I just read Life Mask and
Feb. 12th, 2013 09:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
acerbictomesWOW is this exhaustively researched and really, really, really good historical 1789 femslash RPF. All of the quoted articles (except for the fictional Beau Monde Inquirer, but those epigraphs are really stupid anyway, so who cares) are from primary sources, which is super cool.
Life Mask by Emma Donoghue is about Anne Dahmer, sculptor and Foxite and Eliza Farren, actress trying to get into the upper class, as well as Lord Derby, the guy who invented the horse race and who has been courting Eliza for like, forever, Mary Berry, woman of letters, and progressive politics + the specter of revolution.
Emma Donoghue does class and politics really, really, well. Anne is... actually called out on her privilege & progressive pretensions (she thinks she's ~so progressive~ because she has a Black footman), and is contrasted nicely with Eliza, who started out performing in barns and worked her way up to Queen of Comedy on Drury Lane, buuut desperately wants to become a member of the aristocracy. The political subplots (one of the most interesting bits is the part where the French Revolution comes along, and this coalition of reformers and aristocrats starts to go, "wait, we don't ACTUALLY want to lose our privilege") are excellent: politics is very much the backbone of the novel.
The writing style is excellent, characters witty and emotional conflict gripping, and even though the book does sprawl a bit (672 pages, wow), it is so, so worth it. Read it, even if you end up skipping chunks. Even if it takes you two years. Read it, and write excellent angsty fanfiction, because wow, dang.
Uh, unless instances of social ostracism & homophobia & sexism squick you. In that case, you should probably read something else.
That moment where Eliza plants one on Anne to prove that they are not in lesbians? AHHHHHH, I DIED. When Eliza judges Anne for deserting former Whig convictions and judging Eliza for having to make sacrifices to marry Derby and going, well, it's not like my MAID is my EQUAL, that would be silly? The ring and the sculpture and the life mask? Anne being so pleased at being able to ~educate and ~instruct this young unsophisticated actress and then realizing that Eliza Farren is sharp as bones and smart + ruthless enough to be practical and more Whig than she is? YES. This is a good ship. I will go down with it.
Mary Berry also gets a love interest moment, but while she and Anne are cute, the flawless happy ever after didn't get me as hard as the complicated angry makeouts. Sorry, Mary, I'm sure you were pretty cool irl.
Life Mask by Emma Donoghue is about Anne Dahmer, sculptor and Foxite and Eliza Farren, actress trying to get into the upper class, as well as Lord Derby, the guy who invented the horse race and who has been courting Eliza for like, forever, Mary Berry, woman of letters, and progressive politics + the specter of revolution.
Emma Donoghue does class and politics really, really, well. Anne is... actually called out on her privilege & progressive pretensions (she thinks she's ~so progressive~ because she has a Black footman), and is contrasted nicely with Eliza, who started out performing in barns and worked her way up to Queen of Comedy on Drury Lane, buuut desperately wants to become a member of the aristocracy. The political subplots (one of the most interesting bits is the part where the French Revolution comes along, and this coalition of reformers and aristocrats starts to go, "wait, we don't ACTUALLY want to lose our privilege") are excellent: politics is very much the backbone of the novel.
The writing style is excellent, characters witty and emotional conflict gripping, and even though the book does sprawl a bit (672 pages, wow), it is so, so worth it. Read it, even if you end up skipping chunks. Even if it takes you two years. Read it, and write excellent angsty fanfiction, because wow, dang.
Uh, unless instances of social ostracism & homophobia & sexism squick you. In that case, you should probably read something else.
That moment where Eliza plants one on Anne to prove that they are not in lesbians? AHHHHHH, I DIED. When Eliza judges Anne for deserting former Whig convictions and judging Eliza for having to make sacrifices to marry Derby and going, well, it's not like my MAID is my EQUAL, that would be silly? The ring and the sculpture and the life mask? Anne being so pleased at being able to ~educate and ~instruct this young unsophisticated actress and then realizing that Eliza Farren is sharp as bones and smart + ruthless enough to be practical and more Whig than she is? YES. This is a good ship. I will go down with it.
Mary Berry also gets a love interest moment, but while she and Anne are cute, the flawless happy ever after didn't get me as hard as the complicated angry makeouts. Sorry, Mary, I'm sure you were pretty cool irl.
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