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Wednesday Reading Meme
Feb. 5th, 2025 07:59 amWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
The first time I attempted Jane McIntosh Snyder’s Lesbian Desire in the Lyrics of Sappho, I got quite cross at the book for not being the book that I wanted it to be: that is to say, a book about what we can learn about society in sixth-century Lesbos based on Sappho’s poetry, and about the ancient classical world in general based on the fact that Sappho was called the tenth muse and her poems remained so popular that they were quoted in books in rhetoric centuries after her death, which is how we come to have as many snippets of her work as we do.
Unfortunately for me, Lesbian Desire in the Lyrics of Sappho has no interest in being that book. It’s a close reading of Sappho’s works to investigate how she articulates lesbian desire, and also an argument with Ye Commentators of Olde who insisted on reading all of Sappho’s love poems to women as bridal songs, because it’s the done thing to get up at a wedding and sing “The bride is so hot that my knees are shaking and I can’t even speak.” (I mean, maybe it was the done thing on ancient Lesbos! This is where some context would be useful.)
My first introduction to Sappho’s work, so I’m glad the poems were quoted so copiously. And it’s an interesting work on its own terms. But those were not the terms I was hoping for.
After a hiatus, I’ve returned to the 1930s Newberys with Nora Burglon’s Children of the Soil: A Story of Scandinavia, a delightful story about everyday life for a couple of crofter’s children in northern Sweden in the 19th century. This is one of those books that derives most of its interest from the description of everyday life in a certain time and place, which is the sort of thing that I love. (I wonder if one could write a fantasy novel of this type. That would be cozy fantasy, right?)
What I’m Reading Now
In Vanity Fair, Amelia Sedley was PINING AWAY because she was forbidden to marry her beloved George Osbourne. But when Osbourne’s friend Captain Dobbin went to visit Amelia (who of course Captain Dobbin secretly adores) and found her on the POINT OF DEATH because of her THWARTED LOVE, he convinced Osbourne to marry Amelia in the teeth of paternal opposition. (The pater wanted Osbourne to marry a mixed-race West Indian heiress of immense wealth.)
What I Plan to Read Next
At long last, I’m going to read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender Is the Night.
The first time I attempted Jane McIntosh Snyder’s Lesbian Desire in the Lyrics of Sappho, I got quite cross at the book for not being the book that I wanted it to be: that is to say, a book about what we can learn about society in sixth-century Lesbos based on Sappho’s poetry, and about the ancient classical world in general based on the fact that Sappho was called the tenth muse and her poems remained so popular that they were quoted in books in rhetoric centuries after her death, which is how we come to have as many snippets of her work as we do.
Unfortunately for me, Lesbian Desire in the Lyrics of Sappho has no interest in being that book. It’s a close reading of Sappho’s works to investigate how she articulates lesbian desire, and also an argument with Ye Commentators of Olde who insisted on reading all of Sappho’s love poems to women as bridal songs, because it’s the done thing to get up at a wedding and sing “The bride is so hot that my knees are shaking and I can’t even speak.” (I mean, maybe it was the done thing on ancient Lesbos! This is where some context would be useful.)
My first introduction to Sappho’s work, so I’m glad the poems were quoted so copiously. And it’s an interesting work on its own terms. But those were not the terms I was hoping for.
After a hiatus, I’ve returned to the 1930s Newberys with Nora Burglon’s Children of the Soil: A Story of Scandinavia, a delightful story about everyday life for a couple of crofter’s children in northern Sweden in the 19th century. This is one of those books that derives most of its interest from the description of everyday life in a certain time and place, which is the sort of thing that I love. (I wonder if one could write a fantasy novel of this type. That would be cozy fantasy, right?)
What I’m Reading Now
In Vanity Fair, Amelia Sedley was PINING AWAY because she was forbidden to marry her beloved George Osbourne. But when Osbourne’s friend Captain Dobbin went to visit Amelia (who of course Captain Dobbin secretly adores) and found her on the POINT OF DEATH because of her THWARTED LOVE, he convinced Osbourne to marry Amelia in the teeth of paternal opposition. (The pater wanted Osbourne to marry a mixed-race West Indian heiress of immense wealth.)
What I Plan to Read Next
At long last, I’m going to read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender Is the Night.
