Memorable Quote series, #3, from "Swordspoint"

[rikibeth]

Love AND money.

"Bertram's voice grew at once less distinct and louder; he must have turned away, but was practically shouting, 'I won't have you blaming yourself for that! We've been over this before, Olivia; it's not your fault and I don't want to hear you talking like that!'

"It had all the marks of an old argument. 'Don't tell me that, tell your father!' Her well-bred voice retained its rounded tones, but the pitch was shriller, the tempo faster, carrying through the glass with no difficulty. 'He's been waiting six years for an heir! He'd have made you divorce me by now if it wasn't for the dowry!'

"'Olivia --'

"'Lucy has five children! Five! Davenant can keep his bedroom full of boys, nobody cares, because he does his duty by her...but you --'

"'Olivia, stop it!'

"'You -- where is your heir going to come from? Michael Godwin? Well it's going to have to come from Michael Godwin because we know it isn't going to come from anywhere else!'"

Ellen Kushner, "Swordspoint," 1987, pp.31-32, Arbor House hardcover.

Comments

[sambear.livejournal.com]

I love that novel. Fops and blades. Blades and fops. Gotta love it.

[tubin.livejournal.com]

Can you give a little background on the novel, for those of us west-coast listeners who are just tuning in?

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

"Swordspoint: A Melodrama of Manners" by ellen_kushner -- it's a novel of intrigue and swashbuckling and all sorts of aristocratic goodness, set in an unnamed city that has a very 18th-century Paris-or-London feel to it. The hero is a swordsman-for hire named Richard St. Vier, along with his lover, a mysterious student named Alec. One of the cultural assumptions for the setting seems to be that everyone's bisexual, and *not* to be is a little unusual.

naamah_darling has written a much more detailed review than I can manage in my post-brunch laziness, or you could ask immlass, who loves it quite as much as I do.

Read it read it read it!

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

". . .Oh, god, thought Michael, hands pressed to his mouth; _And there he is out on the balcony_. . . . he looked longingly at the ground, not at all sure now that he could manipulate the drainpipe again." (p. 33, Bantam paperback edition)

Sweet dreams!

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, and that adds to the charm of it, when you know what's going on, but the point I use the quote to illustrate isn't Olivia's duplicity, but the awkward position that Bertram's failure to get an heir on her puts her in.

I used it a lot when I was gaming Amber Diceless, and I had a gay Prince Julian, and I had to explain the prevailing attitude among the nobles -- not homophobia, but the absolute necessity of getting an heir in a system of male primogeniture.

"No one cares, because he does his duty by her."

I wish the disk with the conversation between Julian and his prospective betrothed, Araminta, hadn't gone missing. :( That was fun to do.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a rattling good time! Ah, life in the Patriarchy....

Michael Godwin

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

You gotta see THIS:

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/14153458/