An' I wish I was dead 'fore I done what I did

[sovay]

On the strength of D. K. Broster's The Wounded Name (1922), I am prepared to declare the article which was the subject of my previous post stuffed full of wild blueberry muffins, at least where the deniability of the homoeroticism is concerned:

And Aymar's head lay against Laurent's shoulder, and Laurent, who rather thought he was crying himself, and didn't care, was battling with a most unseasonable desire to kiss it there, before everyone; and would very likely have succumbed only that he was sure Aymar had not quite lost consciousness.

The whump and the loyalty kink in this novel go to eleven. There is a quite extraordinary amount of tenderly caring for a bitterly sensitive person who can endure any amount of opprobrium, torture, and self-loathing before going to pieces at kindness. The setting of the previously mentioned bed-sharing and anguished confession is a sea-cave and the bed itself of sailcloth and seaweed, which makes me feel rather personally come for. I don't know how to categorize the heterosexual element which is simultaneously essential to the plot and completely out of left field, except that I think the author reconciled herself to it with OT3. No reader on the planet needs slash goggles. At one point the protagonist's family conclude from his restless, distracted, high-strung behavior that he is obviously in love and the only thing they are wrong about is which of the de la Rocheterie cousins—who explicitly look almost like the male and female versions of one another right down to the famous, unusual bronze hair, a touch more recalling Tanith Lee than Emma Orczy—it is. The author likes epigraphs even more than I do: one chapter has three of them. Browning's Aurora Leigh (1856) is sampled twice and Kipling's Puck of Pook's Hill (1906) furnishes the one that really matters. Did I mention there is not just nursing through a fever, but nursing through multiple fevers? There is no apparent fandom for this book on AO3 and I can't explain it. There's courtroom drama. The tags would go on forever.

Comments

[selkie]

Wait wait should I prioritize this sailcloth and seaweed over the Heron one from last night? Or should I not read it at all because it might mix in?

SOUNDS GAY, I'M IN though.

[sovay]

SOUNDS GAY, I'M IN though.

IT'S HELLA GAY.

(I don't think it will mix in. I am getting the picture that The Flight of the Heron may be the better novel, but The Wounded Name is very much the author's MY ID AND WELCOME TO IT.)

[selkie]

Look, the minute some of us figured out a book was "ID, AND WELCOME TO IT," the faster some of us wrote. (I'm not sure it's all my id. And it took me two and a half years to realize about Kim, so maybe I shouldn't be counted on...)

[sovay]

Look, the minute some of us figured out a book was "ID, AND WELCOME TO IT," the faster some of us wrote.

With sterling results, too.

[selkie]

Ahem.

[sovay]

Ahem.

"I'll take a dozen, right now."

[selkie]

I can change it to something besides "Professional Book Yelling," I suppose, but... there is a certain beauty in doing what says on tin.

Edit: We can put villain, scoundrel, etc. on the back side. With your email.

[luzula]

*butts in* My recommendation is to prioritize Flight of the Heron, because unlike for The Wounded Name there's a readable ebook and also fic. : ) There will soon be a Gutenberg ebook for The Wounded Name, though.

[selkie]

Thank you! Mostly, it is that I should be using my time for writing, not reading, but the truth is I am usually reading something, so it may as well be something historical, slightly melodramatic, and gay. :)