Recently I've been trying to do most of my low-effort fiction reading in French, as it feels like a way to improve without actually doing any work. And most of my low-effort reading these days tends to be queer historical or fantasy romances. I'm particularly keen on KJ Charles, but it's a reasonably well populated genre in English.
And one option I have is reading books by English authors in translation, but I thought it would be interesting to try and find similar books originally written in French, and it's been surprisingly difficult. The English novels I'm familiar with are generally set somewhere between the Regency period and the 1920s, and mostly follow a fairly similar structure. There's a romance plot between two main characters, where they meet, they bang one another, they fall out and have misunderstandings and then sort them out, repeat a few times, and then they live happily ever after. And alongside that there's some kind of intrigue plot - a murder mystery, or a family feud, or a jewel heist, or some political machinations, in which the main characters and their friends are caught up. And I guess it's a little bit formulaic, but when well done it's very enjoyable.
In the last few weeks I have read four French queer historical novels, and they have all been quite different, and a lot more uncomfortable.
L'espion de la reine is set in Versailles in the time of Marie-Antoinette, who is essentially abusing the viewpoint character - formerly her whipping girl, and now, in the guise of her own brother, a member of the king's Scottish Guards. It's left ambiguous whether this character is a queer woman or a trans man, and basically every character in the book except one is a terrible terrible person, and consent is violated left right and centre.
Passant, va dire à Sparte is a duology set in Greece, at the time of the Greco-Persian Wars. Despite the setting, this one is probably the closest to what I'm used to in terms of structure - it follows the romance between two Greek men (or one man and one boy, depending on how you look at it) through the context of the war, including the battle of Thermopylae. But it situates itself firmly in the morality of the time, so that characters who are clearly supposed to be sympathetic act and speak in ways that feel quite horrific to my more modern ear.
La Chambre du Lord is a bit of an oddity, in that despite being written in French, it's set in the English Army, in between the Austrian Wars of Succession and the Seven Years War. This novel at least has a genuinely sympathetic viewpoint character, a young nobleman who is beginning to realise that he's queer, and wrestling with what he sees as his sinful urgings. But his relationship with the other main character, who is also his commanding officer, begins with rape, and continues with blackmail and abuse of authority.
I started reading a fifth book in same genre, Le sceau de Kropotkine (les memoires d'un bardache), but gave up on it about a third of the way through. This book had a lot more explicit sex in than the others, and perhaps relatedly was the only one written by a man. The first scene had a 15 year old boy being deflowered, and quickly moved from there to orgies with dubious consent and pretty grotesque exoticisation and racial stereotyping which, if not explicitly condoned, wasn't really challenged either.
So I'm not sure whether I'm just not looking in the right places, or whether the kind of light historical m/m romance I enjoy just isn't really a thing in French. I don't suppose anyone has any recs? (I'm mostly looking at you![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
highlyeccentric) In the meantime, I'm reading a trilogy called Les Larmes Rouge which has been described as the French answer to Twilight. As you might expect from that description the central relationship is somewhat less than healthy, but it is clearly presented as problematic, which makes that much less uncomfortable.
And one option I have is reading books by English authors in translation, but I thought it would be interesting to try and find similar books originally written in French, and it's been surprisingly difficult. The English novels I'm familiar with are generally set somewhere between the Regency period and the 1920s, and mostly follow a fairly similar structure. There's a romance plot between two main characters, where they meet, they bang one another, they fall out and have misunderstandings and then sort them out, repeat a few times, and then they live happily ever after. And alongside that there's some kind of intrigue plot - a murder mystery, or a family feud, or a jewel heist, or some political machinations, in which the main characters and their friends are caught up. And I guess it's a little bit formulaic, but when well done it's very enjoyable.
In the last few weeks I have read four French queer historical novels, and they have all been quite different, and a lot more uncomfortable.
L'espion de la reine is set in Versailles in the time of Marie-Antoinette, who is essentially abusing the viewpoint character - formerly her whipping girl, and now, in the guise of her own brother, a member of the king's Scottish Guards. It's left ambiguous whether this character is a queer woman or a trans man, and basically every character in the book except one is a terrible terrible person, and consent is violated left right and centre.
Passant, va dire à Sparte is a duology set in Greece, at the time of the Greco-Persian Wars. Despite the setting, this one is probably the closest to what I'm used to in terms of structure - it follows the romance between two Greek men (or one man and one boy, depending on how you look at it) through the context of the war, including the battle of Thermopylae. But it situates itself firmly in the morality of the time, so that characters who are clearly supposed to be sympathetic act and speak in ways that feel quite horrific to my more modern ear.
La Chambre du Lord is a bit of an oddity, in that despite being written in French, it's set in the English Army, in between the Austrian Wars of Succession and the Seven Years War. This novel at least has a genuinely sympathetic viewpoint character, a young nobleman who is beginning to realise that he's queer, and wrestling with what he sees as his sinful urgings. But his relationship with the other main character, who is also his commanding officer, begins with rape, and continues with blackmail and abuse of authority.
I started reading a fifth book in same genre, Le sceau de Kropotkine (les memoires d'un bardache), but gave up on it about a third of the way through. This book had a lot more explicit sex in than the others, and perhaps relatedly was the only one written by a man. The first scene had a 15 year old boy being deflowered, and quickly moved from there to orgies with dubious consent and pretty grotesque exoticisation and racial stereotyping which, if not explicitly condoned, wasn't really challenged either.
So I'm not sure whether I'm just not looking in the right places, or whether the kind of light historical m/m romance I enjoy just isn't really a thing in French. I don't suppose anyone has any recs? (I'm mostly looking at you
highlyeccentric) In the meantime, I'm reading a trilogy called Les Larmes Rouge which has been described as the French answer to Twilight. As you might expect from that description the central relationship is somewhat less than healthy, but it is clearly presented as problematic, which makes that much less uncomfortable.
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Date: 2023-06-23 09:51 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2023-06-24 03:06 pm (UTC)From:I don't know if it's better with indie or self-published stuff, though, and I don't really know how to find them.
no subject
Date: 2023-06-29 04:34 pm (UTC)From: