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February 25, 2005

Fifty Book Challenge #3 and #4

An Inconvenient Wife - Megan Chance
The Birth of Venus - Sarah Dunant

I decided to blog about these books together because they are both examples of the well-worn "young woman in a patriarchal society finds fufilment through adultery and painting" storyline (the fact that I find that plotline well worn says something not entirely complimentary about my reading habits). The first tells the story of a wealthy member of ninteenth century New York society diagnosed as suffering from "uterine monomania," (or what we would call boredom, sexual frustration, and alcohol abuse) who really wants to leave her high-society life behind and paint. Since she is forbidden by her husband to do this, she instead falls in love with her doctor and concocts a plot with him to escape from her husband's controlling clutches. The plot is overblown, the characters are unlikable, but it's a bit of a diverting read, following the heroine as she runs afoul of nineteenth century sexual politics.

The second book tells the story of a young woman living in fifteenth-century Florence, who really wants to leave behind the life of a successful merchant's daughter in order to paint. However, when a French invasion threatens, she is told she must either marry or be sent to a convent, and she decides to marry an older man who seems sympathetic to her love of art and learning. However, it transpires that he is actually carrying on a torrid affair with her brother. In revenge, she embarks upon her own awkward, abortive affair with the young painter who is decorating her family's chapel. Unlike the first book, there is actually a modicum of interesting history, as the heroine reacts to the rise and fall of the religiously fanatical regime of Savonorola.

At their heart, both books consist essentially of asking what it would be like for a woman with essentially contemporary sensibilities to be trapped in a past that significantly restricts the opportunities and experiences available to women. It's a fantasy exercise more than a literary one--an opportunity to put oneself in the place of the heroine, wearing her fantastic clothes, enjoying her romantic lover, and fighting her valiant battle against female oppression--and I'm a sucker for these sorts of books,

But what irks me is that both authors had to draw the battle lines so comfortably, with nary a bit of complexity. The betrayed husbands are set up to have earned their betrayal, the social conventions to be purposeless boundaries. As a result, reading both books felt, in the end, about as pleasant as being asked "Are you for increased environmental protection, or do you think big corporations should be allowed to dump poisonous chemicals into the drinking water of preschool children?"


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A Tired Dance

The blood is still fresh on the pedestrian walkway along the beach beside Tel Aviv's hotels, and again there is the inwards shock of reading a wire story and vividly remembering walking where there are now corpses. It's too quick to know who is responsible, although early unconfirmed reports from inside Al-Aqsa point to Hezbollah (that this would be said regardless of actual responsibility as the PA strains to uphold Abu Mazen's edict of truce seems certain); there are also unconfirmed claims of responsibility from Islamic Jihad. Hezbollah, with the possibility of Syrian support being cut off after Hariri's assasination by the Syrian security apparatus, certainly has a motive to draw Israel back into active conflict. IJ needs no motive.

But this sort of guessing game feels particularly helpless and hollow right now. A few years ago, after drinking milk shakes at Yotvata, on Herbert Samuel Promenade besides the beach, we wandered outside under the lights, jeans rolled up, and held our shoes as we ran into the water. I remember the bright phosphor overhead reflecting off the nothing waves of the Med, and the rush of cars behind us, and being young and stupid and alive. May God bless the dead.


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WillWatch

I have been posting too much in the comments of other blogs lately; unfortunately, I don't have a script that would automatically track all of my comments all over the web onto one page. In any case, for those interested:
I have two comments (1, 2) at Left 2 Right in response to this post and this comment from Professor Herzog.

I argue with Heidi Bond's poetic muse in this comments thread

I, and several others, search for straw men in the comments to this post by Kriston Capps at Begging to Differ.


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The Gates, Again

On Wednesday I made a brief trip into New York to see the derided Gates of Central Park. Unfortunately, I did not hate them as much as I had hoped to, and concur in the sentiments of classmate Angus Dwyer, who was kind enough to ramble through the park with me: "Silly. Terminally silly. But basically harmless."

Anyway, Angus has a flurry of pictures posted on his site, which are worth a stroll if you aren't able to stroll through the genuine artifact.

[Incidentally, I am pleased that Christo decided to spend his own money on this flight of fancy rather than to collect rents from the citizens of New York. Still, it would have been nicer if he had not been given the massive, massive subsidy of 2 weeks free rent in Central Park.]


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Return of Strahilevitz

Friend of Crescat Ben Glatstein points out to me that not only Professor Strahilevitz's Right to Destroy article out (as I noted before) be he also has an exciting new paper forthcoming in the U Chi L Rev. I am told that it contains Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.


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