ALRIGHT SO @umarthiels asked for elaborations on my Courtly Romance!Clarissa/Diana brainworm. have some stream of consciousness my dear
Honestly i dont know why the idea popped into my head i just suddenly got Parallels shoved at me. I am many years past my Arthurian period so i would need to reread some things to do it justice just. Courtly Love imposed on the Clarissa/Diana framework
Diana, to me, reads like someone fully convinced that their soul is ugly and poison. She feels like she contaminates the things she touches, she ruins everything important to her just by existing. This of course is a self-fulfilling prophecy that leads to her running away with Canning, and with Johnson, and with Jagiello, and to Ireland after Brigid's birth - especially after Brigid's birth; I think it is Important that she was staying with an elderly relative of her first husband after abandoning Brigid and Clarissa (tho don't ask me to explain why right now it is four in the morning) <- parallels to the classical Ill-Formed Knight Lancelot
Clarissa as Guinevere is a little less direct, but as Stephen notes repeatedly, there is something very innocent about her; she is not Of The World, which is something I at least associate with Guinevere?
I think Diana would be convinced that she will ruin Clarissa as she has everything else, and yet still be irresistibly drawn to her.
Le Mort d'Arthur was republished in 1816(sadly after Diana's death, although one could argue that in the world of the Aubreyad it might have been republished during one of the myriad 1813s) and set off the Arthurian Revival. I think there is something here. maybe??
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la belle dame sans merci
"‘Will you not let me go, Diana?’ he said, looking up, his eyes filling with tears.
‘No, no, no,’ she cried. ‘You must not leave me – go, yes go to France – but write to me, write to me, and come back.’ She gripped him hard with her small hand, and she was away, the turf flying behind her horse." – Post Captain, Patrick O'Brian
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Maybe you wouldn’t have to extract a bullet from your chest if you hadn’t called that guy to a duel -> maybe that guy wouldn’t have served you an insult requiring satisfaction via duel if you hadn’t proposed marriage to the woman you love (his mistress) in his house -> maybe the woman you love wouldn’t be having an affair with this shitty boyfriend (the guy who shot you in the chest, whom you killed seconds after you got shot in the chest) if you had proposed marriage to her a year ago. She would have said yes then. Now she’s running off with an American. Sorry to my dear friend Stephen for whom I have every sympathy but he snost and he lost!!
(for now. It all works out later, I’m told)
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The Letter of Marque
Stephen Maturin's foolproof guide to pulling a bad bitch:
be super autistic
get grievously injured and/or fall off of stuff constantly
You can scoff but this is literally how he's pulled Jack and now, in this book, Diana. It's a foolproof strategy and it always works.
Besides that, though, I wasn't as hot on this one as I expected. I think it's a structural problem; I wish they had done the Diana Swedish rescue mission and then had the general's funeral, cuz then the book would start with Jack depressed and dissociating (sidenote: I was really sad that Jack kept that information to himself, but otoh if he had told Stephen about it what would Stephen's advice have been other than "do some laudanum about it"?) and would have ended on a hopeful note, with Jack thinking he'll probably be reinstated, plus at least that old asshole dad of his is finally out of the picture.
To continue the daddy issues discussion from last time: DID STEPHEN HAVE THE GENERAL KILLED? I don't think that's the implication at all, but I like to imagine he did. Why else work so hard to find out where he is...honestly, just knock that guy on the head. Good riddance!
ONE LAST THING: I can't believe we found out Jack had a stepmother his own age in Book 2 but we didn't find out Jack slept with her until now, 10 books later. Honestly, typing this all out, I withdraw my earlier lack of enthusiasm, this book fucking rocks. AND the closing paragraph is lovely, maybe my favorite ending of all the books so far:
[Diana] pointed, and then bending and peering out of the scuttle she cried, "Here they are. Pray let the people stand by to help him aboard: he will be lying on a door." She urged West out of the cabin and on deck, and there he and the amazed foremast hands saw a blue and gold coach and four, escorted by a troop of cavalry in mauve coats with silver facings, driving slowly along the quay with their captain and a Swedish officer on the box, their surgeon and his mate leaning out of the windows, and all of them, now joined by the lady on deck, singing Ah tutti contenti saremo cosí, Ah tutti contenti saremo cosí, saremo cosí with surprising melodious full-throated happiness.
Personal Ranking
The Far Side of the World (10) > HMS Surprise (3) > Desolation Island (5) > The Reverse of the Medal (11) > The Ionian Mission (8) > The Fortune of War (6) > Master & Commander (1) > The Surgeon’s Mate (7) > The Letter of Marque (12) > Treason's Harbour (9) > Post Captain (2) > The Mauritius Command (4)
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hey sorry we let your boyfriend get shot and now he's all grey and feverish and half-dead and if he wants to live he's gonna have to do surgery on himself in a tent on this weird little rocky island. yeah it's gonna take all night. sorry
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I don't know which bit is funnier- 1) Stephen (speed)running out of the room, 2) Diana, pregnant, almost jumping out of the coach or 3)Sophie not giving a fuck about a meeting with Admiral and telling Jack to just leave
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Just finished the first chapter of Desolation Island. Here’s my wandering brain constructions:
I Love the twins, I do. They have to be colour coded so their father remembers which one is which. Also being raised by a bunch of sailors, they’re gonna be brilliant. I adore Sophie. I love that she’s getting more character in just the first chapter. Not only bless her for being the only sane and stable person around, but her love for Stephen! Makes me soft. She and Jack are just a delight.
Speaking of Stephen ‘I can quit whenever I want’ Maturin, he’s never gonna catch a break, is he. Christ. His comrade died under his care, he gets pickpocketed while trying to run an errand for his friend, he’s still bad on the drops. And then that’s all before mentioning meeting Diana in London. Also, the blurb on the back says there’s a ‘beautiful spy’ aboard the Leopard, so. Spy vs Spy!
I am looking forward to seeing if Diana appears in any of the chapters. It’s stressing me out lol
I’ve seen the name Andrew Wray come up before so I know he’s gonna play some important role (is he the spy? yes I’m treating this like a whodunnit but it’s more like a whoisit).
Also, I had to check, but apparently wife purchasing was a real thing? The only thing that surprised me about it was how recent it was. What - what the fuck. At least it’s acknowledged that it’s a pretty fucked practice.
Anyways, I’m gonna call it now, Jack is gonna lose a massive gamble. Everything is going a little too well for him, I can’t wait to see Jack shoot himself in the foot.
Anyways, I’m really loving the book! I can’t wait for everything to go to shit!
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The coming of Richard Canning and Diana Villiers had been a godsend to Bombay, bored as it was with the Gujerat famine and the endless talk of a Mahratta war. Canning had an important official position, he had great influence with the Company, and he lived in splendour; he was an active, stirring man, ready and eager to take up any challenge, and he made it clear that he expected their ménage to be accepted. Several of the highly-placed officials had known her father, and those with Indian concubines made no difficulty; nor did the bachelors; but the European wives were harder to persuade. Few had much room to cast stones, but hypocrisy has never failed the English middle class in any latitude, and they flung them in plenty with delighted, shocked abandon—rocks, boulders, limited in size only by fear for their husband's advancement. Conciliating discretion had never been among Mrs Villiers's qualities, and if subjects for malignant gossip had been wanting she would have provided them by the elephant-load.
Patrick O'Brian, HMS Surprise, 1973.
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