Ok, folks, are you ready?
I’ve read this book, I loved it, but I wasn;t sure I even liked it until I finished it.
There are no rules. Don’t feel like you have to read every single comment before posting. Don’t feel like you have to respond to every comment. Don’t feel like you aren’t allowed to make a short “off the cuff” comment. Don’t feel like you have to love or even like this book.
If you only got through some of it, that’s fine, but we will be discussing the whole thing.
I’m on eastern time, so it’s about 7:00pm here. I’m good for a few hours, checking in as often as possible in between putting the kids to bed, but I will be back tomorrow morning and I hope readers outside the Americas will feel comfortable adding their two cents after we’ve gone to bed.
So…what’d ya think?
Ok, I’ll go first.
I read this book early this fall. I’ve spent most of the weekend trying to fit in re-reading it, dog-earing corners at favorite spots. About halfway through, I gave up the dog-earing – didn’t seem much point to have every other page dog-eared.
The Dear Author reviewers and commentators thought Black Silk‘s narrative was slow. Speaking as a reader who will try to deliberately slow down her reading speed to linger longer in a beloved story, this was not a problem for me. Anyone else?
This book was a struggle and I do mean a struggle to get into. I tried reading this book several years ago when I was on a Judith Ivory glom and could not finish it then. I restarted it maybe a year ago and no dice. Restarted it again for this discussion and I pushed myself and said no more. This book bores me like no other novel of hers. I just cannot finish this book no matter how hard I try. I frown when I think about this book and will have to say that I give up. I won’t try again.
@Jeanne: I also had the “too many dog eared pages” experience, except I read on a Kindle, and basically had the whole book underlined.
I did find it slow, in one sense: the relationship, on the surface, was not moving forward. Also there was not a lot of action. There’s a lot of internal stuff, description, mood.
But since that’s my favorite thing to read about, I was absorbed every minute.
@Keishon: Hmmm. Is it that you generally like more action? Or was it just that these two characters didn’t grip you?
I checked this book out from the library and then I bought it because I had to return the library book. I still haven’t gotten around to reading it (oh the semester, the semester is killing me!). I’m bummed I won’t get a chance to participate but at least I get to see what other people think!
@Jessica: Disinterest in the characters was the killer right there and I can and do have patience for a story that is being set up but it was just too slow going for me to even get involved in the story. I do tend to enjoy stories that have a lot of action in them so yes to both questions. But I read Kinsale and she can be slow going as well but this story just didn’t work for me on every level.
As one of the Dear Author reviewers in question (Janet), I just want to say that I don’t think Black Silk is slow; I think it’s dense. Also, I don’t think it has so many of the standard cues we so often associate with Romance. For example, Submit and Graham’s relationship doesn’t move forward easily; it’s uneven, and even when they first have sex, it’s disappointing and creates more distance between them. Even as they’re falling in lust with each other, they’re not sure they like each other, and the one thing that makes Submit really start to get hot for Graham involves her exploiting him for her own profit.
As to the issue of what does and doesn’t happen during the novel, actually, I think a lot happens. I mean, think about it: Henry dies, Graham’s sued for paternity, Henry’s will lands in probate, William seeks a way to challenge the will, the probate court begins handling the will (wills were not standard at the time, BTW, nor was probate), Graham struggles with Rosalyn, Rosalyn wants a divorce from Gerald, Graham is plagued by the serial and its success, everyone gathers at Netham, Tate pursues Submit, etc. If you compare the events, as small as some of them are, in this book with so many currently pubbed Romances, can we really say that less happens in BS? I feel that the novel is more detailed as to the movement of Submit and Graham’s lives than so many others I’ve read.
So why does it seem otherwise to so many readers?
I loved this book despite the slow start. Yes, there is a dearth of action in the beginning, but I found myself mesmerized by Ivory’s use of language and words. My copy was a library copy that I returned some time ago. I wish I still had it to give examples, but I was fascinated by the richness of the description. In general terms I can point to the way Ivory used costume to enhance characterization.
Later, when Graham and Submit begin to have more meaningful interaction I loved the way Ivory used dialogue to move the story further along.
It seems to me that this book wasn’t just written, it was crafted, if that makes any sense.
@jessica: Fine, be that way! (laughing at myself)
Now subscribing to correct thread. Will back tomorrow.
Have fun everyone!
My feelings for BLACK SILK is one of deep admiration rather than outright adoration.
Is it strange that I find the book so interesting, it almost doesn’t matter whether the h/h ended up together?
I wonder if it speaks of more of a cerebral enjoyment rather than a visceral one.
When I think of this book, it is the non h/h relationships that I remember best. Henry, of course. (I didn’t re-read Black Silk but thought a lot of Henry when I wrote the character of Bertie in Delicious, of how different characters experienced him differently, of how true that is in life.) And Peg. Peg is one of my favorite off-screen characters ever.
I’m going to ‘fess up here. I’m a terrible (as in, perhaps, morally) reader. I almost never read a book from start to finish. I fish around instead – looking for interesting bits that catch my attention, get my interest. So I usually end up reading the more salacious bits first (sigh, why am I admitting this in “public”?)
I too tried to read this book about a year ago using a library copy. I read the staircase scene, misinterpreted Graham’s character completely and dropped it.
I picked it up again this fall because I’d read some reviewers and commenters who raved about it. This time I made myself start at the beginning. I was racing through it until I got to the Graham-empties-his-pockets-scene and fell in love. I stopped and started all over again – going very slowly this time to savor every moment.
Magdalen posted on the historical inaccuracies in the book, and I have to admit that while I did not question Submit’s financial situation, I had two big problems:
1. That a penniless woman with no champion could waltz into a gentlemen’s club and seriously threaten the hero, and actually convince the court to back her suit. Who on earth is going to tale this woman’s side against Graham Wessit? In what alternate universe does a penniless prostitute have power over a titled man?
2. That Graham would have been pilloried. I saw at the end that Ivory recognizes that pillorying ends two years before Graham got this punishment. I can allow her 2 years, but, according to my husband (he’s a nineteenth cent British historian, as luck would have it) it had been abolished in all but law for many years prior to that date, and would rarely if ever have been applied to someone like Graham. When Ivory herself says in the “author’s note” that his pillory was so central to Graham’s problems and resentments” that makes it a big problem for me.
Keishon — they were just boring? Not well developed?
Well, it’s no secret that I didn’t like Black Silk. I don’t want to gripe too much; that’s just obnoxious for everyone, and really rude to the book’s many fans. And anyway, I’ve done it here.
After writing out what my complaints were, I was most struck by the impression I got that Ivory wrote a book about two fairly modest (in means and social standing) people, then fitted their supposed titles and backstories around the characters. I gather she has written stories about more “ordinary” people; I would argue this was one of those stories. (Based solely on their personalities and behaviors, I think Submit is actually a genteel but untitled widow; Graham is, at most, a baronet.) Why she had to make them a marchioness and earl, I have no idea.
I recently read Jo Beverley’s An Unwilling Bride, and was struck by how well she conveyed the claustrophobia of living with servants everywhere. I can’t imagine Submit-qua-marchioness having lived in that sort of fishbowl for more than a dozen years and not having a much thicker skin and sense of self-importance. (And of course, it’s impossible that she’d be living in near-penury as a marchioness…)
But it’s all good — I got to learn a lot more about the legal world of mid-19th century England, detailed here.
@Robin:
LOL, Robin, bear in mind I’m an admirer of this book. I wrote an A review for it at AAR. But I think the answer to your question is in the question itself: none of the events you listed involve both Graham and Submit.
And forward-momentum events involving both H/H, fair or not, are what romance readers tend to expect in their romances.
@Jeanne: I keep meaning to do a post on what the reader owes the author. I doubt your method is morally problematic, but I do think you cheated yourself a bit in this case.
For my part, the staircase scene — the scene when they finally, finally, get it on — absolutely floored me. In fact, later, my husband and I were walking to a friend’s house for dinner and a memory of the scene flashed into my head. My knees buckled. that’s never happened to me before!
Phyl — I loved the descriptions. She even made the weather fascinating:
@Jessica: I had no problem with the pillory and I have some issues with Magdalen’s version of legal history, which I’ll take up in a separate comment or post at a later date (I need to confirm a couple of things first). One thing I will point out here, though, is that William is not represented as having standing to challenge Henry’s will; he’s simply seeking it.
As for the laundress’s suit, that didn’t bother me, either, regardless of its questionable legal possibility. I think it was designed to show Graham’s unsavory notoriety, his scandalous reputation and the impact it’s had on any sense of honor around his character, and it put me in mind of Brummell (talk about a fall from grace!).
@Magdalen:
You know, Magdalen, I used to think Ivory’s research was beyond impeccable. (Until THE INDISCRETION, when she had the Prince and Princess of Wales addressed as Your Majesties–which, come to think of it, I’m still willing to believe might have happened, just because Ivory wrote it.)
I think the thing about her writing is that it is so rich and full of so many details that unless something absolutely bonks me on the head, I just completely buy into the world she builds.
(It wasn’t until many years after I read THE PROPOSITION, for example, that I wondered how the heck Winnie put a man into her house abovestairs, just like that.)
@Sherry Thomas: that’s a good point, that none of the events Robin listed involved both the h/h. It was like they were on separate journeys, and they come together at the end.
I’m trying to think of other narratives that work that way — with a very satisfying, nearly ending credits — coming together.
On the other hand, both of their “issues” were so closely connected to the dead character, Henry, that it was like they were working out their relationship to each other as they worked out their relationship to him.
@Sherry Thomas: I think this is where the fact that I’m not a native Romance reader (I came to the genre late, was converted to it, and still read so widely outside of it) influences me experience of the novel. Because I had no expectations when I first read it, and this time, when I re-read it, I was paying particular attention to the narrative movement of the book because so many people — even those who love the book — find it slow. I definitely think the relationship develops slowly — is that what people mean? Because I just never found the book itself slow.
@Robin: Okay, so we can argue the law in another place and at another time. LOL!
But does no one else have the problem I have that these two people didn’t seem to have any of the indicia of peers of the realm? Money, influence, servants, retainers, insulation, and — in Submit’s case — homes!
Peers of the realm had a lot of responsibilities and a lot of hassles (to use a more modern term) but feeling powerless and having to do stuff for themselves were not among those.
@Sherry Thomas: God, I’m just beyond thrilled she never talks about the damn lemonade at Almack’s.
@Magdalen: I think it was obvious that Graham had a ton of money and influence — what I thought was most interesting about the laundress story was the way he engages her well beyond what he would have been expected to, adding a legitimacy to her claim by the projected sense of pity he feels toward her. In other words, I felt that situation was charged way more by Graham’s own sense of guilt regarding his wife and his own frustration at being judged a certain way than by any possible validity of the woman’s story.
@Robin: Where’s he getting these Republican notions from? Class identities are still powerful in the UK even today; when I first went there in 1971, they were even more powerful. I can only imagine how entrenched they were in 1858.
@Robin:
Given that–besides STARLIT SURRENDER/ANGEL IN A RED DRESS, which is only half-baked Ivory–BLACK SILK is her only book set before 1871, when Almack’s bit the dust, she didn’t have a whole lot of chances to talk about the lemonade.
But you know what, part of me actually wish she had. I’m of the firm belief that it’s rarely the what, but the how. And I think she would have brought such an interesting angle to the lemonade: made it the central symbolic motif throughout her book, used it to have bizarre and inventive sex, or wrung such a passage of lyrical beauty out of its pale warm vapid lemonadeness that it would have been worthwhile.
We each draw our own lines about what we can accept re historical inaccuracies. As real life is always infinitely more varied than fiction, it’s not too hard to think “Well, it could have happened.”
I’m not certain that Judith Ivory couldn’t have found another means besides pilloring to accomplish the effect on Graham. And I find it curious that what is supposed to be such a deeply distressing experience is never described in flashback. Other than it fits with the theme of Graham’s public reputation being continually pilloried, I’m not sure that it’s even needed. Does it fit too well – a device thrown in for the purpose of literary symbolism rather than actual character development?
@Magdalen: Yeah, Submit was brought really really low, now that you mention it. And now, having read The Proposition, I can see the similarity.
What do we say … is there a difference between knowingly moving the pillory date two years and Sumbit’s hard-to-swallow situation? Where does creative license end and research incompetence begin? How much suspension of disbelief do we owe to Ivory?
In some ways, it resembles the Kierkegaardian theme Robin explore din her DA post. Do we owe it to the author to read the whole narrative, exercise the principle of charity, interpret her as deliberately getting these things historically wrong so she can get her story right? Or has she let us down, discharging us from any obligations we might have towards her and her damn story? And why do I seem to have higher expectations of historical accuracy from Ivory than I would of Kleypas or Quinn? Is it fair of me?
@Robin: So I’ve asked my husband — a Dickens scholar of sorts — for an analogous relationship between an aristocrat and someone from the lower orders. In Bleak House, I’m told Lady Dedlock (her husband’s is the most powerful baronetcy — “his family’s as old as the hills and infinitely more respectable”) has empathy with the street crossing sweeper (Jo) who shows her where her former lover is buried. But even in that empathy, all she does is tip him excessively — which reminds me of the sort of kindly gesture of noblesse oblige, and not a real understanding.
If Graham had behaved that way toward the laundress (personally, I like calling her Penny, short for penniless chit), I could have understood. But he’s genuinely hurt by her, and that suggests a sense of equality — that she is on his level and thus has the ability to hurt him — that is completely antithetical to his class. And however tortured his backstory, he is still supposed to be of his class.
@Magdalen: What republican notions? I see Graham as an entitled, self-centered nobleman through and through. I do, though, think we often forget the massive changes that were going on during the Victorian period in England, changes that fundamentally challenged the nobility, more than a few of whom were being given a good literal run for their money by a rapidly rising merchant class. While in some ways these changes solidified the illusion of a rigidly stratified social hierarchy, in other ways is subverted those older notions of class and social mobility.
@Magdalen: Why do you think he’s genuinely hurt by her?
@Sherry Thomas: So can I confess that I adore Starlit Surrender — or more specifically, I love Christina and Adrien? Oh, I know the divorce issue is totally inaccurate, and there are a bunch of other problems (and the end just drops of a cliff), but I am still dazzled by those scenes in France where the two struggle with the changing sexual politics in their relationship. I do, though, hate the retitle of the book, as terrible as the first title is, too. So I keep to my first edition MMPB and hope it lasts a long time, lol.
You’re probably right about the lemonade, though.
@Jessica: I agree that Julia Quinn’s books work for me only in a sort of parallel universe in which 21st century Americans live in Regency Era England.
But yes, I do think there’s a huge difference between using the pillory (which is a bit allegorical, after all, and perhaps no worse a fictional excess than the use of Lula — the sexually predatory female — in the role of mythological Harpy in Morning Glory) and getting wrong such basic issues as who her characters are and why they live & think the way they do.
I wondered about Almacks too … wasn’t it on the wane or good and gone when this book was set (sorry, grammar on the wane tonight). Again, so thankful I’m enamoured of Untie My Heart because a Viscount who has barely lived in England as an adult and a sheep farming widow down to her last sheep, as it were … they are sufficiently unique to stand alone and frankly, that’s probably why I so love UMH: the vivid novelty. I must make the effort to re-read BS again but like Keishon, I’m afraid I may fail — somehow for passion to grow between me a reader and the characters, I have to be more interested in them.
And altho many books give a sense of stifled observation by servants (when you’re a duke, a marquess), An Unwilling Bride does it particularly well. Another example of widow’s rights is the latest Balogh, Tempted by an Angel or something: the heroine is terrified to pursue her rightful claims to the estate but the hero tells her (and others do too), dower rights cannot be set aside. Not by anyone.
On Graham’s attitude towards the “billiard table girl”, here’s something from the scene when he makes a deal with her:
And can I just add, that I love this quote. There’s a fine line between those types of pity. Flannery O’Connor was a master of portraying the latter in a certain kind of white Southern Christian.
@Robin: As I read it, Graham’s in his barrister’s chambers and finally agrees to settle some money on Penny and her unborn twins — but it’s not a “Oh, throw some money at her and make her go away,” sense of entitlement, but a sense of being wounded by the injustice of her accusations and still seeing that perhaps he can’t fight them. I’m not saying he was in a relationship with her, I’m saying her ability to extort money from him was hurtful. And why should he care, given that he’s so far above her it’s as if he’s from another planet.
But if you want more evidence of Graham’s Republican notions, what about Margaret (Peg) and all his sentimentality about her?
@Magdalen: For example, this passage pretty honestly relates Graham’s sense of self-centeredness. He does feel somewhat sorry for himself, but that has more to do with his own immaturity than what any sense of social equality with the laundress, IMO. In fact, I think there is more than one point where Graham has a very clear sense of his own privilege (like the morning of the fox hunt at Netham).
“Sitting in that office, Graham began to feel a peculiar ambivalence toward her that had to do with pity, though not necessarily the generous sort. He felt instead the kind of pity that celebrates a little: There but for the grace of God…. At one point, she looked at him directly. Or so he thought. Her eyes became flat and vacant, even as they were flooding over with tears—as if she cried for something far off, far removed from either herself or her present situation. It was an eerie look. In that instant, she seemed as mad as a hatter. And Graham’s animosity toward her all but disappeared. He felt a sadness, a sorrow that was for her alone.
“At last. He rather weltered in this feeling for her. He sat there, flexing it, turning it over and over in his mind, like the rediscovery of sensation in a numb limb. He wasn’t going to analyze it for its quality or, God knew, try and use it. He was only glad it was there, that he might feel something for someone besides himself.”
@Magdalen: IMO you’re conflating Graham’s sense of feeling disconnected from his emotions with a sense of social affinity. That Graham is powerful enough to sleep with a housemaid does not escape him, and he’s sort of pleasantly surprised at the fact that she’s so unwilling to cower around him — that she’s independent enough to not fall in love with him.
As for the laundress, when he’s sitting in court, what upsets him is that no one would question the idea that he would have impregnated this young woman — not that she can sue him but that even his own attorney can’t defend him on the grounds of reputation and likely believes that he is responsible. IMO that’s classic entitlement, the underbelly of the adolescent rebellions Graham mounted against Henry when he was alive.
@Jessica: Ha! I pulled the same quote.
Okay, I just finished it, literally a few minutes ago.
My thoughts in brief:
The writing/prose has an almost poetic/descriptive quality to it. Ivory is a very talented writer.
The overall feel to the story was very oppresive. I felt depressed as I read this story – all up until the end, that is. I thought to myself, how in the hell was this going to turn out well for either Graham or Submit?
For most of the story, I didn’t like Graham. He was too much the playboy aristocrat. I didn’t like that he was sleeping with another woman, while trying to woo Submit.
I didn’t exactly like Submit either. She was perched rather firmly on her pedestal.
I will say the ending surprised me, and that I am glad I continued to read all the way to the end.
The book did move me. It is one that will stand out in my mind, long after I have finished reading it.
Ah, yes, here’s the quote from the fox hunt at Netham:
“After Graham, others began to come in. The houseguests and the locals who had joined in the hunt gathered, some in make-do plaids and wraps, the more affluent dotting the cool morning with the hot scarlet of their coats. There were no chairs, the host not wanting to encourage indefinite stays—noblesse oblige had its limits. Guests and locals alike would arrive over the course of the next few hours, imbibe some of the manor house hospitality, duly greet and rub shoulders like the egalitarians they weren’t, then depart for home or lodging, returning to their positions in the hierarchy and status quo.”
Now that you mention it, I totally see that!
I’m afraid I’m only halfway in; I thought a reread would go fairly quickly, but forgot to allow for how rich Ivory’s language is and how often I need to take a break from it. It’s like eating the finest chocolates, when I’m more used to Hersheys.
I apparently remembered very little of the book. It’s been almost like reading something I’d never read before.
I’m not particularly worried about Graham being more egalitarian in his thinking–or just seeing people of the lower class more as individuals rather than conveyances of his own convenience–because I feel Ivory gets it across very well that he is unusual.
And his affair with Peg is also a sign of that, that he can see a person as an individual no matter her class of origin.
If Ivory had written a series of four friends or six brothers set circa the same era and they are all like that, I’d have had more trouble suspending my disbelief. But since Graham was quite alone and unique, my suspension of disbelief remains intact.
@Janet W: I’ve got UMH on the TBR. Haven’t read an Ivory yet that has been a disappointment.
@Jill D.: I had exactly the same sense of uncertainty reading it. I was wondering, is Submit not the heroine? Is there going to be a sequel? It wasn;t an enjoyable read for me the way the Proposition was.
I think it does a lot to break genre expectations, like you said, in having Graham stick with his mistress so far into the book. And she’s a very interesting character, a sympathetic one, one he could well end up happy enough with.
Also in Submit being happy with her late husband — that’s pretty unusual as well.
And in Submit’s name, so ridiculous in a way, but handled so well in the book. It’s almost like Graham is talking to the fourth wall when he says in the book how hard it is for him to even curl his lips around her name. It’s exactly what I, the reader, was thinking, too.
If we are to expect Graham to stick to the realistic attitudes of his class in 1858, then it’s not certain that Black Silk can even be written.
Submit is not a member of the upper class except by marriage to Henry. She’s barely a member of the middle-class – her father owns a large abattoir and I suspect this would have put him on the lower rungs of middle class in Britain in those days. Submit knows this and it’s only because of Henry’s “eccentricities” that she marries into the upper class at all.
And don’t forget that Graham spent two formative years supporting himself as an actor which puts him fairly low down on the social scale.
@willaful:
I made the same point at DA. For a book like BLACK SILK, it insults neither the author nor the reader to proceed slowly and luxuriantly.
@Robin:
I loved EM Hull’s The SHEIK. You can confess just about anything.
@Robin: Well, maybe this is too close to the legal debate we’re going to have elsewhere, but I think even ambivalence is absurd for Graham to feel in the context of a nuisance lawsuit. To paraphrase Yoda: “Pay or not pay. There is no fault.” A laundress, pregnant with his children or someone else’s, does not have the power to make him do anything except — maybe — pay a very small amount of money. I don’t believe she would have had the power to even make him self-aware of his reputation.
All of that strikes me as the American perspective on aristocracy. We want to believe that aristocrats have some idea how other people live. And I think they did — but only in a way that was very reassuring of their (the aristocracy’s) superiority and natural dominance. That’s the point of being titled, wealthy & powerful: you live up to your obligations, but they are reinforced not by the people who depend on you financially, but by the others in your class. And there’s no one in that lawsuit who’s of Graham’s class.
Yes, Black Silk definitely breaks genre “tradition” with Submit clinging to her past husband so strongly. It’s not typical at any rate.
When reading it, I knew it was a romance – therefore I new to expect a happy ending. I just couldn’t see how the author was going to be able to provide one. I was even able to find the ending believable. (your students might not have) I was very moved by the last scene with Submit and Graham at Motmarche. It’s probably my favorite scene in the book.
@Jeanne: I disagree with regard to both Submit and Graham. Nothing about Submit seems likely for a cit’s daughter or for a woman married for more than a decade to a marquess. Those facts should have made her used to having money in both situations, but in the former the money is socially tainted, and in the latter, it’s taken for granted. Instead, we’re supposed to believe she now has no money, and she’s able to make do by writing a naughty serial.
(I’m telling you — she’s an impoverished but genteel widow…)
As for Graham — he’s an earl. A notorious earl, but working as an actor wouldn’t have lowered his cachet as an earl. Hell, Bertrand Russell was an earl — and he worked as a philosopher! What could be more socially lowering than that . . .
@willaful: Hey Willaful! It took me a long time to go through this book, as well. I just find it so chock full of beautiful passages and interesting insights.
And Sherry, I see the Bertie connection now that you mention it, although I have always felt your writing style is reminiscent of Ivory’s.
Since I was listing the ways this book breaks conventions in my earlier comment, I thought I’d add that the hero is so not heroic. As much as I have problems, historically, with the way the laundress has him on the ropes, the fact is, she does, as does his American heiress, as does Submit. He’s actually a pretty weak guy in many ways. I thought this was signaled very early on in the text, with lines like,
And again with an image I adore!
@Sherry Thomas: LOLOL!
You know, I’ve been working with The Sheik for an article I’m writing, and it amazes me how perverse the novel’s relationship to literary Modernism is. On the one hand, there’s this really Modernist sensibility, and on the other, there’s an undercurrent of 19th century sentiment that makes for a very strange analytical odyssey.
@Magdalen: The funny thing is: I rather agree about Submit. It was jarring to have her doing her own laundry. How would she even have learned how? And it was hard to believe that she’d be so poor that she couldn’t afford a laundress – labor that was dirt cheap in those days. But I thought Graham’s experiences might have cracked open his mind just enough to let him see members of the lower classes as real individuals to whom he could give enough thought to imagine their feelings. Still, it could be perceived as just projection on his part. He was so depressed at that point. What was really upsetting him was his peers’ eager willingness to believe he’d sleep with a laundress and his barrister’s willingness to accede to his rakish devil reputation.
I’m not sure Graham is weak, exactly. I was very struck by the description of his dressing, with his watches and elaborately embroidered waistcoat, and how it was explained as him embracing the “prettiness” that he’d been abused for. The world and Submit see him as someone very fortunate, yet it seems he is constantly fighting against outside forces that try to define him and control him.
Which brings up a question: was Graham too hard on Henry? Was his reaction to the gift of the box paranoid? Or was he right to expect that it would be a backhanded gift?
@Jessica:
Yes he is. And more “typical” heroes supposedly don’t care what others think of them. Instead, Graham was, it seems, a man desperate to be loved (he spoils his children, he gives his big grand summer party, he tells his mistress he loves her even while thinking that he wasn’t at all sure that was true). I guess I found his neediness both touching and appealing.
You’re right willaful, weak might be too strong a word.
I do think as jeanne has also pointed out, that he was figuring out, rather late, that he couldn’t control his reputation. It’s a thing that it takes a society to build, not one individual, and one individual cannot undo it at will.
@Magdalen: I feel as if the argument you’re making is that someone like Graham (i.e. in his social position) could never be such as Ivory portrays him. If that’s the case, I would say that I think that argument is as problematic as evaluating Ivory via Dickens (two authors of fiction by two authors with their own perspectives and biases). That is, I think you can argue about the technicalities of the case, but to extend that to how Graham feels makes the argument much more difficult to support.
Obviously, any textual analysis may point out inconsistencies within a portrayal, and a subsequent discussion about whether those inconsistencies function in service of a larger novelistic coherence or whether they’re truly in a conflict that puts them at odds vis a vis the overall novel. But I think that’s different from saying that what might typically happen in a historical novel is not sustainable within the author’s fictional world. Which is what I feel you’re asserting. And honestly, I don’t think the type of nobleman you are asserting as typical is sustainable as historically universal (there is so much happening during the Victorian period to challenge and shift social norms, thanks in part to the Industrial Revolution, as well as other factors), so I can’t approach an analysis of his character from that starting point. And within the fictional world of the novel, I think Graham is very consistently portrayed as a proto-modern man. Is he early for the time period? Perhaps a bit, but I’m not even sure that’s true, since there are always subversive individuals during every historical period. And I think the complexity of the Victorian period is reflected in the diversity of characters history produced (from the Rossetti sublings to George Eliot to William Booth to Pasteur to Victoria herself).
@Phyl: Neediness and vulnerability are maybe a better way to put it.
I mean, there’s even a scene where he drinks too much tea and is at the mercy of his own bladder, for pete’s sakes.
And the point about Graham being viewed differently by “society” from how he views himself, or again how his mistress sees him, or how Submit does, is a point Ivory makes over and over with every character. even the dead guy, Henry, is two men depending on who is thinking about him. As Submit says “Nothing connected them. They did not seem to have even a piece of Henry in common.”
There are some important things being said about identity and intersubjectivity in this book, and not just between lovers.
I was looking again at Janine’s DA review, less enthusiastic but every bit as wonderful as Robin’s, and her comment that the scenes of teenaged Submit with Henry, about 40% in, were what drew her in the on the second read.
I agre with her on how compelling these passages were.
A very important scene, although I am not even sure why I think so, was the one where Henry and Submit are at the coast and she gets in the water and is knocked off balance and nearly drowns under the weight of her dress. “Henry seemed angry in a way she didn’t understand.”
It’s like in that moment, Henry’s veneer of rationalizations slips off and he really sees her, an the youth he is essentially stealing from her. Maybe that’s too strong, but it’s how I am tempted to read it.
I don’t think so; IMO Henry was an SOB (the serial demonstrated that for me). But that’s something I loved about the book — that Henry was kind of a jerk but still not a villain. Just as Graham takes quite a while to really grow up and decide to run his own life for a change and embrace happiness. But all that ambiguity around whether Henry knew the position he’d put Submit in, whether he tried to bring them together – I thought that was fascinating and I’m glad Ivory didn’t resolve it. I like the idea that Submit and Graham were wholly responsible for their happiness, even if Henry catalyzed it, I guess.
@Jeanne
I am also someone who jumps around a book when I’m reading (I often don’t like suspense, lol), I read this book straight through the second time, maybe because I already knew what to expect and I was so excited to get to that final scene (it’s so happy, even though it’s not all that explicit), and I totally agree that the scene you’re referring to marks a big shift in the novel and in Submit and Graham’s relationship. That strikes me as the first scene we see Graham as truly open (although he’s still charming!) that every time I read it I feel like I’m getting to know Graham on a whole new level. I totally get why Submit was knocked off her stride, too.
@Jessica: I think you’re absolutely right about Henry’s perception of Submit at that point, because right after he says “‘You would be years younger without me. You have jumped directly from infancy to middle age. When I was twenty—’…”
Did you notice, too, how colors play such an important role in the novel, especially black, white, and red? But other colors, too, in Graham’s vests, in the environment of Netham, in Submit’s hair, etc. I haven’t even started to figure out what that’s all about.
This time through the novel, once I hit the first passage mentioning Kierkegaard, I felt this huge window into the novel open. And even though I haven’t yet figured out how it all plays through, I’m convinced that Kierkegaard’s Sickness Unto Death is really important to the novel, especially this notion of despair and the various ways both Henry and Graham (and even Submit) suffer from some version of it.
@Jessica: LOL, I can go with neediness & vulnerability.
I’d love to have a conversation just about Henry. I cannot think of another book I’ve ever read where a dead guy (who is not hanging around as a ghost in a paranormal) is such an important character. As Robin just said above, there’s ambiguity about whether Henry manipulated events to bring Submit & Graham together or whether it happened in spite of Henry. I really like the way Ivory had me thinking about that long after I finished the book.
I find Henry fascinating. I don’t think Graham was too hard on him, but he was immature in his attitude towards him. He saw only one aspect of Henry’s character, and he saw it without empathy or understanding. He saw it as a young man looks at his father: solely in terms of how he relates to himself.
Henry is a great example of the perils of moralism. Moralism can be hypocritical, it can be cold, it can be cruel. Nietzsche said of Kant’s moral philosophy “the categorical imperative smells of cruelty”. Principles not tempered by the right emotional attunement are blunt instruments, even weapons.
Robin — I have more to say about S.K. but need more time.
And at this point, I’ve got to step away from the monitor.
Thank you everyone, especially you Robin, who, b/t this discussion and the one at DA has really put your money where your mouth is when it comes to exploring and educating about a favorite novel. I’ll look forward to checking in in the morning.
@Robin: This is hard, because I found Graham to be utterly without charm. But I still think nothing about him makes any sense — if he’d been a charming rake, I might have enjoyed him more and forgiven the cultural and historical anomalies.
I kept getting bits of Lord Lucan (i.e, the mid-20th century louche sense of entitlement) with an almost boyish sense of bumbling uncertainty. If there’s one thing I think is pretty consistent about the English aristocracy throughout the centuries, it’s that they really truly thought they knew what they were and what they were supposed to be doing. Graham displays none of that sense of fulfilling his duties; he is aware of his deplorable reputation, but not of his obligations.
Graham never seems to be getting what he wants, or wanting what he gets. And this notion that he falls in love with Submit slowly but realizes it suddenly — it just struck me as the rebound from Rosalyn’s hysterics. Ultimately, not an HEA I can trust, because Graham doesn’t seem very grown up.
So I just have to quote it:
It wasn’t until this weekend’s reading that I realized he was remembering her earlier comment to him when he was taking photographs of everyone and everything.
@Magdalen:
See, to me this is like saying ‘all Victorian women were repressed,’ or ‘the Victorians thought sex was bad.’ They are all three stereotypical generalization that may be appealing for certain perceptions about the period, but are also historically (i.e. factually) insupportable at any substantive, meaningful level.
I haven’t read all the comments but I thought I’d chime in. Hopefully I will be able to read through later on and get a feel for what everyone else thinks.
I read Black Silk early this year.
I just didn’t get this book at all. I didn’t find it particularly romantic. The 2 protagonists didn’t even kiss til something like 2/3 of the way through the book. I kept waiting for something (I don’t know what exactly) which never happened. There was no big payoff – I felt like the story “plodded” the most of the way through. I’m afraid I just don’t see the attraction – the prose was not enough to save this book for me. I was left with an overall reaction of “hur?”.
I know so many people love this book and I wondered after if there was something wrong with me that I just wasn’t feeling the love. So, I guess that made me even more dissatisfied – not that it’s fair to blame the book for that feeling, but it was kind of “I was supposed to love you and I didn’t and now I feel bad so now I don’t like you [the book] even more”. Am I alone?
@Jessica:
I always take this as a tremendous compliment, because I’m such a squeeing Ivory fangirl. But, lol, apart from the fact that I allow my characters to be flawed–and I’m not afraid of their negative emotions–I really don’t see the comparison myself.
Especially writing wise. Ivory has such exuberance, such inventive ways with language. You get the feeling that words just pour forth from her pen. Me, I hate to describe anything and only do it because I have to.
Meredith Duran, with BOUND BY YOUR TOUCH and WRITTEN ON YOUR SKIN, actually displays a writing style much more akin to Ivory’s. Mer is the great prose stylist of our generation of romance writers. I’m just getting by.
(Come to think of it, James from BBYT seems to be a direct tribute to Graham, with his seemingly wastrel ways and his jewels and elaborate ways of dressing.)
@Robin:
Now I have to confess I have no idea what literary modernism is. (Or rather, after taking a look at the wiki entry, I still have no idea how that might apply to THE SHEIK.)
@Robin:
Word!
@Sherry Thomas: LOL, Sherry; once I mention these things, you’re going to go, “Oh, of course!”
Anyway, literary Modernism broadly concerned the struggle of the individual to retain his or her identity against the assimilative, technological, degrading forces of society. From Eliot’s Wasteland to Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, to Dreiser’s Sister Carrie, as well as the novels of, say, Lawrence and Jean Rhys, you can see the pattern. Although the period has become associated with intellectual elitism, at heart the period is all about differentiating the integrity of the individual against the massive changes that increasingly mechanized and militarized societies were bringing (a lot of Modernism lit was written around WWI). The exploration of sexuality was also an important theme, and there was an emphasis on travel, a focus on distinguishing between self and “other,” as well as a strong criticism of society’s emphasis on obedience and the status quo.
So you can see a lot of this in Diana’s story — her desire to escape from social expectations and a cosmopolitan life. Her sexual exploration with Ahmed, her isolation and the cultural aspects of her journey toward self-hood, and the emphasis on the “natural” v. the “artificial.”
Of course all of this is tempered by an adherence to the structure of the sentimental novel in the strong drive toward marriage and the ultimate socialization of Diana into married life with a man who is not so “other,” at least not ethnically.
See, once you start rolling, you can track the tension through a lot of layers of the novel.
Sorry to be so late to this discussion. I had longstanding plans to go out tonight that I couldn’t ditch but I figured I’d catch up on this discussion when I got home.
Having read through the posts, I don’t have that much to add. I’m a little sad to say that I now understand both the people who love the book and the people who do not. I wish I could enjoy it in rereading as much as I did the first time. The characters fascinated me then. This time, I didn’t have that same lively curiosity about every facet of their personalities. I wanted more of a direct line, or an electric current.
I was saying to Robin when we were planning our DA reviews that my reaction to rereading this book makes me very sad. I’m not at all sure that there isn’t something missing or lacking in me that used to be there eight years ago. It’s a huge bummer not to be able to love love love this book.
One of the things I didn’t mention in my review (there wasn’t space) was that in my first read, I loved Graham to bits and wasn’t quite as keen on Submit, although I liked her. This time, my love for Graham diminished a bit, but I had more warmth for Submit.
I’m not sure why. It may have something to do with the place I am in my own life, or it may have to do with the ways these characters differed from my memory of them.
The scene with Henry and Submit on the coast was another one that really drew me in this time, too.
I’m not fascinated with Henry himself, but I am fascinated with the way Ivory can make me feel some compassion for him. William’s mother gave birth to him when she was sixteen, which means Henry impregnated her when she was fifteen, and normally, that would put a character very firmly into the “child predator/villain” category in my mind. But Ivory manages to make me feel compassion for him, and for any other character in the book that she tries to engender empathy for.
She’s some kind of genius, that’s certain. But I wish that she had found a way to streamline or distill this book. Maybe its magic would have been lost if she had, but I feel its magic is spread somewhat thin by the way things get dragged out, too.
“@Sherry Thomas: that’s a good point, that none of the events Robin listed involved both the h/h. It was like they were on separate journeys, and they come together at the end. ”
(sorry, I couldn’t get the quote thingy to work…)
Maybe that’s what bothered me most about this book. I didn’t like Sleepless in Seattle or Serendipity either. I want to see the journey the characters take together. I don’t find it satisfying for the main characters to be apart so much.
I haven’t read the book, but I saw this quote and can’t help wanting to comment: “her strength of purpose as palpable as the smell of rain in the air.”
Maybe the more metaphorical meanings of the word “palpable” were the ones Ivory was hoping readers would bring to their reading of this phrase. But for me the primary meaning of “palpable” is that you can “palpate” or touch something. So since you can’t palpate a smell, this phrase is telling me that her sense of purpose isn’t at all palpable.
I haven’t read the other comments yet, though I’ll do that when I’ve a free moment.
I wouldn’t have finished reading this if it hadn’t been for the discussion: I’d have stopped at the end of part 1. My impression of the book is very much that the two halves were different – as if the author had written the first half, stuck the manuscript in a drawer, and finished it as a more experienced writer.
But there was a week between my reading the first and second halves: perhaps I was in a different mood as a reader.
The plot irritated me in the first half. I suspect Ivory did her research, and these things could theoretically have happened, but I couldn’t suspend my disbelief. Would a court really kick a widow out of her homes in order to hear a claim on the estate by an illegitimate (by definition unable to inherit through blood ties) son? Would a court really try a neighbour of the Queen on the say-so of someone who thought he might have seen a laundress getting into his carriage? It just all seemed preposterous. (And if Sayers did her research, wouldn’t the hero have been tried in the House of Lords?)
And then the pictures…
So basically, I was annoyed throughout that half of the book – and had then worked it out that the lawyer was the villain of the piece, deliberately sabotaging their lives – because why else would wealthy people be so badly advised? The only thing that kept me reading was Henry: I thought that was a genuinely interesting idea, that two people who knew him well could read him so differently – and I was intrigued to find out why.
So, in the second half, the plot went away. (Hooray!) Sadly, so did the interesting question of Henry’s character. I thought this part of the book was really readable. I disliked the protagonists, the hero especially, but I believed in the relationship. He was self-absorbed, selfish, emotionally stupid, and never proactive, but what was nice was that the author kept him that way to the end. You could absolutely imagine that they’d be HEA, in their lovely castle, with their tons of money. (He’d have been unfaithful to her, but she’d have accepted it.) I knew it wasn’t working for me as a romance when my heart leapt at the announcement that she was engaged to the other bloke. (Gerald?) I saw it as an escape for her.
In the second part, the things that annoyed me were the surprise inheritance – I didn’t believe he wouldn’t have known how the title was left – and the box of pictures. Because, you know, if my uncle had left me a box containing grainy pornographic footage of me in my student days, and a court sub-poenaed (sp?) the box – I’d take the film out and burn it, before giving them the box. Mind you, that’s the hero in a nutshell, always reactive, never proactive.
So, to sum up, I thought the first half silly, and the second, which was less about events and more about the characters, a good deal better. I have to like the protagonists to get the emotional lift I want from romance, so the second half worked for me more as general fiction rather than as romance. I wish she’d focused more on Henry – at the end she seemed to be suggesting that Henry had somehow deliberately chosen to initiate this train of events, which just seemed a feeble idea – how could he have predicted the peculiarities of each person’s reactions to events?
I think Black Silk is a very unusual romance. Like Sherry, I don’t think I’d have been hugely bothered if Submit and Graham had never got together. I did love the book – but I almost don’t count it a romance.
I actually adored Graham – he’s the first and archetypal Ivory hero with his flawed charisma and incredible looks. I really didn’t much like Submit, but then had this acute moment of personal identification with her during the scene at the summer party when she’s watching the yachting and experiencing a sense of out-of-placedness. Which kind of made me think that on one level BS is quite a straightforward story (to appropriate the language of the American high school) of school nerd gets the popular jock.
@Jill D.: I agree…that’s the scene in the book that stayed with me through the years after reading it. I felt it was very true to their own unique (esp. in the genre) personalities…and I really loved that Ivory wasn’t afraid to have Submit be so “flawed” in that sense–as someone mentioned before, she really started getting hot for Graham when she starts “using him” …I think this part of her personality is very interesting, and will be looking for it in my reread.
@Marianne McA: I completely agree with you RE Henry setting up these two to meet. I was internally disagreeing with Janet in her review on DA about the whole “did Henry plan this thing” but of course didn’t comment on it because –maybe I’m wrong?…but to me I’m so on the fence about it. It doesn’t seem like something he would do, but then again, I can’t deny the buildup of the story seems to support it, and maybe it’s my reading that’s flawed, and I’m missing something. But I was a little annoyed with the story while reading it that it appeared that’s what Ivory was hinting happened. It just seemed a little far-fetched, and unrealistic. I’m glad I’m not alone in this assessment.
I loved this book when I read it…it was the first really dense romance I’d ever read, and I really appreciated the fact that the author trusted the reader enough to engage at that level (not to say anything about those who didn’t enjoy it–I know several people who couldn’t wade through it)…it was just so outside the realm of anything else I’d read by that point in time.
Since then I’ve read several authors with similar writing styles, but this book will always hold a special place in my heart because it does so many things differently. I wasn’t particularly taken with either the hero or the heroine, but the story of them coming together is compelling.
@Robin: Well, weren’t all Victorian women repressed? Meaning, wasn’t that a historical period where the rights of women were both so legally and socially discouraged that it made it hard for women to have true self-expression? Or are you referring to some steampunk Victorian era?
Look, if you want to say, “Graham is Graham — maybe he’s not the most typical earl, but he is as Ivory portrays him, take it or leave it,” I can accept that argument, even if I personally can’t accept Graham. But how we meet these characters matters, and for me as a reader, the book either opens up new worlds, or it closes down depending on whether the characters and their situations make internal sense. There are such massive logical disconnects in Ivory’s portrayals of both Graham and Submit that it stopped me cold. If an author can’t explain to me why an earl or marchioness would behave that way, she shouldn’t make them peers of the realm.
I am pretty sure BLACK SILK was my first Judith Ivory, about ten years ago…I’d have to see if that was one of the years I tracked my reading to make sure.
I didn’t have a chance to reread for this discussion, unfortunately. However, I still vividly remember being blown away by the opening scene, because it was so different from other romances, and so gorgeously written, and so interesting. I still think that.
And now I want to reread them all, except I try not to do that too often, since I fear there will never be any more.
@Kaetrin:
No, no, of course not. By now you’ve probably had a glimpse at the other comments and seen that quite a few other readers too feel “Huh?” or “meh” about it.
BLACK SILK is a strange book, no doubt about it. Frankly, I was convinced to nearly the end that they were not going to end up together. I’m still not sure the ending wasn’t put on to satisfy romance constraints.
Even when I was reading it, I was thinking to myself, I can’t believe what’s going on. And I never had a deep emotional response to the relationship of the H/H–rather I felt more for the relationship between Henry and Submit and between Graham and Peg.
For me, the sheer richness of the prose, the unpredictability of the characters, the equal unpredictability of where the narrative was going kept me returning to the book. I read it over a long period of time, months, probably.
But I can see very well how another reader could have dropped it altogether along the way. Or finished it and went WTF.
There are books that leave a deep emotional impact on me. This one didn’t but I feel it should be held up as an example for all romance writers, for its fearlessness, originality, and depth of characterization.
(Heh, if the dude at Huffington Post wants an intellectual love story he needs to look no further.)
Besides, I think Jessica would only choose books for discussion that lend themselves to opposing views–not that any book doesn’t, but some books do far more than others. And this is one of them.
@Robin:
Oh, of course!
Thank you for that very lucid explanation.
In a way a lot of latter-day romance is anti-literary modernism, isn’t it? The heroines simply accept the societal forces and then do what they can.
I tried to write a review for THE SHEIK some time ago, and then my head exploded–literally; had to mop it up–trying to come to grips with the rape/forceful seduction issue. So I gave up. But while preparing for the review I did read through the book more carefully and noted how systematically the author paved the way for Diana’s eventual life in the desert by pointing out at every turn how much she loved the desert and its solitude and wildness. Her love for the sheik, viewed in that sense, seems an extension of her love for the desert and a vehicle for her to remain in a place where she is happiest and most far away from the demands and expectations of her society.
The demands and expectations of his society, of course, is a whole different quagmire.
(And when I got to the part explaining the sheik’s origins, I totally went, so that’s where all these not-so-other sultans/pashas/amirs I’d read in the early 90s came from!)
I just finished BS last night, so I’m way late to this discussion. I’m in the camp of those who were overwhelmingly mehhed by the experience.
Like someone way above said (sorry, I’m not re-reading all the comments) my primary irritation with the book was that the character growth among both Graham and Submit was taking place separately. I read a romance to experience a couple growing together.
The backstory was nice, but I felt like the romance of it all didn’t really get started until around page 200, or perhaps later.
I thought Submit was a fool for taking up with Gerald at the end. She had 1/3rd of a massive fortune coming her way, and a new means to support herself otherwise in her writing. Why pick up with the leavings-off of Roslyn? I loved that Graham shouted him out of the house at the end, “What are you doing here? She’s waiting for you!” and Gerald scampers back to Roslyn, then Graham turns to Submit and says, “He only likes women who can’t love him.” A perfect insight.
The near-drowning of Submit in her dress with Henry at her side gave us a lot of insight into the man, but that wasn’t the scene that stuck with me the most.
The scene that made the most impact on me was after Graham and Submit have sex the first time, and she has confessed her alter ego, then nursed a ridiculous Roslyn back to the edge of sanity. Submit packs her bags and goes to board the carriage and Graham, in his _new_ wisdom, forgives her for the serial that has caused him so much pain, and even encourages her to keep at it. He’s grown enough to know that words on a page are not a true reflection of who he is. And he’s also grown enough to know that his actions have contributed to her situation – therefore makes amends in the simplest way he can.
My second favourite scene is right before that when he asks her to marry him the first time in front of everyone, knowing he will be fodder to even more vicious gossip, but laying his heart bare anyway.
I won’t be re-reading this one. I don’t even particularly like historicals, so it was more than a bit of a slog for me. I enjoyed the perversion of our expectations in the characters presented to us. Expecially how Graham was an absentee father, instead of being re-written into modern expectations of a loving and present man. But the love story wasn’t strong enough to put this book back into my hands.