Clio and Musette made about starting up again, and now here we are, over a week after we posted the review of Wolf Hall, and no new posting in sight. We must apologise to any readers who were hoping excitedly for a new and dazzling season of trading quips with Clio.
The next book we’re hoping to review also concerns early modern history – a book about Catherine de Medici and her efforts to build some kind of religious consensus in 16th-century France. She failed spectacularly, of course, but not necessarily through malice or evil intentions towards French protestants (n.b. we spell “protestant” with a lower-case “‘p” in defiance of convention because it is not the name of a specific religion, but the designation of a certain cast of mind. As the Catholic church is not allowed by convention to be “catholic”, this seems fair, though we wonder if anyone will get the tease.) In any case, this kind of effort by rulers to create a modus vivendi between hostile peoples is going to be one of the major themes of this blog for a while. We – Clio and I – hope that at least a few readers will be interested, and patient enough to keep coming back to check for new pieces while we struggle to overcome our natural inertia.
One last word regarding Wolf Hall: we are anxious to see what Ms Mantel does next with her hero, and how she manages to explain the way that Cromwell’s nearly supernatural prescience and skilful manoeuvering in Book I failed him by the time of Book II.
The putative subject matter of The Other World is interesting but too esoteric for energetic comment-thread creation, and specialists in this area may not know of you.
Now, if its more about an elfin schoolmistress and the better of the manosphere commenters talking about stuff, you’ll get some good commentary. Which in turn moves you to pen genuine contributions like Heartbreakers and Nice Guy Tales.
Tupac, PatrickH, Agnostic, Spike Gomes, RacerX, ya here?
Yes, I know but PA, I may have to accept that. The fact is that I feel a bit written out – I mean, of the lighter, chattier kind of material I used to produce. As I said a couple of weeks ago, I’ve mined the surface and now I need to dig deeper in order to extract anything. What comes out won’t be the same sort of thing as before, either.
I don’t intend to write for specialists, anyway, though of course they may be the only people interested in the fields I write about! What I’d like is to draw in a few curious “common readers” who may not be able to correct me on details but who are vaguely aware of a particular subject and wouldn’t mind trying to find out a little more. As this is all very experimental for me I can’t be sure I’ll manage it, but as I have a degree of good will from my old readers, perhaps they’ll come around from time to time to help out and comment – or do you think not? Alas, you don’t sound optimistic.
Oh well. Wait and see. I might at some point be able to dig up my old persona again, but she seems to have gone into retirement once I got married. She always was a bit of a coquette, so I am a little worried about the propriety of resurrecting her.
Ever since the protestant became Protestant, the Church ceased to be catholic, only being Catholic.
(That is, the Roman Church.)
Indeed. Funny thing, that.
“As this is all very experimental for me I can’t be sure I’ll manage it ..? Alas, you don’t sound optimistic.”
It might work. Two Blowhards was a generalist arts and history blog that ventured into some interesting areas. As to the elfin schoolmistress, she can’t wait to give an encore performance, and she knows it. Begin commenting with your link on other blogs and the traffic will come.
Just tuned in and I found the wolf hall review to be an excellent counterpoint to the ‘usual sources’ in US. Not to mention that it is extremely well written and draws conclusions from another angle. Shall return.
You mentioned you are conservative. Out of curiosity, did you take your husband’s last name when you wed? Or is it hyphenated? I’m not trying to trap you, I am genuinely curious.
I use my husband’s last name but only informally. In order to use it formally, I’d have to go to the trouble of changing my name officially, as I understand it. And then there would be many other documents and forms I’d have to change as well.
Sorry we took so long to respond to your flattering comment. I hope the proposed change of direction/emphasis doesn’t disappoint you. I do want to do more formal and considered pieces, but making the time to do so properly is a bit of a challenge.