The Dream H. G. Wells.

The Dream H. G. Wells. My mother bought this book for Bill for his birthday. I think it may have been a first edition, but he’s such a big Wells fan as me, so I got to read it first. Written in 1924 it covered much of the same ground as Wells’ first novels looking at Victorian society, but because of the later date was able to say things a bit more explicitly.

The basic idea behind The Dream was a man of the future had a dream of a life time growing up in Late Victorian England, serving in the Great War and dying because of a failed love affair. Because the main story took the form of the future man narrating events to his friends, there were often story breaks where social conventions were discussed and everyone went, dear god I can’t believe they were stupid enough to believe those things then, how very sad. Which were a bit obviously the author giving lectures, but because I frequently find myself agreeing with Mr. Wells, I didn’t mind and they ended up being quite enjoyable.

Rather than class, or education the theme of this book was love, in particular romantic and physical love and how society was acting to restrain it. The first example was the main character’s sister who ran away to become a married man’s mistress. The tragedy was even though they loved each other they couldn’t be together. Of course the family didn’t take it well, the father over and over again wishing she were dead. When years later the main character met with her again, she was living comfortably but very lonely.

The main character fell in love with a girl who he married. While he was away in the war she got pregnant and when he came home, he realised it wasn’t his. He threw a fit and threw her out of the house. She told him that she’d been taken advantage of, that she was drunk, though I wasn’t entirely sure if she’d actually been raped or just too drunk to fight or care. It was very powerful either way, and terribly sad.

I did feel a tremendous amount for the characters trapped in their world, yet daring to love even though it only ever brought them tragedy. There was one bit, after he got rid of his wife where he started reading novels full of women characters, and falling in love with them, as it was the only romance he was allowed. It was interesting as it reminded me so much of myself as a young teenager when I only read books about women, without realising why.

Yet again, another very enjoyable book by Wells.

The Affair of the Poisons by Anne Somerset

The Affair of the Poisons by Anne Somerset was last month’s bibliogoth book. I was very happy to get it and realise that it was actually a history book rather than a history novel. In the midst of my dissertation a nice light non-scholarly history book on a subject I knew nothing about sounded like perfect entertainment. It was also a successful book so by reading a popular history I hoped I’d be able to get some ideas for how to write one for my book about Empress Wu. Unfortunately The Affair of the Poisons was a bit of a disappointment. It was billed as “poison, infanticide and Satanism in the court of Louis XIV”. Unfortunately there was very little Satanism and only a few pages of infanticide. It was mostly a description of the King’s sex life. The biggest problem with the book was that she seemed to have no arguments, rather the work consisted of a bunch of names and dates, rather dull and dry history, particularly when dealing with a potentially interesting subject.

The book started with an interesting mini-view of one woman who was being executed for poisoning several family members. The fact that she had done the deeds was not questioned, unlike every other poisoning mentioned in the book, but Somerset’s reasons for assuming her guilt were never explained. It then moved on to a rather long discussion of the court, and Louis’ mistresses. Throughout these chapters Somerset made frequent references to, “these events will become very important during the Affair of the Poisons. Unfortunately they never did, or she was unable to tell it in such a way to make them relevant.


Halfway through the book the first arrests were made and the affair actually started. Unfortunately, there were no backgrounds given for the main people that were arrested, a woman who sold poison, and performed abortions, and a man who made his living as a “magician”. For me, as a social historian, it would have been nice to have a chapter looking at how these people fit in with society. What sort of lives they lived, how common they were, how they were able to interact with court and society while not being a part of it, what were the traditions behind magicians of the day, how did visiting a magician fit in with the religious life, what was the spiritual tradition behind these magicians? There were so many interesting avenues that could have been explored and none were. Instead we had the most boring of accounts of “so and so was tortured on this day and said this about this person” for about 100 pages. There was also no analysis of the information that was coming out of the interrogations, no discussion about the effects of torture on the individual and the effects of mass hysteria.

In the end names of the King’ mistresses were mentioned, but these names were never made public. They were only revealed in the 19th century when other documents, thought destroyed, came to light. This is unfortunate because her whole argument for including the chapter on the King’s sex life was that these mistresses were important and the scandal including them rocked the foundations of court and effected a mass outbreak of panic. Except, if no one knew about it, then it couldn’t have.

The book covered a potentially interesting topic, but unfortunately in a very uninteresting and uninformative way. At the end of the book I did know more about that period in French history than I had before so it wasn’t a total waste. I also knew a bit more about how Not to write a history book. But the book was definitely a disappointment.

(no subject)

Three hours in the eye center waiting room this afteroon. At least Bill seems to be getting better.

Annoying mass email from boss telling us we all need to work harder when its quieter and are not allowed to read or email in the paperkeeping areas. So I guess we're just supposed to sit there staring into space when there's nothing to do? At least applying for a better job isn't on the list!

Grrr, not looking forward to the extra hours I agreed to work this week. I can't imagine anything more boring!

Glad I'm off to watch a nice silly Chinese film. Should be just what I need.

Did you ever fancy Bowie?

Did you like Velvet Goldmine? Do you have a secret soft spot for Suede? This Saturday is Club Bohemia's NIGHT OF A THOUSAND ZIGGYS! If you are in London you should come. Last month I mentioned Club Bohemia, and only bluehelen was able to join us, but her rave reviews included "I haven't danced so much in years" "I remember know that clubbing is supposed to be fun" "Its great to go somewhere and have pretty people there besides the people you came with".

Now glam and punk and brit pop are not every goths cup of tea so I won't be Horrendously offended if you decide not to come. But if you have a relatively open mind, you might just find you enjoy yourself immensly. I will later post the flyers that grant entry for a fiver. But come it'll be great!

Clerks II is also finally getting released here and would like to arrange a trip to that. And the Chinese Moon festival is coming up in October and I want to celebrate it. As far as I'm able to tell celebrations for the moon festival involve staying up and watching the moon, eating moon cakes, and perhaps reciting poetry. At least that's the way they did it in 红楼梦。 webcowgirl if no one else is up for it perhaps that's the day we should attempt to watch you puppet DVD of "Story of the stone". (nice to finally meet you and greatly enjoyed the movie!)