[There is a triptych of gowns: a purple ruffly dress, a pale orange gown, and a white long-sleeved wedding dress with buttons all up the back. I would wear all these dresses if I had the money/reason to.]
Apologies for running a little late with this weekend’s review… my work schedule has been insane and all over the place which has delayed me. I have also fallen behind on my reading and am finally at the point where my blogging has caught up to my reading so I need to set aside some real reading time this week to get back on track. For you readers, I’ll do it!
- Why did I pick this book up?
I started reading Kaaren Christopherson’s Decorum because it was another one of the 3/$10 books I bought recently. Also, I was in the mood for some historical fiction, and seeing how I’ve blown through Sarah Waters’ catalogue this spring, this was my most handy option. The protagonist is also a woman named Francesca Lund, and I grew up in a village called Lund, so this happy coincidence didn’t hurt.
I have a lot of love for novels set in the Victorian era, because I am one of those rare English scholars that HATES Victorian lit, but loves historical fiction set in that time. I hate Jane Austen, and I think part of it is because I am too dense to pick up on all the subtleties that happen in high society, so I’d rather read a contemporary take on the era and its behaviours. I need that shit spelled out to me, and also want to read a ton of descriptions of masked balls and corsets. This book does a decent delivery of those things.
- Would I recommend why/why not?
I would recommend this book if you are into romantic intrigue and mysterious marriage schemes, but also like reading about fancy parties and 1890s America. That is very specific, I know. I would not recommend this book if you have no interest in love or romance, or marriage or whatever, because this book is pretty full of all that. I myself found myself getting bored for the last hundred pages of the book: the big scheming and intrigue had reached its climax, and I found the romantic subplot that took over to be a bit tedious. The book could’ve ended with the big reveal, and left the reader (that is me) to imagine that the romantic subplot would resolve itself in some fashion that would push the two characters who are ‘obviously’ supposed to wind up together into their proper places. Instead, I had to read another hundred pages of feelings and to me the only redeeming factor was that this was occurring in Banff, Canada, so that was neat.
- Quick Synopsis **SPOILER ALERT FROM HERE ON, DO I EVEN HAVE TO SAY IT?!**:
Broadstrokes here. Francesca Lund’s parents die in a tragic accident. We really start the novel five years later, when Francesca is finally back to living in her family home after being taken in by family friends. She is set to be engaged to a man named Edmund Tracey who has been pursuing her for years. It is quickly implied that Tracey is a cad who is maybe just after Francesca because she is loaded. I ain’t saying he a gold-digger… except that he totally is. So there is a ton of investigating into his past that goes on, and it’s pretty fun and enticing.
At the same time, the novel follows a man named Connor O’Casey, who I don’t think I really like, even by the end of the novel. Anyways, he is trying to be a self-made man, nouveau-riche in a world of old money. His ‘companion’ is a widow named Blanche, and she has a pretty cool backstory. I think she is my favourite character in the novel. Anyways, he is trying to build a fancy hotel in New York with some rich men, and he comes into Francesca’s orbit. He totally has the hots for her, and drama ensues in a crazy love… pentagon? It’s definitely more complicated than a love triangle.
Anyways, as mentioned, drama, big reveals, and even crime ensue. Eventually, the drama is resolved, a bunch of the characters go vacation in Banff, Canada (which is pretty neat and all about how fucking cold it is there, ha) and resolve their differences so they all end up happy and/or in love in some shape or form.
[A hand holds a book that has a drawing of a woman in a pink dress. Behind the book is a succulent in a ceramic pot that says “zen as fuck” on it.]
- Overall brain gushings :
My favourite aspects were the descriptions of clothes and society rules: the book’s chapters actually all begin with excerpts from an etiquette book and I found this framing device to be interesting and enlightening to the manners of the time. I definitely never would have made in far in that society; would have been so easy for me to put my foot in my mouth.
There were also some pretty funny tongue-in-cheek moments that pointed fun at gendered double standards, but also at times the book fell into its own traps. Just felt a tad sappy at times, and no character (except my main chick Blanche) seemed particularly exciting or progressive.
- What does it mean?
The book is concerned with double standards and their affect on men and women’s abilities to pursue their desires, both in the Victorian era and the 21st century. It assesses how wealth and its pursuit transform people, but does not judge them, instead critiquing the fabric of society that has a tendency to make people miserable and insecure more than happy.
Buried in the novel are some interesting comments on “propriety”, and Decorum shows that manners do not make the man, or woman.
Here are some things I think the novel said to me, even if that wasnt Christopherson’s intent:
– You never really know someone! People change and are insanely good at hiding their true selves!
– Prenups are a good thing!
– And never trust a man who has a bunch of mysterious “friends” that he spends all his free time with, but that you never get to meet.
- Favourite passages :
A lot of my favourite passages wound up being the excerpts from the etiquette book, because they were interesting commentaries on the novel and its plot, and also very enlightening for a ‘modern’ reader such as myself.
A man does himself no service with another when he obliges him to know people whom he would rather avoid.
Kaaren Christopherson, pg 65
This quote really spoke to the grouchy person that lives inside me, and my attempt to refuse fake and superficial interactions. It may make me seem like a jerk, but I’d rather seem like an honest bitch than a fake one.
There are two things that make people crazy — having money and not having money. If they haven’t any money of their own to control, they want to control somebody else’s.
Christopherson, pg 76
I feel like the following passage is something a lot of men could stand to learn properly.
If you are a gentleman, never lower the intellectual standard of your conversation in addressing ladies… When you ‘come down’ to commonplace or small-talk with an intelligent lady, one of the two things is the consequence, she either recognizes the condescension and despises you, or else she accepts it as the highest intellectual effort of which you are capable, and rates you accordingly.
Christopherson, pg 345
- If you liked this (or my review), consider reading :
If you want to read some more historical fiction, I recommend anything by Sarah Waters! She is easily one of my top ten writers, and probably my favourite writer of historical fiction. If you want to stay in a similar time period as Decorum, read Waters’ Affinity.
Otherwise, The Wonder by Emma Donoghue (author of Room) is an interesting tale about 1860s Ireland and the tensions between science and faith. Stephen King reviewed it and liked it so there’s another reason to read The Wonder!
You could also read Libba Bray’s A Great and Terrible Beauty and its sequels; these were my favourite books as a young teenager, and I remember it being my first great introduction to historical fiction.
Stay tuned for my next review, Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot. Mailhot is a woman who grew up on a reservation in British Columbia and her memoir has received a ton of accolades in Canada; it was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award and is easily the book I’ve been the most excited to read all year.
It's Lit Fam! 