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!

[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?)

[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.

[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.

[minoanmiss]

Oh that is most well said!

[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.

[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!

[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?)

[duskpeterson]

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

That sounds interesting - thanks for mentioning it!