Bibliography
Aug. 28th, 2009 01:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_lady_lilyHeavy Weather - P G Wodehouse
The next episode in the Blandings Castle series, this time we see the couple who were put together in Summer Lightening battling with that inevitable problem, jealousy and crossed wires. Delightfully, we also have the resusitation of the plot surrounding the memoirs of the Hon. Galahad, through the means of the publisher he has thwarted by nobly agreeing not to publish in the interests of True Love.
In all honesty, part of me feels that this should have been glued together with Summer Lightening and been published as a single volume, just because the two dove-tail so well, and this doesn't stand up as independent fiction by any stroke of the imagination. There are some nice comments on the attitude of the upper and middle class to work, and we finally have the splendid Lady Julia Fish introduced (a woman somewhat after my own heart, I must admit). I think I will be progressing onwards to the next volume in the series, but I hope it feels less like a sequel than this one - it really did seem to be a 'tying up loose ends' piece, and I wish I hadn't left such a long gap between the two books.
African Queen - Rachel Holmes
This is a rather more academic and very interesting work. It attempts to reconstruct the history of the Hottentot Venus, Saartjie Baartman, who was exhibited as a member of the Hottentot tribe in Picadilly in the early 1800s, a human freak show from the edges of Empire. She was the subject of a famous court case, eventually left the stage, but reappeared on it in France under rather dubious circumstances. After her death, she was illegally dissected, her skeleton mounted, and her genitals preserved in formaldehyde in the collection of the scientist who undertook the operation. Her remains were eventually returned to South Africa, and given proper burial in 2002.
Her story, frankly, is horrific. There is some space for agency there, and Holmes does her best to show where there might have been wiggle room of sorts, but it's hard to put a positive spin on a woman who was exhibited because of her body for money. There's even more horror in the treatment of her body by 'scientific' observers, obsessed with finding the Hottentot apron, an elongated piece of skin Hottentot women were supposed to have that acted as a sort of screen in front of the genitals - when Saartjie's body didn't conform to this unfounded exoticising, the 'scientists' invented theories of why she didn't and when such a flap would become visible. It's grotesque, and that's before you recall that her sole claim to exoticism was the size of her posterior. Holmes makes some good commentary on the obsession of the contemporary English obsession with the buttocks, which puts it into some social context I hadn't previously appreciated, but it's still a bit grueling.
What really struck me is that I have been reading fiction from this period for years, and have taken references to the Hottentot Venus as read. That's - well, that's kind of shameful, actually. I am very, very glad that I've taken the time to read this book and get myself a bit better educated, and would thoroughly recommend it to anyone with an interest in the time period.
The next episode in the Blandings Castle series, this time we see the couple who were put together in Summer Lightening battling with that inevitable problem, jealousy and crossed wires. Delightfully, we also have the resusitation of the plot surrounding the memoirs of the Hon. Galahad, through the means of the publisher he has thwarted by nobly agreeing not to publish in the interests of True Love.
In all honesty, part of me feels that this should have been glued together with Summer Lightening and been published as a single volume, just because the two dove-tail so well, and this doesn't stand up as independent fiction by any stroke of the imagination. There are some nice comments on the attitude of the upper and middle class to work, and we finally have the splendid Lady Julia Fish introduced (a woman somewhat after my own heart, I must admit). I think I will be progressing onwards to the next volume in the series, but I hope it feels less like a sequel than this one - it really did seem to be a 'tying up loose ends' piece, and I wish I hadn't left such a long gap between the two books.
African Queen - Rachel Holmes
This is a rather more academic and very interesting work. It attempts to reconstruct the history of the Hottentot Venus, Saartjie Baartman, who was exhibited as a member of the Hottentot tribe in Picadilly in the early 1800s, a human freak show from the edges of Empire. She was the subject of a famous court case, eventually left the stage, but reappeared on it in France under rather dubious circumstances. After her death, she was illegally dissected, her skeleton mounted, and her genitals preserved in formaldehyde in the collection of the scientist who undertook the operation. Her remains were eventually returned to South Africa, and given proper burial in 2002.
Her story, frankly, is horrific. There is some space for agency there, and Holmes does her best to show where there might have been wiggle room of sorts, but it's hard to put a positive spin on a woman who was exhibited because of her body for money. There's even more horror in the treatment of her body by 'scientific' observers, obsessed with finding the Hottentot apron, an elongated piece of skin Hottentot women were supposed to have that acted as a sort of screen in front of the genitals - when Saartjie's body didn't conform to this unfounded exoticising, the 'scientists' invented theories of why she didn't and when such a flap would become visible. It's grotesque, and that's before you recall that her sole claim to exoticism was the size of her posterior. Holmes makes some good commentary on the obsession of the contemporary English obsession with the buttocks, which puts it into some social context I hadn't previously appreciated, but it's still a bit grueling.
What really struck me is that I have been reading fiction from this period for years, and have taken references to the Hottentot Venus as read. That's - well, that's kind of shameful, actually. I am very, very glad that I've taken the time to read this book and get myself a bit better educated, and would thoroughly recommend it to anyone with an interest in the time period.
