Recent reading: bits and pieces
The Coast of Bohemia by William Dean Howells (1893). William Dean Howells was an absurdly prolific and very popular American novelist of the late 19th-early 20th century, and this book is his take on the world of Art. It follows Cornelia, a young woman who moves from a sleepy rural village to New York to study art, and her relationships with Ludlow, the man who first recognised her artistic talents and continues to act as a sort of mentor, and Charmian, a fellow art student who falls wildly and exuberantly in love with Cornelia while being equally wild and exuberant about everything else. ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
osprey_archer said about this book, 'it is braided from three parts, two of which are delightful and one of which is the plot', and I agree with this assessment. The bits about Cornelia's life at art school and the world of art in New York are fascinating, and her relationship with Charmian is amazing fun. Charmian, the best part of the book, is a thorough pseudo-Bohemian; she's fitted up a room in her wealthy stepmother's flat as a perfectly decorated artist's studio, down to stretching a sheet diagonally across the ceiling to make the room look like a garret, and decorates the mantelpiece with pipes that she doesn't smoke, because 'pipes are so full of character'. She's not in the least annoyingly pretentious, just endlessly delightful in her forthright and uninhibited emotional expression. I found that her over-the-top adoration of Cornelia came across more as an extension of this general emotional attitude than as anything very overtly homoerotic—certainly there's no conscious tension to it and no jealousy over Cornelia's romance with Ludlow—although, when Cornelia and Ludlow are separated apparently for ever by a misunderstanding, she does talk very ardently about how she and Cornelia can now go and set up house together and 'live for each other in a union that should be all principle on one side and all adoration on the other'. Er, sounds good? Anyway, the third strand of the book, Cornelia and Ludlow's romance, was less interesting—there is some rather entertaining stuff about period notions of honour and correctness leading absurdly trivial problems to cause tons of drama, but Ludlow is annoying and I think Cornelia could do far better and more interesting things with her life, whether or not they involve Charmian.
A bit more Jacobite-related historical reading—I've read the diary of Elizabeth 'Beppy' Byrom, a young lady living in Manchester at the time of the '45. Very interesting history in here—the diary combines accounts of the Jacobite army's arrival in and movements around Manchester with the domestic details of Byrom's life, such as visits to her relatives and doing the washing. It's not as detailed as I might have liked, and her writing is sometimes difficult to follow, but still very good stuff. I enjoyed Byrom's accounts of how she expressed her own political opinions—making St Andrew's Crosses ('we sat up making till two o'clock') and dressing herself up in a white gown to go and see the Prince. (The 19th-century editor footnotes this with 'It is quite clear that this young lady was a sad Jacobite.').
Now I'm partway through 'Ladies in Rebellion' by Katherine Fusick, a Master's thesis on Jacobite women throughout the history of the movement. Lots of very interesting stuff on the different roles women played in Jacobite history, and I'm learning about some very cool people.
Then over the last week I've been working my way through a book published by a local natural history organisation, on the wildlife of a particular site nearby that I've visited several times. There are chapters on groups of organisms—fairly equitably distributed, with fungi, bryophytes and various insect taxa given as much attention as mammals and birds—the ecological history of the site, issues in its conservation and so on. It was fascinating to learn more about this place, and to see how much ecological and conservation work there is going on there—I've wanted to do more of this sort of thing myself for some time but, between moving around, the pandemic and being generally bad at getting into things like this, have never managed to find the opportunity. Anyway, I've written to the group asking about opportunities for getting involved, and we shall see how that goes.
osprey_archer said about this book, 'it is braided from three parts, two of which are delightful and one of which is the plot', and I agree with this assessment. The bits about Cornelia's life at art school and the world of art in New York are fascinating, and her relationship with Charmian is amazing fun. Charmian, the best part of the book, is a thorough pseudo-Bohemian; she's fitted up a room in her wealthy stepmother's flat as a perfectly decorated artist's studio, down to stretching a sheet diagonally across the ceiling to make the room look like a garret, and decorates the mantelpiece with pipes that she doesn't smoke, because 'pipes are so full of character'. She's not in the least annoyingly pretentious, just endlessly delightful in her forthright and uninhibited emotional expression. I found that her over-the-top adoration of Cornelia came across more as an extension of this general emotional attitude than as anything very overtly homoerotic—certainly there's no conscious tension to it and no jealousy over Cornelia's romance with Ludlow—although, when Cornelia and Ludlow are separated apparently for ever by a misunderstanding, she does talk very ardently about how she and Cornelia can now go and set up house together and 'live for each other in a union that should be all principle on one side and all adoration on the other'. Er, sounds good? Anyway, the third strand of the book, Cornelia and Ludlow's romance, was less interesting—there is some rather entertaining stuff about period notions of honour and correctness leading absurdly trivial problems to cause tons of drama, but Ludlow is annoying and I think Cornelia could do far better and more interesting things with her life, whether or not they involve Charmian.A bit more Jacobite-related historical reading—I've read the diary of Elizabeth 'Beppy' Byrom, a young lady living in Manchester at the time of the '45. Very interesting history in here—the diary combines accounts of the Jacobite army's arrival in and movements around Manchester with the domestic details of Byrom's life, such as visits to her relatives and doing the washing. It's not as detailed as I might have liked, and her writing is sometimes difficult to follow, but still very good stuff. I enjoyed Byrom's accounts of how she expressed her own political opinions—making St Andrew's Crosses ('we sat up making till two o'clock') and dressing herself up in a white gown to go and see the Prince. (The 19th-century editor footnotes this with 'It is quite clear that this young lady was a sad Jacobite.').
Now I'm partway through 'Ladies in Rebellion' by Katherine Fusick, a Master's thesis on Jacobite women throughout the history of the movement. Lots of very interesting stuff on the different roles women played in Jacobite history, and I'm learning about some very cool people.
Then over the last week I've been working my way through a book published by a local natural history organisation, on the wildlife of a particular site nearby that I've visited several times. There are chapters on groups of organisms—fairly equitably distributed, with fungi, bryophytes and various insect taxa given as much attention as mammals and birds—the ecological history of the site, issues in its conservation and so on. It was fascinating to learn more about this place, and to see how much ecological and conservation work there is going on there—I've wanted to do more of this sort of thing myself for some time but, between moving around, the pandemic and being generally bad at getting into things like this, have never managed to find the opportunity. Anyway, I've written to the group asking about opportunities for getting involved, and we shall see how that goes.