[Jennifer Crowley]

Hey all,

For the first week we'll be reading chapters 1-3. On Friday we'll open up discussion for those chapters. I'll be posting a schedule of chapters for the month of October, but I'm doing this post at work and my book is at home. *grins*

I'm excited!

[Therese Dryden]

My copy arrived in the mail today! I'm really looking forward to diving into it.

[Jennifer Crowley]

So first, a note. For next Friday we'll read chapters 4-7, and then the next week we'll read through to the end. My book's the 1972 edition.

Now, confession time. I finished the book about an hour ago. I promise I won't give anything away, but I just thought I should get it out there.

My initial impressions of the book were mixed. I liked the opening line. I was surprised I liked the opening line. When I came to think of it, I'm so used to modern novels starting in the middle of an action that it puzzled me why I liked it. I think it is precisely because it takes a little bit of time to ease into the narrative, and for me it was different. I really came to dislike the internal monologue in quotes. Perhaps it's something that is still done with books today, but I haven't been reading them. It drove me a little up the wall.

Sarah, if the evil villain being a sexual deviant drives you a little crazy (as from your posting it seems to), then I think I've hit my equivalent. I hate when there are evil fat women. Ironically, when there are older skinny and bony women, I'm ok with that. I get tired of the slightly worn out older rival, but I don't actively dislike it. But I really dislike when the evil aunt is fat and lazy and mean (and that they hit really hard even though their fat and lazy and don't have any muscles). I know it's a shorthand for a person who lives in excess, but being overweight myself, and struggling with it, it just hit the wrong note.

Baring all the tropes that were rather cliched (going from the bad-guy rape to the good guy rape, not knowing she was pregnant, abusive overweight aunt, dead father and mother, narrowly escaping prostitution, etc) I got hooked by the end of the third chapter. I was invested. I was going to keep reading.

And I know exactly where it happened. It was when she used unloaded firearms to lock the servant into the closet and then successfully escaped. The combination: the unloaded firearms (yes! because most people don't keep loaded guns around their house. And I've read a fair share of novels where she finds a loaded gun. I liked that touch) the locking into the cabinet, and the successful escape. I've read plenty of novels where the heroine tries to escape (and in fact, spends most of the book trying to escape, but that's another story) and fails, but this was a nice switch.

As for the title: I'm still puzzling over it. I'm used to the novel's title becoming clear in the course of the book, and it's one of the games I enjoy playing where I play "find the title." I haven't seen much imagery of either flames ('cept for sex. but that's kinda obvious) or flowers yet, but perhaps I'm missing it.

(On another note: I want a romance to be written titles the Flame and the Flower, where the woman is the Flame and the man is the Flower. It should have witty references to the Original Flame and Flower book, and it would be great fun. I'm sorry. I'm rambling. I'm hoping something I write here will spark discussion).

So, themes. Heather describes herself as cowardly, and yet she does things that are semi-brave. Is it real bravery, or just desperation?
Do you think that Brandon will treat Heather differently now that he knows she's (kinda) a lady?
The Hamptons. I feel like they were characters just created just to drive the plot. And to give Heather someone to say goodbye to. Does the book really need them?
So we have two rape scenes (well, one attempted rape and one not so much). What do you guys think of them?

[Tessa]

Jennifer Crowley, on 09 October 2009 - 08:23 PM, said:

So, themes. Heather describes herself as cowardly, and yet she does things that are semi-brave. Is it real bravery, or just desperation?
Do you think that Brandon will treat Heather differently now that he knows she's (kinda) a lady?
The Hamptons. I feel like they were characters just created just to drive the plot. And to give Heather someone to say goodbye to. Does the book really need them?
So we have two rape scenes (well, one attempted rape and one not so much). What do you guys think of them?

So, I have to admit that, like Jennifer, I was reluctantly drawn in and ended up finishing the book in one big bite as well. The weird internal monologues really threw me at first and they took me a while to get used to and I never really came to enjoy them. I kept thinking, "Dude, someone is gonna walk by and hear you and it is not going to go well." It's a style element that really doesn't fit with my personal taste, at least. Also, I didn't get the title either, so if someone does, I would appreciate it if they chime in with the whys as to that.

And on the the themes that Jennifer brought up... I personally think that bravery really shows itself in times of desperation, so I don't see them as being mutually exclusive. The scene with the gun, and before that, her reaction to William the Skeezeball are definitely moments of bravery in my mind. And even more than that, returning to her awful Aunt's house definitely took guts. I do think that Heather's bravery falters somewhat - and rather disturbingly - in the middle of the book, but that is getting ahead of this discussion.

I again have to agree with Jennifer about the frustrating villains in this book. Frustrating in that they were horribly predictable, and so easy to demonize, that for me at times it bordered on melodrama. The fat, evil Aunt, her fat, evil brother (and how creepy was her adoration of him), the other woman, and others as the book progresses are all so uncomplicatedly easy to dislike. It actually bothered me that the bad guys weren't given a little more depth of character.

I do think that the book really does need the Hamptons, or someone like them. I can't see Brandon marrying her- heck, finding her - if not for someone forcing them back together. If, on some off chance he did find her on his own, I really think he would have made her his mistress first and then they would have had a completely different set of obstacles to overcome. It would have been a completely different book.

I'll leave the rape scenes for someone else to tackle - but I will say that I found the hero rape far more disturbing than the attempted rape, and it has made me wonder how (if?) I would like reading some of the more "old skool" books that I loved when I was younger.

I can't wait to hear what other people's thoughts are!
=)

[Jennifer Crowley]

Tessa, on 10 October 2009 - 11:22 PM, said:

So, I have to admit that, like Jennifer, I was reluctantly drawn in and ended up finishing the book in one big bite as well. The weird internal monologues really threw me at first and they took me a while to get used to and I never really came to enjoy them. I kept thinking, "Dude, someone is gonna walk by and hear you and it is not going to go well." It's a style element that really doesn't fit with my personal taste, at least. Also, I didn't get the title either, so if someone does, I would appreciate it if they chime in with the whys as to that.

And on the the themes that Jennifer brought up... I personally think that bravery really shows itself in times of desperation, so I don't see them as being mutually exclusive. The scene with the gun, and before that, her reaction to William the Skeezeball are definitely moments of bravery in my mind. And even more than that, returning to her awful Aunt's house definitely took guts. I do think that Heather's bravery falters somewhat - and rather disturbingly - in the middle of the book, but that is getting ahead of this discussion.

I again have to agree with Jennifer about the frustrating villains in this book. Frustrating in that they were horribly predictable, and so easy to demonize, that for me at times it bordered on melodrama. The fat, evil Aunt, her fat, evil brother (and how creepy was her adoration of him), the other woman, and others as the book progresses are all so uncomplicatedly easy to dislike. It actually bothered me that the bad guys weren't given a little more depth of character.

I do think that the book really does need the Hamptons, or someone like them. I can't see Brandon marrying her- heck, finding her - if not for someone forcing them back together. If, on some off chance he did find her on his own, I really think he would have made her his mistress first and then they would have had a completely different set of obstacles to overcome. It would have been a completely different book.

I'll leave the rape scenes for someone else to tackle - but I will say that I found the hero rape far more disturbing than the attempted rape, and it has made me wonder how (if?) I would like reading some of the more "old skool" books that I loved when I was younger.

I can't wait to hear what other people's thoughts are!
=)

Tessa, you're right about the internal monologues in quotes throwing things off. I too sometimes mistook it as speaking when she was really thinking. I wonder when the shift in books doing that happened. Do people notice books they read today with that convention?

I see your point about bravery, but I'm not sure if having bravery is the same thing as being courageous. I must think of that, because I'm not sure I have an articulated argument about that.

I can see that the Hamptons are necessary to the plot, and I'm glad there's at least someone who is kind toward the heroine during this part of the book.

As for the rape scenes, I had an interesting thought afterward. I was reading Tempt Me At Twilight by Lisa Kleypass during the week, and there's a botched sex scene (as in it doesn't go well for the characters, it's good writing). It really had not much to do with the rape scenes in TFATF, other than it showed how a sex scene could be done well.

I'm also thinking back to the old school romances I read when I was younger, and even the ones I've read more recently where there's a rape/forced seduction scene. I was thinking about what threw me out of the narrative in TFATF, while I can still go along with other forced seduction scenes in old school romances and be okay. (Not great, because there's still sometimes a squidgy feeling if I think about it too much, but at least I don't get thrown out of the story)(let me also make clear that this is just a quick and dirty list, and there are definitely exceptions. But I'm the type of reader that goes into a story wanting to enjoy it. You have to do something really wrong for me to not enjoy a story in some way). What makes the rape scene problematic for me is:

-the heroine displays no desire. If she felt any pleasure in the scene, or she went from resisting to enjoying, I would probably have less of a problem with it.
-the heroine calls it rape.
-it comes on the heels of another attempted rape scene. This stuff is already on my mind, and now I'm thinking that aside from looks, the hero and the villain are not different.
-the hero does not display remorse. (There's an old school romance I read where the heroine gets raped by the hero b/c she was drugged with an aphrodisiac and he doesn't realize that she's drugged. In the morning, the hero is just as horrified as the heroine is about what happened the night before. I bought into it, and even mostly enjoyed it.)

So my question here is, why did the author do it this way? There must be a reason. Is it just so that the hero has a long way to climb in order to redeem himself?