Monday's Activities Include: haircut, walk, _Unmentionable_, dinner, book group

[walkitout]

I walked to Moodz for my haircut and back. Later in the day, I got a walk with M.

I tried on and off to read _Unmentionable_ for book group this evening. I got halfway through. The research seems excellent, but the "darlings" and "my dears" and similar really became distracting as I proceeded through the book. Also, pretty sure I'm not the target audience -- I've never looked at the 19th century as romantic. And a lot of the appeal of the Little House books for me was the getting a job and becoming somewhat independent aspects of it.

I had dinner with A. and L. When asked what I wanted to drink, instead of saying whatever you are having or water, which is what I would usually do, I asked if they had any whisky. I was expecting a no. Instead, A. had an amazing stash of small bottles and a couple seagram's bottles -- and one Schenley, which I'd never even heard of before but tasted really good. I have to remember to actually _ask_ for things I would like to have, because magic happens when I do.

Dinner was excellent -- pasta with meat sauce and some vegetables, with apple cranberry scones for dessert. Her scones are so amazing, and she is so kind to make them so that I can eat them (no milk products).

Book group was well attended! In addition to M. (the librarian), A. and I, K. came and so did M. (the nurse). We hadn't seen either of them since summer, so we chatted a bit about previous month's selections as well as this one. Nice to get their input on things like the Nora Roberts, but attempts to get feedback on Silas Marner sort of failed. The consensus on _Unmentionable_ was what I had thought: the "darlings" and "my dears" was wearing. However, others made it a lot further than I did, and we did have really nice discussion about women in the 19th century, and I ruminated a bit on how you could line up some of our book selections from this year (_Unmentionable_, _Gaudy Night_, _Born in Fire_, the Gloria Steinem memoir, etc.) and map the progression of women's rights and opportunities, evolving from no property, no vote, no education, no career, just get married and have kids and your health problems are your own fault to education and career OR marriage, but not both, to education and career AND marriage, through significant political and cultural influence. It wasn't intentional, but it's been nice to see that progression represented.

Comments

[nodrog]

Do you know, I had an entire reply written out to this, but I must have mistakenly cancelled it instead.  I can summarize.


>  pretty sure I'm not the target audience --
>  I've never looked at the 19th century as romantic…


So that would be, “No, you're not, then.”  But if you look at ANY period or culture with the eye of Jacob Riis you're going to find squalor and misery.  Certainly, the 19th century CAN be seen strictly in terms of “dark Satanic mills” and (the absence of) women's rights, &c. - but what fun is that?


“BY THE IMPERIAL noonday, then, the spectacle of the Empire was flamboyant indeed, coloured as much by
Oriental despotism and barbaric gesture as by feudal example from nearer home. If it was modernist in
some ways, it was antique in others. It embodied the marvellous energy of steam as well as the
immemorial pride of horseflesh. It was queenly, but it was savage. It was partly the consequence of
dukes, but partly the beat of jungle drums, and Imperial activists of every kind were recruited
willy-nilly into its presentation: bishops beside viceroys, police officers and railwaymen, even
sportsmen, foresters, jute merchants, river pilots or colonial accountants - all of whom, by their
bearing, their demeanour or their costume, their pose at the wicket, the flutter of their gowns, the
gravity of their presence behind the study desk or board-room table, contributed to the Imperial
effect.”

Jan Morris, The Spectacle of Empire


         



“You'll be part of railways through Africa!  Fleets of ocean greyhounds!”

“Here’s my tuppence:  Sign me up, daddy-o!”


And as to that, I commented myself on how that applies specifically here and now:  It serves a real need!


                /===//===//===//==/


Just so, by any informed, rational standard Western Europe after the fall of Rome was a gawdawful place to be, and stayed that way for a thousand years.  Yet no one dwells on the harrowing gawdawful truth; it's the theme park version people want, as gave rise to the Society For Creative Anachronism.


[Speaking of theme parks, an SF story I read way back when had a future Earth now ‘retired,’ humanity expanding out acrosss the stars and Old Earth now able to sit back and reminisce - literally.  Major cities were rebuilt to be ‘Colonial Williamsburg’-style reenactments - Los Angeles was permanently in the 1940s, New York was the 1920s, London was Elizabethan, Edo was Shogunate, &c.  The people who lived there took their roles seriously, lived them, and it wasn't always pretty; Elizabethan London in the story was filthy and dangerous!]