JulesLong time, no reading notes from me. I did read, but it was test-reading a mutual's novel, so no notes here.
But now! I'm starting Alice Degan's "From All False Doctrine", recommended by @irina.
Ancient manuscripts, cults, and academia in the 1920s.
Starts with a promisingly astute observation: “It would be so tedious for you, wouldn’t it, to have your research interrupted every so often by cultists wanting to worship the thing you were studying? In my department, now, we don’t have such problems.” “Good heavens, Harriet—you study money! All sorts of people worship that.”
(In STEM, we get crackpots, but our cultists are usually violently denying our findings instead of worshipping them.)
Fascinating to watch how they struggle to figure out class and relative social standing with two random guys they just met. It feels like half flirting, half interrogation! I'd think Elsa is oversharing, but maybe that's what you gotta do: make clear you're not their equal but still worthy?
(Or she's just an awkward nerd. It's not like I'm any authority on social graces.)
“She’ll study the morphology of the verbs or something, Peachy, you fool,” said Mr. Underhill. “She’s not doing her Master’s thesis in experimental pagan mysticism. One hopes.”
Well I don't! Master of Experimental Pagan Mysticism sounds like a lot of fun!
"I was trying to say that I—that I don’t think you need to. It’s 1925. The ‘confines of your sex’ aren’t what they used to be—are they? I don’t know. Admittedly it isn’t really my field. But I would think you could be a woman and a scholar, and you don’t need a husband for either of those things, so you should only have one if you want him."
It's almost 2025 here and somehow this still relevant.
“Not at all. But suppose you wanted to build a cathedral. Would it be good enough, do you think, to scribble a plan on the back of an envelope and leave it in a drawer? Obviously not. The thing has to exist in the world. It’s what we’ve been given the world for.”
Hm. Not sure, actually. There might ve room in the world for ADHD dabblers, too.
But of course we haven't seen enough of the character to decide if they have anxiety or ADHD or whatever.
That business with Elsa and her advisor is so infuriatingly relatable to, I guess, everyone who's been in academia and isn't a cis white man.
How dismissive he is - "thanks for pointing this out; of course you were wrong"! How ge puts her down and fucks her over, how easy that is. 😡
We've all met professors like that, and many of us have hoped they'd accept us as scholars if we're brilliant enough.
1920s, 2020s. Same shit different century.
Not only academia and the things girls hear don't seem to have changed that much in the last 100 years, the attitudes towards modernity in the Catholic church haven't either - but that was kind of expected.
"To be belittled in public but showered with affection and presents in private; to listen to all of his opinions but to have her own laughed at; to be unable to go out in mixed company without setting off a storm of jealousy: All this was romantic?"
NO! Run, girl!!!
Pick-up artists seem to have existed in the 1920s, too.
"So that was my conversion—I can’t explain it any better than that, and believe me, I have tried. It didn’t go particularly smoothly after that—I tried every way I could think of to get out of it, not out of conviction, or even loyalty to my mother, just because I was so scared. [...] I kept desperately trying to close the door, until I got so tired that I couldn’t keep it up."
I relate to this, like, SO HARD. 😢
Underhill's background, somewhat weirdly, is very similar to Jon Snow's in "A Song of Ice and Fire", isn't it? Right down to the celibacy. Huh.
There's maybe a bit of similarity to Umberto Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum" here. Guy invents a conspiracy theory for fun, people form a cult around it, and things get messy pretty fast. It even has a university-adjacent setting, too, and changes in gender roles and politics and vertical dualism play a role as well.
Eco's just focused less on the relationships and more on all the weird factoids.
"he said, ‘You’re right, and I know you only have my best interests at heart because you love me.’ And then all three of them laughed about it—‘Yes, we love you, isn’t it tiresome? [...] it was a revelation: They work at it. They try, they do the right things, most of the time, and the result is this beautiful place where love presides even over stupid arguments."
How I wish I could do that, and how I fail.
Okay, weird cults, demonic possesions and going out on Good Friday, I accept that, but I draw the line at playing the organ in church on Holy Saturday. That's just wrong.
Irina@quidcumque It's Anglican!
@irina it must be!
Laura@quidcumque @irina 😀 Easter Vigil must have music (per me). And I hafta practice on Saturday morning to be ready for the evening! All apologies for these heresies. 😉
@canticanovae Easter vigil totally must have music!
Ah, I didn't think about practice. That makes sense. Although the character wasn't practicing, just playing for another. That feels strange because I'm so used to the organ being silent from Thursday until Easter vigil.
@quidcumque @canticanovae It does help that we don't have an organ! (And also I've always found it strange that Roman Catholics don't sing Alleluia in Holy Week (or in all of Lent?) We Orthodox sing *more* Alleluia!
@irina @quidcumque We put away the Alleluias during Lent, too. Your tradition has made an interesting choice to sing more Alleluias during Lent! Is your Lent season otherwise (similarly) penitential in language and music?
@canticanovae @quidcumque Yes!! (Tonight was a bit of an exception because it was technically already Saturday)
@irina @canticanovae K2, who likes to yell "alleluia" (and "hosianna") certainly would approve of the Orthodox choice!
(These different choices are interesting!)
@canticanovae @quidcumque I love Lenten music (and there's only one more week of it, but then we'll have Holy Week music which is, if anything, better)