Mary Balogh's The Secret Pearl was first published in 1991 and Balogh writes that "It is often named by long-time readers as one of their favorites among my books." You can read an excerpt here and there are glowing reviews available from The Romance Reader and All About Romance.
The central metaphor of Mary Balogh's The Secret Pearl is obvious from the title: it clearly concerns a secret pearl. Adam, the hero, says that in his "pre-Waterloo days [...] I thought the world my oyster with a priceless pearl within. I suppose we all believe that when we are very young" (122). Fleur, the heroine, then thinks about what he has said:
Once he had been young and handsome and carefree. Once he had thought the world to be his oyster, life a priceless pearl. In his pre-Waterloo days, as he had described them. And yet he had spoken sadly, as if those dreams had proved to be empty, worthless ones. (123)The repetition serves to emphasise the metaphor. The symbolism of the pearl shifts, however, as Adam begins to see glimpses of the happiness he might have with Fleur:
She was coming to dominate his thoughts by day and haunt his dreams by night. He was coming to live for the moments when he could see her, listen to her music, listen to her voice, see her eyes on his. She was beginning to give light and meaning to his days.Again the metaphor is emphasised through repetition. Adam describes Fleur as his "pearl beyond price" (323) and he dreams of a time when he could
In her he was beginning to glimpse the precious pearl that he had once expected of life. (234)
love her by night. [...] And he would fill her with his seed. He would watch her grow with his children. And he would watch those children being born and watch her giving birth to them. [...] He would be happy again and happy forever. He would open the oyster shell and find the pearl within. (327)Fleur's name suggests that she is a flower but she in fact has multiple identities.1 I'd like to suggest that this multiplicity of names and roles also characterises her relationship to the pearl/oyster metaphor. Clearly she is, at times, Adam's "pearl beyond price", but when she is being filled with seed, and growing "with his children", she perhaps more closely resembles the oyster. As an oyster she brings forth objects of great beauty and worth, whether these be love, happiness or offspring.
I'm going to further explore the pearl/oyster metaphor by comparing Fleur's experience with that of the oysters used in the cultured pearl industry. Admittedly this industry did not come into existence until well after the Regency period in which the novel is set, and it could be argued that I'm pushing the metaphor far further than it was intended to be taken, but I think the comparison with cultured pearls is both interesting and, in many ways, appropriate. This is not solely because I'd like to play on the word "culture", though Fleur is clearly a cultured woman in the sense that she appreciates the arts (she possesses musical talent, can dance and paint well, and has an appreciation for literature and the theatre) but because the cultured pearl is in part man-made, just as Fleur's troubles are.2
The process of creating a cultured pearl begins when a man-made implant is inserted into the oyster's gonad:
Cultured pearls are formed in a pearl oyster, thanks to human interference. In any pearl formation, two things are required, the outer epithelium of the mantle lobe and core substance or nucleus. It was found that cut pieces of the mantle epithelium would provide the pearl secreting cells and that processed shell beads would be accepted by the oyster as the foreign body. Through careful surgery, the mantle piece graft tissue and the shell bead nucleus are implanted together, side by side, into the gonad of the oyster. (James)That clinical procedure which affects one of the oyster's sexual organs sounds unappealing and painful for the oyster, even if the worker, like Adam, might claim that "The treatment I gave you [...] was not rough" (9). It is, in fact, rather like Fleur's first experience of sex:
He leaned across her and took her by the upper arms, moving her so that she lay across the bed instead of along it. He grasped her hips and drew her forward until her knees bent over the side of the bed and her feet rested on the floor.And so the irritant, the foreign body, is inserted into Fleur. Oysters take some time to recover from the procedure and "A common cause of death is serious infection of the wounds inflicted at the time of the implantation operation" (James) . Fleur "bled intermittently throughout the day. She was so sore that sometimes she squirmed against the sharp pain of her torn virginity" (10).3 That Fleur's loss of virginity is also emotionally traumatic is quite clear: "she had discovered that survival after all was not necessarily a triumphant thing, but could take one into frightening depths of despair" (10) but "Never, even during this day of blackest despair, had she considered suicide as an escape from her predicament" (12).
He slid his palms between her thighs and spread her legs wide. He pushed them wider with his knees [...]. And he spread his fingers across the tops of her legs and opened her with his thumbs. [...] He positioned himself and mounted her with one sharp deep thrust. (5)
To give them time and a safe environment in which their wounds can heal, "Freshly operated oysters should be reared undisturbed for a few days" (James), often in the laboratory, before being placed in the waters of the oyster farm. It is "five days after she had become a whore" (17) that Fleur is offered a post as a governess, and by then 'The bleeding had stopped and the soreness had healed" (17). It is a further "six days later" (21) that she is ready to be transplanted to Adam's country estate, Willoughby Hall, where the process of transforming her trauma into something rare and precious will begin.
It is from this point onwards that the process of creating the pearl is identical in both natural and cultured pearls. Although the industrial procedure deliberately introduces a bead into the oyster, naturally occurring pearls also result from the oyster's "response to an irritant inside its shell" and in both cases the oyster "secretes the calcium carbonate substance called nacre to cover the irritant" (Wikipedia). The layers of nacre build up, creating the pearl and thus the oyster, like Fleur, makes something valuable out of a process that has caused it distress.
Finally the pearl will be removed. If this is done carefully, the oyster will survive: "In case the oysters need to be re-used for a second time, the pearls are carefully removed by opening the pearl-sac through the gonad taking care not to damage nor stress the oyster" (James). The extraction of the "pearl", Fleur's love for Adam , is both a relief and a source of renewed pain to her, since the pearl must be kept secret and Fleur herself, the oyster, is left alone in her native environment to recover from her loss. She must remain a lowly oyster (a schoolmistress), albeit one who has produced a secret pearl (her love for Adam, an object created by the overlaying of layers of respect and desire over the initial, implanted and traumatising man-made bead) until, though the open acknowledgement of their relationship she can be fully identified as a cultured pearl, a duchess.
She takes the place of the previous duchess, Sybil, who never learned to behave like an oyster and is instead destroyed by her troubles.4 Like Fleur, Sybil lost the chance to marry the man she loved, but unlike Fleur she never accepted this or became a stronger person:
she could have helped herself. [...] But Sybil's character was not a strong one. Had she been given happiness, doubtless she would have remained sweet all her life. But she was a taker, not a giver, and once everything she held dear had been taken from her, there had been nothing left in her life except bitterness and hatred and a desperate reaching out for sensual gratification (374)Fleur's predicament and her response to it are therefore contrasted with those of Sybil. This romance would appear to be one with a moral, and that moral is that even if the world isn't your oyster, you should behave like one and make precious pearls out of life's harsh realities.
- Balogh, Mary. The Secret Pearl. New York: Bantam Dell, 2005.
- James, P.S.B.R.. Pearl Oyster Farming and Pearl Culture. Cochin, India: Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, 1991.
2 When interviewed for the post of governess Fleur reveals that
I was proficient in all my lessons. I speak French and Italian tolerably well, I play the pianoforte and have some skill with watercolours. I have always been particularly interested in literature and history and the classics. I have some skill with a needle. (18)In addition to these abilities she can dance well, as is demonstrated various times in the course of the novel, when she returns to her home village to work as a teacher she plans to teach the children to sing, and she has "a poise about her, a sense of dignity" (391). She is, then, an "accomplished woman' even by Mr Darcy's stringent definition:
observed Elizabeth, "you must comprehend a great deal in your idea of an accomplished woman."
"Yes, I do comprehend a great deal in it."
"Oh! certainly," cried his faithful assistant, "no one can be really esteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved."
"All this she must possess," added Darcy, "and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading."
"I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I rather wonder now at your knowing any."
"Are you so severe upon your own sex as to doubt the possibility of all this?"
"I never saw such a woman. I never saw such capacity, and taste, and application, and elegance, as you describe united." (Austen, Pride and Prejudice Chapter 8)
3 The extent of Fleur's bleeding and pain as a consequence of her loss of virginity is clearly a deliberate choice on Balogh's part. As has been noted, Adam was not particularly rough in his handling of Fleur, and many women experience little or no pain during their first experience of sexual intercourse. According to one article by Betina Arndt in The Sydney Morning Herald
no-one really knows how common it is for women with intact hymen to bleed on first intercourse. Sara Paterson-Brown, an enterprising British gynaecologist at Queen Charlotte's Hospital in London, surveyed 41 colleagues about their first intercourse experiences and found 14 bled, 26 did not and one did not remember.Arndt notes that tampon usage may play a part in this and apparently it's also reflected in the descriptions in romance novels:
Sandra Pertot is a Newcastle clinical psychologist who has specialised in sex therapy for three decades. She's struck by the fact that these days the hymen rarely rates a mention by her clients. [...] Pertot believes tampon use is contributing to this change, not just through stretching of the hymen but by changing girls' attitudes to first intercourse. [...] This probably means fewer women are experiencing pain or trauma the first time around. Pertot mentions a recent shift in the plot of Mills and Boon romance novels. "When we were growing up the novels always described the first time as 'pleasure mixed with pain'. Today the pain is gone. It's always wonderful right from the start with him taking her to heights of ecstasy she never knew before."Anyway, after that not very brief, but hopefully interesting digression, I'll get back to Fleur. It seems to me that her experience is particularly bloody and painful and the fact that it's so traumatic is not simply a reflection of reality but at least partly symbolic of her emotional trauma at becoming "a member of a profession the very thought of which had always horrified and disgusted her. She was a whore. A prostitute. A streetwalker" (11).
4 I can't help but wonder if Sybil's name is significant. Sibyls, in ancient times, were pagan prophetesses. T. S. Elliot's The Waste Land includes an introductory epigraph:
“Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere . . .”, [which] translates “For once I saw with my own eyes the Cumean Sibyl hanging in a jar, and when the boys asked the Sibyl, 'what do you want?' she answered 'I want to die'.” (The Literary Encyclopedia)Another suicidal Sibyl is to be found in Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray:
Living in a theatrical world of make-believe and melodrama, Sibyl cannot accept the reality of Dorian's rejection. When she decides to give up acting for his love, she is shocked at Dorian's callous, "without art you are nothing" (100), followed by his desertion. Steeped in theatrics, Sibyl commits suicide. (Gates)
I think you're on to something here; even if the author didn't intend the comparison, Fleur is definitely a creature that is used , much the way the oysters are. The burden of being noble and continuing to live after being used is placed entirely on her, as well. Which is what I hated about the book, actually. First, Adam uses her for sex. Then she, the ever noble creature, produces love for him out of her injury. Which he takes, and then he imagines using her further as the production plant for his "seed."
ReplyDeleteIt didn't feel like she ever really rose above being a commodity, just became a more precious commodity. Instead of an oyster that can be ripped apart (a whore), she became an oyster that shouldn't be killed in extraction (a lady) though, of course, the chances of her dying in the the production of his children/pearls are very high indeed.
The fact that Fleur's survival and production is contrasted with another woman's failure to survive and produce good things makes it feel like the lesson of becoming an oyster and making pearls out of distress is explicitly sexist.
Unless there's an aspect of the hero having to endure and learn these same things that I've forgotten or missed when I read it? His position seemed to be of the one who benefits from the pearls, and is thus made better/healed. Not as the one that must, through much pain, produce the pearls himself.
Unless there's an aspect of the hero having to endure and learn these same things that I've forgotten or missed when I read it? His position seemed to be of the one who benefits from the pearls, and is thus made better/healed. Not as the one that must, through much pain, produce the pearls himself.
ReplyDeleteI think he's done a bit of the being an oyster himself. He was damaged at Waterloo, then damaged again when he discovered that Sybil, whom he'd loved and to whom he'd been betrothed, was (a) in love with his brother and (b) pregnant with his brother's child. So like Fleur he's been physically and emotionally damaged and had to make the best of the situation. Sybil says to him "I hate you for being so noble and so understanding. I hate you for being always so willing to take the blame" (371). Fleur, on the other hand, says that "That is the very reason I love you, Adam. There is very little room in your life for yourself. It is filled with your concern for the well-being of others. I did not know it or expect it at first, but I have come to see it more and more" (350). He's sacrificed himself for Sybil (marrying her to save her reputation and then staying celibate for years because she finds him physically repulsive) and Pamela (who he's fully accepted as his daughter even though biologically she isn't). He fought at Waterloo because he
was privileged and happy and sheltered. No human being is entitled to enjoy such a life without paying back a little. There were thousands of men fighting for our country who really owed it almost nothing except their birth. And yet to them it was worth fighting for. The least I could do was fight alongside them (326)
Fleur compares what he did to her to his own wounds: "Like your scars with you, it will always be with me [...]. But I will not let it destroy me" (331).
So I think Adam has oyster-ish qualities too. And, to complement the Sybil (not oyster)/Fleur (oyster) comparison, there's the Thomas (not oyster)/Adam (oyster) comparison. In both cases the not-oyster doesn't learn to sacrifice for others or make the best of situations, and both not-oysters end up dead.
So for that reason I don't think "the lesson of becoming an oyster and making pearls out of distress is explicitly sexist".
That said, you obviously still hated the book, and I wonder if it's because there are several leaps the reader has to be willing to take in order to enjoy the book:
1) the reader has to forgive Adam for what he does to Fleur and believe his explanation that "It was the love of my life I recognized outside the Drury Lane Theater" (342) despite the way he behaved.
2) the reader has to believe that Fleur would (a) get over her emotional trauma so quickly and (b) then fall in love with Adam.
That said, you obviously still hated the book, and I wonder if it's because there are several leaps the reader has to be willing to take in order to enjoy the book:
ReplyDelete1) the reader has to forgive Adam for what he does to Fleur and believe his explanation that "It was the love of my life I recognized outside the Drury Lane Theater" (342) despite the way he behaved.
2) the reader has to believe that Fleur would (a) get over her emotional trauma so quickly and (b) then fall in love with Adam.
Yes. And I think that, though you've shown that Adam has to learn to overcome his own distressing experiences and be oyster-like, the thing that galled me was that his damage wasn't inflicted by the person he's expected to later open himself to, love, and entrust with his body. That Fleur's is seems to imply a higher expectation of forgiveness and love on the part of the heroine. Also, the bodily and social vulnerability on Fleur's part that Adam abused isn't something that is replicable on the part of a man in the society represented in the book.
I think it's interesting that Adam's suffering comes from war, a political, external act of violence among nations, whereas Fleur's suffering is directed at her as a person and a being that's coded as sexually vulnerable.
It seemed another variation on the oft repeated Romance theme that worthy women must accept the cruelities the men who "love" them inflict on them and return love for misuse, above and beyond what I think it's reasonable to ask of any human being.
I don't know. It's been a while since I read the book and I admit that my reaction of dislike was very strong; it's possible that the story just hit on one of my anti-kinks, and there's very little objectionable there. I certainly can see how, without that anti-kink, it would be a well written, lovely book.
*the romantic betrayal he endures doesn't seem to be an act of cruelty directed at him as a person so much as a product of circumstance and other people's weakness. It doesn't seem like it would have happened without the outside circumstance? And there was nothing particular to him that made it happen, unlike Fleur being targeted for her sex.
ReplyDeleteTo continue talking about this fairly, I'd really have to re-read the book which... erk, not willing to do. So... ((backs slowly away from discussion))((waves)) :)
I think you're absolutely right that the comparison between injury inflicted during a war (it was actually one of his own soldiers who accidentally bayoneted him (325)) and violent sex imposed on women is
ReplyDelete(a) gendered
(b) one in which the victims of the violence have differing levels of choice. Adam's choice to go to war was one he made freely, whereas Fleur's decision to prostitute herself was made only as a very last resort and
(c) one in which only the victim of the sexual assault has to literally get into bed with her enemy and not only forgive, but come to love him.
From a literary point of view there is a lot of precedent for the comparison because the language of sexual intercourse often draws on the language of war: there's the thrust (as from a sword/bayonet), the "taking" of a woman's virginity (just as a military position is "taken"), in literature a women might be compared to a citadel whose virtue/defences had to be stormed and, as Robert Jensen has observed, "Pornography and war are not the same endeavor, but the mass-mediated misogyny of modern pornography and the high-tech brutality of modern war share a common cruelty."
I'm not sure that Balogh was wanting to set up that comparison, but I wonder if it's something that's resonating with you and making you feel particularly uncomfortable? Certainly I think Balogh succeeds in creating a brutal initial sequence of events, and Adam is, in Fleur's eyes, the embodiment of "Raw manhood exerting its ruthless ascendancy over weakness and poverty and hopelessness [...] she hated him with a horror and a revulsion" (82) so Balogh's explicitly bringing the gender issue in here, but I'm not sure if it's fully resolved. Adam does feel guilt for what he did (and I'll go into that in more detail in part 2) but how credible a reader will feel that is probably depends a lot on how much the reader identifies with Fleur's initial suffering and how they feel about the
oft repeated Romance theme that worthy women must accept the cruelties the men who "love" them inflict on them and return love for misuse, above and beyond what I think it's reasonable to ask of any human being.
It's not a theme I'm at all keen on, and I had to prop my disbelief up with a clothes pole, not just suspend it, in order to accept Fleur's change of attitude, so I can quite understand you not wanting to re-read a novel which caused such a strong negative reaction for you the first time. I've had that reaction to some novels and I wouldn't want to re-read them either.
the comparison between injury inflicted during a war (it was actually one of his own soldiers who accidentally bayoneted him (325)) and violent sex imposed on women is
ReplyDelete(a) gendered
(b) one in which the victims of the violence have differing levels of choice. Adam's choice to go to war was one he made freely, whereas Fleur's decision to prostitute herself was made only as a very last resort and
(c) one in which only the victim of the sexual assault has to literally get into bed with her enemy and not only forgive, but come to love him.
Goodness! Thank you for laying this out so eloquently and concisely. That's exactly what I was struggling to pin down. And, you know, it wasn't so much that the inequity was there, but that the author seemed to regurgitate our society's narrative of female sexual victimization without commenting on its immorality. That, in fact, the reader was expected to think of the heroine's coming to love and forgive someone who'd hurt her was a perfectly acceptable and good foundation for happily ever after.
The Robert Jensen link was very enlightening; thank you!
I'm not sure that Balogh was wanting to set up that comparison, but I wonder if it's something that's resonating with you and making you feel particularly uncomfortable?
Well, yes. I'm sensitized to the issue, I admit. As my semi-rant over on the other thread makes all too obvious. ;) I object to seeing another example of the culture of victimization and capitulation surrounding women and their sexual relationships.
so Balogh's explicitly bringing the gender issue in here, but I'm not sure if it's fully resolved. Adam does feel guilt for what he did (and I'll go into that in more detail in part 2) but how credible a reader will feel that is probably depends a lot on how much the reader identifies with Fleur's initial suffering and how they feel about the...
Well. I think that, just as there are narratives out there that encourage men to be victimizers, and show them how, some Romance novels serve as narratives for showing women how to be good little victims.
I feel that I and every woman is deamned by that story being told, whether I identify very closely with the fictional woman involved or not. At the same time, it's a pebble in a lake compared to the broad sweep of these ideas in our culture; I just feel it's important to point it out when I feel I'm seeing it, you know?
Do I think Balogh meant to promote that narrative? No, likely not. But one only has to live in our society for a while to internalize it. Sadly.
She does a very good job of presenting the horror of what was done, as you say, but I think that by not really taking apart the assumptions of how a good woman reacts to abuse, she perpetuated a really negative idea.
It's not a theme I'm at all keen on, and I had to prop my disbelief up with a clothes pole, not just suspend it, in order to accept Fleur's change of attitude, so I can quite understand you not wanting to re-read a novel which caused such a strong negative reaction for you the first time. I've had that reaction to some novels and I wouldn't want to re-read them either.
At the same time it bugs the heck out of me, I'm glad that you got some enjoyment out of the book. And I hope you don't interpret my comments here as a judgment or anything because, heck, it's near impossible to escape this stuff in our culture, and we should take as much joy in things despite it as possible!
*demeaned
ReplyDeletenot "deamned"
*Lemme also clarify a bit: When I said what I did about "narratives out there that encourage men to be victimizers..." I was thinking of the porn mentioned in the Jensen article. Sometimes I feel like, at the same time men's erotic entertainment is teaching them to associate a woman's humiliation and degradation with pleasure -- to ignore or even fetishize signs of distress-- I think that women's erotic entertainment might be, in part, teaching that women should love the men who hurt them and, further, to love their humiliation and degradation as a sign of affection from men.
Interesting discussion no doubt. It makes me wonder though why women admire men that go to war to begin with. No need to mention the very long tradition of that. And then I wonder if there is any morality in war which in the end always seems to victimize everyone. Certainly there is no excuse for men victimizing women, an immoral act without doubt, but why not agree then that the narrative we share about war also is a lesson not worth teaching? Perhaps the problem here is that human life itself is very complex and does not easily yield to our versions of morality?
ReplyDeleteAngel, I wanted to bring some of the comments you made here over into this thread, so as to address them all together. Hope that's OK.
ReplyDeleteWould Fleur be the heroine of the story if she'd got angry and, as was perfectly within her rights, never wanted to see or be near Adam again, and not softened toward him, let alone come to love him? No. Would she have been considered by the narrative as worthy of happily ever after with another man who hadn't abused her? No.
Well, there wouldn't be a romance unless she ended up with someone, and she is actually offered an alternative, because Daniel, knowing what has happened to her, still wants to marry her. In fact, the way it's presented, I got the impression that we were supposed to think that Daniel isn't good enough for her, because he hasn't suffered enough. Suffering for both men and women seemed to be correlated with goodness, as long as they dealt with it in an oysterly way.
I see sexual and physical abuse as a tool of operant conditioning often used by men, in particular, to emotionally control women by "softening them up" with violence combined with "kindness" to make them acquiesce.
There's an interesting thread over at AAR about
the ages-old theme of men protecting women, even when the heroines are strong women in their own right. Now, I'm good with this automatic assumption of male protectiveness; in fact, I like it a lot.
It does depend a lot on how you define "protectiveness" but apart from in specific situations where the hero protects the heroine because it's his job (i.e he does so in his capacity as a policeman rather than because this is assumed to be the natural pattern of behaviour for a man), I usually find this theme troubling. It seems to me to suggest that a woman needs a man to protect her from other men. The choice then is between two aggressive men, one of whom may have abused her more than the other, and she chooses the least abusive and falls in love with him. I find that concerning because it says (a) men are basically like dangerous wild animals and (b) the best a woman can hope for is to find a wild animal who will eventually be nice to her after she's "tamed" him.
On the other hand, I can also see that some women may find comfort in the idea that men can be tamed and that women can recover from abuse. That may give them a sense of power.
For what it's worth, Balogh does show a women who's single and happy. There's a neighbour's unmarried sister, who's in her thirties. And when it comes to protecting Fleur, Adam doesn't resort to violence, but the fact that he does in the initial scene is still concerning, and the idea that a woman has a choice between mild abuse or worse abuse is present in his statement to the effect that "The treatment I gave you, by the way, was not rough. Your price should be triple what you asked. The higher your price, the more respect you will command" (9).
I don't think Adam would have been "sorry" if Fleur hadn't been a virgin. I think he would have been able to consign her neatly into the whore side of the extremely nasty virgin/whore value judgment scale in his head.
I came away with that feeling too, despite all that Adam has to say about him having recognised her as his love right from the start. Because if he did at some level recognise her as the love of his life right from the start, he had a very horrible way of showing it.
I hope you don't interpret my comments here as a judgment or anything because, heck, it's near impossible to escape this stuff in our culture, and we should take as much joy in things despite it as possible!
I don't think there's anything wrong about making a judgement, if you've got enough evidence to support that judgement, and in this case you have. Another person might interpret the same evidence slightly differently, and reach a slightly (or considerably) different judgement, but that's where the individual reader's personal attitudes/preferences come in, as well as how you contextualise this particular text within the genre as a whole and see it picking up themes which are perhaps present elsewhere in the genre in an even stronger, more overt form.
Anonymous, re
It makes me wonder though why women admire men that go to war to begin with. No need to mention the very long tradition of that. And then I wonder if there is any morality in war which in the end always seems to victimize everyone. Certainly there is no excuse for men victimizing women, an immoral act without doubt, but why not agree then that the narrative we share about war also is a lesson not worth teaching?
I'm not entirely sure if I'm reading you correctly, but are you saying that if war is like rape/abuse of women, then war is also wrong? I was very much affected by reading the WW1 war poets while still at school, and in particular Wilfred Owen's Dulce et decorum est:
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.
As a result I'm more likely to associate military service with post traumatic stress syndrome than with glory.
Perhaps the problem here is that human life itself is very complex and does not easily yield to our versions of morality?
Human life certainly is complex, but fiction in part attempts to make sense of that complexity. The author selects the story and moulds it so that it has a clear beginning, middle and end. Romance in particular is a genre in which the "novels are based on the idea of an innate emotional justice -- the notion that good people in the world are rewarded and evil people are punished" (RWA). There may be some exceptions, and there may be some attempt to deal with the issues in a complex way. Balogh, for example, includes a character who "can see a clear distinction between right and wrong" and contrasts him with Fleur, who sees "many shades of gray" (330). Balogh clearly is attempting to show that it's simplistic to make absolute moral judgements which don't take into account context and motivation.
Even so novels will never be as complex as real life and romance novels in particular perhaps invite discussions about morality because of the way in which certain actions/individuals are rewarded with the happy ending.
This has been a fascinating thread of conversation, and I thank all of the participants! Romance novels present us with many formulaic plot lines, and Balogh has returned more than once to the formula of the down-trodden heroine, who after being forced into sexual relations with the hero comes to love him, and he to love her. For many readers, it is this v. submissive and forgiving quality which is attractive in a heroine, and while certainly Angel doesn't care for it (for many valid reasons!) no doubt there are plot lines to which Angel responds to which those readers who enjoy submissive formulas would not respond.
ReplyDeleteFor me this is one of the strengths of the romance genre. There is such a wide variety of formulas available that any generation and type of reader can find something to their tastes. Younger readers seem to favor the stronger, more "spunky" heroines, while some older readers still identify with the more traditional submissive heroines. Or vice-versa.
Understanding the power and appeal (or repulsion) of each formula tells me as much about myself as a reader as it does about the books, and it's one of the main reasons why I enjoy romances so much!
andrea
Absolutely fascinating and insightful analysis, Laura. TSP is still not one of my favorite Romances (I have problems with Adam even more than with Fleur -- and not because of the rape), I appreciate your take on the book, and agree with you that Balogh is working at and with and around issues of pain, beauty, and sacrifice. You've discovered a great way to bring those to the fore, especially for people like me who didn't enjoy the book so much as a Romance.
ReplyDeleteBalogh has returned more than once to the formula of the down-trodden heroine, who after being forced into sexual relations with the hero comes to love him, and he to love her
ReplyDeleteThanks for explaining that, Andrea. I've not read a lot of Balogh (most single-titles are hard to come across in bookshops in the UK), so I didn't know this was a theme she's explored in other works. I have read one of her short stories which featured a heroine forced into prostituting herself, but I hadn't made the connection.
Understanding the power and appeal (or repulsion) of each formula tells me as much about myself as a reader as it does about the books, and it's one of the main reasons why I enjoy romances so much!
We're certainly demonstrating on this thread that different people can respond in different ways to the same text. I always find it interesting to read other people's perspectives and to be challenged to provide evidence for my own perceptions.
I have problems with Adam even more than with Fleur -- and not because of the rape
Robin, that's just tantalising. I do hope you're going to elaborate on that! What were the problems?
Thank you for discussing this with me, Laura. I seem to have forgotten even more particulars of the book than I realized; sorry about that. I'm going to reply mostly to the points you made more in general, if that's all right.
ReplyDeleteWell, there wouldn't be a romance unless she ended up with someone, and she is actually offered an alternative, because Daniel, knowing what has happened to her, still wants to marry her. In fact, the way it's presented, I got the impression that we were supposed to think that Daniel isn't good enough for her, because he hasn't suffered enough. Suffering for both men and women seemed to be correlated with goodness, as long as they dealt with it in an oysterly way.
*nod* Very good point.
It seems to me to suggest that a woman needs a man to protect her from other men. The choice then is between two aggressive men, one of whom may have abused her more than the other, and she chooses the least abusive and falls in love with him. I find that concerning because it says (a) men are basically like dangerous wild animals and (b) the best a woman can hope for is to find a wild animal who will eventually be nice to her after she's "tamed" him.
Yes. It's like a mafia protection racket; the whole thing's set up to benefit the ones in power who, if you bend over backwards far enough, *might* not hurt you too much.
It's an age old theme because it gives women hope in really dire situations; it's a horrific lie because it supports the system that put them in the dire situations to begin with. Women first have to accept themselves as natural victims--to believe that there is no chance of a better world where they don't have to be hurt so much-- and men as their rightful victimizers, and then hope and pray for the one prince true who might "protect" them, even though that possibility is presented as vanishingly rare; in Romance, this scenario of a woman's right to relative safety, or even lesser forms of abuse, is connected directly with True Love, that most elusive of creatures.
If we imagine and fight for a world where women aren't walking victims who have to be conscious of their place and their constant availability to assault, a lot more women could enjoy protection without having to sell their love for it.
I saw part of this in myself when you linked to the Robert Jensen article. I was shocked at first, quite unreasonably; I don't expect men to be capable of ethical considerations when it comes to their own power. I expect men to be the bullies I have to placate, dance around, take abuse from, etc.
And that way of thinking is supporting the problem. Part of what allows many men to do the things they do is that kind of insulting, sexist assumption that "boys will be boys," that they can't be expected, and certainly not required, to behave in a fully human fashion.
Yuck.
And when it comes to protecting Fleur, Adam doesn't resort to violence, but the fact that he does in the initial scene is still concerning, and the idea that a woman has a choice between mild abuse or worse abuse is present in his statement to the effect that "The treatment I gave you, by the way, was not rough. Your price should be triple what you asked. The higher your price, the more respect you will command" (9).
Ah, yes. Now I remember vividly why I wanted to jump into this book and kick the hero's ass. Grr.
If a man who had "not roughly" sodomized Adam while he was down on his luck had later told him that, Adam would have flown at the man in rage. And, being a complete vile bastard in a society where he rarely--if ever-- has to worry about such a personal violation, Adam doesn't even have to think about being violated as much as a woman and, if he did, he'd say something about how women's violation is "natural" and his own would, of course, be unnatural.
Heck, in some states in the U.S., raping a man still carries a heavier sentence than raping a woman. There's no other reason for this than that exact same mentality.
I came away with that feeling too, despite all that Adam has to say about him having recognised her as his love right from the start. Because if he did at some level recognise her as the love of his life right from the start, he had a very horrible way of showing it.
The thing is, he's so accustomed to the idea of being able to use and violate women that the conflict there doesn't even occur to him. He strikes me as being such a lost cause, and a nightmare as a husband. He's like an entrenched racist who can be "nice" to particular people of a different ethnicity, but lives according to the fundamental belief that they are beneath him and he is entitled to do whatever he wishes with them.
I wish somebody would write a historical romance about a man who doesn't just accept society's evil rewards as God's gift to him. A hero who, for instance, supports women's suffrage and is actually aware of the power disparity between men and women and its immorality. He could (shock! horror!) actually try to have a relationship with his heroine that isn't founded on the bedrock of her complete submission to him.
If somebody else doesn't write it, I might have to. And then we'll all be sorry! ;)
I'm going to reply mostly to the points you made more in general, if that's all right.
ReplyDeleteYes, of course. I think it's really interesting and important to look at novels in their social and intellectual context. They're not "just entertainment" - they can reflect on, transmit, or challenge a variety of ideas and stereotypes.
I don't expect men to be capable of ethical considerations when it comes to their own power. I expect men to be the bullies I have to placate, dance around, take abuse from, etc.
And that way of thinking is supporting the problem. Part of what allows many men to do the things they do is that kind of insulting, sexist assumption that "boys will be boys," that they can't be expected, and certainly not required, to behave in a fully human fashion.
Maybe I've just been lucky, but on the whole my personal experience is the opposite of yours I think, and I'm sure that shapes the way I respond to texts (and also the texts I choose to read). For example, it was my father who stayed at home to do the childcare and housework while my mother went to work. At university I shared a flat with 3 male students and we shared the cooking and cleaning rota and all chatted to each other and lived quite amicably. My husband is my best friend and I have never, ever, thought he comes from Mars. So I'm constantly surprised when people talk about some heroes "acting like real men" because in my personal experience although I've noticed differences between individuals, I've not noticed huge differences between men as a gender and women as a gender. It may well be that my experience is unusual, and/or it may reflect the society in which I've been brought up (most of the discussions about romances are by Americans about romances written by Americans, and I think there are lots of cultural differences between the US and the UK), so although I know that male violence against women exists and can range from the verbal to the physical, it's not something I expect. And even though I've come across gender stereotyping, I expect both men and women to behave as human beings, each as an individual with his or her own personality, rather than acting in particular ways primarily because of his or her gender.
I wish somebody would write a historical romance about a man who doesn't just accept society's evil rewards as God's gift to him. A hero who, for instance, supports women's suffrage and is actually aware of the power disparity between men and women and its immorality. He could (shock! horror!) actually try to have a relationship with his heroine that isn't founded on the bedrock of her complete submission to him.
Oh I think there are some. I've read quite a lot of Harlequin Mills & Boon historicals which are like that. And I blogged about Carola Dunn's Crossed Quills. So they're there, but I can see how at times they might seem to be overshadowed by the rakes and abusive/tortured/tormented heroes.
The Brontes are interesting in that respect, because they reflect that split between the abusive/threatening/authoritative hero and the gentler, perhaps less frequently found type of hero. While Charlotte gave the romance genre Mr Rochester and Emily bequeathed it Heathcliff, Anne's heroes in Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall are very different. The Tenant in particular deals with the issue of an male abuse of power, but does so without making the abusive male in any way romantic or heroic. Anne's novels haven't received the acclaim that her sisters' have, and the quieter, gentler heroes in the romance genre are often overshadowed by their more domineering peers, but they're still there, providing an alternative.
I wish somebody would write a historical romance about a man who doesn't just accept society's evil rewards as God's gift to him. A hero who, for instance, supports women's suffrage and is actually aware of the power disparity between men and women and its immorality. He could (shock! horror!) actually try to have a relationship with his heroine that isn't founded on the bedrock of her complete submission to him.
ReplyDeleteI've read a few of those. Unfortunately, none of them has ever made it to my "keepers" shelf. Part of the problem is that it's hard to pull off: the historical setting comes with certain expectations, and it's difficult to buck those expectations without going overboard and getting preachy.
Another problem became really clear in the last historical I read with a hero who refused to dominate--another Balogh, as it happens. Sometimes the heroine isn't ready for self-determination! I didn't enjoy Balogh's The Gilded Web, for a number of reasons apart from the male/female dynamics. The hero is practically a nu-school feminist who wants the heroine to recover from years of oppression at her father's hands. Problem is, she doesn't have much personality left, which makes her a dull and exasperating heroine and leaves him forcing her down a path (for her own good!) that she's not sure she wants. As in The Pearl, Balogh sets up the situation and then doesn't really let it play out. I can see why not: that would be a very different book, more somber and psychological. But it's unsatisfying to raise these large issues and then resolve them in a sudden "Doh!" revelation at the end.
laura,
ReplyDeleteOh I think there are some. I've read quite a lot of Harlequin Mills & Boon historicals which are like that. And I blogged about Carola Dunn's Crossed Quills. So they're there, but I can see how at times they might seem to be overshadowed by the rakes and abusive/tortured/tormented heroes.
Too right. There are other options out there--I read and enjoyed the heck out of Crossed Quills, for instance--but it's easy sometimes to let the negative cast its broad shadow over the whole genre.
I wasn't aware of the works Anne had done; thanks for pointing her books out to me!
Also, if it's ever convenient for you, I'd love some of the titles of the Mills & Boon historicals you'v e read that are like that! ;)
rfp,
Ah, but the hero I wished for wouldn't have to be anachronistic or unrealistic. When I typed that, I was thinking of a hero very loosely based on John Stuart Mill, actually. That man had a very progressive, humane philosophy of women's rights which was quite different from modern feminism.
If a hero was based on him, the peculiarities of the hero's philosophy could be part of his characterization and conflict; what if he thinks that women should be equal under the law and have all its protections--that they should be able to own property separate from their husbands, have legal rights to their children, divorce, vote, etc.--but also thinks that women are naturally nurturing and submissive, poor dear doves? Depending on what the heroine is like, there could be a big conflict between them without rape or essential denial of the heroine's humanity being involved.
Holding an opinion doesn't mean that someone is going to follow it perfectly 24/7. Being a male ally for women's rights doesn't mean that the character's philosophy would be wholesale modern feminism.
Here's a scenario, let's say this hero has meetings with women's groups, but at them he unconsciously takes control of the situation and tends to talk over the women. A bit of "here's what we're going to do, ladies." He thinks of them as the passive damsels in distress he's out fighting for, like a brave political knight; he doesn't think of them as securing their own freedom. He doesn't realize how much their right to act on their own behalf must mean to them. He's very well intentioned, but arrogant nonetheless. Most of the women are just grateful to have a male ally, and maybe even they don't notice him using his privilege, but one woman in particular stands up to him.
She tells him that he's doing great things, but if he's going to act like this, it isn't good enough. He's shocked and angry; he's helping her! How dare she question him!
What if he fell for her, and they had to somehow wrangle out their interests, their beliefs? He could confront his own power and have to decide whether he wants to use it to push her around for not being what he wants, or follow his ideals and respect her?
And that's just one possible scenario. There are lots of dynamic ways the idea could go.
I think the problem you've come up against is that authors feel that feminism is a crystal vase which has to be held in stasis under museum quality glass, but it isn't. It's a vital, organic thing that has taken many forms throughout history, none of them perfect. Even today, the feminisms of the woman's movements of China and India, for instance, are quite different from the feminisms in America or the UK.
Note: JSM was a liberal thinker and a member of the the British Parliament during the 19th century. He wrote a piece called The Subjection of Women, which is where I got the idea of variations in the perspectives of feminist thinkers of the years. He was a brilliant man who had his own meeting of the minds and love with Harriet Tyler, a woman he worked closely with and married after more than two decades of close friendship.
ReplyDeleteWhen I say a character very loosely based on him, I mean that the character would be part of the liberal movement, involved in politics, perhaps in Parliament? Something like that. Maybe a young man who, for various dramatic backstory reasons (a meek Jane Bennet of a sister who was married to a man who abused her? The woman from whom he's taking his idea of all women as dear sweet doves who need saving. And he and his family find out too late--or just in time to get caught up in some nasty legal mess trying to help her?-- Something very dramatic, you know), ends up devouring JSM's writing on women's rights (and other writers during the time?) and then going after reform with a relentless passion that, along with his extreme ideas, needs to get tempered and strengthened through the course of the story.
I'd have to do a lot more research to pin down particulars.
We've got heroes of rare beauty, rare riches, and rare wit in Romance. Why not a hero of rare thought? Who would, of course, have to be pretty, too. And perhaps even rich! This is Romance, after all. ;)
I wasn't aware of the works Anne had done; thanks for pointing her books out to me!
ReplyDeleteShe's by far my favourite Brontë, so I'm always happy to recommend her. Her work's not as dramatic as her sisters' so some people perhaps find it boring but her heroines have a quiet fortitude, a mind of their own and a sense of duty. She also deals with issues that were of importance to women: Agnes Grey is about the plight of impoverished gentlewomen and, in particular, governesses (which makes it a bit of an antidote to some of the duke and the governess romances ;-) ) and The Tenant is about the power that men had within marriage, so she deals with important issues and she has heroines who rescue themselves.
Also, if it's ever convenient for you, I'd love some of the titles of the Mills & Boon historicals you've read that are like that!
They're maybe not exactly what you're thinking of, but some of them have heroines with radical politics and some deal with the issue of violence against women/prostitution/the sexual double standard.
Polly Forrester's Changing Fortunes (1997) is a novel I mentioned a while ago on the blog. It's set in the aftermath of the First World War, and the hero (the bastard child of a servant who got pregnant by her master) introduces the heroine to the works of Marie Stopes and supports her dream of running her own business.
Janet Grace's Fool's Heaven (1990) involves the hero and heroine trying to find out what happened to the hero's cousin, who became a prostitute. To do this, the heroine poses as a kept woman, and becomes friendly with some of the prostitutes she meets.
Janet Grace's Shared Dreams (1992) involves a hero and heroine who have, as the title suggests, a shared dream. They'd like to create a model village, taking advantage of new technology (canals, advances in mining) to provide the funds to allow them to educate the village children. Reminds me of Robert Owen's model village of New Lanark. [Some interesting quotes from Owen can be found here and details of his life can be found here.]
Ann Hulme's No Place for a Lady (1988) involves a heroine who campaigns on behalf of prostitutes and a hero who goes from using prostitutes himself to supporting her work. The change takes place over quite a long period, and he has to face public ridicule as a result of his association with the heroine. He's another war hero, like Adam in Balogh's novel but he doesn't treat the heroine this way and they both compromise and learn from each other. The heroine isn't meek or particularly forgiving.
Paula Marshall's Lady Clairval's Marriage (1997) includes a hero who's a journalist and a heroine who's got an extremely violent, abusive noble husband, so it perhaps reminded me very, very faintly of The Tenant, despite the fact that the personalities of the characters involved are extremely different.
Claire Thornton's Raven's Honour (2002) isn't exactly political, but the heroine is a resourceful woman, and the daughter of an extremely successful business woman (who built up her business empire despite being a single, unmarried mother). The hero, who's an officer fighting in the Peninsular War, respects and admires both of them.
Sheila Bishop's Fair Game (1992) deals with the sexual double standard. The hero has a bad reputation, but he's not a rake without a conscience, and he doesn't compromise the heroine. All the main characters have to work through issues such as identity vs. reputation and morality vs. conventionality, ideals vs. human frailty and error. It's not a rake tamed by a virgin story. Sheila Bishop wrote other novels involving adultery, including one in which the heroine commits adultery, and it seemed to me that she was interested in exploring the complexity of situations rather than reducing them to a simplistic good vs. bad.
Marie-Louise Hall's Rake's Reform (1997) does have the rake who changes as a result of coming into contact with the feisty American heiress plot, but I didn't feel that they were stereotypes. In the end the hero is going to help the heroine in her zeal to improve the lot of the poor, by providing employment on their estate and making Radical speeches in the House of Commons.
Getting away from the Mills & Boon's, Fiona Hill's The Country Gentleman (St. Martin's Press, 1987 / Fawcett Crest, 1987) has two politically aware protagonists, and the hero's considerably more radical in his views than the heroine. She writes for a newspaper and is a famous wit. There's also another character who's dealing with the after-effects of an abusive marriage.
I can't guarantee you'll like any/all of these, of course. Sounds like you've got quite a lot of ideas for writing a romance yourself.
Thank you so much, Laura! I search high and low for feminist Romances--often clawing my way through many books that make my hackles not only rise, but do agonized gyrations-- so having a whole delicious list of them all at once is comparable to finding a pile of beautifully wrapped presents under the tree on Christmas morning. My library even has a couple! =)
ReplyDeleteHere's a scenario, let's say this hero has meetings with women's groups, but at them he unconsciously takes control of the situation and tends to talk over the women. A bit of "here's what we're going to do, ladies." He thinks of them as the passive damsels in distress he's out fighting for, like a brave political knight; he doesn't think of them as securing their own freedom. He doesn't realize how much their right to act on their own behalf must mean to them. He's very well intentioned, but arrogant nonetheless. Most of the women are just grateful to have a male ally, and maybe even they don't notice him using his privilege, but one woman in particular stands up to him.
ReplyDeleteI've read a book that very closely fits this description, with a Regency man who takes a strong interest in women's causes. Also a similar book in which he's a more reluctant convert to his fiancée's(? lover's? new wife's?) feminist organization. Sorry, authors escape me right now. That kind of theme might be Googleable... hmm. Googling "feminist regency romance" finds some interesting links, but not the books I'm thinking of.
A couple of Regency authors have written series based on a woman and/or man involved in a home or service organization for poor or "fallen" women, and the ways that interest has put them at odds with society. If I come up with an author, I'll post it.
Perhaps a truly modern (or post-modern?) historical romance would put aside the usual dichotomies and gender positions and any sense of "self" in the old liberal sense and create a narrative that explored the relationship between power and resistance not in terms of male vs. female but simply in terms of human performance, agency. I remember once someone telling me his elderly father was lying in a sick bed and Hilary Clinton went to visit him. His father asked Hilary to come closer to the bed, and Hilary jokingly remarked that that was the best offer she had had in a long time from any man. Now that is a scenerio worth preserving as an example of the future of historical romance. Yes?
ReplyDeleteAngel, I can't guarantee that all of those are feminist, but I hope you'd like them. I'm always a bit hesitant to recommend books, because I know how much tastes can differ, and something that one reader barely notices might spoil the book completely for another.
ReplyDeleteLaura, Yeah. Recommending books can be an awkward business. No need to worry, though; I look at books recced to me as more a good direction to go in rather than a guaranteed good read. That said, I got the Paula Marshall book from my library yesterday and I'm really enjoying it. :)
ReplyDeleteJayne and Janine of Dear Author recently recommended a Regency romance by Janet Mullany. I've started her first Regency, Dedication, and it's an interesting blend of conventional Regency romance with some interesting themes. A couple who are 37 and 43, a man who writes "silly novels" and tries to protect his daughter from a bad marriage, the question of who ruined whom in a youthful relationship.
ReplyDeleterfp,
ReplyDeleteI've read a book that very closely fits this description, with a Regency man who takes a strong interest in women's causes. Also a similar book in which he's a more reluctant convert to his fiancée's(? lover's? new wife's?) feminist organization. Sorry, authors escape me right now. That kind of theme might be Googleable... hmm. Googling "feminist regency romance" finds some interesting links, but not the books I'm thinking of.
A couple of Regency authors have written series based on a woman and/or man involved in a home or service organization for poor or "fallen" women, and the ways that interest has put them at odds with society. If I come up with an author, I'll post it.
Oh! These sound great. If you remember any of the author's names, I'd love to have them. Even if you can't, though, it's good to know these sort of books are out there, so I can keep my eyes open and search for them.
Jayne and Janine of Dear Author recently recommended a Regency romance by Janet Mullany. I've started her first Regency, Dedication, and it's an interesting blend of conventional Regency romance with some interesting themes. A couple who are 37 and 43, a man who writes "silly novels" and tries to protect his daughter from a bad marriage, the question of who ruined whom in a youthful relationship.
Oh! I definitely think I'd like this one; I've added it to my library queue. Thank you. :)
*Uh. Imagine I proofread and replaced one of those delighted "oh!" interjections with a "my!" or "goodness!" please? ;)
ReplyDeleteI finished the Janet Mullany book, Dedication. I was disappointed in the storytelling and pacing in the last half, but I still feel it does some interesting things thematically. (If anything, IMO, it hits the feminist themes too blatantly.)
ReplyDeleteI also just finished Julie Anne Long's The Secret to Seduction (my review is here). It's flawed, but some of the writing is excellent. It has some interesting parallels to Dedication, e.g. another male character who writes romantic fiction. In this case it's sexy poetry, so he's considered a rake rather than a "silly" novelist.
I didn't love either book, but they're very interesting together. Two quite different styles in terms of the romance and themes, though both are "wallpaper" historicals. I thought both fared best before the characters arrived in London--that's where the focus is taken off the central pair, and that's where the thinness of the history is most apparent.
The book is indeed hard to put down once you start to read it, but I really had a big problem with Adam; he did not convinced me that he is such a 'romantic hero' and that he really loves Fleur. Putting aside that fact that he willingly hurts Fleur at the beginning (despite the fact that he realizes at first thrust that she suffers; but does he stop? No. He only continues 'swiftly'=violently!!!), he is never really repetant for all the pain he has caused. He has some (a small amount though) of guilty feeling, that he puts fast aside once he finds a position for Fleur. He helps her indeed in getting a less hurtful life, but he is never convincing as a person in love. I mean, everything he does is well motivated by a certain feeling of guilt he feels, and by the fact that he is 'an honorable' man and tries to do always the 'honorable' thing (as he did it for Sybil as well), but as I see it, he would have done exactly the same for anyone in Fleur's situation. Therefore, there is nothing he really does only for Fleur, because she is who she is and because he loves her; it's just helping another person in need, who might have been anyone in fact.
ReplyDeleteNow, if he had had nightmares about his guilt and about what he had done to Fleur, if he had put his pride aside when dealing with Fleur (e.g., last scene), if he had convinced her (and the reader) about his reasons to have been so cruel in the first chapter, then I would have probably managed to like him. But he does not seem to realize even until the end that he was indeed cruel and he marked Fleur for life in an awful way; he never finds Fleur's repulsion much justified and he imposes on her much too much. And he does say at some point that he recognized her as the love of his life at the first sight. And this is how he treated her (at the beginning), a woman clearly starving and scared? God helps Fleur in her future with him if this is how he treats the women he loves.
And what about the non-sense of 1 year apart at the end, without much insight of how he has felt during their separation, if he really missed her as she missed him, or if it was just some occasional yearning, as I got the feeling. In fact, I got this feeling that Adam would have managed very well without Fleur without much pining or ache; he was fully motivated by what he thought to 'honorable', but from the beginning to end he remained a cold, distant and rather harsh man. Which, unfortunately is not what I look for in a romantic hero.