Avoiding the Banal: How the Duke Fell in Love with His Maid

Sebastian Digby, the hero of Maya Rodale’s The Tattooed Duke, refuses to adopt the shackling conventions of Nineteenth-Century British society. He had much rather follow his heart, explore the world and experience all sorts of adventures. Life, however, has a tendency to catch up with those who try to elude its responsibilities, as he discovers when summoned back home from Tahiti to assume his duties as the Duke of Wycliff.

Wycliff may now be a duke, but more than that he is a sensation in British Society -- the kind of sensation no one wants attached to himself or herself. Not only is he rumored to have engaged in cannibalism and to have spent an entire night in a harem, he is now one of the Wicked Wycliffs, the spendthrift playboy dukes who tend to play around with their maids. No one doubts that this Wycliff will be just the same.

Eliza, a Writing Girl for a yellow newspaper, is sent to write a series of articles on the sensational new duke. Disguised as a maid, she falls in love with Wycliff even as she writes columns that reveal all of his secrets to the ever-more-shocked world. Wycliff and Eliza betray each other as they try to find a balance between their individual hopes and dreams and this new reality in which another human being suddenly has claims on their future. Does that sounds ordinary to you?

And yet nothing about this novel is banal. Not even the most minor character is what he or she seems. Wycliff resists falling into the Wicked Wycliff tradition while keeping his long hair and solitary earring, refusing to wear a necktie and proudly acknowledging his tattoos. Eliza ties herself in knots trying to redeem the duke while keeping her job at the crowd-pleaser, scandal-mongering newspaper. And the whirlwind begins: deception, lies, a secret locked room, an adventurous expedition to a legendary city, bigamy, tea laced with whiskey, a one-armed man whose second arm is in perfect working order, a child born out of wedlock, a  lady who is Hades’ Own Harpy, and of course loyalty and love.

Fabulous book! I loved the Henry Fielding-styled subtitles to the chapters (Fielding is also Eliza’s last name) and the many allusions to eighteenth-century British novels. And (Spoiler Warning!) the best part last: the novel ends with the most extraordinary marriage proposal:

...her beauty left him speechless. Of all the sunrises and sunsets he’d seen, of all the sublime natural spectacles and stunning sights he’d witnessed on his travels, nothing compared to Eliza emerging from the bath.

    Silently, he dropped to one knee.
    “Wycliff?” She said, lifting one brow questioningly. She glanced around for a towel. She looked at him on bended knee before her. Little rivulets of water trickled down her soft, pale skin. In that instant he was jealous of a mere droplet of water.
    “Will you marry me, Eliza?”

Enchanting.

Laugh Out Loud

On the airplane yesterday, I started reading The Frog Prince by Elle Lothlorien. The book caught my fancy because of its name (I love fairy tales!) and the subtitle, “A Romantic Comedy.” My favorite two genres combined! I didn’t really know anything about the content, but it seemed like a light, fast read that would amuse me on the flight.

From its first line, the novel did not disappoint, as Leigh, the narrator, begins the story by announcing: “Everyone agrees that my Great Aunt Tina looks fabulous dead.” Leigh tells the story in a humorous, often unexpected, bubbly voice. She is socially inept, either gushing about her sex research and spewing bizarre facts about human mating habits, or judging each word before she utters it to make sure its “creep factor” is not too high. Her friend Kat tells her, “If I had to think so hard about everything I did, I’d throw myself off the roof.”

For about four hours, I sat on the plane and laughed out loud. I didn’t care if the girl sitting next to me on the first flight and the man sitting next to me on the second thought I was crazy. I just enjoyed the book so much. I laughed and laughed.

The best part about how fun the book is: I left my disbelief (remember my suspending your disbelief post?) on the first page and never looked back. I didn’t mind when Roman, Leigh’s boyfriend, turned out to be the heir apparent to the Austrian throne (only if the monarchy was restored, of course). My faith did not waver when Leigh discovered that Roman had access to private planes and was friends with Prince Faisal of  Saudi Arabia and Princess Isabella of Denmark. A quick google check (for this blog’s purpose) revealed that history does in fact include these two personages. However, Princess Isabella is five and Prince Faisal died in 1975.

I also didn’t bat an eyelash when Leigh and Roman discover that the Austrian parliament had voted to restore the monarchy. Swept away with the humor and wackiness of the novel, any crazy semi-realistic idea that Elle Lothlorien wished to throw my way would have only added to the fun, even a historical event of such monumentality as reinstating a king to his throne. I love to laugh, and I guess I’m willing to do pretty much anything to laugh more.

I always tell my family that for my shiva (the Jewish traditional seven days of mourning), I’d like them to sit telling jokes about me. What a better way to make the move to the next world than on waves of laughter? But even my morbid sense of humor stands in awe before the way Leigh’s family says goodbye to the dead: “my family likes to take pictures of dead people.” Leigh explains as she poses with the dead Great Aunt Tina, “Not just take pictures of them, but have people pose with them like a bride and groom on their wedding day.”

Wow. That sounds like, um, fun....