{"id":107,"date":"2011-05-21T03:16:20","date_gmt":"2011-05-21T03:16:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/andbirds.org\/sc\/?p=107"},"modified":"2011-05-21T03:33:08","modified_gmt":"2011-05-21T03:33:08","slug":"indiscretions-in-the-life-of-an-heiress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andbirds.org\/sc\/?p=107","title":{"rendered":"Indiscretions in the Life of an Heiress"},"content":{"rendered":"

Indiscretions in the Life of an Heiress <\/em><\/strong>by Alison<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Indiscretions <\/em>is a prequel to Pride and Prejudice <\/em>that, like most prequels, tells us about something we already know all about.\u00c2\u00a0 In this case, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s George Wickham\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s near-elopement with Georgiana Darcy, the incontrovertible proof of his villainy that (as we all know) is related in Darcy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s famous letter.<\/p>\n

Why you should read this: <\/strong>It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s thoughtful, credible, well-written, well-characterized, incredibly well-researched, comments on canon without shoehorning irrelevant parts of it in, ignores fanon, and the whole thing is written in letters. <\/em>That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right:\u00c2\u00a0 it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an awesome epistolary prequel. With footnotes.<\/p>\n

Why you may not like it: <\/strong>Oddly, Indiscretions<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 pros and cons are usually the same things.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a prequel, so we all know pretty much everything that happens.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s written in letters, so it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s . . . written in letters, and you might not care for the style.\u00c2\u00a0 The research can be slightly overkill for people and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a WIP-that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s-not-in-progress.<\/p>\n

Regency, Canon-Compliant, General, WIP <\/strong>at Firthness<\/a> (requires password) <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n


\n<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

As far as I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m concerned, Indiscretions <\/em>is everything that a prequel should be.<\/p>\n

It turns the inevitability that so often dogs prequels into an advantage.\u00c2\u00a0 Our knowledge of the future turns every other letter into a DUM DA DUM moment.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a bit like the storytelling equivalent of sitting at the movie theatre and trying not to scream NO NO HE\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S RIGHT BEHIND YOU HE\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S BEHIND YOU AND HE HAS A GUN!! <\/em>Only, not a gun.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, prequels try to deal with that inevitability by adding \u00e2\u20ac\u0153new\u00e2\u20ac\u009d plotlines.\u00c2\u00a0 We already know what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to happen, so let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s focus on all this comparatively irrelevant stuff that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not constrained by the original plot!\u00c2\u00a0 I put \u00e2\u20ac\u0153new\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in scare quotes, because these plots tend to be mined from the original one, anyway.\u00c2\u00a0 In Ramsgate stories, for instance, Georgiana\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s second thoughts about the elopement often come not because of any moral scruples of her own, not out of loyalty to her brother, but because Elizabeth randomly appears and shows her the error of her ways.<\/p>\n

Indiscretions <\/em>does nothing of the kind. \u00c2\u00a0Elizabeth is not present in either person or spirit (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153oh, if only I had a clever, confident older sister to guide me!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d).\u00c2\u00a0 None of the Bennets are \u00e2\u20ac\u201c we have no idea what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s happening with them, because they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re completely irrelevant to the story.\u00c2\u00a0 There are no cute cameos from other novels; none of the other heroines sweep in to save the day, either. \u00c2\u00a0Indiscretions <\/em>sets out to tell the story from Darcy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s letter \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a story about Wickham, Georgiana, Darcy and Mrs Younge \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and never sways from that.<\/p>\n

The voices are not only accurate but rather fascinating, since all but (very debatably) Darcy are rarely heard outside of interchangeable fanon versions.\u00c2\u00a0 Here’s Alison’s Mrs Younge — more like a younger, poorer Lady Susan than the cipher of fanon — talking about Darcy:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is exquisite pleasure in breaking a spirit such as his, which I could almost call noble were it not so rational. I should like to have him fathoms deep in love with me, I should like to spoil his confidence and lead him not into temptation but loathing. He would thoroughly hate himself for his misjudgement; it would be worth the sacrifice of time and the practice of a little artifice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here’s Wickham:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Old Mr Darcy truly was an excellent man, benevolent of temper and warm in his affections. This Darcy is a dull dog.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mrs Younge, interestingly, is the more human of the two.\u00c2\u00a0 She’s manipulative, scheming, ruthless, and sadistic, but we’re given glimpses of a softer side that makes her connivance with Wickham all the worse:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Send me a cheerful line. It is weakness, I know, yet Miss Darcy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pale and altered face haunts my thoughts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Georgiana’s excruciating shyness is preserved without any attempt to rationalize it away, as is her reverence for her brother. However, she’s also passionate, creative, and sensitive, easy prey for the brilliant Mrs Younge and ingratiating Wickham.\u00c2\u00a0 Alison steers refreshingly clear of the usual victim-blaming we see with Georgiana.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s no hint that she has a weakness for bad boys, that she’s secretly rebellious, that she’s anything but a sweet, highly-strung girl whose (quite natural) trust in her childhood friend, and her own companion, is abused by a pair of unscrupulous con artists who isolate her from the people who genuinely care for her.<\/p>\n

Of course, while an author has plenty of leeway with these three, it’s quite a different matter with Darcy.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s hedged about with layers of an elaborate and difficult canon characterization and a shallower, but at least as distinctive fanon one.\u00c2\u00a0 You might expect that she’d revert to the familiar with him<\/em> — but she doesn’t, really.<\/p>\n

Alison’s Darcy is as remote from the brooding, overwrought version of films and fanfic as her Georgiana is from the bouncy, willful teenager everybody wishes she was.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s at once austere and intense, his character dominated by a cool intelligence, fierce adherence to principles, deep rather than tumultuous loyalties, and all the self-command of a dozen nuns.\u00c2\u00a0 His letter to Wickham (Alison’s version of the “note” with which he canonically sent Wickham fleeing), written at the height of his fury, is a thing of beauty:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You have proved yourself beneath all contempt. There is no disgrace severe enough for you. I trust we will never meet again, in this world or the next.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

The major weakness in the story is that, in common with most authors, Alison seems unwilling to accept Georgiana’s motivations for telling Darcy about the elopement.\u00c2\u00a0 We know from canon that when Darcy showed up at Ramsgate, Georgiana promptly told him everything, because she couldn’t bear to offend and disappoint him.\u00c2\u00a0 In Indiscretions<\/em>, however, not only is Darcy’s appearance anything but chance — he’s there because another servant informed him of Mrs Younge’s perfidy — but Georgiana herself has already discovered that Wickham is a lying liar who lies.\u00c2\u00a0 Her choice to confide in her brother springs out of desperation rather than adoration and respect; it’s the only possible step she can take.<\/p>\n

Her confession remains a powerful scene, however (the sensitive among you may wish to bring a handkerchief), only very slightly detracts from the overall strength of the story, and Indiscretions in the Life of an Heiress<\/em> remains one of the best fics in the fandom, if not the best.\u00c2\u00a0 Besides, epistolary fic earns more than enough extra credit to make up for it.<\/p>\n

\"5<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Indiscretions in the Life of an Heiress by Alison Indiscretions is a prequel to Pride and Prejudice that, like most prequels, tells us about something we already know all about.\u00c2\u00a0 In this case, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s George Wickham\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s near-elopement with Georgiana Darcy, the incontrovertible proof of his villainy that (as we all know) is related in Darcy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[73,14,40,74,50,48,49,33,76,75],"class_list":["post-107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-matilda-plantagenet","tag-author-alison","tag-era-regency","tag-length-novella","tag-plot-ramsgate","tag-quills-five","tag-rating-general","tag-source-pride-and-prejudice","tag-type-canon","tag-type-epistolary","tag-type-prequel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/andbirds.org\/sc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/andbirds.org\/sc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/andbirds.org\/sc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andbirds.org\/sc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andbirds.org\/sc\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/andbirds.org\/sc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/andbirds.org\/sc\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andbirds.org\/sc\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andbirds.org\/sc\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}