Wrote a scholar from the island that they kept from me

[sovay]

Having access this evening to a tableful of newspapers, I saw the front-page article in the Globe about the climatically imminent flooding of the Seaport and it was pretty much exactly like reading that water is wet. I still have difficulty regarding that neighborhood as a real part of Boston, not merely because of its glass-shelled gentrification but because it is even more obviously on loan from the sea than the rest of this flat gravel-fill town. As soon as there was sea-rise in the future, Boston was going to be under it, long before the governments and corporations of this world blew through the 1.5C deadline. I love the harborwalk and I have seen the harbor walking over it. Urban renewal was faster cash in the moment than streets that would not flood the next minute. I do not believe in the stupidest timeline because I was exposed too early to the folktale in which it could always be worse, but it is nonsensical and nightmarish to me that this is the one we are all trapped in. It is because the universe is an unjust place that so many in power are not found in the morning blue-lipped, salt-lunged, sea-strangled on land.

On the other hand, tonight I watched Hestia trot over to spatch's new computer on which was still stuck the silver-paper bow of its early holiday present and pluck it in passing, after which she hunted it up and down the front hall with much batting and biting and singing the high, clear song to her prey which is usually reserved for socks. Decades after bouncing off all the George Eliot I tried after Silas Marner (1861), I seem to be embedded in Middlemarch (1872). It washed out my plans for the day which I then did little with, but I slept a generally assessed normal number of hours.

Comments

[selkie]

I am hurt, hurt that you should be so dear to me for so long and not let me advise you on the Empire canon worth reading. Is there also gambling in this establishment?!

Last night Mac ignored a fragment of meatball in favor of the tomato sauce. Now in addition to his Perma-Gravy stain he is a little orangey-red on the chin. I hope you rejoice in your real cat.

[vass]

That is beautifully told about Hestia.

I hope Middlemarch is fun.

[umadoshi]

It is because the universe is an unjust place that so many in power are not found in the morning blue-lipped, salt-lunged, sea-strangled on land.

TRUTH.

after which she hunted it up and down the front hall with much batting and biting and singing the high, clear song to her prey which is usually reserved for socks.

Cats are a marvel and a glory upon the earth. *^^*

[lauradi7dw]

The entire documentary "Inundation district" used to be on youtube but now it seems to require something to watch. At any rate, have five minutes of it.
https://youtu.be/pmGyZdx_QDI?si=jq8_2ihcCBlpdjAM

[minoanmiss]

it is even more obviously on loan from the sea than the rest of this flat gravel-fill town.

ahahahahahaha beuatiffuly said.

*delights in Hestia*

[regshoe]

Oh, Middlemarch is great (I think it's her best book, though I'm fonder of The Mill on the Floss). A good book to wash out the rest of a day's plans with, anyway, I hope :)

[gwynnega]

I remember loving Middlemarch, but I read it so long ago, I should really reread it.

[thomasyan]

Gah, I saw that article, too, and others in the Boston Globe about flooding in the near future. Aside from sea-rise, apparently we can expect more severe rainstorms that also cause flooding in many parts of the state. For example, Cambridge has a tool for visualizing flood risk:
https://www.cambridgema.gov/Services/floodmap/floodviewer2025

[thisbluespirit]

I seem to be embedded in Middlemarch (1872). It washed out my plans for the day which I then did little with, but I slept a generally assessed normal number of hours.

I read that one at (UK) college, sitting about the upstairs corridors, and while the only other one of hers I ever actually read was Adam Bede, I definitely preferred Middlemarch. I hope you continue to enjoy! There's also a (1993?) BBC adaptation that's supposed to be very good, and which I've always meant to check out, but I didn't read the book until after it was on TV.

I was exposed too early to the folktale in which it could always be worse, but it is nonsensical and nightmarish to me that this is the one we are all trapped in. It is because the universe is an unjust place that so many in power are not found in the morning blue-lipped, salt-lunged, sea-strangled on land.

:-/

[batdina]

Interesting. I loved Middlemarch, but the one I reread is Daniel Deronda, for the same reasons you mentioned in comments that Middlemarch is working for you this time around: the parallel story, which also takes a long time to get going in DD.

Remind me which Goudge you like? I've never read her, and I'm curious.

(I am so lacking in familiarity with Boston that I cannot comment on its geography, but as a denizen of San Francisco, I know all about land that's borrowed from the sea.)

[pameladean]

Hestia is SUCH a mighty hunter.

I always liked Middlemarch -- it was a bit like an Always Coming Home that I could read, fantasy about an invented but very germane culture -- but it took me FOREVER to realize how funny it is. I was an extremely earnest and literal young person.

P.

[davidgillon]

It is because the universe is an unjust place that so many in power are not found in the morning blue-lipped, salt-lunged, sea-strangled on land.

That sounds like an excellent opening visual/plot for a story.

A story I will not be surprised to find you left stranded on the sands years ago.

[gullyfoyle]

https://www.dukeupress.edu/escaping-nature

I recently found a copy of this in a local thrift store but have been reluctant to get into it seeing as how there's plenty of other things hammering at the door, all eager to depress the fuck out of me. I just noticed this copy was signed by the primary author, which isn't too surprising since he is an emeritus professor at Duke here in Durham. I can remember his name popping up in articles about sea level rise that I read in the 1990s, maybe earlier. Every time a house on the Outer Banks falls into the surf and someone is inevitably quoted saying "I never imagined this could happen here," Professor Pilkey should get a royalty.

[genarti]

Fully agreed about the Seaport. It has some fun things and some convenient things, but it always feels very much like a mirage to me. The fact that it's full of ridiculously corporate-gentrification stuff like bars with VR golf simulators is a significant portion of that -- surely that must be a joke? it can't be real, surely? -- but the borrowed-from-the-sea aspect is too.

[skygiants]

I grew up with my mother saying "Middlemarch is the greatest book ever written" in one ear and my father saying "Middlemarch is the dullest book I've ever read" in the other so it felt very weighty when I read it in college and found myself enjoying it; I reread it two or three years ago and liked it even more. Eliot's people are so full.