The Scandal of the Season - Sophie Gee

★★★★★★★★★★ (9/10)

I love this book. Period. The Scandal of the Season is one of my absolute favorites because it combines two aspects of literature that are a lot of fun: Restoration-period plays and Alexander Pope. Sophie Gee took one of Alexander Pope most famous poems, “The Rape of the Lock,” that she rightly says is on every undergraduate’s English syllabus, and gave it back to audiences as a historical fiction to explain the story behind the poem.

I remember reading “The Rape of the Lock” and being thrown off by the title. I didn’t expect it to be a satire, because that wasn’t what I had come to expect from Pope. It was nice to be able to laugh my head off while I did my homework. In The Scandal of the Season, the plot goes back and forth between characters Arabella Fermor and Alexander Pope. The novel starts off with introducing Pope as a young man. Gee gives a little of his history and explains why he is different, since it is his differences that put him into the situations throughout the novel. It was quite a different experience to read a piece of fiction that uses a famous poet, who I’ve studied and written about as a character in a novel. I loved seeing what another scholar thought Pope’s young life would be like. I saw Pope’s hopes, fears, loves, hates, dream, and ambitions unfold as the novel goes on.

Apart from the feeling I get from reading about Pope and seeing the story behind his poem come to life, I am emotionally drawn to dynamics between Arabella Fermor and Lord Petre. This is where the Restoration plays come into the fold. There is an element of humor in their relationship, but there’s also an element of tragedy that is common in plays after the Restoration. I want the handsome, cavalier, nonchalant Lord Petre to win over the chaste, haughty, confident Arabella Fermor, who is determined to marry well, like other girls in her position. Luckily for me, I get to read the thoughts and perspectives of both parties. There’s a darker plot behind Lord Petre, but it doesn’t interfere too much with the romance between himself and Arabella. However, I really think that Arabella’s downfall is the fact that she doesn’t take her own family circumstances into accounts. She believes that her beauty and charm will get her everything that she wants, but society in 1712 did not work that way.

The novel does have a tendency to be a little too much like a romance novel at times, but the plot, character depth, and my interest in the subject overcome any problems I have with the romance scenes. Then again, it’s nice to read about people doing what they’re not supposed to, for once. Unlike period novels, both written during the period and more recently, where it’s important to maintain society manners and reputations, this novel takes the part of what some men and women would do for love. There’s emotion here that is lacking in other novels that take place in 18th century England – everything that takes place in England for the most part.

I don’t want to give too much away, because a good part of the fun of this novel is discovering the surprises that come along. Still, I think Sophie Gee found the perfect blend of love, history, literature, and life in The Scandal of the Season.