March 17, 2008
Reading Group Questions for “Beneath a Silent Moon”
Posted by Tracy Grant under Beneath a Silent Moon, Mélanie and Charles Fraser, Readers' Guide, Secrets of a Lady, Tracy Grant, writingMy wonderful web designer friends Greg and jim are working on an update of the site for the May release of Beneath a Silent Moon. It should go live in the next couple of weeks. Meanwhile, there are now Reading Group Guides for both Secrets of a Lady and Beneath a Silent Moon on the detail pages for both books. I spent a lot of time on the Beneath a Silent Moon questions this week, so I thought I would make them this week’s blog topic.
1. The book opens with the line “The night air was like a lover’s touch. Cloaked in mystery, beckoning with promise, sweet at times but quickly cloying. And underneath rotten to the core.” How does this line set up the themes of the book?
2. Charles and Tommy are both returning home. How have their experiences in the Napoleonic Wars shaped their feelings about Britain?
3. What sort of marriage would Charles have had with Honoria? How does that compare with the one he has with Melanie?
4. What sort of marriage would Kenneth Fraser and Honoria have had?
5. Several characters–Charles, Mélanie, Francisco, Tommy, le Faucon–are dealing with the end of the war that has framed their lives for years. Discuss the similarities and differences in the dilemmas they face and the choices they make in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars.
6. Why do you think the author chose to introduce the reader to the Glenister House set through the viewpoints of Evie and Gisèle?
7. In Chapter 13, Charles thinks “The past echoed through the present, laughing at him for the presumption of thinking it could be left behind.” In what ways are various characters in the book–Charles, Mélanie, Honoria, Glenister, Kenneth, Lady Frances, Evie, Andrew, Gisèle, Quen and others–trying to come to terms with the past? How does the past shape their actions in the present?
8. What did you think of the hints about Mélanie’s past? If you’ve read Secrets of a Lady, how do you think her thoughts in Beneath a Silent Moon fit with the revelations in that book?
9. Charles says he isn’t a Romeo, and Mélanie says she can’t see him climbing a balcony unless it was to steal documents from the room beyond. But later Gisèle says that when Charles doesn’t think Mélanie is noticing he looks at her “like Romeo gazing up at Juliet’s balcony.” Whom do you believe and why?
10. Charles, David, and Simon are close friends who share many of the same political ideals and progressive thinking. Yet their reactions to the revelations in the book, particularly those involving romantic intrigues, are somewhat different. How might their childhoods and the more recent past have colored their reactions?
11. In Chapter 24, Lady Frances tells Mélanie that the younger generation don’t necessarily play the game of romance by the same rules as Lady Frances’s own generation. How do the attitudes of Lady Frances, Kenneth Fraser and Glenister toward love and sex and marriage differ from those of Charles, Mélanie, Honoria, Quen, and the other younger characters? Do these differences reflect differences between the late 18th century and the Regency?
12. How does Charles and Mélanie’s marriage change over the course of the book?
13. In Chapter 36, Lady Frances says “When I think the way Frederick and Cyril carried on their affairs with impunity while their sister suffered miserably for one love affair–which ended in marriage– It’s enough to make me take that Wollstonecraft woman seriously.” What do the differences in the ways Frederick and Cyril’s indiscretions are treated versus their sister Georgiana’s and the differences in the expectations for Quen and Val versus Honoria and Evie say about the roles of men and women at the time, even amid the license of the Glenister House set?
14. Charles, Gisèle, Quen, Val, Honoria, and Evie all have quite different attitudes toward love and sex and marriage. Yet in what ways have all of them been shaped by reacting to their parents’ intrigues?
15. What do you think was the real purpose behind the Elsinore League?
16. A number of Kenneth Fraser’s art treasures are described in the course of the book (the bronze of Triton and Nereid, the Gentileschi Cleopatra, the Fragonard oil, Danaë reaching out to clutch a fistful of gold coins). How are the works of art metaphors for the themes of the novel? How do the art-filled house and Elizabeth Fraser’s exquisite gardens contrast with Dunmykel village and the tenants coping with Kenneth Fraser’s Clearances?
17. In Chapter 18, Charles tells Mélanie, “Father and Glenister and perhaps even David think they can control the investigation through me, for all my fine words to the contrary. Tidy away the messy bits. Avoid a prosecution, if that proves inconvenient.” What do you think would have happened if the novel had ended with the killer still free?
Which of the characters would have wanted the killer brought to justice? Which would have wanted the killer to go free? How would Charles have felt himself? What does “justice” mean?
18. In Chapter 24, Dunmykel is described as “a turreted mass against the blue sky, the fifteenth-century north wing, the seventeenth-century central block and south wing, all overlaid by the embellishments and improvements of the eighteenth century. A jumble of eras, layered one on top of the other, like a tangle of memories.” How does Dunmkyel as a setting frame the events of the book? In what ways is the house its own character? How does the history of the house echo the history of the characters?
19. Charles and Mélanie often use Shakespeare quotes and Shakespeare plays as a sort of private code in their conversations. Why do you think they refer to “Hamlet” in particular so much in this book? (For example, their conversation in Chapter 36 and the last scene in the book).
If you’ve read Beneath a Silent Moon, I’d love to hear your thoughts on these questions. If you haven’t read Beneath a Silent Moon, are there other things you’d like to know about the book? What do you think of Reading Group Guides in general?
This week’s addition to the Fraser Correspondence focuses on the Glenister House family with a letter from Evie to Gisèle.
March 17, 2008 at 4:26 pm
That’s a lot of questions, Tracy! I’ll give my opinion on a few. (SPOILERS, obviously)
4. Kenneth and Honoria: that’s a hard one. I think Kenneth would have started out at a bit of a disadvantage; he seemed to have bought Honoria’s act as the virtuous woman. (He was shocked and appalled at the revelation of her pregnancy, at least.)
That would have been a kick in the teeth; to have *another* firstborn son turn out to be another man’s child.
(IMHO, that’s one of the reasons he wanted to break the entail on Dunmykel; he didn’t want Charles to have it, and he thought by marrying the virginal Honoria, he’d have a firstborn son guaranteed to be… his.)
OTOH, Honoria was a very young woman; Kenneth had been playing the game longer than she had. She might have found herself in a bad way once he discovered the truth. Personally, I think she would have soon found out she’d bitten off more than she could chew - either with Kenneth *or* with Charles. Charles wouldn’t like being deceived, and unlike Melanie, Honoria didn’t have a reason for her games (not one that Charles could accept).
March 17, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Thanks, JMM! (I wasn’t expecting anyone to answer all of the questions :-)–just hoping they’d spark discussion). I absolutely agree that a major part of Kenneth wanting to marry Honoria had to do with having an heir. I think if Honoria had been able to convince Kenneth the child was his, she might have had the upper hand, at least for a while. It would depend on when/if Kenneth saw through her. You’re right, he’s a master game-player, and he has a lot more years of experience than she does. (Btw, it was your comment on one of the earlier posts about what might have happened if Kenneth and Honoria married that gave me the idea for this question–thanks!).
I think Honoria would have been able to deceive Charles for quite a while, because his mind wouldn’t have worked in a way to make him suspect her. But I think he’d have sensed that he didn’t know the “real” Honoria (as he senses in the book). Oddly enough, despite Charles’s resistance to emotional intimacy in the book, I think ultimately the lack of that connection with Honoria would have disturbed him. It would have been a very “surface” marriage, with the two of them living in their own spheres. Much more a conventional marriage of the “beau monde” than the one he has with Mélanie, I think.
March 18, 2008 at 6:41 pm
17. If the killer had been left… free? I think David would have tried to hush it up. IMHO, David sees himself as being more progressive in his views than he really is. Deep down, he’s accustomed to the status quo. (I like David, but sometimes he rubs me the wrong way. I suppose it’s me; after all, why wouldn’t he be a conventional English nobleman?)
I know Glenister would want it hushed up, although what he would have done with (or to) the killer later, I don’t know.
Justice. Hmmm… I don’t know. In the end, the killer didn’t gain anything. Left alone, love unrequited, the beloved going off to marry someone else; someone older and less good-looking… I don’t know.
Er… can we name names in this? I’m assuming that most people reading the blogs have read the books or at least understand that there are spoilers.
March 18, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Spoilers
I think it’s fine to mention names in the commentary with a spoiler mention.
Interesting points, JMM! I think David is caught between progressive impulses and the weight of family tradition. I think meeting Charles and Simon has made his thinking more progressive and liberal that it might otherwise have been, but sometimes it comes up against what he sees as his duty as the heir to an earldom (this comes into play more in “The Mask of Night” and will more in subsequent books in the series).
I’m running out the door but will post more this afternoon on the rest of your question–somet interesting issues to think about!
March 19, 2008 at 12:26 am
More spoilers…
Quen says at the end of the book, “I said I’d kill whoever took Honoria’s life. It seemed so simple. But if Evie were still alive, I don’t know what the devil I’d feel–save relieved to have her back.” I don’t think any of the characters could say with certainty what they’d have done if Evie had survived the book, and as the author I can’t say with certainty either. I’m fairly sure they’d have hushed up the whole matter, because of the scandal, because of the others who might be hurt (Evie’s mother and siblings among others), and because none of them would want to see Evie tried for her life. I don’t think Charles would want to see her tried, for all his insistence that he wouldn’t be part of a cover-up.
As to justice– Evie killed Honoria because Honoria gave her what she saw as an impossible choice. Compromise David so he had to marry her or have truth about her parentage revealed. In the end neither of those things happens, so in an odd way she does achieve her objective (as Gisèle says at the end, Evie could be quite ruthless when she made up her mind what she needed to do to sort a situation out). Personally, being very much opposed to capital punishment, I can hardly call Evie’s death justice, whether as it occurred in the book or if she’d been tried and convicted and executed (not, I think, that they had enough hard evidence for a prosecution in any case). But nor would I consider if justice for her to escape unscathed. As Mélanie says in the last scene, “She was a woman forced to make hard and desperate choices. But she did choose.” While I think Evie’s friends and family would have covered up her crime if she’d lived, I suspect they’d all have withdrawn from her emotionally. Particularly Quen and Gisèle. There’s a certain justice in that I suppose. Evie thought she was protecting her famlly and she’d have lost all of them.
It’s always a dilemma for an author to decide what to do with a villain at the of a story. In some ways having Evie die was the easy way out. But for the A+ section for the trade re-release of “Beneath a Silent Moon” I wrote a series of letters than continue the story in the months after the end of the book. So I had to figure out what on earth the characters said to the world at large about the events that occur at Dunmykel in the course of the book. It was challenging to say the least–I sent several emails to my brainstorming group of writer friends asking for advice. I won’t say what the solution was, but when I proofed the galleys, I felt as though what I’d settled on was the right decision for the characters.
March 19, 2008 at 2:31 am
Spoilers;
While I think was Honoria did was horrible, she wasn’t asking Evie to commit an actual crime. I do wonder why Evie didn’t go to someone for help. I suppose by then she simply assumed no one would believe her (the Poor Relation) over Honoria (the Heiress), but part of me wonders if she even tried.
I think her decision to kill Honoria was partly the result of a longtime resentment.
But yes, in the end, it would have been for nothing. Glenister would likely have sent her back to her family. Quenton married to another woman. David stripped of his illusions about both her and Honoria.
March 19, 2008 at 2:44 am
Spoilers:
I was thinking just that today. Honoria put Evie in a very unpleasant situation, but Evie could have gone to someone–to David, to Quen, even to Glenister. Yes, she was used to being cast into the shade by Honoria, but I think they all would have believed her in the end, though it would have been unpleasnat. That she didn’t go to any of them is partly owing to the mores of the day (it would have been very difficult for her to put the scandal into words and from the time she first came to Glenister House, her role was to be a good little niece and not make trouble), partly owing to her own nature (she’s used to solving problems on her own, tidying things up for her family, being ruthless when necessary), partly, I think as you say, owing to her longtime resentment of Honoria.
I’m actually not sure Glenister would have sent her back to her family. He has such deep-seated guilt about his brother’s death, that I think he might have still felt he needed to look after Evie, at least financially. But I think he would have had trouble looking her in the eye, as would Quen and David. That they might have tried to be kind to her would have made it even worse. And she would have had to watch Quen in love with and happily married to another woman.
Btw, reading the book did you think Quen would end up with Evie? That’s partly why I held off his last scene with Aspasia for so long.
March 19, 2008 at 3:23 am
Spoilers:
Oddly enough, I hoped that Quen would NOT end up with Evie; not that I had the faintest idea she was the murderer. His feelings for Aspasia were obviously so deep when he spoke of her to Charles and Melanie. And she seemed to ’see’ him better than Evie did.
Glenister would have done better to give his sister the money she would have had if their father had not cut her off, or to settle some money on Evie. Instead, he took Evie to live in a world she could watch but never be a part of.
March 19, 2008 at 3:35 am
Spoilers:
I’m so glad you wanted Quen to end up with Aspasia. Ideally, I wanted the strength of their bond to come through, while at the same time I hoped readers would wonder if he’d end up with Evie (or even expect him to) partly as misdiretion over the mystery, partly because I was playing with traditional romance tropes. I loved writing the Quen and Aspasia love story.
You’re right, it would have been much better for Glenister to have supported Evie (or simply supported his sister) rather than taking Evie away from her family into a world that was perilous for anyone, particularly an unmarried young girl of no fortune, to navigate. But then Glenister isn’t the most sensible or sensitive man in a number of respects. Evie’s story, as may be obvious, was in large part inspired by Fanny Price in “Mansfield Park.”
March 19, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Spoilers:
I thought Evie’s story sounded a lot like Fanny’s! I did see the (1996?) movie; never got through the book.
I did wonder for a moment if Evie would end up with Quen, (that would be a conventional ending) but you’ve never been too conventional, thank goodness.
I suppose Glenister did believe his actions were kind; men of his type weren’t likely to let loose the purse strings, anyway. It wouldn’t occur to him to think in the long term; what being a dependent would do to Evie.
Someone on the AAR board mentioned a scene in Mansfield Park where Fanny returns to her parents and realizes how much she has changed. That could apply to Evie. It’s likely she barely remembered her parents or her siblings, and would have had nothing in common with them if she had returned.
I wonder if Andrew ever went to see his natural mother? Who would have told the family Evie was dead?
March 19, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Spoilers:
“Mansfield Park” is my least favorite Jane Austen (which makes it my least favorite book by one of my favorite writers). I always find myself much more sympathetic to brittle, cynical Mary Crawford than to Fanny. I’d definitely still recommend reading it though. Some wonderful characters. And the image of Fanny being taken away from her family is haunting (it was those scenes in the 1996 film that set Evie’s story in motion in my head, I think). I saw the comment about the scenes of Fanny returning to her family not being included in the recent “Mansfield Park” adaptation (I don’t know why they made those new versions only ninety minutes long). I agree you lose a lot by omitting those scenes, which say so much about economics and love and the position of women, all key themes in Jane Austen.
Evie probably has seen her family from time to time through the years, but I agree that she’d feel as lost and alienated returning to their world as Fanny does on her visit home. She hasn’t turned into an Honoria, but she’s definitely changed from living in Glenister House (she thinks as much in her scene with Val).
I think Glenister wouldn’t think of Evie being a dependant–he’d assume that in taking care of her he was doing his duty by her. In his mind, women are meant to be sheltered or seduced.
In the A+ letters I have Glenister going to tell his sister Evie is dead. I imagine Andrew would want to see his biological mother eventually, though I think he would leave the decision up to whether or not she wanted to see him (and I’m not sure of the answer).
March 19, 2008 at 9:48 pm
No, it wouldn’t occur to Glenister to think of Evie as a dependent. Or to wonder about the future of a girl living in his society without money.
After all, Quen would take care of her when he died; it wouldn’t occur to him that she might not want to be the unofficial mistress of a home that isn’t hers, a position that would be taken away once Quen married. (Which would be hard for her for other reasons.)
March 20, 2008 at 12:53 am
Precisely. It wouldn’t occur to Glenister that a girl would feel the need to be independent and self-sufficient. But to do him justice, I do think he would have given Evie a generous dowery (as Gisèle points out) and that he fully expects her to marry. Then he’d expect her husband to take care of her.
March 20, 2008 at 4:22 am
But it’s a Catch-22; how is Evie to get a husband if she doesn’t have a dowry? She’s known to be a poor relation; what man in their clique would take her seriously as a marital prospect?
SPOILERS
8. Melanie’s past. I know a lot of readers wondered why Beneath a Silent Moon was released *after* Daughter of the Game.
I had to admit, it was interesting to see the little hints of her past - her tension when Le Faucon was mentioned, her nightmares, the scene where Honoria rather spitefully mentions Colin’s resemblance to Charles.
(Oddly ironic, that he does resemble Charles - does Honoria see this, or is she simply being nasty?)
March 20, 2008 at 4:35 am
Evie’s known to be the niece and ward of a very powerful, wealthy peer. So I think a number of men would suspect that Glenister would give her a dowery that would be substantial (if not the equal of Honoria, who has a fortune from both parents). But I think Glenister has been careless in not formally settling money on her. And, as Evie points out, the taint of her mother’s scandal clings to her to a certain extent.
Spoilers:
“Beneath a Silent Moon” was released after “Daughter of the Game”/”Secrets of a Lady” because it was only when I wrote “Daughter”/”Secrets” that I realized I wanted to go back and explore past issues (particularly Charles’s family, especially Kenneth and Gisèle) to set up future books :-).
It was fun (if challenging at times) writing the hints of Mélanie’s past, trying to be honest while in her pov without giving way spoilers. I think Honoria does see a resemblance between Charles and Colin, but suspects it is merely coincidence. So she is being spiteful by mentioning it and also testing out Mélanie (because in that scene, Honoria isn’t entirely sure about Colin’s parentage; she makes her mind up in the scene with Charles on the terrace at Dunmykel).
March 21, 2008 at 5:40 am
LOL, Tracy. You know more about the mores of the Regency than I do. And you certainly know more about the world you created.
Perhaps I’m too cynical after reading (and watching) Sense and Sensibility and other Austen works. If a *brother* tossing his half-sisters out of the home they’ve lived in for years (and not giving them any money despite his own dying father’s request) didn’t raise an eyebrow among Austen’s regency readers, I can’t help but think that most men would be wary of marrying a girl who didn’t already have the dowry in hand.
SPOILERS:
OT, I remember a book I read in which the grandmother of two cousins left two wills; one bequeathed everything to the younger girl. The later will gave everything to the elder girl. Grandmother left a letter, telling the elder girl to wait until the younger girl was married before bringing out the second will. That way, both girls could have a chance a marriage.
Of course, since the book is a Gothic, it caused all sorts of complications, but I thought it was a very interesting twist.
I’m glad for the glimpse of Charles’ past; it was interesting seeing his other father. I think I prefer Raoul, even with his manipulations.
March 21, 2008 at 6:28 am
John Dashwood tossing his stepmtoehr and sisters out of the house *is* shocking–I’m inclined think Jane Austen found it shocking. On the other hand, it was perfectly legal and an action John and his mother could take without being socially disgraced. I think the Emma Thompson/Ang Lee film of “Sense and Sensibility” does a brilliant job of capturing the corrosive and pervasive power of money in that world and in Austen’s novel.
Spoilers:
The book with the grandmother and the two wills sounds like a great plot premise! Very interesting twist that makes use of the conventions of the day.
Personally I much prefer Raoul to Kenneth Fraser. I think even Charles prefers Raoul, or is coming to do so. Whatever his faults and manipulations, Raoul actually loves Charles.
March 21, 2008 at 7:46 pm
I loved that scene where Fanny talks her husband “down” as he’s thinking about what to do with his step-mother and half-sisters. You just *hated* Fanny in that moment. (Hee! Harriet Walter is a goddess)
SPOILERS:
I had a big “awwww” moment when Melanie realizes that the lock of hair Raoul has carried with him all these years was Charles’ baby hair. *Sniffle*
March 21, 2008 at 8:11 pm
I loved that opening sequence with Fanny and her husband too. And I love the scene between Elinor and Colonel Brandon, where at the end, Brandon says that he believes Willoughby really would have married Marianne “had it not been–”
“For the money?” Elinor finishes.
Spoilers:
I’m so glad you liked that moment with the lock of hair! I think it’s a big insight into Raoul (the idea for the guy carrying the lock of hair of his unacknowledged child, btw, I got from “Possession,” where A.S. Byatt uses it to beautiful effect). I think you’ll like “The Mask of Night”–a lot of it is about Charles and Raoul and father/son dynamics.