Rohase Piercy's Blog, page 7
December 30, 2018
Happy New Year!
As 2018 draws to a close, I'd like to thank my fellow Goodreads authors for all the pleasure their writing has given me over the past twelve months.
As well as devouring the latest offerings of some of my favourite wordsmiths, I've discovered several new authors whose writing has blown me away – some of them established and successful, others less so (skill and talent being no guarantee of success in these market-driven days); and I want to say a special thankyou to those with whom I've made personal contact, and who’ve been kind enough to encourage me in my own writing.
I'm so grateful to Narrelle M. Harris whose The Adventure of the Colonial Boy and A Dream to Build a Kiss on I absolutely loved, and who's been more than generous in her reviews of my books; to Bryn Hammond whose Against Walls took me to a fascinating place and time that I otherwise never would have visited; to Julie Bozza whose The Butterfly Hunter Trilogy I'm currently devouring with great relish; and to Lexi Wolfe whose play 'Mrs Oscar Wilde in Women Of Forgotten Importance: Three Stories inspired me to update my own Constance Wilde story, and whose Vampire novel Better Off Dead is now on my to-read list. Dan Andriacco's blogs have helped keep me up to date with all things Holmesian/Sherlockian, and his Sebastian McCabe/Jeff Cody mysteries are also on my to-read list for 2019; Elinor Gray's editorship of The Watsonian has made it a delight to read this year and has introduced me to the witty, erudite and sometimes irreverent writing of the John H Watson Society. It was lovely to meet Richard Gough-Buijs at the Brighton Book Fayre in November – his The Gluten Free Mediterranean Cookbookwas greeted with cries of delight by my foodie/coeliac daughter on Christmas day - and to share a stall with Jane Traies, whose ground-breaking book Now You See Me: Lesbian Life Stories contains some interviews that I had the privilege of transcribing, and Val Brown whose biography toupie lowther her life filled many gaps in my inventory of early 20th century lesbians. And last but not least, my old partner in crime Charlie Raven not only wrote the Foreword to the 30th Anniversary edition of My Dearest Holmes but also designed the cover and cast an editorial eye over the text, thereby committing herself to having to do the same for the new edition of The Coward Does it with a Kiss, due out in April.
Thanks so much to you all, and to all those other authors, dead and alive, whose books I've enjoyed over the course of 2018! Here's hoping for lashings of inspiration, creativity, great writing and of course success for all of us in the New Year ahead.
As well as devouring the latest offerings of some of my favourite wordsmiths, I've discovered several new authors whose writing has blown me away – some of them established and successful, others less so (skill and talent being no guarantee of success in these market-driven days); and I want to say a special thankyou to those with whom I've made personal contact, and who’ve been kind enough to encourage me in my own writing.
I'm so grateful to Narrelle M. Harris whose The Adventure of the Colonial Boy and A Dream to Build a Kiss on I absolutely loved, and who's been more than generous in her reviews of my books; to Bryn Hammond whose Against Walls took me to a fascinating place and time that I otherwise never would have visited; to Julie Bozza whose The Butterfly Hunter Trilogy I'm currently devouring with great relish; and to Lexi Wolfe whose play 'Mrs Oscar Wilde in Women Of Forgotten Importance: Three Stories inspired me to update my own Constance Wilde story, and whose Vampire novel Better Off Dead is now on my to-read list. Dan Andriacco's blogs have helped keep me up to date with all things Holmesian/Sherlockian, and his Sebastian McCabe/Jeff Cody mysteries are also on my to-read list for 2019; Elinor Gray's editorship of The Watsonian has made it a delight to read this year and has introduced me to the witty, erudite and sometimes irreverent writing of the John H Watson Society. It was lovely to meet Richard Gough-Buijs at the Brighton Book Fayre in November – his The Gluten Free Mediterranean Cookbookwas greeted with cries of delight by my foodie/coeliac daughter on Christmas day - and to share a stall with Jane Traies, whose ground-breaking book Now You See Me: Lesbian Life Stories contains some interviews that I had the privilege of transcribing, and Val Brown whose biography toupie lowther her life filled many gaps in my inventory of early 20th century lesbians. And last but not least, my old partner in crime Charlie Raven not only wrote the Foreword to the 30th Anniversary edition of My Dearest Holmes but also designed the cover and cast an editorial eye over the text, thereby committing herself to having to do the same for the new edition of The Coward Does it with a Kiss, due out in April.
Thanks so much to you all, and to all those other authors, dead and alive, whose books I've enjoyed over the course of 2018! Here's hoping for lashings of inspiration, creativity, great writing and of course success for all of us in the New Year ahead.
December 2, 2018
The Book Fayre experience ...
The Brighton Book Fayre (Sat 24th November) was a cheery if cold event at which I shared a stall with fellow LGBTQ authors Jane Traies, author of Now You See Me: Lesbian Life Stories and Val Brown (toupie lowther her life). As well as grabbing the opportunity to make a few Christmas sales it was a great opportunity to make contact with other local authors. It started slowly as these things do, with all of us cradling coffees, rubbing gloved hands together (I speak of the Northern Hemisphere here, apologies to all you sun-kissed Antipodeans!) and beaming encouragingly at passers-by whilst covertly checking out the competition; but the camaraderie soon built up as the day wore on and a steady stream of bemused shoppers drifted into the Open Market seeking shelter from the rain, surveyed the huddle of stalls occupying the central space with some bemusement and then turned their attention to the regular emporia: cafes interspersed with purveyors of hobby crafts, hand-carved stools & walking sticks, hippy-boutique-style clothing, local farm produce, herbal remedies, fresh vegetables and food (Greek, Middle Eastern, Italian, Vegetarian, Vegan, you name it ...)
Our stall displayed laminated blurbs for each of the seven books on offer so that potential buyers could browse without having to handle the goods, but the temptation to leap to one's feet and weigh in with some hard sell whenever someone paused to cast an eye over them was hard to resist, as was the lure of cafes offering sustenance to keep out the cold – our presence boosted their regular income nicely, and I myself disposed of three Cappucinos and an artisan toasted cheese sandwich before noon … but I digress. As I was saying, as the day wore on we authors detached ourselves from our stalls to stretch cramped limbs, stamp some circulation back into frozen feet and make regular trips to the loo (and straight back again if we'd forgotten the entrance code to said convenience) - and of course we took the opportunity to browse one another's offerings en route, striking up conversations and exchanging business cards.
Our stall, 'Wyrd Sisters Ink', made a modest number of sales; but equally importantly we made several new contacts (including fellow Goodreads authors Richard Gough-Buijs, who helped organise the event, and Diny van Kleeff) and were able to swap plans for/information about local events and venues. I even came away with a couple of interesting literary purchases … (Here's a thing though: if an author you've never met or read before suggests doing an exchange, one of their books for one of yours, how do you know if you've got a good bargain? I mean, you know your own stuff is bloody brilliant, and what if you end up swapping your masterpiece for a load of old self-indulgent, badly written dollytwaddle? It's an act of trust, I have to say …)
Anyway, it was an enjoyable learning curve! Wouldn't have missed it for the world. (Note to self: if attending next year, remember to (a) bring fewer books, (b) wear more layers (c) drink less coffee). Merry Christmas, everyone!
Our stall displayed laminated blurbs for each of the seven books on offer so that potential buyers could browse without having to handle the goods, but the temptation to leap to one's feet and weigh in with some hard sell whenever someone paused to cast an eye over them was hard to resist, as was the lure of cafes offering sustenance to keep out the cold – our presence boosted their regular income nicely, and I myself disposed of three Cappucinos and an artisan toasted cheese sandwich before noon … but I digress. As I was saying, as the day wore on we authors detached ourselves from our stalls to stretch cramped limbs, stamp some circulation back into frozen feet and make regular trips to the loo (and straight back again if we'd forgotten the entrance code to said convenience) - and of course we took the opportunity to browse one another's offerings en route, striking up conversations and exchanging business cards.
Our stall, 'Wyrd Sisters Ink', made a modest number of sales; but equally importantly we made several new contacts (including fellow Goodreads authors Richard Gough-Buijs, who helped organise the event, and Diny van Kleeff) and were able to swap plans for/information about local events and venues. I even came away with a couple of interesting literary purchases … (Here's a thing though: if an author you've never met or read before suggests doing an exchange, one of their books for one of yours, how do you know if you've got a good bargain? I mean, you know your own stuff is bloody brilliant, and what if you end up swapping your masterpiece for a load of old self-indulgent, badly written dollytwaddle? It's an act of trust, I have to say …)
Anyway, it was an enjoyable learning curve! Wouldn't have missed it for the world. (Note to self: if attending next year, remember to (a) bring fewer books, (b) wear more layers (c) drink less coffee). Merry Christmas, everyone!
November 4, 2018
Death In Venice Revisited Again!
Well, I said back in May that I was going to re-read Death in Venice following my blog about the Luchino Visconti film, and I finally got round to doing it! Death in Venice and Other Stories, translated and introduced by David Luke, is a fine selection of Thomas Mann's work and preserves his beautiful, vivid and thoughtful style - though it does give the impression, erroneous or otherwise, that his entire literary output centred around the male midlife crisis ...
'Death In Venice' is the final story of the selection, and it is, as the translator says, the best. I was surprised to discover how closely the Visconti film does actually follow the original text, given the critics' observations quoted in my 2nd May blog. I would not now agree that the film 'loses the philosophical content of the Thomas Mann work', or that there is 'no indication in the novel that Tadzio is anything more than vaguely aware of the older man's interest.' Granted, the whole weight of the story rests upon von Aschenbach's struggle to maintain his dignity in the face of his obsession with a fourteen year old boy, and to identify his infatuation as aesthetic appreciation (Platonic Eros) rather than middle-aged lust (Dionysos); but the 'Apollonian/Dionysian' dichotomy so beloved of Mann's hero Friedrich Nietzsche is very evident in the film, heartbreakingly portrayed in Dirk Bogarde's performance.
As regards Tadzio's awareness of Aschenbach's interest, the novella makes it pretty explicit!
'With a surge of joy the older man became aware that his interest and attention were not wholly unreciprocated. Why, for example, when the beautiful creature appeared in the morning on the beach, did he now never use the boarded walk behind the bathing cabins, but always take the front way, through the sand, passing Aschenbach's abode and often passing unnecessarily close to him, almost touching his table or his chair as he sauntered towards the cabin where his family sat?'
'Through the vaporous dimness and the flickering lights, Aschenbach saw the boy, up there at the front, turn his head and seek him with his eyes until he found him.'
'... he would turn his head hesitantly and cautiously, or even quickly and suddenly as if to gain the advantage of surprise, and look over his left shoulder to where his lover was sitting.'
'Tadzio walked behind his family ...he sometimes turned his head and glanced over his shoulder with his strange, twilight-grey eyes, to ascertain that his lover was still following him.'
And inevitably, Tadzio's family notice that something is going on:
'... at the point things had now reached, the enamoured Aschenbach has reason to fear that he had attracted attention and aroused suspicion. Indeed, he had several times, on the beach, in the hotel foyer and on the Piazza San Marco, been frozen with alarm to notice that Tadzio was being called away if he was near him, that they were taking care to keep them apart – and although his pride withered in torments it had never known under the appalling insult that this implied, he could not in conscience deny its justice.'
Aschenbach's attempt to deny the sexual side of his infatuation is of course doomed to failure, and when he collapses and dies on the beach on the morning of the Polish family's departure from the Lido he is a pathetic figure, dyed and rouged in an attempt to recapture his own lost youth - a mirror image of the 'dandified', 'babbling' 'sniggering' old man that so repulses him at the beginning of the story. Platonic Eros who clothes abstract Beauty in human form for mankind's spiritual benefit has been thoroughly vanquished as Dionysos rides roughshod over all his highfalutin pretensions. It's a sad story, but I don't find it a sordid one. It's a very different read from, for example, Lolita; for one thing, no sexual abuse takes place, nor are we made privy to any fantasies implying that, given opportunity, it would. It does however, as David Luke says in his introduction, describe with extraordinary vividness 'the process of falling in love'.
'Death In Venice ' is apparently based on two real-life encounters: the literary giant Goethe Johann Wolfgang von 1749-1832's brief infatuation, at the age of seventy-four, with seventeen-year-old Ulrike von Levetzow during a holiday in Marienbad in 1823; and Mann's own fascination with an eleven-year-old boy, Wladyslaw Moes (called by his family 'Wladzio' or 'Adzio'), while holidaying in Venice in 1911 - a fascination confirmed by his wife, Katia, though she emphasised that it never reached the fever-pitch recounted in Aschenach's story, and that her husband was not in the habit of following the boy and his family around.
Obviously Mann felt the need to increase the age of 'Tadzio' to fourteen in his novella; and just as it is not Visconti's beautiful film but the shocking lack of protection given to its juvenile lead that bothers me about his production, so it is this real-life detail, and not the story itself, that makes uncomfortable reading for me.
Mann's own bisexuality is very apparent in his diaries – no problem there, to a modern reader – but a series of entries regarding his own adolescent son, Klaus (pet name 'Eissi') seem to enter more dangerous territory:
'Delight over Eissi, who in his bath is very handsome; find it very natural that I am in love with my son';
'Eissi lay reading in bed with his brown torso naked, which disconcerted me';
'… surprised Eissi completely naked. Strong impression of his pre-masculine, gleaming body. Disquiet.'
Well, most parents 'fall in love' with our children to the extent of finding everything about them exquisite and delightful – but the delight evoked by our children's bodies is quite different to the delight evoked by a lover's, and when that difference becomes blurred we have more than 'disquiet', we have perversion, we have incest, we have abuse.
So were does all this leave Thomas Mann in general, and 'Death In Venice' in particular? I'm actually not sure. I'm not sure, for example, as the mother of daughters, whether I would feel the same about either the book or the film if the adolescent in question were a young girl. I can only re-state that because neither contain any depictions or fantasies of abuse, and concentrate instead upon the inner struggle of the protagonist without any attempt to excuse, condemn, or sympathise with his self-delusion, I can read the one, and view the other, with appreciation rather than with discomfort. Do feel free to differ!
'Death In Venice' is the final story of the selection, and it is, as the translator says, the best. I was surprised to discover how closely the Visconti film does actually follow the original text, given the critics' observations quoted in my 2nd May blog. I would not now agree that the film 'loses the philosophical content of the Thomas Mann work', or that there is 'no indication in the novel that Tadzio is anything more than vaguely aware of the older man's interest.' Granted, the whole weight of the story rests upon von Aschenbach's struggle to maintain his dignity in the face of his obsession with a fourteen year old boy, and to identify his infatuation as aesthetic appreciation (Platonic Eros) rather than middle-aged lust (Dionysos); but the 'Apollonian/Dionysian' dichotomy so beloved of Mann's hero Friedrich Nietzsche is very evident in the film, heartbreakingly portrayed in Dirk Bogarde's performance.
As regards Tadzio's awareness of Aschenbach's interest, the novella makes it pretty explicit!
'With a surge of joy the older man became aware that his interest and attention were not wholly unreciprocated. Why, for example, when the beautiful creature appeared in the morning on the beach, did he now never use the boarded walk behind the bathing cabins, but always take the front way, through the sand, passing Aschenbach's abode and often passing unnecessarily close to him, almost touching his table or his chair as he sauntered towards the cabin where his family sat?'
'Through the vaporous dimness and the flickering lights, Aschenbach saw the boy, up there at the front, turn his head and seek him with his eyes until he found him.'
'... he would turn his head hesitantly and cautiously, or even quickly and suddenly as if to gain the advantage of surprise, and look over his left shoulder to where his lover was sitting.'
'Tadzio walked behind his family ...he sometimes turned his head and glanced over his shoulder with his strange, twilight-grey eyes, to ascertain that his lover was still following him.'
And inevitably, Tadzio's family notice that something is going on:
'... at the point things had now reached, the enamoured Aschenbach has reason to fear that he had attracted attention and aroused suspicion. Indeed, he had several times, on the beach, in the hotel foyer and on the Piazza San Marco, been frozen with alarm to notice that Tadzio was being called away if he was near him, that they were taking care to keep them apart – and although his pride withered in torments it had never known under the appalling insult that this implied, he could not in conscience deny its justice.'
Aschenbach's attempt to deny the sexual side of his infatuation is of course doomed to failure, and when he collapses and dies on the beach on the morning of the Polish family's departure from the Lido he is a pathetic figure, dyed and rouged in an attempt to recapture his own lost youth - a mirror image of the 'dandified', 'babbling' 'sniggering' old man that so repulses him at the beginning of the story. Platonic Eros who clothes abstract Beauty in human form for mankind's spiritual benefit has been thoroughly vanquished as Dionysos rides roughshod over all his highfalutin pretensions. It's a sad story, but I don't find it a sordid one. It's a very different read from, for example, Lolita; for one thing, no sexual abuse takes place, nor are we made privy to any fantasies implying that, given opportunity, it would. It does however, as David Luke says in his introduction, describe with extraordinary vividness 'the process of falling in love'.
'Death In Venice ' is apparently based on two real-life encounters: the literary giant Goethe Johann Wolfgang von 1749-1832's brief infatuation, at the age of seventy-four, with seventeen-year-old Ulrike von Levetzow during a holiday in Marienbad in 1823; and Mann's own fascination with an eleven-year-old boy, Wladyslaw Moes (called by his family 'Wladzio' or 'Adzio'), while holidaying in Venice in 1911 - a fascination confirmed by his wife, Katia, though she emphasised that it never reached the fever-pitch recounted in Aschenach's story, and that her husband was not in the habit of following the boy and his family around.
Obviously Mann felt the need to increase the age of 'Tadzio' to fourteen in his novella; and just as it is not Visconti's beautiful film but the shocking lack of protection given to its juvenile lead that bothers me about his production, so it is this real-life detail, and not the story itself, that makes uncomfortable reading for me.
Mann's own bisexuality is very apparent in his diaries – no problem there, to a modern reader – but a series of entries regarding his own adolescent son, Klaus (pet name 'Eissi') seem to enter more dangerous territory:
'Delight over Eissi, who in his bath is very handsome; find it very natural that I am in love with my son';
'Eissi lay reading in bed with his brown torso naked, which disconcerted me';
'… surprised Eissi completely naked. Strong impression of his pre-masculine, gleaming body. Disquiet.'
Well, most parents 'fall in love' with our children to the extent of finding everything about them exquisite and delightful – but the delight evoked by our children's bodies is quite different to the delight evoked by a lover's, and when that difference becomes blurred we have more than 'disquiet', we have perversion, we have incest, we have abuse.
So were does all this leave Thomas Mann in general, and 'Death In Venice' in particular? I'm actually not sure. I'm not sure, for example, as the mother of daughters, whether I would feel the same about either the book or the film if the adolescent in question were a young girl. I can only re-state that because neither contain any depictions or fantasies of abuse, and concentrate instead upon the inner struggle of the protagonist without any attempt to excuse, condemn, or sympathise with his self-delusion, I can read the one, and view the other, with appreciation rather than with discomfort. Do feel free to differ!
October 8, 2018
Step by Steppe ...
Well it's been a month since my last blog, and what with half of it being more or less a write-off due to a horrible sinus infection messing with my mental capacities, I don't have much to report as regards progress on the new edition of The Coward Does it with a Kiss. I'm back in harness now and have just spent the weekend trying to incorporate new material into a particularly convoluted series of (fictional) diary entries – but progress is slow, and rather than aiming to publish on the anniversary of Oscar's death (30th November), I thinking that Constance's Birthday (2nd January) might be both more realistic and more appropriate. As my grandmother used to say (pointing at the framed text enshrined on the wall) - 'Step By Step As Thou Goest, The Way Will Open Up Before Thee'... I haven't yet seen Rupert Everett's film 'The Happy Prince', which follows Oscar into exile after his release from prison, but I gather it's now premiered in the US and will be interested to hear what kind of a reception it gets across the pond – the reviews over here have been positive, but not overly ecstatic. What I'm hoping, of course, is that renewed curiosity about Oscar's final years will pave the way for the question 'But what happened to Constance??' - a question that The Coward does its best to answer. Step by step as thou goest …
Anyway, it's been an interesting month in other ways ... for one thing, I've acquired a whole new cousin (well, not newborn, I mean newly discovered) via DNA matching. It was Mr B's idea to order DNA kits in a bid to explore our respective ancestral origins; to be honest they didn't reveal anything particularly exciting about either of us – we're both solidly Southern English, him practically all West Country, me with a bit of Welsh and a soupcon of Scandinavian/French – the latter being from the Piercy side as it's a Norman name that came over with William the Conqueror. But it was from my mother's side, the Rose side, that this new connection came. I wasn't sure whether to tick the box giving permission for any relatives to get in touch, but I'm so glad I did because now I've made the acquaintance of a lovely lady whose grandfather was my great-grandfather's half brother! And the fact that we're definitely related solves a family mystery: there's been an ongoing debate for years as to whether said great-grandfather, surnamed Rose, might not actually be the son of a Mr Hand who registered the birth, and the DNA connection proves that he was, and that the rumour that we are all 'Roses by name, but Hands by blood' is absolutely true! In my weakened, semi-delirious state (before I finally resorted to antibiotics), I got so excited about all this that tribes of Hands and Roses rode through my dreams, across the windy Mongolian Steppe..
No, there's no Mongolian DNA connection whatsoever (see boring DNA info above) - the reason for this particular backdrop, which admittedly tended to sprout features transported directly from South London, is my current reading material: Against Walls by Bryn Hammond. It's an extraordinary book, first of a trilogy, and I'll to do a review when I've finished so I won't say too much about it here - except to state that the author has immersed herself in the life and times of Ghengis Khan to such an extent as to conjure (I used the word advisedly!) the characters, the customs and the culture from which he sprang with a vividness that makes an entirely alien place and time seem familiar and intimate. I don't usually tackle long books (unless they're Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke) and I fully expected to be giving up less than halfway through this one - but step by step as I went, the world of twelfth-century High Asia opened up before me, and here I am feeling sorry to reach the end, and contemplating tackling the second volume. Do give it a go! You don't have to be running a temperature to be drawn in and amazed ...
Anyway, it's been an interesting month in other ways ... for one thing, I've acquired a whole new cousin (well, not newborn, I mean newly discovered) via DNA matching. It was Mr B's idea to order DNA kits in a bid to explore our respective ancestral origins; to be honest they didn't reveal anything particularly exciting about either of us – we're both solidly Southern English, him practically all West Country, me with a bit of Welsh and a soupcon of Scandinavian/French – the latter being from the Piercy side as it's a Norman name that came over with William the Conqueror. But it was from my mother's side, the Rose side, that this new connection came. I wasn't sure whether to tick the box giving permission for any relatives to get in touch, but I'm so glad I did because now I've made the acquaintance of a lovely lady whose grandfather was my great-grandfather's half brother! And the fact that we're definitely related solves a family mystery: there's been an ongoing debate for years as to whether said great-grandfather, surnamed Rose, might not actually be the son of a Mr Hand who registered the birth, and the DNA connection proves that he was, and that the rumour that we are all 'Roses by name, but Hands by blood' is absolutely true! In my weakened, semi-delirious state (before I finally resorted to antibiotics), I got so excited about all this that tribes of Hands and Roses rode through my dreams, across the windy Mongolian Steppe..
No, there's no Mongolian DNA connection whatsoever (see boring DNA info above) - the reason for this particular backdrop, which admittedly tended to sprout features transported directly from South London, is my current reading material: Against Walls by Bryn Hammond. It's an extraordinary book, first of a trilogy, and I'll to do a review when I've finished so I won't say too much about it here - except to state that the author has immersed herself in the life and times of Ghengis Khan to such an extent as to conjure (I used the word advisedly!) the characters, the customs and the culture from which he sprang with a vividness that makes an entirely alien place and time seem familiar and intimate. I don't usually tackle long books (unless they're Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke) and I fully expected to be giving up less than halfway through this one - but step by step as I went, the world of twelfth-century High Asia opened up before me, and here I am feeling sorry to reach the end, and contemplating tackling the second volume. Do give it a go! You don't have to be running a temperature to be drawn in and amazed ...
September 9, 2018
Constance Wilde: A Victorian 'Mrs Jimmy Savile'?
Well I've now typed up the first draft of the new edition of The Coward Does it with a Kiss. I've made a few changes along the way – not to the storyline of course, we all know how that pans out, but to Constance Wilde's commentary on the events leading up to her husband's arrest and trial. As I've said before, we now know quite a lot more about her than was the case back in 1990, including the nature of the illness that plagued her on and off for the last ten years of her life; and Franny Moyle's excellent Constance: The Tragic and Scandalous Life of Mrs. Oscar Wilde, published in 2011, quotes at length from letters which weren't in the public domain when I was writing the original.
Two characters in particular were denied their full due in 'my' Constance's story, and I've hastened to make amends. The first is Lady Georgina Mount-Temple, who became a second mother to her and to whom she turned for comfort and advice on a regular basis; although aware that she was an important friend, I had not realised how much of a spiritual and maternal influence she became, or how frankly Constance confided her marriage troubles to her. The second is Arthur Humphreys, the manager of Hatchards Bookstore, with whom Constance fell madly in love in the year leading up to Oscar's trial; I had left their affair unconsummated, but Franny Moyle believes there is sufficient evidence to assume that it was, and I could not deny 'my' Constance the happiness of a second, though brief, sexual relationship after so many years of enforced celibacy. I have kept the (fictional) repercussions of that relationship as regards Oscar's fate, and the central theme of Constance's quest for a handle on her own identity as she examines and re-examines her actions, reactions, motives, objectives and crucially, her subconscious awareness of her husband's sexual orientation. The question of who betrays whom with a kiss is still, in Constance's mind, an open one; she sees the subtler shading between the black and white.
The general public of the day, of course, saw the picture starkly in black and white. Mrs Oscar Wilde was the innocent dupe of a monstrous, unnatural husband, and her refusal to divorce him in the face of immense family pressure was a mystery to many. It's hard for us to comprehend fully how humiliating it must have been for her to be the wife of such a pariah as Oscar became; 'It must have been,' commented Charlie Raven recently, 'rather like being the wife of Jimmy Savile.'
'Ewww,' I responded, instantly recoiling from the comparison – for nowadays, from our enlightened perspective, we see Oscar Wilde as the victim of an unjust law and a blinkered legal system, and any such comparison seems downright offensive. We do not like to dwell on the fact that many of the 'renters' who found themselves between Oscar's sheets were adolescent boys, and most of us are blissfully unaware that the Criminal Law Amendment Act under which he was prosecuted (Section 11 of which criminalised all sexual acts between men) was also responsible for raising the age of consent for young girls from thirteen to sixteen – thereby saving, in theory at least, thousands of children from abuse.
Like Constance's contemporaries we like to see things in black and white, and if we have to acknowledge a grey area we mutter something about having to take into account the mores of the time... as long as that time is sufficiently distant for present-day lawsuits to be out of the question, that is. I don't know about Harvey Weinstein, but here in Britain convicted sex offenders Rolf Harris, Max Clifford and Garry Glitter have all, at some point, fallen back on the 'autres temps, autres moeurs' defence. Much as we condemn the harsh and discriminatory law that consigned Oscar to prison, he could still be on thin ice today if he were living, and his past were to come under scrutiny; and poor Constance might, just might, find herself in a very similar position to the one she found herself in over a century ago.
It's an uncomfortable thought, isn't it?
Two characters in particular were denied their full due in 'my' Constance's story, and I've hastened to make amends. The first is Lady Georgina Mount-Temple, who became a second mother to her and to whom she turned for comfort and advice on a regular basis; although aware that she was an important friend, I had not realised how much of a spiritual and maternal influence she became, or how frankly Constance confided her marriage troubles to her. The second is Arthur Humphreys, the manager of Hatchards Bookstore, with whom Constance fell madly in love in the year leading up to Oscar's trial; I had left their affair unconsummated, but Franny Moyle believes there is sufficient evidence to assume that it was, and I could not deny 'my' Constance the happiness of a second, though brief, sexual relationship after so many years of enforced celibacy. I have kept the (fictional) repercussions of that relationship as regards Oscar's fate, and the central theme of Constance's quest for a handle on her own identity as she examines and re-examines her actions, reactions, motives, objectives and crucially, her subconscious awareness of her husband's sexual orientation. The question of who betrays whom with a kiss is still, in Constance's mind, an open one; she sees the subtler shading between the black and white.
The general public of the day, of course, saw the picture starkly in black and white. Mrs Oscar Wilde was the innocent dupe of a monstrous, unnatural husband, and her refusal to divorce him in the face of immense family pressure was a mystery to many. It's hard for us to comprehend fully how humiliating it must have been for her to be the wife of such a pariah as Oscar became; 'It must have been,' commented Charlie Raven recently, 'rather like being the wife of Jimmy Savile.'
'Ewww,' I responded, instantly recoiling from the comparison – for nowadays, from our enlightened perspective, we see Oscar Wilde as the victim of an unjust law and a blinkered legal system, and any such comparison seems downright offensive. We do not like to dwell on the fact that many of the 'renters' who found themselves between Oscar's sheets were adolescent boys, and most of us are blissfully unaware that the Criminal Law Amendment Act under which he was prosecuted (Section 11 of which criminalised all sexual acts between men) was also responsible for raising the age of consent for young girls from thirteen to sixteen – thereby saving, in theory at least, thousands of children from abuse.
Like Constance's contemporaries we like to see things in black and white, and if we have to acknowledge a grey area we mutter something about having to take into account the mores of the time... as long as that time is sufficiently distant for present-day lawsuits to be out of the question, that is. I don't know about Harvey Weinstein, but here in Britain convicted sex offenders Rolf Harris, Max Clifford and Garry Glitter have all, at some point, fallen back on the 'autres temps, autres moeurs' defence. Much as we condemn the harsh and discriminatory law that consigned Oscar to prison, he could still be on thin ice today if he were living, and his past were to come under scrutiny; and poor Constance might, just might, find herself in a very similar position to the one she found herself in over a century ago.
It's an uncomfortable thought, isn't it?
August 11, 2018
Will the real Constance Wilde please stand up?
I've been getting to work (finally!) on the new edition of The Coward Does it with a Kiss. It's a bit of a process for a technophobe like me, negotiating the mysteries of the KDP template and conquering my fear of the toolbar, learning how to do things like footnotes and page breaks all on my own (I'm determined to do this one without help from tech-savvy friends) – but it's fun to rediscover the Constance Wilde that I inhabited back in 1989, writing letters to her estranged husband Oscar from her exile in Italy and re-reading her old diaries.
What strikes me about my version of Constance is how her shattered sense of identity, after having played the part of Mrs Oscar for so long, leads her to doubt, contradict and question herself repeatedly as she searches her diaries, her heart and her conscience for the truth about her relationship with her disgraced husband. How well did she really know him? How soon did she begin to suspect that he preferred boys to women? How much of her role as a supportive wife was play-acting? It is not Oscar's behaviour that puzzles her, she insists, but her own; contrary to popular expectation, 'I did and still do understand you, Oscar … It is myself, myself I do not understand.'
At once point she relives the occasion, a few months after the birth of their second son Vyvyan, when Oscar finally announced that the sexual side of their marriage was over. She recalls the excuse he gave - that he'd suffered a recurrence of an STD contracted during his student days (the debate about whether or not this disease was syphilis, and whether it was this that ultimately killed him as Richard Ellmann alleges in his 1987 biography, still rages). She re-reads her diary entries expressing outrage at being thus rejected, and for a reason that she does not believe for a minute; speculating as to who has taken her place in her husbands' affections; and determining never to show how much he has hurt her but to rise above her circumstances and find new outlets for her creativity and passion.
'Would you be surprised, Oscar, to read all this?' she wonders; adding 'But perhaps you would be even more surprised to hear that it is all lies!'
The truth, she now reveals, was that she had already lost all desire, and a great deal of respect, for Oscar following his reaction to her two pregnancies, and felt that it should have been her prerogative, not his, to withdraw sexual services.
'Let it be recorded now, Oscar, that you gave me the freedom I would have chosen, but that I would gladly have flung it back in your face, and redoubled my pretence of ardour, so great was my anger at having no choice in the matter.'
Such self-contradiction as she see-saws between conflicting emotions continues throughout the narrative as Constance recalls how, whilst trying to establish a career in her own right by immersing herself in women's politics, lecturing on the history of fashion and writing and publishing children's stories, she was alternately charmed and repulsed by Oscar's fawning young men, alternately aware of and ignorant of his clandestine affairs, alternately understanding of his homosexuality and outraged at his reckless disregard for its effect upon herself.
'I really did begin to rise on my wings', she reminiscences; 'How long would they have borne me up, how high might I have soared, had 'Apollo' (ie Lord Alfred Douglas) not crossed my path with his fiery chariot and reduced them to feathers and wax?'
It's interesting to me to remember that The Coward was written at a time when I was struggling with my own sense of identity, both as regards sexuality and as a new mother. In many of Constance's soliloquys I see echoes of my own doubt, guilt and insecurity of thirty-odd years ago. Is this why I was able to inhabit her so easily? And did it result in a vivid, credible picture of what she might have been thinking, feeling and wanting to say during the last few months of her life, or have I merely created a Constance in my own image, far divorced from what the real woman who now signed herself 'C.M. Holland' would have thought, felt and said?
In the years since The Coward's publication courtesy of the Gay Men's Press back in 1990, more research has been done into Constance Wilde's life, more of her letters have been made public, and more has come to light about the reason for her early death in 1998 at the age of only thirty-nine (it is now thought she was suffering from MS, a recognised but poorly understood condition back in the late nineteenth century – see my April blog 'What Killed Constance Wilde 120 years ago?') As I struggle with the dilemma of how much, if any, of this information to include in this new edition, I'm pleasantly surprised to discover that the Constance I encounter in re-reading Franny Moyle's 2011 biography Constance: The Tragic and Scandalous Life of Mrs. Oscar Wilde, and in Lexi Wolfe's 2016 one-woman play 'Mrs Oscar Wilde' (included in her book Women Of Forgotten Importance: Three Stories) does seem to me to be of a piece with 'my' Constance, with the same youthful bravado gradually replaced by the same confusion, self-doubt and disillusionment. I hope that between us, we have done her credit and succeeded in presenting a complex, misunderstood and greatly underestimated character as a 'woman of some importance' in her own right.
What strikes me about my version of Constance is how her shattered sense of identity, after having played the part of Mrs Oscar for so long, leads her to doubt, contradict and question herself repeatedly as she searches her diaries, her heart and her conscience for the truth about her relationship with her disgraced husband. How well did she really know him? How soon did she begin to suspect that he preferred boys to women? How much of her role as a supportive wife was play-acting? It is not Oscar's behaviour that puzzles her, she insists, but her own; contrary to popular expectation, 'I did and still do understand you, Oscar … It is myself, myself I do not understand.'
At once point she relives the occasion, a few months after the birth of their second son Vyvyan, when Oscar finally announced that the sexual side of their marriage was over. She recalls the excuse he gave - that he'd suffered a recurrence of an STD contracted during his student days (the debate about whether or not this disease was syphilis, and whether it was this that ultimately killed him as Richard Ellmann alleges in his 1987 biography, still rages). She re-reads her diary entries expressing outrage at being thus rejected, and for a reason that she does not believe for a minute; speculating as to who has taken her place in her husbands' affections; and determining never to show how much he has hurt her but to rise above her circumstances and find new outlets for her creativity and passion.
'Would you be surprised, Oscar, to read all this?' she wonders; adding 'But perhaps you would be even more surprised to hear that it is all lies!'
The truth, she now reveals, was that she had already lost all desire, and a great deal of respect, for Oscar following his reaction to her two pregnancies, and felt that it should have been her prerogative, not his, to withdraw sexual services.
'Let it be recorded now, Oscar, that you gave me the freedom I would have chosen, but that I would gladly have flung it back in your face, and redoubled my pretence of ardour, so great was my anger at having no choice in the matter.'
Such self-contradiction as she see-saws between conflicting emotions continues throughout the narrative as Constance recalls how, whilst trying to establish a career in her own right by immersing herself in women's politics, lecturing on the history of fashion and writing and publishing children's stories, she was alternately charmed and repulsed by Oscar's fawning young men, alternately aware of and ignorant of his clandestine affairs, alternately understanding of his homosexuality and outraged at his reckless disregard for its effect upon herself.
'I really did begin to rise on my wings', she reminiscences; 'How long would they have borne me up, how high might I have soared, had 'Apollo' (ie Lord Alfred Douglas) not crossed my path with his fiery chariot and reduced them to feathers and wax?'
It's interesting to me to remember that The Coward was written at a time when I was struggling with my own sense of identity, both as regards sexuality and as a new mother. In many of Constance's soliloquys I see echoes of my own doubt, guilt and insecurity of thirty-odd years ago. Is this why I was able to inhabit her so easily? And did it result in a vivid, credible picture of what she might have been thinking, feeling and wanting to say during the last few months of her life, or have I merely created a Constance in my own image, far divorced from what the real woman who now signed herself 'C.M. Holland' would have thought, felt and said?
In the years since The Coward's publication courtesy of the Gay Men's Press back in 1990, more research has been done into Constance Wilde's life, more of her letters have been made public, and more has come to light about the reason for her early death in 1998 at the age of only thirty-nine (it is now thought she was suffering from MS, a recognised but poorly understood condition back in the late nineteenth century – see my April blog 'What Killed Constance Wilde 120 years ago?') As I struggle with the dilemma of how much, if any, of this information to include in this new edition, I'm pleasantly surprised to discover that the Constance I encounter in re-reading Franny Moyle's 2011 biography Constance: The Tragic and Scandalous Life of Mrs. Oscar Wilde, and in Lexi Wolfe's 2016 one-woman play 'Mrs Oscar Wilde' (included in her book Women Of Forgotten Importance: Three Stories) does seem to me to be of a piece with 'my' Constance, with the same youthful bravado gradually replaced by the same confusion, self-doubt and disillusionment. I hope that between us, we have done her credit and succeeded in presenting a complex, misunderstood and greatly underestimated character as a 'woman of some importance' in her own right.
July 26, 2018
The musings of a female woman authoress...
Following on from my last rant, I realise I could do a whole series of blogs banging on about words/phrases/grammatical mistakes that get my goat! I won't though, I promise - it's just that this particular one has arisen in an unexpected context …
A friend recently lent me Emmeline Pankhurst's autobiography, My Own Story, initially published in 1914 on the eve of WWI. It's a fascinating, harrowing, sobering account of the struggle for female enfranchisement, and I've posted a review so I won't repeat myself here – it's a question of grammar that I want to focus on. I was surprised to learn that the practice of substituting the perfectly serviceable adjective 'female' with the nouns 'woman' or 'women' is not, as I'd always supposed, an annoying modern phenomenon. Mrs Pankhurst constantly refers to 'woman suffrage' and 'women voters', as well as 'women writers', 'women physicians' etc, in exactly the same way we currently refer to 'women priests', 'women drivers' and 'a woman Prime Minister'. So there's obviously a long and, some would say, distinguished tradition for this usage. I did a bit of research, and apparently although it's not strictly correct to use 'woman' as an adjective it can be used as an 'appositive noun' (ie one giving extra or essential information) – which I suppose is what it does in the case of 'woman PM' etc.
But it still drives me mad! I mean, we don't do it the other way round, do we? If referring to a man fulfilling a traditionally female role, we don't say a 'man nurse', a 'man midwife' or a 'man model' - we use 'male'. So why not 'female'? Why, if we feel the need to specify the gender of a driver, don't we just say it was a female driver? Yes, it's more impersonal, but it's also more equal, and much less complicated. I've heard commentators tie themselves in knots describing 'a procession of priests, including women priests' when they could simply have said 'a procession of male and female priests'... actually, 'priests and priestesses' would sound much more intriguing and numinous wouldn't it, but let's not go there right now … No! Hang on a minute! Now that I think of it, that's exactly where we should go.
Adding -ess to a word to give it a feminine ending is still correct grammatical practise but it's fallen out of fashion, and when it is resurrected nowadays it's seen as patronising and diminutive. To describe someone as an 'authoress' or a 'poetess', for example, seems mildly insulting. So instead of using a perfectly serviceable feminine ending to specify the gender of an author, poet, driver, priest etc, we now use – yes, you've guessed it - 'woman'. But is that any less insulting? To my ears, that apposite noun sounds just as patronising and diminutive, if not more so! Consider how normal the phrase 'male and female priests' just sounded … whereas the phrase 'woman priest', like 'woman Prime Minister' is loaded with the assumption that this individual is something of an anomaly. Well, I refuse to use it, Mrs Pankhurst or no Mrs Pankhurst; I shall stick with 'male' and 'female'.
And now that I've got that particular bugbear off my chest, I shall cease ranting for a while. I could go on, you know… particularly regarding certain aphorisms … but I don't want to push my luck. Suffice it to say that a tidy house only seems to be the sign of a wasted life if you do your own cleaning, not if you employ someone else to do it while you're occupied with more important (ie more highly paid) employment … and that it should be obvious to anyone with even the hint of a conscience that half the world is too thin precisely because the other half is too rich ...
Words. They're powerful tools, but watch out you don't cut yourself on 'em.
A friend recently lent me Emmeline Pankhurst's autobiography, My Own Story, initially published in 1914 on the eve of WWI. It's a fascinating, harrowing, sobering account of the struggle for female enfranchisement, and I've posted a review so I won't repeat myself here – it's a question of grammar that I want to focus on. I was surprised to learn that the practice of substituting the perfectly serviceable adjective 'female' with the nouns 'woman' or 'women' is not, as I'd always supposed, an annoying modern phenomenon. Mrs Pankhurst constantly refers to 'woman suffrage' and 'women voters', as well as 'women writers', 'women physicians' etc, in exactly the same way we currently refer to 'women priests', 'women drivers' and 'a woman Prime Minister'. So there's obviously a long and, some would say, distinguished tradition for this usage. I did a bit of research, and apparently although it's not strictly correct to use 'woman' as an adjective it can be used as an 'appositive noun' (ie one giving extra or essential information) – which I suppose is what it does in the case of 'woman PM' etc.
But it still drives me mad! I mean, we don't do it the other way round, do we? If referring to a man fulfilling a traditionally female role, we don't say a 'man nurse', a 'man midwife' or a 'man model' - we use 'male'. So why not 'female'? Why, if we feel the need to specify the gender of a driver, don't we just say it was a female driver? Yes, it's more impersonal, but it's also more equal, and much less complicated. I've heard commentators tie themselves in knots describing 'a procession of priests, including women priests' when they could simply have said 'a procession of male and female priests'... actually, 'priests and priestesses' would sound much more intriguing and numinous wouldn't it, but let's not go there right now … No! Hang on a minute! Now that I think of it, that's exactly where we should go.
Adding -ess to a word to give it a feminine ending is still correct grammatical practise but it's fallen out of fashion, and when it is resurrected nowadays it's seen as patronising and diminutive. To describe someone as an 'authoress' or a 'poetess', for example, seems mildly insulting. So instead of using a perfectly serviceable feminine ending to specify the gender of an author, poet, driver, priest etc, we now use – yes, you've guessed it - 'woman'. But is that any less insulting? To my ears, that apposite noun sounds just as patronising and diminutive, if not more so! Consider how normal the phrase 'male and female priests' just sounded … whereas the phrase 'woman priest', like 'woman Prime Minister' is loaded with the assumption that this individual is something of an anomaly. Well, I refuse to use it, Mrs Pankhurst or no Mrs Pankhurst; I shall stick with 'male' and 'female'.
And now that I've got that particular bugbear off my chest, I shall cease ranting for a while. I could go on, you know… particularly regarding certain aphorisms … but I don't want to push my luck. Suffice it to say that a tidy house only seems to be the sign of a wasted life if you do your own cleaning, not if you employ someone else to do it while you're occupied with more important (ie more highly paid) employment … and that it should be obvious to anyone with even the hint of a conscience that half the world is too thin precisely because the other half is too rich ...
Words. They're powerful tools, but watch out you don't cut yourself on 'em.
July 13, 2018
Past Participles, old and new ...
Now just in case you're hoping that the title refers to something subtle, nostalgic or allegorical, I should make it clear that this really is a rant about grammar; not a very popular subject for a blog, though obviously it's one with which every writer should have at least a nodding acquaintance. Banging on about 'correct grammar' nowadays inevitably invites accusations of pedantry -'Language evolves,' we are constantly being reminded, 'get over it!' So what if a BBC announcer enthuses about multiple stadiums, and a national newspaper tends to blithely spilit infinitives and misplace it's apostrophes? Language is a living, breathing entity, and the English language, a mish-mash of Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse and French with no declensions to speak of and no hard-and-fast rules that any foreign student can grasp, has no grammatical high ground to take!
Well, I try, I really do try to assimilate the evolution of the English language. I remember once, years ago, reading The Little Mermaid (Disney version, I'm afraid) to one of my daughters and coming acoss the sentence 'she dove into the choppy waters'. 'Dove', I queried? Is that what passes for 'dived' in American - as in 'he snuck out from behind the rocks and dove into the pond'? Well apparently yes, both 'dove' and 'snuck' have been in American and Canadian usage for well over a century, and are becoming increasingly common in UK parlance too. How interesting, I thought, and why not? After all, the past participle of 'drive' is 'drove', and we don't say 'seeked', we say – er, sought (do you know, only the other day a Brighton University representative assured me that he'd 'sort' clarification over a community relations issue).
So why am I now getting all hot and bothered by reading, in good books written by authors of calibre, that a light 'shined', a victim 'beseeched', an athlete 'strived' and a car 'speeded up the drive'? Why do I want to insist that the correct words are 'shone', 'besought', 'strove' and 'sped'? And come to that, why do I sigh whenever I hear that a defendant 'pleaded guilty' to a charge and feel nostalgic for the days when they 'pled'? On seeking clarification from the oracle that is Merriam-Webster, I learn that 'speeded' and 'beseeched' are both perfectly fine alternatives to the older usage on both sides of the pond, that 'pleaded' is actually the correct form in common language though 'pled' still crops up occasionally in legalese, and that 'shined' - well, actually that was interesting; apparently it should, strictly speaking, be reserved for the verb meaning 'to cause to gleam by polishing' – eg 'the sun shone while I shined my shoes'. Now that's something I never knew before. 'Strived' though - 'strived' is incorrect. It should, apparently, still be 'strove'. Hurrah!
And now, if you'll excuse me, I really do have to go and get a life ...
Well, I try, I really do try to assimilate the evolution of the English language. I remember once, years ago, reading The Little Mermaid (Disney version, I'm afraid) to one of my daughters and coming acoss the sentence 'she dove into the choppy waters'. 'Dove', I queried? Is that what passes for 'dived' in American - as in 'he snuck out from behind the rocks and dove into the pond'? Well apparently yes, both 'dove' and 'snuck' have been in American and Canadian usage for well over a century, and are becoming increasingly common in UK parlance too. How interesting, I thought, and why not? After all, the past participle of 'drive' is 'drove', and we don't say 'seeked', we say – er, sought (do you know, only the other day a Brighton University representative assured me that he'd 'sort' clarification over a community relations issue).
So why am I now getting all hot and bothered by reading, in good books written by authors of calibre, that a light 'shined', a victim 'beseeched', an athlete 'strived' and a car 'speeded up the drive'? Why do I want to insist that the correct words are 'shone', 'besought', 'strove' and 'sped'? And come to that, why do I sigh whenever I hear that a defendant 'pleaded guilty' to a charge and feel nostalgic for the days when they 'pled'? On seeking clarification from the oracle that is Merriam-Webster, I learn that 'speeded' and 'beseeched' are both perfectly fine alternatives to the older usage on both sides of the pond, that 'pleaded' is actually the correct form in common language though 'pled' still crops up occasionally in legalese, and that 'shined' - well, actually that was interesting; apparently it should, strictly speaking, be reserved for the verb meaning 'to cause to gleam by polishing' – eg 'the sun shone while I shined my shoes'. Now that's something I never knew before. 'Strived' though - 'strived' is incorrect. It should, apparently, still be 'strove'. Hurrah!
And now, if you'll excuse me, I really do have to go and get a life ...
June 27, 2018
THE Woman - or The WOMEN?
Otto Bell's 2016 documentary 'The Eagle Huntress' was aired on the BBC recently. It's an absolutely fascinating story featuring thirteen-year-old Aisholpan, a nomadic Mongolian girl who captures and trains a young Golden Eagle as a hunting companion. The catch is that although her family has a twelve-generation tradition of Eagle Hunting it has always been passed down from father to son and and she is, or appears to be, breaking a strong social taboo in being the first female to take on the 'berkutchi' mantle, albeit with her father's and grandfather's blessing. Her moment of triumph comes at the annual Golden Eagle Festival at Ulgii where her eagle is awarded first place in the time trials; nevertheless certain sour-faced elders complain that Eagle Hunting is no sport for a woman and that she will soon meet her comeuppance when she tries to hunt alongside men in the freezing winter conditions of the mountains. (She doesn't, of course – after several attempts her eagle successfully kills a large fox, whose fur is much prized in the community for warm winter clothing).
The documentary is beautifully shot, with a breathtaking backdrop of austere rocky mountains and treeless grass plains under wide skies. The scene where Aisholpan, alone but connected by a long rope to her father waiting above, approaches the eyrie and after several frustrating attempts manages to seize the female eaglet, wrap her in a blanket and attach the bundle to the rope to be hauled up the mountainside is real edge-of-the-seat stuff, as is the winter fox-hunting trek across treacherous ice and hidden snowdrifts. Nomadic life is depicted in stark reality, its dependence upon and co-operation with Nature putting all of us Western couch potatoes to shame even as we watch. This, I thought, is life in the raw, what living as humans amongst other species on this planet should be, what our evolution and our sadly repressed instincts should equip us all to do. And the relationship between hunter and eagle is beautiful – it is not a lifetime of captivity for the bird, but a seven-year contract after which the adult eagle is set free with offerings of gratitude to live and breed in the wild for the rest of its life.
But there was, as I watched, a small niggle at the back of my mind that could not be ignored. 'I'm sure', I said to Mr B, 'I'm SURE I've heard of other Mongolian huntresses; I'm sure there's archaeological and historical evidence of stong women, tribal leaders even, buried with hunting gear and falconry gauntlets; I'm sure Aisholpan is not as unique as they're trying to make out.'
And it turns out I was right – in an academic paper published in May 2016, Adrienne Mayor joined many others in criticising the documentary for misrepresenting nomadic society to suit Western prejudice. Nomadic Mongols, she says, used to train both boys and girls to ride, shoot, hunt and defend the tribe and still remain more flexible about gender roles than other Asian cultures. 'Our ancestors had three comrades,' goes the old Kazakh saying; 'the Horse, the Dog and the Eagle'. A Greek ring from circa 425 BC shows a nomad horsewoman accompanied by all three, hunting a deer across the Steppe; 17th century heroine Janyl Myrza from what is now Kyrgyzstan is always depicted with her eagle, and Mongol Princess Nirgidma (1907-1982) was photographed in full hunting regalia with her eagle in 1932. Makpal Abdrazakova, who became an international celebrity a mere decade or so ago and was often photographed against a mountainous backdrop with her eagle held proudly aloft, confirms that most Kazakh elders gave her their blessing to become a 'berkutchi' because 'they remembered that women used to hunt with horses, dogs and eagles'.
Mayor's conclusion is that '[Aisholpan's] achievements are truly impressive. But they are made possible not only by her own grit and skill, but by her nomadic culture, in which women can be men's equals and girls can train eagles if they wish.'
So to misquote that old misogynist Sherlock Holmes (contrived segue, or what!) one remarkable woman's achievement NEVER means that she 'eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex' – for every Irene Adler there are both precedents and contemporaries aplenty, if patriarchal society would but dispense with the blinkers.
The documentary is beautifully shot, with a breathtaking backdrop of austere rocky mountains and treeless grass plains under wide skies. The scene where Aisholpan, alone but connected by a long rope to her father waiting above, approaches the eyrie and after several frustrating attempts manages to seize the female eaglet, wrap her in a blanket and attach the bundle to the rope to be hauled up the mountainside is real edge-of-the-seat stuff, as is the winter fox-hunting trek across treacherous ice and hidden snowdrifts. Nomadic life is depicted in stark reality, its dependence upon and co-operation with Nature putting all of us Western couch potatoes to shame even as we watch. This, I thought, is life in the raw, what living as humans amongst other species on this planet should be, what our evolution and our sadly repressed instincts should equip us all to do. And the relationship between hunter and eagle is beautiful – it is not a lifetime of captivity for the bird, but a seven-year contract after which the adult eagle is set free with offerings of gratitude to live and breed in the wild for the rest of its life.
But there was, as I watched, a small niggle at the back of my mind that could not be ignored. 'I'm sure', I said to Mr B, 'I'm SURE I've heard of other Mongolian huntresses; I'm sure there's archaeological and historical evidence of stong women, tribal leaders even, buried with hunting gear and falconry gauntlets; I'm sure Aisholpan is not as unique as they're trying to make out.'
And it turns out I was right – in an academic paper published in May 2016, Adrienne Mayor joined many others in criticising the documentary for misrepresenting nomadic society to suit Western prejudice. Nomadic Mongols, she says, used to train both boys and girls to ride, shoot, hunt and defend the tribe and still remain more flexible about gender roles than other Asian cultures. 'Our ancestors had three comrades,' goes the old Kazakh saying; 'the Horse, the Dog and the Eagle'. A Greek ring from circa 425 BC shows a nomad horsewoman accompanied by all three, hunting a deer across the Steppe; 17th century heroine Janyl Myrza from what is now Kyrgyzstan is always depicted with her eagle, and Mongol Princess Nirgidma (1907-1982) was photographed in full hunting regalia with her eagle in 1932. Makpal Abdrazakova, who became an international celebrity a mere decade or so ago and was often photographed against a mountainous backdrop with her eagle held proudly aloft, confirms that most Kazakh elders gave her their blessing to become a 'berkutchi' because 'they remembered that women used to hunt with horses, dogs and eagles'.
Mayor's conclusion is that '[Aisholpan's] achievements are truly impressive. But they are made possible not only by her own grit and skill, but by her nomadic culture, in which women can be men's equals and girls can train eagles if they wish.'
So to misquote that old misogynist Sherlock Holmes (contrived segue, or what!) one remarkable woman's achievement NEVER means that she 'eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex' – for every Irene Adler there are both precedents and contemporaries aplenty, if patriarchal society would but dispense with the blinkers.
June 15, 2018
Who wants a 'perfect body'?
A couple of days ago I watched a fascinating programme on BBC4, presented by the wonderful Professor Alice Roberts, called 'Can Science Make Me Perfect?' If it hadn't been for the synopsis accompanying the billing in the Radio Times I would have assumed it was about cosmetic surgery, diet and weight control and given it a wide berth – which would have been a shame, as it couldn't have been more different!
Prof Roberts, who's always up for anything in her documentaries (I'll always remember the one on spiders …) took part in a fun experiment carried out by the Science Museum to see what the human body would look like if it borrowed evolutionary modifications from other species to iron out the kinks that plague us – the two most obvious being back pain (which afflicts almost everyone to some degree past middle age) and difficulties in childbirth (a potential hazard for fifty-two percent of the population). With the help of a 3D scan of her own self-confessed 'imperfect, forty-something body', she tracked the modifications that would have to be made to produce this ideal human. These included the chimpanzee's shorter lumber spine and higher pelvis, the shock-absorbing leg structure of the ostrich, the more heart-friendly arterial system of the dog, the flight-efficient lungs of the swan, the swivelling ears of the cat, the 'backwards' retina of the octopus, the amphibial ability to change skin colour according to environment and, most intriguingly of all, the kangaroo's pouch to hold and nourish a developing foetus. This last modification was particularly complicated and it involved placing the nipples inside the pouch (thereby losing the human breasts) and carrying the developing baby for several years within it to allow for human brain development.
The resulting image, unveiled to the public and to Roberts herself at the Science Museum in London, looked suitably weird in comparison to what we're accustomed to – but also oddly appealing, including as it did large round eyes, pointy Spock-like ears and a dear little baby's head poking out of the stomach pouch beneath the flat chest. It was such a refreshing change to the usual 'perfect body' spiel churned out ad nauseum under the auspices of 'health and beauty' that I was at first reluctant to find any fault with it – how wonderful to have the benefit of all these tried and tested evolutionary modifications! But then I got a bit picky, and started to wonder whether nicking the attributes of non-mammalian species wasn't something of a cheat – shouldn't she have stuck to the chimp, dog, cat and kangaroo and created the 'perfect mammal', something more in keeping with what evolution could credibly have achieved within one class of creature? Another problem, bearing in mind that evolution is geared towards the continuation of the species, is the years-long gestation of the new, improved human baby – if, say, one of the fat fools pressed the nuclear button and we were reduced to a mere handful somewhere in the southern hemisphere, surely we'd need to reproduce a little faster than that in order to survive (painful childbirth notwithstanding)?
Anyway, here a link to the accompanying 'Radio Times' article – have a look and see what you think. I'd love to hear your comments! https://www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/20...
Prof Roberts, who's always up for anything in her documentaries (I'll always remember the one on spiders …) took part in a fun experiment carried out by the Science Museum to see what the human body would look like if it borrowed evolutionary modifications from other species to iron out the kinks that plague us – the two most obvious being back pain (which afflicts almost everyone to some degree past middle age) and difficulties in childbirth (a potential hazard for fifty-two percent of the population). With the help of a 3D scan of her own self-confessed 'imperfect, forty-something body', she tracked the modifications that would have to be made to produce this ideal human. These included the chimpanzee's shorter lumber spine and higher pelvis, the shock-absorbing leg structure of the ostrich, the more heart-friendly arterial system of the dog, the flight-efficient lungs of the swan, the swivelling ears of the cat, the 'backwards' retina of the octopus, the amphibial ability to change skin colour according to environment and, most intriguingly of all, the kangaroo's pouch to hold and nourish a developing foetus. This last modification was particularly complicated and it involved placing the nipples inside the pouch (thereby losing the human breasts) and carrying the developing baby for several years within it to allow for human brain development.
The resulting image, unveiled to the public and to Roberts herself at the Science Museum in London, looked suitably weird in comparison to what we're accustomed to – but also oddly appealing, including as it did large round eyes, pointy Spock-like ears and a dear little baby's head poking out of the stomach pouch beneath the flat chest. It was such a refreshing change to the usual 'perfect body' spiel churned out ad nauseum under the auspices of 'health and beauty' that I was at first reluctant to find any fault with it – how wonderful to have the benefit of all these tried and tested evolutionary modifications! But then I got a bit picky, and started to wonder whether nicking the attributes of non-mammalian species wasn't something of a cheat – shouldn't she have stuck to the chimp, dog, cat and kangaroo and created the 'perfect mammal', something more in keeping with what evolution could credibly have achieved within one class of creature? Another problem, bearing in mind that evolution is geared towards the continuation of the species, is the years-long gestation of the new, improved human baby – if, say, one of the fat fools pressed the nuclear button and we were reduced to a mere handful somewhere in the southern hemisphere, surely we'd need to reproduce a little faster than that in order to survive (painful childbirth notwithstanding)?
Anyway, here a link to the accompanying 'Radio Times' article – have a look and see what you think. I'd love to hear your comments! https://www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/20...
