I've been re-reading Loretta Chase's Lord of Scoundrels and for some reason the following passage suddenly reminded me of something:By Friday, he had debauched her in the window seat of his bedroom, an alcove off the portrait gallery, under the pianoforte in the music room, and against the door of her sitting room - in front of his mother's portrait, no less. And that was only the daytime depravity. (270)It didn't take me long to work it out. At this point I should warn anyone who hasn't read Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar that there will be spoilers. As explained in Wikipedia
The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a children's book written by Eric Carle, first published by the World Publishing Company in 1969. The winner of many awards, it has sold 30 million copies. [...]
- Day 1: The main character is established. The hungry caterpillar eats through a single red apple.
- Day 2: The caterpillar eats through 2 green pears.
- Day 3: The caterpillar eats through 3 purple plums.
- Day 4: The caterpillar eats through 4 red strawberries.
- Day 5: The caterpillar eats through 5 whole oranges.
- Day 6: On this day, the caterpillar devours its way through many, many different foods including; chocolate cake, ice-cream, a pickle, swiss cheese, salami, a lollipop, a cherry pie, a single sausage, a cupcake and a whole watermelon.
- Day 7: The caterpillar eats through a single leaf.
- Final chapter: The caterpillar cocoons itself and comes out as a beautiful butterfly. The hungry caterpillar is hungry no more - neither is it a caterpillar.
Do I need to mention that on first seeing Jessica, Dain "contemplated licking her from the top of her alabaster brow to the tips of her dainty toes" (27-28) or that after their marriage "The reality, he found, was sweeter, and the taste and scent of her more intoxicating by far, than the dream. [...] He inhaled her and tasted her" (261)? Dain's "hungry caterpillar" stays hungry, of course. Lord of Scoundrels isn't a children's book, after all. But emotionally one could say that he "pupates and emerges as a butterfly" just like romance rakes tend to do.
- Chase, Loretta. Lord of Scoundrels. New York: Avon, 1994.
This is too, too delightful, Laura! Although I'd hate to think of Dain being "hungry no more" after his transformation.
ReplyDeleteI taught "Lord of Scoundrels" for the first time this term, and my students loved it. When I teach it again, may I borrow your observation for a little in-class joke?
(Any romance novels that sound like "Goodnight Moon"?)
What a strangely charming connection.
ReplyDeleteDain's "hungry caterpillar"Oh my. I will never see the Hungry Caterpillar in the same way again ;)
I'd hate to think of Dain being "hungry no more" after his transformation.
ReplyDeleteI think I'll have to elaborate on my comparison in order to reassure you on this point. The Caterpillar of Love is a complex creature.
Carle originally drew a worm instead of a caterpillar and the book was called
"A Week with Willi Worm." It had clever cutouts in the pages where the worm ate his way through things -- the result of idle doodling with a hole punch -- but Beneduce wasn't convinced. "I didn't think a worm was terribly appealing. And it didn't have an ending. The worm ate, he didn't feel well, he went to sleep. That was where I said, 'Let's try a caterpillar,' and we were so in tune with each other, I didn't have to finish my sentence. Eric said 'BUTTERFLY!!' It took him not two days, practically overnight, to finish the book." (L.A. Times)
Willi Worm (the Caterpillar's earth-bound alter ego) never stops feeling hungry, though he does need to go to sleep after he's "eaten." As Dain thinks about Jessica after her first "climax":
Just like a damned man, he thought exasperatedly. She got what she wanted, then curled up and went to sleep.
That was what he was supposed to do, blast and confound her bloody impudence. (224)
Dain can be read as a Caterpillar made up of both the physically hungry Willi Worm (who will always be hungry for Jessica's body) and the emotionally and spiritually hungry "insect" (8) (that's one of the things he's called by Wardell at Eton) who believes he is only an ugly, unappealing Willi Worm but who is transformed by Jessica's love which enables him to fulfill his potential and become a beautiful, emotionally-secure butterfly.
One could even imagine the cocoon as representing the novel's "point of ritual death" (Regis 35) but I think I'd need to do a more in-depth analysis of Lord of Scoundrels before I'd be confident about making that comparison.
may I borrow your observation for a little in-class joke?
Of course!
(Any romance novels that sound like "Goodnight Moon"?)
I can't remember Goodnight Moon. I may have read it once, but it's not as well-known in the UK as it seems to be in the US.
ROTFL! That is so cute.
ReplyDeleteYou know, one of these days I'm going to have to reread LoS simply because I'm beginning to believe I'm the only romance reader in the whole of romancelandia who doesn't see it as the best of the best of the best of what romance has to offer. I read it once and thought, oh, nice story, moving on, other things to read. :/
I've never quite figured out what I'm missing about it either. Maybe it's because I have read so many different types of romance over the years, though?
One could even imagine the cocoon as representing the novel's "point of ritual death" (Regis 35) but I think I'd need to do a more in-depth analysis of Lord of Scoundrels before I'd be confident about making that comparison.Well, I don't think you'd have to limit it to LoS to make that case. It would probably become pretty clear with randomly selected romances although the results might be slightly more erratic. I guess what I'm saying is that the romances that also focused on other things besides the relationship, i.e. suspense, fantasy, paranormal, science fiction plots et al., might make it a tad more difficult to prove the case. So you might want to stick to purely relationship romances.
ReplyDeleteWhat a strangely charming connection.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you think so, because I thought so too, which is why I couldn't resist blogging about it.
And since at TMT we only promise "musings on romance fiction from an academic perspective," and don't specify what kind of musings those will be (other than them being influenced by our academic backgrounds) there's nothing in our mission statement which rules out the posting of something which I found very amusing to write and which is guaranteed to ensure that its readers "will never see the Hungry Caterpillar in the same way again." ;-)
I've never quite figured out what I'm missing about it eitherBev, my impression of Lord of Scoundrels and its popularity is that it takes a very common romance storyline (the beautiful maiden taming the beastly rake) and amplifies those stereotypes to the maximum while simultaneously undercutting and bringing them to life with humour.
It's sort of self-consciously self-parodying while also being quite serious at the underlying, symbolic and emotional levels. It's like Dain and Jessica's conversations. They say one thing during their exchanges of insults, but you know they mean another.
And even if one doesn't like the premise of the story, I think what Chase does with it is a bit like what Dain does with toilet humour:
Jessica had never before understood why men found those sorts of anecdotes so gut-bursting hilarious. She had moments ago discovered that they could be funny enough if related by an evilly clever storyteller. (177)
That said, some people will never appreciate "privy and chamber pot jokes" (177) however well told they are, or they may be bored of chamber-pot and privy jokes, and so may not find them entertaining any more. So I can see how Lord of Scoundrels might not appeal. To be honest, the story itself isn't one that appeals to me because I'm not that keen on rakes, but I do think that in this novel Chase demonstrates that she's an "evilly clever storyteller" so I appreciate it from that perspective.
Well, I don't think you'd have to limit it to LoS to make that case. It would probably become pretty clear with randomly selected romances although the results might be slightly more erraticOh Bev! Please don't spoil my fun! I was trying to think up some really convoluted explanation of how Dain's damaged arm was in a cocoon (sling) and when he's become a beautiful butterfly (has shown love to his son) he burst out of it and the arm works again.
ReplyDeleteOf course, his Hungry Caterpillar in its Willi Worm alter ego doesn't bother going into a cocoon, which is why "By Friday, he had debauched her in the window seat of his bedroom, an alcove off the portrait gallery, under the pianoforte in the music room..."
and which is guaranteed to ensure that its readers "will never see the Hungry Caterpillar in the same way again." ;-)Absolutely. So very well done of you.
ReplyDeleteAnd BTW, it's because of the way Chase uses humor in this book that I find myself re-reading it on an almost annual basis. It's one book I don't delete from my PDA when I'm done reading it.
Thank you for brightening my morning greatly. LoS has never been one of my favorites, but now I will simply have to re-read it.
ReplyDeleteIf I've made people smile, I've achieved what I was hoping for.
ReplyDeleteBut I can't guarantee you'll like the novel better, Virginia, if you imagine Dain (or parts of Dain) as a large and very hungry caterpillar. ;-)
Laura, as an indication of how funny I thought this post was, I had to check to make sure I wasn't at Carolyn Jean's blog, The Thrillionth Page. And I think she's about the funniest person in Romanceland.
ReplyDeleteBut... I am only on day 6 of TVHC. Why did you have to spoil it?! ;)
Okay, this is hilarious! I have to admit, I never recognized this influence, but now that you point it out, oh my.
ReplyDeleteI've always for some reason loved the title of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, without ever feeling the need to read a children's book. Now I see that I must!
ReplyDeleteLaura, this is brilliant, and so much on topic with the off-list conversation we've been having about "style" in writing.
And as a sometime amateur student of the 17th century, I like the rehabilitation of the caterpillar from the pejorative "caterpillars of the commonwealth" mentioned in Shakespeare and used against "beggars and vagabonds" as well as "pederasts."
Jessica, I'm very flattered by the comparison.
ReplyDeleteI am only on day 6 of TVHC. Why did you have to spoil it?!
I'm sorry you feel I've spoiled Day 7 of The Very Hungry Caterpillar for you, but I did put a spoiler warning in my post and if your reading is so leisurely that you couldn't get to Day 7 of the TVHC in one sitting, then I don't understand how your eyes could have skipped over the spoiler warning and down to the information in my post about Day 7 with such speed.
I have to admit, I never recognized this influence.
Well, I have trained for years in order to be able to spot this kind of intertextuality and not everyone can be as brilliant at literary criticism as I am. Or as modest ;-)
I like the rehabilitation of the caterpillar from the pejorative "caterpillars of the commonwealth" mentioned in Shakespeare.
I've not come across that quotation before. Nicely alliterative, although not complimentary to caterpillars.
To be somewhat serious, now that I've thought it up, I do quite like the metaphor of a romance rake being a caterpillar because rakes in romance do tend to be transformed by love, and the spiritual/emotional change (growing butterfly wings) doesn't mean that the physical body (of the very hungry caterpillar) is abandoned. If one looks at butterflies, there's still a very caterpillar-like body in between the wings.
On the other hand, caterpillars aren't endowed with hard muscles, panther-like grace and all the other manly attributes so essential to a romance rake, so perhaps the International Consortium of Heroes will lodge a complaint against IASPR if Eric starts to use The Very Hungry Caterpillar in his classes on romance.
I went off to Wikipedia and discovered that "The Ancient Greek word for 'butterfly' is ψυχή (psȳchē), which primarily means 'soul', 'mind'." I have no idea if this is true, but perhaps I should sound sure that it is, and pretend that I knew it all along. Greek always always adds a touch of erudition to a discussion.
Just as bible quotes so often unfortunately don't.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I was reminded of Heyer's Venetia, and Nurse's opinion that Damerel's increase should be eaten by the caterpillar. This misquote is funnier and more apt than the character Nurse could have meant, if one considers that in the original the (literal) caterpillar is eating the judged out of house and home, and that Damerel is in somewhat reduced circumstances due to the overactiveness of his personal 'caterpillar'. Venetia, not being addicted to bible reading, was under the opinion that increase meant sideslips and that parallels nicely too, given that Dain's self loathing of his own 'caterpillar' led him to leave his sideslips to the tender mercies of the caterpillar as in the original bible sense.
I was reminded of Heyer's Venetia, and Nurse's opinion that Damerel's increase should be eaten by the caterpillar.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you reminded me of this. It's been a very good excuse for getting out Venetia and re-reading it. For those who haven't read the novel, the context is that Venetia's nurse is highly distrustful of the rakish Lord Damerel. Damerel and Venetia have the following conversation:
[Venetia] '[...] she is being strongly moved by the spirit, and the chances are it would have moved her to say something impolite to you, which would have covered me with mortification.'
[Damerel] 'Oh, don't let that trouble you!' he said laughing. 'Only tell me how I should address her!'
'Well, we have always called her Nurse.'
'No doubt! But it won't do for me to copy you. What is her name?'
'Priddy. The underservants call her Mrs Priddy [...]'
'Mrs Priddy she shall be. You won't tell me I rank above the underservants in her esteem!' An irrepressible chuckle made him glance down at her; he saw the brimming merriment in her eyes, and demanded: 'Now what? Do I rank above them?'
'I don't think so,' she answered cautiously. 'At least, I never heard her say, even of the laundry-maid, that she would be eaten by frogs!'
He gave a shout of laughter. 'Good God, does that fate await me?'
Encouraged by the discovery that he shared her enjoyment of the absurd she laughed back at him, saying: 'Yes, and also that your increase will be delivered to the caterpillar.'
'Oh, I've no objection to that! The caterpillar is welcome to my increase!'
'No, how can you be so unnatural? Increase must mean your children!'
'Undoubtedly! Any side-slips of mine the caterpillar may have with my good-will,' he retorted.
'Poor little things!' she said, adding thoughtfully, after a moment: 'Not that it is at all easy to perceive what harm one caterpillar could do them.' (55-56)
Heyer, Georgette. Venetia. 1958. London: Pan, 1976.
It seems to be a reference to Psalm 78: 45-46 (which is describing the various plagues God sent to afflict the Egyptians):
He sent divers sorts of flies among them, which devoured them; and frogs, which destroyed them.
He gave also their increase unto the caterpiller, and their labour unto the locust.