The Edge of Impropriety, however, is mixed for me. It's smart and provocative, and Rosenthal's writing style is always a delight, but the romance engaged me more cerebrally than emotionally.
The Edge of Impropriety details an affair between Marina Wyatt, widowed countess, trashy novelist and sexually liberated woman, and Jasper Hedges, fuddy-duddy antiquarian and guardian of a niece and "nephew" (Jasper’s unacknowledged son and close friend to Marina). Marina and Jasper plan a purely physical affair, but that compartmentalization founders as secrets about their pasts are gradually revealed.
Lovely moments
Marina is secretive from the start. Even before she's identified as a leading part in the romance, we hear third-hand, muted speculation on some of her secrets--a third party in her marriage and possible Irish origins. But she can be forthright in her inner monologue, and it’s there that we get some of those lovely Rosenthal moments that breathe life into the characters.Rosenthal doesn't waste words but drops the reader directly into the characters' heads. I love the way that her dense writing slows me down and focuses my full attention on the page. For example, a very few words lay out Marina’s marriage and emotional landscape, both her and Jasper's households, and the story's slant on genre conventions (relegating a dashing young potential hero to the role of sidekick, and highlighting the heroine's lack of youthful ardor or innocence).
... despite his perfect manners, splendid waistcoats, and sunny good nature, Sir Anthony Hedges had turned out to want love--the passionate, heartfelt stuff--in a way that touched and rather baffled her.
Nor would it hurt, she expected, if he had someone to help pay for the waistcoats.
But as Marina couldn't give him either thing--and as she'd surprised herself by discovering that she liked him--she'd offered her friendship and advised him to make the best use of the Season by achieving a good marriage.
Rejecting his advances had been surprisingly exhilarating. Making her own choices was still a new thing for her, after all her years on the receiving end of other people's--of men's--choices.
Glancing up at the bright green ivy twining ’round the windows, she preened in the sunlight filtering through the tiers of Belgian lace. Still in her loose chintz morning gown, she allowed a deep, uncorseted breath to sweep through her waist and belly until it made shuddery little aches in her thighs. Souvenir of last night’s encounter. Reminder of the pleasures and independence she’d achieved. Good to keep it that way.
Time & distance
Another Rosenthal signature is that history is part of the present—not simply through flashbacks but in the characters’ streams of consciousness. In The Slightest Provocation these time slips explicate the central couple’s history together, and demonstrate both the intimacy and the conflict between them. In Impropriety, though, I find the effect more distancing; Marina soliloquizes so much during sex that I half-suspect she’s bored.To be sure, it’s a tricky plot to pull off. The relationship conflict involves keeping secrets and withholding emotional intimacy despite physical intimacy—a style that also kept much of the emotional development under the surface, perhaps buried in Marina's welter of words. After all, the central characters are a born lecturer and a writer who never turns off her inner editor until in the last few pages she finally
thought that she’d thought enough for one day.
Edge of impatience
A for intelligence, A-/B+ for a distinctive writing style that didn't quite carry the book for me, and C for compellingness. Which yields that safest of grades, the overall B+.
Read instead
If I've convinced you not to read this book, I sort of wish I hadn't. But what could be better than a Rosenthal... but another Rosenthal? I’ve already professed my love for The Slightest Provocation. Read it!This review is part of the February Book Club’s debut. From most to least enthusiastic, the four participants' reviews are:
- Tumperkin’s rave review
- Meriam’s rave with reservations review
- RfP’s reservations but still a fan review
- Jessica’s not too thrilled review
4 Comments:
Your points about time help me to figure out why the writing reminded me of Woolf, specifically Mrs. Dalloway.
I mentioned on Meriam's blog that I met Rosenthal in April at the PCA. I hope I am not misremembering, but she indicated that her books sometimes have a harder time gathering a following because they are not conventional romances.
Would you suggest shelving this one elsewhere in the bookstore? How "experimental" does it have to be to count as not-a-romance?
And I do plan to read TSP.
As I've already said on RRR, I agree about the lack of emotional drive in this book, but for me, the quality of the writing and the pleasing exploration of the themes and ideas made it compelling for me in the way of good literary fiction.
TSP was a more successful realisation of a romance, but I didn't like it so well.
Tumperkin, you make me wonder whether another reading would change my perspective. Impropriety hits so many interesting themes (which often are what engage my interest in a book), and I enjoyed the development in the beginning and end, though the middle of it sagged for me. It may be that I didn't give it an equally close read throughout.
Jessica: "the writing reminded me of Woolf, specifically Mrs. Dalloway"
And by the rule of universal interconnectivity, Tracy Grant just mentioned Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in connection to marriage-in-trouble plots including The Slightest Provocation.
"I mentioned on Meriam's blog that I met Rosenthal in April at the PCA."
You'd told me that, and she sounds lovely. (I'm predisposed to think so, based on her blogging :) It's a pity if her books are slow to attract a following; I hope that's not true. They aren't frippery, but they reward the effort.
"Would you suggest shelving this one elsewhere in the bookstore?"
I'll steal your words from Meriam's review:
"My reaction to this book made me wonder if the reason it didn't work as well for me was because I was looking for the elements of trashiness -- the sexual tension, the kareening emotions, the shortcuts to feeling, the constant 'lower brain payoffs' -- that I have gotten used to."
That's part of my criterion for which romances could be shelved elsewhere. (I don't say they *should* be shelved elsewhere.) If a book were read first as a different genre with different associated expectations, would it still hang together?
I usually think of that ability to cross over as being about the lack of specific genre features. But are you saying that Impropriety isn't really romance, if it lacks those genre tags?
Either way, a couple of the Rosenthal romances I've read might surprise some readers no matter where they're shelved :)
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