Reading The Adventures of Mademoiselle de Richelieu (Part 3)

[hrj]

(assembled from earlier tweets)

Me: Our 2 heroines having considered marriage (w Alithea in male disguise) as a way to spend their lives together, and considered the hazards of discovery daunting, Arabella is making arrangements to join Alithea on her travels also in male disguise. Alithea amuses herself by taunting Arabella's suitors. But then Alithea is persuaded to contribute to a kickstarter for some dude's treatise on moral philosophy and yields to the impulse to summarize its contents for 20 pages or so.

hawkwing_lb: Ah, moral philosophy. So very exciting! And probably illegal! ;)

Me: Don't know about illegal, but very tedious. I'm wondering if I can turn the digressions into a running gag rather than silently excising them. The content if the digressions must be excised, of course. But the frame? Might be able to do something. I think my re-write will come off best with a touch of farce.

hawkwing_lb: I remember being very thrilled when I read THE FORBIDDEN BESTSELLERS OF REVOLUTIONARY FRANCE.

Me: There could be an entire genre to be resurrected here!

hawkwing_lb: Or Pre-Revolutionary France? Title like that. Anyway. And discovering that philosophy and pornography went together.

Me: I don't think I can manage porn, but I think Mlle de Richelieu might convince me to try my hand at erotic romance after all.

hawkwing_lb: I encourage this potential direction.

Comments

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Of course you do. At the moment, I have every intention of writing my "novelization" of it -- simply because the idea is so delicious! If I can get OCR to handle the 18th c. typeface (even at a 95% level) then the first step will be to convert it. If not, that would be a daunting task. I find it interesting that, although all the existing copies are from the original (long out of copyright!) edition, all the scanned versions are locked up tight behind academic access walls.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

I did download a copy from my college's academic link. Someday soon, leisure reading!

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Or you can wait for me to give you page ranges for the "good parts".

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

When I say "soon," I mean "maybe December." :P

[(Anonymous)]

I wish my French was better so I could proofread or even type it.

[irinarempt.pip.verisignlabs.com (from livejournal.com)]

Er, that was me.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Possible confusion: although the novel's "persona story" claims that it's an English translation of a French original, it is not at all clear that this is the case. There are occasional bits of French for flavor, but the novel itself is in English. (My French isn't anywhere near good enough for novels!)

[irinarempt.pip.verisignlabs.com (from livejournal.com)]

Oh, in that case I volunteer to proofread after all. Also, if necessary, to transcribe.