Recent reading
Nov. 5th, 2020 06:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
regshoeSo this week I managed not to notice that my email account had, for mysterious reasons, stopped receiving messages for four days *facepalm* Happily no urgent communications missed, but that was a little confusing. I shall pay more attention to it in future...
Reuben Sachs by Amy Levy (1889). I enjoyed Levy's other novel, The Romance of a Shop, when I read it a few years ago, so I'd been meaning to give this one a look for a while. Also I wanted some change from the depressingly pervasive antisemitism of non-Jewish writers of this period...! The book is partly a portrait of the Jewish community in London in the late nineteenth century, as Levy saw it; and partly the story of the romance between the title character, a lawyer and aspiring politician, and Judith Quixano, the poor relation of Reuben's cousins. In the first respect, it's hardly an uncomplicatedly positive portrayal: it's very clearly the view of an insider, someone who has a clear knowledge and opinions of both good and bad aspects of the community she came from, and was interesting, if not always especially comfortable, reading. (It also made a interesting comparison to George Eliot's Daniel Deronda, which I read a while ago and which a sympathetic character here calls an 'elaborate misconception'). In the second it was... also not very happy. The characters make the wrong choices between love and ambition, and react to mistreatment in horribly sympathetic destructive ways. I enjoyed it a great deal—that scene at the dance when Judith is wearing the flowers sticks in the mind.
Country Life in Scotland: Our Rural Past by Alexander Fenton (1987). To complement my reading about English rural history, and to provide more context for Flight of the Heron. It's a short book, but manages to go into an impressive amount of detail over the wide scope it covers: basically, the history of agriculture across Scotland from the pre-enclosure days, through the changes and upheavals of the Agricultural Revolution, right through to the modern day. It sounds as though those changes were more sudden and extreme in Scotland than they were south of the border (especially, of course, in the Highlands, though there's not a huge amount about that). I enjoyed the descriptions of the old communal organisation of farming communities, as well as the brilliant detail on all sorts of specific aspects of farm life—from how buildings were constructed and what sort of fireplaces people used for cooking food, to which grain crops they made bread with and the precise changes in the design of agricultural tools over time. Very good stuff.
A Description of Millenium Hall and the Country Adjacent by Sarah Scott (1762). I'm getting really quite fond of the eighteenth century, in all its overwrought moralising melodrama. This book is an account of a utopian community of ladies, who live together at Millenium Hall, spending their time in various improving, industrial practical and intellectual occupations and their wealth in doling out—I was going to say 'paternalistic', but I suppose 'maternalistic' is probably more appropriate, considering—charity and philanthropy to the various poor and unfortunate inhabitants of their neighbourhood. This account is interspersed with narrations of the histories of the ladies themselves, which provide plenty of opportunity for the sort of drama and excitement that wouldn't look too out of place in a Gothic novel: the battle of Virtue against Depravity, very 'narrow road' opinions on morality and religion, noble renunciations to duty, scandalous love affairs, more than one secret long-lost parent, etc. etc. I mean, I make fun of this sort of thing, but it's actually pretty interesting historically, and it was refreshing to see a book treating friendship between women as so much more worthy and reliable than basically any sort of heterosexual romance—the story takes a very dim view of men in general, and the female characters find a happier and a better life living independently with each other and pursuing their own interests. (Also, a fairly progressive view of disabled people, considering). Also: Sarah Scott seems to have had decided opinions on women's social and intellectual life more generally, and she was a member of the society which gave rise to the term 'bluestocking' for a learned woman. I had not known where that came from, and I immediately want to know more about them!
Reuben Sachs by Amy Levy (1889). I enjoyed Levy's other novel, The Romance of a Shop, when I read it a few years ago, so I'd been meaning to give this one a look for a while. Also I wanted some change from the depressingly pervasive antisemitism of non-Jewish writers of this period...! The book is partly a portrait of the Jewish community in London in the late nineteenth century, as Levy saw it; and partly the story of the romance between the title character, a lawyer and aspiring politician, and Judith Quixano, the poor relation of Reuben's cousins. In the first respect, it's hardly an uncomplicatedly positive portrayal: it's very clearly the view of an insider, someone who has a clear knowledge and opinions of both good and bad aspects of the community she came from, and was interesting, if not always especially comfortable, reading. (It also made a interesting comparison to George Eliot's Daniel Deronda, which I read a while ago and which a sympathetic character here calls an 'elaborate misconception'). In the second it was... also not very happy. The characters make the wrong choices between love and ambition, and react to mistreatment in horribly sympathetic destructive ways. I enjoyed it a great deal—that scene at the dance when Judith is wearing the flowers sticks in the mind.
Country Life in Scotland: Our Rural Past by Alexander Fenton (1987). To complement my reading about English rural history, and to provide more context for Flight of the Heron. It's a short book, but manages to go into an impressive amount of detail over the wide scope it covers: basically, the history of agriculture across Scotland from the pre-enclosure days, through the changes and upheavals of the Agricultural Revolution, right through to the modern day. It sounds as though those changes were more sudden and extreme in Scotland than they were south of the border (especially, of course, in the Highlands, though there's not a huge amount about that). I enjoyed the descriptions of the old communal organisation of farming communities, as well as the brilliant detail on all sorts of specific aspects of farm life—from how buildings were constructed and what sort of fireplaces people used for cooking food, to which grain crops they made bread with and the precise changes in the design of agricultural tools over time. Very good stuff.
A Description of Millenium Hall and the Country Adjacent by Sarah Scott (1762). I'm getting really quite fond of the eighteenth century, in all its overwrought moralising melodrama. This book is an account of a utopian community of ladies, who live together at Millenium Hall, spending their time in various improving, industrial practical and intellectual occupations and their wealth in doling out—I was going to say 'paternalistic', but I suppose 'maternalistic' is probably more appropriate, considering—charity and philanthropy to the various poor and unfortunate inhabitants of their neighbourhood. This account is interspersed with narrations of the histories of the ladies themselves, which provide plenty of opportunity for the sort of drama and excitement that wouldn't look too out of place in a Gothic novel: the battle of Virtue against Depravity, very 'narrow road' opinions on morality and religion, noble renunciations to duty, scandalous love affairs, more than one secret long-lost parent, etc. etc. I mean, I make fun of this sort of thing, but it's actually pretty interesting historically, and it was refreshing to see a book treating friendship between women as so much more worthy and reliable than basically any sort of heterosexual romance—the story takes a very dim view of men in general, and the female characters find a happier and a better life living independently with each other and pursuing their own interests. (Also, a fairly progressive view of disabled people, considering). Also: Sarah Scott seems to have had decided opinions on women's social and intellectual life more generally, and she was a member of the society which gave rise to the term 'bluestocking' for a learned woman. I had not known where that came from, and I immediately want to know more about them!
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Date: Nov. 5th, 2020 07:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Nov. 5th, 2020 08:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Nov. 6th, 2020 09:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Nov. 7th, 2020 06:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Nov. 7th, 2020 09:02 am (UTC)I don't know much about the bluestockings at all! It would be fascinating to learn about them.
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Date: Nov. 7th, 2020 05:36 pm (UTC)