Recent reading and some TV

[regshoe]

Re-read A Month in the Country in the last of the summer-ish weather. I was considering nominating it for Yuletide, but ultimately decided to go with a ballad instead (it seems somehow to elude definition—how would I come up with prompts??). Anyway, the book itself is very lovely, and definitely one that rewards re-reading, although in a slightly different way from a lot of books I say that about—it's so dense that the first time through I had to concentrate to follow all the detail, whereas this time I think I got a better impression of the general mood. Also I've now got a rather lovely paper copy, an illustrated edition from a publishing company apparently owned by the author. The design is very pleasing, and it has intriguing summaries of several of Carr's other books in the back—I shall have to track those down.

HMS Ulysses by Alistair MacLean (1955). philomytha described this to me as a combination of serious, detailed and impressive war novel and over-indulgent whumpy idfic, and that's exactly what it is. After a mutiny brought on by the absolutely hellish conditions endured by the crews of ships on the Arctic Ocean, naval command punish the officers and crew of the HMS Ulysses by sending her on a suicide mission involving a convoy from the north of Scotland to Murmansk. The book follows the seven days of the voyage and the hardships, dangers and general horrible things faced by the men: U-boats, freezing temperatures, bombers, Arctic storms, etc. Much of the plot consists of very detailed descriptions of particular workings of the ship, the weather, the enemy and the other ships in the convoy, and I couldn't always quite follow exactly why this lengthy technical passage means that something horrible is about to happen to these characters, but MacLean clearly knows his stuff, and the atmosphere is very vivid indeed. The rest of the book, however, consists of equally detailed descriptions of Richard Vallery, captain of the Ulysses, and how he is the most noble, selfless, kind, wise, valiant man ever, the best captain the Navy has ever known, inspiring courage and confidence in men whose hearts are hardened and wills sapped by the horrifying conditions, etc. etc., and also he's dying of TB and keeps dragging himself off his deathbed to go and talk to the men and win their eternal loyalty and command the ship in the face of everyone's certain doom. It's an odd book! It's at once very grim—MacLean does not stint on the descriptions of horrible ways to die at sea, and makes it clear what he thinks of the conventional 'dulce et decorum est' view of war; the ultimate fate of the Ulysses and her officers and crew is clear from the start—and deeply idealistic, with its vision of Vallery himself, rather than any ideals of noble fighting he stands for, inspiring the men to superhuman feats of courage and noble sacrifice. An interesting one.

The Travels and Adventures of Mademoiselle de Richelieu (1744; published anonymously, possibly the author's name is Erskine?). This is a book about an eighteenth-century French lady who decides to go travelling round Europe dressed as a man and has a romantic friendship with another woman who does the same thing, so of course I had to read it. However, it is many things! It's about a thousand pages long, and I think rather less than half the page space is taken up with the main story. The rest consists of various side stories and digressions: tales told to Alithea de Richelieu by the other characters she meets, about their intrigues and adventures, largely romantic in nature; discourses by Alithea herself and by other characters on topics of religion, morality, politics and such things; descriptions of the places she visits, their notable features and histories, which she claims to find very boring but nevertheless keeps writing out at some length. Much as I enjoy a good digression, this got a bit much—they are very random, and the narrative ones are largely tiresome love stories full of the sort of attitudes and themes the 18th century puts in such stories—although I did enjoy some of them, like the discussion of the morality of English theatre. The main story, however, I enjoyed very much! Alithea is a great narrator—mischievous, lively, forthright, daring (I suspect she'd get on well with Jill Trecastle) and her descriptions of her adventures are excellent fun. These adventures largely consist of making women fall in love with her and getting into fights with men (and generally getting out of them when the men turn out to be too cowardly to follow through); the eighteenth-century frankness is both refreshing and interesting, and I think the book has a lot to say, even before it gets to the central romantic friendship, about contemporary views of gender and sexuality.

Anyway, it's even better once it does! In the second volume Alithea meets Arabella de Montferan, a wealthy young widow; they write back and forth, Arabella still believing Alithea to be a man, and become friends. Eventually Alithea reveals that she's really a woman:

When I had finiſhed my Narration, I unbuttoned my Waistcoat, and diſcovered my Breasts, which the lovely Arabella no ſooner perceived, than ſhe claſped me in her Arms with Tranſports rather of a Lover than of a Friend.

...and things between them go on like this pretty much for the rest of the book. There's a lot of swearing that they'll never marry, that no relationship with a man could possibly be anything as good as their love for each other, etc. etc.; even more women fall in love with Arabella in her male disguise than with Alithea, and Alithea is proud and delighted at this; in the end they settle down together and live happily ever after.

I really don't know to what extent all this would have come across to a contemporary reader the way it does to a modern one! The book seems to assume with casual, unworried confidence that homosexuality is obviously impossible (the recurring scenario of a woman falling in love with another woman while believing her to be a man is repeatedly described in terms that amount to 'well, I could become her husband, except I don't have the right physical equipment. What can you do' *shrug*). On the other hand, Alithea and Arabella are explicitly life partners, their relationship is repeatedly described in romantic terms and this is portrayed as largely a good and sensible thing. And, you know, I do think some people in the eighteenth century were aware that lesbian sex existed, so... there you go? Anyway, luzula, who introduced me to the book, has written an excellent femslash fic which is the perfect complement to it—highly recommended, and can be read without canon knowledge if you're not up for 1000 pages of eighteenth-century gender relations and geographic descriptions and ſs.


Because I can't help myself, I've already got about a third of the way through The Friendly Young Ladies. I'm enjoying it so far, though it's not (yet) as devastatingly powerful as the other Renault books I've read, and I look forward to seeing how it all goes spectacularly wrong in the remaining 200 pages.


Anyway, in the meantime I've been watching the 1960s adaptation of Pippi Långstrump on SVT Play. My comprehension is variable; sometimes I'll get pretty much completely lost for a scene, other times I'll be able to follow an entire short conversation and feel very pleased with myself, but mostly I'm still relying on a simple plot that doesn't really require perfect understanding of the dialogue. Anyway, I'm really enjoying the programme itself. I read the books in English as a child and could remember enough of the general setting for it to be familiar, and the whole thing is chaotic, bizarre fun in the way of good children's stories. I have earwormed myself with the theme tune.

Comments

[hyarrowen]

I read HMS Ulysses so long ago and haven't been able to read it since, it was so visceral. Then I found out that he did a couple of Arctic convoys in the war, along with the rest of his RN service, and was like, "Oh." All of his Arctic and cold-weather and sea-story novels are just so damn good.

*pours one out*

[regshoe]

It is a bit harrowing at points, isn't it—MacLean clearly used his experience well...

[osprey_archer]

I wonder if the whole "Well I COULD marry her... but I can't" thing is not so much about sex as impregnation? Perhaps it's not homosexuality that the writer thinks is impossible, but Alithia impregnating another woman. That's one of an eighteenth-century husband's most important jobs and she can't do it.

Obviously I haven't read the book, so it's possible that the author just doesn't believe women can have sex with each other, full stop, but it's just hard to square that with lines like "I unbuttoned my waistcoast, and diſcovered my Breasts, which the lovely Arabella no ſooner perceived, than ſhe claſped me in her Arms with Tranſports rather of a Lover than of a Friend." I mean, a half-naked embrace! Specifically described as lover-like! It's hard to get more explicit in a non-pornographic text. (I haven't read any 18th century porn, but 19th century porn DEFINITELY knew women could have sex.)

The Friendly Young Ladies takes a LONG time to get started, but it's very !!!!! once it does. Is Elsie on the houseboat yet?

[luzula]

I have read the famous mid-18th century Fanny Hill, it did have f/f sex, though only as a sort of initiation before the female main character had m/f sex. Here is my review of it, if you're interested (also with a comparison with some 19th century porn, and interesting discussion in the comments).

[osprey_archer]

I kind of love the "everything and the kitchen sink" approach in 18th and 19th century porn, where the main thrust of the book might be m/f, but here's a bit of f/f for funsies, and some random flagellation, and whatever else happened to come into the writer's mind... a porn smorgasbord! Something for everyone! The amount of incest seems excessive but okay!

ETA: Also fascinated that Fanny Hill managed to toss in an m/m scene, but that one the characters are judgy about. This must vary considerably by author, because the Pearl also has some random and totally judgment-free m/m scenes. This character is just SO OVERCOME at the sight of his friend's beautiful burgeoning manhood that he just HAS to suck it, and then they get back to chatting about the girls they want to deflower, etc.

[luzula]

I also remember a sex-on-horseback scene in the 19th century porn I read. Not really something you would see often today! Or what do I know, probably there's a sex-on-horseback enthusiast community out there somewhere.

Huh, interesting--you don't have a link to the 19th century m/m? The 19th century porn I read had zero m/m, not even in orgy scenes with multiple men and women did the men even touch each other.

[osprey_archer]

There's a quote somewhere by Lord Byron where he's listing all the places he's had sex (on a pool table! in a carriage!), but I don't think he had managed sex on horseback. FAIL, Lord Byron!

The one I was thinking of was the story Sub-Umbra, which was published serially in the porn magazine The Pearl: the sudden m/m blowjob occurs in the second paragraph of volume 4. I can't recall if there's more m/m in the story, but there's definitely lots of f/f (quite a bit of it incestuous) and also just orgies... I do think the men touch each other in the orgies but tbh there's SO much going on it's hard to keep track. .

The Sins of the Cities of the Plain is gay porn, more or less, although it includes a lot more m/f than you'd usually expect from gay porn: the narrator has sex with women sometimes, he witnesses some brother-sister incest because the Victorians loved their incest, etc.

[luzula]

Thanks for the link! Yeah, no judgement in that blowjob.

And yes, I know about The Sins of the Cities of the Plain, though I haven't read it. The one in The Pearl seems more surprising to me since it's randomly inserted into more ordinary m/f porn.

[osprey_archer]

Yeah! The author clearly thought the readers would be A-okay with the narrator just randomly sucking a guy's dick, which is NOT an assumption I think you would see in m/f porn today. There's no sense that Walter is deviant for doing it or that the reader is compromised for enjoying reading about it. (I mean, more compromised than they would be in the first place for reading a porn magazine.)

[regshoe]

That's a good point–quite possibly! The book does seem almost confused at times about exactly what sorts of feelings women who 'obviously' can't really be lovers can have for each other (favourable comparisons of friendship to the passion of love for a man on the one hand, descriptions of women's friendships as lover-like on the other)—but you have to take the past on its own terms with this sort of thing.

I'm now halfway through and Peter has just arrived on the houseboat. I'm alternating between sympathy and embarrassment at Elsie's narration, general horror at Peter and desperately wanting to know more about Leo and Helen, but I have a feeling things are going downhill from here.

[osprey_archer]

Peter is the Actual Worst. It's truly amazing how many objectionable qualities he combines in one single person. And he thinks he's such a great guy!

I think I feel worse for Elsie than the book perhaps wants me to, but man, that girl is so out of her depth.

[regshoe]

Really, I'm impressed at Renault's ability to convey such horribleness so deftly and efficiently in writing Peter. It's the sort of thing she seems to be good at...!

[philomytha]

I also only had a vague grasp of what was going on with all the naval jargon in HMS Ulysses - and indeed all the sea-related books I've read, it's always very atmospheric and I'm sure that if you understand what it means it all would make a great deal of sense, but I feel very like Stephen Maturin: I can enjoy the experience, but please don't ask me to explain what's happening! But oh so much whump and so much about how saintly Vallery is! Another of Maclean's books is a bit like that, The Last Frontier, a spy story about the aftermath of the Hungarian uprising in 1956, where there's a pair of differently saintly and heroic and tragically suffering characters, but he never quite reaches the pinnacles of idfic he gets to in HMS Ulysses.

[regshoe]

It was all the noble sacrifice that got to me—there'd be this long passage of naval jargon and then you'd realise what it means is another character is going willingly and bravely to their doom to save the ship, all inspired by Vallery's saintly example... Hmm, I may give The Last Frontier a try when I've recovered a bit.

[luzula]

Ha ha, yes, the breast-discovering scene! *g* Or uncovering, in modern terms. That one is pretty great.

It's a thousand pages, yes, but then the type is large. Maybe it would be 500 pages in a modern book?

Har du hittat någon bok att försöka läsa på svenska än? : )

[regshoe]

True—older books usually have fewer words to a page, don't they. I liked seeing the rest of the old-fashioned formatting, too—like copying the first word on each page at the bottom of the previous one, and the section breaks used to separate out letters are very pretty!

Har du hittat någon bok att försöka läsa på svenska än? : )

Jag hittade det här! Mycket att läsa där... men jag försöker läsa något kort nu. Kanske en novell, eller något på AO3 :D

(I don't have many verb tenses yet, sorry...)

[luzula]

Oh, that's true, you could read something on AO3. I have a couple of short fairy tale/ballad stories in Swedish that you might like? Hmm, or maybe I already told you about those...

[regshoe]

I think you have mentioned them—but yes, I will try and read some of them soon—they look good! :)

[ethelmay]

Were the breasts entirely uncovered, or did they just become apparent (through the shirt) when the waistcoat was undone?

[luzula]

You know, I think you're right--neither 18th century shirts nor shifts could be opened down the front. So if she's not also taking her shirt off, she probably wasn't entirely naked. But then I wonder how she was binding her breasts, so they weren't apparent all the time, but did become apparent without taking her shirt off? Between the shirt and the waistcoat? Or was the waistcoat just tight, with lots of buttons to keep it in place? She says in the beginning of the book that her breasts weren't large. Hmmmmm.

[regshoe]

I suppose stays/corsets were generally worn over a shift, weren't they, so some kind of binding between the shirt and waistcoat might make sense compared to the sorts of undergarments she's used to? But then she doesn't mention taking that off, either. A mystery!

[ethelmay]

I think a thick enough waistcoat would do it. Look at recent pictures of sovay, for instance.

[lilliburlero]

You reminded me of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Hamilton_(female_husband)>Charles Hamilton?</a> Henry Fielding wrote a very heavily fictionalised account, <em>The Female Husband</em>. The big issue in the prosecution was that he had penetrative sex with his wife - that was felt to be more "unnatural" than a "woman" marrying a woman.

[regshoe]

Hmm, that's interesting—thanks for the link!

[starshipfox]

Gosh, HMS Ulysses sounds very gruelling! I do enjoy nautical novels, but that sounds like a little too much for me. I always love to learn about the Arctic, but the actual details of the lives of sailors there always unsettle me. They should have just stayed at home!

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on The Travels and Adventures of Mademoiselle de Richelieu. It sounds completely fascinating for so many different reasons! I'm not sure it's something I would want to tackle myself, but I love the details of this sprawling f/f romance.

[regshoe]

It is a little bit harrowing, yeah—oh dear, I think Vallery felt the same way about staying at home :(

Yes, 'fascinating for different reasons' is very accurate—there's the femslashiness, the eighteenth-century attitudes, the 'history of the novel' stuff in the details of writing style, structure, language and formatting—all terribly interesting!