Group Read, September 2013: The Female Quixote

This book is a hoot! Not sure if I've never laughed aloud at an 18th-century book before but this one is doing it. I'm 45 pages in and having a good old time.

With our last group read, my first comment was to compare the Forsyte Saga with Edith Wharton. The Female Quixote, though intentionally taking off on Don Quixote, keeps reminding me of a wonderful Young Adult novel called It All Began with Jane Eyre. In that modern book our heroine's parents, worried that she reads too many classics, give her a bunch of modern Teen Novels so she'll be more normal. She assumes that these books describe the trials and traumas of modern family life as it Really Is, and she proceeds to misread all the actual events around her with hilarious results. This is just what Arabella, the Female Quixote, does. Absolutely wonderful.

TFQ also reminds me of P.G. Wodehouse -- there are several stories, as I recall, where Bertie & co. concoct these mad schemes to win over damsels, which are open to being comically misunderstood. So clearly TFQ initiated an excellent literary genre.

I've also begun, but not as far along as you. It really does hit the ground running, doesn't it?

Looking forward to getting a copy from the library... (had to go through interlibrary loan since none of the libraries in my regular network have a copy.) I'm hoping it won't be a disadvantage if I haven't read Don Quixote.

I'm finishing up a book today and starting by tomorrow. Glad to hear it's fun to read! I never know what to expect from the older books on the list.

I will probably start the book tonight.

Got my copy, glad to hear good things. I am in the middle of Gormenghast at the mo.

Quick question - I'm reading a paperback oxford world classics edition and there are tons of extra words (practically every other one) capitalized. Is that a time period thing I don't know about?

And italicized words, too! I thought it was a period thing, but it feels strangely contemporary. I kind of like it.

The capitalized words are a period thing. I was thinking about this too. It's all nouns that are capitalized, and in German nouns are still capitalized today. So this must have been something that the two (related) languages were still doing alike at this period, and then English stopped it. I have a feeling that noun capitalization was already a bit old-fashioned by Lennox's time, though, and she might be doing it deliberately. Not sure about that.

Interesting. It's making me add emphasis in my mental reading voice that is unwarranted, but I think I'll get used to it.

I agree that it feels a deliberate device to emphasize the unreal/romantic world that our heroine lives in her mind, influenced maybe by old novels written in that style.

That's interesting! I'm German and it took me several chapters to notice it at all, but then I didn't mind it, simply because I'm used to it.

(My office computer must have a hidden"1700s English" setting because it automatically capitalizes the nouns when I'm writing English, but only when I use the internet. It's no German setting (it doesn't try to correct spelling), it just capitalizes and it's annoying to go through the text again and correct all those words.)

I finished the book last night, and thought it was the funniest classic I ever read. Arabella's delusion often made me laugh out loud. I had already started in mid-August and took the book in small doses so the story didn't get boring.
The only thing I didn't like were those numerous retellings of old romance stories in overblown language, I skipped many of those (because in the end they didn't do much for the story and were interchangeable), and once I only skimmed through an entire book, the one where Sir George tells his own story, because it's completely written in that language and I just couldn't bear it.

Sure Arabella seems out of her mind, but sometimes I had to admit to find a bit of myself in her, spoiled by all those romantic movies with clear ideas "how it should be".
And she reminded me of a former classmate in the 80s who was fully convinced that all 15 or so boys in our class were in love with her.

Better don't start a drinking game on "ravish/er" or "to be carried away"

I was momentarily thrown by the worldly Miss Glanville's ignorance of the Olympic Games. Then I remembered that this book was written 100 years before the start of the Modern Games so I suppose in1750 they could have been an obscure historical artifact.

I did a double take on the Olympic games too! It was actually fascinating to see them presented as this highly romantic historical artifact, something akin to jousting.
The whole set-up with the Glanville's is hysterical -- he adoring his Bella in spite of her borderline insanity and his sister thinking that she is a conniving b**ch because she can't believe anybody would really be so dotty, while Arabella tries to be a distant maiden to him and a true friend to her. Love it!
On capitalization: I looked at the appendixes to the Oxford edition where they publish the correspondence between Lennox and Richardson, and he uses noun capitalization in his letters. So evidently this was still the standard format in the mid 18th century.

I finished The Female Quixote this morning. I mostly enjoyed the book... at times I found it a bit tedious and couldn't understand why Glanville didn't just say hang it all and move on to someone with a little more sense. I found the book to get more amusing as it went on (or maybe I just became more accustomed to its style.)

I just finished book one last night (about 60 pages in). The capitalized words have taken me a while to get use to, it's a bit distracting, but I can live with it. It's been a very....... interesting read so far. Arabella is a unique character. A bit silly and over dramatic at times, although she does live in this little fantasy world she picked up from fantasy novels, it still has taken me a while to warm up to her.

I also have to keep reminding myself it's meant to be a satire. I'm not sure how I feel about the book yet, but it should be interesting to see what/how her antics affect the rest of the book.

I am about 40% in the book and I have to admit Arabella gets on my ever lasting nerves and like Annamorphic Glanville just needs to move on because this woman is crazy.

But she's so beautiful . . . and has so much money! (Eye roll!)

Yes but that doesnt help when your a twit!!!!!

A gentle dementia, commonly known as "eccentricity," has long been considered a plus among the English upper classes.

She's a wack-job. But I'm mostly enjoying the story - nearly half finished. A bit tedious in spots. Glanville is nearly as bad for continuing to want her. But I love his father and sister, both of whom so clearly think Arabella's nuts.

I am on Sir George's tale of his Romantic Adventures which is an excellent interlude, packed with activity even if fictitious!

I did have a thought about the purpose of this author. I am struck by how completely passive Arabella is. She only reads, books and other people; she never consults herself, asks how she really feels about somebody. She only worries about how they feel about her, and how she ought to respond according to what she thinks of as social rules. Similarly, she never thinks that men love her for anything but purely external appearance. There was a point where she actually commented on this -- that she has done, said, thought nothing to make her deserving, that the men are simply smitten by her looks, and there is really nothing she can do about this except respond according to the rules.

That moment of pointed comment made me think that Lennox is deliberately drawing attention to how standard "Romance" robs women of agency and even self-hood and makes them into kind of visual automata. We actually know that Arabella is a decent person because in fact she's usually trying to be nice and supportive to her nasty cousin Charlotte; but with men, she feels like her only power is visual and out of her control.

Interesting observation. I've noticed how Lennox throws in small comments about how Arabella is really a very normal person when conversing or thinking about anything other than her romances. I think your point of women's role in romances at the time being passive is a good one. In the limited biography of Lennox in my book, it mentions that she may have been separated from her husband and she died in poverty. Sounds like she had a hard life and an unsuccessful marriage. Maybe that colored her viewpoint in this novel.

I'm only about 20 pages in but I am already adoring it! I did notice the capitalized words, but I haven't had trouble with reading them. This book reminds me of the only Jane Austen I've read, Pride and Prejudice. Is just so funny!

Loved it! I ended up reading it over a couple of days, I didn't want to put it down.
Yes it was overblown, but that was the beauty of the satire.

I was wondering if anyone thought about the current day thoughts of media influencing children negatively (aggressive video games, music, etc.) and the influence of the romances on Arabella?

I finished the book this evening. I found the misunderstandings amusing but the repetitive references to the heroes of antiquity a bit dull, and the ending rather unconvincingly sudden. 3/5.

#26 -- Interesting connection! I guess this is one of society's eternal concerns.
#27 -- the ending was certainly a problem. I talked about this in the review on my own thread, but basically I wondered if Lennox just could not imagine a particularly satisfying life in "Reality" for a smart, idealistic young woman like Arabella.

Yes, the ending was sudden and pretty unconvincing. I was kind of relieved that there weren't going to be more of the same misunderstandings happening anymore, but I'm sure there could have been a more satisfying conclusion somehow. I would have rather seen the Countess's influence continue rather than having a male doctor come in and "fix" her.

Well, as I said on my thread I didn't really take to this one as much as I'd hoped but still enjoyed the ride well enough.

My main gripe was that I just thought it paled in comparison to Don Quixote itself which was hard to ignore. Does anyone else have any thought on the link between the two, and whether comparing the 2 is justified?

I'm not sure I completely agree about the feeling that Granville should have given up much earlier. I had the benefit of reading some of the comments here before I'd read much of the book and before I came upon a passage in which Lennox justifies his actions explicitly. If I get the chance I'll try and dig out the quote.

japaul22, your thought about the influence of the media on children was interesting. I hope I don't offend, as your position on the matter in your post is not clear, but I think this book is a actually a good demonstration of why the idea that morality in fiction (be that literature, TV, film, computer games etc) influences the morality of children/people is not a flawed one.

As with Don Quixote the bulk of the humour comes from the absurdity of basing your life, morals and values on fiction. We, and every other character in the book, laugh at Arabella because it is ridiculous to actually believe that what she is reading reflects real life. In the same way to suggest that a violent video game will influence the way that a child lives their life undermines a child's ability to distinguish fiction from reality. As in Arabella's case, the only way that this could happen is in a case of extreme detachment from the real world.