Victorians! discussion

Welcome to the final week of The Fate of Fenella.
What a wacky, wonderful ride this has been! (Except to our much tortured characters.)

Ch. 22- George Manville Fenn, “Retribution”
Ch. 23- Tasma (Jessie Catherine Couvreur), “Sick Unto Death”
Ch. 24- F. Anstey. (Thomas Anstey Guthrie), "Whom the Gods Hate Die Hard"

Favorite Line:
“No,” said Frank faintly, “No, only the dread of some new disaster. We have gone through so many!”

Summary: Ch. 22-24

Lord Francis Onslow heads off for Mercy Street, then on to follow Lucille, witnessing the retribution of her first husband.

In the meantime, Fenella tends their son in his illness, under the protection of Clitheroe Jacynthe. A of arrives requiring Fenella & company to hurry to London and the bedside of Frank, who has fallen into illness after seeing Lucille and husband swept into the sea by a gigantic wave.

In the final chapter, it is Lucille who arrives at Frank’s bedside, claiming that he saved her from death at the edge of the sea. (His heroism is attributed to another trance.) She reveals to him that she knows it was Frank who killed Count deMürger and not Fenella; and urges Frank to flee the country with her.

Luckily, Fenella arrives to clarify that while Frank did the deed, she could tell he was in a hypnotic trance. Jacynthe brings forth the information that Lord Castleton can attest to witnessing a similar trance in place of Fenella’s testimony.

Suddenly, the detectives arrive and take Lucille away in handcuffs. Frank and Fenella prepare to take their son back with them to their estate, releasing Jacynthe back to his law practice, when one final twist in the story brings it to a dramatic conclusion.

-Were you surprised by the final twist? Can you imagine an ending which would make accommodations for Frank’s guilt?

-What “loose ends” does the story fail to address that leave you dissatisfied?

-What was your favorite scene or twist?
-Which character did you most enjoy?

-Would you characterize this as a successful experiment in the creation of sensational fiction?

-In spite of its flaws, did you enjoy the novel?

My overall reaction was most definitely negative. The plot, a ridiculous melodrama and soap opera at best, twisted and turned on the proverbial dime clearly dependent on the whim of the author of the moment. And that plot, such as it was, rested on the notion of hypnotic trances the source and purpose of which was never even hinted at. Seriously??

I think that the final twist was just a convenient way to end the book. Poor Frank! There were a lot of inconsistencies in the entire story, but it was fun.
I can't say that I liked any of the characters since they had no depth, but I did enjoy hating Lucille!
As a sensational novel, it certainly had enough excitement and plot twists to keep up interest.
I enjoyed it much more than A Long Fatal Love Chase by Louisa May Alcott!

Paul wrote: "My overall reaction was most definitely negative. The plot, a ridiculous melodrama and soap opera at best, twisted and turned on the proverbial dime clearly dependent on the whim of the author of t..."

I hear you. A lot of GR reviewers felt exactly the same.

Rosemarie wrote: "I think that the final twist was just a convenient way to end the book. Poor Frank! There were a lot of inconsistencies in the entire story, but it was fun.
I can't say that I liked any of the cha..."

Definitely a convenient way to end things, but not one I saw coming. Although, in retrospect there were enough periods of recuperation to make it at least explicable. Just surprising.

I think it was interesting from a story/writer perspective to see how many times one author clearly left a particular storyline dangling to be picked up by the next… who very often just ignored it and went another way. I have to wonder whether this was vanity, fickleness, or the way the experiment was structured.

Renee wrote: "I think it was interesting from a story/writer perspective to see how many times one author clearly left a particular storyline dangling to be picked up by the next… who very often just ignored it ..."

And, hence, my negative comment about the plot (such as it was) turning on the proverbial dime at the whim of the writer of the moment!

I enjoyed this novel for its sheer novelty. It definitely isn’t great literature - as others have noted, it’s melodramatic, has lots of dangling threads, and no real character development. But to see how each author picked from the previous one and what twists each introduced was fun. I felt sorry for Frank at times, but he really was something of a ninny, plus the frequent trances hinted at some great, undiagnosed illness. His death was certainly a convenient was to resolve the romantic problem of Fenella and Jancyk and utterly predictable. One thing that struck me is how often Victorian writers used some terrible and unexplained fever after a traumatic event to put their characters at death’s door only to have them recover just in time for a resolution of the story.

Those fevers are convenient!

Nancy wrote: "I enjoyed this novel for its sheer novelty. It definitely isn’t great literature - as others have noted, it’s melodramatic, has lots of dangling threads, and no real character development. But to s..."

Full Disclosure: I have occasionally wished to have a nice long convalescence or taken a “rest cure” after a spate of rough going at work or in my personal life. Like many of us, I grew up with the “soldier on” mentality, which is sometimes just what you need to do, but green lawns and lounge chairs seem like a nice option. ;-)

Now I’m starting to wonder what my summaries would look like if I focused entirely on Frank. Would it be mostly jealousy, trances, and convalescence??

My favorite Frank moments were probably those from the first chapter when he jumped up on the carriage and flirted with Fenella.

Mine too, Renee. The first chapter was one of the best!

I was very disappointed by the ending and I really think that the author of the last chapter got it disastrously wrong.

Never for a moment during the whole story did Fenella express any romantic feelings for Jacynth. At the beginning she flirted with him because of Frank being under the spell of Lucille. (The last chapter should have made it clear that Lucille was the instigator of Frank’s hypnotic trances and therefore absolve him of all blame. )

Throughout the trials and tribulations of the twenty odd chapters Fenella did show her deep gratitude for the way Jacynth helped her and her son, but her heart was always with Frank.

To kill Frank off at the moment that all the family’s problems had been resolved was both unjust and ridiculous, rendering the purpose of the twenty three preceding chapters defunct.

I thought of The Four Feathers by A. E Mason in which (spoiler for anyone who does not know the plot) (view spoiler)[ when Captain Durrance deliberately breaks off his engagement to Ethne Eustace when he finds out that she really loves Harry Feversham, but is marrying him out of duty and respect. (hide spoiler)]

Jacynth should have taken his leave once the family were united and gone back to his practices, possibly licking his wounds. In fact the story would have been much better if Jacynth had never been a love interest for Fenella, but possibly an older man who could have assumed an avuncular/fatherly role in the adventures.

Frank should have got what he wished and enjoyed at least few years of happiness with his wife and son. He was offered a second chance to put things right, had to endure nightmarish adventures before a successful reunion was pathetically snatched away before he had even kissed Fenella, just to create a sensational ending.

If I had been the publisher I would have sent that last chapter back to be rewritten.

Overall I thought the idea was worth trying but it resulted in patchy quality and characters who jumped all over the place in terms of who they were and what they felt, thought and believed in.

Most of the twenty four writers I had never heard of, but I will go back and look up the work of some of them to try out one or two of their full length novels.

Trev wrote: "I was very disappointed by the ending and I really think that the author of the last chapter got it disastrously wrong.

Never for a moment during the whole story did Fenella express any romantic ..."

Very well put, Trev. I had similar expectations of a happy ending for Frank and Fenella. With Lucille as the mesmeric Svengali behind Frank’s actions.

Most of the writers involved have not faired well through the decades but were fairly well known in their time. Several have works easily available through The Gutenberg Project, Internet Archives, and Libivox. There are Wikipedia articles on them linked toward the bottom of the article on the novel : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fat...

It seems F. Anstey was predominantly known for his comic writings and parodies. I have to wonder now if the final chapter was supposed to be a surprise or parody of the sensation novels so popular in the 1800s. Thoughts, Anyone?

Renee wrote: "It seems F. Anstey was predominantly known for his comic writings and parodies. I have to wonder now if the final chapter was supposed to be a surprise or parody of the sensation novels so popular ..."

Thanks Renee for the background on F. Anstey. It now makes sense why Frank turned around four times, then crashed into a plant before dropping dead.

A sort of slapstick ‘Black Adder’ moment. But probably not really the reward that the dedicated readers of the twenty four instalments/chapters deserved. Even Fenella seemed nonplussed about it all, as if to say, ‘Have I gone through all that for this?’

Anyway, as I said after the first chapter, it was an exhilarating fairground ride of a novel. We all need a little bit of adventurous reading now and again, but I may need to find something more solid and reassuring as a soothing next read.

Well, we’ve got Cousin Henry and The Woman in White coming up next. Not sure either would be considered soothing… But at least silliness is unlikely. Both seem to have some elements of treachery, betrayal, and/or lies, so I’m expecting a completely different kind of ride.