The Other Boleyn Girl
I wonder if Anne really was as scheming and conniving as this movie makes out… I’m not sure which I think is more believable.
And George?? Seems to me that that’s taking the slander and propaganda put out at the time a little bit too seriously. I find it very difficult to believe that there was any suggestion of incest. It was simply too taboo, surely. (The actor, though – Jude from Across the Universe! – lovely.)
Poor Mary Boleyn. How horrid to be dealt with like that… and to have history all but ignore you, too, after all of that! She is the most interesting of them all, I think, from this portrayal: George is weak; Anne is something of a bitch; Mary is simply too good for her own safety. Natalie Portman is surprisingly good in this role, as is Scarlett Johanssen.
Their mother – whom I can only ever regard as Duckface, thanks to Four Weddings and a Funeral – is magnificent in this movie. Eric Bana… usually I’m a big fan, but he wasn’t wonderful for me here. Maybe because he has quite a bit part, focusing as it does on the women; maybe because filling the shoes of Henry VIII is a big ask, and he’s just not quite up to it – or the script isn’t.
I also hadn’t realised that the gap between Anne and Jane was quite so short as the movie implies, but I guess it makes sense since one of the reasons for getting rid of Anne was the overwhelming desire for a male heir, and Jane seemed like a good option (as, of course, she was. Poor Jane).
Sad: no mention of the allegation that Anne ordered a French sword for the execution because it would be sharper and therefore swifter.
The costumes are simply delightful; I enjoyed the music, too, and the sets.
Rome
I am watching Rome!
That is, I’m into the second episode of the first season.
I still hate Octavian. Sorry. I like James Purefoy and Marc Antony, so that’s a lovely combination. Although I hadn’t expected him to be quite so… brutal… I like my Richard Burton view of him…
I also hadn’t expected the interest in the common people, which is cool. Nor the quantity of sex. (And the full-frontal nudity, too.)
For a TV show, this is a glorious production – as I had heard; it looks like a high-quality film! HBO must be rolling in it.
History, being myopic and such things
This is an interesting little article, from ages ago now, by Daniel Lord Smail, author of On Deep History and the Brain, which certainly sounds like something I’d read. From the article, it seems like Smail is targeting that tendency of historians to ignore prehistory in accounts of human history – starting, instead, with Mesopotamia and agriculture, because that’s when you really get documents that can be used to examine history (this idea c/o Leopold von Ranke). The use of ‘prehistory’ to describe this period itself indicates this tendency, since it places undocumented times ‘before’ history proper – I really hope it’s something Smail addresses; if he doesn’t, he’ll have lost a bit of cred from me.
Couple of ideas that have been floating around in my head, thanks to reading the precis linked above:
1. I have never really understood the historian/archaeologist divide. I know, from the little bit of Sumerian/Assyian study I did in undergrad, that there is (or has been?) argy-bargy on both sides. I just don’t get it: it’s like animal handlers not cooperating with vets, or something. How can the two disciplines seriously expect to get the most out of their studies without talking to each other? It just seems daft.
2. An issue with the article itself: ” It is time we rectified our Christian-induced myopia, argues Daniel Lord Smail. … Before the 19th century, few doubted Genesis was historical truth.” Yo – if you want to argue for getting an Africa-centric beginning to history, being quite so Euro-centric probably isn’t the best way to go about it! Perhaps he is aiming his accusations primarily at European/American authors, from a Judeo-Christian society, but still… I think he’s also underestimating the amount of undermining of accepted Christian cosmology had gone on in the Enlightenment, and from then on too.
This is something that requires a bit more thought from me, and probably me actually buying the book and reading it. I can understand why historians have gone for the places with documents and so on to base their study on – and perhaps this reveals me falling into the Ranke trap that I was probably indoctrinated with in my undergrad days, and I am just so not post-modern enough to throw that off without a really good reason and several convincing arguments (with foototes).
City of Darkness, City of Light
Because I am teaching the French Rev this year, it was recommended that I read City of Darkness, City of Light by Marge Pearcy (I think). It takes six real figures of the rev and gives their perspectives on the events from mid 1780s until late 1790s. It’s a novel, though, so there is a bit of license with regard to motives etc, and dialogue of course – it reminded me of McCollough’s Rome series for that reason.
Anyway: it was good. I enjoyed it. It gives you a good sense of what France was like as a country at the time, as well as of some of the personalities (exaggerated as they may be). It was exciting to see the events unfold from different perspectives, and the characters are well-chosen for that: Pauline is a worker in Paris; Claire is an actress from the country who comes to Paris; Manon is rich and moves between the country and Paris (so it was great to have three women’s perspectives); Georges is an ambitious lawyer; Max is also a lawyer, idealistic and from the country but moves to Paris; and Nicholas is a noble, something of a philosopher and about my favourite character.
For anyone familiar with the revolution, you might spot the one thing that was distressing about this book: the men are Danton, Robespierre, and Condorcet – who, of course, all get killed by their beloved Revolution, as does Manon – surname Roland, responsible for a very influential salon. So four out of six, dead. And knowing that this is going to happen really didn’t help! It was like re-watching a Grand Prix (very loud in the background, here), and knowing that there’s a huge smash coming up just around that bend…
Ah, voyeurism
I missed all of the “Who do you think you are?” episodes on SBS – UK and Aussie – and I was a bit sad about that, because although it’s not entirely my thing I do like a bit of this sort of personal history. Fortunately, my darling mother (she of the apricots) taped those of Bill Oddie and Nigella Lawson. I’ve just now got around to watching them, having had the video waiting for me for weeks. Bill Oddie’s was quite sad – his mother in a “sanitorium,” or asylum, for much of his childhood; he has very few memories of her, and basically no good ones. It was quite interesting hearing his reasons for researching his past.
Nigella comes from a tradition of caterers, which I think is hilarious. I didn’t know she was Jewish, so that was fascinating too: her great grandparents came, respectively, from now west Germany and Amsterdam. The history of Jewish migration and experience is one I know little about, and I wonder just how well researched it is; I would guess fairly well. It gives quite a different view on early modern history in Europe (and, I am sure, on medieval too) from what you get if you simply focus on the Christian European experience.
The Fisher King
So I’ve been listening to some BBC podcasts recently – the “In Our Time” series. I really enjoy them – the interplay between the three interlocutors, the broad range of topics they cover within the topic itself: it’s all glorious. What I do often find drives me nuts, though, is Melvyn Bragge himself. He so often seems to think he knows everything about the topic after his preliminary reading – I’m happy to admit that he probably spends a number of hours in doing so, but still, he’s talking to people who have spent large amount of their professional lives, at least, thinking about the stuff! He particularly annoyed me in this episode, but I’ll get to that.
I had a most exciting moment in listening to this episode, which has never happened before: I knew one of the people! Well, ‘knew’ in the loosest possible sense; I’ve read most of one of his books, when I was researching for an essay on Robin Hood; and I heard him speak once on the figure of Merlin – Stephen Knight. An Aussie, who teaches in Wales on Arthur-y type things, among other topics. Anyway, it was a very cool moment for me.
So, the episode itself: focussing on the Fisher King, which I think is very cool in and of itself, that you can talk for 40-odd minutes on a fairly obscure literary figure/convention. Awesome. They looked at when the Fisher King first appears – in connection with Arthurian stuff; what his figure represents, pagan and Christian; and what he came to mean, in the 19th and 20th centuries (and they did indeed mention, if only briefly, the movie – which I was waiting for!), in Eliot (I might have to re-read The Waste Land… scary thought) and others.
All up, it was a great deal of fun to read, as I pounded along the path….
You can even, as they say in the business, listen again!
More archaeology for me!
So my nerdy excitement levels are way high at the moment, because today I found – in Ballarat of all places! – a copy of a magazine I’ve never heard of: British Archaeology. I subscribe to the American one, which comes from the American Institute for Archaeology; this one is put out by the Council for Brisitsh Archaeology. Now, it was quite expensive, but it is beautifully printed and – although short – it seems to have only about 2 full page ads in the entire 66 or so pages! Compared to the American one, and even BBC History (which I also subscribe to), this is quite amazing. Anyway – I’m very pleased, and I’m looking forward to reading it. Most of it, of course, is British – which is fun – and a cursory glance seems to indicate that it will be like the American one in terms of being reasonably good history and good archae, and being populist at the same time.
Hurrah for me.
Archaeology Magazine Nov-Dec
After some effort, I managed to re-subscribe to Archaeology, which makes me happy. So I thought I’d blog some thoughts on the latest issue…
I’m not sure I like the new format of the mag. The old way, there were one or two short pieces at the start – like “World Roundup” (always an interesting read); then it was straight into the longer, in-depth articles. Now, there are fully 20 pages of ads and shorter stuff before you get to the meaty bit. To drag the eating metaphor out – I like an entree as much as the next person, but I don’t like getting bored before the main course. I’d rather have the little bits at the end, to browse like a cheese platter. Yah; pushed that one to the limits, didn’t I?
Anyway… I was fascinated by Sanchita Balachandran’s reflection on whether to preserve an artifact of dubious provenance. I would have thought that preserving at all costs, so that at least something can be learnt, would be worthwhile. Apparently, though, this can be seen as encouraging looters and other nefarious types to continue their dastardly deeds (not meant to be read flippantly, btw). I’m still not sure I agree with this idea – what, let the Rosetta Stone fall apart because you’re not sure where it came from? – but I can readily see there are moral issues here.
I love stuff about Oxyrhynchus, and Tebtunis seems to be in the same league in terms of the amount of papyrus they’re finding. Marco Merola writes a fascinating account of the archaeological efforts being undertaken on the site, as well as what is being revealed by the information. It still gets me, every single time, just how much has not been uncovered yet, of places like Egypt that we seem to understand so well – let alone places where digging is barely begun. I love it! So yes – Tebtunis – awesome. Also on this track is Jarrett Lobell’s article on the discovery of an agora – an entire damned agora! – in the modern suburbs of Athens. Mad. I do hope the developers manage to incorporate parts of it into the new buildings.
Read a book on Genghis Khan – I think it was by John Man(n?) a while back; he and his have been a perennial favourite. Having taught the Chinese Revolution this year (not very well…), I was reminded again how diverse “China” is and has been. Jake Hooker’s article on the Liao Empire – which I’d never heard of – brought this home. They created some truly amazing stuff but… where are the uni courses, the museum exhibits, the kids’ cartoon shows? You could do some truly awesome stuff in copying their riding boots.
There’s a running joke in my family that I don’t much like stuff that’s younger than 1000 years old (I take affront at that; 500 years, maybe). So I’m still sometimes a bit dubious about reading stuff like Tom Koppel’s “Steamboats on the Yukon.” Of course, once I get reading, I’m fascinated – the reality is that I love basically all historical stuff, although I don’t know why. It helps, with this article, that in this instance the author had spent time with the team attempting to study and preserve said steamboats, so his account of scrambling over them is compelling.
In line with the family joke, I’ve sometimes received the vibe (not from my family) that history is pointless, because you know, it’s like already happened? It’s tempting then to point people to Heather Pringle’s “Medieval DNA, Modern Medicine.” I don’t, because I think history is important in itself, but there you go. Being a child of the Jurassic Park at the movies generation, extracting DNA from old bones (teeth, actually) seems a bit parse sometimes. This article is nice in showing just how damned hard that is, and what we oh-so-advanced modernites can learn.
Finally, I have to say that however much I love the magazine, it feels like there are more ads in there every time I turn around. And they’re all American, of course, so there’s barely any point in even looking at them. Oh well; it’s still a great read.
Movies and books
So I went to see Elizabeth: The Golden Age the other day. I loved it, and will post more about it soon. For now, this has amused me:
Do I have a book about Walter Raleigh on my shelf?
Yes
Have I read said book yet?
No
Will I now always think of him as Clive Owen?
Hell yes!
Is this a problem?
Hell no!
Tee hee. I thought it was funny. It really is a bit like seeing the movie before reading the book.* I also have a bio of Elizabeth – the Alison Weir one, I think – which my darling bought for me on a whim once and who was subsequently devastated when I informed him that I was a bit over Elizabeth, because she had been done to death. I think I am also at the point where I can read that book, too.
*Which I have only successfully done once: I saw the BBC series of Pride and Prejudice before reading it, and it made reading it much easier, for me.
Assyria, and lectures
Went to another public lecture the other day, this one the eleventh Marion Adams Memorial Lecture, for the Arts Faculty at Melbourne Uni. It got me thinking that I would like to have a lecture named after me, or possibly a book-buying bequest… I might have to set aside some money right now for that to be possible.
Anyway, the lecture: was very interesting. I won’t describe the whole thing here, because if you are interested in hearing it you can – gasp! the technology! – actually download and listen to it. Actually, it wasn’t there when I checked today, but I am sure they’ll get it there. If the microphone was good enough you should be able to pick up Dr Andrew Jamieson* thumping the desk and getting very excited, which was quite worhtwhile. Of course, you won’t get the visuals – unless they upload those too, which I would have thought unlikely – they were really great. The gist of his talk, anyway, was that far from the Assyrian heartland being the sole arbitrator of taste and refinement in the Neo-Assyrian period, there definitely seems to have been toing and froing in cultural borrowings and acquisitions between the heartlands and the conquered periphery. Just makes sense to me, but I take it that this is a new idea in the field.
*Whom, if memory serves, I heard speaking at another lecture last year – this one in conjunction with his brother, who is a physics lecturer also at Melbourne Uni. The whole thing was very good, but Andrew was definitely outshone on that occasion by his brother. Maybe he was sick then, because this particular lecture was brilliant.
Randomly Yours, Alex 