Weimar
In something of a break from my usual reviews, have one about a history of Weimar Germany.
This is not the book I thought it was going to be. I bought it in the expectation that it would be an in-depth look at the history of Weimar Germany as a political and economic institution, because that’s what I’m particularly interested in. Instead, this takes a much broader look at Weimar Germany as a particular period in a nation’s history, and consequently looks at politics, economics, architecture, sound and vision, philosophy and sexuality across 1918-1933: how these things developed, changed, challenged and were challenged, and what it all meant to at least some of the people living there at the time.
A couple of things to note first of all: one, I am horrified and deeply ashamed that some members of the Lutheran and Catholic Churches espoused the anti-Semitic rhetoric of the age. Yes, church leaders have never been exempt from secular pressures and concerns, and there have been instances of the Church being subsumed into nationalistic/ worldly concerns across its entire history. Nonetheless, the attitudes of some high-profile members (and it was only some) was horrifying to read. And two, if a nation needed an incredibly selfish reason to be inclined towards accepting refugees these days, the list of people who fled from Germany after 1933 should stand as a reminder that people who are forced to leave their country often have exceptional skills to offer the place that will accept them. Perhaps if PNG plays its cards right, it will experience quite the efflorescence in the coming decade?
What did I learn? Well, the politics and development of events across the Weimar period was set out fairly clearly, and added some depth. The economics section proved that I am really not an economic historian, and the imperative towards growth that allowed hyperinflation to get a hold (because <i>some</i> inflation is a good thing) just doesn’t actually work in my brain. The exploration of the Weimar milieu, though, was the bit that I was both not expecting and got the most out of. The impact of architecture – the development of radio (microphones!) and cinema – the sexual reform movement: I understand a little better why the conservative and radical Right were so incensed by what they saw changing, and how they reacted. Weitz makes the Weimar period sound quite captivating if you happened to be in the right place at the right time: Berlin, basically, in the mid-late twenties; and if you had money to burn. If you were planning a time-travel visit, you would arrive in 1925 and leave before 1930; you’d make sure you had a good middle-class office job, too – Weitz is careful to mention that life for the majority was not the glitzy, cabaret-soaked free-loving experience that is sometimes upheld as “Weimar’s golden period.” In fact, the insight into working-class lives is also remarkable – and horrendous.
One of the foci for Weitz, because it apparently was for many of the commentators of the time, was the ‘mass’ aspect of Weimar society: an era of mass communication, mass society… more people moving to the cities, the blurring of art as being for mass consumption or not… it seemed at a few points that Weitz was using Weimar as a case-study in what mass society can be, when it has such poor pre-conditions as Germany in 1918.
I did not love the penultimate chapter. He spends a long time going over what a couple of philosophers and architects do after they flee Germany in 1933. And that was interesting, but it did not need to take forty pages. Forty pages would have been better spent doing more of a survey of the variety of intellectual and art-types that he had covered over the book, not obsessing Herbert Marcuse and Hans Morgenthau – whose work as transmitted by Weitz, I freely admit, I do not understand and care little for.
Overall, this does work as a good introduction to the issues, history, and implications of the Weimar period for Germany, and less completely, Europe and America. If you are interested in history beyond the political and economic, this is the sort of coverage that will work.
You can buy it at Fishpond.
Women’s suffrage in Britain
I was a bit scared that this book was going to be intensely academic, which is why I’ve put off reading it for a while. But lo, I was wrong! It was instead intensely readable.
In fourteen fairly short articles, this survey covers a wide range of generally lesser-known topics of the movement for women’s suffrage in Britain. It covers things like the drama, poetry and fiction that came out in support of the suffrage movement; some of the lesser known societies, especially during WW1; the actions outside of London, and those undertaken by working-class women; and the continuing work after 1918 to get the franchise on the same terms as men had it (women over 30 who were householders could vote after 1918; men over 21 could vote). The only chapter that covered things I already basically knew was one on Christabel Pankhurst, who along with her mother Emmeline is probably the most well-known of all suffrage activists.
I learnt an enormous amount about the activities undertaken as well as people’s attitudes. I had always assumed there was a basic oppositional dichotomy between the suffragists (constitutional activists) and the suffragettes (militant activists); not so. Friendships networks were at least if not more important for many women than their ‘official’ societal associations. I also really appreciated reading about some of the literary men who contributed towards the movement; it’s salutary to be reminded that the women weren’t fighting against the entirety of the male population, and that those who opposed women’s suffrage were, eventually, quite a minority.
The depressing part of the story overall is that so many of the issues raised against women voting, and having any position in public life, are frighteningly recognisable in contemporary discourse. A hundred years ago. Seriously.
Katherine Swynford
This isn’t a real review, but I wanted to register how much, overall, I enjoyed this biography of Katherine Swynford that I read recently.
I have read a lot of Alison Weir’s work. I know she sometimes gets accused of writing populist history; personally I find her a really intriguing mix between populist and academic. On the one hand – what’s wrong with being populist if you’ve done your research?? Making intriguing women like Swynford accessible to a general public is something to be lauded very, very highly. On the other hand, there were bits that I absolutely skimmed over because they were so dense; I’m sorry, I just don’t find descriptions of household objects and suchlike that riveting. Maybe that makes me a bad historian… or just not a good domestic historian. Anyway – this was largely very readable and enjoyable, and I think would be found so by reasonably educated people with little detailed knowledge of medieval England.
And then there’s the subject. Katherine Swynford! Attendant to Philippa of Hainault when she marries the English Edward III; governess of some sort to John of Gaunt’s (third some of Edward III) children; then (after his beloved first wife dies, and her possibly lamented but not so much husband also) John of Gaunt’s mistress and mother of at least four of his children; then repudiated for some time when he gets a bit thing about maybe becoming king of Castile, plus pious; then, finally, John of Gaunt’s third wife. Which also wrangles the legitimacy of her children by him. All of which doesn’t include the building works she manages in various places, the bringing up of a number of children, possibly being involved in politics at different stages, oh and her sister married Geoffrey Chaucer.
She’s a major reason the Tudors had a connection to royalty, before forcibly taking the crown (they’re descended from the Beauforts, who are the legitimised children mentioned above). She’s also the progenitrix of six American presidents.
Katherine Swynford was clearly a remarkable woman. She was on good terms with a large proportion of the English nobility – admittedly, partly because she was widely known as John’s mistress and thus had access (heh) to his ear, but nonetheless she was clearly highly regarded. She was also on good terms with most of the clergy with whom she came into contact, for example in Lincoln where she appears to have lived right next to the cathedral for many years. She must have been a remarkable housekeeper – in the very broadest and most impressive sense, since it appears that the place she first lived in with her first husband was a bit crap, frankly, and she was largely responsible over many years for making it a good place to live. Plus, she lived through remarkable times: this is the Hundred Years’ War, and also the time of Wat Tyler’s mob rampaging through London and burning the Savoy Palace… which would be the palace belonging to John of Gaunt. Fortunately, not while he – or she – was in it.
It’s brilliant to see such a woman getting a biography. I love Weir’s introduction to this which confesses that pretty much this is the biography she’s been working towards for years – she just had to have the clout to manage to get her publisher to agree to it. Way to go to get what you wanted!
The Odd Angry Shot
This film is an example of why, and how, Australian cinema is so awesome.
It’s also quite the who’s who of male actors of A Certain Age in Australian film and TV; there’s even a cameo from Frankie J Holden (for whom I have quite the soft spot).
This is not a film I would tend to watch off my own bat, for a whole bunch of reasons. But I did, and I’m glad I did.
The story focusses on Bill, a fresh young man (John Jarratt!) off to the Vietnam War as part of the SAS. When there he falls in with some likely lads (Graham Kennedy! Bryan Brown!!) with whom he drinks, jokes, and gets into trouble – and goes on patrol with too. Some of them get wounded. Some of them die.
The film has some remarkable character moments. At one point, Harry is explaining why he’s sketching – he was an artist before he joined up. He then goes on to explain that he joined the army after he got a divorce, and why he got a divorce. It’s a sad story – as such stories ought to be – but it is neither pathetic nor overwrought; it is as pragmatic as your classic Aussie bloke would make it. This is not to say that Harry is unfeeling; quite the contrary. He feels it deeply. But he does not make a song and dance about it.
I think the pragmatism, and the understatement, is the big difference between this film and an American one. I’ve seen Born on the Fourth of July, which is a remarkable piece of cinema. But this captures another, equally true (?for given values of…) version of the experience of war. And it is realistic. There’s tinea, porn, fear, death, the random nature of events; there’s camaraderie, and making the best of a dreadful situation. Like having a cage fight between a spider and a scorpion. As you do.
As with many such films, it’s based on a book. Apparently the author was concerned that the film would turn his anti-Vietnam-but-pro-army story into a buddy war movie. I hope that, when he saw it, he saw a film that did capture some of the essence of his book. Because this is definitely not a pro-war film.
I’m glad I watched it. It’s pretty raw – there are definitely some cringeworthy moments, made all the more cringey because they almost certainly reflect actual attitudes of the 70s, if not the 60s; but as a short, sharp suggestion of an Australian experience in Vietnam, it works.
Rasputin’s daughter
A little history lesson: Gregory Rasputin was a Siberian peasant who, after being introduced to the Tsar and Tsarina of Russia in the early part of the twentieth century, somehow appears to have had a positive impact on the haemophilia of their son and heir. There were all sorts of rumours going around about him and his relationship to the Romanovs and the way he behaved in St Petersburg, and he was eventually assassinated. This book is more than a hundred pages of his daughter reminiscing about her father, and about 30 – which I didn’t read – of Rasputin’s own reflections on holy places he’s visited.
I recently helped my sister to move house, and one of my jobs was unpacking her books. In doing so I discovered that she had appropriated a number of books that belonged to me but that I’d left at home… anyway. I also discovered this book on her shelf, and I was astounded for a few reasons: that the book exists at all; that she had bothered to nab it (I was reminded that she had studied the Russian Revolution at school)… and that it had belonged to our paternal grandfather. This is somewhat surprising because although not a Communist, our Grandpa was definitely an old-school union man, voted Labor all this life, detested the Vietnam War (wasn’t it awkward when Dad enlisted and went over?)…
etc. So why he had a book aimed at salvaging Gregory Rasputin’s reputation is beyond my ken.
This book is part vindication of Rasputin as a largely good man, part protest at his treatment while alive and his reputation after death, and part somewhat dubious insight into life in Petersburg in the lead up to, and early part of, World War 1. Did I learn anything that I am willing to treat with little scepticism? Yes: Maria Rasputin’s explanation of the fact that her father was not a monk, but was rather a Starets has no need to be distorted and was genuinely helpful in my thinking about him. So too is the fact that Maria and her sister lived with Rasputin for most of the time he was in Petersburg! – this is not something that I have ever seen discussed, and although obviously a father is perfectly capable of being evil and not showing it to his daughters, it’s still an interesting addition to his character. Like I said, Maria (and I’ll keep referring to her by her first name because ‘Rasputin’ would be just too confusing) is clearly aiming to redeem her father’s name, so she stresses that their living room/reception area door was very rarely closed – thus clearly refuting the idea that, at home at least, Rasputin was up to no good and holding orgies (one of the big accusations against him). She doesn’t pretend he was a saint – in fact, she protests against that idea vigorously – and admits that he took up drinking… but blames that on the experience of Petersburg itself, and bad influences, and the need to get just a little bit of downtime.
There’s a whole lot that is pure propaganda. And I can understand that; it can’t have been a comfortable position to be in, as the daughter of such a notorious man. Especially if he had been a loving father, and all the calumny just felt so alien and unlike the man you knew. I was fascinated to read that Maria accepted – or at least wrote that she accepted – the supernatural elements of Rasputin’s story: that he was clairvoyant, enabled by a special connection to God that also enabled him to have special healing powers… I hadn’t expected that aspect.
One problem, for me: I couldn’t help but here Tom Baker’s voice every time Rasputin spoke. That was distracting.
A history of blue
Did you know blue has been the favourite colour of Westerners over the last couple of centuries?
This book is and intriguing idea, although not entirely well executed. I enjoyed the broad sweep of time that Pastoureau attempted to cover – the Neolithic and ancient use of colour very briefly, the medieval world and on in a bit more detail – because the comparison across hundreds of years is fascinating. Unsurprisingly though, this was also one of its downfalls, since the occasional times it treated an idea or subject in detail it felt out of place; and the lack of detail in some areas annoyed me. In some ways this felt, perhaps deliberately, like this was a preparatory work; a number of times Pastoureau raised questions as areas requiring further research, or mentioned medieval manuscripts that have yet to be transliterated or studied in any fashion.
In appearance this is halfway between a history book and a coffee table number. It’s beautifully presented, and the pictures themselves are delightful – most pages have one or two, sometimes three, pictures, illustrating some pertinent point about where and how blue was being used, or other uses of colour at relevant points. But the text is too dense to really work as an art book, while it’s not long enough somehow for it to feel like a really serious treatment of the subject – especially not over such a vast span of time.
As a history book, I remain unconvinced by some of Pastoureau’s suggestions about how blue worked in culture. The lack of blue in very early art, Neolithic right through to much ancient illustration, is curious but I didn’t entirely buy his explanation for its lack of symbolism and therefore appearance and I’m not sure why. Perhaps it just didn’t feel explained enough to accept such a radical idea. This problem permeated much of the text, in fact; the sober, moral overtones that blue acquired thanks to the Protestants, as well as the issues discussed around its symbolism in the later medieval period, were presented as a little bit too definitive, a little bit too unarguable, for me to be entirely comfortable. Clearly Pastoureau was not setting out to write the definitive work on the colour; he himself points out that a vast amount more work needs to be done in a whole range of areas before such a thing is possible. And perhaps it’s also a fault of translation; maybe there was a bit more uncertainty in the original French?
Anyway, overall this is a fascinating book that has made me think about colour and its uses, but not entirely satisfactory.
Amazons of Black Sparta: a review
My mother gave me this book for Christmas 2010, I think after hearing about it on the radio? I’ve had great intentions of reading it since then, of course, but until now they have gone the way of many other good intentions. The other day, though – at least partly inspired by Tansy’s post about ‘Historically Authentic Sexism in Fantasy’ (which also appeared over at Tor.com, although be warned that one of the first comments is ‘most readers of SF are men’ and…I don’t even) – I decided it was time to read it. (There’s also been a bunch of great stuff written about the historical position of powerful women, as queens and warriors etc recently, calling out people who say women have had basically no part in the Great Historical Narrative That Is Mankind.)
This is a book of history. It appears to be thoroughly researched and meticulously end-noted. Alpern constantly refers to his sources, comparing the differences in their perspectives and attempting to explain them based on time, possible prejudice, and other aspects. This is particularly relevant and important because the sources come from a span of two centuries or so, sometimes using second-hand sources, and occasionally coming long after the actual events.
The book is about genuinely documented, real-life warrior women, who were pretty much automatically called Amazons by European observers, in the kingdom of Dahomey, on Africa’s western coast. And these are not from some far-off misty time; no, they date from the late 1700s at the very latest, and last saw action against the dastardly French when those colonisers decided to fight against and take Dahomey… in 1892. They were experts at the use of muskets and spears and – my favourite – the giant razor: said to have weighed 20 pounds or more, it had a blade 24-36 inches long that folded into a wooden handle. It was wielded with both hands and was particularly good for decapitations.
It’s not quite the book I was expecting. I think I was anticipating that was more narrative-driven, but only the last quarter or so fits that bill. The first three quarters read more like a catalogue: the recruitment, training, weapons, and everyday life of these women. The narrative comes when Alpern documents the battles that the ‘warrioresses’ took part in – first against other local tribes for a variety of reasons, then in two set of skirmishes/pitched battles with the French.
There are a lot of fascinating parts to this book – like the fact that the women as warriors may have originated in them being elephant hunters, and the fact that Dahomey had a lot of symmetry going on with women having parallel offices etc to the male hierarchy. One awesome, somewhat incidental bit – and this is for the fabric fetishists – is that the warrior women may have been involved in creating a gigantic patchwork, along with other palace women. It was composed of samples of every type of fabric imported into the kingdom or made locally. At one stage it was apparently up to 400 yards by 10 feet, and exactly it was intended for is unclear. The other mighty fact in the story is that pretty much everyone acknowledges that the women were mighty warriors, as good or better than their male counterparts, and generally even fiercer in actual battle: like, they were the last to retreat, and on a couple of occasions it was only women who got past the enemy’s barricades. And before anyone even thinks it, apparently the enemy generally did not realise that they were facing women, at least in the early battles, so no it’s not because they let the women in (besides, they were CARRYING MUSKETS or other guns – who would be stupid to let in anyone carrying a GUN? (hmm, perhaps this is a little close to the bone today)).
A very interesting read, and a fascinating period of history in general and in specific.
This book made me angry
It’s rare that I read a book that actually makes me angry. Like, exclaim-out-loud angry.
It’s very rare that this happens with a history book.
This book had that impact on me.
The book bills itself as “A history of the suffragette movement and the ideas behind it,” which sounded perfect for me – I was convinced there was a rich 19th century tradition of ideas and activity in Britain for the women’s suffrage movement to spring out of so, naturally, I was dead keen to read about it. And, truly, the first few chapters do do that. Phillips goes right back to the very awesome Mary Wollstonecraft and her writing around the French Revolution, like A Vindication of the Rights of Women (suck it, Edmund Burke, you got ripped). She discusses women’s involvement in the campaigns against ‘vice’ and other social reforms, and all of that was quite interesting. Middle class, but perhaps that’s where the information is mostly to be found? And, yeh, a lot of this sort of campaigning required free time, which women in the working classes did not have because they were, you know, working. So I could move past that (a bit).
Anyway, well and good. Then she got up to the 20th century and the really focussed suffrage stuff, and then… well, there were gasps and strangled cried and the savage use of pencil to underline unbelievable passages. There may have been mutterings not entirely under the breath. It’s fair to say that my husband expressed concern a few times.
Now, I had just read a biography of Emmeline Pankhurst, so that didn’t help matters, because Phillip is really, really anti-Pankhursts – both Emmeline and Christabel (Sylvia seems to get a pass). She makes wild claims about them and provides quite vicious descriptions such that – I’m sorry – I had to go back and check that this was written by a woman. I can’t believe this was written by a woman. They are described as having “pathological self-importance and [the] urge to martyrdom” (p236); Christabel had “histrionics” and was “the queen of melodrama” (p240); their relationship is described as “unhealthily close and introverted” (p254). I just… what? Seriously? In a book that would quite like to be passing itself off as a readable but serious history?
And this is where another of my frustrations came in. Phillips does use a number of primary sources, and has some extensive quotes from them, which is awesome. Tick! However – and this is a really huge problem for me – there is little consideration of the perspective being brought by those sources, and whether they might be problematic. Peeps, this is the sort of thing I teach my students at high school to consider. Consider: Phillips quotes from Teresa Billington-Greig, whose book Phillips herself describes as “coruscating and merciless” (p246). Phillips draws on this book until p250, but nowhere at all does she consider whether Billington-Greig might be bitter after splitting from the WSPU (run by the Pankhursts), or that it might have been intended to discredit the WSPU in favour of the Women’s Freedom League, which she founded after the split. This is poor, poor historical work. I don’t care that she is apparently “wearing her scholarship lightly,” as a review from the Irish Sunday Independent described it; that’s shoddy scholarship.
And then… ah, then. The conclusion. One of the things she’d pointed out throughout the book is the double standard that women were both too inferior to vote, because they’re women, but also too good and pure to be sullied by politics. Nasty. Anyway, in the Epilogue she says this:
The same double standard persists to this day, with women claiming ‘equality’ and yet insisting, for example, that mothers have prior claim over fathers to their children after divorce; or that women must be economically independent of their husbands, unless they separate, in which case men must turn back into breadwinners; or that if a man is violent to a woman or child, he is an irredeemable savage, but if a woman is violent towards a man or a child, she must be suffering from an emotional problem. (p316)
It’s fair to say that I still have trouble believing that paragraph.
So. Yeh. I learnt a few things about the context of the suffrage movement, so that’s good. I was also reminded just how important it is to demand a consideration of why something was written in the first place.
ETA: ooookay… thanks to Niall Harrison on Twitter, I now have a better understanding of Melanie Phillips. He directed me to this post, and I will not read any more on her blog than that for fear of heart and/or brain malfunctions. Right then.
Emmeline Pankhurst: a niche in history
I have always been a bit of a fan of Pankhurst. I can remember years back doing an assignment on her, which may have been at the very outset of my interest in feminism and is the reason why I am passionately devoted to the idea of women voting any time they can. So I was pretty happy to, finally, get around to reading this bio of a remarkable woman.
Purvis begins her account with a historiographical examination of the treatment Pankhurst has received over the last seventy years or so, which is illuminating – especially as it all really began with her daughter Sylvia’s account, which was rather bitter and very much tainted by the feud between the two, thanks both to family issues and a fundamental difference in opinion about politics (Sylvia moved/stayed quite far left and was heavily into socialist politics, Emmeline moved away from many of her socialist tendencies for various reasons). Many subsequent accounts have leaned too heavily (in Purvis’ view) on Sylvia’s story, while others have come from a decidedly ‘masculinist’ perspective and thus denigrated Emmeline’s achievements and intentions. Modern feminist historians have often been troubled by her at least partly because she moved towards a more conservative, imperial point of view during and after WW1, but Purvis is insistent that we take Emmeline on her own terms.
I really enjoyed this as a book and as a history. Purvis writes very engagingly and paints a captivating picture of an extraordinary time, an amazing woman, and the politics of the suffrage campaign especially. It appears to be a very well-researched history, with copious endnotes to back up her points that include reference to many, many letters to and from Emmeline and others in her circle, as well as newspaper accounts, court proceedings, diary entries and the like. It really makes me wish I could find The Suffragette, the WSPU’s newspaper, online somewhere. Someone get on that!
A potted bio of Emmeline’s life: interested in politics very early on, married at about 22 to the 40-something Richard Pankhurst, a lawyer who was a strong socialist and campaigner for women’s rights, among other things. She had five children, one of whom died very young, but/and she was always and still involved in campaigns and political work. Richard died when Emmeline was 40, leaving her with little money and four children to support – financial trouble continued to dog her until her death at 69. What she is most famous for, of course, is the setting up of the Women’s Social and Political Union, with her daughters but especially the eldest, Christabel – and that it eventually took the step into militancy in order to advance the cause of women’s suffrage. Window smashing, arson, destruction of paintings… all of these things were seen as much worse when committed by women. Purvis points out the success that various Irish politicians and agitators were having with similar tactics, and the fact that this got them an audience with English politicians and even the king. Not so much the women. The WSPU began in 1903; women gained limited suffrage in 1918, at the same time as men gained it with no property qualification (and women had to be 30, men 21). This was not, of course, the end of Emmeline’s life – she had started campaigning for women’s war work with WW1, and also expressing her concerns about sexual double standards and morality with the increase of VD. After the war she lectured around America and Canada on topics like public hygiene, avoiding VD, and the necessity of the British Empire. She died back in England not long after discovering Sylvia had had a son without getting married, pretty much destitute.
Just writing that down makes me exhausted. Emmeline comes across, in this book, as an amazingly energetic and passionate woman. She’s one of the reasons the Cat and Mouse Act was introduced: imprisoned suffragettes would hunger strike; be let out to recover; then get re-imprisoned. She went on hunger strike 13 times. She never wrote her speeches down but always spoke extempore; she travelled around Britain campaigning for and against political candidates, speaking at rallies, and trying to convince people about the necessity of women’s suffrage. She never wanted the vote just for its own sake; she was driven by the idea that women being able to vote would bring about the incredibly necessary changes to society that would prevent the exploitation of women, the horrors of poverty, and alleviate other social problems that she saw in her work as a Poor Law Guardian and on an education board. She worked as a registrar for births and deaths and was always shocked and saddened by teen girls coming to register the birth – and sometimes death – of their illegitimate children, often the result of incest.
This was not a woman driven by a desire to be a man, as so much of the anti-suffrage press claimed; she did not regard herself as better than men but as deserving of equal citizenship. Not least because working women had to pay taxes but could not influence how they were spent, and because she abhorred double standards and thought women’s influence could help solve many problems. (She was quite the optimist.) People at the time, and even her daughter Sylvia, often seemed to think that the cause had become almost more important than the object. It’s not hard to see how this could happen, to be honest, when you’re fighting for something that frequently gets you attacked – verbally, physically – and condemned by large sections of society. I’m personally torn on the notion of militancy, but I’m not torn on what I think of this woman. She’s a hero. I wish I’d known she has a statue near Westminster when we were in London, because I would absolutely have gone on pilgrimage.
This is highly recommended as a way of understanding the English suffrage movement – the militant side at least, because yes Millicent Fawcett and other ‘constitutional’ suffragettes are largely ignored, except as they interacted with Emmeline – as well as how late Victorian/Edwardian England society functioned. Plus, this is a woman who deserves to get as much recognition as possible. She devoted her life, her health, and even – arguably – her family and friendships to public service.
Glamour in Glass (and spoilers)
Edited to correct a gaff in how I refer to the author!
This is an entirely spoilery, and probably rambly, discussion of Glamour in Glass. It will also spoil the first in the series, Shades of Milk and Honey.
It’s fair to say that I adored Shades of Milk and Honey, and was really looking forward to reading the sequel. I did not love it quite as much as the first, but I think that’s mostly because it wasn’t new – the joy in Shades was in its being so new and full of the discovery of glamour and how that changed, or didn’t, the Regency period in England. Also, and yes I know I’m a terrible romantic, but the thrill of boy-meeting-girl-meeting-boy, and the trials and tribulations that follow, make for a very different story (hopefully) from that about a married couple. Not better, just different.
Anyway, the premise here is that Vincent and Jane are married – yay! – and working together – yay! Their first big commission is a huge drawing room do for the Prince Regent (… who gets called Prinny by his friends, apparently. I mean, really?). I loved that they work together, and while she is quite nervous and a bit unsure of her place and feels overwhelmed by Vincent and his experience, his attitude is entirely embracing of her and her contributions.
From there, it’s off to the Continent for them, because the Ogre – aka Napoleon – has been sent off to his island retreat, and it’s safe to go visit France, I mean Belgium, I mean the Netherlands. Vincent has a fellow glamourist to visit, and this will also serve as a honeymoon. Of course, things do not progress as expected. Vincent gets all distant, which has Jane naturally worried; even in this alternate world Napoleon quickly escapes his island and attempts to regain the imperial crown; and Jane gets pregnant. Boo, hiss, yay. Right?
Boo: absolutely. Vincent is a total prat at various times in this novel, and I was totally with Jane is being bewildered and upset with him. I was pretty sure Kowal wouldn’t turn this into an adultery plot, and even Jane doesn’t worry that that’s the problem. In fact, it’s directly related to…
Napoleon (hiss). Ah, Napoleon. I wish we had met him in this novel, but he stays off stage. I thought Kowal did a really good with depicting the tension felt in Belgium in the immediately post-Napoleon period; it was such a contested piece of territory, and showing that some people feel violently pro-France/Napoleon, while others are decidedly anti, was done very nicely. I think this could have been explored more deeply, but then – it wasn’t really the issue for Jane, outsider that she is. More of an issue for her is…
Pregnancy. Which, it turns out, is not so much a ‘yay’ here, or at least at this time, because when you’re pregnant you’re not meant to do glamour. The one big disappointment for me in the whole novel is that why is never explored or explained. I had really hoped that Jane would discover that this was a great big lie, but alas… no. In fact, she may actually confirm it, because – spoilers! – she miscarries directly after using glamour in desperation to save Vincent. Now, it’s not clear that there is a causal relationship here, and Jane herself can think of various other reasons for it, but nonetheless. There it is. And I think this is a very interesting, and potentially problematic, aspect of the whole novel.
Now, never having been pregnant myself, it may be presumptuous of me to make any comment here. But anyway: firstly, I say again that I wish there were some explanation for why no glamour when up the duff. The fact that it’s so heavily a female art makes this particular issue an additionally… interesting one. And frustrating. Moving on to Jane’s case, though, I thought Kowal wrote her reaction to pregnancy really well. Jane herself is unsure whether she’s happy about it or not: partly because she’s not sure what Vincent’s reaction will be, and partly because it will mean giving up the work that she loves and loves undertaking with him. And not being able to work takes quite a toll on Jane’s self confidence, and on her perception of her relationship with Vincent, too. This seems quite realistic, to me, and feels neither melodramatic nor purely done for plot reasons. And then she miscarries, and this too is problematic – not just for the obvious grief reasons, but because Jane feels guilt, for two reasons: for having done glamour, which might have contributed, and also because one of her first reactions is relief because she can work again. Which of course sets off its own cycle of guilt, at appearing (to herself) to be cold and hard-hearted. And this too seems quite realistic to me. I do have experience of grief and it does do weird things to the head, and I totally understand having such a mixed, involuntary, reaction. So… yeh. Interesting stuff. Certainly interesting stuff to address in what seems like a fluffy just-add-magic, Regency romance.
I really, really hope the third book – which I think is coming out this year too – has ongoing repercussions for the miscarriage, since that would be the realistic thing to do.
It is, overall, a great novel – very fast paced and mostly intriguing characters. Also, the physical product is a bit quirky: I couldn’t find the info on the type, but I’m quite sure it is (or based one) the sort of type used in ‘olde style’ Austen novels, which is nice and certainly helps it feel like it came out before 2012! I’ve read a few complaints about it not dealing with race and class and… well, yes. That’s true. The race aspect doesn’t fuss or surprise me: this is set in 1815, so it doesn’t amaze me that Jane has no experience of black people, as slaves or servants or even in the abstract, like through abolitionists or whatever. She’s not the most worldly of people, and she’s not in London or another major city most of the time, either. As for class, it’s true that her attitude towards servants is entirely that of a woman of the lower gentry, accustomed to service. She is conscious of feeling overshadowed by fancy titled ladies, but not of her own position above others. Yet… I dunno. It didn’t bug me much, to be honest. There’s not a whole lot of ordering servants around and lording itself over others, precisely because she’s not in that overwhelmingly powerful position and neither are most of the people she associates with. So this could certainly have been a more complex novel, problematising all sorts of issues from the Regency period. But it also doesn’t pretend to be that novel. And I think that’s ok.
One final irk: working glamour may be a feminine art, but who are the preeminent glamourists who get the commissions? Men. Yah.
Randomly Yours, Alex 