It's Always More Complicated

This has felt like a week and a half.

What with the To Do list consequent upon seeing the solicitors -

- which has involved a lot of digging stuff up and delving into files and checking things and discovering inter alia that a certain publisher has been sending my statements into the void, i.e. to an email address which went defunct in 2012. And that The Textbook is actually available in an e-version that I wotted not of.

Plus there has been the less straightforward than I supposed matter of actually putting the getting civilly partnered in hand - at one point I thought this might be on hold until Jan '27 but by not doing the most utterly basic possibility at the local Town Hall, can do it within a more reasonable time-frame, contingent upon going down to the Town Hall to register with due notice....

Okay, as historian and novel-reader I can see that this is to as far as possible avoid all those sensational entanglements that are fun to read but not to endure in person.

Concurrent with this there have been other annoyances - yes, I am delighted that my review is being published, but YOY do I have to, yet again, register with the journal portal and why is this never completely straightforward?

And I think this is apposite for the undertakings of this week: ‘The reading of the will’: making inheritance law visual - wills in funerary monuments, art, literature, media.

What I read

Finished Eleven Hours to Murder and went on to Death by the Dozen, which combine the cozy antics of Cat Caliban and her posse with mysteries tending to be rooted in past historical events in and around Cincinnatti. And Cat is after all pursuing a career as a PI, rather than taking up some quirky midlife career and just stumbling over bodies. And her partner is a retired cop who used to work in Juvie, not homicide. So counter to a lot of the recurrent tropes....

Then I realised, oops, that next meeting of in-person book group appears to be next Sunday - though I have not received any further notification since exchange of emails after the last meeting - so I have been reading Anna Funder, Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life (2023), which is blurbed as 'genre-bending', meaning it does things I am not that on board with, i.e. the writer's personal stuff/odyssey and b) fictionalising bits as narrative. Though I am marking it up somewhat for her realisation that her Great Hero G Orwell was A Horror. I daresay a lot of his trouble with being basically incapable in managing matters and practicalities was down to class and educational background but you'd have thought he might have cottoned on to some of that? rather than blithely eating up the whole of their butter ration? (fairly minor in the overall marital picture).

On the go

Read a bit more in I Am a Woman but still feeling a bit bogged down, even if Laura has finally had a night of sapphic passion.

Elizabeth George, A Slowly Dying Cause (Inspector Lynley Book 22) (2025). Fortunately this was a Kobo deal. Phoning it in. Also getting rather bogged down. 20% in and only just getting a sight of Lynley, let alone Havers. Includes great chunks of autobiographical reminiscence from the corpse.

Have also made some progress on volume for review.

Up next

Have apparently manifested, in place where I would never have thought to look for it, GB Stern, The Woman in the Hall (1939), which I had been fruitlessly looking for elsewhere, with a notion of maybe recommending for book group, as has recently been reissued for the first time since 1939 by British Library Women Writers.

Have only just discovered that there is a new (came out in November) biography of Decca Mitford: Carla Kaplan, Troublemaker: The Fierce, Unruly Life of Jessica Mitford.

Via a review in the latest Literary Review which is, alas, not fully online, sounds less than whelmed, and gives the impression that it may be a tad po-faced.

Yes, about Jessica Mitford, that great tease.

Can't find any other unpaywalled online reviews of any great credibility - there are some on GoodReads but they all sound to be from people who Nevererdofer previously.

So before I, that already have several of her own biographical works and essays, collections of letters etc upon my shelves, also the previous biography, spend moolah and time on this, I wonder if anyone has already read it and has opinions?

(Have just had thought that as far as I recall, Upton Sinclair's Lanny Budd did on at least one occasion encounter Unity Mitford, while undercover in Germany: but not, I think, Decca &/or Esmond, anywhere in his exploits.)

What I read

Finished The Edge. Well, there was a fair amount of research on Canadian railways went into that....

Shani Akilah, For Such a Time as This (2024), sortes ereader, i.e. opened up as I was scrolling my unread list - not sure how I came across this but enjoyed it, linked short stories about a group of Black British young (ish) people of diverse origins.

Forgot to mention this which I had already started last week and put to one side: Dennis Covington, Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia (1995, reissue with new afterword 2009) - I think I saw something about this somewhere and was interested in the idea. I was a bit irked at first by the style which was a certain kind of upmarket journalistic, and I was then a bit hmmm about him getting in touch with his own occluded lost in the mists family roots, but it was intriguing stuff, especially the way he got both drawn into the whole thing and then ejected by the community.

Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man (1964), since we watched the movie at the weekend (Colin Firth gives with brood) and I couldn't remember the book well enough to say how it matched (it did some odd things). Not, I think, peak Isherwood.

Madeleine E. Robins, The Sleeping Partner (Sarah Tolerance #3) (2011, recently reissued) - I read the earlier ones ages ago but missed this, which I was really gripped by.

On the go

And straight on to Madeleine E. Robins, The Doxies Penalty (Sarah Tolerance #4) (2025)

Up next

No idea - though a book I requested for review has now turned up. (Also essay review I turned in months ago finally came back with some minimal edits to do.)

Subsequent to the ereader issue (I am yet again having to go through marking books as finished, with additional 'did I ever read that?' vibes), this morning when I turned on my desktop I got Not My Usual LockScreen Picture and then after a certain delay a message that Windows was failing to login to my account. Try again.

So I tried again and it just hung so I switched it off, and next time I turned it on it came up a bit slowly but behaved itself.

Hmmmmm.

So, looking back over last year:

Apparently read the usual 220+ books, exclusive of works read for review purposes.

In being an Ancient Academick:

Had 3 reviews published, one and a fairly extensive essay review somewhere in journals publishing pipeline.

One chapter in an edited volume appeared.

Actually got out and attended 2 conferences (did miss one due to sudden health issues), one of which involved Going Away, and the other of which involved Doing a Keynote (at rather short notice....)

Project in which I have been involved for some years didn't exactly crash and burn but due to various issues (including email errors meaning I was out of the loop for several months) changed and mutated and I may yet decide to Just Send That Article to relevant journals and see what they say.

There was the whole Honorary association with Institution of Highah Learninz not being renewed after over 2 decades because after 1 person who was Honorary Lecturer doing Awful Thing Bringing Institution into Disrepute, they viciously tightened up the protocols. This involved me scurrying around and applying for and getting an Honorary Fellowship at an entirely appropriate and esteemed institution just down the road therefrom.

And am giving a paper to the Fellows' Symposium in the spring.

There is also the possibility re BBL and myself editing the ms of important work of recently prematurely deceased friend and scholar.

So, not quite irrelevant yet...

In more general life stuff:

This was the year of engaging with physiotherapists! On the whole the results have manifested positive results.

I in fact started pursuing that because, following that Routine Health Check last year, I was doing resistance band exercises and noticing some problems. Anyway, have been, cautiously, continuing these and have even moved up from The Really Wimpy Pink One to the Green One. This, plus daily walks, and probably doing my physio exercises, has seen some reduction in weight, and sleep improvements, though whether there's been any benefit re blood pressure, cholesterol etc, who knows.

This has also been the year of tentatively poking my nose out of my hole, both, see above, attending conferences and going to more social events at New Institution, and more general social interactions.

I only finished and published 1 volume in The Ongoing Saga but I'm currently well-advanced in the next one.

Hesitant to say My Plans For This Coming Year, which there are, but I don't like to say, because I think they have been plans before and not happened.

Including being gaslit by the Royal Mail, like, I know they sent me a text yesterday and a text this am saying they were delivering A Parcel, but when I went to look as the window was drawing to a close, could not find, while online tracking said something entirely different (parcel still in transit to local sorting office).

In fact, Parcel has just turned up, several hours after indicated.

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Phone doing Weird Stuff - well, part of this is not phone per se, it was O2, as in, when I was out and about in the world the other day my web data allowance ran out and they send this message about texting 'WEBDAILY' to get a top-up, so I did, and did it? not until yesterday, which was totally pointless.

Plus, in relation to niggle this morning about Downstairs Flat having an electricity thing doing which involved turning off the Main Meter deep in the cellar which affects both flats, was trying to use phone as a hotspot with my laptop and it wanted some network authorisation code? With old phone this used to come up on the actual phone? Though I was also having issues with bluetooth and this may be down to ageing laptop....

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So there was also that thing of morning routine being disrupted by electricity being turned off. (Though now this thing has been done maybe we too can get a Smart Meter set up, because as I recall having to get at that was the issue.)

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Have actually, this week, started on outstanding overdue essay review, as well as putting it some more effort on keynote presentation for end of month (this is still a goer and is actually up on their site that I am speaking).

Moderate yay me?

Have just been contacted by A Young Scholar who I feel has imprinted on me like a gosling about an article of theirs currently going through the submission process....

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GP has requested to make appointment re routine medication review, which I have done, but am a bit anxious about (but perhaps I can get them put sumatriptan back on the routine medications list????).

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However, in better news, the grocery delivery came early enough that I have been able to get a sardegnera on the go for supper!

The Benson Diary by AC Benson review – musings of an Edwardian elitist:

His outlook is that of an Edwardian clubman; and indeed, the only England Benson knew well, apart from Eton, Cambridge and the court at Windsor Castle, was the smoke-filled rooms of Pall Mall, a world largely without women. Benson did not much like women and was not at ease with them, preferring the company of handsome young men. The editors go to great pains to argue that Benson, while certainly homoerotic, was not actively homosexual. But, really, who cares?
....
In truth, these diaries are a monument of misplaced scholarship.

(The Literary Review was kinder)

But also, while I guess Bensons are a minor fandom of mine, the diaries I would be interested in reading are those of Minnie (Sapphic romps at Lambeth Palace!) and of naughty Fred, EF Benson, author of the camp classics about Mapp and Lucia and the Edwardian bromance David Blaize. Though once attended conference paper claiming that the M&L novels were essentially romans a clef about his circle, so maybe he didn't need to write a bitchy diary as well.

I think we already had as much of AC as anyone would wish to know in that Goldhill volume on the family, which had a bit too much AC for my taste to begin with.

The following are all in the area of environmental history: enjoy!

Rebecca Beausaert. Pursuing Play: Women's Leisure in Small-Town Ontario, 1870-1914.

Beausaert’s discussion of the growing popularity of outdoor recreation in the early twentieth century, as opposed to earlier forms of indoor leisure such as book clubs and church gatherings, also highlights the role of women in the rise of environmental activism in towns like Elora. In these communities, grassroots efforts to maintain the local environment and cater to the influx of ecotourism travelers flourished, further illustrating the agency of women in shaping both their social and environmental landscapes.

Robert Aquinas McNally. Cast Out of Eden: The Untold Story of John Muir, Indigenous Peoples, and the American Wilderness:

McNally’s emphasis on the role of race in Muir’s thinking, and, therefore, on his vision of wilderness preservation, helps readers more clearly see Muir not as wilderness prophet but as a man of his time coming to terms with the consequences of American expansion.

B. J. Barickman. From Sea-Bathing to Beach-Going: A Social History of the Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Edited by Kendrik Kraay and Bryan McCann:

The book begins with Rio in the nineteenth century and shows that Cariocas regularly went to bathe in the ocean. The work incorporates an assortment of sources to give a vivid picture of this process. For instance, it was customary for bathers to go before dawn—as early as 3 a.m.—since many in Rio went to bed early in the evening, but also due to colorism within Brazilian society. The dominant white society enjoyed swimming in the ocean but also prized fairer complexions and thus aimed to avoid the sun. Yet, few amenities existed for sea-bathers. The city dumped its sewage and trash into the ocean and provided few lifeguards, which resulted in frequent drownings.
In chapter 2, a personal favorite, Barickman discusses the evolution of sea bathing from a therapeutic practice (thalassotherapy) in the nineteenth century to a leisure activity that provided a space for socialization across gender lines by the 1920s. Locals went to the beach to escape the heat of the summer, rowing emerged as the most popular sport in the region, and, as in other parts of the world such as the United States and the Southern Cone, beach-going became a popular way to make or meet friends. In short, the beach became a public space at all hours of the day, not just before dawn. Moreover, the beach captured the “moral ambiguities” of nineteenth-century norms (51-63). Men and women of all races and classes could be present in public spaces partially nude, to observe others and to be observed, in ways that society did not permit beyond the beach, but this continually frustrated moral reformers.
Chapter 3 centers on the work of Rio’s civic leaders to “civilize” the city in hopes of altering public perception of the city as a “tropical pesthole” (p. 69).

David Matless. England’s Green: Nature and Culture Since the 1960s:

The range of sources and topics is impressive, but at times the evidence is noted so briefly and the prose proceeds so quickly that breadth is privileged over depth. For example, the deeper connections between England and global ideas of green (as defined by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the World Wildlife Fund), the influence of colonial experience on conservation events of the 1970s, and the tensions between the various governmental nature management organizations would all have benefited from a little more attention. Yet, even if the reader sometimes wishes for a slower pace to get their thoughts in order, Matless offers enough analysis to build the examples up into a clear and insightful picture. The reader is left with a general appreciation of the central environmental debates of the period and good understanding of how they evolved over time. For scholars, it is a multidimensional study that adds something new and long awaited to British environmental and cultural history. For others, it is a fascinating book filled with interesting stories, cultural context, and many moments of nostalgia.

Michael Lobel. Van Gogh and the End of Nature.:

Lobel makes a systematic case for a new way of seeing Van Gogh’s paintings. Carefully introducing readers to a host of environmental conditions that shaped Van Gogh’s lived experience and appear repeatedly in his paintings—factories, railways, mining operations, gaslight, polluted waterways, arsenic, among others—Lobel compellingly invites us to see Van Gogh as an artist consistently grappling with the changing ecological world around him. Color and composition, as two of Van Gogh’s most heralded painterly qualities, appear now through an entirely different perception influenced by a clear environmental consciousness.

Ursula Kluwick. Haunting Ecologies: Victorian Conceptions of Water:

The author sets out to consider how Victorians understood water, seen through nineteenth-century fictional and nonfictional writings about the River Thames. In chapter 2 she points out the existence of writing that emphasizes how polluted the Thames was as well as writing that never mentions the pollution, and wonders at their coexistence. The conclusion that the writings don’t relate to any real state of the river is not particularly surprising but points to the author’s overall intent, summarized in the book’s title.

Alan Rauch. Sloth:

Rauch views these caricatural depictions—including portrayals of sloths as docile and naive creatures, as seen in the animated film Ice Age (2002)—as potentially detrimental to the species’ well-being. Through his analysis, the author critiques how sloths have been appropriated to fulfill human (emotional, cultural, and economic) needs and how this process misrepresents sloths, leading to harmful stereotypes that diminish their intrinsic value and undermine their agency.

I cannot help myself feeling a certain gratification when a reviews editor calls the reviews I have just submitted 'beautifully written' and is eager to solicit further (though as I have several others in hand, may not take this up very urgently....) (Preen, preen.)

Have also been solicited quite out of the blue to take part in a podcast. WOT.

It is also very pleasing that the return of Lady Bexbury and her extensive circle is appreciated.

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Not so very long ago I posted about this lady who worked for SOE way back when: and now Blaise Metreweli named as first woman to lead UK intelligence service MI6.

I thought The secret lives of MI6’s top female spies this was connected - it's actually 2022 but maybe being reposted for the new association. There are several paragraphs of aged former secret agent lady waxing snarky about the sexism aforetimes that precluded advancement up the ranks.

Beneath her tales of life in the service there is real anger about the way women were treated. Both she and her great friend, Daphne Park — a fellow senior SIS officer who died in 2010 at the age of 88 — led distinguished careers but failed to reach the highest ranks. This, they suspected, was due to their gender.
Ramsay speaks in a soft Scots burr which rises audibly when I ask about SIS’s record on female officers. She feels particularly aggrieved that Park, a life-long intelligence officer who held SIS postings in Moscow, Lusaka, Hanoi and Ulan Bator, did not progress to the most senior levels. (MI6 would neither confirm nor deny it had employed Park.) “There’s no doubt in my mind that Daphne should have been at least one rung up as the deputy chief position. I can say that without any equivocation,” Ramsay says, tapping a lacquered pink fingernail on the table. Park, described unkindly in one obituary as looking “more like Miss Marple than Mata Hari”, resigned early from the service in 1979, having told a friend that she would never be promoted to SIS chief because of her gender.
By the early 1990s, Ramsay was rumoured to be in the running for the post of C, although shortlists are never publicly acknowledged. Privately, she thought the promotion of a woman to that role would still be “quite impossible”.... She observes that while many talented women such as Noor Inayat Khan excelled in the Special Operations Executive, a wartime secret service and sabotage unit set up in 1940, there was a long period afterwards when women ceased to be employed as intelligence officers at all. Ramsay recounts an episode in the 1970s when she came across a woman she thought would make a “perfect” agent-runner. She telephoned the head of recruitment to discuss the prospect, who told her they weren’t looking for women. “He said, ‘It would take an extraordinary gel’ — and it was the ‘gel’ that got to me — ‘to be an intelligence officer’. And I said, ‘Well, it would take an extraordinary boy too, but it hasn’t stopped you recruiting males!’”

Last week was the one where there was PANIC over whether I would have new supply of prescription drug; credit card issues including FRAUD; and also bizarre phonecall from the musculo-skeletal people about scheduling an appointment which suggested they hadn't looked at my record or are very very confused about what my next session is actually for.

HOWEVER

Though I began writing a review on Wednesday, did a paragraph, and felt totally blank about where it was going from there, I returned to it the following day and lo and behold wrote enough to be considered an actual review, though have been tinkering and polishing since then. But is essentially DONE.

And in the realm of reviewing have received 3 books for essay review, have another one published this month coming sometime, and today heard that my offer to review for Yet Another Venue has been accepted, where can they send the book?

While in other not quite past it news, for many years I was heavily involved in a rather niche archival survey, which is no longer being hosted in its previous useful if rather outdated form but as a spreadsheet (I would say no use to man nor beast but it does have some value I suppose). But there is talk of reviving and updating it (yay) and I have been invited to a meeting to discuss this. Fortunately I can attend virtually rather than at ungodly hour of morning in distant reaches of West London.

Also professional org of which I am A (jolly good?) Fellow is doing a survey and has invited me to attend a virtual Focus Group.

Oh yes, and it looks as though a nerdy letter about Rebecca West I wrote to the Literary Review is likely to get published.