Wednesday Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Ever since The Colt from Moon Mountain, I’ve been plundering the archive’s collection of Dorothy P. Lathrop books. The latest was Presents for Lupe, which alas does not feature a surprise unicorn, but does center on an adorable South American red squirrel. The twins John and Joan have just brought her home from the pet shop, and put her in a much larger and more comfortable cage, and give her seeds of all kinds… but when she still seems sad and anxious, family and friends start sending them all sorts of things from South America, until at last a present arrives that makes Lupe feel at home.

This book was published in 1940, and seems to be part of a more general wave of American children’s books about Central and South America. I have no proof that this was inspired by Franklin Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy, but the timing seems suggestive.

What I’m Reading Now

Simon Sebag Montefiore’s brick The Romanovs: 1613-1918, a mammoth work that took over my life for the past week and bids fair to take over it next week too. I’ve made it to Catherine the Great, which may mean that no one else is going to be impaled? (Not holding my breath on this.) Catherine the Great and her long-time lover Grigory Potemkin refer to each other as Matushka and Batushka/Batinka (Mama and Papa, basically), and also have their younger lovers refer to them as a unit in the same way. That’s one way to do polyamory and/or found family I guess!

Catherine the Great’s actual son Paul just had a nervous breakdown because Catherine suggested that he should go on a tour of Europe and then Paul’s tutor/advisor was like “Hey, you know that time that Peter the Great’s son Alexei ran away to Italy, and then Peter lured him back and killed him? Possibly with his own two hands like how Ivan the Terrible killed HIS son? Makes you think!”

What I Plan to Read Next

I may take a break from The Romanovs to read Michiko Aoyama’s What You Are Looking For Is in the Library as a light and breezy palate cleanser.

Comments

[mme_n_b]

Does it say what TK and TK stood for?

[osprey_archer]

The TKs were meant to be a reminder to myself to actually go back and copy down the exact terms they used, which obviously did not end up happening. Basically extra-diminutive forms of Mama and Papa.

[mme_n_b]

Ufff! I nearly drove myself mad trying to figure out which Russian words could be so abbreviated in this context :))) Were they, by any chance, "matushka" and "batjushka"? :)))

[osprey_archer]

Matushka and batushka/batinka, yeah.

[mme_n_b]

So, one funny part about this that usually gets lost in translation, is that those are also the honorifics of vassalage. That is, people who were not sexually or familiarly involved with either of them in any way would have also addressed them so when they needed what Ada Palmer conveniently calls "grace". Which does give a certain BDSM tinge that they would not have intended.

[asakiyume]

What ends up making Lupe feel at home? We saw squirrels that were brilliantly red when we were in Medellín in 2024 (you can click through to see them up larger and closer)



And then this time, when I was visiting my friends, I saw a bright red squirrel too! I wondered if it was the same species or not... hard for me to tell when I do a search online. Anyway: really great coloring.

Poor Paul! There's just no knowing what a parent has planned for you when you're an imperial prince...

[osprey_archer]

Lupe gets a Lupe-sized pot which she can turn into a burrow! Now she has a place to hide out and also to cache her nuts.

The squirrel in the book is a mix of red and black in illustrations, so perhaps a different variety of South American red squirrel? Although looking closely at the photo, the squirrels do seem to have some black fur... hard to tell!

[asakiyume]

BURRRRROW!

Y una Lupe feliz y contenta ^_^