Wednesday Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

I finished Mary Downing Hahn’s Stepping on the Cracks, and ultimately I did mellow about Elizabeth, The Meanest Best Friend Ever, although I’m not sure if it’s because Elizabeth grew as a person or because Hahn didn’t actually intend her to be that mean in the first place and didn’t quite notice she’d written her that way. But in the end I think Hahn’s ghost stories are better: Wait Till Helen Comes still haunts me.

I also mellowed on Kathleen Norris as I went along in The Cloister Walk, not least because she has a few good and thoughtful chapters about the virgin martyrs, whom no one ever properly appreciates even though they are the most badass saints.

I think the idea that they’re dying for their virginity trips people up (and “it’s better to die than be raped” is certainly the spin the patriarchy often gives their stories), but there’s more to them than that: they’re not dying just for virginity or even just for bodily autonomy but for autonomy, full stop, for the right to live their lives according to their own beliefs rather than bowing to the rules of society. The virgin martyrs are the ultimate nonconformists. They’re suppose to get married and have children whom they will raise to die for the glory of Rome, and they say, “Nah, fuck that.”

Like action heroes cracking wise as the bad guys beat them up, the virgin martyrs remain smart and sarcastic right up until they get their their heads cut off - and sometimes even decapitation doesn’t stop them. In fact, in a wider sense decapitation never stops them, because the virgin martyrs always win the ultimate victory both in the sense that they ascend to heaven and because their torments generally win dozens of converts within the story itself.

In fact, sometimes they convert the first bad guy, who is duly martyred too by the next round of bad guys.

But also sometimes the virgin martyrs just keep talking post-beheading. As a true badass does.

However, I still found Norris tiresome whenever she started talking about poetry. There’s something about the way she talks about the importance and majesty of poetry and the sacred calling of the poet that reminds me of Plato’s decision to have his perfect republic ruled by philosophers, just like him. Yes, of course people just like you are the most important and also the most intelligent and spiritually evolved people in society. Of course.

What I’m Reading Now

I’m listening to Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor and Park on audiobook and YOU GUYS, why did I deprive myself of this book for so many years? It’s been on my reading list forever! And it’s so good! And I only just now got to it! But on the other hand this means that I have cleverly saved myself a treat to help ease myself into my new job, so that was awfully nice of past me, now wasn’t it.

I’m also reading Aunt Dimity and the Duke, which like all Aunt Dimity books is delicious popcorn (possibly I should substitute something more British for popcorn. It’s a delicious chocolate-dipped digestive biscuit?), and also What Katy Did Next, in which Katy Carr of What Katy Did fame goes to Europe. It’s a bit too much of a travelogue for my tastes but we’ll see where it goes.

What I Plan to Read Next

carmarthen sent me Rosemary Sutcliff’s Simon! I AM PRETTY EXCITED.

Comments

[missroserose]

I really like your take on virgin martyrs. I always felt sort of weirded out by them when I was younger and more churchgoing; given the many creepy ways some sects of Christianity fetishize virginity, I wasn't sure I liked the idea of women literally dying over it. But your context makes far more sense.

[osprey_archer]

I think that the church definitely used the virgin martyr stories in that way sometimes: it seems like the patriarchy can twist just about anything to its own ends. But even if their stories later got suborned, the virgin martyrs were immensely disruptive social forces in the beginning - and even sometimes later on; I read a really interesting book (sadly I can no longer remember the title) about Christina of Markyate, a medieval woman who was inspired by the virgin martyrs to escape an arranged marriage and run away to become a nun.

Unlike the virgin martyrs, she did not die a fiery terrible death, but eventually became a prioress.

[missroserose]

I used to mull on whether, if I had been a teenage girl in medieval Europe, I would have submitted to an arranged marriage or become a nun. Probably would have depended on who it was arranged with, and whether I knew the local nuns at all and how awful they were. (Now, if it'd been one of the notoriously lax convents in Renaissance Italy, where the women were mostly extra daughters from wealthy families who painted and wrote and danced and had parties and regularly smuggled in lovers and raised each others' children, that'd be no question!) Kind of a sucky set of options, really...but Christina sounds pretty awesome.

[lilysea]

I’m listening to Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor and Park on audiobook and YOU GUYS, why did I deprive myself of this book for so many years? It’s been on my reading list forever! And it’s so good! And I only just now got to it! But on the other hand this means that I have cleverly saved myself a treat to help ease myself into my new job, so that was awfully nice of past me, now wasn’t it.

I read this as an ebook and I LOVED it! ^_^

I loved Eleanor!

[osprey_archer]

ALL I WANT FOR ELEANOR IS HAPPINESS. I do not know if the book intends to give it to her or not.

I also want to know where she got her fashion sense, and if she got it on purpose or if she somehow just inherited a man's wardrobe and wears his clothes because she has no other choice.

[sovay]

But in the end I think Hahn’s ghost stories are better: Wait Till Helen Comes still haunts me.

I didn't realize that's who we were talking about. I haven't read that book since high school at the latest and I remember it vividly. It scared me in elementary school.

But also sometimes the virgin martyrs just keep talking post-beheading. As a true badass does.

I think this would be a terrible political climate for it and also I suspect it would be made by the worst possible people for the job, but you have almost made me want a virgin martyr action movie.

[osprey_archer]

You'd have to find a filmmaker with a certain amount of respect for the virgin martyrs - maybe not religious reverence (in fact, probably not religious reverence, if the virgin martyrs are going to be action heroes), but respect for what they were about. Not someone who is going to think it's hilarious to make one of the virgin martyrs, like, totally slutty, you guys! LOOK AT THIS VIRGIN MARTYR IN FISHNETS AREN'T WE SO EDGY.

I could also see a magical-girl type series starring virgin martyrs. You have a plain ordinary high school girl who just happens to have a magical jewel that turns her into St. Thecla, who can resist the power of flame and also probably throw fireballs, as befits a magical girl.

[isis]

If you still want to do a Simon pass along, I am up for it!

[osprey_archer]

Yes! Well, assuming I don't fall utterly in love with the book and feel that I can never be parted from it ever again. But that seems somewhat unlikely.

It may be a bit before I get to it, so I'll PM you for your address once I'm ready to send it on.

[asakiyume]

Yes, of course people just like you are the most important and also the most intelligent and spiritually evolved people in society. Of course.

--Yeah, I think just on principle, if you're designing a utopia, you have to NOT put People Like You in charge. It's like recusing yourself from a court case.

How nice that Eleanor and Park ends up being a pleasant treat!

[ivy]

Have y'all read Jo Walton's Thessaly trilogy? It's basically about this question, and I loved it so hard. (Socrates showing up and promptly fucking everything up for those lofty theoreticians was delightful, but there's a lot of themes about what is wrong with that Platonic approach.) My friend Amal reviewed it here; you may be interested.

[asakiyume]

Amal is great ^_^

I'd read other reviews of these books, but not this one. Definitely on my give-it-a-try list.

[evelyn_b]

Good job, past you! :D I'm glad you're enjoying some cozy treats (and hopefully your new job).

Norris seems to be a Rorschach test. Norris on poetry didn't bother me at all - I thought she was thoughtful and interesting - but I had a hard time with her virgin martyrs and a lot of her writing on celibacy in general.