The Romantic Armchair Traveller

Ghana: Chancing Faith by Empi Baryeh

 

Chancing Faith, a contemporary romance by Empi Baryeh, is set in a Ghanaian advertising milieu (Black Opal Books paperback, 2012). The last time I enjoyed reading an office romance was in 2005: Jane Porter’s The Secretary’s Seduction, a light-hearted and winsome, old-fashioned Cinderella fairytale (easily the least moody Harlequin Presents I have ever read). Ghanaian author Empi Baryeh’s romance is rooted in a more recognisable world^1. including a realistically depicted corporate environment and a hero and heroine with concrete career abilities and visions, but it possesses that same, unexpected quality of tenderness that arises from caring and good-natured protagonists who sincerely like each other.

 

In order to complete the requirements of her Chartered Marketing Certification course Naaki Faith Tabika applies for an internship at MIA, a leading but corruption-tarnished Accra advertising agency. Unknown to the employees, MIA is facing a disadvantageous merger with an international marketing company in which Thane Aleksander, an account executive flown in from the USA to audit the agency and oversee the restructuring, is hoping to make partner.

Career-driven Naaki worries that a relationship would trap her into the traditional female role of home-making, and Thane realises the limited duration of his stay in Ghana would make a committed relationship unfeasible even if his heart was not smarting from a previous breakup. How much distance can an office romance bridge?

 

The author takes the reader behind the scenes of the operations of an advertising agency, the principal setting of Chancing Faith, about which she seems knowledgeable. Both Naaki and Thane are serious about their work and ably demonstrate their competence. So far so good. My problem was that their interactions quickly cross into what would be considered inappropriate boss/subordinate behaviour in the workplaces I have known, murky even when they take it outside the office. In the back of my mind a lingering sense of unease flashed “HR violation” more than once. This is something of which the hero and heroine, too, seem aware but irrationally permit themselves to indulge in at every turn anyway. In a romance, unlike in the real world, I can, on one level, accept this very sweet couple’s head-over-heels infatuation as cute, partly due to their non-exploitative personalities, partly because (end spoiler) they end up as equal business partners. Nevertheless, it is an ethically troublesome scenario that strengthens my reluctance to try more office romances. Having said this, it is only fair to point out that in spite of the sensual type of romance implied by the cover the physical relationship is actually kept within bounds that permit only one love scene, close to the end. Instead the couple’s developing attraction is explored through companionship and emotional and physical yearning.

 

I found both Naaki and Thane very likeable. Both are warmhearted and unjudgmental individuals, yet firm and capable in their professional roles. A beta hero in an alpha suit, Thane came more convincingly alive for me due to his better articulated and animated point of view, which includes a slight but amusing touch of self-deprecating humour. At first he seems the stereotypical hero left scarred by a toxic relationship and vowing to avoid serious involvement with another woman, but this trust issue is quickly ditched in a pattern that becomes familiar throughout a story that seems lost about what to do with points of conflict. If a holiday from angst-ridden heroes sounds good, though, Thane fits the bill. As a bonus, he is a sweetheart.

 

My reaction to any given romance is more strongly bound to the portrayal of the heroine, however, and I came away a bit dissatisfied by what was left out here. Naaki is a lovely character with some truly positive, proactive attributes but her voice and arc are conveyed with a limpness that prevents the story from maximising on her potential as a heroine. This may be due to the book’s main flaw, one of technique: low tension.

 

The writing of Chancing Faith is clean, unfussy, and unforced, and the simple, linear storyline unfolds smoothly if slightly repetitively with lots of minutiae filling in the space left by the absence of a strong, central conflict. Consequently, the (minimal) plot sags and the pacing plods; emotional highs and lows become muted. Ironically, plenty of story is compressed into the final twenty pages. That is where the plot lies that could have injected the missing zing and snap into the anaemic main body of the narrative. As written, neither cultural divergence nor the conflict inherent in both the allegedly controversial terms of the merger and in the touted corruption are mined for their potential to deepen character complexity or generate friction.

 

Another missed opportunity: the former love interests, cardboards who are, furthermore, used stereotypically. In the case of Naaki’s ex-boyfriend the gravity of the path the author chooses to take is underplayed, doing both the characters involved as well as the narrative a disfavour not least by, for example, “resolving” extreme chauvinism with alpha machismo; the subtext in this climaxing scene contradicts the book’s message of female empowerment by rendering the heroine impotent to influence the situation as her welfare is placed entirely at the mercy of the physical acts of men. Unfortunately, too, when the actual moment of deepest despair arrives, the trial is not only one-sided and extremely shortlived but also so artificial as to be meaningless. It is symptomatic of the author’s struggling grasp of conflict that she is forced to lobotomise two previously intelligent characters to manufacture a dramatic culmination.

 

Romance readers who feel a small dose of setting description goes a long way should be pleased to note that location details are applied with a light touch. With one or two exceptions Ghana and Accra are a barely-there presence, a subtle but natural fragrance that refreshes like the lemongrass from Naaki’s vegetable garden. Thane’s preoccupation with work means that he barely notices his foreign surroundings but he pays attention and adapts when differing business customs are pointed out to him by Naaki, a local. ‘Home’ to Thane seems to equal whatever office to which he happens to be attached, whereas Naaki’s quiet pride in her country turns out to be one of the driving forces behind her career goals. This leads to an outcome that is as nice as it is unusual in a romance, a genre which thrives on fantasy yet usually adheres with depressing stepfordism to Ruth’s “Whither thou goest”.

 

In the final analysis the warmth and sincerity of Empi Baryeh’s voice clicked so pleasantly with me that the sweetness of her couple and her effortless prose managed to soothe most of my criticisms and quibbles (for example, Thane is a seasoned international traveller but is taken aback by perfectly ordinary customs processing). I hope Baryeh's future work will capitalise on the slightly quirky humour that occasionally flickered endearingly through Thane's viewpoint. Because, though sapped of vigour by severe structural weaknesses, Chancing Faith still exudes a smile-inducing charm that persuades me to keep an eye out for other international romances this author may produce once her technique has matured a bit more.

(A lengthy excerpt from Chancing Faith can be read eat the paperback publisher site and at Smashwords.)

 

^1. Some references seemed a bit off timewise until I drew the conclusion that the story takes place circa 2007. Naaki is said to have been 17 at the time of Y2K – a banner year for a very different reason in Ghana, as Naaki points out – and twenty-four when the story takes place (Thane is thirty-two).

 

Romances of related interest: What I enjoy most about and tend to look for in international or multicultural romances is a sense of caring and determination to navigate the maze of cross-cultural dialogue. Love is one of the most effective ways of ensuring willingness to listen and understand, to gain the courage or craziness required to plunge into that which is unfamiliar, strange, or different, to place oneself in awkward situations, and to risk - even embrace - heartache in order to bridge known and unknown divides inside oneself, in cultures, in families and circles of friends, in the world at large. Building and maintaining relationships that last is always work, but when love brings two (or more) countries and cultures together the hard work can grow exponentially. Whether one goes about such a relationship carefully or impulsively, analytically or intuitively, it is a fascinating labour of love. Their optimistic and affirmative approach to such relationships give romances a very heartening edge over most other forms of literature. With that in mind, here are three more contemporary romances that bring together Africa and the United States (and in the last case, Canada, too) through various combinations of nationality and ethnicity. In The Light Of Love can look like a cheat in this company since the hero and heroine both hail from the United States, but there is another tie. A fourth contemporary romance, Midnight Skies, set in Zimbabwe, can be found in today's companion post. Previously I have also blogged about Blue Fire by Phyllis A. Whitney, which pairs a woman from the USA with a (white) South African man in a 1960s South African setting (it is a romantic suspense).

 

Uganda: In The Light Of Love by Deborah Fletcher Mello

Deborah Fletcher Mello’s In The Light Of Love (Kimani mass market paperback, 2007) sends a surgeon, Dr Jericho Becton, and a Wesleyan camp leader for medical student volunteers, Talisa London, both from the USA, as relief workers to Uganda. (While In The Light Of Love contains some religious references it is not an Inspirational romance.) The plight of a country trying to stabilize while battling the social and economic devastations of past and localised current armed conflict is a remote backdrop and local characters remain distant others in this oddly conflictless novel, despite an external plot that culminates in dangerous encounters with rebel forces. Paradoxically, more genuine anxiety and tension comes through in the secondary storyline dealing with family troubles in the United States than in either the romance, hospitals, or conflict zones of Uganda, where the reader is reminded of the reason for this setting by random glimpses of the teary-eyed compassion of the hero and heroine. But the storytelling is warm and the writing expertly smooth, the couple is harmoniously matched, and the ensemble cast varied and sympathetic.

 

USA/Nigeria: Dark Storm Rising by Chinelu Moore

The spicy, category-length romance Dark Storm Rising by Chinelu Moore (Genesis Press/Indigo large print paperback, 1996) pairs independent US aerobics teacher/aspiring holistic health consultant Starmaine Lassiter with persistent Nigerian businessman/investor Daran Ajero in a US East Coast region; the epilogue is set in Nigeria. Romance plots built on misunderstandings are tricky to carry off and it does not help that the writing in Dark Storm Rising is amateurishly stilted, rushed, and unpolished. In spite of the dramatic title, don't expect suspense: this is a straight contemporary romance. Readers able to connect with the characters, who can see humour in their mistrust and snideness, and who don’t mind that culture divides are used as gloss rather than for substance may find it a breezy romp. I reached the end only by skimming.

 

Senegal: Whispers In The Sand by LaFlorya Gauthier

Of all the romances detailed in this post Whispers in the Sand by LaFlorya Gauthier takes its setting most seriously (One World/Ballantine Books/Indigo paperback, 1996). Momar Diallo, a Senegalese diplomat hoping for a career-advancing foreign posting is instead assigned to escort a documentary film crew from the United States. Sparks of attraction immediately ignite between him and Lorraine Barbette, whom he mistakes for a Canadian embassy employee but in fact is the US-born producer-director (they are kissing by page 31). Everything goes swimmingly until – late in the book – someone in the film crew violates strict cultural protocol. It has been too long since I read Whispers In The Sand to recall specifics beyond that I liked it, but leafing through the pages in default of any notes immediately brought back how assiduously the author has applied herself to creating an immersive cultural experience for the reader. It also reinforced my impression that the relationship takes a definite backseat to the cross-country travelogue, with the couple’s duties keeping them apart half the time. An appendix consisting of a two-page glossary and three recipes (Akara, Bassi Saleté, Yassa With Chicken) plus a couple of small food notes is a nice bonus.

 

 

Zimbabwe: Midnight Skies by Crystal Barouche

 

Only in a romance, I suspect, does long distance pose no particular hurdle in a bi-continental relationship. Fortunately for the hero and heroine of Midnight Skies, a contemporary romance by Crystal Barouche, the logistical challenges of their incipient romance are neutralised by opportunities and coincidences created by work, fame, and wealth. The ease with which they are thrown into contact resembles that of people who live in the same town and share acquaintances. Luckily for my ability to suspend disbelief, that is where the fantasy ended and the reality of international couplehood took over.

 

Risen from the ashes of civil war, Zimbabwean Jonathan Mokane operates an internationally recognised safari business. An engagement with the Smithsonian Institute in the USA lands him as a stand-in guest on The Natural World, a television programme hosted by Sela Clay. Their on-screen sparring raises the interest of Sela’s family, whose ancestors hailed from the area of Victoria Falls, and of her bosses, impressed by the sudden upsurge in viewer ratings. Soon Sela is on her way to Zimbabwe with a television crew to film a segment about Jonathan’s wildlife safari.

Sela considers Jonathan arrogant and he believes her to be spoilt, yet as they are forced to work together they develop an appreciation for each other’s deeper qualities, which gradually fuels attraction. But Sela has fought too hard for her career to give everything up for an uncertain romance with a man who doesn’t understand her background any more than she can share his views, shaped by traditions and challenges she, in turn, knows nothing about. Leaving Zimbabwe and Jonathan behind, she thinks both are a closed chapter.

Life has taught Jonathan to believe in second chances, perhaps even in third chances. He realises it will take more than attraction to make a relationship with an independent career woman like Sela work. But when she suffers a professional setback, which tears them further apart than ever before, even Jonathan runs out of answers. Only their shared love of the wild remains – but is it enough to salvage a common future?

 

Last February I put Midnight Skies on hold after bland writing and a self-righteous heroine eroded my initial curiosity about the handling of cultural conflict and the Zimbabwean landscape on the eve of the country’s headline-making land reforms (Barouche’s novel was published by Kensington Arabesque in 1997). In June I was on a rare contemporary romance glom and gave Midnight Skies a second chance. I now discovered that I had abandoned the book just as the storytelling was about to switch gears. Although I never overcame my irritation with the behaviour of the singularly inept heroine and the story gives no indication of the social changes around the corner, I did derive occasional enjoyment from the awareness of relationship challenges presented by divergent cultural perspectives, settings that include a luxurious wildlife safari (caviar, brandy in crystal glasses, foods reflecting Zimbabwe’s British colonial past as Rhodesia) and trips to landmark localities, and a forthright, principled hero. As regards the prose, often trite, at other times exhibiting random flashes of evocative imagery,  its unevenness goes hand in hand with writing style that seemed a cobbled-together patchwork of originally disparate story segments.

 

After an abrasive introduction due to scenes pitting the hero and heroine competitively against each other, Jonathan Mokane turned out to be really nice hero material, coming into his own once the story shows him in his home environment. Unlike Sela he has his wits about him and knows what he is talking about. Competent, sharp-witted, thoughtful, and affectionate, he is interestingly rounded and grew more appealing the more I learnt about him.

 

The opposite was true of the heroine. Despite efforts by the author to elicit sympathy for Sela by showing the odds she has had to battle as a woman and an African American, her personality rubbed me the wrong way, making it a struggle for me to empathise with her disorientation in the, to her, alien environment of Zimbabwe. This is a character who hosts a nature programme and is even sent on assignment to Africa - where she thinks she’ll find coyotes and tigers, and goes jogging, alone and unarmed, through the bush even after seeing a local pick up his rifle as a precaution when simply stepping out of a car for a few seconds - but who proceeds to take up public, international championship of a cause she has failed to put the most basic research into. When this astounding lack of professional standards backfires, she refuses to acknowledge her own culpability. A passive-aggressive type, she continuously drifts into problematic situations then self-righteously blames others for messes caused by her own unpreparedness or incompetence, not to say stupidity. This, too, is a heroine to whom it would never occur to pick up the phone and dial the hero or say what is in her heart unless he did it first, all the while fretting that he is not making his feelings clear when in fact she is the one equivocating every time he tries or actually does. Oh, the job troubles? Spoiler: Not to worry, a famous motion picture director is already knocking on her door, keen to sign her on as his wildlife expert on an epic set in Zimbabwe. End of spoiler.

 

Perhaps the most basic reason Sela failed for me is that she seems thinly conceived as a character. Yes, she is given thematic issues but somehow these don’t seem to integrate with her personality into a fully fledged character. She comes across as a type. It can be observed, for example, in the author’s insistence on showing how much rich and famous African Americans admire Sela. In fact, this emphasis on recognition and being desired grew to almost disturbing proportions. There is relentless namedropping to establish her (self-)importance. Oprah Winfrey personally calls Sela to secure an interview after Sela informs Oprah’s assistant she will have to check her schedule first (Oprah: “Miss Sela, you know you got us all envious”, p.107). Music legends and political influencers are equally dazzled: “Jesse Jackson was smiling at her; Quincy Jones called, ‘Talk to you later’ (p.142). Carol Moseley Brown tells Sela “You’re doing a great job”, p.106. Sela even gives a sold-out lecture at the “University in Harare” (the University of Zimbabwe?), although (then) Prime Minister Mugabe’s assistants, who fail to give her access to Mugabe, “did nothing except ask for her autograph, sniffing around her worse than American groupies” (p.123). A clear clue to the author's intentions is given during said lecture, at which members of the audience ask Sela about being black in a society in which blacks are a discriminated-against minority. I wish the author had chosen to drive the point home by less clumsy means.

 

The male cover model does not match the description of Jonathan Mokane as “plum-black” or, for that matter, “a head taller than anyone else (pp. 7, 43). While this is a common enough occurrence in romance publishing the discrepancy is noteworthy on the cover of a romance in which cultural conflicts are thoughtfully given central importance and the matter of skin colour is introduced as one of the sources of disharmony in the inter-family relations. Whatever frictions and obstacles their differing cultural perspectives and expectations cause, Sela and Jonathan derive only pleasure from each others looks and bodies. Yet when Sela confidently comments to Jonathan’s mother that, “No one can really understand everything about the other person. Especially from one country to another. But we are all blacks. In that we are equal”, Mrs Mokane disagrees. “‘Americans are not black. They are light as the sands of Kalahari. [Zimbabweans] are black.’” Sela is shocked. “It was the first time she’d ever been held accountable for her color. At home whites had excluded her, not blacks” (p. 200). (While degrees of inclusiveness among African Americans is not considered in the book, the members of Sela’s rather Cosbyesque family do respond in a variety of ways to Jonathan’s nationality and his relationship with Sela.)

 

The dissonances and hurt feelings arising out of cultural divergence generally ring true. The different expectations their backgrounds cause Sela and Jonathan to bring to the relationship is probably most prominently illustrated in the conflict centring on the Zimbabwean tradition of lobola or a bride price. Its offensiveness to Sela and her family seems related to the idea of buying and selling humans as slaves, but since the Clays refuse to engage with Jonathan in a dialogue about the custom, this interesting, concrete example of a cultural tradition becoming a relationship issue is unfortunately squandered on huffing instead of examined for its significance in Zimbabwean society.

 

The Zimbabwe of Midnight Skies is a de-politicised setting, so if the idea of (non-shooting) safaris and a bit of cultural travel intrigues then here is a safely romantic opportunity for scenic armchair travel. As I read I gained the impression that the author must have visited the country in person or read multiple memoirs because the details about safari camp life are abundant and specific, including names of flora and fauna. (It turns out the author had indeed experienced a Zimbabwean safari a few years prior to the book’s release; see the link about the author below, in the additional note). Although the Zimbabwean landscape shown is a very touristy idea of an African idyll, enhanced with the obligatory dash of adventure from the behaviour of predatory wildlife, it is employed for another purpose than simply as an exotic foil for the romance. Elephants play a role in highlighting the divide between Sela and Jonathan's cultures, being animals that are viewed differently by locals than they are by tourists - a bit like the kangaroos of Australia - and thus setting Jonathan and Sela on a collision course (link is a spoiler).

 

The amount of pleasure I derived from Midnight Skies did not necessarily compensate for the work, including overcoming bouts of tedium, I had to put into my reading in trying to finish the book. Nevertheless, Midnight Skies is an ambitious multi-cultural romance, and for that I must commend the author. It is a romance that tries hard to say something meaningful even as it entertains. Not every book I read can claim as much.

 

Additional note: considering some of the concerns voiced in a Dear Author comment thread about ethnic diversity in romance this past June, it did feel like an ironic twist when I discovered, once I began collecting links for this post, that the author of Midnight Skies, having successfully submitted her story to Kensington’s African-American romance imprint, Arabesque, is in fact Caucasian, albeit one apparently socially engaged in issues of equal rights, including race.

 

Excerpt

(Kensington/Pinnacle Books/Arabesque paperback, 1997, p. 73):

“She was shaking with emotion and grateful when the segment ended.

Putting his hand briefly over hers, Jonathan asked, ‘You okay?’

‘Fine,’ she said. She wasn’t sure. An elemental something had happened. She had seen life and then death, and she had felt a basic elemental attraction for a man with whom she had little in common. What did he know of mailmen and Pullman porters and women who worked two jobs in upwardly mobile America? And yet she felt elated, high.

When they were back at the camp again, Jonathan stirred the fire until the ghosts of the logs glowed, silvery-red. Sparks floated up into the suddenly dark sky, the moon hidden behind a bank of clouds.

‘It’s beautiful,’ Sela murmured, sipping the brandy Matui passed on a teakwood tray, crystal snifters in the wilderness. Jonathan’s shoulder touched hers as he pointed out a shooting star. She felt the heat of him, his breath like warm licorice tinged with mint.

‘I’m glad you like it.’

Such simple words, but it felt as if they had exchanged monumental disclosures. Was it because her heart was doing strange things whenever he was near? Or was it this wild primitive feeling that the world had stopped, returned to a more peaceful, if elemental, time? As the glowing logs slowly died, the smell of dead ash rose, and she reluctantly said good night to the others.

Jonathan walked with her to her chalet, the rifle cradled in his arm.

‘Aside from the lion getting familiar with me, it was a great first day,’ she said when they stood at the entrance to her room.”

 

Romances of related interest: Today's companion post about Chancing Faith by Empi Baryeh, set in Ghana, also contains notes about a few other contemporary romances that bridge Africa and North America.

 

USA: Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

 

Having recently caught on TV the three motion picture adaptations of the Twilight saga released so far and found them a now-or-never inducement to take a stab at reading the first volume in Stephenie Meyer’s YA paranormal romance series, I came away from the experience with one overriding reaction: it’s like, OMG, TOTALLY about the WRONG couple! Noooo!! Go Team Jalice XOXO!!

Ahem. Now that my long-buried inner teenager has had her squeal (Jasper and Alice 4eva!!), on to the novel that started the international craze. Whether the book would prove a hit or miss, I was prepared for suitably Hallowe’en-y frissons, having been surprised by the unpretentious sweetness, family focus, and suspense plot of the first Twilight film, which confounded the negative impressions I had formed of a Young Adult novel I expected to be a bizarre, chewing-gum read. My conclusion, 496 pages later? The philosophical issues about love and death raised by the story – with the concomitant tensions arising from such contradictory forces – exert a fascination independent of the naïve writing and unreflective narrative. In a comparison between the book and its screen adaptation I am hard pressed to think of a single instance where the film version of Twilight is not a significant improvement over the novel. Stephenie Meyer’s imagination in all honour, she owes a great debt to the filmmakers for everything from plot development and characterisations to buildup of suspense and discreet cleanup of toxic elements.

 

The newest arrival in Forks High School, seventeen year-old Isabella “Bella” Swan from sun-baked Arizona (USA) dreads life in the nondescript small town on the Olympic Peninsula (Washington State), one of the rainiest and cloudiest regions in the country. But she is not the only curiosity in school. Beautiful and mysterious, the Cullens keep to themselves as if they belong to an exclusive club. Edward Cullen, in particular, goes out of his way to avoid Bella – when he is not being troublingly rude.

On an icy winter morning in the school parking lot, all that changes in the span of a heartbeat. About to be crushed between two vehicles as a skidding car slams into them, Bella is saved from certain death by none other than Edward. The more he tries to explain away the miracle and fights the strange attraction between them, the more resolved she becomes to figure out what he is hiding. When she does, both find out just how dangerous love can be.

 

Twilight is essentially a rescue fantasy about a glamorous boy delivering a girl from the mediocrity of her life and waking her emotionally to a special love through his eternal worship. Only this boy has been seventeen years old since 1918, and the thing that first attracts him to the girl is the scent of her blood, at once more exquisite and agonising than anything he has ever experienced in his nearly hundred-year-long existence (Stephenie Meyer’s novel was originally published in 2005; my edition is a Little, Brown and Company media tie-in paperback from 2008). To the girl, on the other hand, love is more important than death, and she is determined to prove it to the boy – even if it kills her. Depending on which reader of the Twilight saga you listen to, it is a match made either in fairytale heaven or in spousal-abuse hell.

 

Before I continue, I must clarify that the only way I was able to even begin to process the relationship between Bella and Edward was to consciously decide that time and space function differently in the world of Twilight than in the one in which I live, and that this applies to the concept of age. It has been said that vampires are “frozen in time” from the moment they are turned. In other words, they don’t age. At least not physically. But how about their minds? On one hand, Edward’s brooding emotional life is no more advanced than that of any other seventeen-year old, as if every experience he has had since turning a vampire has slid off his sparkly skin like rain instead of being absorbed into his internal make-up. He can certainly behave like a bratty adolescent (consider any scene involving boys interested in Bella), and he generally defers to the guidance of his adoptive parents. On the other hand, time has allowed him to develop his piano playing skills into those of a virtuoso, and his accumulated experiences persuade him he is better placed than Bella to know what is best in any given situation. So which is it – is Edward mentally a teenager or a nearly hundred-year old man? As a courtesy to the author who describes her story not as horror but romance, I chose to pretend that he is a precocious teen with an age complex.

 

Edward Cullen is a member of a vampire coven who have made a moral decision to abstain from harming humans, subsisting instead on animal blood – to them, the vampire equivalent of tofu, which is why the Cullens jokingly refer to themselves as vegetarians. However, the only one who has completely mastered the instinctive thirst is the family patriarch; the others still struggle with occasional bouts of temptation. Edward comes face to face with the most excruciating temptation of his reformed existence when his craving for Bella puts this moral code to the test. Gifted with effortless mind-reading, he is thrown into even deeper confusion by the impenetrability of Bella’s thoughts. Cue lashings of angst and “ancient pain”.

 

The first-person narrator of the story, Bella Swan, by nature a loner, is very private and quite self-sufficient, the latter probably partially due to the behaviour of her parents. “You put on a good show,” Edward tells her (page 49). “But I’d be willing to bet that you’re suffering more than you let anyone see.” He may have a point. With divorced parents who are barely there even though they appear to love her, and a self-sacrificing move from a home she loves to a place she detests, Bella could very well be a depressed teen. Although she calls her mother her best friend (105), in the next breath, talking about her relationship with her mother – according to whom Bella grows “more middle-aged every year” – she drops a revealing comment: “someone has to be the adult” (106). Just how heavily this sense of responsibility for her scatter-brained, co-dependent parent weighs on Bella is evident in two of the most important decisions Bella makes: the first sends her away to Forks, the second, at the book’s climax, nearly results in her death. Bella’s father, the police chief of Forks (an inexplicably pointless professional role in the novel but one that is given relevancy in the film), appreciates that Bella has chosen to stay with him while her mother adjusts to newly remarried life, but he is emotionally closed-off and not much of a support. The differences between her family and the close-knit, affectionate, and loyal Cullens cannot fail to have an impact on Bella.

 

Her age, introvert personality, and family situation also go some way toward mitigating her martyrdom about being the new girl in town. As self-absorbed and tormented by uncertainty as any other teen, Bella is both perceptive and painfully unself-aware. Unfortunately the author did not help me sympathise with Bella’s misery about how freakishly out of place and undesirable she is - being cursed with pallor (her skin is clear and translucent) and clumsiness (which appears to add to her charm in the eyes of others) - because circumstances incessantly underscore her popularity and specialness. Her process of settling into a new school in a new place could hardly be smoother or more ideal. From the first day, girls and boys flock to her, offering friendship. At the first opportunity, boys in her crowd are falling over themselves with eagerness to ask her to a dance, for, as is pointed out to her, the male school contingent admires her whether she deems herself pretty or not (of course she doesn’t). The girls who aren’t dazzled are quickly shown to be unlikeable and jealous, anyway. Jacob, a Quileute from the La Push reservation whose family she knew when they were both younger, also falls under her spell. She is adored by her super-special boyfriend and implicitly trusted by her parents. Then there is the fact that she is the only person whose mind Edward cannot read, and the only human admitted into the confidence of the Cullens, who find her remarkably brave.

 

Bella is written in a way that presents her as sensitive, compassionate, and sensible. I don’t see any authorial intent to deliberately suggest that she may have a selfish side. Nevertheless, Bella is not merely shy but a bit of a misanthrope. Fellow junior Mike’s friendly attentiveness makes her compare him to a golden retriever; she also imagines him wagging a tail (30,51). Tyler’s remorse and panicked concern upon causing the near-fatal accident in the parking lot causes her to find him irritating and to ignore him. Beyond a single “are you all right” at the sight of his bloodied bandages (61), she expresses no further interest in his welfare. Indeed, she dismisses him as “another unwelcome fan” (69). The very first girl who befriends her and introduces her to fellow students she cannot bother listening to even during that initial encounter (17). That several boys ask her to the dance causes her not embarrassed pleasure but annoyance in a sequence of episodes I suspect are intended to be humorous; instead I found Bella’s inner commentary about her suitors arrogant and petty (chapter four). The irony when Bella describes as standoffish a “girl who had always ignored me at the lunch table” (79) stood out in precious contrast. Notably, too, the girls of her acquaintance “babble” and “prattle” and “chatter”, “completely unaware of [Bella’s] inattention” (17,86, 118). When Edward (who like his foster siblings has always distanced himself from every other fellow student) suddenly beckons to Bella in the cafeteria to join him, Bella feels insulted by her girlfriend’s astonishment at his interest (87). She does not show any concern for her friends’ feelings and thoughts, never asking them anything personal or showing un-self-seeking kindliness toward them. She notices and fends off, repeatedly, their awe about and invitations to her, though. Unless she needs information or has something else to gain from spending time with them (including Jacob), her own interest is reserved solely for Edward. Here, too, the film adaptation marks a positive change: screen Bella is a less passive friend and more assertive young woman, for example encouraging a friend not to wait for a call from the boy she fancies but to phone him: “Take control. You’re a strong, independent woman.”

 

One of the most curious incidents in the novel takes place on First Beach at La Push, where Bella and Jacob first become re-acquainted. Unlike the earnest, quiet, and relatively smart Bella of the film (sensitively played by Kristen Stewart), the novel’s Bella is sometimes quite deliberately and rather stunningly manipulative. At La Push she determines to use seduction to fish for information from the younger, dazzled Jacob, information he and his family are reluctant to impart (121-3). For a girl who is explicitly described as wise beyond her years and sensitive to boot, and whose physical relationship with her boyfriend is chaste and demure, it seems disturbing and significant that the first and only method that occurs to her of gaining the information she wants is to use a sexual lure. In yet another scene, Bella briefly reveals an additional, eyebrow-raising side to her character: she secretly toys with the idea of deliberately placing herself in harm’s way to ensure that Edward, who has taken upon himself to keep her safe, will not leave her (211). These incidents illustrate Bella from angles which I assumed the author would deliberately include in the character arc as flaws or events that come back to haunt or punish the character and teach her to take responsibility for her actions. Alas, cause and effect appear the sketchiest of concepts in Twilight. Bella suffers no consequences nor even any lasting pangs of guilt for having exploited the humble and decent Jacob; and her suicidal impulse fails to receive authorial attention. In Twilight, characters are not necessarily made to earn their happy endings by working through difficulties; arrogance, for example, is rewarded. It is a type of self-gratifying storytelling wherein wish-fulfillment frequently appears to plays a larger role than, say, plot logic, dramatic structure, and character psychology.

 

Narcissism is a prevalent trait not only of Bella’s character or her relationship with Edward but of the general tone and style of storytelling. Everyone seems described first, last, and sometimes only in terms of their looks. These looks are generally indicative of where they stand in Bella or Edward’s estimation. The Cullens are out-of-this-world gorgeous; questionable vampires are also beautiful but less so (and the ranking order of beautifulness among them is duly noted, page 376); while the most villainous vampire actually looks ordinary - perhaps the most damning attribute in the Twilight universe (376, 445). Unsurprisingly, while Rosalie (Hale) Cullen is the most striking female Bella has ever seen, she is also uncharacteristically (for a Cullen) spiteful, vain, and bitterly jealous of Bella. Also as expected since he is the hero in a story where external beauty is extolled above everything else, nothing and nobody can touch the gloriousness that is Edward. In one of the most blatant cases of gratuitous objectification I have encountered in fiction, Bella obsesses about his looks from beginning to end (the epilogue, page 481: “my breath caught in my throat. Would I ever get used to his perfection?”). But possessing superhuman handsomeness, speed, strength, and ability to read minds is not enough. Bella’s comment, “Well, it would be nice if I could find just one thing you didn’t do better than everyone else on the planet” is less sarcastic than it sounds (371; also see page 325). Can such a prince be allowed a girlfriend who looks like the student Mike is forced to sit next to in biology class, a girl Bella primly notes has braces and “a bad perm”? Not in Twilight. As I have tried to demonstrate, Edward’s reassurance to his modestly unconfident lady love seems a trifle superfluous: “Trust me just this once – you are the opposite of ordinary” (210). These two are the adored stars of the show, and the reader is never allowed to forget it. Pages 260-320 basically constitute one long ode to to their mutual wonderfulness.

 

While the superficiality of characterisations and focus on physical attractiveness in Twilight seem extreme, they are hardly unique features in pop culture. Of more immediate concern in a novel written for entertaining young readers is a storyline that victimises the supposed heroine by shoving her into life-threatening situations over and over again (film trailer) without once giving her the means to influence their outcome. She is allowed no opportunity to save herself nor to participate in her own rescue, whether through reliance on her wits or application of physical resistance (fuelled by desperation if nothing else), not even in the climaxing action, as part of a group effort. The film attempts to redress this message by having another female character leap capably into that last fight and dispatch of the enemy together with the men. In the novel, that culminating confrontation occurs off page, is summarised in one sentence, and involves only male characters (461); meanwhile, the full focus during that climax is on the heroine’s suffering. When it really counts, she is made an object of pity instead of being allowed to test and prove her resourcefulness.

 

Thus, I remain unconvinced by arguments that Bella is truly the heroine of her own story. At the end of the book, she gets her wish, Edward, without having learned anything about the human condition, without having had to redeem herself, and without having paid any price. While Edward’s shining armour is his sparkly vampire powers and his white horse is a silver Volvo, Twilight is still the patriarchal tale, taken to nuanceless extremes, of the damsel in distress rescued by a knight. Bella may possess some assertive qualities including a measure of independence and a mind of her own, but her faculties don’t extend to an active or successful stake in protecting herself. When there is danger, she cannot manage without a rescuing male. While various aspects of Twilight have drawn comparisons to classics such as Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, and Jane Eyre, I would argue that Bella Swan’s closest literary relative is in fact Sleeping Beauty.

 

Nor is Bella’s physical passiveness the only limitation imposed on her ability to take charge. In a reversal of genre conventions that generally see protagonists grow from a position of weakness to a position of strength, Bella goes from a young woman shouldered with perhaps too much responsibility but possessing the intelligence to make smart, independent decisions and look after herself competently, to a girl who is judged too frail, inexperienced, and endangered to be allowed to trust her own judgment or exercise free will. Yes, it is time to take a closer look at her relationship with Edward Cullen.

 

The relationship between Edward and Bella perfectly demonstrates why an alpha hero typically needs to be paired with an alpha heroine if the romance is to maintain a healthy balance of equality and to make both characters shine. Without a strong heroine to confidently challenge his ideas about right and wrong and demand respect or else show him the door, the overbearing alpha male walks all over the heroine, behaving as if domination is romantic proof of caring and commitment. In Twilight, Edward is in charge of the couple’s journey and he has no intention of sharing control. Nothing happens between him and Bella without his prior approval, and it is for Bella to accept and conform to his wishes, even when it makes her angry or unhappy. Edward decides when she should eat (314-5), when she should take medication (477), whether she should be allowed to drive (104), how long and under which conditions they should remain a couple (211, 479). He dismisses her ability to make rational decisions; when they disagree, he refuses to negotiate or compromise and simply overrules her. He encourages her passivity and discourages her independence and friendships, helping to stifle her growth into a woman and an individual with values beyond the self and its wants. When she protests, he says she does not know what she is talking about and that everything he does is for her own good. Because neither reason, fairness, nor trust will make Edward relinquish power, and because he will utilise superior physical strength if that will serve him as well as read the minds of any person she may confide in, Bella can only get her way through begging, evasion, or secrecy. Earlier I commented on how every time Bella sees or meets Edward she reacts by being awestruck by his beauty, specifically his face. One might theorise that perhaps she does not dwell on his inner qualities because they don’t make her feel good: being with him she tends to experience feelings of deep inadequacy.

 

By turns avuncular, domineering, and bratty, Edward’s pathological behaviour demolished any intrigue about the enigma he initially represents by setting off all my creep alarms. Neither the novel nor the film challenges his stalkerism, which is presented as romantic acts by a protective lover and therefore does not need to be checked. Bella says, “’You spied on me?’ But somehow I couldn’t infuse my voice with the proper outrage. I was flattered.”; “[Edward] was unrepentant. ‘What else is there to do at night?’” (292-3). When she enquires how often he has come to her house, and the answer stuns her, her fear revolves only around any embarrassing things he may have overheard during her sleep. The fact that he has spent night after night uninvited, unknown to her, in her bedroom does not merit any commentary on ethics or predatorial behaviour. In fact, on an earlier occasion Bella reflects, “I wondered if it should bother me that he was following me; instead I felt a strange surge of pleasure” (174). Bella’s defective sense of self-preservation and her resignation in the face of Edward’s refusal to treat her as a rational equal are among the foremost reasons why I would hesitate to put Twilight in the hands of any impressionable young reader without a serious discussion of its gender dynamics.

 

So, if Edward is so terrible – or a terrible choice for her – why does Bella love him and want to stay with him forever? Well, for one thing, this is a fantasy with fated soulmates, the type of love story where the characters cannot help but give in to a destiny that has pre-ordained them for each other. And of course there is that overwhelming physical attraction, never to be underestimated in either fiction or real life. Thirdly, remember Bella’s co-dependent mother, whom Bella feels compelled to protect and care for? Bella appears to see some of that same vulnerability, in addition to nobility, in Edward’s desperate struggle to be good. It is a syndrome that recalls fairytales like Beauty and the Beast, and to a degree the mediaeval myths of the virgin and the unicorn. And finally there is the darker facet to Bella’s personality: her attitude to danger and fascination with death. I am not much for vampire lore, but the one novel where I thought the subject interestingly treated, albeit in unorthodox fashion, was Karen Harbaugh’s French Revolution romance, Night Fires, where vampirism means horror, not romanticism, to the infected heroine, to whom human mortality is desirable and redemptive. She is the diametric opposite of Bella, to whom vampirism means perfection and who perceives mortality as a demeaning, unnatural state. True, Twilight is a fantasy and a fairytale, but Bella is a very good reason for why this YA novel cannot be exempted from discussions about teenage suicide and romantic notions of death.

 

It is not that difficult to see why Edward is drawn to Bella, beyond the scent of her blood which in itself has already singled her out as special (he has never felt the same about any other human’s blood). Both are outsiders and loners who recognise a fellow special being in each other. Bella at once gives him a purpose – to protect her; provides a romantic companion – a century is a long time to be alone, particularly when everyone else in your family has a partner; presents a challenge and a mystery as he cannot read her mind – boredom is a problem for long-time vampires who have seen everything, done everything, learnt everything, and never sleep; and she represents redemption – through her, he can do penance for his past. (Any reader who thinks Edward is exaggerating when he describes himself as a monster might be interested in taking a look at the biology class massacre he is shown planning in Midnight Sun, Meyer’s unpublished, partial manuscript which shows the events of Twilight from Edward’s point of view.)

 

Numerous paper-thin characters flit in and out of the story, most with negligible consequence for the principals or the plot. Only Bella and Edward have any sort of character arcs (and my use of that term is generous). That said, due to the films I took more interest in two of these characters than the paltry word count allocated to them warrants. The newest members of the Cullen vampire coven, Alice and Jasper, like Edward, attend high school in the guise of being foster children of Esme Cullen and her husband, Carlisle. The only one in the family whose struggle to permanently abstain from human blood seems to hold a questionable outcome - a struggle that therefore is genuinely interesting and affecting - Jasper is also humiliated by the trauma of having no privacy of thought from the smugly superior Edward, who never exhibits any qualms about violation of privacy through deliberate mind-reading (he is able to tune out the ability when he so wishes, which apparently is not very often). Jasper possesses a unique superhuman gift of his own, though: the ability to feel the moods of others and to induce calm or excitement. In contrast to Edward, he seems to use the gift unselfishly, out of kindness. Still, like Edward’s it is a trait that deserves much closer critical scrutiny than it receives in either book or film, but then, one should probably not turn to Twilight with the expectation of anything very deep about either the vampiric or the human condition.

 

Jasper’s spouse, Alice, is the only female character in the book who plays a proactive, positive, and influential role. Capable, loyal, friendly, and gifted with certain precognitive powers , she is acknowledged as someone who knows how to protect herself and others; in the film, she fights in the final battle scene. The supportive and loving quality of her relationship with Jasper, in which each recognises the other as an equal (film clip of a fight practice session, from Eclipse), is intensely alluring, heightened on screen by the presence and chemistry of the actors (Ashley Greene and Jackson Rathbone). I was not joking when I stated that I wish Twilight would have told their stories instead. As Edward explains, “Alice and Jasper are two very rare creatures. They both developed a conscience, as we refer to it, with no outside guidance. Jasper belonged to another ... family, a very different kind of family. He became depressed, and he wandered on his own. Alice found him ” (289-290). Alice’s backstory is no less haunting than Jasper’s, but their backgrounds are only fleetingly touched on in this first novel of the saga. The hope of finding out more about Jasper and Alice was the sole reason I endured sitting through the film adaptation of Eclipse with its horrendously sordid triangle drama (begun in New Moon). Luckily for me, the pair finally received more screen time in that third installment.

 

While I consider Twilight severely problematic, in some respects it is an accomplished enough debut novel. At this early stage in her career Stephenie Meyer obviously possessed a lot more imagination and ideas than technical writing skills or psychological perceptiveness. For all that, Meyer’s prose flows smoothly and pleasantly, her grip on conveying emotion, atmosphere, and natural setting are good, and she demonstrates an instinct for propelling the story forward in the style of a pageturner. The pacing is better in the first part of the book than the midsection, where it drags, and the ending, where the book really fell apart for me in too many ways to count. Plotting and understanding of dramatic structure are feeble. Still, tense set-ups full of emotional and psychological potential keep the story going, and humour lightens the angst at regular intervals. I can see how the overall smoothness of the storytelling can make for compelling escapist fiction for adults and be involving enough to be addictive for young readers, who no doubt fill the voids in the writing with the powerfulness of their own imaginations. Nevertheless, a mature reader hoping for something even moderately insightful and nuanced from a story about young love and death may be put off by the shallowness and toxicity of the narrative. For me, personally, this is one of the rare cases where the film worked overwhelmingly better than the book.

If or when Stephenie Meyer’s writing voice outgrows the self-indulgent amateurism on display in Twilight and she puts more thought into her themes and the messages her narratives convey, I may yet become interested in returning to her work to see how she develops the talents that every now and then make Twilight glimmer. (Indeed, while I am definitely not ready to try another of her books anytime soon, I have heard good things about The Host.) But my verdict on her first book must be summed up thus: an original scenario brimming with thought-provoking conflicts turned into a regrettably simplistic novel by immature, narcissistic storytelling.

Ecuador: Elsewhere In The Land Of Parrots by Jim Paul

Curious, cocky, and sociable, the wild rainbow lorikeets who daily wandered into my Sydney flat, exploring the lianas (wires) under the computer desk and the localised rain in the shower, and who companionably expected to be served apples from the fruit bowl in the kitchen, now belong to my fondest memories of Australia. When I encountered a Teaser Tuesday entry excerpted from Elsewhere In The Land Of Parrots by Jim Paul, I pounced at the chance of enjoying a literary encounter with relations of these astonishing creatures. I cannot judge the accuracy of the author’s information about cherry-headed conures (also known as the red-masked parakeet), but as presented, it vividly engaged both my intellect and my emotions. I returned from my fictional foray into the South American tropics with misty eyes and a big, silly grin.

 

Shortly after arriving in Ecuador, graduate student Fern Melartin discovers she has been fooled. Instead of doing fieldwork on the near-extinct Aratinga erythrogenys in the mangrove swamps of the Guayas estuary, she has been conned into looking after caged animals in a private zoo owned by a womanizer who, she comes to suspect, conducts an illegal trade in threatened species. With no money left to pursue her dissertation topic elsewhere and no local contacts she can turn to for help, her career in tropical ecology is about to founder before it has even started.

In his work, deconstructionist poet David Huntington attempts to free language of its cage. But his own introverted life is tightly circumscribed by neuroses that make even a trip to the other side of his home town, San Francisco (USA), a panic-inducing prospect. The unexpected gift of a parrot from his father and a generous grant for his poetry crack open his hermit-like existence. While the accolades for his work are very welcome indeed, the loud, demanding parrot grates on his nerves until, one day, he throws it out the window. But there is no peace in the abrupt silence, only an unnerving feeling that the bird is calling to David to follow.

Somewhere in Ecuador, flocks of cherry-headed conures still fly free like their feral counterparts of Telegraph Hill in San Francisco. Are their raucous calls signals, and if so, what do they signify? Fern and David’s separate quests to find out may lead in the same direction – if they can muster the courage to break the chains of safety.

 

I did not know what to expect when I opened Elsewhere In The Land Of Parrots, and perhaps that is one reason I was charmed. In its own, gentle way the story is unpredictable, its simple plot full of interest. It sets its own rules, taking note of both literary fiction and genre romance but acknowledging no need to be bound by the conventions of either. Quietly humorous, straightforwardly told, and earnest in a way that these days seems to be considered old-fashioned, Elsewhere In The Land Of Parrots is an entirely character-driven story about finding the courage to explore and communicate with the world beyond one’s own windows.

The catalysts and facilitators for this are the parrots – or rather, parakeets – of the novel’s title: the cherry-headed conure, or Aratinga erythrogenys. Everything in the novel relates back to and references these birds, their place in the world, their interactions with humans, and, through them, human interaction with nature. The wonder is that despite this intense focus on one subject the novel calmly avoids the pitfalls of preachiness and affected quirkiness. Still, I suspect the novel will resonate better with those who are willing to discover the topic along with the characters than with readers who simply wants to get on with the story.

Also, while the easy sincerity with which moments of awe or emotion are handled prevents things from tipping over into sentimentality, the ending is arguably an exception. I accepted the outcome in the spirit it was offered – as an organic and inevitable progression – but felt the last chapter rushed developments along in a manner that fit awkwardly with the thoughtful tenor of the rest of the narrative. This is an instance where I think an epilogue would have served the overall tone of the story better.

Now, on to Fern and David, the protagonists, whose stories are told in alternating chapters until their paths intersect late in the book. In romances, the meeting of the heroine and hero marks the beginning of the story. In literary fiction, more often than not, male-female relationships are doomed to expire on a gloomy note. The protagonists of Elsewhere In The Land Of Parrots, however, are not even aware of each other’s existence for most of the book, although the plot clearly builds up to some culminating event to do with their shared passion for aratingas.

David names his noisily aggressive, incomprehensible parrot Little Wittgenstein after the philosopher who “had argued that language had no meaning.” David has made a living, supplemented by teaching, writing poetry that is based on this theory, and when it earns him a literary prize that will make him financially independent for several years it reinforces his belief that “any meaning would have reflected an outmoded way of thinking”. His self-important pride in the obscurity of his X poetry is gently satirised: alongside a tongue-in-cheek mockery of the literary avant-garde, David’s efforts to write verse that does not succumb to rational structures controlled by meaning is pointedly contrasted with his painstakingly regulated, anxiously sheltered existence. This, however, is the world that Little Wittgenstein challenges. As David’s irritation at the parrot turns to regret and concern at its disappearance, and as his investigations little by little pull him out of his shell, he grows from someone I was not certain I liked into a layered character who won my fascination and empathy with his quailing steps to reach out and communicate with a world from which he has fearfully closed himself off. David’s eccentricity hides an intensity and a patience that made his passage from anxious recluse to spontaneous traveller both touching and surprisingly believable to me.

While David’s cage is of the mind, the preoccupations that keep Fern captive are more concerned with the practical. She is literally stuck, whether in the zoo or, when the tidal flows of the river she has to navigate in her boat turn against her, in knee-deep mud. Outwardly more enterprising than David, she becomes deprived of her independence and freedom to act when her naivety lands her in an impossible situation and she does not know how to assert herself for fear of losing everything she has worked for. She sympathises with the tiger she watches pacing behind its bars, its eyes and demeanour betraying a mind that remains free and wild, always alert for that one moment that could mean escape. Her own moment to break free comes after she has worked to overcome language barriers and made a connection that means the difference between hope and failure. A conventional character when compared to David, she comes into her own when her passion for her research subject is put to the test. Although I enjoyed reading about her, I already find my grip on her personality slipping. Nevertheless, for most of the novel hers is the more adventurous, expansive setting (described with a dedication that sprouted a steamy, fragrant, and intensely alive tropical jungle around my reading chair), and even when she gets tangled up in obstacles there is a physicality about her that provides stimulating contrast to the introverted mood and narrow, cautious confines of David’s world.

Elsewhere In The Land Of Parrots belongs to the sort of fiction that educates even as it entertains. Saying that, however, seems to reduce this uplifting novel to much less than it is: on one level, a witty conversation about nature, about interconnectedness, about freedom; on another, a lovely flight of imagination that invites the reader to open a window to somewhere else and do more than dream.

 

Excerpt

(Harcourt Books hardcover, 2003, page 124-5):

“Still, by the time he arrived where he thought he was going, he wasn’t sure anymore. Montgomery, a broad city street downtown, here seemed like a mountain trail. It grew narrower and more crooked, carved into the promontory crowned with Coit Tower. The land on his right dropped away, and he could see the wharves down there, small toothy projections into the blue bay. Then the street concluded in a cul-de-sac, where there was a railing, from which David looked down over the tops of trees. They looked like an odd collection of trees to him, palms and regular trees and the occasional red-leafed one, all in a sloping thicket.

And then, before he was ready for them, before he had stood at the top for even a minute, the parrots appeared. David heard a cry answered by a clamor that sounded like a troop of chimps in the trees, and at that moment a dozen or so of the birds flew out of the thicket toward him. They were bright green, and the flock banked together in formation in the sunlight. Their orangish underwings flashed in unison as they headed north toward Fisherman’s Wharf. Even at that distance, with no special training as a birder, David recognized them. They were Little Wittgenstein birds, cherry-headed conures.

The sight made David so excited he shouted, ‘Wait!’ at the retreating flock.”

 

USA: Bride Of A Stranger by Patricia Maxwell

The recent reviews of some of Jennifer Blake’s historical romances by Misfit of At Home With A Good Book And The Cat drew my interest to the author’s gothic fiction, originally penned under the name Patricia Maxwell. Bride of A Stranger was released at a time when the boom in gothic romances had begun its downward slide but – with the exception of marketing’s choice of cover – shows none of the effects of weariness, artificiality, and cynicism that marked much of the output by the mid-1970s. Gothic romances generally focus on the heroine's journey, and the best of the later ones are often clearly influenced by or deliberately incorporate feminist themes. In Bride Of A Stranger marriages of convenience are a tragedy, not a source of romance.

 

1816*. With one pitying glance across a hot Creole ballroom at a stranger's scarred face, Claire de Hauterive’s life changes. Society outcast Justin Leroux tears her from her comfortable fiancé and beloved New Orleans by marrying her against her will and installing her on his isolated sugar cane plantation on the banks of a Louisiana bayou.

Sans Songe is indeed a place without dreams, without illusions. In the main house, unspoken trespasses and mutual dependencies have woven an uneasy truce between bitter family members. In the slave quarters, fear and voodoo reign. Accidents and threats harass Claire from the first, but her new husband is more intent on breaking her will than listening to her concerns. Gradually Claire realises she can trust no one but herself if she is to survive – and that nothing is more dangerous than blind love.

 

The most interesting thing about Bride Of A Stranger is its heroine, Claire. Even now, almost forty years after the novel’s publication, she remains in some ways a unique romance heroine. Nothing proves this better than the last scene in the book, which shows a bedroom dynamic and personal priorities I don’t think I have seen in any other romance I have read over the years. An unequivocal nod to feminism, it certainly wrings something fresh out of formula.

Claire has her less intelligent moments in the latter parts of the story, but in the final judgement I thought her a breath of fresh air. She has been brought up to behave in accordance with society’s conventions and to respect accepted authority, and when these trap her into unjust situations she protests but, if unsuccessful, adjusts without indulging in self-pity. If it is true now that heroines often melt or grow passionate when locked in an embrace with a hero they supposedly despise, this was doubly true in romances in the seventies and eighties. Yet when Justin forces his bruising attentions on Claire, she is neither seduced nor weakened by his warm, low-voiced coaxing. She recognises that he tries to use passion as a tool of subjugation, and refuses to take responsibility for his sense of humiliation at her self-possession:

“’What kind of man are you to expect me to fall in with your – your – [...] – plans, and meekly agree to make you a comfortable and accommodating wife?’ Her voice shook with the strain of putting her resentment into words and also her fear of what he would do to her, but she was determined. [...] ‘And now – now that you have proven that you can force me to your will, that you care nothing for my feelings. [sic] I wish you pleasure then of your reluctant bride.’ Her voice was hard with the promise that, so far as it was within her power, he would gain nothing. [...] Claire wished, as the quiet seconds passed, that she could agree, could say that she too had enjoyed their days together, but the lie stuck in her throat. She had not enjoyed them. She had known constantly that she was only there because Justin willed it.” (Pages 45,46,62-3.)

Justin’s response? “But he grasped her arm, his fingers bruising her flesh so that she bit back a cry of pain.’Don’t try my patience, Claire. When it snaps I might enjoy the consequences. You, I’m persuaded, would not!’” At Sans Songe, cruelty, violence, and death are the legacy of love gone wrong. Justin’s understanding of love has been warped since childhood, and in adulthood he behaves like a spoilt boy who in a perverse fit destroys his toy, then whines over its loss. As a “hero”, he is an arrogant and domineering yet marginal figure; a deliberate stereotype, it seems, used to expose dangers inherent in romanticising a certain type of hero or love.

It is probably relevant to note here that there is no instance of rape or forced seduction (pick your euphemisms) in Bride Of A Stranger, nor any sex scenes either on the page or behind closed doors. Physical consummation of the marriage is tied up with the outcome of Claire’s fight to establish her equal standing in a juster relationship.

Not everything about the story questions stereotype, however. It felt peculiar, not to say bizarre, to read scene after scene of master-slave interactions that, in the complete absence of narrative commentary to the contrary, imply that the greatest enemy here is not the inequality of the institution but an outside threat that disrupts this relationship. On the face of it, the situation parallels the inequality between husband and wife in marriages of the time, as experienced by Claire. But (within the story) Claire is allowed to explore her role and challenge injustice, whereas the slaves, once the outside threat has been contained, are expected to remain as they were: subservient, and now smiling about it. There is one potential exception: a person of colour who is shown to have an intriguing life of her/his own making beyond the relationship to the Lerouxs. Nevertheless, this is a remote character who all but disappears into the cloak of mysticism that surrounds her/him, rather than a path-builder.

At no point does Claire observe or study the slaves to try to come to any conclusions about her own situation. Instead her reactions to the house slaves, for example, alternate between uncertainty, suspicion, and fear for her life. (Exactly who truly controls the servants is a source of tension and mystery in the plot.) In Bride Of A Stranger, slaves seem synonymous with unreliance, savage passions, and loss of control. While the atmosphere of paranoia that pervades the novel (not merely in regard to the slaves) may reflect how slave owners historically felt about their own situation as a minority among a much larger group of people who might quickly overpower them if they chose to rebel, any commentary about these or similar considerations is absent from the novel. Similarly, I was jolted when Justin remarks on Claire’s colouring, (blonde hair and) “'your skin so white [...] so different from the sallow crones’” who were her fellow Creole women at the ball where the pair first met (p. 45-6). It is a remark that is probably true to the historical period but that, unexplained, becomes very disturbing in a modern novel where the hero is a slave owner.

The success of gothics rely heavily on a doom-laden, unsettling atmosphere. Evoking a tense, ominous mood seems an effortless talent on Maxwell’s part. With plenty of nice details about the material culture and customs of early nineteenth-century Louisiana Creole society, there is a solid, rich feel about this aspect of the setting. The writing style is sharp and readable, and the plot entertaining despite a conventional mystery, many unsympathetic characterisations, and an extremely contrived denouement.

While Bride Of A Stranger most definitely is an interesting gothic, calling it a romance almost seems a misnomer. While the novel contains many recognizable elements of romance it also defies some of its most cherished tropes. It is the heroine’s realisation of the importance of self-respect and self-reliance that is the main story here. The growth of a loving, romantic relationship gets short shrift since the increasingly random interludes between the hero and heroine are more concerned with redressing the unequal balance between their states than with deepening the bonds of couplehood.

Patricia Maxwell displays considerable storytelling gifts in this novel, not least in her breaks with romantic convention. But the enjoyment this gave me was marred by a portrayal of slavery that I cannot call anything but insensitive. To me, Bride Of A Stranger ultimately reads as a commendable gothic experiment with a strangely flawed narrative.

 

*The year is not explicitly noted but in the first chapter it is stated that “Napoleon had been mewed up on St. Helena for several months” (page7). Chapter three, a few weeks later, mentions spring rains. Since Napoleon was taken to St. Helena in the summer of 1815, I have assumed Bride Of A Stranger opens in the spring of 1816.

 

Excerpt

(Fawcett Gold Medal paperback, 1974, p.47-8):

“The rumble of thunder woke her. Lightning forked the sky and a wet wind filled with rain struck the coach. Claire shivered and felt a stir of pity for the driver and groom riding up on top. She hoped that they had brought oilskins with them. And where was Justin? His great-coat would hold the rain off for a time, but he would eventually be soaked. Hard on that thought came the fear that he might ride back to join her inside the coach, and hurriedly she pushed her feet into her shoes. Then, gathering her hairpins from the floor and the seat, she smoothed her hair and coiled it in a flat knot on top of her head.

Straightening in her seat, she looked out the window. On one side was the forest, thick, dark, and impenetrable, but on the other was a fairly large bayou, its current swollen with spring rains. It must be near daylight, she realized, for although it was raining she could still see the water running swiftly along and also the thick, green grass studded with flowers at the edge of the roadside.

Abruptly the coach tilted forward, and by leaning against the glass she could see that they were heading down to what appeared to be a crossing; a crude, railingless bridge over the bayou. The body of the coach jounced on its springs as the wheels struck the thick hewn planks, then there was a rumbling as they started across. Claire could feel the bridge sag with the weight of the diligence, and her breath caught in her throat, but then they were past the dangerous half-way point and she began to relax.

At that moment she heard a hoarse yell above her. The coach stopped, and began to rock violently as the sounds of scrabbling hooves and frantic neighing came to her. The coached backed, then slewed sideways.”