It is a pivotal work in which he takes on several challenges, among them using fiction to illuminate history in a manner faithful to the historical record, representing a female character (and female consciousness) as the central point of view, counterposing the diverse points of view of characters from two different cultures, and developing a way of treating sexual themes in a manner that is explicit, poetic, and sociologically significant. In his earlier books The Golden Bowl and This Is the Year, the sexual episodes were presented almost diffidently or guardedly, and in both those novels (and more especially in Boy Almighty), the plots and characters depicted were drawn from a world with which Manfred was directly familiar. In Lord Grizzly, he successfully personalized a historical character about whom very little was known. And in Conquering Horse, he studied, explored, and elaborated central elements of a culture with which he was not personally familiar. In Scarlet Plume, he was ready to synthesize all those elements, along with the adoption of a female point of view, the need to be faithful to the historical record as it was available to him, and the freedom to be as frank about sexuality as D.
What do You think about Scarlet Plume, Second Edition?
