Book Choice for May 2020: The Moor’s Account by Laila Lalami
Hello, hello there. It’s great to be back at the blog. It is September, and September is…lovely.
At the outset I want to say that The Moor’s Account is told from such an empathetic perspective that even sensitive flowers like myself can read it: yes there is sometimes gore, but, miraculously for a work about the period of “Contact” (contact between Native North Americans and Europeans in the New World), a period I find very fraught, the racism that usually accompanies this topic has been avoided. Not just avoided in this book, transcended, and that is how this book can somehow be an exciting joy to read.
The Moor’s Account is really well done. It’s super imaginative, and totally engrossing—both of its narratives, one of which takes place in Northern Africa and details how the main character Estebanico was sold into slavery, while the second strand of narrative takes place in Central America, and details what happens to Estebanico when he lands in the New World, attached to his master’s plan of conquest, which is part of the 15th century imperial venture that was ‘New Spain.’
It is fascinating. It is lush. You feel—really you do—the thick leaves of trees hitting you across the face as you trudge inland with these people. These Spaniards, who arrive with nothing but contempt and greed. And you follow them, as they fight, rob, meet all sorts of resistance and, eventually, peril. The characters are well drawn, some you like, some you are happy to see disemboweled, and sometimes you are brought out of the narrative for a second by Estebanico acting or thinking in a thoroughly modern way. Still, it works.
It’s actually kind of one of my favourite things, if I may reduce such an important time period to my own favourite niche genre: it’s a camping story. There’s provisioning, hunting, drying fish, fears about not making it over the winter—adventure stuff. I had fun with this book somehow, I managed to take our current present out of the past, and just follow the action, and the what-might-have-been. The development of the relationship between Estebanico and his master is so engrossing I wish I could say more about it here, but you will have to read it for yourself.
I will say, however, in the last quarter of the book the narrative started to jog a little too fast, for my taste. Things built up to for tens of pages were sorted out in short sentences. And important changes in the main character’s outlook were not given enough time to arise naturally, be explained, or to be grieved, in my opinion.
I really enjoyed Estebanico as a character though, perhaps because I have met him before. In history class in high school, back in the mists of time, my teacher casually dropped that one of the first New World explorers was an African slave—which I have always remembered as it rather disrupted our whitewashed picture— I have long wanted to know more about him—and here is a whole novel devoted to his trials!
The Moor’s Account is a reasonable, respectful, rare and brave re-imagining of the beginnings of an incredibly intense and prolonged clash of cultures. Personally, as a Canadian, I feel extremely conflicted about our history. I really don’t know how to resolve all the feelings I have about it.
The 1500s cast long shadows. Policies enacted then and shortly thereafter are still affecting Native Canadians today.
Book Choice for June 2021: The Complete Sherlock Holmes Collection, Audiobook narrated by S.Frye
Book Choice for August 2021: How To Be A Victorian, R. Goodman
Not very much has been happening lately, my days have been perhaps almost too much of the same thing over and over. For the last month, more than anything, I have wanted easy entertainment. I have wanted a place for my mind to go after all the thesis-thinking. I watched all the Gilmore Girls series (I had been doing that in the evenings for months) and while it was fine to know what really happened in that time-capsule show of the early 2000s, for the purposes of my own personal nostalgia, I didn’t really gain anything from doing that. I want entertainment for sure—but I don’t just want to have this empty feeling after, of “well, that was that.”
Well! I want to tell you, that I pine no longer. I have found the most thrilling balance between Entertainment and Art/Learning. And he is—- Sherlock Holmes!
Really, it has been glorious. I will tell you the facts. At the end of 2020, I used my monthly audible credit for the Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes narrated (SUPERBLY-nothing better could be wished) by Stephen Frye. I actually bought it out of guilt, because I once had access to a pirated copy of this audiobook, and I enjoyed it, several years ago—but I must have been listening with half an ear and my mind elsewhere. To be absorbed, to go along with Holmes, you have to give him real attention.
Most of May and June I shambled about, looking for something to get stuck into reading— (I still really “want” to read history plays by Shakespeare—and yet, right now they are just too hard). Too dry to be the kind of opium I need to get me through the hours I am not actively writing my thesis. There was a lull, basically, before I remembered that I had this Sherlock Holmes audiobook. And now, with three of the short-story collections and two novels listened to, avidly, and–(I tested myself this morning on a scrap of paper–I could still recall the plots of 18 out of 22 cases)—I have decided to put Holmes away, for awhile. I don’t want to spoil the fun by overdoing it, and I may need him to be clever and amusing later!
Very much a mood-reader, I found in August that I was still stuck in the Victorian period. So much so that I impulsively bought a new paperback copy of “How to Be a Victorian” by Ruth Goodman which is a “dawn to dusk” very detailed account of all the tasks and activities a person would have done daily in the Victorian period, with excurses into the history of these activities.
It was just the ticket, at the time. I am updating this blog much later, but I have fond memories of rising relatively early on August mornings and going to the comfiest chair in the living room and reading this book for about an hour while drinking coffee—it was wonderful how it worked out, that serendipitous morning hobby. I found it quite calming before I started my day, but alas (as a Victorian person likely uttered around noon) this habit did not last. At the time I thought it would be lovely to start every day with some book I find easy and enjoyable—but such morning-reading was apparently just a trick of this particular book. Not all books are the same, they strike in such different ways. Some are comforting, some require effort, even to listen to, some can be read before bed with an Ambien-like effect, others never before sleep.
I am getting extremely picky.
That’s probably a good thing, because [insert broken record] there is only so much time in life.
To quote Karolina Zebrowska’s ‘Victorian Girl Fall’ video “Memento Mori Ladies!!!“
Anyway.
I shall give you a brief overview of this book. Not so much of it was new to me or incredibly surprising, but it is extremely thoroughly written (and yet still very readable) and very well presented. Particularly memorable is the extensive description of the true extent of Hunger during the Victorian period, thoughtfully provided after the topic of Breakfast was fully discussed–but really, a major takeaway from this book is how hungry and cold and overworked the vast majority of people always were, ALWAYS; day in, day out, and the very real impact it had on their health and ability to reach the next day. It’s brutal to think about, but super necessary to understand.
This discussion occurs almost 200 pages into the book however, and unfortunately, not everyone may be able to get through the extensive description of personal grooming in the Victorian period that precedes it. Some will be interested in the “dressing” section, as the above quote from K. Zebrowska shows, fashion-history channels have really been having a moment on youtube for the past couple years–but the extensive descriptions of men’s shaving kits, diapering babies and rigging up one’s sanitary garments that precede it might cause some reader-attrition.
The section on “the main business of the day” covers many topics, most notable for me was mining, such incredibly brutal work–this topic was reinforced for me as I was, at the time, attempting to listen to “Black Diamonds” a very odd audiobook which is meant to be the genealogy of one of England’s richest but least well-known families, which contained extensive, brutal descriptions of how they got their money, which was of course via coal-mining. That was the most worthwhile part of that book, which I found I just could not finish, for several reasons: one, that it contains one of the worst racist myths about North American Native peoples, regarding cannibalism, which I still cannot believe made it into a book published this century, totally without comment or any type of reflection; (it was really so offensive you cannot believe it); and the fact that it was just boringly written. (A succession dispute “subplot” ran over more than three chapters before I had to call it quits). Anyway, back to “How to Be a Victorian,” the mining parts were brutal, the child labour was brutal, women’s household work of cooking awful porridge, always being in some phase of pregnancy and laundry day was brutal.
However, the topic of laundry was extensively analyzed, with gratitude-producing results, I think.
I’ve always wondered why I love doing laundry so much—it could be because my mother also loves it, and always has kept everyone in the house from “her” precious machines–maybe her unwillingness to “share” the laundry provided it with a cachet of glamour, my sister likewise revels in sorting and folding. Sometimes I like to just stand and watch it start to swish around in the drum. It may be that I have a genetic memory of the bone-crushing, Sisyphean task that was attempting to keep the clothes and house of a family of six to ten people presentable—and now I regard myself as in heaven, just having to pour in soap and leave my humming metal servant to it.
This book should give one many such moments: I was particularly conscious of HOW GREAT A HOT SHOWER REALLY FEELS while I was reading it.
I also very much enjoyed the chapter on leisure, and it made me think about how truly lazy I can be, writing a bit in the day and not wanting to do ANYTHING at night. When the industrial-production work week was cut down in Victorian England from an average of 12 hours a day SIX days a week to 10 hours a day with “only” a half-day on Saturday, the Victorian working classes wondered HOW they would fill all the extra time, and so took up sports and other hobbies. Good work you vigorous, starved people; I’m exhausted just reading about it. However, it was so interesting that I felt that I might someday read “Consuming Passions” which is a full book-length study on Victorian leisure pastimes.
Another very thought-provoking point was made in the latter part of the book, when discussing women’s embroidery. Goodman made the point that the level of skill at needlework that would now be considered absolutely professional level was much more widespread during the Victorian period, and that such mastery then would have hardly been remarked upon. It’s really interesting the things we have lost, that we have generally no awareness that we have lost. I have read a lot of stories by L.M. Montgomery who wrote c. 1905-1940 but who remembered the late Victorian period herself and how women never left home to meet friends without some “work” to occupy their hands. It was a point of pride, but also an absolute necessity before the mass-production of garments. I have another book “Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years” which I have read, and which impresses one similarly. Before the 17th century women walked around hand-spinning thread while they walked, wherever they went, while doing other tasks, raising children and calling cows. My degree of leisure and the idleness of my hands shocks me sometimes.
I also enjoyed final chapter of this book, basically what Victorians did in the bedroom, or thought was okay sexually–it’s interesting that we do have some information about this, because at certain points during the Victorian period people were less prudish than one might think; sex was perhaps less tied to religion than it became in some parts of the 20th century. Sex was regarded as a medical topic and some doctors were able to write frankly about it, treating it as just one of several other health-related topics of life, possibly due to its connection to fertility/the family. This rather surprised me, and it was a very thoughtful, nuanced part of the book.
As well, I have since learned that “heterosexuality” was not the monolith that many of us have been convinced that it was, in the Victorian period and earlier. In fact, the term was only coined near the end of the Victorian period. Before that… people may not have been so worried about who carried on with whom, before the term came to name and separate (I should say that I learned this on the incredibly interesting youtube video called “Heterofatalism” by Tara Mooknie). One last standout anecdote from Goodman’s book however: there was a working class woman who, having seen what her own mother’s life had been like raising 10 children, frankly admitted to someone who asked, that she managed her family’s size by mending. Basically, she made sure that she was darning and sewing at night, and busy doing this until at least the time her husband fell asleep; and it worked.
In all, a very interesting book which is a fantastic resources, readable, and lays quite a few myths to rest. You will probably not idealize the Victorian period after you read it. All I idealize is an image, and the silence, of sitting quietly at a round, thick-clothed table as the evening closes in, reading by the light of a glowing glass lamp– and this is perhaps an experience that I could still have in my own life. It’s also very easy to idealize, and fall into day-dreams about, Sherlock Holmes’ comfortable life, of enormous prepared breakfasts, simple revolver-toting, and endless adventure and freedom.
It’s been a good time-travel summer.
PS. Of course, however, during this Victorian enthusiasm I went overboard, buying “The Age of Decadence: A History of Britain 1880-1914” which turned out to be, upon arrival, EXTREMELY HUGE, like 900 pages, and very dense. I am not currently certain if I will ever get to it, but it does cover the late Victorian (Sherlock Holmes’ Victorian) period and all of the Edwardian period, so—-maybe someday when this phase hits once again.
It’s really something when you realize that your favourite genre is probably “Food Memoir”
Book Choice for April 2021: Garlic and Sapphires, R. Reichl, 2005.
In April I read what can only be termed a “food memoir” by Ruth Reichl, who served as the restaurant reviewer for the New York Times in the late 90s. It has a phenomenal title, which I have to say really drew me to the book, and I didn’t regret it: it was very fun, and seriously, I ate it all up. (I’m sorry, but I did).
It was a heavenly respite from normal life, entering into the glittering world of swanky New York eateries, gosh, it was delightfully decadent. It actually does have a bit of a plot, there is forward movement, rather than just descriptions of lavish banquets—and excellent griping about faux pas made in either the food or service—it is just—a trip out of one’s own body, into a world I don’t expect to experience, or even feel the need to, but I really appreciated that Reichl has brought high-society down to us regular people—just for a taste.
As I read it so quickly, I rather wished that the book was longer, but it does tell a full tale, of one lady’s stint at a “the greatest newspaper in the world.” (Ok NY, we see you, you are indeed the omphalos of the world, there could never be another, etc., etc.) Of course, I had my quibbles with this book. It seems almost impossible to believe that a food writer was so famous that she could be recognized by sight before she had moved to New York to take up her work there—but I guess that happened. And it is also hard to believe that the many, many disguises (not to mention their very strange psychological effects upon the author) that Reichel donned were never rumbled or seen through.
Towards the end of the book the author intersperses a few homely stories of cooking big vats of food at her uni (Berkeley) for legions of friends and acquaintances (she didn’t specify, but it sounded like she was barefoot while doing this) and yet…in the first part of the book it seems that she was the only food writer seemingly under consideration for the coveted post at the NYT…it just seems like there might be some network of connections that is being omitted here—this is reaffirmed by the fact, dropped casually at one point, that her husband, a war reporter, had an interview with Osama Bin Laden before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that was canned by the bigwigs upstairs (or something to that effect). Is she saying…that her husband…could have influenced…could have been one of the few who suspected….??? It’s a very big thing, but only hinted at.
Reichl has published several books, seemingly all to do with cooking and food, so, even though I am new to her oevre obviously she is an expert in her field. Perhaps she and her husband really were the ‘average people’ that they are presented as in the book—for example, Reichl took particular care to tailor her reviews of elite eateries to the readers who will never go to any of them—and I’m still not sure whether I find that thoughtful and aware or bloody patronising. The circles they travel in…are just so esteemed… It raises a few questions in me personally, as to how one enters there.
However, the book is quite fun, although rather mean-spirited in a few places, kind of in the right amounts, to avoid saccharine sweetness. I wasn’t thinking to write about it on the blog, but it was a book I sought out on purpose, and it did give me a bit of joy, as well as some serious cravings! (Squid ink, anyone?!) It basically scratched an itch.
Book Choice for January 2021: “Churchill: Walking with Destiny,” A. Roberts, 2018.
Dear Readers,
as you know, I love me some grandiose titles for my blogs, and so I am very pleased to present you with one that I have really earned: I have been walking with Churchill since January. I heard the book on the audible app, all 50 hours of it, while I have cooked and cleaned and wondered about my own destiny. I am so grateful that it is available via audiobook, otherwise I never could have fit Churchill’s staggeringly momentous life into my final dissertation semester. As it was, I heard him in tiny chops and chips, and honestly, loved every minute of him, updating my partner so often on what Churchill had accomplished that I believe he has a gained a good grasp of Churchill’s life second-hand. It’s just a wonderful book, and if I didn’t manage to read anything else this year, I wouldn’t be able to consider the year wasted.
As for specifics, I wonder what to really say, there was so much inside this tome. In the final chapter of the book the author speculates that Churchill has been condemned by posterity for so many things that he had no part in, simply because people cannot believe that one man led such a spectacular, varied and literary life. It is a life that could, and has, launched a thousand books and films.
Interestingly, I noticed that the final chapter was slightly more open to the idea that Churchill could be seen as difficult by his contemporaries, and slightly more open to the fact that negative things did happen to and around him than the rest of the book, causing me to wonder slightly if the biographer didn’t simply skate over some difficult things in Churchill’s life during the brunt of the book. As just one example, although I believe that the marriage of Winston and Clementine Churchill was a happy, and very supportive one, in this biography Clementine has almost no part except as a stalwart paragon—and maybe she was. Of course, this book is about Winston, the great man. But I do think that any evidence of any trouble in their marriage (although it was certainly over-ruled by the copious volume of supportive love letters they did send each other) or some similar shakiness in the internal life of Churchill would have simply been omitted by this particular author.
Now, I don’t think that there was much that plagued Winston on the domestic front, and he had many friends, I am just saying that in this biography, nearly everything is spun in a positive direction for Winston–and that is partially due to his own willingness to see everything as a spin in a positive direction for himself–a valuable, if slightly delusional, tool. But for example, every detractor of Winston was proved wrong (well, most were in the fullness of time) everyone who left a poor showing of Winston in their private diaries is characterized as “waspish”, “maligning”; you get the drift. The outlook of the biographer was that he couldn’t do much wrong: and I don’t think Winston Churchill did do much that we can say was wrong for the times he lived in, I mean, he was leading a war. I’m just saying that I need to read more, to shade the stark blacks-and-whites with some grey nuances, something which I am certainly willing to do for this incomparably-inspiring figure.
Did W.C make mistakes? Certainly. He missed the boat on women’s suffrage (as did about 95% the men of his generation, alongside the many women who also looked upon the idea unfavorably), he was absolutely pig-headed about independence for India (although that is, in context, explainable) and he did say a supremely-regrettable “keep Britain white” comment in terms of immigration into Britain from its own overseas dominions. These are the concrete mis-steps, however, that I picked out from what is probably over 1,000 pages of history and anecdote; what is more “problematic” today was that Churchill’s opinions and policies were based on his foundational belief that the British were the finest people in the world, and meant to lead and steward it. If you cannot bear that this was the innate premise of his life (regardless of whether you find it to be true), then you wouldn’t enjoy him as a historical figure; we have to accept that this was his outlook, even if we (probably) don’t agree. If you would prefer to tear him down from his pedestal, I have two words for you: go nuts. I, however, find heroes to be rare, and this is one of the times where an example of the Great Men school actually works for me, inspiring me to set aside my innate distaste to laud the establishment (and a enthusiastic colonialist). I love Winston Churchill (despite his horror of Communism) and I want to [inserting more inclusive/modern values] approach life like him.
We need heroes. I have always tried hard to dig and delve for the stories of women figures—we all like to see ourselves represented, there is some kind of natural sympathy… In this case however, I will take the classic, aristocratic model of W.C., and I will work with it. His life imparts many inspirational values, mainly of outrageous self-belief, hard-work, and of course “never, never, never, never, NEVER giv(ing) in.”
This book humanizes him, and this must be what makes it different than the many other biographies that have come before it. For one thing, W.C comes across as profoundly friendly to animals, which were honestly such delightful parts of the book; scratching his pet-pigs over the fence of their pen with a self-fashioned rake attached to a long-handle was a particularly adorable moment, of which there were many similar, such as putting up as sign for his cat who had run away to “read”, inviting him back, promising “all will be forgotten,” as well as the ditty he wrote called “Puggy-Wug” (an ode to a pug). He was also a statesman who had some time for his own children (I think details like these might be skipped in a lot of men’s biographies, with the subtext ‘who cares’), despite the fact that his own parents had been “distant” at best.
This book is divided into two parts, the first section takes place before the second world war, and the second part takes place during WWII and after it. Basically, so much of such deep interest had happened before the second part (before the second World War) that I considered going back and listening to the first 20 hours again—it was just so incredibly fascinating. I thought “what more could happen to one man?” But of course, he shone the brightest during WWII, and the progress of that war, on a seemingly daily basis (endless cabinet meetings, endless bombings) was also fascinating. As you can tell, there was a lot of fascination in this book, and it continues after I have finished it. I have ordered a biography of Clementine, and I would gladly read about his children and even his parents in future. One of his earlier publications “My Early Life” (1930) is also narrated on audible, and it has gone to the top of my list, I would also read at least some of the historical books that he wrote (he did win a Nobel Prize for his prose). W.C’s biography made me think a lot about the goals of history, and historical writing, in a way that I can’t wait to integrate into my own life and conception of my work.
Sometimes, we must raise ourselves by emulating the best parts of truly great people.
Book Choice for March 2021: Jacob’s Room by Virginia Woolf.
Dear Readers,
It has been awhile. Oh, I’ve been wanting…but there just never was the right time. Then, a few minutes ago I was standing in my kitchen and I was like…now’s IT, now is the time. Just pour yourself a pinch of martini rosso, listen to poor Bruno the dog howling next door (really) and tell them. Tell them the story of your life so it exists.
I have now worked one month longer on a section then I had anticipated, on the revised Revised Schedule. And actually, not so long ago I thought I would be done Chapter 4 at the end of January, and now chapter 4 has 3 sections inside of it (oh, how they grow!) the first of which was finished last Friday. I’m not sure where my life is going (is anyone at this point in Covid?) and now it is May. May.
The lighthouse, the end of my journey, seems still very far off. Now that I have read 3 Virginia Woolf novels, her first three (the ones which seem to be lesser read) I can say with authority that she uses a LOT of water imagery for someone who writes about London. We are not talking riverine ecology here—she seems to think you can’t obtain internal development without crossing oceans. Well, she may have been right, come to think of it I personally can’t. So yes, now I have read The Voyage Out (1915) and Night and Day (1919) and Jacob’s Room (1922).
(Yes, I am reading her back catalog in order because I am a maniac).
It has just occurred to me, on the basis of the publication dates, that Jacob’s Room must have been Woolf’s pandemic novel. Did she sit, huddled over papers, in London, under stay-at-home orders? That’s an interesting coincidence. I started reading this book last year at some point, after the long, drawn out dullness that was Night and Day (such a good title, such boring characters) and I thought, at first, possibly because of what I had heard about it, and maybe also because it is about a man and I don’t find stories about men that interesting (oooh, that’s a very bad thing to say I know, but it probably only shows my lack of reading), nevertheless, I *thought* at first that Jacob’s room was a slog. And I put it down, half way.
Then, at some point in this molasses spring I picked it up again, and I started to like it a LOT. I mean, the descriptions…the writing…NOW I am starting to understand, as her stream-of-consciousness style develops in this third book, why the word “genius” occurs very frequently as an epithet of Virginia Woolf. Now I can’t wait to learn more. The sentences are singing, they are ALL epigrammatic polished jewels that I want to collect and keep forever. Someday I will buy another copy of Jacob’s Room (the one I have is in a very cheap edition bound together with Night and Day), and I’m going to keep it and read it again and again to find new perfect phrases. (I almost never find real keepers!) It’s lovely, possibly because Jacob also doesn’t matter—it’s about him, sure, but you don’t know him, you just see him. Like the beautiful object of a crushing love affair that never got off the ground, remaining perfect forever.
“It is thus that we live, they say, driven by an unseizable force. They say that the novelists never catch it; that it goes hurtling through their nets and leaves them torn to ribbons. This, they say, is what we live by – this unseizable force.”
It consoles me to think, as I type away in obscurity, in a beautiful but unimportant town, that every day as I drink coffee and get dressed and eat snacks—-that I am living by an unseizable force.
There are many more interesting phrases than this in the book, but they build to crescendoes and would be very long to excerpt, I particularly like one about letters, that goes on for pages, following the journeys of letters through the world, specific letters, and then their general purpose, to keep our lives moving forward, and to trick us that our lives are moving forward. There are two things I like about this book very much: the immediacy, the whole sense of our lives as being breaths within a wind, and over very soon, but so important to us, individually, and the fact that the author speaks and surmises through giving inanimate objects feelings and watchfullness and, well, sort of checking in with them as unmoving touchstones to the scenes around them, which I like very much. I’ve often thought about life from our possession’s point of view–that you are off chasing your dreams and yet the cellar stair still creaks at your parent’s house thousands of miles away–and here is a book that does it all the time.
There is a third thing, also.
It is integral to the atmosphere of the book, but I will also be going on tanget here. Jacob’s Room is mostly the memoir (from outside of a person? is that possible?) of an early 20th century male who goes to university. It is, funnily enough, right in line with the trendiest of trends, “Dark Academia.” But I don’t think many of the people who make those “aesthetic” dark academia youtube videos know about this gem. I know, I know, I am late to the party even talking about “dark academia” now (what’s next, chatting about ‘cottagecore?’) however, people do seem to think that these are “lifestyles,” and we live, apparently, in a time where you “craft” a lifestyle and veneer over your life with it—-(and that is somehow meaningful? or it just looks good?) Yeah, the whole concept of these “aesthetics” rings very Late Capitalism to me.
But it wasn’t an “aesthetic” to Jacob, who lived at the last gasp of the British empire’s strength, and could spend his time debating philosophies and wearing nice trousers and impressing women at tea with his looks—but only engaging with men in terms of the mind. (That last theme –‘learning is restricted to upper class men’ is chimed again and again in all the Woolf I have read so far and of course it gnawed at her. What might she have had). Jacob was living the life that people are now romanticising and consciously copying. You know, the Western canon, old universities and ink dipping pens, latin….etcetera. Jacob goes on a tour of Greece (although one in which he can somehow see both the Piraeus and Marathon from the Acropolis—this was long before urban development I guess) and even he is caught between the symbols of past glories and his own doubts about whether any of this tradition really matters to the present, which is an interesting debate I can relate to as a person who threw her lot in with the Humanities long ago.
And “Dark Academia” as a trend does relate to my own past studies, particularly in the gap between what we ASPIRE to be, and what we actually DO. When I first heard about “Dark Academia” I thought “that’s fun” because it sounded like the things I have thought in the past are fun, but while I can understand dressing in a certain way, to present yourself a certain way and to like how you look, I am not sure that attempting to surround yourself with stuff that conjures an antique mood actually helps you be a better student. And that’s what I find so hollow I suppose, that its not really about becoming a better, wider-read, thoughtful scholar, it is swanning about in ruffles on instagram, intending to appear as such.
I can see that this “aesthetic” is being used by people younger than me, as a way to cope with and romanticise their tightly constrained lives and heavy academic workloads. The thing is—it probably means that on some level, they don’t want to do what they are doing, or not to the extent that they have to do it, to get good enough grades to get to university. There is so much pressure now. So they try and drum up a constant passion for their studies, by buying things and posing for photos—and I get it, but I just don’t think its going to work. (It might be possible to romanticise reading a lot of literature but less easy to invoke yearning feelings over a pack of neon anatomy flashcards, I imagine, or best practices in pharmaceutical lawsuits). I mean, all the power to adherents of the “Dark Academia” lifestyle, the existence of which underscores how little romance we sometimes find in our daily lives—but its not really about learning.
Jacob’s Room describes the British Library, St. Pauls, the Phaedrus, old perfumes, the quadrangle (every quadrangle), snifters, poetry, love that cannot be expressed due to the conventions of the time, a grand tour….yeah, the symbols of past grandeur are all there, and the “drama” is provided by in many other novels recently re-branded as “Dark Academia,” notably The Secret History, Dead Poet’s Society, and newer titles such as “We Were Villains” (all the plots involved follow this formula: 1. We Love Learning / Art, 2. Someone Dies). In about 2005 in a concrete block university I was obsessed with The Secret History by Donna Tartt, which is a little bit about learning, but its mostly about privilege; I assume that what we are all actually craving is significance. I suspect, however, that significance is awarded to your life later, after it is over, if any trace remains of you in the literary/historical record. Then, suddenly, your having plugged away in some unimportant place becomes noble and inspiring (Kant never left Koenigsburg!) and people pilgrimage to your house, to see your pencils and imbibe your air and spirit; to be inspired. (Or, ya know, for the ‘gram).
If you knew my personal history, and my own pilgrimage to a great university which was very much inspired by its ancient aura and fame, you would say “certainly you should be the last to judge people play-acting with their lives” and you would be right. I can see COMPLETELY the reasons for this trend, at this time, people are sort of spiritually starving. It would be so wonderful to be able to believe in your artistic destiny—or at least revel in port and dissolute habits and ancient words and fine wool pants until one finds it. But, but but…these are the trappings. These things do not a writing life make—and I am saying this as much to myself as to anyone else. I wish the trappings worked, like talismans, to make sure one’s interest in a subject never wanes–but it will ebb and flow. Collecting pretty things does not mean that you will actually crack the books.
There is such a big difference between wanting to Be a Person Who Reads Greek (for example), and then actually memorizing all the verb charts, doing hours upon hours of translation homework each night, and getting to every Friday afternoon test, so that you actually Learn Greek. I have been guilty of the Aspiration over the Perspiration so many times. (Greek is so cool! But the getting of Greek is pain!)
I’m grown past the idea of the ‘romance of scholarship.’
(What’s next? Actually obtaining competency in my chosen subject?)
It’s a bit weird to think that now I just have to finish my thesis, sans rose-petal vapour wafting around my head, and no more visions of greatness. Just visions of practicality that most people have been shoving on me the whole time, but which I have resisted. Well, I resist no more. It is what it is. Maybe we all have to grow up sometime.
Anyway, now that I have hammered that nail very far down, let’s move on. I just want you to know that I am not using Jacob’s Room as a safe place in which to hide from the modern world. I live in a concrete capsule like so many others and my role in society is currently indefinite. However, the language used in Jacob’s Room simply sparkles, Virginia Woolf noticed every mundane thing without having to turn it over into something gorgeous, or some “aesethetic,” it was just about the noticing. I mostly see the work involved in her prose now—you can let your eyes slide over some sentences, but you realize, in others, the absolute picking and re-picking of the seams that went on there. The tiny stitches (forgive the female metaphor)—if Jane Austen worked days engraving her “tiny pieces of ivory” Virginia Woolf also worked—damned hard. I still don’t really understand fiction, but I am at the beginning of understanding the work that goes on behind three good words strung in a row.
Postscript:
I do love books where nothing happens but people wake up and put on their clothes and a city continues to bulge and contract. And this means—since I meant to read a V. Woolf novel every year, that I will be caught up from 2020 and able to read “The Waves” this year, which I really, REALLY want to do, on a beach with the diss. handed in and all the tiny struggling details forgotten.
Book Choice for February 2021: The Diary of a CP by J. Woodforde.
Hello Again, Dear Legions of Readers,
I hope you are doing very well and holding it all together, in these rough days. Would you like a time machine to transport yourself to Georgian (that is pre-Regency) England? They were on the brink of war at many points during that time, but you wouldn’t learn much about that from this diary. Yes, a few Continental actions and military musterings in England are mentioned by the good Parson, but beyond being a bit worried about a French “invasion” which never materialized, his life was not much affected.
This is a book, I imagine, for the few, rather than the many. If you like forty-year records of daily life without electricity (but surprisingly, WITH inoculation against smallpox) than this is the book for you! Let’s be real, this book has been my companion off and on through many seasons, (read: it has taken me two YEARS to get through). But I don’t regret a thing, it was a bucolic place to travel to every once and awhile, see what the Parson was doing, which really ran the gamut between pottering in his garden, shopping in Norwich and forcibly marrying men bound in chains to the women they had impregnated – now THAT’S a law that has fallen out of use! (And obviously, I agree with the Parson’s regrets that “such unions seem unlikely to lead to happiness on either side”).
This book, as published, is actually extracts from five volumes of diaries kept by the Parson, and although I started this one with all my normal (over-the-top levels of) historical zeal; I am actually ok with not reading the ENTIRE thing unexpunged. I have actually had enough of the Parson listing every dish on his table—good grief they ate a lot of meat. This is, by the way, what I originally picked up the book for, its “descriptions of gargantuan meals” (as says the back cover) which I had heard about from the audiobook of Bill Bryson’s At Home: A Short History of Private Life. And no, I can’t tell you exactly why I wanted to eat vicariously—but as you likely know by now, I cannot tear myself away from detailed accounts of old timey domesticity. Even domesticity now, is of perennial fascination to me. My main fun has always been interior design, literally design, the attempt to make a small space super functional, airy yet cozy, minimalist but not cold….it is an ongoing enjoyable task, this “living comfortably.”
So yes, this book is about the gentry (specifically the sub-genus: members of the ministerial class), that weird top section of the middle class before there really was one in England, that Jane Austen world of obsession with who-is-slightly-above-whom (and they all were mushrooms to the nobility anyway). Its a section of society I keep coming back to although I know it is wrong—for these people’s fortunes to have ballooned and made Mansfield Park a possibility (the house and its grounds I mean) there needed to be intense exploitation of people inside and beyond England, we must bear this in mind as we fantasize about dressing for dinner and coming down to exercise our sparkling wits around the table, released from all food preparation, serving or cleanup duties.
I used to think that was the ultimate fantasy, to live like Parson Woodforde and be released from such basic cares—to have more time to create my art (that is, to write dry history books)—as the Parson used his extra energies to write his diary, now considered a fairly dry history book….(this seems to be rather a circular argument)… At any rate, Parson Woodforde possessed nearly unlimited free time on basis of who he was in society (he even had a niece live with him as he wasn’t married, presumably so she could interface with the servants and order the dinner, which was considered beneath a gentleman’s dignity) and if he hadn’t written this diary he would have disappeared completely. His life, while eminently comfortable, did not necessitate that he left any particular kind of mark on the wider world. But he was a fairly sweet man and there are several funny, tragic and surprising episodes in this book to delight any time traveler who revels in the mundane, and is in the mood for a good, long, read. It was also a positive aspect of the book that it preserves accounts of many regular working class people of whom no other records remain.
February is a good month to read diaries.
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So, it is finally happening. After many weeks of almost literally wading through a swamp of old emotions and the inner turmoil of just getting…nowhere….slowly…the tide has turned a bit and I am writing fastidiously and fairly ok—once and awhile I have a few seconds where I feel like I am flying.
That is great—especially considering that I am writing up page-long discussions of the semantic ranges and phonological values of signs, a task that lets just say, I have been dreading since last Fall, when I first realized that it was in fact the task that I have set myself—before that point it wasn’t clear how this was going to end. It’s going to end in pedantic philology—I know, I was quite surprised myself. That is hard and sounds kinda boring. “Why did I do this to myself?” has been asked many a time. While there definitely are interesting findings every so often, I sometimes wonder why we paint ourselves into the corners we find especially difficult — we commit ourselves to the things we suspect we are the worst at. Or is this just me. (Is this growth?) May develop this theme later.
Even so, there are tiny flashes when my brain puts the clues together (I think it does this while I am sleeping, mostly) to remind me that THIS could mean THAT, and to check that one particular article again before moving on (and cite it properly before you file it girl, there isn’t going to be a next time). Fortunately, I do love a soul-crushing deadline. (I think). Deadlines are the only reason things get done, and the things that get done are imperfect – but at least they exist.
Two Tips, for you and me:
1. “This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap” — G.B. Shaw
2. “Never have an unpublished thought.” P.M.M. Daviau
I have only just noticed that the word “rhythym” has no vowels. What!?
Good Morning. So. January is swiftly passing away. A blue January, I would like to call it, as it is dark so late in the mornings I can appreciate every shade of it as it turns from pitch black to off-grey. In between there are many deep, pretty blue shades.
At this stage in the game, I am suffering, a bit, I must admit. I have hit my first real writing blocks, beyond the fact that its a pandemic and I’m lucky to be healthy, beyond the fact that there is mysterious drilling in our building every single day (but today it mercifully seems to be coming from farther away, and not from directly under my feet, shaking my brain). It is the work itself—they always told me this phase would arrive, but I was like no, I am a unicorn, obviously—well the work is a bit un-fun.
I usually like editing, scrubbing it up, but it seems so tedious. I liked re-wording, and shaking my head at Past Me who was not as clever as present me, who now has so many more synonyms at her disposal. There is still a very large part of my thesis I am (still) writing from scratch—and I very usefully spend most of my time and brainpower beating myself up for not having realized that the last section would end up being the most important, and longest. Basically, my work is making me hate myself and I just want to come clean about it.
The “rhythms of scholarship” is a phrase I once read on wikipedia and its beauty has sustained me through much (I am sorry, I don’t know who exactly said it, but it was a French lady academic). I am now located at a low ebb in the rhythm, a long, drawn-out low note. There is not much rewarding about this part. Maybe it is because this week I tasked myself with fixing up something that I know too well—yes it was fresh and exciting last April but it just isn’t anymore, maybe it’s because I’m tired as sh**.
It’s just going so slowly. Soooo Sllloowwwwwwwww.
I am finding very little to romanticize, which is dangerous. It’s not coming easily, so I am saying things like “I guess I am not a writer” and “This academia thing is clearly not for me”—because I hold a million comparisons with my peers, and the greats of my discipline, living or dead, in my head. Why don’t I know more? What have I been doing? Am I really stupid, or what? Oh, and don’t get me started down my You Have Made Weird Choices In Your Life Girl rabbit hole…that can take a day, or a whole good night’s sleep to climb out of.
Which reminds me. Mornings. They are still here. The deep blue of this one has faded but there will be another wistful one tomorrow. And on and on and I just have to fill them. A little cat is sleeping right beside me now as I type, and another one is sleeping in her bed to my right. There is nothing to complain of there—peace and serenity rule. Today I can probably carry on. At any rate the day will pass away and I will have, at least some point, tried to try.
I am lucky to be able to fill my life up with this nonsense. And these wretched-blessed days won’t last forever. I have put it off a long time, but someday I will become a little cog, hopefully a useful cog, a respectable cog, in some larger machine, and this private time of contemplation and “freedom” (inside the shackles of one’s mean mind) will be over. And then I will say “how precious it was!”
Ok—those are some nice ruminations. Now go to the desk.
I hope you are well! Look, its OVER, its finished, we got to the END. Good Riddance to a rough year!
Yes, the calendar may be a meaningless construct, but at least it provides an illusion of forward movement. Bring on something different! Even if it is a mirage. I’m glad the year was turning, but this year I didn’t make any plans. No self-improvements, not even one goal. This is very unlike me, but its a sign of the times. This year I found out, at long last, that I am pretty ok with how I am, and also that just living is an accomplishment. It can be hard to just keep going when everything feels so heavy. And 2020 felt like 2,020 kilos, at least, on the soul.
But enough of that! We’re still here. It’s 2021, so light the smallest firecracker ever and prepare to relive some of the high lights, low lights, and secretive asides of my reading year.
I didn’t plan my 2020 reading, I just let it flow. I started the year with plans to read Middlemarch in March, but not many other intentions. By September I had run out of steam a bit was wondering where is this going? But I did manage to read 12 Books in the end, and I am happy with all my choices and feel that they were worthwhile, and added something to my life and understanding. As I have reviewed most of my reading here on the blog, I will just list the titles in terms of the format I “consumed” them in:
Audiobooks – Beowulf, *Middlemarch, My Life in Middlemarch, Claudius the God, The 12 Caesars, Margaret the First
Physical Books – Coke Machine Glow (poetry), *Middlemarch, The Mirror and the Light, I, Claudius, Normal People, The Turn of the Screw, Elizabeth’s Lists.
As you can see, I added audiobooks to my life this year, and there are many pluses to this, especially signing up for a roll-over credit that comes due every month and inspires you to immediately PICK SOMETHING—(no matter what you pick (nor how many lists you keep) you will always feel like you might rather have had something else!) However, audiobooks are GREAT accompaniments to making dinner, which apparently has to happen every damn day, and they have actually turned this time into one of my favourite times of the day. They also make it easier to get through a huge Classic or otherwise intimidating book. You just float along for the ride. Final advantage: they don’t take up any space!
Diversions:
As usual, other books crept in this year, however, several of them lead to other things, other topics which require more looking into, so I am saving them up my sleeve for now. Here is a short summary of what I didn’t write about on the blog this year:
E.M. Delafield’s Diary of a Provincial Lady – knowing that her life got so sad at the end I couldn’t continue to the last book once I had wikipedia’d her; this was a re-read for me though, and I was a bit surprised that I hadn’t noticed all her servants and level of privilege the first time. Speaking of servants, I got really into first-person accounts of having been servants in the 1910s-1930s by real British working-class people one summer weekend, I read about 6 in a weekend. They are fascinating and there will probably be more to come on this topic. I also read a “popular” science book that was trying so hard to be relevant it was literally unreadable, and, another mistake, I got a bit fascinated by Queen Mary, grandmother of current Queen Elizabeth upon (I know, why) upon an ongoing very slow re-watch of the Crown Netflix series, so I ordered what I thought was her biography (because it looks and is packaged like it should be) but it is actually the notes of things that were not included in her 1950s biography. Oi. It was okay. It was not as good as its back cover would like to think it. Still, there will probably be more themes involving high and low born people of the past showing up on this blog, because it it is a perennially interesting, and boggling, topic.
I also read a short bilingual German-English book which I had bought as a souvenir at the Bach Haus a couple years ago (anything is possible if you leave it in the bathroom magazine rack) called “Luther, Bach and the Jews,” which actually turned out quite fascinating. Did you know that Bach’s music chorales were influenced by Luther’s intense anti-Semitic writings (a pretty good counterpoint to have because we are celebrating Luther like all the time here) and that there are even anti-Semitic verses in Bach compositons? Now they are usually changed or omitted or “sung with less conviction” during concerts. But what is so amazing is that even with all this bad baggage in Bach, it was several generations of Jewish musicians who brought Bach’s music back from relative obscurity, to being played in public again. The book is mostly about the influential Jewish figures and composers who loved Bach because they felt it was just the highest achievement in music ever— and there was just as many women involved in this process as men! As pianists, afficianados, composers and bankrollers. Yeah. Maybe I will get into Bach this year.
In general, I am going to let the chips (read: books) fall where they may in 2021. I’m going to plan reading for July-Dec 2021 (to be announced!) but until then I am going to have a fallow period. I might read, I might not. I have a fairly enormous diss to finish. I will probably write on the blog, as it is my creative outlet, but I am not sure it will be about what I am reading. I cannot be definite, I want a bit of time. Yes, I am SUCH a Slow Scholar that I feel a bit time-pressured by even 12 books a year. I need some time to digest, process what just happened, and also empty space, for unplanned things to fall into. Breathing time.
December’s Book: Margaret the First by Daniel Dutton
I had wanted to read this book, which could be classed as “an imaginative biography” for a long time, ever since I heard it mentioned in Jen from Insert Literary Pun’s youtube video (she loved it) and even after Claire from the Claire Reads Books channel said that she couldn’t quite see the point of MTF because it “is just in no way urgent.” As the things I read are rarely urgent or up to date, rather that didn’t put me off because little of my reading is urgent, rather escapist, this didn’t bother me at all. In sum, this book was “okay.” Perhaps “satisfactory” is a better term. I am glad I had it as an audiobook, as it was mildly historically interesting to listen to, but there is a jabby, short-sentence style to Margaret’s personal thoughts that I don’t think I would much have appreciated reading on paper. In fact during the audiobook I felt like if the snooty-voiced narrator (well, Margaret was a Duchess) said “I chewed my bread.” as a complete sentence one more time I was going to throw my phone out the window. Aaarrrgh gross! Not because chewing bread is gross, but the fact that this phrase (very often repeated) was supposed to signify that Margie was having some deeply contemplative thoughts while at her posh dinner table—-yuck! It stretched belief.
Still, it brings a forgotten woman writer back to life, but you kind of wonder the whole time, hmmm maybe her writings were a bit forgettable. I mean, they seemed to have been built on meaningless fancies, as sort of pseudo-science companions to the scientific experimentation that was going on in 17th century England, where new discoveries seemed to be happening everyday. I don’t want to doubt her merits, just because she was a Duchess (wow apparently I am very skeptical about the gifts of the rich) but I don’t want to believe she was great just because she was a rare thing in her times, being a woman…Although of course the way that she was systematically kept out of academe and kept from knowing things is one of those very old, very tiring, and un-erasable crimes. I am just wondering if her contributions (naturally bordered by her limited education) were in fact worth being included in the scientific dialogue of the times (with the caveat that this scientific dialogue wasn’t always itself all that scientific). I already own a book of Margaret Cavendish’s writings and plays, and on one hand, while I “should” educate myself more about her works and merits, I am not going to, I simply don’t find this figure that interesting.
Merry Nearly Christmas. I know it is hard to get worked up into Xmas cheer this year, so let’s stick our heads into the sands of the past. This post is going to include my thoughts on the books I read for:
September – The Twelve Caesars, Suetonius
November – Elizabeth’s Lists, L. Ellender
Firstly, let’s go back to September with The 12 Caesars. This was enjoyable, you know. I listened to the whole thing while cooking, it took months. Therefore, it has become clear to me that I pretty much only think that I am cooking all the time and that it takes up all my time, when really, it probably takes up 20 minutes every other day. (Perception is key!) There is a lot of stuff that feels like “filler” in this book when you hear it, for example what each Roman emperor looked like, described by a man who was never there to see them himself, but trusting to contemporary sources. However, one must remind oneself that this is our major source on the Julio-Claudian emperors and the subsequent Flavian dynasty (which I had completely forgotten about since my degree).
Therefore, if you read this book you will finally be able to label everyone in your head, and learn by heart who came after whom. You will also hear about a lot of ancient Roman scandals, some still scandalous, some not, some quite funny now; and hear a LOT about Roman omen-taking, wouldn’t we all feel better if we all just took more omens in our life and followed the signs? Then you can just blame the gods for your missteps. I mean, if they WANTED me to finish my PhD on time they shouldn’t have sent a black raven to perch on the top of the statue of Mars Porsenna. Obviously! That must have been Pythian Apollo having a laugh.
Basically, I wanted to know what was in this book, and capture another Greek and Roman classic. And it wasn’t deadly dull–you just have to be sort of prepared for it. I definitely recommend this audiobook—Charlton Griffin has narrated MANY ancient classics and he really is the master. I also wanted to read this because Robert Graves did a translation of it (not this one I believe) but after having done so, he worked up the character and life of the emperor Claudius so that it became his books I, Claudius and Claudius the God, both of which I read this year. I found from this audiobook that Graves did use about every scrap of info there was on Claudius, as I have said before however, what he did with this scant info was so very impressive.
Is Suetonius re-readable though? Not unless you are a mega emperor fan! I mostly just wanted to know what it contained, it was a famous book even when it was published in AD 121. It also may contain a direct reference to Christ as a real person, and it does contain references to Christians in Rome in Nero’s book. This is pretty fascinating to me (I suggest you google the “Suetonius on Christians” wikipedia page if you are interested in more, as well, an academic book just came out called “Jesus the Apocalyptic Prophet” by C. Wassen and T. Haegerland, published by Bloomsbury, which is a “strictly historical” study of Jesus’ life, and something that I have bookmarked as something to get to in the future. It’s table of contents looks phenomenal and it certainly sounds like the way I like my historical figures, intensely researched and footnoted to death. What can I say? I enjoy light-hearted fun as much as the next person, but I like my non-fiction pitted with stony facts.
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November – Elisabeth’s Lists, L. Ellender.
I really enjoyed this book. It was (mostly–but we will get to that in a minute) LOVELY to read, and I was engrossed, I had a physical copy and I left myself, left my body on the couch and travelled there, to the 1930s and 40s, around the world with this lucky lady, who as an ambassador’s daughter and a diplomat’s wife had a bit more of an exciting life than your average housewife of the time. One thing that particularly stands out to me, is all the PACKING—and by that I mean, this lady started to keep lists mainly when her husband and her were married, lists of wedding gifts and furniture she would like to get for their house (I eat this sort of detail for dessert) and then when they were posted around the world she kept her immaculate book of lists with her, enabling her to organize their regular moves, before children and after–and just packing; for a trip, to go camping, or even making up emergency or first aid kits is just my favourite thing!!! It really is. There must be a word for people who hate packing—I can’t find one, just a fear of travelling, (and a fear of styrofoam packing peanuts!) but I have the opposite: a lust for selecting what may be needed, and for preparing. And you get all the fun of dreaming about what adventures may come!!
The book makes a lot out of Elisabeth’s need/desire to keep lists, repeating over and over that they must have made her calm/allowed her to order her world. Well there is certainly a LOT more which can be said about the Lists, indeed there is a specific subject of study in German scholarship called “Listenwissenschaft” (I hear you, of course there is) and I believe the last book Umberto Eco finished before his death was called “The Infinity of Lists” and traces the history of list-making in Western culture (I wonder if Western culture in this case claims Sumerian Lexical tablets—the first ever written lists. It probably does. Western Culture is known for picking and choosing its forerunners). However, ever since I heard about Eco’s book I have been intrigued, yes, its going on my future reading list. A field which grows stonier daily, as I get to grips with some really interesting ideas.
Elisabeth’s Lists however, keeps these ideas palatable (excepting, again, that last bit, which I will get to) and close to home. What I find more interesting, now, than Elisabeth’s list predilection, is the genealogical aspect of this book. Of course, Ellender did amazingly well to bring her grandmother, who she never personally knew, to life, from a book of lists, and scraps of correspondence etc (although it must be conceded that she had the lady’s diaries to work with also). In attempting to re-animate this woman however, she did disturb some ghosts, indeed, Ellender found a very sad story of a great-uncle she had never heard mentioned–that I leave for the reader to discover themselves. Ellender literally was able to re-situate ancestors on her family tree, which is a tremendous discovery which I hadn’t expected.
Less than that however, long ago I remember reading a Reader’s Digest article on how knowing the genealogy of their own family literally makes children more mentally strong. If they come from a family that takes its history seriously, and talks about relatives who have passed on, and tells their stories, the child becomes more able to weather the later storms of life. I always remembered this concept, because it was true for my own life. My father in particular, is fascinated by history, but prefers to concentrate on the things that seem knowable—home-spun things in some sense, houses that were built and plowshares and clothes—and the development of our family since its arrival in Canada.
This may be linked to the way he is very tied to the land, has never left the place he grew up, where, in a way that is rare now, everyone really does know everyone and always has and a lot of them are related to you. If we had a family saga it would definitely be called And Then We Were Farmers, because we always were, til recently, which is quite a contrast to the elevated circles of Ellender’s grandmother, who hosted ambassadorial cocktail parties and married the heir to a landed estate. Still, however, no matter who you are, genealogy makes you strong, and I am immensely grateful to my Dad who took me around all the family plots, whispered over by winds and now in the middle of nowhere, the settlements around them collapsed and growing grass, in the summers of my childhood. Some people thought it was morbid, it was anything but. We were imagining.
Finally, on the note of ‘morbid’: the only thing I personally didn’t enjoy about Elisabeth’s Lists as a book, was the way in which the later chapters especially were tied to her mother’s death. This is not a spoiler, it is on the jacket cover that the time the author was researching her grandmother was the same time that her own mother was dying. I think its simply that I do not like this subject matter of a mother dying, so it is a personal thing, but in the slightest way I thought the abject sadness of that shouldn’t have been wound in with a memory-quest. As much as we may attempt to commune with the vanished, it is already gone and we are, essentially, guessing. Her mother however, was living, and her quitting this life, although it took place at the same time as this was being written, and I am sure to the author this process seems indivisible from her book (there is one very sweet recollection by the author’s mother upon her own mother, the grandmother Elisabeth that is being researched, so I understand how it all ties in) nevertheless I simply think that the death of Lulah’s mother is another story.
And while I would normally definitely want to read a genealogical-detective story again, I don’t want to read the sadness of this book again, although I declaim: you must! Don’t miss out if you are a nostalgist like me!!
Hallowe’en snuck up on me, and a scary pepper was duly improvised
Book Choice for October 2020: The Turn of The Screw by Henry James
**As ever, this review contains tons of vague Spoilers**
Hello again Dear Readers, today I invite you to travel back with me to the prettiest month, the ghostliest month, lovely October, which, separated as it is from us by the first week of November 2020, otherwise known as the longest week in recorded history, seems now so very, very far away.
You may not have realized it, but the above paragraph, written using approximately six hundred and forty commas, with little interjections and some phrases which turn back upon each other and run the risk of making little to no coherent sense, is an accurate reproduction of Henry James’ writing style.
Ughhhhhh.
One of the things I was most looking forward to in my proscriptive reading this year was getting to read a ghost story in October, in the run-up to Halloween. Well, my hopes of something spooky were completely dashed by the Turn of the Screw, which was so harmless I don’t even know how to begin to describe it. I picked up an Oxford paperback edition, which also included some other absolutely innocuous stories, namely Sir Edward Orme, which features a slight hallucination, one which probably could be cured by not eating too late at night, Owen Wingrave which is a story in which nothing may have happened at all, although the police should question everyone that case is not going to hold up in court, and The Friends of Friends, which features wedding jitters. I mean, basically.
All of these I read on the way to reading the Turn of the Screw, saving it for last, holding out hope. Ohmygoodness, was it ever boring. I know, I know, Henry James is supposed to be this great master. I know, I know, its supposed to be deeply psychological. Let’s be honest, it was vague and bland and should have been told in 15 pages, not 100. I was soooo disappointed. I’m sure I’m supposed to be a lot more appreciative of the subtle nuances blah blah—-but the back of the book features a quote from a newspaper (circa 1900 we must remember) wherein the Turn of the Screw was called “the most evil story we have ever read.”
Its absolutely forgettable, and after the initial few jump-outs, you will be waiting and waiting for a payoff that never comes. Better luck (to me!) next year. I obviously like my ghost stories full of burning eyes, unexplained appearances, premonitions, and the sensing of evil or doom. Real evil or doom—danger! Obsession! Revenge! You know, like the plots most ghost stories have—the ones people actually sit around and tell each other—possibly our last personal experiences of storytelling in this modern age are the suspicious events that have happened to us, or to a friend of a friend (or very often for some reason, to our grandmothers). The Turn of the Screw is meant as a work of art—-but did anyone ever actually enjoy it?
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Let’s move on from all that, with some Truly Frightening Tales. Its about time for a thesis update, but I am almost too paranoid to talk about it. You see, during the first half of November, during some Truly Scary times for the US and far beyond its borders, a youngish-lady sat typing in front of a florescent screen in the creepy-dark early mornings….and she realized…that the section she had been saving to write-up last (probably she had had some presentiment of perdition) has, like a monster outside her control, grown to a huge size, and an equally terrifying importance, and our heroine simply did not see this coming. But she should have [insert moralistic Victorian overtones]. Basically, she thought she had ordered her thoughts well in the first 3 chapters and made all her points. Then, at what feels like 30 seconds before midnight, she realized: the final section IS the point, it is the WHOLE point of this work she has laboured so long to set up well and ground in justifiable fact—-but who cares about that—the enormous, unconquerable (?) section is what the people will come for. And there is still so, soooooooo much to do.
I’m do apologize. For that ramble, for the self-indulgence, and because I can’t be any more specific about what the problem is, because it makes my stomach churn. Remember April? When I was practically giggling about getting “quarterly flashes of insight” that lead me forward in my PhD, and show me the way? Well, I’ve realized they aren’t just beautiful illuminations—-they are painful!! albeit necessary. However, I am very glad that I had this realization now, about what the point is, rather than getting this clarity next February, because that truly would be too late. One often hears people say that they didn’t really understand their PhD until they were at the end of it—-but even I cannot delude myself that I am somehow ahead of the game now, I feel so very far behind, despite this unbidden revelation.
But this REALLY IS research, right? Going down a misty road with a dim lantern? Then one realizes, someone already wrote that road (bear with me) so you dive off into the undergrowth—maybe there is a dropped footnote here, or some old, forgotten diaries or excavation reports of explorers long dead—then you start thrashing around in the weeds, getting all mucky, you start counting things, you write it up, you are pleased and growing more confident…usually after this point (now THIS is a twist, Henry James!) you finally read that 40 page German article that you’ve had shut in your desk drawer for 3 years; and you find out that someone coolly published your discovery in 1995.
The final creepy story in this collection concerns our greatest of all fears, greater even than missing a citation, if it can be believed, greater than a deadline, in fact, it concerns the Ultimate Deadline…..(woooooooo)
So, months have passed and I have diligently been taking my thyroid medicine. It was time to go back to the doctor, all was well and she prescribed me more, of the same dosage, and told me to come back in 4 more months. She also had the good news that I had moved from a 5.1 of something, to a 1.0—-I truly have no idea what this scale is, but I hope it is the German marking system where a 1,0 is a perfect grade. I was delighted at having made such “progress” and said so. And she said, direct quote: “Yes, I am glad we are treating it now. If we didn’t treat it, you would die.”
Oh.
I was under the impression that if I didn’t take this medicine I would be back to having rough afternoons, and my quality of life would be kind of meh. I didn’t realize that it was um, REALLY GOOD, that I happened to go to the doctor and they happened to find it and happened to treat me, although I barely understand what is going on. It seems like I have let this hang on a real crapshoot…I just could have just as easily NOT begun treatment. And I don’t know WHEN the deathly effects would have kicked in, like, would it have been years (impossible to know by her verbal tense) and would I have gotten some other warnings beyond being tired? I’m not gonna lie, I came home a bit shaken.
This feeling was compounded by the fact that when I asked “Why?” has this happened (I’m not sure if you are allowed to ask doctors why) she told me that this type of thyroid problem is a relatively new development, they aren’t so much in her generation, now it is young people, and lots of them, who are developing them.
As that is terrifying, I asked again, “Why?”
She said, “Well, the environment is changing a lot. It could be from pollution, or preservatives in food.”
I thanked her and left, and I did have a little cry at home.
We’re all screwed.
It really is ending. The world I mean. We are starting to actually be impacted by the things we have done, the alterations we have made (beyond the general frying and drying of the earth). We aren’t going to be able to live here anymore. It’s going to destroy us…I mean, we are going to destroy us. And its not in the distant future, its happening now. We are not living the same lives our recent ancestors did; the environment has changed so much.
