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Birthdays and Ages in Alpennia
May. 12th, 2015 12:36 pmIt being my birthday today, I thought I’d write a bit about character ages in the Alpennian novels. If you want to give me a great birthday present and get something for yourself at the same time, how about buying one of my books! Or if you've already read them, have you posted reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, or your own blog?
There’s often a focus on younger protagonists, naturally enough. Since character growth is often about learning life skills and life lessons, those themes stand out most strongly for a character who is still developing a sense of self and an understanding of their place in the world. Daughter of Mystery is a coming of age story for Margerit and Barbara, both in the legal sense (as reaching their age of majority before disaster catches up with them is a key plot point) and in the psychological sense, given that they are both coming to understand their own goals and desires and how they will fit into each others’ lives.
But more and more there has been an interest in stories featuring older protagonists (older female protagonists, that is – older men have never been in short supply). Jeanne de Cherdillac, one of the featured protagonists of The Mystic Marriage definitely falls in this category, being in her later 40s. In her own mind she’s teetering on the edge between enjoying her prime of life and becoming a ridiculous old woman trying to hold fast to her lost youth. She’s a widow (and has been for the majority of her life) so she’s never had the stigma of being an old maid. But when she falls for the much younger Antuniet (in her mid-20s), she can’t entirely shake an uneasiness about the age gap between them.
Antuniet is entirely oblivious to that gap. For her, Jeanne is never a category or a type, Jeanne is always and only Jeanne, sui generis. When disaster hit the Chazillens, Antuniet was at that point where her mother hadn’t yet gone past the embarrassment of having an unmarried daughter to reach the resignation of being certain Antuniet would never marry. In another circumstance, Antuniet might secretly have been looking forward to the age when she would be officially on the shelf and so off the hook. (Antuniet’s disinterest in the marriage market was not—like Margerit’s—an unrecognized preference for female companionship, but simply a distaste for social interactions in general.) Instead, the Chaillen disgrace took Antuniet entirely out of the world where her age made any difference to her social status.
One factor that has been implied in passing (though never discussed overtly) with regard to Rotenek’s acceptance of “eccentric women” (which often—though not always—implies an unmarried state) is the male mortality during the brief and disastrous Alpennian resistance to Napoleon, symbolized by the Battle of Tarnzais. This hit particularly hard among the upper and upper-middle classes whose sons sought glory in a military career. An entire generation—Jeanne’s generation, to be specific—had a notable gender imbalance, and many women remained unmarried not form choice but from a lack of suitable partners.
Mother of Souls takes in a different demographic. Luzie Valorin (I have a surname for her now!) married at a relatively normative age, maybe a little later than a socialite given that she comes from a professional family of musicians and composers. Alas, her husband died of river fever shortly after the birth of her second son. The boys are about10 and 14 at the time the story begins (maybe? I’m not sure I’ve pinned it down that closely), so let’s say she’s in her mid 30s and has been a widow for about a decade. The other new featured protagonist, Serafina Talarico, is of a roughly similar age. Again, married at a typical age (in her case, to a somewhat older man). I’ll leave the rest of her personal back-story to be revealed elsewhere. They are both sexually and socially experienced in different ways, but neither is entirely happy with her current position.
Several other older women are featured secondary characters. Princess Annek is of the same generation as Jeanne, though she comes across as having had more wear-and-tear due to her responsibilities, and therefore seems older in effect. The English botanist, Miss Collfield, is probably in her early 40s in my estimation, though maybe a bit older than that? She’s a long-confirmed spinster and enjoys her academic pursuits without any regret for other possible life paths.
(And now I have to break off because my lunch break is over and the meeting is starting up again.)
There’s often a focus on younger protagonists, naturally enough. Since character growth is often about learning life skills and life lessons, those themes stand out most strongly for a character who is still developing a sense of self and an understanding of their place in the world. Daughter of Mystery is a coming of age story for Margerit and Barbara, both in the legal sense (as reaching their age of majority before disaster catches up with them is a key plot point) and in the psychological sense, given that they are both coming to understand their own goals and desires and how they will fit into each others’ lives.
But more and more there has been an interest in stories featuring older protagonists (older female protagonists, that is – older men have never been in short supply). Jeanne de Cherdillac, one of the featured protagonists of The Mystic Marriage definitely falls in this category, being in her later 40s. In her own mind she’s teetering on the edge between enjoying her prime of life and becoming a ridiculous old woman trying to hold fast to her lost youth. She’s a widow (and has been for the majority of her life) so she’s never had the stigma of being an old maid. But when she falls for the much younger Antuniet (in her mid-20s), she can’t entirely shake an uneasiness about the age gap between them.
Antuniet is entirely oblivious to that gap. For her, Jeanne is never a category or a type, Jeanne is always and only Jeanne, sui generis. When disaster hit the Chazillens, Antuniet was at that point where her mother hadn’t yet gone past the embarrassment of having an unmarried daughter to reach the resignation of being certain Antuniet would never marry. In another circumstance, Antuniet might secretly have been looking forward to the age when she would be officially on the shelf and so off the hook. (Antuniet’s disinterest in the marriage market was not—like Margerit’s—an unrecognized preference for female companionship, but simply a distaste for social interactions in general.) Instead, the Chaillen disgrace took Antuniet entirely out of the world where her age made any difference to her social status.
One factor that has been implied in passing (though never discussed overtly) with regard to Rotenek’s acceptance of “eccentric women” (which often—though not always—implies an unmarried state) is the male mortality during the brief and disastrous Alpennian resistance to Napoleon, symbolized by the Battle of Tarnzais. This hit particularly hard among the upper and upper-middle classes whose sons sought glory in a military career. An entire generation—Jeanne’s generation, to be specific—had a notable gender imbalance, and many women remained unmarried not form choice but from a lack of suitable partners.
Mother of Souls takes in a different demographic. Luzie Valorin (I have a surname for her now!) married at a relatively normative age, maybe a little later than a socialite given that she comes from a professional family of musicians and composers. Alas, her husband died of river fever shortly after the birth of her second son. The boys are about10 and 14 at the time the story begins (maybe? I’m not sure I’ve pinned it down that closely), so let’s say she’s in her mid 30s and has been a widow for about a decade. The other new featured protagonist, Serafina Talarico, is of a roughly similar age. Again, married at a typical age (in her case, to a somewhat older man). I’ll leave the rest of her personal back-story to be revealed elsewhere. They are both sexually and socially experienced in different ways, but neither is entirely happy with her current position.
Several other older women are featured secondary characters. Princess Annek is of the same generation as Jeanne, though she comes across as having had more wear-and-tear due to her responsibilities, and therefore seems older in effect. The English botanist, Miss Collfield, is probably in her early 40s in my estimation, though maybe a bit older than that? She’s a long-confirmed spinster and enjoys her academic pursuits without any regret for other possible life paths.
(And now I have to break off because my lunch break is over and the meeting is starting up again.)
