Bitchin' Blog Posts
HaBO: XTREME WTFERY
by SB Sarah | by SB Sarah | February 19, 2011 | Saturday at 12:30 pm | 97 Comments
From Caitlin comes this HaBO request of a book with a plot that clearly went to Dunkin’ Donuts and got a power shot of CrazySauce. Really. I read this twice and still didn’t believe it. Caitlin, are you makin’ this up?!
This was the first romance novel I ever read and it was lent to me by a
friend in middle school (so around 1997 or so). The book at an emerald green
cover, took place in the middle ages and was part of a series.
The heroine was ostracized from society and lived in a small hut in the
woods. One day while out scavenging (or something) she finds this knight who
was hanged, but the limb broke under his weight before he died, so she puts
him on the horse she found wounded several months earlier and takes him
home. As he heals they (of course) find they are attracted to each other,
although she is clueless about what she’s feeling. He realizes the horse is
actually one of his lord’s favorite stallions, stolen months before and
accuses her. He finally accepts that she didn’t steal the horse, but takes
it with him when he leaves her (pregnant) to return to the castle and his
life.
He’s out riding one day a few weeks later (I think he was riding because he
missed her and needed to think) and sees her running toward the woods being
pelted by rocks and chased by mean village kids (a common occurrence, she
had a star shaped? scar on her face from a rock) and rides to the rescue,
marries her and they live happily ever after.Memorable moments:
-Bathing with hero in the river and notices her nipples are hard, she isn’t
cold so why?-He comes in her mouth during a racy scene and she wonders whether the baby
would come out of her mouth if she got pregnant that way. Told hero she
wants a kid when he says she can’t get pregnant that way.-May have been ostracized because her mother/she was believed to be a witch
-I think the heroine had long curly hair, maybe red
There was also an excerpt to the next book in the series that showed the
heroine and a friend douse the hero with pig bladder water balloons dropped
of a balcony.That’s all I can remember, would appreciate any help!
OK, those moments are so memorable, I haven’t even read this book, and I will remember them for ages to come. In fact, I think I’ve aged just reading it again. For REAL? This is a REAL BOOK? Who am I kidding, of course it is. And many of you already know which one it is, don’t you?
Filed: General Bitching, Help a Bitch Out
Tagged: tstl, romance, make the burning stop, help a bitch out, habo,
Brianna said on 02.19.11 at 01:46 PM • [link]
I don’t know this book, but I think I need to read it!
R.J. said on 02.19.11 at 02:17 PM • [link]
I am definately going to have to read this book. Kudos to whoever knows the title.
Virg said on 02.19.11 at 02:22 PM • [link]
Oh wow, I’ve no idea what this book is, but I actually scared my 6-year-old cousin because I was laughing so hard. Am looking forward to whoever guesses the title of this gem. >:)
Leslee said on 02.19.11 at 02:35 PM • [link]
I think I read this back in the day but I have NO IDEA what the title and author are!!!! Can’t wait to hear what it is!!
Mary Anne Graham said on 02.19.11 at 03:30 PM • [link]
It doesn’t sound like the heroine has much except a house she apparently hides in - so her neighbors don’t stone her - and a horse. So, in repayment for saving her life the hero has his way with her, takes her horse, and leaves her to be stoned.
And this is a romance??
The Duchess said on 02.19.11 at 04:23 PM • [link]
I have a feeling this is Wild by Jill Barnett. The heroine is considered a witch and is therefore ostracized by people. She practically raised herself out in the wild and is thus a bit… different, to say the least. I loved the next book, which is Wicked.
Cara McKenna / Meg Maguire said on 02.19.11 at 04:27 PM • [link]
Wait, what am I missing? How is this more WTF than any other moderately WTF historical? It sounds pretty standard issue. Did he know she was preggins when he left her? That’d be scummy. The pig bladder thing doesn’t startle me, because when I was a kid I read Little House in the Big Woods and totally fixated on how the children played with an inflated bladder. The baby-out-of-the-mouth thing is teh creepeh, but if you spent your entire life in a shack in the forest, you might wonder something like that. H-another-BO! Why is this Xtreme WTFery? Also, I’d like to read it! I love any book where the heroine nurses a wounded hero back to health in the middle of nowhere.
Dena said on 02.19.11 at 04:43 PM • [link]
Oh, I think I might have read it - it is set in Wales or the Welsh borderlands and the heroine’s mother had some connection to the noble family in the local castle.
Ack, I wish I could remember more!
The Duchess said on 02.19.11 at 04:54 PM • [link]
If it’s set in Wales, then it’s definitely Wild.
Dena said on 02.19.11 at 05:01 PM • [link]
I just checked the synopsis for Wild and it is definitely the book I remember reading. I think that’s the one Caitlin is looking for.
Veronica said on 02.19.11 at 05:05 PM • [link]
For the first time ever, I knew what the book was, but you guys already beat me to the punch. :)
Wicked (the next book, with the pig bladder water balloons) is one of my fave romances ever. So good.
Patty H. said on 02.19.11 at 05:18 PM • [link]
I think I’ve read this. I recall the heroine living alone in the woods after her mother died. The mother taught her about healing and the heroine was also a vegetarian. The hero brings her fish and she cries because she could never eat anything with a face. Or I could be doing a memory mash-up.
redheadedgirl said on 02.19.11 at 05:59 PM • [link]
Oh, i need to read this. NEED TO.
Caitlin said on 02.19.11 at 06:11 PM • [link]
I have no idea what this is, but I am definitely inspired to read it now! Off to buy it for my nook!
kkw said on 02.19.11 at 06:22 PM • [link]
I remember this book, but could never have come up with the name. Nice work, ladies. This must be it, right? It’s certainly the one I remember.
Courtney said on 02.19.11 at 06:23 PM • [link]
I never know these either but I do think that this is Wild by Jill Barnett. I’m pretty sure I read it back in the day.
John said on 02.19.11 at 06:27 PM • [link]
I know this isn’t it, because a lot of plot points don’t match up with the WTFery, but a read-alike would be Where Magic Dwells by Roxanne Becnel. Involves hermit heroine (with five orphaned children) falling in love with a night from England. Since she’s Welsh, it’s BIG TABOO ZOMG and was pretty good. I enjoy when the heroine has the balls to poison the hero prior to lurve if he’s a douchenugget.
Obviously not the HaBo, but apparently the witchy Welsh hermit was some romantic subset in the late 90’s. (On the upside - I can finally contribute something to a HaBo conversation, albeit a read-alike as opposed to the real book. Still.)
AgTigress said on 02.19.11 at 08:06 PM • [link]
From the Amazon synopsis, Wild appears to be the middle book of a trilogy, so some of those wishing to read it might want to bear that in mind. I see it is set in late 13thC Wales, so I wouldn’t touch it with a barge-pole: I don’t trust even English writers, let alone American ones, with Welsh settings and characters!
:-)
Jamie said on 02.19.11 at 08:27 PM • [link]
I think I might have to read that one : )
Anna the Piper said on 02.19.11 at 08:49 PM • [link]
I’ve found Wild, Wonderful, and Wicked all available on B&N for the nook, yeah—and MAN, I gotta say their current covers are GORGEOUS. Enough that I’d consider buying those in paperback.
For now though I’m grabbing samples to see if I’ll enjoy the writing. :)
Freda said on 02.19.11 at 09:31 PM • [link]
omg- stuff like this gets published!!!!
OdetteLovegood said on 02.19.11 at 11:01 PM • [link]
I think the main WTFery that is getting people is the baby-out-the-mouth thing, and while out of context that sounds crazy as shit, there are two things to consider.
1. As Cara McKenna pointed out, if you spend your entire life in a shack in the woods and were never taught how sex works, this might actually be something that occurs to you. Semen makes babies when it goes into women, therefore wouldn’t it make her pregnant if she swallowed it?
2. This book is set in the Middle Ages, where the average person actually used that kind of logic even when they weren’t raised on their own in a shack in the woods.
Meoskop said on 02.19.11 at 11:10 PM • [link]
Cosigning Wild.
This was absolutely a fad plot tho. Not sure if it’s awesome or horrible that I could think of several books that fit this description until we got to oral birthing!
Mama Nice said on 02.19.11 at 11:56 PM • [link]
A bit OT - but AgTigress, the hero of my current WIP is from Wales (but the book takes place in America) and I wonder what makes you say this? I have a close friend whose mother is from Wales and has friends who speak the language and am getting help from them as I go…his native background is not essential to the story, but an element nonetheless, and I am curious what mistakes have led you to feel this way.
Sandra said on 02.20.11 at 12:09 AM • [link]
It sounds as if someone had been watching “Nell”, so what I want to know—does the hero look like Liam Neeson? And, granted, the HABO just touched on the highlights, but inquiring minds also want to know: why was the knight being hanged? As opposed to being hung
? And what was with the stolen horse? I don’t necessarily want to read this, but throw-away plot points like that intrigue me.
Sandra said on 02.20.11 at 12:13 AM • [link]
Sorry, the program entered a line break instead of the smiley I intended. That should be why was the knight being hanged? As opposed to being hung (insert smirk)? A perfectly good snark wasted.
SIMPLE92: Software so simple a 92 YO can operate it, but apparently not me.
Karen H said on 02.20.11 at 01:04 AM • [link]
I read this, too, way back when but the only part I remembered was the star-shaped scar and living in the woods and being stoned.
bookstorecat said on 02.20.11 at 01:43 AM • [link]
Who wants to read a story about a knight who was not well-hung?
Tanya said on 02.20.11 at 02:10 AM • [link]
I just spit wine on my dog.
I didnt want to spit on my keyboard so I turned my head.
hacking up a baby like a hairball…(cough cough..HOLY S%&T!)
AgTigress said on 02.20.11 at 02:47 AM • [link]
Mama Nice: it’s quite difficult to define. Too often there are factual errors, especially with the geography of the country and with language, based on research that is simply too superficial. Even using the tiniest snippet of Welsh, such as the occasional endearment, can be fraught with danger, because the differences between formal, written Welsh and colloquial spoken Welsh are considerable, and spoken Welsh, in turn, differs very markedly between north and south. If you have Welsh-speakers available, that’s obviously a good start, but if they happen to be from Caernarfon, and your hero is from Swansea, bear in mind that their Welsh will be as different as the American English of people from Boston and New Orleans. Or more. Not just different accents: lots of different vocabulary.
But the main thing that sets my teeth on edge all too often is a kind of woolly romanticisation of Wales and the Welsh (and Celts generally), an attitude that has been endemic in some circles even in England since the early 19th century. This can come over as incredibly patronising, even when that is not the actual intention, and it is based on a fantasy version of ‘Celticity’ rather than the (much more interesting) reality.
I also avoid reading novels that are based in the particular period/culture that is my area of professional expertise, because I usually find it hard to concentrate on the story: I tend to focus too much on the errors that inevitably occur, and they distract me. I suppose I react in the same way to Welsh characters/settings because I am tensely waiting for the stereotypes and the slightly off-key elements to appear. I feel sure that this kind of wariness is felt by members of many other small, minority cultures, when they are described by outsiders.
shel said on 02.20.11 at 02:56 AM • [link]
Tanya - OMG poor doggie, but reading that made me laugh so hard I would have spit out my beverage too. :D
Ann Somerville said on 02.20.11 at 05:06 AM • [link]
Because people who lived at a time where there were no doors on bedrooms, families frequently shared beds, and farm animals often shared the same living quarters, WOULD HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA HOW BABIES WERE MADE!!!
Yeah, but no.
Also, knights are just so likely to be attracted to a dirtpoor, scarred, rumoured-to-be-a-witch subsistence-dwelling horse thief because of NIPPLES! I mean, rather than raping her, taking her horse, and going back to where his wife and fourteen children were undoubtedly living in his bloody great keep.
T. L. Haddix said on 02.20.11 at 08:12 AM • [link]
Well, as to the heroine’s naivete, I knew girls in high school not so many years ago (I graduated in 1994) who thought they could get pregnant by kissing or being kissed, and some who also thought they could get pregnant by swallowing semen. I’ve seen the question asked on FAQs for sex ed sites, so apparently, more people believe it than you would think. :)
Virginia Llorca said on 02.20.11 at 09:01 AM • [link]
I can’t seem to write the coming in the mouth scenes smoothly, so I will have to read it for educational purposes.
LisaJo said on 02.20.11 at 09:18 AM • [link]
RedHeadedGirl MUST read and report back to the Bitchery on this book. This is an “I read this shit so you don’t have to” if I ever saw one.
Chrissy said on 02.20.11 at 09:32 AM • [link]
I am on my way to amazon to kindle the sh*t out of this trilogy.
Madd said on 02.20.11 at 09:55 AM • [link]
But, from what I’m getting from the descriptions, this girl has pretty much raised herself in a hut out in the woods.
Sandy Blair’s A Rogue In A Kilt also had a witchy woman living in a hut who has been alone in the woods since she was very little. Hero comes upon her bathing in a lake, shoots an animal he thinks will attack her, she heals the animal by taking on the wound herself and hero thinks he wounded heroine instead.
Ann Somerville said on 02.20.11 at 12:05 PM • [link]
Unless she was raised by wolves since infancy, she would have seen people and animals having sex. Seriously. And if she was raised by wolves, she and Knightly Nipple Tart wouldn’t be having any kind of conversation.
AgTigress said on 02.20.11 at 02:00 PM • [link]
I think this is true. She would also have seen animals, and quite possibly women, giving birth. But the actual connection between coitus and pregnancy and birth is not intuitive; there is always a considerable time-lapse, even in species with periods of gestation much shorter than 9-10 months. As others have said, even today, with a largely literate population and vast resources of information available, there are still some profound misunderstandings and superstitions extant about the details of the process. Many of those details were not discovered till long after the Medieval period; for example, the precise mechanism of human ovulation was not understood till the early 20th century. Also, humans are actually different from other animals in one respect, in that they have no distinct period of oestrus, and Judaeo-Christian beliefs also promote the idea that people are ‘not like animals’ in many other, more questionable, ways.
To be honest, I was more bothered by the account of oral sex, which would surely have been considered so wicked and sinful that the ‘hero’ would not have risked it, whatever the Wild Woman of the Woods thought. The Middle Ages in Europe were steeped in biblical belief, and people were consequently implacably opposed to any sexual process that ‘wasted’ the generative potential of semen: anal or oral sex, coitus interruptus, masturbation. Anything that could not result in pregnancy. I have always been slightly surprised that the Bible does not contain (as far as I know) any prohibition against intercourse with a woman past the age of childbearing. Perhaps this is merely because 50+ females in Old Testament times were so decrepit, if still alive at all, that the thought did not cross anyone’s mind.
Incidentally, I am fairly sure that Teleri is a very modern Welsh name, not one that would have been used in the 13th century. If anyone knows of a record of it in Medieval times, I’d be interested. Eleri, on the other hand, is a perfectly good, and I think ancient, Welsh name. In both cases, the stress is on the second syllable.
Amitatuq said on 02.20.11 at 02:23 PM • [link]
I know I tend to feel the same way when I read books set in Alaska. Invariably I feel like I’m supposed to be living a completely different life because I live here. Maybe more rustic or outdoorsy, possibly full of adventure, crazy weather, and bush planes. Yes, there probably are some differences but honestly, I feel like my life and past-times here are pretty much the same as they were when I lived in eastern Washington.
Totally off topic, but AgTigress, I think I remember you from a different board. I used to post there as Gray Kitty. If I’m remembering the right person, just wanted to say hi!
AgTigress said on 02.20.11 at 03:03 PM • [link]
Yes, I am who you think I am! I avoid using my real name online these days. Remember my tigress signature drawing? Do you still have the grey cat signature I drew for you?
How nice to come across you again; I hope all is well with you.
:-D
SarahJeanie said on 02.20.11 at 05:29 PM • [link]
I TOTALLY read that book - probably around the same time Caitlin did! I don’t remember the title either! I was 12 or 13 and my mom got mad saying it was too racy (a statement I didn’t understand - I was all , “What? It’s not racist!?!?”)
Fancy said on 02.20.11 at 06:06 PM • [link]
When I got to “she finds this knight who was hanged”, ‘Wild’ by Jill Barnett (I LOVE JILL BARNETT’S HISTORICALS!!!!!!!111 ‘Wicked’ is my FAVORITE!!!!!!!) came to my mind. When I finished reading the whole post, I’m absolutely positive that I’m correct!
Ah, the pig bladder water balloons. Such fond memories. :)
very84 < Hey, I’m born in 1984!
Literary Slut said on 02.20.11 at 06:58 PM • [link]
@Ann Somerville: I’m going to bake me a Knightly Nipple Tart. I’m thinking a mix of cherries and spicy sausage in the recipe, sauce spiced with star anise, followed by rocky road ice cream for dessert.
JamiSings said on 02.20.11 at 07:58 PM • [link]
@AgTigress
That’s because, according to Jewish belief at least, sex is all about the woman and it’s the man’s job to pleasure her. Even if she can’t have children.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again - Rabbis have actually sat down and listed, according to the man’s job, how many times a year he must bring sexual pleasure to his wife. (But only if she wants it.) Judaism is the first religion to actually make it illegal for a husband to rape his wife.
More then that, while he is only allowed to ejaculate in her vagina, she can demand sex in any manner that brings her pleasure. So technically oral and anal IS allowed IF it brings HER pleasure. It’s just on him to hold back his own orgasm until he penetrates her vaginally.
Sex is seen as so important to a healthy marriage that the “naptime” on the Sabbath day is set aside for love making. Children are not allowed to bother their parents for anything short of a life threatening emergency.
If he doesn’t please her in bed, the wife is allowed to divorce her husband.
That’s why there’s no prohibition against having sex with barren women. Because the man has to do it to make her happy.
Virginia Llorca said on 02.20.11 at 08:21 PM • [link]
@AgTigress. I’m pretty sure that tradition so steeped in Biblical belief would have also frowned on stuff like bumping off your nephews so you could be king and lying and screwing around with the non-wife. But it went on big time.
Rachel said on 02.20.11 at 08:23 PM • [link]
I so want to read this. Although, I remember another book that was quite similar to this, but wasn’t the Jill Barnett. I haven’t read her. Had the woman living in the hut and being chased by the village kids thinking she’s a witch. And I think it was middle ages too.
In terms of the WTFery of the thinking she could have a baby by oral sex. Within the last five years I knew a girl who was going into a very prestigious Ivy league MEDICAL school after attending a very prestigious Ivy league college, at the age of 22, and did not know you could get STDs from oral sex. Frankly, people can be smart as anything and still be dumb as stumps when it comes to sex. Sex is the great stupefier. I could gladly go on my soapbox about the atrocity that is sex education in the US, but that story seems to speak for itself.
BTW, she is going to be doing family practice and considered ob/gyn work for awhile. Glad I had that little talk with her. :P
Ellielu said on 02.20.11 at 08:37 PM • [link]
Rhiannon, one of the books in Roberta Gellis’s Roselynde series has a Welsh “witch” as the heroine. However, Gellis is sensible enough to not have her raised by wolves. Still one of my favorite books—it was my first experience with really well-written romance.
Virginia Llorca said on 02.20.11 at 09:48 PM • [link]
Anna Lee Waldo’s Circle of Stones. The whole blue woad tattoo thing. So much fun. And doesn’t each society have its own conveneient definition of witch?
AgTigress said on 02.20.11 at 09:48 PM • [link]
You miss the point. The breaking of civil and moral laws is obviously endemic in all human societies. Nobody is suggesting that murder, adultery, theft and other offences against law and morality do not and did not take place, simply because they are and were illegal. There would be no need for strictures against them if nobody committed them. But people who are not complete sociopaths feel very different about doing something that is perfectly socially acceptable and something that they know is prohibited by law, or that they believe to be profoundly sinful, and for which they will have to pay in this life or the next.
I do not doubt that oral sex took place in secret in Medieval Christendom — as did buggery, homosexual acts and so forth. But I suspect that those who practised it felt extremely stressed and guilty, and that it was probably much less common than it is today, when it is no longer regarded in most circles as a crime and a sin.
As I have not read the book in question, I cannot say quite how the oral sex scene is presented, but if the most memorable thing about it was that the heroine was worried about ‘oral childbirth’, I would guess that neither party was depicted as suffering from agonies of guilt, shame and fear because they had committed a serious sin. If that is the case, then I suggest that the scene, set in the 13th century, was historically unrealistic.
AgTigress said on 02.20.11 at 09:52 PM • [link]
Is that ‘the’ legendary Rhiannon, from the Mabinogion, or another Rhiannon?
:-)
Sandra said on 02.21.11 at 02:03 AM • [link]
Stevie Nicks, maybe?
Virginia Llorca said on 02.21.11 at 02:40 AM • [link]
@AgTigress. I don’t think I missed the point. You say that whenever anyone disagrees with you. You always act like you were there. C’mon. When I was younger I did sexual things that I was pretty sure my boyfriend and I were inventing at the time. Was kinda disappointed to find out other people did it too. You can’t really research whether Elizabeth Wydville really told her daughter to give Richard III BJs so he’d like her more, can you? And, yeah, I know people disagree on the spelling of her name.
Ann Somerville said on 02.21.11 at 03:00 AM • [link]
You’ve kind of answered your own point. *Today’s* ignorant teenagers are the product of post-Victorian prudishness and modern fundamentalism. Even the Amish don’t require the degree of innocence regarding sexual matters that modern Catholics and other Christian sects demand. In pre-Victorian times, while female chastity was valued and enforced, there was no doubt as to which sexual acts were procreative and which not, even if the actual mechanics of things like the menstrual cycle were a mystery (for instance, the time of the flow was considered the woman’s most fertile, which is the opposite of the truth.) In a world where unbridled fertility is rarely a good thing even in the most primitive societies, working out which acts were fun but not likely to lead to yet another dangerous or expensive pregnancy, would be an early priority, whatever the priests told you.
All I’m saying is that an emphasis on continence and female chastity is *not* the same thing as sexual ignorance (and even the supposed Victorian attitude towards sexual matters was no way near as ubiquitous as assumed.)
Yes, this female protag *might* have somehow escaped the prevailing frank understanding of sexual matters, and never heard a priest fulminate against deviant sex because of its lack of procreative potential. After all, this isn’t the only wildly unrealistic aspect of this set up. It is, however, wildly unrealistic for that time. It’s hard to overemphasise how pointless it is to point to modern examples of clueless teenagers (of whom I was most assuredly one), to in any illustrate prevailing attitudes in the thirteenth century.
AgTigress said on 02.21.11 at 03:18 AM • [link]
Virginia. Not at all. I am not a medievalist. I am merely applying ordinary principles of intellectual analysis and historic judgement. Social norms and mores vary in different human cultures, that is, at different times and places. That is simply a fact. At the same time, many human needs and responses are biologically based, and do not change. That, too, is a fact. Identifying the ways in which people of the past were like us, and the ways in which they were different, is essential for historical understanding. More than that, it is extremely interesting, because it provides a different perspective on our own attitudes.
When people write about a past era, they need to try to understand the differences in mind-set from our own times. Some historical novelists are very good at this, and can evoke the ‘feel’ of a past era vividly, and help us to understand it. Others are not so good at it. One of the most common faults in historical novels is for the author to put contemporary people, people with our 20th/21stC mind-set and habits, into period costume and an historical setting. That is the type of fault I strongly suspect in the book under discussion, but as I have not read it, that is an unsupported inference based only on the descriptions that other people have given.
Anyone over the age of about 50 can track the changes in mind-set in action, because we can observe how attitudes are slightly different now from the way they were when we were younger. It is also easy to perceive the general cultural differences even between related contemporary cultures, like those of the USA and the UK.
I read your original post disagreeing with me as suggesting that there was no great difference in attitude to practices such as oral sex now, and in the Middle Ages. But there is a significant difference in attitude now and in the early 20th century, less than a century ago! That is not the same thing as saying that a given practice did not take place: I am saying only that, if and when it did take place, the participants probably felt very different about it from the way they feel now.
To take a simpler example: sex outside marriage has always occurred. But it happens MUCH, MUCH more now than it did even 50 years ago, because it is now socially acceptable. People do not feel furtive and guilty about it any more. It would be wholly unrealistic to write a novel set in the 1930s, in which a respectable young middle-class woman openly had a string of sexual partners and thought nothing of it. Some young women did indeed have a lively and varied sex-life at that time, but their own feelings about it, and those of people who knew them, would have been very different from the casual acceptance that we feel today.
Virginia Llorca said on 02.21.11 at 03:33 AM • [link]
I guess that is the whole deal for me. You cannot know if you are evoking the correct atmosphere of the particular period if you didn’t live it. I’ve read enough Alison Weir to know that she constantly uses phrases like “it might mean’, etc. That’s actually the only diff between her fiction work and her non-. In the fiction she doesn’t ‘maybe’ around. Well, in truth, AgTigress, I love getting into it with you. Obvious, huh?
Spam filter? No, I am…
sweetsiouxsie said on 02.21.11 at 06:04 AM • [link]
I am not good at interpreting abbreviations and acronyms. I had to look up LOL. I think I understand WTF so, WTF is HaBO???
sweetsiouxsie said on 02.21.11 at 06:07 AM • [link]
Ah! It was right in front of me when I scrolled to the top of the page! Help a Bitch Out! HaBO!
Vicki said on 02.21.11 at 06:35 AM • [link]
And just to add to stories of naivete, there were girls in my high school who believed you could get pregnant by shaking hands with a young man who had touched his manhood - they had pregnant cousins to prove it.
entire69 - yes, I graduated in ‘69 and perhaps my entire class believed that!
Joanna S. said on 02.21.11 at 08:04 AM • [link]
Actually, I am a medievalist (have a PhD in it and everything), and in 13th-Century England (including Wales) and on the Continent), there was plenty of knowledge about types of sexual intercourse as well as much having of sex for the sake of pleasure (look, for example, at The Miller’s Tale in Chaucer or Boccaccio’s Decameron, which is from an earlier century but still applies to this discussion due to its incredibly randy content). On the other hand, there was very little practical knowledge beyond the Bible about sexual reproduction. It was commonly thought that the male “seed” was the core of all life, and while they knew it needed to be implanted into a woman to produce a baby, the female womb was thought merely to be an incubator. Thus, a “barren womb” was a womb that could not provide fertile incubation (or “ground”) for male seed.
Also, it was unknown how male “seed” transmitted itself to the womb. Therefore, there are truly fascinating theories in this time regarding the transmission of male seed to a female vessel. The most popular comes from men and women imitating the greatest moment of fertilization in the Bible, namely the Annunciation of Mary wherein the Holy Spirit fertilizes Mary by whispering God’s Word in her ear. So, there are quite a number of etchings and illuminations from the 12-15th centuries that show men “fertilizing” (or ejaculating into) women’s ears. Also, because early dogma claimed that the earth sprang from God’s knee (apparently His most fertile appendage), there are also depictions of men ejaculating in the crease of women’s knees. Thus, it is entirely possible for a woman (or even a man) in the 13th-century to worry that a man ejaculating in her mouth might result in pregnancy because of the general theory that the insertion of male seed into a woman’s body, no matter the orifice, could result in pregnancy.
Hope this helps!
JamiSings said on 02.21.11 at 10:43 AM • [link]
You also have to keep in mind there’s always been people who have questioned what various religions claim is a sin and isn’t. Which is why so many split off from each other. Some say masturbation is a sin. Others say that it’s only a sin if you’re married because you’re denying your partner pleasure, but if you’re single and it keeps you from having sex outside of marriage, go ahead and pleasure yourself.
Just because he’s a knight doesn’t mean he accepts whatever a priest tells him without question.
Not that I’ve read the book in question, obviously, but playing Devil’s advocate here. Maybe he’s just a Christmas and Easter church type knight. After all, if he was a serious believer he wouldn’t be doing the deed outside of wedlock anyway.
Ducky said on 02.21.11 at 11:01 AM • [link]
If Wild’s plot is concidered WTF, I’d love to see the reaction to an HaBO for Jill Barnett’s Imagine. An escaped convict who used to be a star baseball player, a single female lawyer from San Francisco, and three red-headed orphan children all wash up on a deserted island in 1896 after a shipwreck. They live off of bananas and find a genie in a bottle, which does not solve their problems as quickly as you might think.
God, I loved that book.
Ann Somerville said on 02.21.11 at 11:04 AM • [link]
This perfectly illustrates the problem of trying to talk about a medieval story from a modern perspective. Jami, this ‘Christmas and Easter church type’ didn’t exist in 13th century Christendom. The Church, faith, religious observance was ubiquitous. Theologians argued about which aspects of dogma were valid, but lay people didn’t dispute about faith itself, or the existence of God. The concept of ‘knights’ as beloved in historical romance is rather anachronistic for this period, but the whole basis of nobility, royalty, power, rested on their capacity to defend the Church, to uphold Christianity and so on.
When you have a society which firmly believed in the divine right of kings, you don’t have knights who aren’t worried about dying in a state of mortal sin. Not that the nobility didn’t sin, but they would hardly have been unconcerned about what would happen to them if they didn’t get to their confessor and rinse off the stain on their souls. The importance of absolution led to the racket of indulgences, not to people blowing off the need for confession and forgiveness of their sin.
Her innocence and lack of thought for the moral aspect is perhaps realistic. That he wouldn’t be bothered is not.
Mary said on 02.21.11 at 11:12 AM • [link]
Here in Australia, the correct grammar has people being hanged and pictures (and other inanimate objects) being hung. Not sure about animals.
Cathy B said on 02.21.11 at 11:47 AM • [link]
AgTigress, I too am Welsh - from a particularly remote region of Snowdonia originally - and the whole getting-the-Welsh wrong thing annoys me intensely. The only thing that makes this bearable is that I am not Scottish and therefore don’t have to be annoyed by the disastrously large number of Highlander romances I am sure get it even more uninformedly wrong.
As a point of interest, if anyone is interested in Welsh romances the best I can recommend is Sharon Penman’s “fact-fiction” series about the last Princes of Wales: Here Be Dragons, Falls The Shadow and The Reckoning. Here Be Dragons has been one of my all-time favourite books for over 20 years but be prepared for major floods of tears if you make it all the way through to the end of The Reckoning.
spamword: trying57 : I am trying very hard right now to work my way through the 57 books in my TBR list and not go back to read Here Be Dragons again.
AgTigress said on 02.21.11 at 02:20 PM • [link]
Joanna S. Yes, what you say is very helpful. Thank you. I always find the Medieval mind far more remote and difficult to grasp than that of Classical Antiquity. I had no idea about the importance of God’s knees.
The evolution of the theory of conception in the Enlightenment remained based at first on the traditional idea that the male provided the new life in its entirety; improving microscopy had revealed the ‘animalcules’ in human semen (the actual sperm cells), and as you probably know, there are charming 17thC diagrams illustrating the complete tiny homunculus which, it was thought, must be contained within the head of the sperm.
Some other curious and ancient theories about reproduction, such as the belief in telegony, survived into surprisingly modern times, at least amongst some animal-breeders.
AgTigress said on 02.21.11 at 02:37 PM • [link]
And it’s hard to explain clearly, isn’t it, without sounding petty and nitpicking? It’s so easy to over-emphasise some things and ignore others when the knowledge is shallow and patchy, and I think it’s that lack of balance that is particularly irritating.
I just think that people should think twice before writing about a culture other than their own, past or present, until they have done some really serious research. In the case of modern countries, many visits, or better still, a few years spent living there, would seem to me essential.
I know many Americans well; I have visited the USA repeatedly over the last 25 years or so, and I lived there for 4 months some years ago. But if I were a novelist, I would not dare to write a story set in the USA, because I KNOW I would get a lot of things wrong — the spoken language, for a start.
Lily said on 02.21.11 at 03:35 PM • [link]
I believe 99% that it’s “Wild” by Jill Barnett. I read it a few monthes ago, actually. I liked it, though the end was a bit of anticlimax….
AgTigress said on 02.21.11 at 03:38 PM • [link]
Virginia: I am not sure when you are being serious, and when you are just trying to wind me up.
Obviously at one level, nobody ever knows exactly how another person thinks and feels. But because of our common humanity, we can usually predict with some accuracy how other people in our own culture, the culture of which we have direct personal experience, will react in given circumstances. We start from the baseline of human nature, the needs, desires and fears that are common to all of us, and to many other species as well, and we see how the cultural mores of our society reacts with them.
If we go to the trouble of learning a lot about a different culture, we can also start to understand how people in that culture thought and felt: the beliefs that were instilled into them by authority figures in childhood; the particular aspirations and obstacles created by their social and political organisation. Detailed study of historical periods can and does provide a window into the past and can enable a modern person to get into the mindset of another era, even though it may be very different from our own in some respects.
It becomes more difficult with prehistory, when we have only the remains of material culture to guide us, but even then, there is enough evidence from many sources to build up a surprising amount of knowledge.
If a writer of fiction wants to invent a setting for her characters and their story, then she is absolutely at liberty to do so, and such fantasy worlds are hugely popular with many readers. In such a case, the writer is also free to take some historical elements and weave them into ‘her’ world. What I think she should not do is to take a past (or present) reality, such as 13th-century Britain, populate it with characters that are simply modern Americans in fancy dress (sometimes complete with modern American names), and call the result an ‘historical novel’.
Sandra said on 02.21.11 at 04:17 PM • [link]
That’s the correct grammar in the US as well. I was trying to make a joke. I apparently failed….
Literary Slut said on 02.21.11 at 05:41 PM • [link]
@Sandra
So far I’ve never found a romance hero who wasn’t hung, but only a few have been hanged.
Lynn S. said on 02.21.11 at 07:10 PM • [link]
Probably fixing to get my hand slapped over here at SBTB now but here I go, all the same. On the whole issue of historical accuracy I have a hard time understanding why anyone would expect the imaginative world of a work of fiction to be a history lesson. I wouldn’t pick up a Jill Barnett historical romance expecting edification about the Middle Ages in Europe. I also don’t go to Shakespeare for a greater understanding of Ancient Rome. If I want to get my head screwed on properly backwards, I’ll go to a textbook or a work of nonfiction every time.
Regarding the guilt issue, I would think that people in ages past were no more or less likely to be consumed by guilt than people in modern times and sexual urges have always been a part of the human condition. Regardless of our upbringing and teaching, each of us is an individual; and to assume that the uneducated masses of centuries past did not have minds and personalities of their own is presumptuous. A lack of education or ignorance does not equal stupid or non-curious. A character fighting urges, being consumed by guilt, and coming to terms within their own self would make for an interesting book though.
I do see how if you are from a particular culture or country or have a large knowledge base about a particular time period, that misrepresentation in a work of fiction would be irritating at the least and rage producing at the worst. Much like the proliferation of cowboy romances of late can irritate someone like myself who is from the Southwestern United States in the largely rural state of Oklahoma who knows that putting a man in a Carhart jacket “ain’t” necessarily gonna make him a cowboy.
Also, am I the only one who is terrified that Rachel’s acquaintance will probably one day be a licensed, practicing physician.
@Cara McKenna I’m somewhat puzzled as to why this would be considered so WTF also. Seems rather dopey to me. Maybe it’s the residual effects of the recent full moon messing with SB Sarah’s head or perhaps she has a bit of tongue firmly stuck in cheek.
Virginia Llorca said on 02.21.11 at 07:41 PM • [link]
@AgTigress. I would never try to write an historical novel. Most of the stuff I write is contemporary and very dialogue driven. I probably read more historical novels than any other type and am huge on Alison Weir, (fiction and non) Anna Lee Waldo, (hated the one about the American guy) Philippa Gregory, etc. And I can’t do the Romance genre per se as I am not huge on the HEA. I just have a lot of ideas about humans and their motivation and weaknesses and whims that I have to incorporate. I do feel the females in the fifteenth century that were sneaking out and meeting their sweeties behind the barn were thinking and doing pretty much the same stuff we do, be she high born or scullery maid. Gregory and especially Weir make their female leads very sexual. Still, trying to understand the stuff they had to put up with from their spouses and their freaking kingly privileges is hard to take. And most of that stuff flies in the face of any ethic—societal, religious, cultural. I relate it all to the cave men trying to strengthen the gene pool, although they did not know what they were doing. And the kings in the middle ages wreaked havoc on that. I am not unable to respect historical aspects, but we’ve talked before about suspending belief. If some authors expect me to do that then they have to allow me to fiddle with the facts a little. But I have no plans to write about a fourteenth century heroine named Debby. Come to think of that, my Asian neighbors that named their daughter Megan hits me in just about the same place. But she’s cute and they are nice. So. . . You can comment on my blog should you wish to so we don’t take over this place. Appreciate your every word, seriously.
Virginia Llorca said on 02.21.11 at 07:48 PM • [link]
Yeah, well getting to the Americans: the Kwakiutl Indians thought big nostrils were a huge turn on and, yeah, they did do ‘that’.
Virginia Llorca said on 02.21.11 at 08:19 PM • [link]
@Lynn S. We’ve gone over this in posts back re: different novels. I think it is the all time favorite. I agree with you that if you have to suspend belief about vampires and stuff then you can be allowed a little leeway with the other facts. There lies the problem. Many want that vampire to be dressed dead on accurately with aboslutely NO POLYESTER.
I love this forum.
Inga said on 02.21.11 at 09:11 PM • [link]
“I have a hard time understanding why anyone would expect the imaginative world of a work of fiction to be a history lesson.”
Point well taken, but as a reader I do expect authors to do at least a little bit of research into their chosen location and period of history before writing a historical novel. I used to teach a Research for Writers class and I would always ask the students in the first class meeting: “What kind of thing annoys you in a novel? What pulls your attention away from the narrative?” Often it would be a small detail that they knew was wrong. An example: a writer sets her novel in the wintertime in Southern California. In one scene, she has the hero shoot someone from behind an orange tree. The orange tree is described as being leafless. Now anyone living in SoCal knows that orange trees do not lose their leaves in the winter. So the reader thinks WTF? and loses the thread of the story. Bad research.
As somebody who lives in Scotland, I can’t read Scottish romances (with the exception of Mary Stewart and Dorothy Dunnett). They are, almost universally, horrendously inaccurate, and I include Outlander in that. Plus the attempt of American writers to write dialogue with a Scottish accent (as if there were only one) is hugely cringe-inducing.
spamword know98: I know there must be 98,000 dreadful Scottish romances out there ...
redheadedgirl said on 02.21.11 at 09:31 PM • [link]
Because blatantly bad history pulls me out of the story, most of the time. Especially when it’s something I know about - I care less when it’s a topic I don’t know that much about.
Now, that said, for something like The Tudors where the history bears a rather superficial resemblance, and the costuming, especially in the first two seasons, is really bad, it doesn’t bother me. I just looked at that entire show as set in a parallel universe that resembled ours, but wasn’t quite the same. (Besides, it was pretty. And I’m sad we’ll never get to see Sarah Bolger’s take on Queen Mary I. Because that would be EPIC.)
AgTigress said on 02.21.11 at 09:52 PM • [link]
Exactly. Readers are not asking for ‘a history lesson’ when they read an historical novel (though I have to say, a history lesson is an attractive option for some of us, not something to be avoided!): we are simply asking not to have our attention distracted and our faith in the writer’s competence undermined by some silly howler or glaring anachronism.
AgTigress said on 02.21.11 at 09:58 PM • [link]
I think we all do, BUT, and it’s a big but, if the only thing I ever read about Tang Dynasty China is a modern novel, then I would really, really like it to be broadly correct, so that what little I do know about that place and time is real, not fantasy. I would hate to have some memorable detail become fixed in my mind, only to discover that it’s complete nonsense. In fact, most of what I do know about the Tang Dynasty comes from van Gulik’s Judge Dee novels, and I trust him, because he was a notable scholar.
Sandra said on 02.21.11 at 10:07 PM • [link]
@ inga
And here in Florida, we also know that orange trees do not shed their leaves… they’re evergreens. That would have thrown me as well.
There’s an author I like, who shall remain nameless, who set a series partially in Palm Beach. At one point, the hero visits a house set on a hill. Um… most of South Florida is swamps, and therefore flat….. Palm Beach is even more so, because it’s basically just an overgrown sand bar. Look at a map, people. Don’t assume that because you live in SoCal, which has beaches with cliffs, that Florida does, too. Do your due diligence before you put fingers to keyboard.
I can manage some suspension of belief, especially in areas where I have no knowledge. And, if I want a totally accurate Regency voice, I’ll read Austin. But I do want my stories to at least appear to belong to the period. And for my heroines to not just be time-traveling American chicks.
Literary Slut said on 02.21.11 at 10:22 PM • [link]
Lynn S wrote:
What do they call the person who graduates at the bottom of the class in medical school?
Answer: “Doctor.”
AgTigress said on 02.21.11 at 11:07 PM • [link]
I think most reasonable people can. Everyone makes mistakes, and the occasional error is usually forgivable. But I can’t forgive someone who evidently just can’t be bothered to get the basics right. If the author can’t be bothered to do a professional job with her writing, I can’t be bothered to read her.
As an example of the ‘orange tree’ kind of mistake, years ago (1980s) I read a category romance in which the author described a litter of newborn kittens as hairless: no, not Sphynx cats. She thought kittens were all born naked, like baby mice. I didn’t finish the book. I can’t remember its title, nor the name of the author!
Chrissy said on 02.22.11 at 12:06 AM • [link]
I kindled this trilogy and have started WICKED. It’s awful. I’m enjoying it anyway.
I loved being at the court of Edward Longshanks and Eleanor and having Green Sleeves sung.
Swear. To. Gawd.
LMAO
JamiSings said on 02.22.11 at 12:49 AM • [link]
@Ann - The thing is, there has always, from the first time there was a religion, always been non-believers and half-assed believers. They weren’t as predominate as they are now, but they existed. We all have free will and no matter what the church says, we cannot be controlled. If a knight only gave lip service to religion so he could line his pockets with gold from raids, wars, and tournaments, he could.
Obviously, not having read this book, I don’t know what the knight was really like. I’m just saying there is a slim chance he really didn’t believe what the church was telling him.
Coffeefaery said on 02.22.11 at 01:21 AM • [link]
Much of our view of the middle ages is colored by enlightenment snobbery or 19th century prudery (just as people always seem to think the 1930s were like the 1950s for some reason I don’t quite understand).
I generally read historical novels and romances FOR the inaccuracies—especially when I was a medieval studies major in undergrad. I consider them part of the entertainment—if I got bored, I could always nitpick. There are very few authors I expect authenticity from—Sharon Kay Penman (mentioned before), Judith Tarr, etc.
Most novels, all I expect is broad strokes. If it’s even possible in the time frame (that is, if a key plot event didn’t happen fifty years earlier, or if something wasn’t invented 200 years in the future)—well then I’m content.
An author like Penman spends years in research, most genre novelists are encouraged? required? to publish annually. I’d rather have my flawed medieval romances than none at all!
Virginia Llorca said on 02.22.11 at 03:43 AM • [link]
The spectrum, guys. The spectrum. Of honesty, of faithfulness, of intelligence, of evil, of sanity, of tolerance, of creativity, of (perhaps) gullibility, etc. We all fall somewhere along the spectrum.
Ann Somerville said on 02.22.11 at 03:57 AM • [link]
Got your sources for that statement?
If this knight was agnostic or atheist (very unlikely no matter what you say) then I would expect the author to highlight that issue - not ignore it, or have him ignore the consequences of ‘unnatural’ sex acts.
You’re determined to see this set up through 21st century eyes, and nothing anyone else can tell you will change that. Okay. But some of us can’t help but think it’s unrealistic and that destroys enjoyment in a book. Can you at least understand that?
Virginia Llorca said on 02.22.11 at 04:08 AM • [link]
Awww, geez, guys. Take a break and watch Spartacus for chrissakes. Y’all need a little distraction.
Lynn S. said on 02.22.11 at 04:57 AM • [link]
@Virginia Llorca Hee, you so made me laugh. Are we talking new Spartacus or classic Spartacus? Authentic or grossly inaccurate? Where and when? I need to know.
Virginia Llorca said on 02.22.11 at 06:37 AM • [link]
@Lynn s. The one on Starz. The previous season and now. Gadzooks. I feel bad they found a sub for Andy Whitfield for next season. I hope he gets better. Some of those guys you gotta wonder if they are using prosthetic cocks for decency laws or something. I pretend they are not.
AgTigress said on 02.22.11 at 03:58 PM • [link]
Though evidently, only for some of us. It seems such a shame to me that many readers are effectively uninterested in history, and think of it as some dreary, boring academic discipline, because if one is interested in people at all (and surely, the enjoyment of stories about personal relationships is all about people and their behaviour), then a grasp of history deepens that interest and enjoyment so much.
An historical novel that is based on sound knowledge, and that helps its readers get into the mind-set of their ancestors at a given period, to understand just the ways in which they were like us and the ways in which they were not, is so much more interesting than the modern-people-in-fancy-dress scenario. A well-written and well-researched historical novel that provides a clear window into the past enhances its readers’ understanding of our own culture, too.
Virginia Llorca said on 02.23.11 at 01:39 AM • [link]
@AgTigress Perhaps i come seeking redemption. I am reading Kathryn by Anya Seton. Tears. Breath holding. Half way through. Can and should hold a candle to anything written today. Probably no HEA comin’ up, tho. And, please, at least for me, I do not read as one uninterested in the history. I just can’t get all caught up in looking for mistakes. My kids are beasts for God’s sake. How can I expect perfection from anyone? Yeah, I know, I think you are talking about respect. Got it. Have it. Sometimes.
Lynn S. said on 02.23.11 at 04:00 AM • [link]
@Virginia Llorca So nice to have met you here in the Halls of Academia. Wow, if I weren’t such a squeamish girl about the slicing and dicing, I’d be all over Spartacus.
So, Anya Seton is making you cry. I haven’t read Seton yet but have the feeling I’d be more inclined towards Green Darkness. Marion Chesney made me cry once (yup, Marion Chesney). That would seem to indicate I cry easily, but no, somehow she plucked me and there I went.
It probably wasn’t apparent from my original post but I also enjoy historical detail of both the rich and frothy varieties and I can usually tell within the first chapter or two whether an author has any intention of honoring the time and place where their novel is set and whether that will be a problem within the world of that particular book. I have a generous nature on the accuracy issue though and I’m still not sure where people got the idea that authors are supposed to play fair.
AgTigress said on 02.23.11 at 01:24 PM • [link]
Authors can make their own choices (up to a point, since editors and publishing houses can, and often do, impose changes on them). Some will be good choices, though, and others will be poor ones. Some readers like historical material to be true, while others apparently don’t care. This has to be in part because they do not perceive the past as ‘real’, but as an imaginative construct in itself. It’s real. We are where we are today because of the routes and the choices taken by our ancestors. But just because some readers couldn’t give a damn about historical integrity doesn’t mean that a professional writer may be equally casual. The readers who don’t care about history will presumably be equally happy with genuine facts and with blatant fantasy: the readers who do care will despise the nonsense plots and characters. They will not enjoy such books. I would expect a dedicated writer to try to please the largest readership possible.
I am sure that few people here would be relaxed reading a novel set in their own town or region, in which many of the ‘facts’ were blatantly false: not just deciduous orange-trees, but a completely alien setting and atmosphere represented as a real place in the here and now. I am sure that nobody here would be comfortable if they read a novel in which a central character was based closely on themselves, same name, same age, background, appearance, profession etc., but made by the author to behave in reprehensible ways. Indeed, in such a case, the reader might well be able to seek legal redress.
Just because the people of the past, and the world in which they lived, is no longer current doesn’t mean that we should not bother about representing it as accurately as we can. As I said before, there is nothing whatever to stop a writer from creating a completely invented setting, whether it is a generic contemporary ‘American small town’ or an elaborate fantasy universe. But if she uses the framework of history, of real events and real people who are long dead, I think she has a duty, both to her readers and to her own self-respect, to get it right to the best of her ability. She can make the choice not to bother, but I think that is a sloppy, unprofessional choice.
Caitcat65 said on 02.24.11 at 04:39 AM • [link]
@SarahJeanie, This was one of the few racy books my mom didn’t take away. It belonged to a friend so she couldn’t confiscate someone else’s book. :)
I’m pretty sure this is the book I was looking for! I’m adding it to my Amazon cart right now. Thanks everyone!
Janelba said on 03.01.11 at 02:18 AM • [link]
ME TOO!! I was scowling as I read the entry. WOAH!
Nicole K said on 03.05.11 at 04:33 AM • [link]
I snagged it for my Nook! Can’t wait to read it!
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