The Excursion

Frances Brooke's The Excursion (1777) is funny, sly, cheeky and very entertaining. It is very much in the vein of Fanny Burney's Evelina (but not quite as good). While I was reading this, I couldn't help but think how much I would have loved to have known Frances Brooke - she seems like she'd be a lot of fun!

The Excursion is about the "excursion" of a young lady to London. Maria, the young lady in question, has lived in the country her whole life, but starts to wish for a "coronet" (to marry a member of the nobility), so off she goes. Predictably, all sorts of wild and wonderful things happen there. She falls in love, spends way too much money, becomes briefly addicted to gambling, and has the play she has written rejected by a theater manager (a not subtle at all parody of David Garrick, who had some not very pleasant interactions with Brooke). I spent half the book being irritated with Maria for being so dumb, and feeling strangely maternal and protective towards her.

The best part of the novel is definitely Brooke's narrative voice. The narrator is like a proto-Jane Austen narrative voice - it's a bit sly, it's a bit ironic, but it's very sympathetic and wise. Brooke uses chapters very effectively to signal her way around the text, often ending a chapter by saying something along the lines of "okay, you've seen this scene. Let's look at another scene happening at the same time as this one". That could get irritating, but it really works for her.

I really enjoyed this one and will have to read more Brooke - especially The History of Emily Montague, which is considered to be the first Canadian novel.

Delphine

I've just finished reading Delphine, by Germaine de Stael. It's a French novel about a tragic love affair, and is about as melodramatic as one might expect from that description. But, luckily, melodrama is not all there is to it. I actually found the book surprisingly enjoyable and only a little annoying. There is lot of radicalism in this book. It is set during the early days of the French Revolution (i.e. before the Terror), and there' s a lot in it about women's rights and liberty. It is especially concerned with upholding the right of women to divorce. And there are a few interesting inset narratives about women's lives and the choices open to women (or the lack thereof). While there are a few men in the book, obviously, this books is overwhelmingly concerned with women, their relationships, and their friendships. I found Mme de Vernon particularly interesting.

Be warned, there is much contemplation of the nature of love, and lots and lots of swooning. The hero is a complete wet blanket who deserves some serious bitch-slapping at times. But, for all that, I found myself genuinely moved by parts of this book, and the ending is a bit unsettling, despite my earlier irritation at the actions of the hero, Leonce.

Interesting Germaine de Stael fact: she introduced Fanny Burney to the man who would become her husband, Alexandre D'Arblay.