2024/167: Confounding Oaths — Alexis Hall

[tamaranth]

2024/167: Confounding Oaths — Alexis Hall

Gentlemen with fairer fortunes, fairer skin, and more interest in the fairer sex might have been able to get away with cocking a snook at a world that at once despised and admired them. [loc. 1387]

Standalone sequel to Mortal Follies, which I enjoyed very much: again, the narrator is Puck, unaccountably exiled from the court of Oberon and forced to live in modern London and pay rent. 'This is the second of those stories I have chosen to share. If you have not read the first, why not? Do you personally dislike me? Are you determined to see me suffer, interminably and without even the comforts of a scribbler’s income to lighten my exile?' 

We are reunited with Miss Bickle, who's writing a story entitled 'The Heir and the Wastrel', which is about Mr Wickham and Mr Darcy: 'carefully constructed, enthusiastically delivered, and contained a number of details that the anonymous lady author of Sense and Sensibility had necessarily elided for fear of the censors'; with Miss Maelys Mitchelmore, protagonist of Mortal Follies, and her lover Lady Georgiana; and with John Caesar, son of a Senegalese freedman and an earl's daughter. Confounding Oaths is the story of John and his relationship with Captain Orestes James, 'Wellington's favourite', a Black soldier whose squad of Irregulars includes a vitki (a Norse-flavoured seer) and Sal, who's 'a woman in a dress, a man in uniform and a devil in battle'. When the elder and plainer of John's sisters, Mary, asks a helpful fairy for 'Beauty Incomparable', Captain James and the Irregulars come to the aid of the Caesars.

This, like Mortal Follies, is great fun, witty and frothy, and full of pointed observations from our cynical narrator. The Norse influence is strong, and we pay a visit to the temple of Isis-Fortuna. Titania plays a major role, and there's an attempted sacrifice to Artemis at the climax of the novel. Confounding Oaths is much more about the fae than about the old gods, and it's set more solidly in the demimonde of London. It's a bigger world in some ways, with references to the war with Napoleon and the unsavoury occult habits of Europeans. Captain James is pleased to be 'on the side of monarchy, serfdom, and the sceptred isle, rather than the side of liberty, equality, and subjugating Europe'. 

Also features a trip to the opera (Fidelio), a visit to the Tower, and a cult named after Iphigenia. Never mind the cultists, the racists, or the misogynists: this is an excellent remedy for bad weather and low mood.

Comments

[coth]

These sound great fun but is not available as an ebook from the library, alas. Are you in a position to recommend any of Hall's other books, of which several (Boyfriend Material, The Affair of the Mysterious Letter, etc) which are available but which don't press some of these buttons for me.

[tamaranth]

I've reviewed a couple of those -- see book blog for details! http://tamaranth.blogspot.com/search?q=alexis+hall

[coth]

Thank you. The library doesn't have Something Fabulous either (at least not as an ebook) but I think I might try Boyfriend Material and see how I get on. Appreciate the reviews.

[anef]

I was going to wishlist Mortal Follies, but I perceive that I own it already.