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Book Review: The Wounded Name
Oct. 25th, 2022 12:43 pmI am delighted to inform you that D. K. Broster’s The Wounded Name continues extremely extra to the very end. After Aymar’s beloved Avoye rejects him! because he lied to her!! to spare her the pain of knowing that his seeming treachery came about as a ruse to protect her from being executed as a spy!!! when she was actually never in danger and it was actually a stupid Bonapartist prank…
Anyway, Aymar is SO distraught that he tears himself away from his natal home, leaving Laurent behind to explain to Avoye what really happened (Aymar as usual being too punctilious of his honor to ever explain the extenuating circumstances of any of his actions - AYMAR) and then sulk back to his own home, where Laurent’s various relations deduce that he must be in love. Why else should he be so withdrawn and sullen, when France has at long last been freed from that tyrant Napoleon? They are of course quite right! Wrong as to the object of his affections, but correct that he is in love.
Meanwhile, Aymar has realized that the only way to clear his name (and perhaps win back Avoye?) is to call for a military tribunal. He sends Laurent a letter, including a postscript in an unsteady hand: "I doubt if I can face it, when the time comes, without you, Laurent!" Laurent of course flies to his side.
When said tribunal finds him innocent of all changes, Aymar faints in Laurent’s arms. “Aymar's head lay against Laurent's shoulder, and Laurent, who rather thought he was crying himself, and didn't care, was battling with a most unseasonable desire to kiss it there, before everyone; and would very likely have succumbed only that he was sure Aymar had not quite lost consciousness.”
Just holding your buddy in front of a whole entire courtroom of cheering spectators, battling the desire to press kisses on his beautiful bracken-colored hair! Holding back ONLY because Aymar is still awake and might be displeased, as he is generally not quite so romantic about Laurent as Laurent is about him! And then Aymar leaves the court, and the whole town cheers for his acquittal, and a man who spat on him the day before comes up to kiss his hand…
Later on, Aymar comments that in all his bad luck, he has also had “a piece of such transcendent good fortune that I might well spend the rest of my life thanking God for it!”... and when Laurent is slow on the uptake, Aymar adds, “‘You don't know what I mean? Well, go and stand in front of your looking-glass, and perhaps it will dawn upon you!’
But it dawned then and there, for as he stared at him Laurent slowly began to turn crimson…”
CHAPTER END, presumably because Broster couldn’t include the part where they fall into each other’s arms immediately thereafter. And then there is a little tag chapter where Aymar reunites with Avoye, but this is definitely in the manner of a bonus extra: the heart of the book lies in clearing Aymar’s name and also Aymar coming to return Laurent’s friendship in its full blood-heat fever-heat intensity. SUCH INTENSITY. FULL BORE ALL THE WAY THROUGH. Truly a tour-de-force of slashy hurt/comfort!
Anyway, Aymar is SO distraught that he tears himself away from his natal home, leaving Laurent behind to explain to Avoye what really happened (Aymar as usual being too punctilious of his honor to ever explain the extenuating circumstances of any of his actions - AYMAR) and then sulk back to his own home, where Laurent’s various relations deduce that he must be in love. Why else should he be so withdrawn and sullen, when France has at long last been freed from that tyrant Napoleon? They are of course quite right! Wrong as to the object of his affections, but correct that he is in love.
Meanwhile, Aymar has realized that the only way to clear his name (and perhaps win back Avoye?) is to call for a military tribunal. He sends Laurent a letter, including a postscript in an unsteady hand: "I doubt if I can face it, when the time comes, without you, Laurent!" Laurent of course flies to his side.
When said tribunal finds him innocent of all changes, Aymar faints in Laurent’s arms. “Aymar's head lay against Laurent's shoulder, and Laurent, who rather thought he was crying himself, and didn't care, was battling with a most unseasonable desire to kiss it there, before everyone; and would very likely have succumbed only that he was sure Aymar had not quite lost consciousness.”
Just holding your buddy in front of a whole entire courtroom of cheering spectators, battling the desire to press kisses on his beautiful bracken-colored hair! Holding back ONLY because Aymar is still awake and might be displeased, as he is generally not quite so romantic about Laurent as Laurent is about him! And then Aymar leaves the court, and the whole town cheers for his acquittal, and a man who spat on him the day before comes up to kiss his hand…
Later on, Aymar comments that in all his bad luck, he has also had “a piece of such transcendent good fortune that I might well spend the rest of my life thanking God for it!”... and when Laurent is slow on the uptake, Aymar adds, “‘You don't know what I mean? Well, go and stand in front of your looking-glass, and perhaps it will dawn upon you!’
But it dawned then and there, for as he stared at him Laurent slowly began to turn crimson…”
CHAPTER END, presumably because Broster couldn’t include the part where they fall into each other’s arms immediately thereafter. And then there is a little tag chapter where Aymar reunites with Avoye, but this is definitely in the manner of a bonus extra: the heart of the book lies in clearing Aymar’s name and also Aymar coming to return Laurent’s friendship in its full blood-heat fever-heat intensity. SUCH INTENSITY. FULL BORE ALL THE WAY THROUGH. Truly a tour-de-force of slashy hurt/comfort!
