The author has said that she was fascinated by the fact that "women were out there beating one another up on stage whilst Jane Austen was sipping tea." Has The Fair Fight changed your ideas about what life must have been like in Georgian times?
Created: 04/13/16
Replies: 7
Join Date: 10/15/10
Posts: 3216
The author has said that she was fascinated by the fact that "women were out there beating one another up on stage whilst Jane Austen was sipping tea." Has The Fair Fight changed your ideas about what life must have been like in Georgian times?
Join Date: 06/25/14
Posts: 70
Sure it did! For some reason I pictured Georgian times only as Jane Austen wrote about them. Everyone was polite and refined and maybe not rich, but at least having enough to eat. For some reason I didn't picture the less advantaged men ad women of those years. In fact, who really thinks about the poor and less advantaged men and women in our generations??
Looking across all social and economic classes, this novel gave me a richer and probably truer version of Georgian times than I had previously been aware of existing.
Join Date: 10/16/10
Posts: 730
Yeah, I'd have to agree with viquig. I mostly think of Georgian times being more gentile. In fact, I originally thought that the setting was Victorian, because the squalor more closely matched my vision of Dickens' time.
Join Date: 02/03/14
Posts: 257
The idea of women fighting was new to me - the classist society that held such defined roles for women was not. The aspect of prostitution has been written about before. Other issues like inheritance and the lives of servants etc were familiar as well. The combination of so many social issues was well done!
Join Date: 10/15/10
Posts: 3216
I agree with Ruthie that the social issues were done very well. Some books lean too much on "telling" the reader - with awkward pages of dialogue where one character expounds on a topic to another to the point that it's clear that it's really for the reader's benefit, or a character will be preternaturally "modern" in their thinking in an effort to relate to the contemporary reader. But I never felt this with The Fair Fight - the characters are firmly of their time.
Personally I found it fascinating as both sides of my father's family were bankers and merchants in Bristol at that time, with houses in the same square as Charlotte as it happens. I find it interesting to look at portraits of these upright gentlemen and wonder at what their lives were really like.
Join Date: 11/13/14
Posts: 17
Join Date: 12/06/12
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Join Date: 06/13/11
Posts: 272
Life certainly did not sound ideal. Has society changed do much or just the part that is observed? Perry's attraction to George and their need to hide it. The open brothels that were known by all. Prize fighting was popular with many. This was an interesting picture of society from another level.
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