Reading: Madam, Will You Talk

[white_hart]

I've been meaning to try some of Mary Stewart's novels for ages, as she's someone multiple people whose opinions I respect speak highly of, and the girlmeetstrouble readalong spurred me to pick up the copy of Madam, Will You Talk? which I acquired from a phone box full of secondhand books in Buckland last summer (although I did temporarily forget it was that one and had got as far as downloading a kindle copy before spotting it on the TBR bookcase and returning the kindle copy for a refund) and give it a go.

Madam, Will You Talk? is categorised as 'romantic suspense'; basically, it felt like John Buchan from the point of view of the heroine, rather than the hero. (This is not to say anything against Buchan - his heroines are terrific - but I can't think of any of his novels that actually show things from their perspective.) The heroine of Madam, Will You Talk? is Charity Selbourne, who finds herself caught up in the final act of a complicated, murderous plot when she befriends a young boy who is staying at the same Avignon hotel where she and a friend are holidaying. Stewart's characterisation of Charity manages to balance all the qualities needed in the heroine of a suspense novel - a strong moral compass, a determination to do the right thing regardless of potential personal cost, and a resourcefulness and skillset that might not be expected of a young woman in the 1950s - with a very realistic sense of fear of the dangerous game she finds herself playing. ('I am not the stuff of which heroines are made', Charity thinks at one point, shortly before going off and behaving in a very heroine-like way.)

I loved this. It's very much a page-turner; the plot hurtles along at breakneck speed, and in places I found it almost too suspenseful. The romance is the kind that I'd probably dislike in a straight romance novel but somehow rather enjoy when it's crossed with another genre, and the descriptions of the Provençal settings are absolutely wonderful; of the places mentioned in the novel, I've only been to Avignon (our day trip when we stayed there was to Orange, rather than Nîmes and the Pont du Gard); Stewart's descriptions evoked it perfectly, as well as helping me to visualise the other settings of the novel, and the sun-soaked Mediterranean feel of the novel was the perfect antidote to this greyest of English winters. I will definitely be adding Stewart to the list of enjoyable but not entirely fluffy comfort reads.

Comments

[alithea]

Oh, I have only ever read her Merlin series, I should try some of the others.

[white_hart]

I think the Merlin series was one of those things I was aware of but never read in my teens because the local library only had the last volume.

[alithea]

I've got an old hardback set, I think I might have bought them from our local library when they were having a clear out.

[legionseagle]

Would you mind linking your review to the whole book discussion? I'm trying to keep the pot boiling over there.

[white_hart]

Done! I hadn't actually spotted the whole book post earlier, so thanks for the link.

[tree_and_leaf]

On a side note, I would really like to read Mary's side of "The Three Hostages", because she's obviously being awesome, but we get to see very little of what she's up to.

[white_hart]

Indeed!

[legionseagle]

Oh, so would I. It's one of the great double takes in literature:

"He was dancing with a woman whose hair seemed too bright to be natural. At first I could not see her face, for it was flattened against his chest, but she seemed to be hideously and sparsely dressed...Then she turned her face to meand I could see the vivid lips and the weary old pink and white enamel of her class. Pretty, too....

"And then I had a shock which nearly sent me through the window. For in this painted dancer I recognised the wife of my bosom and the mother of Peter John."

[tree_and_leaf]

Mind you, even though we don't get Mary's side of things, I have always appreciated the fact that Hannay trusts her to know what she's doing and respects her skills and competence.

[callmemadam]

When I'm in the right mood, I love Mary Stewart! I once heard Madam, will you Talk adapted very well for radio. I think I've read most of her books now. I like Airs above the Ground.

[white_hart]

I was thinking it would make a lovely film, of the kind you go to in winter as much for the sunny locations as the plot.

[legionseagle]

Like a much classier Death in Paradise which I watch for the same reason (also Montalbano)

[mrs_redboots]

One of her books - this one set in the Pyrenees - nearly put me off her for life in the first chapter, when the heroine is served a delicious dinner, lovingly described, but the cheese comes AFTER the pudding, which simply doesn't happen in France, where you have cheese, then pudding! Okay, in 1950s Britain people weren't going to know that and might have thought she'd got it wrong, but oh, how it jars nowadays!

I have always loved Airs above the Ground, too.

[legionseagle]

Thunder on the Right, the book in question, isn't my favourite but to be fair to Stewart the scene in question covers about 7 or 8 pages of masterly social commentary (comprising the two dons from a women’s college who are obsessing about geology at the next table, the heroine musing on what brings her to the Pyrenees to begin with, a quick flip back through her life from which we learn a lot about her overprotective mother and music professor father, as well as her cousin Gillian, and also introduces -- in person -- the romantic interest together with his backstory). No wonder the cheese got mixed up; there's a lot going on.

[mrs_redboots]

Well, there is that - but even still, I found it jerked me right out of the story!