Recent reading

[luzula]

Catching up on book reviews...

Because Internet: understanding how language is changing, by Gretchen McCulloch (2019)
I'm bad at audiobook-listening these days, but I like the Lingthusiasm podcast, and this is basically an extension of it. In other words, interesting and easy to listen to, and enlightening about different attitudes to online language.

Burt's Letters from the North of Scotland, Volume I and II (from the 1720's and 1730's, published in 1876)
What it says on the label, very readable, skipped the 19th century introduction. I think Broster must have read these as research? I can't point to actual incidents she copied, but it must have been valuable as inspiration for Keith's attitude to the Highlands as an English officer. Although if she did read them, she certainly skipped some things in the name of historical romance: the poverty, wow. I found an estimate in another book that around the time of the Union, England was 38 times as wealthy as Scotland (and with five times the population). So no wonder an Englishman would find it poor, and of course more so in the Highlands. Also the descriptions of people suffering from scabies (at least I assume that's what's meant by "the itch") and other vermin, along with lack of food and adequate dwellings, etc.

Lots of landscape descriptions, as well. I always imagined the Highlands as being sort of like the Swedish mountains, but the sheer impassableness of what he describes makes me wonder? Is it just his Englishness, or is it really that rugged? Of course, he was on horseback, which I wouldn't want to be on in some parts of the Swedish mountains either (even if I could ride a horse). Well, I guess I'll see when I eventually get there. There are also some great descriptions of the engineering required to build Wade's roads. People hanging from ropes to bore holes for gunpowder to blow up mountainsides, digging up bogs to fill up the space with rocks, etc. Wow.

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

I adored Because Internet in print, but thought it even better in audio. McCulloch does an excellent job narrating a sometimes-technical text.

[luzula]

Yes, she's a good narrator! Enthusiastic, of course, but also clear and understandable.

[jesse_the_k]

I'll confess that I tuned playback to 90% so I could understand it more clearly. She is a fast talker.

[regshoe]

Ooh, Burt's letters sound very interesting! Yes, I remember the general background of extreme poverty was something that struck me about The Bull Calves—I suppose there is a bit of it in FotH, but Broster definitely prefers to focus on the romantic gentlefolk.

Doesn't Duffy mention somewhere how contemporary descriptions of landscapes often sound a lot more rugged and dramatic than how we'd see the same places now? (I think the Highlands are actually continuous with the Swedish and Norwegian mountains in geological history terms, although how far that results in a similar landscape now I don't know).

[luzula]

He does have dramatic descriptions like: if my horse had lost its footing I would have fallen to my death! and there was no other way to go! And places where the horse almost sank into a bog (though really, trying to ride across a bog in the first place?)

I think the Highlands are actually continuous with the Swedish and Norwegian mountains in geological history terms, although how far that results in a similar landscape now I don't know.

Yes, I've read that as well! I suppose Norway would be more similar, actually, with the higher precipitation...

[feroxargentea]

Not sure what he means by impassable -- the Highlands aren't really very *high*, just very *wet*, and upland peat bog is challenging terrain if you're not used to it (and tiring even if you are).

[luzula]

He mentions places where his horse almost sank into the bog, for example. It seems to me like a bad idea in the first place to take a horse across a bog, but what do I know, I'm not a horse person. Also there are dramatic places where he could have fallen to his death, and where he couldn't get past and had to turn around, etc.

There are lots of wetlands in the Swedish mountains as well, but you can usually avoid them by using higher ground. But I guess even the western parts of our mountains are not as wet as the Highlands. Norway would be more like it.

[feroxargentea]

I don't suppose he *intended* to ride across bog. It's difficult to tell what's solid and what isn't, sometimes!

People holidaying here (the Dark Peak, which has a similar sort of terrain as the Highlands in some ways, though at a lower level) often seem surprised that it gets wetter and boggier the higher you go. Which seems obvious to me? That's how upland peat bogs work -- the higher up, the more rain it gets, and the more persistent the cloud cover.

Honestly, the one thing that worries me about a lot of romantic Highland tryst fic is that it doesn't account for the soggy arse you'd get as soon as you sat down :D

[luzula]

That's how upland peat bogs work -- the higher up, the more rain it gets, and the more persistent the cloud cover.

Well, water also flows downhill...hmm, I don't actually think it's wetter/boggier on higher elevations in Sweden. It's wetter the further west you go, though.

Isn't it also that wetlands on low-lying ground have been ditched for agriculture?

Honestly, the one thing that worries me about a lot of romantic Highland tryst fic is that it doesn't account for the soggy arse you'd get as soon as you sat down :D

Ha ha, well, every fandom has its tropes. I suspect that sleeping-bag sex in a tent in wintertime is not actually very practical, either...