Re: Yuletide

(Anonymous) 2018-08-09 01:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Well "boring" is slightly dependent on cultural context -- the opening chapter that so many people sigh through now, about the shower of curates, was really controversial in her time, because what writer (WOMAN writer) would describe good men of the cloth as behaving like that? except it was all pretty much from her experience as the preacher's daughter, and she claimed she'd even toned it down. Her (male) publishers wanted it cut from the book entirely, and she refused. The book really shows off Charlotte's satirical, even sardonic, side. It's also kind of very much about her father (she used his experiences in it), and even the curate of his she would go on to marry, Arthur Bell Nichols. She thought he probably wouldn't like it, but when he first read it he cracked up at all the curate scenes and insisted on reading them aloud.