Take your head outside

[sovay]

When I can get hold of a print copy, I will shelve this book alongside Craig Williams: Sandra Boehringer's Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome (2007/2021). Being out of the loop, I had no idea it existed until this afternoon, but I am glad it does.

I am not here to trash Netflix's Persuasion (2022), especially since I haven't seen it and other outlets have got that covered, but I did have a knee-jerk disagreement with the terms in which one review expressed its approval: "the subversive, fundamental elements that made the original text so beloved, cheeky and subversive far beyond the boundaries of the time in which it was written." I have no argument with the notion of Austen as iconoclast, I too have bounced off sentimental novels, but the thing about the past is that anything from it by definition exists within its boundaries. Persuasion wasn't teleported to the desk of John Murray Jr. from the twenty-first century. It was written, accepted, and published in 1817. When Anne Elliot argues against all the histories that are against women, it is all the more resonant because she is arguing in real time; if she looks like the future, it is because we inherited her. Alternately the reviewer just intended to refer to enduring relevance, but the other thing about the past is that its boundaries are not always where you expect them to be. (I bet Richard E. Grant is magnificent, though.)

Lacking a machine to shave ice with, I tried to replicate the necessary grade of splinter using a blender and have instead ended up with a frozen drink containing sour cherry juice and condensed coconut milk, which is not actually a problem.

Comments

[shewhomust]

... but the thing about the past is that anything from it by definition exists within its boundaries.

Seconded. With thanks!

[sovay]

Seconded. With thanks!

Welcome! Thank you!

[asakiyume]

Yeah, it seems so clear now that there are always a multiplicity of views and ideas--always--and the general idea we have about what the past was like is based on the few strands that people with the loudest megaphones have decided to share. It may be true that not many people thought like Jane Austen, but probably she wasn't the *only* one to think that way.

That drink sound fabulous. Where did you get the sour cherry juice? (Did you mash sour cherries?)

[sovay]

It may be true that not many people thought like Jane Austen, but probably she wasn't the *only* one to think that way.

Exactly! The "of their time" argument cuts both ways.

That drink sound fabulous. Where did you get the sour cherry juice? (Did you mash sour cherries?)

No, it came out of a storebought bottle that selkie sent me as part of a package of comfort food and which I carefully moved out of our pantry at the end of last month! The original plan was to pour a judicious amount over the smashed ice in lieu of syrup and top with condensed coconut milk, but it became rapidly clear that this was resulting in something that really needed to be in a glass (the closest-to-shaved ice began to melt instantly, the larger chunks stayed clinking in the bowl), so I transferred it and have no regrets.

[osprey_archer]

When someone says that a writer from the past has "modern" opinions, really they just mean that these are opinions they agree with. Sometimes those supposed "modern" opinions were actually quite widespread in ye olden days, even if said opinion is not what most people now believe that people in the past believed.

[sovay]

When someone says that a writer from the past has "modern" opinions, really they just mean that these are opinions they agree with.

Ayup. Which remains a very dangerous idea about the natural progressiveness of history moving toward the current moment, especially when a current moment is going so hard in retrograde.

Sometimes those supposed "modern" opinions were actually quite widespread in ye olden days, even if said opinion is not what most people now believe that people in the past believed.

I find what people believe about the past almost as interesting as the past itself, where by interesting I often mean screaming a lot.

[kore]

Definitely, and also it depends on what past cherries got picked -- the Horrid Novels in Northanger Abbey weren't rediscovered until quite a bit later. People thought Austen made them up!

[sovay]

-- the Horrid Novels in Northanger Abbey weren't rediscovered until quite a bit later. People thought Austen made them up!

I had this experience with Daniel Pinkwater. When last I checked, almost all of the movies cited in The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death (1982) were either real or very thinly filed off from reality. I had no idea, in seventh grade, that he hadn't just made Attack the Mayan Mummy up.

[hyarrowen]

I've been watching the comments on 2022 Persuasion unfold in real time. It's been a wild ride. I agree that Richard E. Grant is probably superb, but what they thought they were playing at with the rest of it is beyond me. Subversion, possibly, according to the reviewer quoted above.

[sovay]

I've been watching the comments on 2022 Persuasion unfold in real time. It's been a wild ride.

It hadn't even been on my radar until selkie linked me the Slate review and then wow.

I agree that Richard E. Grant is probably superb, but what they thought they were playing at with the rest of it is beyond me. Subversion, possibly, according to the reviewer quoted above.

Writing and directing for (ironic tildes around this next phrase) modern sensibilities may account for the rest, it belatedly occurred to me to consider. "If you're a 5 in London, you're a 10 in Bath" is the kind of anachronism that wouldn't be out of place in historical romances I have encountered where characters use phrases like "brain fuckery" and have completely twenty-first century attitudes and language around sexual consent and identity, because otherwise how do we know they are good and sympathetic people? I should be clear that I don't have a problem with anachronism per se. Some of my favorite historical films are full of it. But it has to feel like it's doing something other than suggesting that the past is at its best and most relevant when it's indistinguishable from the present with different clothes on and it really sounds like this Persuasion just blew it.

Maybe there'll be a supercut of Grant's scenes.

[kore]

I loved seeing new people fall in love with Richard E. Grant in half of one episode of Loki. Instant cries of "Bring him back!"

[sovay]

I loved seeing new people fall in love with Richard E. Grant in half of one episode of Loki. Instant cries of "Bring him back!"

That's delightful. It almost makes me want to watch half an episode of Loki.

[kore]

LOL, it's such a self-contained episode it might even make sense (it's the next-to-last ep). All you really have to know is "a bunch of variant Lokis are stuck in magical limbo, Richard E. Grant is one of them".

There is also an alligator Loki!

[hyarrowen]

The trick is to keep the attitudes of the past while keeping the characters sympathetic to present-day readers, and that's a very narrow tightrope to walk. The director here obviously fell off.

As for the supercut of Grant's scenes, someone's probably working on it right now, lol.

[minoanmiss]

Oh that is most well said!

[sovay]

Oh that is most well said!

Thank you!

[luzula]

but the thing about the past is that anything from it by definition exists within its boundaries

Yes! All my reading of 18th century texts really shows that people wrote all sorts of surprising things in the past.

[sovay]

All my reading of 18th century texts really shows that people wrote all sorts of surprising things in the past.

It's one of the things I like about the past, really!

[ethelmay]

"That is cool." --Abraham Lincoln (yes, I know that's nineteenth century) (yes, I know he meant something else) (it is still cool)

[sovay]

(yes, I know he meant something else) (it is still cool)

(It is.)

[luzula]

I was surprised that "wow", in the same sense as we use it today, can be used in the 18th century! Especially in Scotland.

[ethelmay]

One of Charlotte Yonge's lesser known books (based on the African travels of a friend) talked about the Zulus stalking around the white people's house looking at things and saying "Wow." As that is rather my reaction to Victorian drawing rooms, it made me laugh quite a lot.

[kore]

it is all the more resonant because she is arguing in real time; if she looks like the future, it is because we inherited her

Well said!

[sovay]

Well said!

Thank you!

[nineweaving]

Wait, they've Fleabagged Persuasion? Sweet suffering maenads!

"The closest equivalent I can think of is J Robert Oppenheimer, whose impressive work in the field of fast neutron calculation led directly to the creation of the atomic bomb. As Oppenheimer watched the very first nuclear detonation in July 1945, the terrifying explosion dominating the New Mexico horizon before his eyes reminded him of a quote from the Bhagavad Gita: 'Now I am become Death, destroyer of worlds'. If Phoebe Waller-Bridge ever has the misfortune of watching Persuasion, she should probably go and get that quote tattooed on her leg."

Ah well, sour cherry juice and condensed coconut milk sounds fabulous. So does that book.

Nine

[sovay]

"If Phoebe Waller-Bridge ever has the misfortune of watching Persuasion, she should probably go and get that quote tattooed on her leg."

Laughing with horror, I read that paragraph to my mother last night!

Ah well, sour cherry juice and condensed coconut milk sounds fabulous.

I put the leftover condensed coconut milk over a mango tonight.

So does that book.

I am looking forward.

[thisbluespirit]

I can't say anything about an adaptation I haven't seen, either, but I am assured this is a real scene, and I'm just going to leave it here for you on your doorstep: https://thisbluespirit.tumblr.com/post/690009995435261953/not-in-my-wildest-dreams-could-i-have-seen-this

(Was someone thwarted in their desire to make Sense & Sensibility & Sea-Monsters?)

[sovay]

I can't say anything about an adaptation I haven't seen, either, but I am assured this is a real scene, and I'm just going to leave it here for you on your doorstep

As the eighteenth century (see above) might say, "Wow."

[edit] "WHERE IS THE MUSIC COMING FROM ANNE"

[selkie]

I am hip deep in “I am a terrible writer” stage like so much cowshit, and yet.

Holy. Cowshit. Someone wrote that. About Mr. van Beethoven.

They didn’t have ready access to cannabinoid derivatives in 1817 England so I can ONLY HOPE she’s got a half spinet shoved molderingly into one corner of her spinster-ass bedroom, Gentlethem!

[sovay]

I am hip deep in “I am a terrible writer” stage like so much cowshit, and yet.

Please, please understand how much further down in the cowshit being a terrible writer actually is.

They didn’t have ready access to cannabinoid derivatives in 1817 England so I can ONLY HOPE she’s got a half spinet shoved molderingly into one corner of her spinster-ass bedroom, Gentlethem!

Alongside all the pins and ribbons she isn't using on her hair?

[selkie]

OH THE HAIR RILES ME. It RILES me, sir.
*flails fatly*
LET'S ALL BE A FIRE HAZARD FIRE HAZARDING OUR WAY THROUGH THE COUNTRYSIDE EVEN THOUGH WE ARE SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT MOSTLY GOOD SENSE, WRY FORBEARANCE, AND ACCEPTANCE BECAUSE WE ARE 28 AND AN ECONOMIC DEPENDENT

[thisbluespirit]

lol, amazing!!

[duskpeterson]

"Sandra Boehringer's Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome"

That sounds interesting - thanks for mentioning it!

[sovay]

That sounds interesting - thanks for mentioning it!

You're welcome!