Customer Reviews

The Scandal of the Season: A Novel

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

OK, I will admit that I was an English major in college, but I think this novel will appeal to pretty much anyone who likes lively historical fiction that is smart, not sloppy. The sex scenes are as impressive as the scholarship in this book, which gets better and better as it nears the climax (pun intended). I would have liked an even denser texture of period detail, but there is quite a bit and the characters were more convincing than in many of these period stories. For book groups looking for something both racy and literary, here's your next book! Sophie Gee has reprinted the famous Pope poem at the end: after reading about the love affair that inspired the poem, I had a lot more fun reading it than I ever did in college.

I received this book as a Christmas gift, and I was anxious to read it because I usually really enjoy historical fiction. Unfortunately I felt like this book was more romance than history. I mostly enjoyed the romance, and at times the book really was a page turner. But in the end the novel felt a little flat. The characters were quite flat, and there was little of the historical element that I had been expecting. The author writes well, so I hope if there is another novel it has more of a historical slant.

This book enchanted me from the start. The depth of the author's research combined with her delightful writing style transport the reader to a beautifully rendered version of 18th century London. Her insights into human social and mating behavior are incisive and humorous. All in all a fabulous read. I eagerly await her next book.

English poet Alexander Pope achieved his fame and success when in 1712 he published his mock-epic poem, "The Rape of the Lock," satirizing the public disgrace of the renowned beauty Arabella Fermor. This novel follows Pope's rise to fame, after he departs his country home to travel to the city for a season. As Pope struggles to find material for a new poem, and to cope with the hypocrisy and cruelty of London's high society, the haughty but meagerly dowered Arabella encounters the equally attractive and clever Lord Petre. Amid the stirrings of a new Jacobite rebellion (the conspiracy to return the Catholic James VII to the throne), Arabella soon undertakes a clandestine affair with Lord Petre - an affair that will become the talk of London, and Pope's making, by the end of the season.

I was actually able to see Sophie Gee speak about this book and the research that went into its making, and found her a very intelligent, engaging speaker, so I had this quite high on my reading priority list. Unfortunately, Gee appears to be a mediocre novelist, at best. Most of her book is graceless and entirely deficient in subtlety and real character development - the only area in which she demonstrates any deftness is the sometimes witty, cutting dialogue. Erotic scenes occasionally offer a break from the plodding narration, but are executed with a mix of irritating coyness and heavy-handed, charmlessly vulgar metaphors. (Imagine the most obvious sexual innuendo possible involving swords, hilts, and sheaths. Got it? Good. You have now succeeded in equalling every sex scene in the book.)

The saving grace of The Scandal of the Season is that it's based on real people and real events, and ones in which Gee is clearly an expert, such that the weight of their true personal histories and characters give substance to an otherwise poorly-constructed novel. As such, the primary reason that I kept reading this was that I really wanted to see what would happen to the characters. The ending is very bittersweet and truly fascinating historically, but Gee's stilted prose robs it of most of its emotional heft.

I was interested in the Jacobite angle and normally enjoy reading historical novels about this period. Unfortunately the characters were wooden and unconvincing. Not recommended as literature.

While I respect the author's scholarly credentials, this novel did seem a very cleaned-up version of the times it meant to represent. Well, nothing wrong with an occasional light read, but there could have been more intrigue.

It was on p. 89 ("Lord Petre liked the way Charlotte Bromleigh bit his shoulder when she had an orgasm") that I finally decided that I did not care in the least for the people in this novel or their various schemes, passions, machinations and ambitions. Basically, all these things seem to be exactly the right ingredients for a a good read, but the author somehow managed to assemble from them a tiresome plot revolving around more or less lifeless puppets and told in a prose devoid of flavour, zest and spirit. 18th century settings usually cast an easy spell on my imagination, but there was no narrative magic for me in these pages crammed with wooden phrasing, and when it became a matter of plodding through paragraph after paragraph, I saw no point in continuing the exercise.

Mind you, I read only about a third of the book, and it might just be that beyond my point of exhaustion the 18th century dazzlingly and suggestively unfolds in all its seductive glitter and diverting squalor. The book might also be much fun for the cognoscenti who can rattle off 'The Rape of the Lock' and take delight in erudite allusions, but people like me, who are neither particulary patient nor particularly well acquainted with Pope's verses, might like to look out for other scandals.

In 18th century London, an aspiring young poet, Alexander Pope follows his childhood friends, sisters Martha and Teresa Blount to London for the "season", where he hopes to gain entree to the inner circles of society. The "in" people converse in what they think to be a witty and flirtatious style,in brief, sometimes acerbic sentences which allude to a person's background and breeding. One of the current leading lights of Society is Lord Petre who hails from an old Catholic family and whose financial support is being sought by a group of Jacobites who are planning to restore James Stuart to the throne after assassinating Queen Anne. At first I didn't find it easy to keep up with the story until I began to look at it as a dance, with the main characters tripping delicately around, using academically clever sentences while never saying exactly what they mean, with elegant phrases and then firing a shock into the reader with unexpectedly raunchy statements. In his now famous poem, The Rape of the Lock, Pope wrote the story of Lord Petre's romance with the beautiful Arabella (named Belinda in the poem), joining the romance with broad hints of a Jacobite plot, and eventually became the wealthiest satirist of his day.

The author, an academic well steeped in the literature and culture of the early 18th century, attempts to capture a slice of high-society life in London circa 1711. Her central character is Alexander Pope, a witty and satirical poet, newly arrived in London, trying to ingratiate himself into the elite social world on the strength of his witty banter and literary efforts. The romance of Lord Petre, from an old aristocratic family, and Arabella Fermor, said to the be most beautiful girl in London, provides the main story line for the author as well the subject of Pope's most famous work, "The Rap* of the Lock."

The book has a feel of patched together scenarios from drawing rooms to coffee shops to social events. The characters, never really developed, are merely the means to demonstrate the stilted, inflated language and one-upmanship maneuvering of the arrogant and too rich. Coffee shops are simply locales for the authors and publishers of the day, such as Swift, Steele, Gay, etc to make brief appearances in the socialization of Alexander Pope. This is not to say that there is no elucidation of the social realities of upper-crust London. The mating game played by social elites is serious and well-rehearsed business, where social missteps could be devastating to one's prospects, as Petre and Arabella discovered. The still crude infrastructure of early 18th century London with its knee-deep streets of mud and inadequate sanitation is mostly shoved into the background - not consistent with the fairy-tale existence of the rich with their expensive, elaborate clothes and decorations.

The still touchy divide between Catholics and Protestants in that era in England is illuminated by the author with some of the characters, namely Petre, being vaguely involved in a Jacobin plot to restore Catholic James III to the throne of England. Pope was only too aware of the dicey situation for Catholics in England as his father had been forced out of London some eleven years before.

One can wonder whether fiction is the author's forte. With her research and knowledge of the era, perhaps a nonfiction approach could have more directly and thoroughly described the period without the repetitive social scenes that added little. The poorly constructed intimate scenes, where both the language and actions seemed awkward, perhaps most tellingly make the case that fiction may not be the author's strength. In any event, the book does provide interesting insight into the London of three hundred years ago that provided material for Alexander Pope. Three stars is a generous rating.

I enjoyed "The Scandal of the Season" but it could have been better. The storyline was interesting, kept me turning the page but I think the characters were flat. The only one I even felt remotely invested in was Alexander Pope, probably because I was already familar with him. The author missed the opportunity to recreate 1711 London and the rest of the characters in a way that would appeal to a larger audience. Especially given that a lot of the characters actually existed and the story is based on a true story.

Sophie Gee clearly knows her subject, but assumes that everyone who picks up this book is as passionate about Pope as she is. "The Rape of the Lock" was required reading during my Sophmore year of high school, it would have been fun to have this book then.

I am glad I read "The Scandal of the Season" but wouldn't put it on a list of books that I'd want on a deserted island