Wednesday Reading Meme
Dec. 2nd, 2020 01:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
I’ve gone a bit mad about the World War I amputees, and read The Making of a Man, an advertising pamphlet put out by the George R. Fuller company, which shares details about all of their finest artificial limbs. (It was published in 1902, but other books have informed me that the next big leap in artificial limb construction came after World War II, so a lot of the information is probably roughly applicable from the Civil War era until 1940.)
As it is an advertising pamphlet one should undoubtedly take their claims with a grain of salt - of course they focus on the times that their products work really well, like the double leg amputee who became an avid bicycle rider and noted baseball pitcher. Even so, it’s clear that they had more confidence in their artificial legs than their artificial arms. My favorite bit was the part where they describe a wooden hand with a movable thumb that is manipulated by the motion of the opposite shoulder, and then say, basically, don’t bother buying it: “it necessarily requires a more complicated and expensive mechanism, without any practical gain to the wearer.” It’s helpful for double amputees who need something, anything, that will let them grip things, but single amputees are better off getting a hand where you manipulate the fingers of the artificial hand with your remaining flesh hand.
I finished Gerald Durrell’s Fillets of Plaice, which is mostly delightful, although the chapter set in Africa has definitely strengthened my impression that I should avoid his African books. I did, however, greatly enjoy the chapter about his wildly tactless girlfriend Ursula Pendragon White (I can only assume this name is made up; it’s too glorious to really exist), who bursts into applause at the slightest pause whenever she goes to a concert.
I also reread Jean Webster’s When Patty Went to College, and may be forced, FORCED I TELL YOU, to reread Daddy-Long-Longs, because I’ve had an idea for a book set at a women’s college in about 1908. I keep complaining that I haven’t done enough research to write this or that, but on this topic, by God, I wrote my entire college thesis, and have kept researching the topic ever since because… well, how could I stop researching something so delightful? So for once in my godforsaken life the research is more or less done.
Also, if I plan my cast well, I could totally get a trilogy out of this. Three different college girl romances, with the same setting and heavily overlapping character lists! That’s so much bang for your world-building buck.
What I’m Reading Now
G. Neri’s Tru and Nelle, a fictionalized version of the childhood friendship between Harper Lee (Nelle) and Truman Capote (Tru). I was a little dubious at first whether it was really necessary to lean so hard into the To Kill a Mockingbird parallels - I know that Lee drew on her own childhood heavily for that book, but still! - but ultimately the charm of the thing won me over.
What I Plan to Read Next
I have MANY Christmas books lined up for this year - although naturally the one I most want, Betty MacDonald’s Nancy and Plum, has six holds on two copies. Whyyyy does the library only have two copies of what is undoubtedly a Christmas masterpiece?? (I haven’t actually read it, but the author also wrote the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books, so I have high hopes.)
I’ve gone a bit mad about the World War I amputees, and read The Making of a Man, an advertising pamphlet put out by the George R. Fuller company, which shares details about all of their finest artificial limbs. (It was published in 1902, but other books have informed me that the next big leap in artificial limb construction came after World War II, so a lot of the information is probably roughly applicable from the Civil War era until 1940.)
As it is an advertising pamphlet one should undoubtedly take their claims with a grain of salt - of course they focus on the times that their products work really well, like the double leg amputee who became an avid bicycle rider and noted baseball pitcher. Even so, it’s clear that they had more confidence in their artificial legs than their artificial arms. My favorite bit was the part where they describe a wooden hand with a movable thumb that is manipulated by the motion of the opposite shoulder, and then say, basically, don’t bother buying it: “it necessarily requires a more complicated and expensive mechanism, without any practical gain to the wearer.” It’s helpful for double amputees who need something, anything, that will let them grip things, but single amputees are better off getting a hand where you manipulate the fingers of the artificial hand with your remaining flesh hand.
I finished Gerald Durrell’s Fillets of Plaice, which is mostly delightful, although the chapter set in Africa has definitely strengthened my impression that I should avoid his African books. I did, however, greatly enjoy the chapter about his wildly tactless girlfriend Ursula Pendragon White (I can only assume this name is made up; it’s too glorious to really exist), who bursts into applause at the slightest pause whenever she goes to a concert.
I also reread Jean Webster’s When Patty Went to College, and may be forced, FORCED I TELL YOU, to reread Daddy-Long-Longs, because I’ve had an idea for a book set at a women’s college in about 1908. I keep complaining that I haven’t done enough research to write this or that, but on this topic, by God, I wrote my entire college thesis, and have kept researching the topic ever since because… well, how could I stop researching something so delightful? So for once in my godforsaken life the research is more or less done.
Also, if I plan my cast well, I could totally get a trilogy out of this. Three different college girl romances, with the same setting and heavily overlapping character lists! That’s so much bang for your world-building buck.
What I’m Reading Now
G. Neri’s Tru and Nelle, a fictionalized version of the childhood friendship between Harper Lee (Nelle) and Truman Capote (Tru). I was a little dubious at first whether it was really necessary to lean so hard into the To Kill a Mockingbird parallels - I know that Lee drew on her own childhood heavily for that book, but still! - but ultimately the charm of the thing won me over.
What I Plan to Read Next
I have MANY Christmas books lined up for this year - although naturally the one I most want, Betty MacDonald’s Nancy and Plum, has six holds on two copies. Whyyyy does the library only have two copies of what is undoubtedly a Christmas masterpiece?? (I haven’t actually read it, but the author also wrote the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books, so I have high hopes.)
no subject
Date: 2020-12-02 07:29 pm (UTC)Have you seen The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)? One of the main characters is a double amputee played by a double amputee. May be slightly too late for your purposes, but potentially still worth watching for research (and also because it's shockingly good).
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Date: 2020-12-02 08:22 pm (UTC)After the Civil War, there was a double arm amputee who worked as, I believe, a coat checker in Congress. Clearly he, at least, learned how to work those shoulder-controlled pincer grips like a pro.
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Date: 2020-12-02 08:35 pm (UTC)Everyone's mileage varies, but I actually didn't find it sad at all. See review if desired, but it fell much more solidly for me into the category of dealing seriously with shit that happens, which is not saccharine but doesn't automatically have to be hopeless, either. In romance terms, the various endings are a strong HFN. [edit] And it is a treasure from the era of the Production Code to find a Hollywood film which states outright that disabled people, people with PTSD, people who are just sort of fucked up, ordinary people who aren't buying themselves an exemption with their genius or their talent or their heroism unschmaltzily deserve to be happy and deserve better than their country wants to give them, and then doesn't force them into tragedy to prove the point.
After the Civil War, there was a double arm amputee who worked as, I believe, a coat checker in Congress. Clearly he, at least, learned how to work those shoulder-controlled pincer grips like a pro.
That's really cool.
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Date: 2020-12-02 11:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-02 11:56 pm (UTC)One hundred percent legit. I just feel strongly about The Best Years of Our Lives as a movie that is not depresso, because that was one of the things I was braced for it to be and was so glad it was not.
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Date: 2020-12-02 11:06 pm (UTC)I’m intrigued by the details about artificial limbs! I guess legs require less moving parts to get right than hands do?
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Date: 2020-12-02 11:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-03 12:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-03 02:22 am (UTC)I have never seen a pamphlet advertising prosthetics, let alone one from that period! That's fantastic! Thank you for lighting up my life!
I take it you've read a bunch of L.T. Meade and like that? Except almost surely lots more than I have? Fabulous! It's such an astonishing world, and so weirdly alien to contemporary stuff I've read, though partaking of a lot of the same themes. I guess it's partly in how it all comes together, And maybe partly Gibson girl hairstyles.
You've read Dear Enemy, right? So troubling from the energetic Eugenics/Progressive POV....
I *have* a reprint copy of Nancy and Plum, but I am scawed.
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Date: 2020-12-04 07:36 pm (UTC)I have also read ALL the Jean Webster's, including Wheat Princess, which is an interesting failure - clearly Webster was trying to do something more serious and perhaps leaned too hard into the seriousness, without leaving much room for the sparkle that makes her work so charming. Even Dear Enemy, although yes, suddenly the letters do take a eugenic turn. (IIRC the doctor character sends Sally a book about eugenics? another reason not to like the doctor; I never warmed to him, which is awkward given he's the romantic lead...)
I've always thought her Patty books should be better known: I think they would appeal to just the audience that likes Daddy-Long-Legs. And When Patty Went to College would make a splendid miniseries.
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Date: 2020-12-04 08:04 pm (UTC)I agree that the Patty books are particularly fine. And I wonder whether the now-exotic world of early women's colleges might be one the public is ripe for. I could believe it, though it would of course be a gamble.
Like you, I've read all the Websters-- The Wheat Princess long after the others, after decades of unsuccessfully keeping my eye open for a hard copy, when I got it on Kindle. Absolutely greed with you about that.
The doctor in Dear Enemy has an institutionalized mentally defective wife, secretly, through most of the novel. And he had a couple of children with her, "quite abnormal, sadly." So more villainous than your suggest. Good on rescues from fire, though, and what is daily life as compared with Manly Emergency?
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Date: 2020-12-05 12:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-04 01:44 pm (UTC)This is such a good idea, yes please.
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Date: 2020-12-04 07:27 pm (UTC)I also think it would be hilarious if most of the girls are from traditional families who think their budding romances are so cute (nothing encourages a girl to grow in womanly graces like a crush on another girl!), and one progressive, forward-thinking, psychology-reading family that is like... but is this Homosexuality???... however this may amuse only me.
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Date: 2020-12-04 07:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-12 01:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-12 01:50 am (UTC)