Recent reading

[luzula]

The Conquered by Naomi Mitchison (1923)
Whoa. If I had known the set-up of this, I would have read it long ago! It has a lot in common with The Eagle of the Ninth and also slightly with Flight of the Heron. Titus is a Roman officer fighting with Caesar in Gaul, and Meromic is the son of a Gaulish chieftain. Near the beginning, Titus is captured and held prisoner with Meromic's tribe (like Ewen and Keith!). Later on, Meromic is defeated and enslaved, and later on his life is saved by Titus, who becomes his owner (like Marcus and Esca!). Titus treats him well and later frees him, and he is torn between Titus and his loyalty to the Gaulish cause. I wonder if Sutcliff read this, or Broster? Mitchison doesn't usually have a slashy bone in her body that I've noticed, but I guess this one is the exception! There's even a secondary slashy pairing, between Meromic and another slave. As usual for Mitchison, there's a lot of focus on the experiences of enslaved and ordinary people. The epigraphs are mostly Irish--obviously she's making parallels between the Irish/Gaelic struggle and the Gaulish one, but I don't know enough about Irish history to catch all the references.

It's quite interesting to read this having read a lot of other historical novels written in the same period--Mitchison is a lot more colloquial in her language. I think it's aged very well: it's obviously not modern prose style of the 21st century, but neither does it contain 1920's slang. Just very readable and enjoyable prose. At the same time, I can see how she developed as a writer later on. There's an odd quirk where "I would", "you would" is contracted to "I'ld", "you'ld" etc, which I've never seen before. Also, I was bemused at the (to me) incestous vibes of the brother-sister relationship in the beginning and the fact that Mitchison has dedicated this book to her brother. Er. But anyway, I definitely recommend this book!

The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd (written in the 1940's and published later)
Non-fiction about the author's relationship to the Cairngorm mountains. I like reading other people's opinions on and analysis of fiction, but it's really quite boring to read people writing about other people's nature writing, which is why I skipped the fore- and afterwords, except for the biographical info about the author. But I really enjoyed the book itself! Lovely nature writing, best experienced in small portions.

Although I have to say that I have much less romantic a view of sleeping outdoors than this: ...nights under the sky are the most delectable when the sleep is light. I like it to be so light that I am continually coming to the surface of awareness and sinking back again, just seeing, not bedevilled with thought, but living in the clear simplicity of the senses. The clear simplicity of my senses at such a point would be telling me that I am grumpy because of being kept awake by cold or a mosquito I can't catch or some damn bird singing and not letting me sleep. I like to get some SLEEP at night, not have some sort of transcendent experience. Which is not to say that I've never had transcendent experiences in nature, because I totally have. Just not when I'm trying to sleep.

Comments

[oursin]

No slash in Mitchison? there's actually an m/m snogging scene in Blood of the Martyrs as I recall*, and her historically-accurate cool attitude to same-sex relationships in The Corn King and the Spring Queen was very popular with her gay friends Auden &co. And well, ahem, if you include the sf, Solution Three....

*There's a lot in that book that I am convinced she put in just to prove, after the We Have Been Warned censorship debacle, just how much she could get away with when characters were wearing, or not wearing, togas and tunics.

[sovay]

There's an odd quirk where "I would", "you would" is contracted to "I'ld", "you'ld" etc, which I've never seen before.

I've seen that in English-language prose! I associate it with the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

I like it to be so light that I am continually coming to the surface of awareness and sinking back again, just seeing, not bedevilled with thought, but living in the clear simplicity of the senses.

Wow, is that not my relationship with sleep.

[luzula]

It's funny, I've read The Blood of the Martyrs and have no memory of the m/m snogging, and going back to my review from 2016 I don't mention it, although I did much enjoy the book. I did mention and enjoy the Philylla/Erif vibes when I read The Corn King and the Spring Queen, though!

But I think something having same-sex relationships in it is a different thing than it being slashy. Like, The Blood of the Martyrs may contain same-sex snogging, but the focus of the story is on solidarity between an ensemble of characters (which I loved!). The Conquered, OTOH, has no same-sex snogging (that I remember), but it does have the focus on a conflicted relationship between two men in a romance-adjacent way. Both of these appeal to me, but in different ways.

[luzula]

Wow, is that not my relationship with sleep.
Right?!? I was sitting there with my mouth open.

[oursin]

As I recall, in The Blood of the Martyrs one of the issues is individual attractions vs community solidarity.

But yes, having same-sex relationships =/= slashy! ('Discuss: writing on one side of the paper only')

[seascribble]

Oh Ill have to look out for the Mitchison, sounds like my cup of tea.

[isis]

Ooh, The Conquered</i sounds right up my alley! And I agree that sleeping should be SLEEPING.

[chestnut_pod]

Oh, your writing about Nan Shepherd's nature writing made me laugh, anyway! Damn those critters of the night!

Anyway, I do love The Living Mountain, and also her poem Fires, also set to music by Salt House.

[luzula]

Definitely would appeal to someone feeling nostalgic about Eagle of the Ninth, if that's where you're at! : )

[luzula]

The tone is quite different from Sutcliff, even if the themes are similar--an interesting comparison.

Heh, most people seem to agree re: sleep.

[luzula]

Well, the foreword just made me want to skip ahead and read the actual book, at least! It was kind of...reverential about her writing? Whereas my comment was not, I suppose.

Oh, thanks, I'll check out the poem and song!

[sanguinity]

Speaking as someone who has had a lifelong struggle with insomnia, the pure aestheticism of light/broken sleep under the stars makes the insomnia I'm going to have anyway something less than the burden it usually is. Watching the night sky, the stars, the moonrise; bats and coyotes and nightjars... I have so many sleepless wilderness nights indelibly imprinted on my memory, far more transcendent and moving than the days ever are. On a wilderness trip, I actually kind of regret it when the fatigue finally kicks in so hard that I start sleeping through the nights. I don't regret having finally caught a night of sleep! But having missed the entirety of the nightscape... that I very much do regret.

[luzula]

Oh, interesting. I mean, I expect to sleep reasonably well, but there are definitely nights that are exceptions (because I'm stressed out and can't stop thinking, or because the surrounding conditions are bad for sleeping), and then I resent not sleeping well. I can imagine that if you have bad sleep anyway, then nights outside are different.

Do you read a lot at night when you can't sleep?

[sanguinity]

I'm on medication now that mostly has solved my insomnia (although some things still set it off, boo), but back when it was uncontrolled: yes, absolutely. I read a ton of fanfic, almost exclusively longfic, that I downloaded to an eInk reader so that I wouldn't have the light of a screen fucking with my insomnia even further. And I'd read by a red headlamp -- the kind that's supposed to NOT fuck up your night vision -- again hoping that the lack of white light wouldn't aggravate my insomnia further. I preferred fanfic to published fiction, because if my reading-comprehension started skipping in and out from fatigue, I could still usually follow what was going on.

Since going on medication, I read a LOT less fic than I used to -- I just don't have those extra four-to-six hours of a day to fill anymore. Hence my still not having made it all the way back to the beginning of the FotH tag...

[luzula]

Hence my still not having made it all the way back to the beginning of the FotH tag...
Well, I definitely think it's better for you to get enough sleep and take a long time finishing the tag. : )

[osprey_archer]

The Conquered is SUCH an interesting compare and contrast with Rosemary Sutcliff, because in some ways it's so similar that I really DO wonder if Sutcliff read it at an impressionable age (the slashiness!), but Mitchison also comes at a lot of it from a very different angle than Sutcliff. They're both interested in the Problem of Empire, but Mitchison takes a dark view of empire, while Sutcliff (while never jingoistic) often is more positive.

...I also got somewhat incestuous vibes from Meromic and his sister at the beginning. Good to know it's not just me!

[luzula]

Hmm, I see that Sutcliff was born in 1920, so I suppose it's very possible that she read it! I also wonder if she read Broster's novels...

Hmm, yes, that's true about empire. But Mitchison really doesn't romanticize Gallic society, any more than she does the Roman empire!

[nnozomi]

Very late reply, but interesting to hear about _The Conquered_! (No wonder the fictional Nicola Marlow read it and liked it, her tastes ran to slashy pairings.) My very shaky impression, from reading Mitchison's diaries, is that her potential tendency to slashiness gave way after this book to choosing to foreground women more, but I could be way off base and would need to hear from the more experienced Mitchison readers around here.

I have an even less romantic view of sleeping outdoors than you do--my view is that I'd rather not do it, period--but that's a lovely line.

[luzula]

So what else did Nicola Marlow like? : )

Mitchison does often foreground women, which I appreciate! But like you, I don't have enough overview to say if there's a progression.

[nnozomi]

Just in case you actually want the information, lol: Nicola is a canonical Navy nut whose tastes run to Romantic relationships between men: she reads the Hornblower books, something called The Cruel Sea, one of Mary Renault's Ancient Greek ones, oh yeah, and your thing! Let me look it up: Nicola, who...was reading The Flight of the Heron and was temporarily devoted to Ewen Cameron...

(She comes from Antonia Forest's Marlow series, which may not be your thing but is incredibly good.)

[luzula]

Cool! Awww, yes, I had heard before that she was into Flight of the Heron.