Robbie Williams’s Eternity
Dear friends,
Izzy took a week off work this past week, and seems to have enjoyed herself relaxing, reading (a book on the Louvre, a book on feminist films), going out to a movie (Dr Strange), once to the National Gallery where she saw the same Afro-Atlantic Histories exhibit I saw about a month ago, and once, this Friday, to the Washington D.C. zoo. She photographed a number of the animals
A mother and child
A noisy sea-lion
Two pandas
and a lion (among others)
She also wrote and posted one of her fictions: these are novellas which often take the form of sequels (fan-fiction), but some are original. I know she watched Eurovision, some ice-skating contests, and stayed in contact with people through groups she’s joined on discord. She drew too, and put a lovely picture of a bird on her wall. You will see it behind her in the above video.
A beautiful poster-like picture of a deer
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For myself, I conquered (wrote) that paper I’ve been reading for on and off for about three weeks: “Barsetshire in Pictures.” I covered the original illustrations for Framley Parsonage, The Small House at Allington and The Last Chronicle of Barset, as well as the film adaptations of The Warden and Barchester Towers in the 1983 Barchester Chronicles and the 2015 (ITV type production) Doctor Thorne (scripted by Jerome Fellowes). I tried to show through these pictures what makes the unity of Barsetshire. I am much relieved tonight for I was worrying I had taken on too much, and no more than anyone else do I like to be endlessly working, much less to deadlines. It has been very enjoyable and after I’ve given the talk, I’ll put the text online and write a blog about all I did for it.
Here is a still from Doctor Thorne: Stefanie Martini as Mary Thorne, doing good deeds in the village even as she is ostracized, humiliated — I found watching the film through the lens of how far did it convey the spirit of Trollope’s Barsetshire enabled me to enjoy it far more.
How did I manage this?
In my sudden nervous anxiety (for I have yet to write that Anne Finch review, and I’ve now promised a paper on the manuscript books of Finch and Jane Austen for the October ED/ASECS meeting), I this morning realized that I kept thinking today was 5/23, the day for registering for OLLI at Mason and a day I told myself I’d send in the proposal for the 4 week next (!) winter OLLI at Mason (The Heroine’s Journey, which I described here already but here it is again), but I find it’s only 5/16. Maybe I fooled myself to get myself to do this more than a week ahead of time.
The Heroines’ Journey
Many courses in myth take as Bible, Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces (pop movies use an 11 page abridgement) so for this one we’ll take Maureen Murdoch’s The Heroine’s Journey (distillation of many books on “Archetypal Patterns in women’s fiction“) and read two mythic short novels from an alternative POV, Margaret Atwood’s Penelopiad (no she did not sit for 20 years knitting and unknitting the same shawl), and Christa Wolf’s Medea (no she did not hack her brother’s skeleton to piece, nor kill those children); then two ordinary realistic ironic short novels, Elena Ferrante’s Lost Daughter (Leda is the lost daughter) and Austen’s Northanger Abbey (Catherine had it right). We’ll see Outlander, S1E1 (Claire transported) & Prime Suspect S1E1 (Helen Mirren as Jane Tennison).
So at 4 this morning then I read the openings of three books which just rejuvenated me: literary feminism, wonderful warm hearts (I loved the tone of all three): Heroine with 1001 Faces by Maria Tartar, The Heroine’s Journey by Maurren Murdock, Archetypal Patterns in Women’s Fiction by Annis Pratt — filled with wonderful poetry too. They are the background for the course I mean to do next winter: The Heroine’s Journey. They are not just about books but about the cruelty and suppression of women in our society which as we know has stepped up in the US recently. I am rejuvenated and re-galvanized, refreshed.
1970s feminism is not dead, but, as you know there is a large body of people in the US out to re-bondage women, to renew and enforce more subjection of women.
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On 18-l someone told of her struggles to reach J. Cameron’s great unpublished dissertation on Anne Finch (Australian university sometimes willing to share and then not again), and O’Neil’s banned to all eyes for huge numbers of years Oxford dissertation. She called this a copyright problem. She is an obnoxious woman who approves of the establishment, but her email (as well as my proposal for a paper on her and Finch’s manuscripts) reminded me of what research was like before the Internet, especially for someone like me: a nobody, with no professional title from an institution beyond my doctorate, having no connections, and finding travel such an ordeal. So I told of myself on this listserv:
I have a complicated xerox of Cameron’s great book on Anne Finch. I got it years ago when I was teaching at American University. The research and inter-loan librarian got it for me — all the way from Australia in a big box. I know about O’Neile’s Oxford University dissertation. I tried to get hold of it many years ago, and found that it was made totally unavailable — in no way could I reach it or any part. Then several years ago because of the presence of the Internet and having far more sources available, and librarians to consult I was told the man had banned use of it, and even looking at it for a long number of years — probably beyond my lifetime. This seemed very strange to me: why write a book and then ban anyone from seeing any part. But I have come across this in other studies (a similar case, funnily enough), in my Vittoria Colonna researches, where also, a coincidental parallel I was able to get a copy of the important 1840 edition of her poems, the first nearly complete ones as a xerox which also came to AU in a big box.
I still have both xeroxes and I still use both — having made them much more usable for myself (using stapler, scissors, folders &c&c)
There’s a kick to my story – -a true one. The same librarian got me both books. In some spate of firing during the 1990s she was let go as useless, unimportant, not needed. What a waste of money you see.
Thinking about Austen too and the pattern of Tuesdays across her novels (except in the cases of Northanger Abbey and Sanditon, early and very late novels) and drawing of the timelines from of her novel:
Every single Tuesday I’ve found – and I’ve found them in all but one of the 6 famous ones, in The Watsons (the first sentence), and (more vaguely) in Lady Susan are connected to a disappointment, humiliation or mortification. She is exorcising (or was the first time she did it) some hurtful grief; after a while, it became a code known to her family probably. I’ve never tried to publish a paper when I was trying because I didn’t want to be laughed at. I think it’s not a known truth because those who have seen it dismiss it. Janeites and many mainstream people don’t want to know of trauma dealt with in this way in Austen.
The way to figure out what year a novel is set in — or what possible/probable years is to work out where Easter is in the novel. Novels which don’t let you work this out — well for those looking up Easter won’t work. But Austen does notice Easter in her books. Another way is two dates where you are given day, date, month — there are nowadays calendars on the Net to use. One used to have to buy them. Fanny Price’s stay in Portsmouth is at first prolonged because (we are told) Easter came late that year. And then Austen mentions days of the week and also how many days go by for a trip say. She had an almanac on her desk — to her I think it was a way of establishing probability through having events take place in probable amounts of time. We do not in her 6 books and older fragments suddenly leap many years or even months. A couple of or few weeks, yes.
Where there is no mortifying Tuesday: the juvenilia, scraps, and Northanger Abbey and Sanditon. NA too early, first draft before the event that gave rise to these occurred; Sanditon a tremendously rushed draft, she is very sick, dying, and has no time for working out such (haunted) in-jokes.
I don’t try to publish this because I don’t want it to be rejected and I don’t want to be laughed it if it were to published in some toned down form.
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My two classes on Anglo-Indian novels went so well this term. The OLLI at AU people even loved Shakespeare Wallah! I shall do the topic again in two years with a different set of books – and having read more on the history, more memoirs and novels in the meantime. I’m still reading the Raj Quartet, into the fourth volume and last night was so moved by the last episode of 1984 Jewel in the Crown.
Geoffrey Kendall, the great disillusioned actor — like the poor monkeys on the road no longer wanted as once he was (from Shakespeare Wallah)
The Rosemont Garden people came up with a new plan for my garden, for re-planting and weekly care: $800 less than I paid the couple I was not comfortable about. I’m signing and look forward to a normative business relationship.
A gratified evening’s note — I feel so good for Izzy that she had a good week and that I am wanted too — as long as I come for free– I am glad to fit in. Relieved I was able to do what I promised.
A beautiful depiction of a cozy bed — seen on twitter
Ellen
Under the Sign of Sylvia II 