Rapture of the Desert: Stuck in an elevator

Chrys and her sister Dove leave the hotel and Chrys is glad to get away from the burning gaze of Anton de Casenove, a gaze which “makes her feel that she was  girl of sixteen again, who had never been out of England, and never been kissed” (15). And we learn that she has in fact never been kissed except in the context of a ballet. I really, really hope she still gets to be a ballet-dancer at the end of this book… I’m worried about this.

In any case, Chrys has to return to the hotel because her sister has forgotten her wedding shoes inside and has to rush off to another appointment. Prince Anton, of course, is there and takes over the search in the guise of being helpful. She gets the shoes and then they get in the lift together (a lift rather than an elevator since this is from the age of almost entirely British-penned Harlequins). Which proceeds to stop between floors, throwing her against his manly chest.

Thus begins a period of banter/really, really uncomfortable conversation. Chrys tells Prince Anton she certainly didn’t come back just to see him and in fact she couldn’t care less about men. He asks her if she’s frigid. Anton suggests she might get some risqué press if it gets out she was stuck in a lift with such a well-known rake. Apparently he was once shot by an angry brother. And then he proposes a bet: if they’re trapped in the elevator until midnight, she’ll go out for dinner with him.  He’s wearing her down, and I’m finding it exhausting.

Chrys seems to find it a mixture of annoying and exciting.  She “flashes” that Prince Anton must be “accustomed to the type who fall at [his] feet like harem slaves, hair unbound and eyes pleading for the thousand delights of the Khama Sutra!” (27).

This book is really interesting in the way Winspear is connecting Russia and other parts of the world classified as ‘the East’: India, the Arabian deserts, North Africa. Russia has often sat in-between Europe and the East in the Western European imagination – and in its own (this book review from the Times Literary Supplement gives an interesting insight into the subject).

Prince Anton’s role as the ‘sheik’ in this sheik romance is ambiguous, but also over-determined.  So his foreign-ness is attributed to his Russian ancestry, in particular an ancestry of the steppes, Cossacks and Tartars: “dark, courtly, demonic attraction of this foreign prince, with Cossack instincts smouldering in his eyes, and there in the sculpture of his cheekbones and his lips” (26). But Chrys is also obsessed with the ideas of the harems he might have (not a typically Cossack thing, I think). To make him really a sheik (but still only partially a sheik, after all), Prince Anton’s father was raised by a Sheik in “a desert province called El Kezar” (29).

It’s a long story, but basically his grandfather was a Russian prince who saw his grandmother, a simple village girl, dancing, and enabled her to become a ballet dancer. Then they married in secret. During the Russian Revolution (or ‘uprising’ as Prince Anton describes it), his pregnant grandmother fled Russia and his grandfather was killed. Somehow she ended up in this ‘desert province’ of El Kezar (not a real place according to my googling skills, but I'm willing to be convinced otherwise) and was taken in by a Sheik, who treated her son like his own (like The Sheik, women always seem to be wandering into deserts pregnant). So that makes Prince Anton kind of foreign in a couple of ways. Romantic ways. 

Chrys loses her bet, as the lift keeps them trapped until after midnight, and the next chapter finds her heading off to dinner at a club with Anton. Not just any club, but the Adonis club, apparently “rigged out just like those clubs of the Georgian era, where Beau Brummel and the other rakes used to dine in alcoves with their ‘ladies of the night’” (35) according to Chrys’ sister. The patrons have to wear masks. I was curious and looked it up: there is a place called “Adonis Cabaret” right now in London which runs hen nights (aka bachelorette parties). Similar?

Chrys and Prince Anton dine in their masks and converse. He orders in impeccable French. Prince Anton raises the obligatory comparison of women with horses: “I grew up among Arabs, who regard women as mettlesome as horses. It does only harm to feed a woman and a horse with too much sugar” (48).  Mmm...sugar.... They dance the foxtrot, and Chrys is carried away by the music and the dance and Prince Anton's skill. And then Prince Anton carries her away in his car…to where?

Next time…grandmothers and travel!

Rapture of the Desert: Half Russian prince, half man of the desert

I’m back with a fabulous new (that is, new to me) Violet Winspear novel, Rapture of the Desert, a Harlequin Romance from 1972.  Violet Winspear (who you may remember as the creator of the fabulous toffee baron heiress ) does not disappoint in this one.  

It’s interesting that the two covers (linked from Fictiondb because my picture uploading is not working right now) are both desert-y, but vary in their dress for the hero: djellabah versus suit. But nothing that says Russian to me…

Our heroine, Chrys Devrel (short for Chrysanthemum), is a young ballet dancer who has recently danced in Russia at the Bolshoi Theatre (this will become relevant soon). She is passionate and single-minded about dance. Unfortunately, she’s also very unlucky. Chrys fell down some steps in London (my perpetual fear about any metro stairs), seriously injuring herself. She’s recovering, but she’s been told that she must not dance for the next year if she wants a full recovery.

Chrys is not very enthusiastic about this, given that a year away from dance could permanently stall her career. Her doctor gives her some advice that would annoy me if given to me by my doctor and not, say, my mother: “You have, perhaps, never tried to love anything else because to dance was all-sufficing.  Now you have to face an alternative. Now you have time and leisure…” (6). Chrys counters with the fact that her operation has taken most of her savings, so in fact she will not have leisure, she will have to work.

Anyway, Chrys has a sister, Dove (their parents were very poetic with their name choices), who is the complete opposite of her. Dove “took life as it came and had never bothered about a career.  Dove had wanted only to marry” and she’s about to get her wish, as she’s engaged to a young executive (7).  

 

Dove and Chrys have tea and cream cakes together at a hotel after Chrys’ appointment with the specialist and Chrys debriefs her about the situation. Dove, like pretty much all of the other characters in the book so far, predicts that one of these days Chrys is going to fall in love. Everyone is sure of this.  It’s like Chrys’s cool interest in nothing but dance is a challenge.  And of course, it’s a challenge to us the readers as well, since we know that as a heroine in a romance novel she cannot avoid falling in love, despite her statements to the contrary:

“I just love to dance, and can’t believe that any man could offer me the delight I feel when I spin across a stage and stretch my body to the very limits of its endurance.” (10)

But Dove does have some more helpful suggestions going beyond 'find a man', which is that her fiancee’s aunt needs a travelling companion. She’s travelling to ‘the East’ and her usual companion has bailed. The aunt, to be frank, sounds like more fun that Chrys: "she once wrote a thriller about the tomb of that Egyptian boy king – king of the moon, wasn’t he? It was a best-seller, I believe.  And she knows lots of interesting people, and helpd to get refugees out of India not so long ago” (11).

Chrys is reluctant, and uses the opportunity to make a vaguely homophobic remark about a choreographer, a “butch with bobbed hair,” who made a pass at her and who held a grudge against her after she was rejected.  She mentions this because she wouldn’t want to work for someone like that. Or what she calls a “fluffy type of employer” (12). Lesbians are usually completely absent from (straight) romance novels of this period, so this is an interesting reference, but I don’t think it’s going anywhere.

But now we meet our hero, sitting across the hotel lounge staring at them.  He is well-dressed, handsome, and intriguing: “the very perfection of the dark grey suit he wore made him seem illimitably foreign” (13), meaning, I suppose, that British men are not well-dressed? Dove knows who he is, as he was written up in the paper the day before, as someone who “only cares about horses, cards, and fine living” (13).  He is Prince Anton de Casenove and he has “Russian royal blood in him, and they say he attracts women like a magnet” (14).  Casanova!

A marathon staring session follows. Chrys doesn’t have a good impression of Prince Anton (she thinks he’s interested in harems and card-sharping), but she really is quite attracted to him, although she denies it. I think we can all see where this is going. Anyway, Chrys and Dove scurry out of the hotel and Chrys hopes to never see Prince Anton again.

But will she? I predict she will take that job with the aunt and she'll run into Prince Anton somehow due to that...

Hidden Egyptian!

Films! I really do love leafing through (or pressing the 'to the right' button through) these old movie magazines. So many absurd ads and glamour photos of film stars whose names are mostly forgotten...

This week in movie magazines, from Motion Picture Classic magazine (vol 9-11, 1920):

The Hidden Egyptian!

Stripey dress courtesy of Internet Archive, as usual

This article is an interview with actress Edith Storey and her super cute dog. It begins with the fabulous hook: "Have you ever stopped to think how many different kinds of love affairs there are? But of course you have; everyone does at some time or another!"

Don't be silly, of course you have!

Apparently one of these kinds of love affairs is a love affair with a favorite acting part. And Edith Storey's was with the part she played in "Dust of Egypt", a comedy. As Edith describes it: "In the beginning of the picture, I was an Egyptian princess. Nothing could stand in the way of my getting anything I wanted. I could take it or have it brought to me. My will was law absolute. And then the Princess died and her mummy came to life in the present century. (In the end it turns out that she was the creature of a dream)".  

It's not quite clear to me how this adds up to 'hidden Egyptian', but I suppose it's close enough.

Ancient Egypt is a perennial theme for films and was very popular in the 1920s - especially after the discovery of King Tutankamun's tomb in 1922 by Howard Carter (and his sponsor Lord Carnavon). Portrayals of  'the Orient' are often very much fascinated with the past, ancient-ness, and so on... Often the East was imagined to exist in a kind of perennial past or even state of timelessness.

And, for your entertainment, an advertisement for Palmolive which epitomizes this theme:

http://archive.org/stream/motionpicturecla1920broo#page/n331/mode/2up

Palmolive had a series of ads in the 1920s which portrayed the company as following in the footsteps of  ancient Egyptian use of palm and olive in beauty regimes. Often the ads paired an image of a modern American woman with an ancient Egyptian one. They're pretty amazing...and often quite startling? 

Can I mention that I just noticed that she's standing in the mummy coffin?! Is that the right word? Mummy case? Why would she be doing that? Why, Palmolive, why?

Next up, another Violet Winspear novel...

Surrender My Love: Cable cars and Swiss hotels

The final installment! Mysteries solved and romances resolved…

In the last installment, the whole party was exploring a rather sad zoo.  Krista wandered off by herself, as you do, and was convinced by Hamid to visit his friend in Switzerland, and then warned that she is surrounded by danger on all sides. Fun times!

The group re-assembles back at the bus. Krista sees Eve (our Other Woman) kiss Ryan on the cheek before they board the bus and is cool with Ryan for the entire ride. They’re snippy with each other and Ryan eventually threatens to take her over his knee and spank her. I feel like this is not as popular a trope as it used to be.

Anyway, the tourist experience continues as the party goes to a Moroccan casino for dinner and a show. Jeff and Ryan wonder what kind of wine to have with couscous and the waiter recommends champagne. It wouldn’t be my choice, but I suppose champagne goes with everything. Eve commandeers Ryan for a dance and Krista is a bit catty about it to Jeff, who reveals that Eve has a fiancé. That solves Krista’s jealousy issues and she talks it out with Ryan. ‘Communication problems’ will get you every time! That resolved, they spend a pleasant evening dancing and talking together and eating what sounds like a delicious dinner.

And then on to the show, which includes belly-dancing, snake-charming, and dancing with swords.  Ryan and Krista find the sword-dance a bit repetitive and so decide to head off to the casino.  Right after they’ve risen from their seats there’s a gasp of horror from the audience – one of the dancers’ swords has found its way into the seats they were just sitting at! And it sounds like these were not tame decorative swords.

Ryan and Krista are in shock. They could have been seriously injured! It’s only then that Krista thinks to tell Ryan about the warning she had from Hamid. Ryan gets firm and says they’re flying out of Morocco at the next possible flight. Back at the hotel Krista has a restless, nightmare-filled sleep. Like any man totally not in love with his ‘fake’ wife, Ryan kindly gets her a glass of water, some sleeping pills, a cool washcloth and changes her nightgown for her. Indeed.

The flight goes off without a hitch and Ryan and Krista arrive in Milan (their first stop on their way to Switzerland), ready to travel to their next zoo.  When Krista tells Ryan about her promise to Hamid to meet with his friend, Ryan becomes suspicious (of course!).  He wonders why they would need Hamid’s friend to translate the little red book. 

Exhausted by their journey, Krista and Ryan stop in Lucerne instead of taking the train all the way to Basel. This leads to a situation which always happens in set-ups like this: the last hotel room available only has one bed! What will they do?  Krista suggests they can be adults and share the bed platonically, but Ryan refuses. He finally shows his cards and tells Krista that “we have a perfectly good marriage certificate and I’m damned tired of playing games” (154). If they’re sleeping in the same bed together, they’ll be doing more than sleeping. If Krista doesn’t want to do that, then they won’t sleep in the same bed.

Krista is startled and finds it difficult to make a decision. She’s definitely attracted to him (and in love with him), but it’s like one complicated game of chicken. She doesn’t want to show her interest without knowing first that he’s in love with her. But after a bit of thought, she realizes she does want to sleep with him, so might as well go for it. And then they have sex while a storm rages on outside: “the tempest outside was nothing compared to the one which had raged between them” (156).

When Krista wakes up in the morning Ryan seems to have completely disappeared. Incredibly hurt, she decides to leave Lucerne by herself and fly back to the United States. As I said before, ‘communication problems’. The concierge books her a ticket, but suggests she goes explore Lucerne while she’s waiting for the train. So Krista heads out on an excursion up Mount Pilatus. This book is very successful with its tourism, because I definitely want to take this cable-car trip up the Swiss mountains!

Unfortunately, Krista is not so enthusiastic about heights. And once she reaches the top and gets out to see the sights, she finds herself essentially trapped on a mountain with…guess who…Hamid! She is for some reason initially neither suspicious nor worried. Until Hamid threatens to throw her off the mountain if she doesn’t give him his little book back. But it turns out she doesn’t have it – Ryan does. Hamid keeps a close hold on her as they travel back down the mountain, but as they get out of their tram car, they’re surrounded by a large group of men who grab hold of Hamid and bundle him into a car before Krista even knows what’s happened. And then Jeff and Ryan are there to catch her when she faints.

Explanations ensue: Ryan had left that morning to get the red book translated by someone from the government. It turns out that Hamid was suspected of having stolen some restricted Moroccan government documents, supposedly of interest to ‘extremists’. He was using Krista to try and get the information out of the country. They never really explain what the info was. Anyway, that was the Swiss police who bundled him into the car. That’s the suspense part of the plot resolved. And then the romance is resolved when Ryan reveals that he had left Krista a note, but she never got it. Ryan finally reveals that he’s been in love with Krista ever since she started working with him and that the whole trip was a way to get her to pay attention to him. I don’t see why he didn’t just ask her out on a date, but that’s me. They declare their love and all is well.

I don’t know if I have any ‘summing up’ thoughts on this book. It’s enjoyable as a sight-seeing tour, but both Morocco and Switzerland are really just background to Ryan and Krista’s relationship, which could be solved by one simple straightforward conversation. For a book with a political intrigue suspense plot, the actual politics involved are very fuzzy. I keep on thinking we’re getting closer to real ‘sheik romance’ territory, but the 70s seem to be lasting forever… 

Next up, a movie magazine break and then another Violet Winspear novel – this one has a hero who’s ‘half Russian prince, half man of the desert’. It sounds promising!

Surrender My Love: Cocker Spaniel Zoos

Okay – so instead of offering constant apologies I’m going to abandon all schedules. My aim will be to do two posts a week, but no promises as to when they arrive. Surprises for all! I suggest taking advantage of the rss feed for now…

Last time we saw Krista she had just been pushed down the stairs by an unknown assailant. She wakes up surrounded by all of the tour group, including an especially shaken Ryan (he calls her ‘darling’). Luckily she’s unhurt, except for a twisted ankle. As is often the case with near-death experiences and injuries in romance novels, the incident brings Krista and Ryan closer together: he carries her all the way to the bus. 

Another reference to marriage rituals and customs is made as they all drive to Marrakesh. Halfway there Hamid points out Imichil where the “Moroccan marriage market” is held. Eve is disdainful and wonders that “selling women like slaves” still goes on, but Hamid is not happy at the suggestion that it’s slavery. He argues that “slavery has nothing to do with it […] Imichil is a tribal area where our people merely cling to their ancient customs” (83). And then the men make a series of jokes about their own wives: basically, ‘take my wife, please’. 

When they finally reach Marrakesh, Ryan makes Krista take a bath for her sore muscles. Sexy! The next morning they’re actually getting along for once and banter over their croissants. 

It’s funny, because usually these ‘tourist’ setting novels are not actually about tourists. Often the hero and heroine are in the country because one of them lives there or works there or some other reason. But in this novel, Krista and Ryan actually are tourists (despite their ostensible ‘zoo’ job rationale). So the next place they go is the souk in Marrakesh, a hotspot of Moroccan tourism. They see a snake charmer and make jokes about belly dancers.

And then they actually do go to the zoo, the Toubkal Zoo and Botanical Gardens, which sadly are not that impressive.  The zoo does have some camels. And a few lions and leopards in small, but clean cages. And some pedigree dogs, including cocker spaniels and German shepherds! Yes, dogs.

This is suspicious. Why is Hamid taking them to a boring zoo? Is he just a terrible guide or is there something else going on? He leaves Ryan and Krista to look around the zoo while he conducts some ‘business’.  

In any case, after a quick tour, Krista wanders off by herself (she has a habit of doing this). She doesn’t like to see Eve and Ryan interacting, but won’t admit it. Hamid catches her alone and asks her another favour. He wants her to look up a friend of his when she’s in Switzerland (their next destination). Apparently this friend is studying biology in Heidelberg, but will be on vacation in Switzerland. He will be hanging out at the zoo there and Krista could just meet him easily. Hamid suggests she show the friend the little book in Arabic that he gave her and he could translate the supposed proverbs that it contains. 

So suspicious! And it’s not even a very good cover? That’s not really the kind of favour you ask of someone.  Please, meet my friend who hangs out in zoos. Why?

And then Hamid warns Krista that she and Ryan might want to cut their trip in Morocco short, because she is in danger. She doesn’t think it’s likely they’ll do that, but she does promise to talk to Ryan about it. To me, it actually sounds like Hamid is threatening Krista but it’s going over her head. “I sincerely hope there won’t be any trouble” he says, “but sometimes innocent people get hurt in our political maneuverings” dot…dot…dot… (120). 

Well, what is Hamid involved in, and why is he so intent on having Krista bring his little book to Switzerland? And why doesn’t she find this suspicious at all? Next installment!