Take your head outside

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.