Non-Fiction November
Dear Readers,
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!!