Author: kristen

bookish things · Reading Challenges

Why Reading Challenges Can Hinder Your Love for Books

kristenLeave a comment
From Pixabay, courtesy of prettysleepy

If you’ve stuck with me in this column, you know that I have often recommended various reading challenges to encourage us all to read outside our comfort zones, to read more diversely, and to find a new topic to learn. I believe I offered several to choose from at the start of this year or end of last year. I’ve even created my own reading challenges for a couple of years on my blog.

As is my habit, I would go through the challenges I decided to do for any given year and try to find books that would fulfill each task. I always find some great books that way. It’s interesting to me to see what I initially thought I’d read as opposed to what I actually read at the end of the year. Then, over the past couple of years, I noticed something different.

Reading, the activity I love above all things, had started to completely stress me out.

Not the act itself, but the endless choices. I had so many unread books that I couldn’t decide what to pick next, so I dithered for days between books, paralyzed by an indecision that was stealing my joy.

Eventually, I realized that I wasn’t reading for pleasure anymore or reading to learn something. I was reading only with the goal to hit an arbitrary number that I had picked based on whatever reading challenge(s) I wanted to do. Reading had become competitive, and I have never been a competitive person.

Cue my booknerd-angst. In a burst of quasi-panicked self-discovery, I realized that I didn’t actually want to do reading challenges anymore. Aside from being turned off by the competitiveness, it also felt performative. But how could that be when I loved learning about new books so much? Did not reading 100 books a year make me a bad reader? How could I be a real reader if I wasn’t wrapped up in some reading challenge or another? I told you I had angst about it.

What I eventually realized was that reading dozens of books a year might help me knock down my TBR faster, but what good did that do if I couldn’t remember a single thing about a book I’d just read? Sure, I was reading fast. I was reading a ton of wildly diverse books. But as soon as I put the book down, my brain did a big memory dump and I instantly forgot what I’d just read. Note that I didn’t say, “As soon as I finished the book.” No, it was literally as soon as I put it down to go do something else. I could be in the middle of a book and not be able tell you most of the character names or major plot points. And that was for books I was actually enjoying! If it was a bit of a slog to get through or wasn’t grabbing my attention fully, I would have been hard pressed to tell you even the title or author. It started to feel like there was no real difference between reading a book and forgetting it and not reading it at all. My “read count” might have been ticking up to 50, 80, even 100 books a year, but in actuality it was more like four, the ones I remembered because I loved and engaged with them so strongly.

I don’t think it was entirely coincidental that I was concurrently learning more about slow living and trying to apply those ideas to my life. Perhaps it was the cognitive dissonance between trying to live a slow life and also trying to burn through dozens of books a year that made me rethink my approach to reading. Mostly, it was the fact that I didn’t like reading books and then forgetting them instantly. But just like the newly apostatic, I still felt guilty about what I viewed as abandoning my beliefs and goals and the stress of it, even though it was entirely of my own making, caused me to start avoiding books altogether. At the same time, I stumbled across a couple BookTubers who reminded me that it is ok to read slowly and engage deeply with a text, to savor it, to take notes about it, to analyze it. They talked about many of the practices and habits that I used to rely on while reading, which I had fallen away from in the frenzy of reading challenges. One of them, Eddy Hood from The Read Well Podcast, even has a motto that I thought was helpful: “Read slowly. Take notes. Apply the ideas.” That simple statement kick-started me, and it felt like I was getting permission to read only twelve books a year, or six or even just one as long as I engaged with it and got something out of it. Or rather, it reminded me that I can give myself permission to slow down.

Ironically, since coming to the realization that reading challenges had become bad for me, I’ve read more books, and more deeply, than I had in the last couple years. I’ve found my joy in reading again. I’m building my new habits, or rather reviving my old ones, to think more deeply about what I read. I don’t mean that I feel the need to analyze some beach-read-brain-candy kind of book that is supposed to be read in a weekend and then passed along and never thought of again. I mean getting back into more challenging books like classics and nonfiction, maybe even some philosophy here and there. Writing down new vocabulary words, looking at the rhetorical devices used, finding symbolism and imagery, highlighting favorite quotes, disagreeing with parts of what the author says, and thinking about what I’m learning from each book. I remember why I got literature degrees in the first place. I remember why I love reading. I remember that I believe reading well is better than reading quickly.

Now if I could only find my little sticky book tabs…

book review · bookish things · historical fiction

Boudicca’s Daughter by Elodie Harper — Giving a Voice to the Forgotten

kristenLeave a comment

Elodie Harper’s Boudicca’s Daughter tells the imagined story of two young girls who, according to Roman accounts, were ordered by Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, the Roman governor of Britain, to be raped by Roman soldiers while their mother was flogged. This atrocity became the biggest catalyst for Boudicca’s rebellion against Rome. Historically, we know almost nothing about these daughters: not their names, their fates, or even whether Boudicca had other children besides the two girls. After their assault, they disappear completely from the historical record.

That’s what makes this novel so compelling. Harper takes these nameless figures, women who were written out of history, and gives them identities, voices, and lives of their own. The book begins with the lead-up to Boudicca’s rebellion, but the uprising itself only occupies about the first quarter. The rest of the story unfolds from the perspective of her eldest daughter, who in this book is called Solina, as she navigates the aftermath of her mother’s rebellion – the trauma of the assault, the crushing defeat of her people, and her struggle to survive being sold into slavery in the heart of Rome.

One of the things I appreciated most was Harper’s willingness to explore the complexity of what happens after the rebellion ends, especially to the women who are left behind. Solina’s story feels like a reclamation of history, giving voice to those who were silenced. I’m always drawn to stories of strong women, and this one in particular highlights how resilience and strength can take many forms. Sometimes strength is quiet, sometimes it is choosing one of two evils and hoping you can live with that choice. It is aways deeply personal.

A theme that really challenged me while reading was the “enemies to lovers” dynamic. Normally, that trope doesn’t bother me when it’s something like academic rivals, sports competitors, or even just a couple of people who take an instant dislike to each other. But I’ve always been uncomfortable with stories that romanticize relationships between oppressors and victims, for example, between a Nazi officer and a Jewish prisoner. While such relationships almost certainly existed – I would think it’s a survival mechanism in at least some cases – I’ve always found that version of the trope disturbing and something I’d rather not read even if it might be historically accurate.

Yet in Boudicca’s Daughter, Harper approaches that idea in a way that made me think more deeply. When Solina forms a complicated relationship with Paulinus, the very man who ordered her rape and who destroyed her people, it isn’t presented as simple romance. If it was, it would have been unforgivably disrespectful to Solina, Boudicca, and every other woman in history who had to make a similar choice. Instead, it’s messy, painful, and psychologically complex. It made me reflect on how trauma can distort love and loyalty, how survival can blur moral boundaries, and how what we label “enemies to lovers” might sometimes be closer to a portrayal of coercion, dependency, or even Stockholm syndrome. I am still not sure what I think about Solina and Paulinus’s relationship or how honest such a relationship could ever really be.

In the end, I came away deeply impressed. Boudicca’s Daughter is not just a story about rebellion; it’s about identity and reclaiming one’s voice in the aftermath of violence. It’s powerful, unsettling, and unforgettable. I’d highly recommend it to readers who love stories about strong women, historical fiction, or anyone interested in the human side of Boudicca’s rebellion.

(Image credit: duncan1890 via Getty Images)
Exploring Connections in ‘Landlines’ by Raynor Winn
book review · lifestyle · travel

Exploring Connections in ‘Landlines’ by Raynor Winn

kristenLeave a comment

Landlines by Raynor Winn Genre: memoir/ nature writing I read it as a(n): trade paper Length: 303 pp Her Grace’s rating: 5 stars

Landlines – not just the telephones for old people! In Winn’s newest book, they are lines on maps. Lines on the land. Lines of communication. The theme of Winn’s third book are the various lines we encounter everyday and how they connect us to each other, to our home, to the places and people we love. 

Ray and Moth went walking, with the intention to walk the Cape Wrath Trail. That trail’s name sounds scary to me and I would probably die. Moth seemed to be getting worse and falling into a depression. Ray browbeat him into going walking again. At first, and for much of their trip, she felt guilty about it because Moth was convinced he was no longer able to do a long distance walk and he seemed to be genuinely miserable. But Ray, understandably, cannot give up on him or her hope. So she pushed and pulled and harangued until he kept going. And soon enough, they hit a rhythm that worked and rather than walking Cape Wrath and then going home, they decided to go to the next leg of the trail. And then the next. And the next. And ultimately they walked a thousand miles back home to Cornwall. 

As I wrote about previously, I don’t care if any of Raynor and Moth’s story is made up. I don’t think it is, but even if it is, I don’t care. I don’t think it matters. It’s memoir, not testimony, and there is still plenty of inspiration to be gleaned from any book, fiction or otherwise. I found Landlines to be just as inspiring and beautifully written as The Salt Path and The Wild Silence. I especially loved the references in this book to The Salt Path and how Ray now looks back on that time as one of the best parts of their life, even though while they were in it, it felt like one of the worst. I loved the way she weaves in reflections and memories of her life with Moth. They are all full of love, now tinged with the anticipation of dread and grief. “He reaches his hand out, and for a second I’m taking the last few steps through a freezing Arctic river and he’s pulling me up on to the bank of black ash, but that’s only a memory now” (20). 

A word I learned from this book: Moraine, an accumulation of dirt and rocks and other debris that is carried and deposited by moving glaciers. 

Some of my favorite quotes:

[Upon being given a couple bottles of beer by a stranger at a pub] “Put these in your bag, they’re for the big man later, don’t tell him ‘til tonight. What he’s doing, being out here, it’s a big thing. I might be loud, and drunk, but I know courage when I see it” (101). 

They’re the moments which turn desperate, annoying or desolate experiences into an understanding that the person you share the plastic bag with is the one, that you have the ability to laugh at anything, and that even having lost most of your material possessions you can survive on love, hope and a packet of dried noodles (105). 

“I know you’ve walked a long way.”

I look down at my clothes, muddy, ripped, smelling of dried bog-water. “I know, we do look a bit of a mess.”

“No, you can’t get away with it like that. I know who you are. Your book changed our lives – it changed the way we live our lives. We would never have given ourselves the time to just walk, not before we read your book.”

I look at the couple, heading towards middle age, but glowing from the wind, sun and enthusiasm. “The book might have given you an idea, but it didn’t change your lives.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because books don’t change lives. They can change how you think, but it’s you that changed your life” (227). 

Thousands of feet over thousands of years have trodden many of the same trails we have, tracing their passage on to the landscape, imprinting their memories into the soil. What remains are not just paths, they’re precious landlines that connect us to the earth, to our past and to each other. We’ve followed them for a thousand miles, seen so much, heard so many stories, until now, at the edge of the land, we’ve become something other than just walkers. We’re at the point where time and place and energy combine, where we become the path, the walker and the story. No need for runestones, it’s all held within us; we’re already part of our landlines, part of the song of the land (298-299).

academic · book review · bookish things · Medievalism

From Purity to Corruption: Gardens in Medieval and Gothic Stories

kristen2 Comments

So this initially started as a straightforward book review. I read a book that I’m reviewing for the Historical Novel Society, called Her Wicked Roots, which is a retelling of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “Rappaccini’s Daughter.” But as I worked on that review, I kept getting side-tracked and decided that I wanted to write a more in-depth article about gardens, both mediaeval and Gothic. Plus, I can’t post my HNS reviews until they publish it first. So instead I decided to remove the HNS book from this and will just post that plain review once they publish it. So now, behold! I will talk at you about gardens.

The concept of a divine garden has carried symbolic weight for thousands of years. From the gods’ garden in ancient Sumeria to the Hesperides’ golden apples, to the comparatively new Garden of Eden, stories of sacred gardens appear in myths all around the world. In medieval Europe, the image of the hortus conclusus (the enclosed garden) was particularly popular. It symbolized purity, chastity, and divine protection. In art, the Virgin Mary is often depicted sitting serenely within walled greenery, surrounded by lilies or roses that symbolize innocence and immaculate conception. The hortus conclusus was supposed to be safety itself. 

Anonymous, Madonna and saints in the Garden of Paradise (around 1410), Public Domain

But by the time Gothic literature popped up centuries later, that enclosed space had changed. The Gothic garden is the hortus conclusus inverted, a space where safety becomes confinement, purity becomes corruption, and nature no longer reflects divine harmony but human ambition, repression, and dread. It is the Upside Down of gardens! Also, humans ruin everything. 

St. Dunstan in the East, London, my own photo taken Sept 26, 2024.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” portrays this transformation. Hawthorne sets his tale in a beautiful but deadly garden in mediaeval Padua, which mirrors the mediaeval hortus conclusus while also making it dark and twisty, and honestly way cooler. Rappaccini filled his garden with extremely poisonous plants and raised his daughter, Beatrice, among them until she herself literally became toxic. Birds avoid her, bugs and butterflies drop dead if they breathe near her. She is an innocent made unclean, a sort of parody of the Marian enclosed garden. Rather than a rose without blemish, Beatrice is a warped flower that was made monstrous by her father’s quest for knowledge at any cost. Rappaccini’s garden is a site of scientific overreach and destruction. It might be hidden away but it’s not protective, and its walls keep in corruption rather than keeping it out. Beatrice is just another victim of patriarchal control and as such, she is easily discarded once she is of no further use to her father or the story.

The Gothic novel frequently returns to this darker version of the garden. There are ruins, tangled vines, shadowy groves, hidden paths, and rot rather than cultivation. Nature turns into something dangerous and unhealthy. Flowers no longer symbolize purity. In Gothic hands, the garden isn’t a symbol of sanctity anymore. It becomes a mirror of humanity’s depravity. This reversal would very likely cause the Romantics to rend their garments and tear their hair. Byron would probably write super emo poems about it, for sure.

The medieval tradition makes the change in how nature is viewed even sharper. Texts such as the Song of Solomon which reads, “My sister, my spouse, is a garden enclosed, a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed up” (4.12, Douay-Rheims Bible), were read as allegories of Mary’s virginity. Poetry and iconography saw gardens as pure and contained spaces. But the Gothic imagination with its preoccupation with death and the uncanny, was, like Romanticism, a reaction against Enlightenment rationalism. As a result, the Gothic turned the idea of enclosure inside out. Enclosure meant captivity. Purity blurred into promiscuity. Now everything is all open and leaky and symbolic of corruption, specifically female corruption.

This shift tells us a lot about cultural change. The Gothic garden reflects human fears about unchecked knowledge, the danger of passion, and women’s agency. God forbid a woman have agency in any time period. These changes make sense when we view them as a reflection of the fears Enlightenment rationality and pursuit of science had upon much of society. Hawthorne’s Padua is one piece of this cultural shift, but so are the other crumbling castles, gardens, and estates that are scattered throughout Gothic fiction across the centuries.

Where the hortus conclusus invites reflection about purity, the Gothic garden forces us to reckon with corruption. Both depend on boundaries and are heavy with symbolism, but they serve opposite ends. One offers a vision of sanctity; the other, a mirror of human darkness. And yet they are inextricably linked: without Mary’s walled gardens, the poisoned gardens of the Gothic would lose their danger. The Gothic thrives on inversion, and the Gothic garden is my favorite reversal.

Further Reading:

Reference:
The Holy Bible: Douay-Rheims Version. Translated from the Latin Vulgate. Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 1971.

book review

Cultivating Our Garden with Voltaire: Why Candide Still Resonates

kristenLeave a comment

Candide by Voltaire Genre: Classics I read it as a(n): pb Length: 155 pp, including extensive footnotes Her Grace’s rating: 4 stars 

Stick with me here. I promise this has to do with Candide. Most of you probably know that the Enlightenment was a movement focused on reason, individualism, and challenging traditional institutes of authority like religion. One of the greatest Enlightenment authors, philosophers, essayists, and satirists was Voltaire. He had a bit of a feud going with Gottfried Leibnitz. That was the guy who independently discovered calculus at the same time as Sir Isaac Newton. Seriously, fuck both of those guys. Actually, nobody apparently ever did fuck Newton. The going belief is that he died a virgin. That’s what you get for inventing calculus. 

Then, on November 1, 1755, an offshore earthquake caused a tsunami that all but annihilated Lisbon, Portugal. It killed about 30-40,000 of Lisbon’s ~200,000 people outright, and about 10-15,000 more in Morocco and other seaside port towns. All of Lisbon’s churches were destroyed. Incidentally, this earthquake also occurred on All Saint’s Day and the vast majority of those killed were in church for worship. The irony.

This catastrophe posed a big problem for Leibnitz and the Optimists, those who follow the philosophical idea that this is the best of all possible worlds. God wiping out all the churches on his own holiday sure is a hilarious way of showing that this is the best of all possible worlds and that it somehow solves the Problem of Evil while also proving God’s perfect goodness. Leibnitz and his fellow Optimists apparently tied themselves in knots trying to rationalize this in the face of such tragic loss of innocent life and human suffering. I’m not sure why they didn’t have a crisis of Optimism in the face of the vast suffering and death caused by capitalism, slavery, colonialism, war, torture, disease, or any of the other daily horrors that existed and still exist, but compartmental thinking is a special skill most humans have. People are strange. 

Enter Voltaire, that absolute scamp, with An Explanation! Sort of, anyway. He wrote a satirical novella – if you guessed Candide, you were right! – to refute the concept of Optimism since this is very clearly NOT a great world and he was going to point that out to anybody who thought it was. I did mention he was a satirist, yes? Good, that bit is important.

Now, on to the actual story!

Candide is a young scholar in the house of a baron. He gets kicked out of the baron’s estate for carrying on with the baron’s daughter, Cunégonde. Candide sets out to try to make his own fortune. Along the way, he gets forcibly conscripted into the military, gets shipwrecked, survives an earthquake (nods to Lisbon), gets flogged, reunites with Cunégonde, loses her again, goes to South America, finds actual El Dorado and befriends its king, inexplicably decides to leave El Dorado but now he’s filthy rich since he picked up mass quantities of diamonds and gemstones just laying on the ground in that city, loses most of said fortune when the majority of his pack red sheep (AKA, llamas) fall off a cliff, has run-ins with Inquisitors, and a variety of other upsetting and disturbing experiences in his vast travels. Seriously, it’s like the story of Job, only Candide is a whole lot derpier than Job, and naive. I think naivete is really unappealing in an adult, and I am pretty sure Voltaire thought so as well. The only good thing that happens during his varied travels, really, is that Candide collects a terrific assortment of friends and companions. 

All of Candide’s experiences sorely test his devotion to Optimism which, as he explains to his servant Cacambo, is “The mania for insisting that all is well when all is by no means well” (52). It’s the same line of reasoning as “God works in mysterious ways” or “Everything happens for a reason,” and just as unrealistic. Voltaire thoroughly excoriates Optimism as delusion by using his little treatise to highlight religious hypocrisy in the face of massive amounts of suffering, humiliation, war, greed, and human cruelty, because these things happen in this alleged best of all possible worlds. 

Voltaire is imaginative and diabolical in the torments he invents, only not really because everything he heaps onto poor Candide is drawn from the real world. Some of it is honestly funny, such as when he got rich in and then lost his money and jewels because the llamas that were packing it out for him fell off a cliff. Poor llamas. But many other examples were not funny, and not intended to be so. For instance, Candide encounters a slave who is only half-clothed and is missing a leg and hand. Candide stops to talk to him and the man tells him, “When we work in the sugar-mills and get a finger caught in the machinery, they cut off the hand; but if we try to run away, they cut off a leg: I have found myself in both situations. It is the price we pay for the sugar you eat in Europe” (51-52, my emphasis). This is just one scene where Voltaire criticizes the common practice of the time. He was against slavery, and took ample opportunity to speak against it in Candide, despite his sometimes problematic views on race, which we can also see in the novella. 

Similarly, Voltaire challenged colonialism and religious hypocrisy by showing Candide’s experiences with the Jesuit priests. They had control over the indigenous peoples and claimed that they were there to convert and be spiritual leaders to them. That’s pretty hard to do when your whole group is deeply involved in political and economic power struggles that expose the breathtaking hypocrisy of such organizations. Throughout Candide, Voltaire spoke against colonialism, religion, greed, war, and the general human capacity for overwhelming cruelty. I could go on for days about it, and how amazing it is that he could so thoroughly cover so many pressing issues in under 100 pages. But I won’t. I just urge you to read it if you haven’t done so.

Candide reads as easily as a modern book, partly because so many of the topics Voltaire tackles in it are still so disgustingly relevant to today’s society. That is the beauty of satire as well. It takes heavy topics that nobody wants to think about and uses absurdity to mirror those issues. It can also highlight the struggle between cynicism and hope. Personally, I think too many people confuse reality for cynicism. One can be hopeful and work towards good things and still be realistic about the fact that we do, in fact, live in a vast and relentless hellscape. The two are not mutually exclusive. That’s where Candide’s naivety comes in, and why we shouldn’t be naive. Also, let’s be honest. Satire also works as a social commentary because some of it is fucking hilarious and we remember things that are funny, even if they are darkly so. Laugh or cry, folks. If you have to do one or the other, I reckon it’s better to laugh.

I really liked the end, which has been a source of discussion for a long time. In case you have gotten this far and don’t want to be spoiled about the ending, I’ll put it behind a spoiler tag.

Click to reveal the spoiler Candide, Cunégonde, Pangloss, Cacambo, Martin, and a handful of other motley characters retreat from society and go live on a little farm, their Optimism thoroughly beaten into submission.

On occasion, Pangloss tries to wax philosophic with Candide, whose final reply is, “That is well said, … but we must cultivate our garden” (94). That’s a nice little bit of Stoicism, which Voltaire embodied through his own preference for emotional control and rationality, even if he might not have specifically adhered to that philosophy. It also brings to my mind the mediaeval concept of the hortus conclusus, the enclosed garden, a metaphor for one’s inner thoughts and growth, and protection. Traditionally, it was originally symbolic of the Virgin Mary and purity, and I am morally certain that Voltaire did not have that in mind when he wrote his famous final line of the novella. Maybe he meant it in more of the protective way, that Candide and his found family took care of each other and were safe from the dangers of Optimism. That seems like something he’d say. 

Regardless of whether you are the darkest pessimist, the ultimate optimist, or something in the middle, I think Candide is a great read and you should do so if you haven’t already. Like I said, it’s still highly relevant to modern society and is a great little book to get you thinking about what really matters and what is just distraction and chaff. 

Reference:

Voltaire. Candide, or Optimism. Translated and edited by Theo Cuffe, Penguin Classics, 2005. 

book review · books · Star Trek

Maps, Mystery, and Mayhem in Star Trek’s The High Country

kristenLeave a comment

The High Country (Star Trek Strange New Worlds) by John Jackson Miller
Genre: sci-fi
I read it as a(n): hardcover
Length: 371 pp
Her Grace’s rating: 4 stars 

Pike and the gang are headed out to test an experimental new kind of shuttle. It is a miserable failure, but not because the technology is flawed. It’s because they stray into a region of space where absolutely no technology works. They crash on a planet, Skagara, their emergency transporters sending the shuttle crew all across the planet. To the surprise of everyone, not only is there a thriving blended civilization there, but a close friend of Pike’s. 

The people of Skagara come from many places. The humans are descended from a lost ship that harkens back to an episode of Enterprise. The thing they all have in common is that they were brought to Skagara to follow a tech-free way of life. To Pike’s friend, Lila alley, it is paradise, but to Pike and the rest of the Enterprise crew, it’s awful. They set off on a mission to reconnect with the shuttle crew and also solve the mystery of why nothing works so they can escape from the planet. Unfortunately, Lila and many others will do anything to prevent Pike from doing what they think will ruin their way of life. 

Ok, first things first. This Star Trek book has MAPS! I fucking love maps in sci-fi books! I have never seen a map in a Star Trek book before, and not only is there A map, there are five maps! THERE! ARE! FIVE! MAPS! I fully support putting maps in Star Trek books and I wish every one of them that is based even in part on a planet or moon or planetary body of any kind came with a map. 

Next, the story itself was quite fun. It is a pretty typical Trek story – crashes and planets and a Problem That Will Destroy the Universe unless Our Heroes can fix it! The civilization on Skagara is very Old West, so there were plenty of parts of this book that read like an episode of Firefly. I ALSO approve of Trek that reminds me of Firefly! And vice versa! When can we get more Firefly books as well as Star Trek books, please and thank you? 

We got to see a lot of good character development for Uhura in particular, which was nice. Not everything the shuttle crew experienced was good and some of it will leave scars. Not even Utopia is perfect. There was also some good back story for Pike, which I always like. I dig a good back story. 

For me, Number One had the least interesting story line and least amount of character growth. Spock had the most “yeah, right” story line. Fun, but yeah, right, like that would happen. 

I also liked that this book had short chapters. It felt like I was making faster progress than I was, and also made it a lot easier to read in bed at night. I could say that I was going to read 2 chapters and actually make it through 2 whole chapters without my book hitting me in the face. 

Anyway, it was a fun story, nothing too unexpected at all. A solid Star Trek brain candy book.

book review · bookish things · books

Exploring Witchcraft in Lolly Willowes: A Feminist Classic

kristen3 Comments
A woodcut from a 1579 pamphlet showing a witch feeding her familiars. From englishheritage.org, courtesy of The British Library

Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner Genre: British classics I read it as a(n): hardback Length: 222 pp  Her Grace’s rating: 4 stars 

This is another classic that I had never read and didn’t know anything about. I picked it to read partly because of that, and I also picked it for my book club when it was my turn because it was the very first book ever chosen by the Book of the Month Club. I thought that was cool. Also, a spinster who decides to move to the countryside and take up witchcraft? Hell, yes, sign me right up!

Laura “Lolly” Willowes is a spinster who has to go live with her brother and his family in London when their father dies. Because god forbid a woman live alone, as Lolly wanted to do. She has an affinity for the countryside and for learning about plants and herbs and animals. But she is not married and has few prospects of becoming so. I think maybe she is on the spectrum, though of course nobody knew about ASD when this book was written. Just the way she is described, though, makes me think that. She was also supremely introverted and didn’t want to go to parties or meet men to marry. Warner writes, “They had seen her at home, where animation brought color into her cheeks and spirit into her bearing. Abroad, and in company, she was not animated. She disliked going out, she seldom attended any but those formal parties at which the attendance of Miss Willowes of Lady Place was an obligatory civility; and she found there little reason for animation” (26). So, no weddings for Lolly.

She was viewed by her family as useful. The useful and doting aunt. The helpful sister. The competent household manager. Nobody ever really saw her for who she was, only for what they wanted her to be. So once her nieces and nephews were grown and no longer needed her, Lolly decided she was going to leave London and move to a town in the countryside called Great Mop, which is an awesome name, like she had wanted to do since her 20s, when she was required to move to London. 

She found a room to rent as a lodger in a nice little town with a nice little lady and her husband. Where Lolly discovered that all the townspeople were witches and served Satan, so she decided to join the fun. But all she ever did with her satan witchy powers was curdle some milk, though. I mean, WHAT? If I had satanic powers (or the Force, or telekinesis, or anything of the sort) I would most definitely not just curdle milk with them. I would be visiting some politicians. “That is not the bill you are voting for. You will vote for this bill. Behave or I shall cast deep rectal itch upon you.” I would also totally make everyone on the road get out of my way. Like Fezzik in The Princess Bride.

Something I noticed throughout the book, or at least until Lolly moved back to the countryside, was that there isn’t a lot of dialogue in it. It was a blur of events and years. Even World War I took like 1 ½ pages, if that. I think Warner did that on purpose. It highlighted how dull and drifting Lolly’s life was, how empty and meaningless she felt. She was just going through the motions. She came alive when she left the city for the country, and it had little to do with giving her soul over to Satan and getting a cat. Though those things helped. Everyone needs a cat, and a dark lord. 

The things Lolly noticed throughout the book were all tied to nature. She bought some fruit and jams from the grocer’s and wondered about the woman who had picked the fruit and made the jams: “A solitary old woman picking fruit in a darkening orchard, rubbing her rough fingertips over the smooth-skinned plums, a lean wiry old woman, standing with upstretched arms among her fruit trees as though she were a tree herself, growing out of the long grass, with arms stretched up like branches” (79). Sounds like some solid life goals to me! 

Since Lolly knows that “nothing is impossible for a single, middle-aged woman with an income of her own” (95), she decides to stop being useful and go do what she wants. She was also 47 when she came to that decision, the same age I am. Yes, girl, rewild yourself! Her coming-of-age is very late, but it comes all the same. She figures out, finally, that she is her own person and that nobody – not her brother or nephews or nieces – could “drive her out, or enslave her spirit any more, nor shake her possession of the place she had chosen. While she lived her solitudes were hers inalienably; she and the kitten, the witch and the familiar, would live on at Great Mop, growing old together, and hearing the owls hoot from the winter trees” (159-160). 

One thing I really loved is that Lolly totally had her own Barbie Speech. It is even longer than the Barbie Speech in the actual Barbie movie, but just as powerful. The Devil did tell her to talk, “not that I may know all your thoughts, but that you may” (216). And she certainly did talk. Her entire speech is still just as relevant today as it was when this book was published 100 years ago. That’s fucking infuriating. If you want to read her whole Lolly Barbie Speech, it is below the cut.

Click to reveal the spoiler

“When I think of witches, I seem to see all over England, all over Europe, women living and growing old, as common as blackberries, and as unregarded. I see them, wives and sisters of respectable men, chapel members, and blacksmiths, and small farmers, and Puritans. In places like Bedfordshire, the sort of country one sees from the train. You know. Well, there they were, there they are, child-rearing, house-keeping, hanging washed dishcloths on currant bushes; and for diversion each other’s silly conversation, and listening to men talking together in the way that men talk and women listen. Quite different to the way women talk, and men listen, if they listen at all. And all the time being thrust further down into dullness when the one thing all women hate is to be thought dull. And on Sunday they put on plain stuff gowns and starched white coverings on their heads and necks – the Puritan ones did – and walked across the fields to chapel, and listened to the sermon. Sin and Grace, and God and the –” (she stopped herself just in time), “and St. Paul. All men’s things, like politics, or mathematics. Nothing for them except subjection and plaiting their hair. And on the way back they listened to more talk. Talk about the sermon, or war, or cock-fighting; and when they got back, there were the potatoes to be cooked for dinner. It sounds very pretty to complain about, but I tell you, that sort of thing settles down on one like a fine dust, and by and by the dust is age, settling down. Settling down! You never die, do you? No doubt that’s far worse, but there is a dreadful kind of dreary immortality about being settled down on by one day after another. And they think how they were young once, and they see new young women, just like what they were, and yet as surprising as if it had never happened before, like trees in spring. But they are like trees towards the end of summer, heavy and dusty, and nobody finds their leaves surprising, or notices them till they fall off. If they could be passive and unnoticed, it wouldn’t matter. But they must be active, and still not noticed. Doing, doing, doing, till mere habit scolds at them like a house wife, and rouses them up – when they might sit in their doorways and think – to be doing still! …

Is it true that you can poke the fire with a stick of dynamite in perfect safety? I used to take my nieces to scientific lectures, and I believe I heard it then. Anyhow, even if it isn’t true of dynamite, it’s true of women. But they know they are dynamite, and long for the concussion that may justify them. Some may get religion, then they’re all right, I expect. But for the others, for so many, what can there be but witchcraft? That strikes them real. Even if other people still find them quite safe and usual, and go on poking with them, they know in their hearts how dangerous, how incalculable, how extraordinary they are. Even if they never do anything with their witchcraft, they know it’s there – ready! Respectable countrywomen keep their grave-clothes in a corner of the chest of drawers, hidden away, and when they want a little comfort they go and look at them, and think that once more, at any rate, they will be worth dressing with care. But the witch keeps her cloak of darkness, her dress embroidered with signs and planets; that’s better worth looking at. And think, Satan, what a compliment you pay her, pursuing her soul, lying in wait for it, following it through all its windings, crafty and patient and secret like a gentleman out killing tigers. Her soul – when no one else would give a look at her body even! And they are all so accustomed, so sure of her! They say: ‘Dear Lolly! What shall we give her for her birthday this year? Perhaps a hot-water bottle. Or what about a nice black lace scarf? Or a new workbox? Her old one is nearly worn out.’ But you say: ‘Come here, my bird! I will give you the dangerous black night to stretch your wings in, and poisonous berries to feed on, and a nest of bones and thorns, perched high up in danger where no one can climb to it.’ That’s why we become witches: to show our scorn of pretending life’s a safe business, to satisfy our passion for adventure. It’s not malice, or wickedness – well, perhaps it is wickedness, for most women love that – but certainly not malice, not wanting to plague cattle and make horrid children spout up pins and – what is it? – ‘blight the genial bed.’ Of course, given the power, one may go in for that sort of thing, either in self-defense, or just out of playfulness. But it’s a poor twopenny house-wifely kind of witchcraft, black magic is, and white magic is no better. One doesn’t become a witch to run around being harmful, or to run around being helpful either, a district visitor on a broomstick. It’s to escape all that – to have a life of one’s own, not an existence doled out to you by others, charitable refuse of their thoughts, so many ounces of stale bread of life a day, the workhouse dietary is scientifically calculated to support life. As for the witches who can only express themselves by pins and bed-blighting, they have been warped into that shape by the dismal lives they’ve led. Think of Miss Carloe! She’s a typical witch, people would say. Really she’s the typical genteel spinster who’s spent herself being useful to people who didn’t want her. If you’d got her younger she’d never be like that” (211-215).

And this quote really sums up not only the book but my entire worldview in a handy lil nutshell: That was one of the advantages of dealing with witches; they do not mind if you are a little odd in your ways, frown if you are late for meals, fret if you are out all night, pry and commiserate when at length you return. Lovely to be with people who prefer their thoughts to yours, lovely to live at your own sweet will, lovely to sleep out all night! (222).

Anyway, I enjoyed this book, and am eager to read more classics that I have never got around to before now. 

Reference:

Warner, Sylvia Townsend. Lolly Willowes. Book of the Month, 2017.

book review

Top Quotes from Hardy’s ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’

kristenLeave a comment
Sheepfold at Early Morning by Sir George Clausen. Image from Gallerix.org.

Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy Genre: British classics I read it as a(n): paperback Length: 468 pp Her Grace’s rating: 4 stars 

So this is one of those classics that I not only never read in high school or college, but I didn’t even know what the plot was. Like, at all. All I knew was from the blurb on the book that I have. Since I want to be better about reading more classics, I thought this would be a good one to start with partly because I didn’t know anything about it, and because it’s British and I like British authors for the most part. 

But I don’t feel like writing a proper review of it. It’s been sitting on my desk for weeks since I finished it, waiting for me to review it. Other than saying that I loved it and that there were quite a few parts that I thought were actually hilarious, it was a solid story. I thought it took a bit longer than necessary to introduce all of Bathsheba’s suitors, but it was fine. I loved it overall regardless. 

One thing I like to do is make a note of any books or music that are mentioned in a book. The literature mentioned in this one is:

Anyway, like I said, I don’t feel like writing an actual review. Partly because I’ve had the book sitting on my desk for weeks and I finished reading this quite some time ago. So instead of a traditional review, I’m going to share my favorite lines from the novel. Here they are. Behold.

The instinctive act of human-kind was to stand, and listen, and learn how the trees on the right and the trees on the left wailed or chanted to each other in the regular antiphonies of a cathedral choir; how hedges and other shapes to leeward then caught the notes, lowering it to the tenderest sob; and how the hurrying gust then plunged into the south to be heard no more (14).

To find themselves utterly alone at night where company is desirable and expected makes some people fearful; but a case more trying by far to the nerves is to discover some mysterious companionship when intuition, sensation, memory, analogy, testimony, probability, induction – every kind of evidence in the logician’s list – have united to persuade consciousness that it is quite in isolation (18). [Extroverts? I think this describes extroverts.]

“My name is Gabriel Oak.”
“And mine isn’t. You seem fond of yours in speaking it so decisively Gabriel Oak.”
“You see, it is the only one I shall ever have, and I must make the most of it.” (27)

There was left to him a dignified calm he had never before known and that indifference to fate which, though it often makes a villain of a man is the basis of his sublimity when it does not (43).

[Discussing Joseph Poorgrass’s shyness]
“Yes – very awkward for a man.”
“Ay – and he’s very timid too,” observed Jan Coggan. “Once he had been working late at Yalbury Bottom, and had had a drap of drink, and lost his way as he was coming home-along through Yalbury Wood – didn’t ye, Master Poorgrass?”
“No, no, no – not that story!” expostulated the modest man, forcing a laugh to bury his concern.
“-And so ‘a lost himself quite,” continued Mr Coggan with an impassive face implying that a true narrative, like time and tide, must run its course and would respect no man. “And as he was coming along in the middle of the night, much afeared, and not able to find his way out of the trees no-how, ‘a cried out, ‘Man-a-lost! Man-a-lost!’ A owl in a tree happened to be crying ‘Whoo-whoo-whoo!’ as owls do you know, Shepherd” (Gabriel noddled), “and Joseph, all in a tremble, said ‘Joseph Poorgrass of Weatherbury, sir!’” (62-63). [LOOOOOOL that poor guy! 😂]

The good old word of sin thrown in here and there at such times is a great relief to a merry soul (65).

It was one of the usual slow sunrises of this time of the year, and they sky, pure violet in the zenith, was leaden to the northward, and murky to the east, where, over the snowy down or ewe-lease on Weatherbury Upper Farm, and apparently resting upon the ridge, the only half of the sun yet visible burnt rayless, like a red and flameless fire shining over a white hearthstone. The whole effect resembled a sunset as a childhood resembles age.
In other directions the fields and sky were so much of one colour by the snow that it was difficult in a hasty glance to tell whereabouts the horizon occurred; and in general there was here too that before mentioned preternatural inversion of light and shade which attends the prospect when the garish brightness commonly in the sky is found on the earth and the shades of earth are in the sky. Over the west hung the wasting moon, now dull and greenish-yellow, like tarnished brass (104).

O I love him to very distraction, and misery and agony. … Loving is misery for women always (207).

[Petrichor!] She went out of the house just at the close of a timely thundershower, which had refined the air, and daintily bathed the coat of the land, though all beneath was dry as ever. Freshness was exhaled in an essence from the varied contours of bank and hollow, as if the earth breathed maiden breath, and the pleased birds were hymning to the scene (210).

But man, even to himself, is a palimpsest, having an ostensible writing, and another beneath the lines. It is possible that there was this golden legend under the utilitarian one: “I will help, to my last effort, the woman I have loved so dearly” (254).

[A mutt!] He was a huge heavy and quiet creature, standing darkly against the low horizon, and at least two feet higher than the present position of her eyes. Whether Newfoundland, mastiff, bloodhound, or what not, it was impossible to say. He seemed to be of too strange and mysterious a nature to belong to any variety among those of popular nomenclature. Being thus assignable to no breed he was the ideal embodiment of canine greatness – a generalization from what was common to all (277).

All romances end at marriage (281).

Where however happy circumstance permits its development the compounded feeling proves itself to be the only love which is strong as death – that love which many writers cannot quench, nor the floods drown, beside which the passion usually called by the name is evanescent as steam (409). 

References:
Clausen, Sir George. A Sheepfold, Early Morning. 1890. Oil on canvas. Gallerix, https://gallerix.org/storeroom/1363/N/287/. 

Hardy, Thomas. Far from the Madding Crowd. Edited by Suzanne B. Falck-Yi and Linda M. Shires, 2nd ed., Oxford University Press, 2008.

Why Raynor Winn’s Memoir Matters: A Defense Against Criticism
editorial

Why Raynor Winn’s Memoir Matters: A Defense Against Criticism

kristen3 Comments

Some of you fellow book nerds might’ve seen the recent scandal surrounding Raynor Winn, author of the beloved bestselling memoir The Salt Path. If not, here’s the TL;DR version: a “reporter” (we’ll be generous and call her that) from The Observer accused Winn of fabricating parts of her book. She claimed Winn lied about her husband’s neurological illness, said they secretly had a house in France, and basically tried to tear the whole memoir apart.

Then, not long after, the same journalist backpedaled, admitting maybe she hadn’t actually fact-checked her piece very well.

I call bullshit.

In Winn’s statement about this, she says that The Observer had been offered the chance to talk to her and Moth and “to correct their inaccurate account and to be guided on the truth, on the basis that the discussion would not be made public. However, they chose not to take it, preferring to pursue their highly misleading narrative” (Winn). The reporter could’ve used her platform at The Observer to do something meaningful, like highlighting an underreported social issue, talking about a bright young up-and-coming inventor, or maybe even helping someone. But no, she wrote a smear job about a wildly popular book, penned by a flawed, real human being. Newsflash: Winn is human! Not perfect. No one is. But I don’t for one nanosecond believe that Winn fabricated The Salt Path out of whole cloth.

For starters, yes, she mentioned a place in France, but a) it’s a ruin, not a livable house, and b) they were destitute. How were they supposed to get to France with zero money? By beaming there? Could they have tried selling the French place? They did, according to Winn’s statement, but the place is worth almost nothing and the local realtor “saw no point in marketing it” (Winn). Did they actually lose their house because she’d embezzled money from her employer? Not according to her statement, which she printed basically with receipts. I choose to believe she and Moth are gentle and awesome humans, but you never really know a person. And that’s just the thing. Unless you know all the details, which none of us do, don’t assume. And more importantly, it’s really nobody’s business. Writing a memoir doesn’t mean the author signs over their entire private life to public scrutiny. It’s like when a friend asks for your advice. They’re not actually required to take it. Quit acting like entitled monsters.

Also, let’s talk about memoirs in general for a second. Nearly all of them are creative nonfiction. The operative term there is “creative.” Imagine a memoir that was just a dry, factual list. “Dear diary, we lost the house. Then we walked 600+ miles.” How fucking boring. No matter what readers might say, we don’t actually care if a person lost their home or what the reason is that they lost it. We want the heartbreak, the grit, the beauty, the weirdness, the transformation, the discovery, and nature walking, all of that. We don’t want to know just what happened. We want to know how it felt. What we want, in fact, is a story. 

Storytelling makes up the biggest part of human existence. It teaches us, comforts us, challenges us, and elevates us. It is fundamental. It’s how we understand each other. Storytelling makes us human. 

I am not saying that every word in The Salt Path is literal truth. I’m saying that it doesn’t matter. It’s one woman’s lived experience. Ray and Moth are different beings, and they experienced things differently. I would have a different experience too. Interpretation is highly individual. That doesn’t make it a lie. Memoir is not court testimony, nor a science book. It’s an emotional truth that is shaped by individual memory and meaning. With any work of literature, whether it’s poetry or prose or memoir, there is a relationship between the text, the author, and the reader where they create the meaning together. The book doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre wrote about this idea at length. Here is a great blog post about the more salient points of Sartre’s essay: Sartre: Is There a Connection between the Reader and the Writer of Literature? For those of you who are feeling particularly spicy, you can also read the entire thing: What is Literature? Give it a go, seriously. 

This also means readers have a responsibility as well. Stop blindly nodding along with whatever some journalist says. Think for yourselves. 

I came across a YouTube video (not even gonna link it, it’s too stupid. Look it up yourselves if you want to see it and are willing to take the hit to your IQ), claiming The Salt Path harms sick people. What the eternal fuck, now? That’s idiotic on so many levels. For one thing, Winn never, anywhere in her books, said, “If you do exactly what we did, your illness will go away.” I’ve read them all. That’s simply not a thing. What she has said and done, many times, is make it clear how hard Moth’s condition is to diagnose. The only definitive confirmation comes after death through an autopsy. You might understand why she’s reluctant for a real diagnosis under those circumstances. And to these internet armchair medical experts saying, “The life expectancy for CBD is 5 to 8 years, why isn’t he dead yet?” – do you hear yourselves? That is a vile thing to say. You’re rooting for a stranger to die just to prove a point? If you’re in the mood to hope someone cops it, I can give you a list of people who actually deserve it. 

I doubt seriously that many of these internet armchair medical experts are people who trust doctors anyway. There’s almost certainly overlap between the folks who don’t believe Moth is sick and the ones who thought drinking bleach or taking horse dewormer was solid Covid advice. 

That YouTuber also claimed the book gives people false hope. Excuse me? No, it doesn’t. Hope is not a weapon. If you don’t have hope, that’s not Raynor Winn’s fault. And if you’re dumb enough to ignore your doctor’s advice in favor of something you read in a memoir, that’s on you. I’m so sorry if you’re sick. I truly am. But The Salt Path is not to blame for your disappointment. You are not entitled to drag someone else because their experience didn’t match your expectations. Manage your own emotions.

Finally, and this is really the big point for me. Both the publisher and the film company have stated they did their due diligence. They believe in Winn and stand by her. The release of her fourth book has been delayed, not because it’s being scrapped, but because they’re trying to protect her and her family while this shitstorm plays out. They’ve said as much publicly. Feel free to look it up.

So if that “reporter” wants to do some soul-searching and professional self-improvement (doubtful, but okay), maybe she could start by holding herself and her colleagues to actual journalistic standards. Maybe demonstrate some journalistic courage, while they’re at it. For example, the first reporter to ask Trump to his face, “What the fuck is wrong with you?” should instantly win the Pulitzer. She should ask why Black defendants get villainized in crime reporting while white ones get sympathy profiles. She should ask why it’s okay when powerful people lie in ways that can actually harm people and the press is silent, but when a regular person writes a memoir that maybe is embellished a little for the sake of a story, the press suddenly gets all hot and bothered. This journalist, and the people lapping up her nonsense, are part of the problem.

book review · Tudors

The Tragic Tale of Mark Smeaton: A Historical Fiction Review

kristenLeave a comment

The Queen’s Musician by Martha Jean Johnson
Genre: historical fiction
I read it as a(n): digital ARC 
Length: 344 pp 
Her Grace’s rating: 5 stars
2025 Reading Challenge tasks: PS: #31 – music plays a prominent role 

Spanning the years 1529 to 1536, The Queen’s Musician follows the story of Mark Smeaton, one of the musicians who played for Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. The novel follows his meteoric rise from total obscurity to fame. Much of his success, at least in this book, stemmed from being in the right place at the right time as much as his genuine musical talent. However, what goes up must come down and his tragic fall from favor was catastrophic and swift. Alongside Smeaton, the novel also follows Madge Shelton, cousin and courtier to Anne Boleyn, whose own path is shaped by the strict rules and expectations of class as well as by rumors. Through the perspectives of these two historical figures, Johnson takes readers on a deep and thoughtful exploration of the perils of the Tudor court.

Anyone familiar with Tudor history knows the fate of Anne Boleyn and the men accused of being her lovers. Smeaton was the lowest-born among them, an easy target for manipulation. Little is known about his life before court, but Johnson vividly imagines what it might have been, filling his world with music that feels as essential as breathing. The novel highlights how deeply Smeaton connected with his art, not just as a performer but as someone who saw music as his true language. His passion for his subject extends beyond the demands of his life as a royal musician. His admiration for composer John Taverner reflects his appreciation for the era’s greatest musical minds. The gentleness written into his character, especially his love for music, people, and, most touchingly, his horses, makes his fate even more devastating. I felt absolute rage on his behalf. 

Music was central to the Tudor court, not just as entertainment but as a reflection of power and prestige. Henry VIII himself was an accomplished musician and composer, and courtiers were expected to be well-versed in music. While some composers of the time, like Thomas Tallis and John Taverner, left behind enduring legacies, no known compositions of Smeaton’s survive. If he did write his own music, as Johnson imagines in the novel, it has been lost to time. This adds to the novel’s poignancy – Smeaton’s talent, like his life, was ultimately erased by history.

Similarly, little is known about Madge Shelton’s early life. At various points, there were rumors that she was briefly Henry VIII’s mistress, but her real experiences are largely unknown. Johnson brings her to life as a woman navigating court politics, her innocent romance with Smeaton offering a brief moment of sweetness amid the court’s poisonous gossiping and currying favor. Even though their social classes made it impossible for them to consider a future, or even a genuine friendship, it was nice to have that hope for just a moment. Their entwined story felt like a rare and delicate thing in a world where relationships were mostly transactional. 

The characters are vibrant and deeply human. Some secondary characters, such as Smeaton’s friend Paul, are a delight on the page and bring a lot of warmth to the story. Others, such as Cromwell and the head musician at court (I’m totally blanking on his name now), give a masterclass in villainy and are the sort of characters you love to hate. Johnson excels at making readers care about them, drawing us into a world where we already know the outcome, but nonetheless making us hope for a minute before slowly shattering our hearts. We know how this journey ends, but the path to that end is gut-wrenching, beautiful, and filled with moments of quiet grace.

Highly recommended for anyone who loves Tudor history or anyone who, like me, enjoys being completely destroyed by a story.