Elinor Glyn
New York: Macaulay, [1922]
327 pages
In the afterglow of Valentine's Day comes a tale of forbidden love between a nineteen-year-old newlywed and a somewhat older extremely handsome lord who is not her husband. Its heroine, Theodora Brown, is the daughter of Captain Dominic Fitzgerald, who is himself extremely handsome. Twice a groom, twice a widower, the captain has fathered three daughters, Theodora being the youngest and fairest of them all. Such is Theodora's devotion to dear papa that she agrees to be the first to wed, the groom being Josiah Brown, a fifty-two-year-old English grocer who has amassed a great fortune through a chance investment in an Australian mine.
Not to disparage Captain Fitzgerald, but the union benefitted him financially. He's a bit of a rogue, and has never been much good with money, which explains why his daughters were raised in Bruges and not Mayfair.
The Browns' honeymoon on the Continent was not a success. Josiah took ill, though he did manage to consummate the marriage. Mercifully, the author provides no details, though she does make it known that Theodora found it "a nightmare, now happily a thing of the past."
The deed was done, but as backstory ends and action commences the Browns have yet to make for home; Josiah has been advised by physicians to make a gradual reentry to England. As young Theodora whiles away the hours, days, and months her limited orbit brings her within the sights of Hector Bracondale, the aforementioned extremely handsome lord.
As portrayed by Rudolph Valentino in the 1922 film adaptation, he really is extremely handsome. Gloria Swanson, who played Theodora, is extremely beautiful.
Ten years Theodora's senior, Lord Bracondale seems the sort of fellow you'd keep away from your sister, his engagements with the opposite sex being nowhere near as innocent as hers:
Usually when he had been greatly attracted by a married woman before, he had unconsciously thought of her as having the qualities which would make her an adorable mistress, a delicious friend, or a holiday amusement, There had never been any reverence mixed up with the affair, which usually had the zest of forbidden fruit, and was hurried along by passion.
Will Hector not settle down? His mother, Lady Bracondale has been pressuring her son to marry dull and heavy heiress Morella Winmarleigh. This campaign has been going on for so long that London society sees the two, who are anything but a couple, as more or less engaged. Hector himself had been or less resigned to marrying Morella at some point in the distant future... but then came Theodora.
Beyond the Rocks is to be enjoyed more for the writing than the plot. There are many slow patches, though it picks up from time to time. Nearly every character, members of the English upper class and aristocracy, is portrayed as dull and uninteresting. This middle class Canadian found it intriguing that pretty much every one of their number was having it on with someone else's spouse. The lone interesting figure of their set is Colonel Lowerby. Commonly called "the Crow," he is a man of strong opinion, as exemplified in this exchange with Anne, Hector Bracendale's sister:
“It is too bad, Crow," said Anne. “You take it for granted that Hector has the most dishonorable intentions towards Mrs. Brown. He may worship her quite in the abstract.”
“Fiddle-dee-dee, my child!" said Colonel Lowerby. “Look at him! You don’t understand the fundamental principles of human nature if you say that. When a man is madly in love with a woman, nature says, ‘This is your mate,’ not a saint of alabaster on a church altar. There are numbers of animals about who find a ‘mate’ in every woman they come across. But Hector is not that sort. Look at his face —look at him now they are passing us, and tell me if you see any abstract about it?”
Lowerby is the most forthright character in the novel.
The most generous and kind are Theodora and Josiah Brown.
It culminates in tragedy, though I very much doubt that the author saw it as anything other than a happy ending.
Fun fact: Gloria Swanson, whom I'd assumed to be too old to play nineteen-year-old Theodora, was all of twenty-one when the film was shot. Coincidentally, it was her twenty-first feature.
Object: A bulky hardcover in crimson boards with black type containing three "illustrations From [sic] the Paramount Photo-Play." A fourth illustration, not from the Photo-Play, appears as the frontispiece:
The jacket features an ad directed at Valentino fans.
It was worth every American penny.
Don't have the time to read 327 pages? Not to worry, the August 1906 edition of The Novel Magazine whittles it down to a couple.
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