麻豆区
Customer Review
- Reviewed in Canada on April 24, 2013Looking for some light reading and being charmed by literature set in the pre-Victorian Regency era (1795-1837) I decided to have a go with Heyer鈥檚 Cotillion which she wrote in the early 1950s. I was immediately mystified by the beginning of the book where a number of characters participate in dialogues. Heyer presents their names, status and relationships so cryptically that I had to read the pages numerous times and make notes to establish their identities. That was not a good beginning. As I read on I was presented with copious localistic and colloquial vocabulary as well as peculiar metaphors, idioms and slang particular to that English locale and the time period. Authenticity is usually something to be admired but I felt the author was failing to communicate legibly with her modern readers. Two examples: 鈥楾he thing鈥檚 a dashed take-in! A pretty set of bubble merchants they must be, the fellows that look after that place. It鈥檚 a fortunate thing you brought that book! Why, if we hadn鈥檛 had it we should have been done brown as a pair of berries!鈥 鈥榃hat?鈥 ejaculated Freddy, roused to real dismay. 鈥楪ood God, Meg, you ain鈥檛 such a sapskull as to put a lilac coal-scuttle on that yaller head of yours?鈥
This book tells the farcical tale of young Kitty Charing who has lived a sequestered existence as the ward of an elderly rich cantankerous aristocrat, Matthew Penicuik, who aims to leave her his fortune but only if she marries someone of his approval. He has invited his nephews to make 鈥渂ids鈥 for Kitty but she is not amenable to any of them except, possibly Jack who fails to make a move. But Kitty can鈥檛 wait to escape the suffocating environment of her ward and her overbearing maid Fishguard. She and another of her ward鈥檚 nephews, Freddy Standen, plot a scheme. They will pretend to get engaged and she will go with him to London to experience the big city life, living at his parents. Soon she meets Freddy鈥檚 sister, Meg, who takes her under her wing. Jack introduces her to her long lost French cousin Chevalier who has come to London to be on the make. He befriends Kitty鈥檚 new friend Olivia. Freddy鈥檚 feebleminded cousin Dolph, tyrannized by his domineering mother, manages with Kitty鈥檚 aid, to develop a relationship with a working class woman much below his station. That is the main cast. The plot twists and turns working towards a hilarious and romantic conclusion.
I had to really try to like this book for the first two thirds of it, but did enjoy the last third. Cotillion seems to be rated as one of Heyer鈥檚 best books but I judged it to only be average. I am not sure that I would try another of her books. Two and a half stars.
