help?

[insaneneko]

If you wanted to introduce Georgette Heyer to someone and were, for a really good reason, to be limited to Venetia, These Old Shades or The Grand Sophy, which one would you go with? As I've only read one of them I can't judge.

Comments

[ah-chan.livejournal.com]

It would depend on who you're introducing Heyer to? Venetia is one of her more slow-paced ones, and has the most typical romance-novel type hero (reformed rake) and heroine, although most unconventionally, their relationship seems to be founded on...a meeting of the minds? a rapport? a shared sense of humour? rather than lust, that was a pleasure to read. The heroine's unconventional family dynamics are also a point of interest. The Grand Sophy I enjoyed very much, and is more humourous - the heroine is enormously competent and practical, and sweeps around fixing other people's lives - but there is an anti-semitic scene in it with a moneylender that seems to have spoiled the experience for a lot of readers, going by online reviews at least. Shamefully, I missed that aspect of that scene completely on my first read, but at least it didn't spoil my reading experience...?

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

My mom, actually. She's been watching me cackle over the books this past week and is curious. Unfortunately, only three titles are in print in Japanese so I have to pick from one. I don't want to get more as I have no idea if she'll like them and if they translate well into Japanese.

I'm leaning towards The Grand Sophy from your description as I don't think my mom will catch the anti-semitism...

[ah-chan.livejournal.com]

If that won't bother her, the rest of The Grand Sophy is a lot of fun. Although I just remembered (slight spoiler as the main couple is pretty obvious as romance novels tend to be) the main couple are cousins.

^^; I can't imagine how they would translate into the Japanese - so much of the fun of them is in the language itself! Although Japanese does have its more formal, old-fashioned modes, so I guess it might work better in the hands of a talented translator than translating formal Japanese often does in English.