Recent reading
Jun. 26th, 2023 03:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luzulaOut of the various choices in this poll, I chose in the end not to go with the Temeraire crossover right now, but instead with the werewolf AU! It is now 4K and so far going well.
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (1814, Librivox audiobook read by Karen Savage)
I am almost finished with the reread (or rather, relisten) of Austen books which I have enjoyed during hiking trips. This one is almost claustrophobic, I think! I just want Fanny to meet some new people and find out who she is outside of the family circle where she has been so subordinate--the marriage with Edmund is just a continuation of that, although I suppose she won't be unhappy. I don't ship her with Crawford, either. I do like Fanny as a character, though. The book is almost the anti-P&P, with Fanny forming a fixed negative opinion of Crawford early on, but instead of changing it, as in P&P, she sticks to it and the narrative bears out her opinion. Of course, this is satisfying, because Fanny, unlike Elizabeth, is not used to relying on her own opinion…
A Patch-Work Screen for the Ladies by Jane Barker (1723)
Jane Barker (1652–1732) was an author and a Jacobite who converted to Catholicism and followed James II into exile and lived at St Germain until 1704. She learned Latin, anatomy, and herbal medicine from her brother who had gone to university, and she never married. Besides novels, she apparently also wrote a collection of poems about education for women and female single life. Also she managed a farm.
This novel is similar to other 18th century novels I've read in that it has a frame story and various digressions. It is a sequel to a previous book which I might read at some point (Love Intrigues). The frame story in this case has a lot of similarities to Barker's own life: the older narrator, Galesia, is in the previous book walking in the garden at St Germain and retelling adventures of her young life where she was courted by a man (Bosvil) who proved false. In the present book, she is traveling in England, telling and listening to various stories with fellow travellers. Later on Galesia has an accident and ends up at the house of some lady and retells her own earlier life after the incident with Bosvil (which has given her a lifelong distaste for marriage) with lots of digressions, side stories, poems, and narrow escapes from marriage.
The most interesting of the side stories is a woman who leaves her husband for love of a servant woman. It is called ‘The Unaccountable Wife’ and the woman portrayed as unreasonable--she would rather beg for money in the street and stay with her servant woman, than leave her and get a pension from the queen (the husband is dead at this point). But the unreasonableness seems to be as much about inversion of social station as about gender, I think--much stress is laid on how highborn the wife is and how weird it is that she is doing housework for the servant. Her husband at first sleeps with the servant woman and gets children on her, but the wife was 'extremely kind to the woman, to a degree unheard of' and they 'lay all three together every night'. Then the husband, trying to put a stop to the wife's attachment, tries to send the servant away, but the wife goes with her instead... : D
In Galesia’s own story, I enjoyed most the parts where she is learning medicine from her brother (like Barker herself!) and rhapsodizing on anatomy in poems. She takes such delight in it! Later on when she is living in London, she also apparently practices medicine, at least among her acquaintances, and there is a proud poem On the Apothecaries Filing My Recipes Amongst the Doctors':
The Sturdy Gout, which all Male Power withstands,
Is overcome by my soft Female Hands,
Not Deb’rah, Judith, or Semiramis,
Cou’d boast of Conquest half so great as this
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (1814, Librivox audiobook read by Karen Savage)
I am almost finished with the reread (or rather, relisten) of Austen books which I have enjoyed during hiking trips. This one is almost claustrophobic, I think! I just want Fanny to meet some new people and find out who she is outside of the family circle where she has been so subordinate--the marriage with Edmund is just a continuation of that, although I suppose she won't be unhappy. I don't ship her with Crawford, either. I do like Fanny as a character, though. The book is almost the anti-P&P, with Fanny forming a fixed negative opinion of Crawford early on, but instead of changing it, as in P&P, she sticks to it and the narrative bears out her opinion. Of course, this is satisfying, because Fanny, unlike Elizabeth, is not used to relying on her own opinion…
A Patch-Work Screen for the Ladies by Jane Barker (1723)
Jane Barker (1652–1732) was an author and a Jacobite who converted to Catholicism and followed James II into exile and lived at St Germain until 1704. She learned Latin, anatomy, and herbal medicine from her brother who had gone to university, and she never married. Besides novels, she apparently also wrote a collection of poems about education for women and female single life. Also she managed a farm.
This novel is similar to other 18th century novels I've read in that it has a frame story and various digressions. It is a sequel to a previous book which I might read at some point (Love Intrigues). The frame story in this case has a lot of similarities to Barker's own life: the older narrator, Galesia, is in the previous book walking in the garden at St Germain and retelling adventures of her young life where she was courted by a man (Bosvil) who proved false. In the present book, she is traveling in England, telling and listening to various stories with fellow travellers. Later on Galesia has an accident and ends up at the house of some lady and retells her own earlier life after the incident with Bosvil (which has given her a lifelong distaste for marriage) with lots of digressions, side stories, poems, and narrow escapes from marriage.
The most interesting of the side stories is a woman who leaves her husband for love of a servant woman. It is called ‘The Unaccountable Wife’ and the woman portrayed as unreasonable--she would rather beg for money in the street and stay with her servant woman, than leave her and get a pension from the queen (the husband is dead at this point). But the unreasonableness seems to be as much about inversion of social station as about gender, I think--much stress is laid on how highborn the wife is and how weird it is that she is doing housework for the servant. Her husband at first sleeps with the servant woman and gets children on her, but the wife was 'extremely kind to the woman, to a degree unheard of' and they 'lay all three together every night'. Then the husband, trying to put a stop to the wife's attachment, tries to send the servant away, but the wife goes with her instead... : D
In Galesia’s own story, I enjoyed most the parts where she is learning medicine from her brother (like Barker herself!) and rhapsodizing on anatomy in poems. She takes such delight in it! Later on when she is living in London, she also apparently practices medicine, at least among her acquaintances, and there is a proud poem On the Apothecaries Filing My Recipes Amongst the Doctors':
The Sturdy Gout, which all Male Power withstands,
Is overcome by my soft Female Hands,
Not Deb’rah, Judith, or Semiramis,
Cou’d boast of Conquest half so great as this
(no subject)
Date: 2023-06-26 06:40 pm (UTC)I like your comparison of Fanny vs. Elizabeth and why the opposite thing works in a different context—and I agree with your assessment of the ending. :( What do you think of Fanny/Mary? I like it quite a lot, although I sometimes feel a bit hypocritical because I seriously dislike Fanny/Henry and it's not as though Mary's a much better person than her brother.
Jane Barker and her book sound pretty fascinating! Aww, her delighted pride in her medical knowledge.
(hmm, I got an error message on the first attempt to post this comment; apologies if this results in a double-post...)
(no subject)
Date: 2023-06-27 02:26 pm (UTC)Yes, Jane Barker was a delightful discovery!
(no subject)
Date: 2023-06-27 05:32 pm (UTC)Yes, that's very true, and I think it's a lot of why I do like one and not the other.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-06-27 09:37 pm (UTC)I'm very intrigued by "The Unaccountable Wife" as a story of the 18th century!
(no subject)
Date: 2023-07-04 07:32 pm (UTC)Yes! I do wonder how the story read to 18th century readers.