Sarah Monette's Blog, page 38

UBC: Salem Story

Rosenthal, Bernard. Salem Story: Reading the Witch Trials of 1692. Cambridge University Press, 1993.


This book is about the historiography of Salem, specifically about the way that the mythology of Salem has gotten into the history and caused problems in terms of what we think we know a priori and thus never bother to track down and verify. Rosenthal is quite good at digging into the primary sources and the early secondary sources and pointing out where divergences happen and why. Particularly interesting is the case of Bridget Bishop, who was in fact not a tavern keeper and not noted for wearing a red Paragon bodice. Two of the afflicted girls, and many historians and researchers thereafter, got confused and conflated her with Sarah Bishop, who was both those things . . . but not accused of witchcraft. He also addresses, quite usefully, the question of why the Mathers, having been publicly skeptical about spectral evidence and the choices the judges were making, suddenly became very publicly gung-ho (particularly Cotton) when George Burroughs was condemned. Short answer: Burroughs was a Baptist, or had Baptist leanings, and as such was anathema to Increase and Cotton. I'm not sure I buy Rosenthal's argument 100%, for reasons I'll discuss in a moment, but it's a useful factor to know about.

My problem with Rosenthal is that he is so committed to demystifying Salem that he reduces it all to fraud, "hysteria" (which he doesn't define anymore than anyone ever does define it when talking about Salem), self-preservation, and greed. He proves that some of the afflicted persons (he rightly points out that many of them were not girls) must have been committing fraud--pins stuck into afflicted persons' hands are particularly damning. But he generalizes from that, notwithstanding some vague comments about hysteria, to assume that all of them must have been frauds, just as, although he says that some of the confessing witches believed in their own witchcraft, all the confessors he talks about specifically were confessing (he argues) because they had realized that if you confessed, you wouldn't be hanged. He also uses the evidence of Thomas Brattle, a particularly outspoken critic of the trials, to argue that, since one contemporary Puritan did not believe in witchcraft and thought everything about the Salem crisis was specious, all contemporary Puritans must have felt the same. He's arguing, quite passionately, against cultural relativism in the form of, "the poor dears, they didn't know any better," and while I agree with his principle, I think he's gone too far in the other direction and overstated the degree of empirical, material-based reasoning to be found among the general population of New England.

And he has the same problem other advocates of the fraud thesis have, namely that fraud provides an explanation for the physical manifestations, but it doesn't do anything to explain either the motivations of the afflicted persons nor the behavior of the judges--who, in Rosenthal's account, might as well be twirling their mustaches and laughing evil laughs.

In other words, he's very good at debunking some of the accreted misconceptions about Salem--and that's very valuable in and of itself--but he doesn't have a persuasive new history to offer.

Signal boost for Jim Hines

Support rape crisis centers and enter to win an advance copy of The Snow Queen's Shadow, by Jim C. Hines.

5 cheerful things

So I voted today, in exactly the pinkoliberalcommiebitch way you would expect of me. I also ran a number of other errands, including an appointment with my GI specialist so that maybe I can stop feeling queasy all the time.

And, following mrissa 's Law, I stopped for ice cream. (The Chocolate Shoppe's Peanut Butter Cup, which--just in case you need to know--I recommend highly.)

Ice cream is almost always, IMHO, a good idea. Sometimes, it is also the right idea, and today was one of those times. My mood and general demeanor improved approximately a hundredfold between walking into the ice cream parlor and walking out again.

In celebration of that, I'm going to offer a list of some other things that have made me feel cheerful this week:

Occasionally, I talk in my sleep. Sunday morning, mirrorthaw tells me, I said, very clearly, "Oh god, an audience." I have no idea what I was dreaming about.
Monday, when I dragged myself out of bed, there were no jellicle ninjas visible. I staggered out into the hall, and--like magic!--two little black faces appeared, one from the TV room and one from the stairs, to see if I was doing anything cats might be interested in.
The crocuses are blooming, in a distinctly Dear Old Man Winter, fuck you very much fashion.
Drabblecast has given matociquala and me an awesome graphic:

5 things while LJ is here

1. saladinahmed is looking for a few good cartographers.

2. I am really tired of feeling like crap all the time.

3. OTOH, great dressage lesson yesterday, after which Milo got his revenge for having to admit I was the boss by (a.) depositing a generous pile of manure in the stable aisle, (b.) backing up to plant his foot in it, and then (c.) pretending he had not the least idea how to go forward again.

4. I R SRS CHEETAH. THIS R SRS FUZZ.

5. The pool was closed for maintenance all last week, but I got out there today. Of course, I forgot my watch. :P

Unknown amount of time, 20 laps.
308 miles, 10 laps.

In which Wisconsin wishes me a very happy April Fool's Day, LOSER!

What the fuck is up with this SNOW shit?

something like progress

Draft of a short story finished. (Well, except for all the [1], [2], [3] all the way up to [71] where proper nouns (and a couple common ones) go.) I can't tell you how long it is, because I wrote it entirely longhand (although it runs from the bottom of p. 31v to the top of p. 57 in the knock-off Moleskine notebook* I'm currently using. I can't tell you the title, either, because it doesn't have one. (I thought it did, but it turns out the title I thought it had was not correct at all.)

It has given me a lovely example of the moss-troll problem though: Caesarian section. Even though Julius Caesar was probably not born by Caesarian section, the adjective makes no sense in a world without the word "Caesar."

Notice that although this is not the work I should be doing, I am very grateful nonetheless to have a complete draft of anything.

And on that note, I'm going to give this "sleeping" thing a whirl. I've heard it's fun if you do it right.


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*I will not be buying the Picadilly Moleskine knock-offs again, even though they are about 1/3 as expensive. The bookmark ribbons come out, and the elastic does not elastic properly, and both these things get more annoying rather than less over time.

5 things

1. I dreamed Monday night that I was cast as the Wicked Witch of the West in a production of Alice in Wonderland. ( stillsostrange was Alice, which tells you what kind of Alice we're talking about.) I've been wondering all week, more or less idly, how to make the mashup work.

2. Dear Feckless Acupuncture Clinic: If you wish us to have a client/service provider relationship of any kind, there must be a method by which I can communicate with you. Either phone or email is fine, but ONE OF THEM HAS GOT TO GET A RESPONSE.

3. Okay, maybe it's not my magnesium/calcium/zinc supplements making me queasy. Maybe it's just me. :P

4. Amazon says there's cover art for The Tempering of Men.

5. Johnny Cash covering Sheryl Crow's "Redemption Day" has depths of awesome beyond what I would have expected. And that's saying something.

In preparation for April Fool's Day

I hate April Fool's Day to begin with, because I hate, possibly more than anything else, being made to feel stupid. In recent years, I've seen more people leaning towards celebrating "fool" in the sense of "play" instead of "fool" in the sense of "trick," and I like that a lot better. But April Fool's Day still makes me tense and unhappy.

Some years ago (I don't recall exactly how many), Jeff VanderMeer tried to include me in an April Fool's stunt: the imaginary anthology, Squidpunk. And I, well, I kind of handed him his head.

In retrospect, and with some perspective, I feel really bad about this, because Jeff's email (which boiled down to, "Where is your contribution to Squidpunk?") was not an attempt to catch me out ("fool" in the sense of "trick"). It was an attempt to invite me to play, to join in the celebration of "fool" in that other sense. Jeff had no way of knowing he was hitting one of my nightmare buttons (most of my anxiety dreams are variations on YOU ARE FAILING TO FULFILL YOUR OBLIGATIONS) or that, due to stress and whatnot, the preceding half-year or so had been notable for the number of things I had completely forgotten to do. In other words, I went directly to PANIC without passing either GO or ENGAGE CRITICAL FACULTIES--and then, about half an hour later when I'd calmed down enough to realize that it was 11:30 P.M. on March 31st, I rolled up like an iron porcupine and chewed Jeff out.

So, Jeff, I apologize. My reaction was more about my baggage than anything you did, and I'm sorry.

And for everyone else: if you think it would be funny to pull an April Fool's joke on me? It wouldn't.

That'll kickstart your Monday

Look! Look at the shiny-to-be!

Poetry sums it up FTW

( oursin linked to this, and I said, "Yeah. That's it exactly.")

Dirge Without Music

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the
love,—
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not
approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the
world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

--Edna St. Vincent Millay