V.R.’s Comments (group member since Feb 16, 2012)

V.R.’s comments from the Q&A with V.R. Christensen group.

It's a wonderful piece of characterisation.

Do you mean The Woman in White? I can find it, I think. It's quite funny.

I was in no humour for trifling, and I resolved to make him understand what I meant.

"Oblige me by giving that man permission to withdraw," I said, pointing to the valet.

Mr. Fairlie arched his eyebrows and pursed up his lips in sarcastic surprise.

"Man?" he repeated. "You provoking old Gilmore, what can you possibly mean by calling him a man? He's nothing of the sort. He might have been a man half an hour ago, before I wanted my etchings, and he may be a man half an hour hence, when I don't want them any longer. At present he is simply a portfolio stand. Why object, Gilmore, to a portfolio stand?"

You are a simply wonderful!

Well...that's very kind, but you needn't feel obligated. Of course I'll be grateful. What IS wrong with your Twitter account?

I hope so. The trick is getting the word out. I'm trying though. (And trying to do it without being annoying.)

There were a series of acts, all of them starting out the similarly when they hit parliament, but then, once the MP's had their way with it, it was all so watered down it was hardly a victory it at all. so I always just refer to the 1882 one, as that's the only one that actually did anyone enough good to matter. There were the widows acts before, which was great if you didn't marry again, but hardly helpful to the average woman.

I need to read "No Name". You suggested that to me once before and I actually bought it with that intention. It would probably have been helpful in working through the intricacies of what Sir Edmund could and could not do, or could and could not threaten to do by way of Wyndham and subsequently little Charlie.

I think that's why I like Collins. He seems to be a truly fair person. His treatment of, forgive me, I can't remember his name, but the father in The Woman in White, and how he treated his servants. "That is not a footman, that is a book stand. Why ever would you suppose it is anything other than a bookstand." Clearly he was trying to make a point there. I like Hardy, too, for similar reasons, though he's more heavy handed in his didacticism.

Oh, yes. I'm so glad you asked. Mrs. Pritchet has just finished a new batch. Currant jam, did you say? I'll open a fresh pot.

Amazon will be promoting Of Moths & Butterflies for free March 1-3. Another giveaway will be hosted some time later in the month. For announcements, visit the author's website, or for more timely events and news, 'like' Moths on Facebook

So glad you're comfy Miss B. Do have some tea and scones.... Clotted cream? Why yes! Ah, you are so right. It is far more complex. Collins dealt a bit with the codiciles and trusts etc that were supposed to keep a woman's money safe (but rarely did) and showed how it was all gotten at anyway, or ought to have been, because a good and dutiful wife would never deny her husband. That book makes me so mad! Oh, pardon my manners.

The rest you wrote of...YES! That's why I love delving into it still. Because it was so complex and I think the average person's understanding of it has more to do with stereotypes and caricatures than with what really went on. Money changed everything. Imogen, without money, hadn't a chance in the world. But that money was also a curse, because it offered the opportunity for others to use her in similar ways. However, it saves her in a way, too. She could never have found respectability without it. Not really.

I noticed, when you quoted my intro, that I had mistyped the 1882 property act as 1872. My mistake.

I'm reading Loretta Proctor's The Crimson Bed, and I'm hoping to invite her over for a Q&A. She addresses some of these issues in her book, too.

Very interesting stuff.

It's kind of motivating, isn't it? But I've been thinking...I'm not a flaming feminist. I mean, if I were really honest, I might be, but... the thing is, what I love about these novels is when men and women learn to get on with eachother, to respect eachother and work together. I feel like we're more at odds now than we were before. Ugh. Sorry. It's been a long day.

But yes, I thought it was kind of a profound statement, but I think it typifies the era in many ways. When you consider that Imogen's 'image in snow' is already broken, what does that do to her value as a woman? Hence her attitude toward herself.

Yes. There is an idea expressed in The Age of Innocence that really catalyzed me to make it a theme in each of the books that Captive Press has, excluding the novelette, that was sort of an unexpected thing. This is Archer (yes, I borrowed the name from here) thinking about May, watching her while they're at a party. They are already engaged.

"She was straightforward, loyal and brave; she had a sense of humour (chiefly proved by her laughing at HIS jokes); and he suspected, in the depths of her innocently-gazing soul, a glow of feeling that it would be a joy to waken. But when he had gone the brief round of her he returned discouraged by the thought that all this frankness and innocence were only an artificial product. Untrained human nature was not frank and innocent; it was full of the twists and defences of an instinctive guile. And he felt himself oppressed by this creation of factitious purity, so cunningly manufactured by a conspiracy of mothers and aunts and grandmothers and long-dead ancestresses, because it was supposed to be what he wanted, what he had a right to, in order that he might exercise his lordly pleasure in smashing it like an image made of snow."

As I said, this passage influenced all three books, Of Moths and Butterflies, Cry of the Peacock (Oct 2012), and Gods and Monsters (release date yet undetermined) but I address it in very different ways. I think it makes for great storytelling, but I also see it as an unfortunate biproduct of the era.

I'm afraid I spend so much time 'immersed' in research and literature, etc, that I find the world a rather harsh and difficult place when I come out of it.

I have yet to see a good adaptation of David Copperfield, despite Hugh Dancy's admirable attempts at playing the character. The Davies version of Pride and Prejudice was of course superb. Except for the fact that they focused on the physical attraction between the characters rather than the psychological, I thought Daniel Deronda was amazing, though I did have to think about it for a while before I came to that conclusion. There are others. I love the Oscar Wilde ones they did a while back. An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Ernest. I loved Bleak House, but there were some really key scenes that they left out, and that made me sad. But the thing about the adaptations is, it's someone else's interpretation, so your getting the story like third or fourth hand. Always best to read, but I wouldn't necessarily say they must be read first. Our Mutual Friend, the film, reawakened me to the genius of Dickens.

That sounds really interesting. I will add that to my reading list. Thanks for the suggestion.

I guess I'm really torn, because obviously I love the era or I wouldn't spend so much time in it, but obviously too, there are things that really tick me off about it. I do miss gentlemen as gentlemen. I suppose you could point out the hipocricies, but I'm not sure being loose and free with our immorality is really the best way either. But there were really good people, who worked very hard to make the world a better place. I suppose it's the same way now.

Then there's the elegance of language and dress. Not very practical for texting and working out, but hey, it's still fun.

I think what I miss most is the idea that people are expected to be good and kind and decent. Not that they always succeeded, but maybe more often than we do today. Maybe.

Besides abuse and property and women's rights, there are some other themes I've sought to address. Illegitimacy, for one, and the plight of the fatherless child. It meant more then than it does today, but I don't think it's any less a problem. Does the social stigma, having largely gone away, make a fatherless child's life easier?

The association of money with value is another point I wished to address. The idea that someone would shun a fortune is, admittedly, a rather absurd one. But what is the value of money? Imogen rightly feared what it would do for her. We work for money. Money is respect, it is status. There was a time when people worked so that they could provide for their families. Now families are side notes of accomplishment. Quoting from my second novel Cry of the Peacock (Oct 2012)"Money could not buy happiness; it was true. But money did have its power. Power to educate, to protect, to provide basic needs so many lived without, and, most importantly, to ensure the freedom that should be the God-given right of all men and women, but which right men so often strove to take away." And in Moths, that was exactly how it was used.

In writing the book, I borrowed from the works that have meant the much to me, Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Wilkie Collins, Dickens, George Eliot and the Brontes (all three). The value of literature as a mirror, and even a guide in our lives, how history repeats itself (even in the ordinary and mundane, in attitudes and philosophies) how centuries' old wisdom is often as valid to us as it was to they who uttered it, these too are themes I've attempted to address.

Were there other themes that touched a chord? Is historical fiction purely escapist, or do you find it has purpose and meaning today?

Yes, I have that too. Haven't read it yet.

I do believe that the Victorian sentiment of self improvement was the key factor to their success as a civilisation, so many discoveries made, so much innovation. But it was the strictness of the codes that eventually made them the caricatures we see them as. In many ways, I think they were really on the right track. But war derails the best of intentions and realigns priorities. So sad to think of so many lives wasted, that sense of 'what was the point of it?" And yet, what choice had they?

I fear I've digressed.

Abuse is a key theme in Of Moths and Butterflies. Deciding how to handle it was a challenge. I did try to address all the different types of abuse, though I'm sure it's debatable how well I treated physical abuse. (Perhaps Imogen was the assailant in this instance, no?) The affects of abuse are long lasting, the emotional consequences tainting the way we see ourselves and how we handle our future relationships, and sometimes in unexpected ways. I wanted to include her rage issues, but realise this is a touchy subject for some, and others cannot relate at all. I think it makes the book both immediately and intimately relatable to some, while making it seem obscure and overwrought to others.

As women, the majority of us have experienced at least one form of abuse in our lives. It's no longer so difficult socially to survive, and yet many of us carry these burdens into adulthood. For me, writing the book was hugely therapeutic. While I'm aware that some of Imogen's reactions seemed over the top, I wrote from a position of experience. Her feelings were my feelings as I slowly came to terms with my bitterness and anger, much of which did not surface until after I was married.

I think at some point I took Daniel Deronda's advice to heart. "It helps to find something outside of yourself." Is there anything in particular that helped you in your life, either to forgive or to overcome the wrongs others have imposed upon you? Is it helpful to read such accounts in literature, or do you, as a reader, tend to avoid the subject altogether? In what ways is it easier in today's society to overcome such issues? In what ways is it more difficult?

I need to read up on her. My inspiration came mainly from fictional sources, such as The Age of Innocence and Tess of the D'Urbervilles and The Aristocrats, and...I have to think. It's really an amalgamation of a lot of other works.

The whole subject of prostitution sort of can be linked to this, too. Because a man who had to marry for money, had certain 'needs' to fulfill, and which male society allowed him, provided he was discreet. But what about the women? I maintain that, whatever a woman's rights, no one aspires to be a prostitute. How did it begin? Well, an unsuspecting woman (usually, though granted not always) got in a bit over her head with a fella. Not having been taught what happens, and he knowing very well what he's doing, and not thinking (or caring) about the consequences to her, takes advantage of her. And then what? If she manages to keep it a secret, is not emotionally destroyed by the encounter and does not get pregnant, she might go on as almost normal. But if not... If anyone found out, if she got pregnant, if she confessed...out she goes. And how is she to support herself now?

Of course there is the issue of Society's judgment. Which is another discussion in its entirety. If someone does not conform to the canons of society, should they be shunned from it? To me that goes against Christian principles, but... as I said, that's possibly a discussion for another thread.

Before the Married Women's property act of 1882 (which went into effect January 1883) a woman who married could keep only her portable goods, no money, no income made off of property owned. She could maintain ownership of real estate, but it could produce no money and could not be sold. The inequality of education of the sexes is another issue that plays into the complexity of Imogen Everard's plight. Men knew very well what the world was about. Women were trained to be innocents. It was her husband's right and privilege to educate her. These two injustices together made it possible for a man to impose his legal rights and his immoral will upon a woman to her absolute degradation.

It's my purpose in my novels to draw parallels to today's society. Clearly this is one instance where times have changed very drastically for the better. But things are not entirely well between the sexes even now. Those former injustices still make me red. But so do those that go on now, though they are far subtler.

What issues in Historical Fiction get your dander up? Which ones need more attention today? If you had been bought by a man with legal and physical power over you, would you have behaved as Imogen had done? Would you have submitted? Or would you have rebelled?

Since college I've been a huge fan of classic English literature, but costume dramas, at the time, were considered quite dry and boring. Then, in the mid nineties there came Pride and Prejudice, care of Andrew Davies, who showed us how it was meant to be done. A quick succession of follow ups came, some better, some not so much. Of the best, I'm thinking of Wives & Daughters, Our Mutual Friend, and Daniel Deronda. Then there was a lull. As a writer I was told there was no longer a market for Historical Fiction. No one was interested. And then, very slowly, something started to change. After 9/11 there came a series of WWI novels, then plays, and then...Dickens 200th birthday and DOWNTON ABBEY! (I'm sorry, did I say that too loudly?) *takes a deep breath* And now it seems, or so I hope to conjecture, that the market is wide open. (Good timing, yeah?) But I think there is a need filled by these works, both in literary and film format. Is our society missing something? And if so, what? What does Historical Fiction do for you? Are you as obsessed as I am by film adaptations? If so, why?