Heavy Artillery

I find myself very much in the mood for light, female-centric fiction (probably mid 20th century, but not necessarily) about women who are not described as pretty. For now I feel bored with good-looking protagonists — men, too, but as we all know unbeautiful male protagonists are easier to find.

I suppose I COULD read Don’t Tell Alfred but it’s not long since I read Love in a Cold Climate and I like to break up series. On that note, I have probably left the Ripliad long enough but he will have to wait; I am simply not in the mood to read about men.

The Girl’s Own Paper, Vol. 16 (1895)
“Nancy arrived [in London] with 7 shillings and 5 pence in her pocket and started out by writing articles but ‘original work … had to be given up’ and so she pivoted towards compiling catalogues and indexes. She was soon compiling an index for ‘The Year’s Art’ as well as doing some editing and cataloguing work for, among others, the Heralds’ College.” The largely forgotten life of Nancy Bailey, who built a successful indexing business around the turn of the 20th century.

A trio of Common Reader recommendations: Ruth Scurr has written a biography of John Aubrey (1626–97) and you can listen to/read her interview on it; an interview with Laura Thompson on Agatha Christie and Christie’s love of Shakespeare; and tips for memorising poetry.

Laura Thompson again, on Terence Rattigan’s last play Cause Célèbre and the murder trial that inspired it. (I really need to explore more Rattigan. My one experience was a bad am-dram production. I was involved but not, thankfully for posterity, onstage. However, I could quote absolute reams of it for weeks after. And did, wholly to annoy a friend who had acted in it.)

“I found that in spite of her huge success, very little had been written about her. There seemed to be no recordings available of her innumerable appearances on chat shows, there was no critical analysis and each reference I found repeated the same facts of her late renaissance. But as I read, glimpses of a different Helen began to surface and the picture of her sudden blossoming seemed to cloak a more interesting artist.” Deborah Vass writes about the life of artist Helen Bradley, who painted the world of her Lancastrian Edwardian childhood.

“I first discovered Leonora Carrington as I believe she ought to be encountered: wandering the streets of Montmartre on a visit to Paris, happening on a little museum in a village-like street, and discovering an exhibit on women Surrealist artists. The year was 2023, the world was not yet at war, but already I was captivated by the cultural material of Carrington’s world: magical realism, retold feminist folktales, and romantic, political, and artistic struggles that would not have been unfamiliar to the women artists of the 1920s-1940s, the decades of that movement.” A discussion of Leonora Carrington’s wartime memoir Down Below.

A beginner’s curriculum on early medieval English literature.

“The Movement’s emphasis on ‘the personal is political’ has made it easier for trashing to flourish. We began by deriving some of our political ideas from our analysis of our personal lives. This legitimated for many the idea that the Movement could tell us what kind of people we ought to be, and by extension what kind of personalities we ought to have. As no boundaries were drawn to define the limits of such demands, it was difficult to preclude abuses.” Jo Freeman writing in 1976 on some of the (self-)destructive tendencies of the feminist movement.

I wholeheartedly agree with this from Sam Jennings in The Metropolitan Review: “I’ll never understand the point of being frustrated by artists who cultivate confrontational or overly quirky personal styles and signatures: if they fail, they fail, and there’s a nobility in it. If they succeed, then they succeed, and art wins out.” I believe I have seen precisely none of the films mentioned in the entire piece, but nevertheless it has got me interested in seeing Peter Hujar’s Day — what you want from a review is to feel interested.

I rather like the idea of sleeper trains, though I’ve never taken one; I like the romance of train travel. (First Class carriages are far less romantic than I feel they should be.)

I’m pretty into reading about heirloom pieces, craftsmanship, etc.: 10 British-made investment pieces to keep forever. (The only one I can endorse so far is Dents Gloves, who are good on sale discounts.)

Headless Poet is a new small poetry press! Look them up. Help them out.

A recipe for rhubarb quadruple ginger crumble fool, if your rhubarb is growing like mine (also some lovely pictures, and the immortal line Happy Easter to you if you celebrate. Happy two films in the afternoon, if you don’t.)

Also on a culinary note: the best bakeries in the UK (allegedly). None of them are near me; perhaps you live closer.

Some guides for spring gardening.