Ponderings about This and That

Lately whenever I’ve listened to Full of Grace by Sarah McLachlan, I’ve thought about Georgette Heyer. At first, I wasn't sure precisely why this should be so, after all, Full of Grace is the theme song from the movie Moll Flanders based on the Defoe novel and set in a different time. It is also describing a completely different class of person and lifestyle. It was only after a lot of thought that it occurred to me that the underprivileged, unhappy Moll Flanders, trapped in a certain station of life reminded me of the glimpses we occasionally get in Georgette Heyer’s glittering novels of a world which isn’t light and beautiful.

Fay Weldon in Letters to Alice On reading Jane Austen gives a very spirited defence of Jane Austen’s almost complete lack of reference to war and suffering, or even to the existence of an under-class. When reading Heyer, there are many references to this ‘other’ world, and I have always found it curious that Heyer did not seek to explore this further. I am not saying that I particularly wish to know the warts and all story of the Regency period. We don’t need to know that most people probably had decaying teeth, unbearable body odour as a result of infrequent bathing and that sort of trivia. I would have liked, however, to have received a Heyer perspective on the underclass, on the underprivileged and on the seamier side of life.

On a more cursory read of Heyer's novels, it is very easy to believe that like Austen, Heyer has chosen to deal with a very specific stream of society. Unlike, Austen though, Heyer allows her characters to interact with characters that do not necessarily belong to the ton. 'Unsavoury', 'immoral' and lowly characters are allowed to stand outside in the streets while the brightly gowned society members attended their balls and operas.

Sometimes I was almost angered by the careless references to beggars, alcoholics and prostitutes. While perhaps Austen led a very sheltered life and did not write about such things because she did not know of them, Heyer clearly demonstrates a consciousness of the contrast between the different worlds which existed side by side. At other times, I am even more irritated by the slighting references to tradesmen - these low creatures including anyone who had to work for their living whether it be in a professional capacity or in a menial one or to 'Jews' as stingy money-lenders. It was only later that I realised that perhaps it would be an insult to the reader's intelligence if the author always had to clobber us over the head with her views.

I believe that in her own way, Heyer was a satirist. The fact that her novels are largely love stories will forever bar her from being categorised in the same class as classical greats like Austen, Swift or other such heavy-weights, but I now find myself in admiration of her clear-sighted vision and the unclouded way in which she wrote. She leaves the reader to judge on the merits of a particular circumstance. She could not possibly be unaware of the seamier side of life but has chosen to leave it unspoken - allowing the reader to think it out for him or herself.

In one of the earlier letters to her fictional niece Alice, Weldon writes of Jane Austen's world:

The fact that there were 70 000 prostitutes in London in 1801, out of a female population of some 475 000 indicates that your husband at least would not be virginal on marriage. He would quite possibly be diseased. Venereal disease was common, and often nastily fatal. Alice, by your standards, it was a horrible time to be alive. Yet you could read and read Jane Austen and never know it.

Such isn't the case with Heyer's novels. Heavily sanitised perhaps, but the painted women, the lewd mistresses and opera dancers grace the pages of virtually every Heyer novel. They are open recognised and acknowledged and in not writing about them with scathing derision, Heyer is allowing us to draw our own conclusions. Let's take for example, this very delicious exchange between Hero, ostensibly the naive ingenue and Gil Ringwood - experienced man of the world.

"...Ladies know nothing of such things."

"Yes they do. Why, it was my cousin Cassy who first told me about Sherry’s opera dancer, so that just shows how mistaken you are!"

"Well, they pretend they do not, at all events!" said Mr. Ringwood desperately.

"Oh, do they? But Sherry told me himself that everyone has an opera dancer, or something of the sort, and there is nothing in it. Gil, have you - "

"No!" said Mr. Ringwood, with more haste than civility.

"Oh!" said Hero, digesting this. She raised her eyes to his face and heaved a tiny sigh. "I am not a prude, Gil."

"No," agreed Mr. Ringwood feelingly.

"And I am not going to be missish, for my cousin says there is nothing gentlemen dislike more. But I cannot help wishing - a very little - that Sherry had not an opera dancer either."

This is one of the most open and direct discussions about this particular 'topic' that you will find in a Heyer novel. In many of the other novels, the main female character is usually painfully aware of the existence of the the 'Other Woman' or 'Women' as the case may be, but is bound by convention to suffer in silence until the Man eventually comes to his senses and learns to value what is truly worth valuing. I loved this scene where Hero openly challenges what everyone else seems to accept as a self-evident truth. Her honesty is more than just naivity or an ignorance of what is acceptance in society. It is in effect an arcane sense of justice - an innate knowledge of right and wrong. Whether you're a proponent of the relativist or objectivist theory in the morality debate, there is something very admirable about the way Hero tackles the topics that count and demands an answer.

This particular passage made me think of one of the most illuminating passages from John Fowles' novel The French Lieutenant's Woman. Fowles, like Heyer, is writing about the past but unlike Heyer, he deliberately writes about it from a patently modern standpoint and perspective. The book is almost like watching a play or a movie, and his commentary is very clearly meant to be about the past. Nonetheless, he raises some very powerful points about the Victorian era. Keep in mind - although he is writing about a later era, I still believe that it still holds a lot of validity for the writings of Georgette Heyer:

What are we faced with in the nineteenth century? An era where woman was sacred; and where you could buy a thirteen year old girl for a few pounds - a few shillings, if you wanted her for only an hour or two. Where more churches were built than in the whole previous history of the country; and where one in sixth houses in London was a brothel (the modern ratio would be nearer one in six thousand). Where the sanctity of marriage (and chastity before marriage) was proclaimed from every pulpit, in every newspaper editorial and public utterance; and where never - or hardly ever - have so many great public figures, from the future king down, led scandalous private lives. Where the penal system was progressively humanised; and flagellation so rife that a Frenchman set out quite seriously to prove that the Marquis de Sade must have had English ancestry. Where the female body had never been so hidden from view; and where every sculptor was judged by his ability to carve naked women. Where there is not a single novel, play or poem of literary distinction that ever goes beyond the sensuality of a kiss, where Dr Bowdler (the date of whose death, 1825) reminds us that the Victorian ethos was in being long before the strict threshold of the age) was widely considered a public benefactor; and where the output of pornography has never been exceeded. Where the excretory functions were never referred to; and where the sanitation remained - the flushing lavatory came late in the age and remained a luxury well up to 1900 - so primitive that there can have been few houses, and few streets, where one was not constantly reminded of them. Where it was maintained that women do not have orgasms; and yet every prostitute was taught to simulate them. Where there was an enormous progress and liberation in every other field of human activity; and nothing but tyranny in the most personal and fundamental.

It's very thought-provoking and I find a distinct contrast in approaches. Fowles makes it clear from the outset that Sarah is his ideal, modern woman who is free from the constraints of the Victorian era's cruel repression and conventions. Heyer seems to deliberately refrain from any such moral judgment and yet we can see them as clear as day if we choose to look.

The Viscount appeared to have some difficulty in getting his breath. "Hero!" he uttered at last. "Have you no sense of propriety?"

"Yes, I have!" replied Hero, her bosom swelling. "I have much more than you have, Sherry, for I do not have opera dancers, or get foxed, or - "

Hero deserves several Mexican Waves for in that single moment denouncing the hollowness of a society that allows a man to sow his wild oats where he might without a wind of blame. I give Hero the award for Truth, Honesty and True Philanthropy. Her rescue of the evil Sir Montagu Revesby's abandoned lover and child is heartfelt and honest. She is completely uncaring of her reputation, of appearances and has nothing but genuine compassion and concern for the plight of Ruth and the baby.

On a sidenote, a False Philanthropist who has always irked me has been the fair Arabella who had the annoying habit of 'rescuing' and 'helping' people and animals only to foist them off onto Mr. Beaumaris. It's very easy to go around rescuing and helping people if you don't have to deal with the consequences or the aftermath. Arabella's concern for Jem the chimney sweep always seemed on par with her concern for the dog.... whatever his name was. Nonetheless, the novel Arabella, did in a very light way highlight the tragedy of child labour. It was a decided contrast to the Fowles' approach though:

At the infirmary many girls of 14 years of age, and even girls of 13, up to 17 years of age, have been brought in pregnant to be confined here. The girls have acknowledged that their ruin has taken place..in going or returning from their (agricultural) work.
(Children’s Employment Commission Report (1867), quoted from The French Lieutenant’s Woman, p 231)

From Arabella we could see that while children of the aristocracy were feted, petted and spoiled, children of the 'lower orders' were completely disempowered and victims of a society in which they had no voice. 'Arabella' also gave us a glimpse into the alcoholic and low world of 'Leaky Peg' and the slum streets which are a stark contrast to the glittering gardens of Vauxhall and the perfumed, powdered rooms of Almacks.

Nonetheless, Arabella as a character is nothing compared to Hero, unlikely champion of women's rights. I don't know about anyone else, but I was almost cheering when she leaves Sherry and refuses to return to him except on her own terms.

Enough fevered ramblings for now. I have to go and write e-mail. Maybe I'll continue this another day if the spirit moves me.