Trade Wind by M. M. Kaye? (Possible Trigger Warning)

amother

Oatmeal

Sat, Mar 09 2024, 9:18 pm

amother OP wrote:

I want to hear what others thinks about her books. I read a couple & I'm not sure...

Which books?
She's written mysteries, historical sagas, and 3 volumes of memoirs.
Also a children's fairy tale chapter book and I think a picture book.
She's best known for her novel The Far Pavilions.

amother

Oatmeal

Sun, Mar 10 2024, 1:02 pm

amother OP wrote:

I enjoy mystery so I've been reading the "Death in.." books. But then I read Trade Wind and I am not sure I want to read any more of her books.

If you've read it, tell me if you found it upsetting?

Yes, that particular book hasn't aged well. But it was probably written 50 years ago (it wasn't the first historical book she had published, but she actually wrote it prior to The Far Pavilions, which was published in the 1980s, I think). It was not an unpopular sort of trope in historical romance sagas. Gone With the Wind has a similar one, just no details.
I read it first way back when, I was much younger, way before the times of #metoo so it didn't specifically upset me. Of course, now it's very jarring.
Her other books don't have anything like that.

amother

Sun, Mar 10 2024, 3:10 pm

Gone with the Wind? Are you serious? I read it as a young teen (or maybe preteen) so I for sure didn't pick up on that vibe.

What upset me was that she could have the young woman fall in love with the pirate after the way he treated her. Although it's often a theme, conflict, adversarial relationship that turns to love, I felt like this one went way too far. Of course in the time it was written it's kind of not surprising but left me with a very bad taste.

(I don't really read romance except the very tame type like Patricia Wentworth and Mary Roberts Rinehart that are more about the mystery with the love interest rather tangential, or so I like to tell myself... Do you mean to tell me that this happens often in romance fiction????)

amother

Sunflower

Sun, Mar 10 2024, 3:17 pm

amother OP wrote:

I don't know this specific book, but yes it's a very common trope in romance.

amother

Green

Sun, Mar 10 2024, 3:30 pm

I read this and her other books as a teenager. My parents didn't check what I read. The historical elements are powerful and rich, but this one in particular I think has the heroine being ra-p-ed by the hero which I have never forgotten as an extremely disturbing part of the story and what nowadays would never be published.

I would not let my daughters read it without a good deal of maturity and a very frank conversation about it all before and afterwards. We are JPF and I don't censor, but for parental reasons as well as yiddishkeit ones I wouldn't be comfortable with this book.
I would be OK with the Far Pavilions but older teen only.

amother

Green

Sun, Mar 10 2024, 3:33 pm

amother OP wrote:

Not at all like this book. On a smaller scale but not the abusive nature of this book. Unless you have read it you can't really compare. It is the historical equivalent of 50 shades of gray (I haven't read but heard about, I have read Trade Winds and still have it somewhere in a cupboard)

amother

Oatmeal

Sun, Mar 10 2024, 3:55 pm

amother OP wrote:

Gone with the Wind? Are you serious? I read it as a young teen (or maybe preteen) so I for sure didn't pick up on that vibe.

Yes, it's a hotly debated topic on GWTW forums. After Scarlett is suspected of adultery, she and a drunken Rhett have an argument and she tries to run away and he grabs her and carries her off to the bedroom. Then the scene fades to black. The question is, was it marital rape or not and if so, is it ok because she ended up enjoying it. (Because the next scene is in the morning when she has clearly had a night full of passion and is now hoping for a reconciliation.)

Neither of these books would be written as they are nowadays. Romance books are a product of their times. GWTW was written/published in the 1920s or 30s (the author worked on it for ten years). Trade Wind was written in the 1970s and then published later in the 1980s after the author had a hit novel (The Far Pavilions). I'd say up till and maybe through the 1990s, that would have been an acceptable trope which would not raise eyebrows.

What is considered acceptable in society changes over time and literature written at specific times is reflective of those times....like, I was rereading an old children's book by Lois Lowry--one of the Anastasia Krupnik books-- not that long ago and positively cringing--Anastasia went to a modeling class and after they had makeovers, her 12/13 year old friend was getting wolf whistles and staring from grown men on the subway--and this was portrayed as a positive thing. I didn't think twice about this scene when I read it as a kid (in the 1990s) but as an adult in the 2020's I was kind of aghast.