Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer is included on The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read, along with The Infamous Army by the same author - 8 out of 10

 

Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer is included on The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read, along with The Infamous Army by the same author

 

8 out of 10

 

 

Regency Buck is not A La Recherche du Temps Perdu https://realini.blogspot.com/2013/06/un-amour-de-swan-by-marcel-proust.html - the absolute best, nec plus ultra in my book, and for many experts – but it is pleasurable and what is more important, I could tune in to the station, the reader from LibriVox who volunteered

 

Listening to audiobooks for many years, and reading in my kindle, I have discovered that it is paramount to get access to the wisdom from a work, I compared this to listening to a radio, it can be Beethoven, the sixth or seventh, even the eighth, compositions that I like, but if I am not on the frequency of the station, it is just noise

Regency buck managed that rare feat – at least recently – of making me listen, which is there in the formula for Flow aka Trance or Being in The Zone https://realini.blogspot.com/2016/10/flow-by-mihaly-csikszentmihalyi-this-is.html you have the elements : being in control, autotelic experience, nothing else matters…

 

There are clear goals (maybe meaningful is to be added as well), skills meet challenges or else you are on the line between boredom and burnout, time expands or/and compresses, the feedback is constant and instant, and reading Regency Buck checks most or all of these regulations – or wait, maybe it has to be all of them

Judith Tavernier is twenty, beautiful and has just inherited a fortune, alas, it is controlled by a guardian, who instructed her and the brother, Perry, to avoid London, where they are heading, at the start of the narrative, she is a commanding figure, with authority over her brother, and in general, she is assertive, except for one chap

 

They are supposed to find rooms at this inn, where there is no available space, which attracts the ire of the confident woman, who has decent clothes, but nothing to notice in a big town, she points out that she made reservations, but the landlord shrugs, there is a fight there and all rooms are taken, he cannot throw anybody out

Fortunately, some visitor is present and he offers hir room and that of a companion, because they can stay somewhere in town – Perry is bent on seeing the fight, but before that, they ride in a rented vehicle drawn by horses (or was it just one) and on the way, the animal misbehaves, the driver cannot control it and an accident is barely avoided.

The other party is an arrogant fellow, who dismisses the strangers with a superior air, he later has trouble again from Perry, as he again is unable to move his horse with finesse, and they seem to be antagonist now and, in the future, only Lord Julian Worth proves to be the guardian that brother and sister had not seen before

 

There is romance and mystery – the novel is included in the Love Section of the 1,000 books we all have to read – blended in the narrative and I could not figure out what the rapport will be, I mean I know that psychology studies https://realini.blogspot.com/2013/07/learned-optimism-by-martin-seligman.html looked at this

it turns out that when a relationship starts with antagonism, opposition, it works better, and the most auspicious debut is when there is tension and it is resolved with jocularity, and we have clashes between the ward, Judith Tavernier, and the guardian, Lord Julian Worth, the latter appeared as the villain

 

for quite some time, I was thinking that the pretentious man is really the Dark Knight https://realini.blogspot.com/2021/04/83-out-of-100-for-dark-knight.html and he wants the fabulous fortune of the heiress, about eighty thousand pounds, in the money of the present it would be hundreds of millions, but then there were no billionaires then, so I am not sure how fantastic we could say it was…

Passons, I thought this pompous lord is not just into the wealth of his would-be bride, but he wants the brother to disappear, because once departed, Perry would have his wealth, also immense, transferred to the beautiful sibling, he is challenged to a duel, and it looks like a set up job, and he escapes at the last minute

 

Just like Fyodor Dostoevsky https://realini.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-brothers-karamazov-by-fyodor.html who had seen death, standing in front of the firing squad, when he is pardoned at the last moment, for Perry, it is the authorities also, but they come to stop a duel that was illegal and it is thought Bernard was responsible

Bernard Taverner is the cousin of Judith and Perry, and for most of the saga (spoiler alert) he looks like the good guy, if only Judith will see it, she seems infatuated or worse, in love, with the gruesome (at least in manners and appearance) lord Worth, he is credited with having stopped the potentially murderous duel

 

Then a shot is fired, while Perry is riding outside London, and his man servant is quick enough to save him, but it is already apparent that a conspiracy (oh how I hate talking about such things, in the era of MAGA, the Orange Buffoon who looks like becoming the leader of the free world, again, and so soon) is in progress

Perry is sick and probably poisoned with the snuff he uses, and suspicion falls on lord Worth, nay, the reader is made to be quite sure, only for the plot to take just the turn suggested by Aristotle, we need to have the surprise and reversal and it is there alright

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’

 

‚Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’

 

“From Monty Python - The Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special...Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”