment is a long-time coming. The wit of Elizabeth is not reworked in Mary Crawford or, if it is, Austen was older and wiser and knew that wit can be a mean-spirited tool when used by superficial and self-absorbed individuals. (And Elizabeth is not mean-spirited--unlike Mary Crawford). 

Edmund's disillusionment is there from the beginning. No twist needs to bring it about. Austen's interference is only to remove his blinders before he proposes. (And since the said removal comes through Henry Crawford's behavior, it too was foreseeable.)

Conclusion
I'll go so far as to say that all great works have story, rather than just plot. However, plot isn't a bad thing. Better to have something happen, after all, than just profound navel-gazing. Still, in the end, story reigns supreme. 

Rival Characters: The Good, the Bad, the Pointless

Robin McKinley's Beauty in her seminal work Beauty brings up the issue of rivals. In the classic tale, Beauty's sisters are rivals (as are the stepsisters in Cinderella). In McKinley's retelling, the sisters are entirely sweet and pleasant and supportive. Their behavior is a nice change from the over-the-top unpleasant version of the sisters (see #2 and #3 below). 

Love Boat has a Cinderella tale where the stepsisters are too gauche and rude and unappealing to be even vaguely believable; the episode is hilarious, however, because the stepmother has no qualms at cozening up to Cinderella once she realizes which way the wind is blowing. The rivals are played for farce. 

Rivals  can be useful characters. Unfortunately, they sometimes feel like the product of vindictive self-indulgence by the writer. 

Rivals fall into several categories:

1. Awful people but not really rivals. 

Miss Bingley falls into this category. Whatever she, her sister, or Charles may have hoped, Darcy has zero interest in her and doesn't even seem to realize that he is supposed to. 

However, Austen plays fair. Miss Bingley isn't entirely unlikable. She isn't evil. Mostly jealous, she ends up sabotaging her own efforts. At the end of the novel, Austen tells us that Miss Bingley will make nice with Elizabeth: better to be a family friend of the Darcys than not!

2. Obviously awful & conniving.

Lucy Steele uses her "secret" engagement to  Edward to put Elinor in her place. Her arrival in the story is a little too convenient to the plot.  However, Austen is fair to Lucy or at least to the situation. That is, Lucy is complex enough that her "confidences" are not really something that Elinor can protest. Is Lucy jealous? Honest? Cruel? Self-satisfied and smug? 

The behavior is obviously unkind and the opposite of honorable. But what the character believes about herself is a different matter.

3. The non-friendly serious rival. 

Here is where I get creeped out. The non-friendly serious rival is actually trying to break the couple up, and the sheer arrogance of "I know what is best for you--it is me" sends me searching for something else to read/watch. I gather from the number of films and series out there with this type of rival that some people just love for a male or female protagonist to have endless choices but I find the constant competition tedious at best and nearly sociopathic at worst. 

4. The friendly serious rival. 

However, the friendly serious rival--common in manga--is quite fun. The friendly serious rival competes but gives way graciously, or at least gracefully, and remains friends with the main characters. 

Ryu Jihye in Semantic Error falls into this category. She's a decent person, honestly interested in Sangwoo (not for his potentially great future or family or money). She helps him relate to people and remains his friend after he and Jaeyeong pair up. 

Her rivalry is with Jaeyeong. And Jaeyeong knows it. He cleverly out-maneuvers her on several occasions, as indicated by his wink.

5. The hilarious rival. 

The teenage female high school students in His Favorite fall into this category. They pursue Sato. Then he starts dating Yoshida and tells everyone. Instead of beating up Yoshida (which Yoshida expects), they tell him, "Stop being such a wuss. We're going to keep competing with you, you know." 

Except often their competition backfires--as when they get Sato to study with them and he spends the whole time asking them for dating advice, which annoys them to no end. Don't you understand that we are serious competitors here? 

Rivals are going to arise in romance: here's to hoping writers handle them in a non-revolting manner!

Austen Really Wrote That: Austen's Clever Lines

Jane Austen is very, very funny. 

She is whimsical, sardonic, ironic, dry, playful...all of it! 

The 19th century language might disguise her caustic wit. For my Northanger Abbey rewrite, I updated various lines to give them modern impact, but they are--in fact--Austen's originally. 

1. Literary Analysis. 

Catherine attempts to talk about books with John Thorpe. 

Even with Isabella, Catherine finds this enjoyable activity difficult. Isabella references Gothic novels as springboards to other conversations. 

With John Thorpe, an exchange of views about books is practically impossible. Thorpe claims he doesn't care for Gothic literature (and he gets authors confused)--except for The Monk, which was basically the nineteenth-century porn version of Twilight. Regarding Camilla, he states, "I assure you; it is the horridest nonsense you can imagine; there is nothing in the world in it but an old man’s playing at see-saw and learning Latin; upon my soul there is not."

The narrator then informs us that the "justness of this critique...was unfortunately lost on poor Catherine."

In my version, Thorpe gets a bunch of myths confused, prefers the more salacious ones, and then argues that all myths come about because gods get in a bother. 

My narrator remarks wearily, "Make the man a literary critic."

2. Word choice. 

Henry Tilney is a clever, self-conscious young man who likes to show off but not in a bombastic way. 

He shows off around Catherine. 

Although I changed the timing and the topics of Catherine's walk with the Tilneys, I retained Henry's joking criticism of Catherine's use of "nice" to describe a work (Udolpho)--though I have Catherine use the word "awesome."

That is, Catherine and the Thebleys discuss myths. When Catherine describes them as "awesome," the following, in tribute to the original, ensues:

Henry said, “Do you mean awesome as in awe-inspiring or awesome as in generally appealing?”

Antione turned from where she walked a little ahead of Catherine and Henry.

“Ignore my brother,” she said to Catherine. “He has a bugbear about supposedly vague language. He teases me all the time about my word choices. Now he is doing it to you.”

Henry held up his hands, palms out. “I recently heard a horserace referred to as awesome; fireworks as awesome; a sunny day as awesome; lobster as awesome—”

Austen's passage does a fantastic job encapsulating Henry Tilney's personality.

3.  Dealing with bullies. 

In the original, John Thorpe is persuaded that he and Catherine are practically engaged based on an absent-minded remark. He isn't convinced of the engagement because he wants to be engaged--just, everybody is doing it! (And he thinks Catherine is an heiress.)

Catherine will not say that they are engaged, even when Isabella, her best best BEST friend, pressures her to say so. 

Austen's version and mine are very close:

Austen: "You are describing what never happened."

Me: "Then he believes in something that never happened."

The beauty of Catherine's line is that she isn't being caustic or snide or mean or even coy. She isn't standing up to Isabella, yet her honesty undercuts Isabella's manipulations. 

4. Compliments

While staying with the Tilneys, Catherine receives a letter from her brother, James. His engagement with Isabella is at an end. James writes that Isabella is engaged to Frederick Tilney, Henry and Eleanor's brother. 

She isn't. 

What sweet-natured people such as James and Catherine read as engagement, the rest of the world reads as flirtation (even in the nineteenth century). That is, no one supposes that Frederick and Isabella are engaged except James and Catherine.

Henry and Eleanor also know their brother. Frederick has zero desire to marry. And he doesn't. 

Catherine, however, is convinced by the letter. She believes that Isabella behaved badly in throwing over her brother. But at least she is in love "and though she has behaved so ill by our family, she may behave better by yours. Now she has really got the man she likes, she may be constant."

Catherine is nearly incapable of imagining that Isabella threw over her brother for little more than a flirtation, wishful thinking, castles-in-the-sky assumptions, and the lure of money/security. Catherine maintains that the engagement is real. 

Henry responds, "Prepare for your sister-in-law, Eleanor, and such a sister-in-law as you must delight in! Open, candid, artless, guileless, with affections strong but simple, forming no pretensions, and knowing no disguise."

Henry is, of course, talking about Catherine, not Isabella. Catherine doesn't realize. Eleanor does.

Eleanor responds, “Such a sister-in-law, Henry, I should delight in.”

Too good a line to excise! I included it in Chapter 11.  

Austen Satire Moment: Northanger Abbey and House Maintenance

Whilst revisiting Northanger Abbey, I encountered several caustic passages about Catherine's stay with the Tilneys. Catherine would prefer to meander about with the Tilney siblings, Eleanor and Henry. Instead, the father--who thinks she is a heiress and has pre-selected her for Henry--insists on showing off the house and acreage.

Since Catherine was hoping Northanger Abbey would be a deteriorating medieval abbey with lingering ghosts and hidden secrets--and instead got the equivalent of a suburban ranch house--she is less than excited.

What caught my attention, however, is that such a scene is not the first time Austen's narrator has indicated a lack of interest in other people's home improvements. Mr. Collins, for one, is spoofed for his tremendous excitement about "shelves in the closet."

It is never wise to assume that fiction writers MUST experience the events they detail but the reappearance of such a scene forces me to consider: was Jane Austen cornered at a house party by a happy homeowner with excruciating details about house maintenance?

Not quite as awful as having to watch other people's home videos--but one can see why Austen considered such a circumstance fodder for her novels.

Northanger Abbey & the Omniscient Narrator

I consider Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen one of the funniest novels in existence. 

It has its problems, as critics have pointed out, including a tad too much "and then they went there next" plotting. However, the larger problems attend its retellings, specifically movie retellings. Far too often, the writer and director turn Catherine's prosaic life into a drama. 

They miss the joke. 

After my forays into Pride & Prejudice and Persuasion, I settled on Northanger Abbey as an entertaining third tribute-to-Austen project. However, I was stymied because in order to do Northanger Abbey justice, the story cannot be told from either Catherine or Henry's points of views. Not even Isabella's p.o.v.--she is far too shallow and self-regarding to merit a "villain's" justifications. And John Thorpe is barely able to form a consistent thought.  

I realized that the narrator needed to be a kind of Daria--an omniscient, wry outsider--yet a narrator who is invested in the outcome. 

I decided to go literal regarding omniscience: the narrator would be one of my gods from Kouros Underground. Rather than an obsession with "horrid" novels, Catherine would be passionately devoted to the darker Greek myths. 

Initially, the narrator god was going to be Hermes--but my Hermes' backstory is rather troubled and he is far too cynical. Although the narrator of Northanger Abbey mocks Catherine and Henry, the mockery is more gentle and kindly than acerbic, caustic, and self-serving. 

Consequently, my narrating God became Ven or Venus, the male Aphrodite in my Greek world. He is kind, sardonic, and bemused. He looks like a twenty-six-year-old skateboarder, TJ Tyne in a hoodie. He is actually closer to late thirties and a product of 1990s Seattle grunge culture. He can make cultural references to Princess Bride and supermarket romances with the best of them!

I found, rather to my relief and amusement, that nineteenth-century Gothic literature and Greek myths are "birds of a feather." There's a reason the connection thrived in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, so Dracula and Edgar Allan Poe's stories/poems include direct and indirect references to the classics.  

Catherine Morland & The Matchmaker is now available on Amazon.

Cox, Becker & House

So I guess I have a thing for bad-tempered doctors with hearts of gold.

Cox (from Scrubs), Becker (from Becker) and House (from, uh, House) all, sort of, fit the above description. But they are different in rather interesting ways. Cox and Becker, for instance, are much more functional than House and not just because of his leg. They have a greater ability to interact with others and, in Cox's case, are much more medically fallible.

In fact, Cox is the most realistic of the three. He is a very good doctor but, as far as I know (I've just started watching the show), not a genius. Becker isn't a genius either, but Becker sets himself apart by willingly staying in the Bronx when he could, with his credentials, make more money elsewhere.

Like the other two, Cox is aware of his own personality flaws (in the episode last night--these are reruns--he tells Newbie, "You want to be me? I don't even want to be me.") Unlike Becker, who isn't always aware of his effect on others, Cox--like House--can deliberately changed his behavior to produce an outcome, such as the episode where he provokes Kelso into taking back rounds--for Kelso's own good.

And Cox has an ex-wife girlfriend and a son and an intern who adores him.

Becker does eventually get a decent girlfriend--played by the very talented Nancy Travis. Like Cox, his personality, while not entirely environmentally induced, is strongly influenced by past unhappiness: multiple divorces, a bad childhood (that's Cox), etc. I'm not saying the writers use that material as an excuse for Cox and Becker's behavior, but it is important to understand their backgrounds in terms of the distinction between Becker & Cox and House.

With House, the producers (who I am now going to refer to as David Shore since Shore is the only one I know [from Due South, another great show]) are doing something rather difficult. House really isn't supposed to be a doctor with a heart of gold. House is really supposed to be a jerk. A complicated jerk but a jerk. The environmental complications--his leg, his lost girlfriend--do not fully explain him. I realize "The Jerk" was supposed to elucidate this, but I thought it was much better elucidated in the episode with the carpet stain. Yes, House plays games, but Shore wanted to make it clear, through that episode, that there's a real part to this guy that can't stand inconsistencies in his environment. It isn't supposed to be this weird thing that House goes through every now and again. It is supposed to BE House. All the stuff he does and says isn't a "front" or bad temper or a coping mechanism or disillusionment (which Cox, for example, portrays very well) but the guy himself. (Although House does have a stinky dad.)

And once you accept that basically House is NOT someone you would really want to spend time with, it gets a lot easier to spend time with him. He manipulates and plays games with people NOT because secretly he is trying to help them be better people (yuck) but because he really can't stand not to know why people do what they do. Other people create chaos, and he doesn't want chaos even though he believes in chaos. He MUST dig out Wilson's secrets. He MUST find out what is wrong with his patients. He MUST know.

Which makes him difficult to be around but a great diagnostician.

What makes all three of the doctors interesting to watch is that all three of them act the role of "fool"--not "fool" in the Ben Stiller sense but fool in the old Shakespearean/King Lear sense. They say things other people don't admit/want to hear. (I must include Cox's ex-wife girlfriend here, especially the episode where she keeps trying out lines like, "I'm not wholly myself when Cox isn't with me" and then saying, "No, it doesn't sound like me, does it?")

Now, I've got a big dose of Jane Austen in me--I believe in appropriate conversation for appropriate venues, but that didn't stop Jane Austen skewering people in her letters to Cassandra. It doesn't really work for effective day-to-day living; it is much better to accept other people's fallibilities and forgive and all that.

But it makes GREAT television.