#Or biographies of authors of which I only have two or three

[the-busy-ghost]

“Ok so the other bookshelf hasn’t arrived yet but why don’t I start organising my books, it will be a fun activity and useful!”

What nobody tells you about said fun activity is that you have to make Choices about how to organise and it’s all very confusing

[supernovafics]

series masterlist | last part — next part

pairing: modern!college!steve harrington x fem!reader, bestfriend!eddie munson x fem!reader

word count: 3.4k words

warnings: explicit language, mentions of alcohol/drinking, a bit of drunk!reader and drunk!eddie, a lil angst

summary: steve is by your side at a last minute party 

CHAPTER FIVE | ❝𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒉𝒐𝒘, 𝒊𝒕 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒌𝒔❞

Fall Semester 2015

Would either of us even remember any of this tomorrow? 

The music was too loud to outwardly verbalize that question, and it was forgotten after a second too, which probably only proved it to be true. 

Instead, your mind shifted into thinking about what led you and Eddie to this current moment— a last-second canceled date, your abrupt suggestion to go to a frat party to celebrate the end of finals and also to cheer Eddie up, and his immediate yes. 

The two of you drank cup after cup of some random mix of God knows what. It tasted absolutely horrible but it did its job— barely an hour into being at the party and you were effectively drunk, and so was Eddie; maybe even more than you. You had a feeling that had something to do with Chrissy and her canceling their date.

The number of people crammed into the house was probably a fire hazard at this point and it was starting to feel way too hot.

You were leaning back against a wall, because it was the only thing keeping you steady, and Eddie was in front of you. “We should leave.” 

The music blasting through the speakers in the huge living room was so loud that you could barely even hear the words leave your mouth. 

Eddie heard something, though, or attempted to read your lips in the shitty lighting, because he was shaking his head. “No, we should leave.”

You could only laugh in response at first. 

“That’s what I said,” You told him, that time making your voice louder, matching his.

“Oh,” He said and smiled, a perfect drunken smile that made you smile back at him. 

You wondered what he thought you had just said and you were about to ask him exactly that, but then someone was bumping into him from behind, which pushed him much closer to you, and the thought of saying anything was pushed away. His hands instinctively found your hips to steady himself as he let out a breath of a laugh and didn’t immediately step back away from you.  

There was no reason for you to lean in a little more, but you did. It was an impulsive decision that was made solely by your heart because your head was in an entirely different place. Your thoughts were cloudy and all rational thinking was tossed to the side. Surprisingly, or maybe not so much, this actually felt like the right thing to do. And even if your best friend would’ve rejected you in that moment— pulled away and said that this wasn’t at all a good idea— you probably wouldn’t have been too fazed about it right then. 

But, Eddie wasn't pulling away. Instead, he was meeting you halfway and closing the final bit of space between you two. You didn’t even have time to be surprised about it before his lips were on yours and your already muddled mind became even more blank. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

Spring Semester 2018

“If either of you would like to suddenly become really good at Physics and explain this velocity formula to me, that would be awesome.”  

You looked up from the book you were reading, a biography about a random British author from the 1800s that was assigned for one of your classes, when you heard Robin’s words.

She pushed the textbook she had opened over to your and Eddie’s side of the table that the three of you were sitting at in the library.

Everything you learned in your high school Physics class had pretty much went in one ear and out the other, so looking at what she was pointing at in her textbook unsurprisingly made no sense to you. “I don’t understand any of this.”

Eddie took the quickest look at the opened page and shook his head before sliding the textbook back over to her. “I still don’t get why you decided to take that class.” 

“I have to finally get a science course out of the way and this was the only one available this semester,” Robin quickly explained and then sighed. “I truly, truly regret it now.”

She took another look at the page before simply closing the textbook and picking up her phone.

When you all studied or decided to collectively work on your respective assignments together it was always agreed that the first floor of the library was the perfect place to do it because of the idea that being in a library meant that you were being more productive. But, that really was just an idea because the first floor of the library was a free-for-all all for noise and you guys never went to any other floor, so your “study nights” almost always turned into you rarely doing any actual studying after the first hour. 

“Oh, anyway, look at this video I took of you and Steve during game night,” Robin abruptly said and handed her phone over to you. “I meant to show you yesterday, but it completely slipped my mind.” 

It was during the Mario Kart tournament; you were quickly able to tell that because the video started with the camera focused on the TV screen when you were seconds away from getting in first place for the final race. The camera turned to you and Steve sitting next to each other on the small loveseat when you won; you smiling in victory and him pulling you in for a celebratory hug and pressing a kiss against your cheek. You were glad to see that in the video you actually couldn’t tell how, even though the entire night you had tried your hardest to make everything seem believable and comfortable between you two, in that moment you were inwardly tensing up because of how unexpected the action was.

“The fanfare makes a lot of sense. That was the only game we won that night,” You said once the video ended and you passed the phone back over to Robin.

“I actually like him,” She told you with a smile. “I vote to keep bringing him around.” 

Eddie nodded. “Sure, keep bringing him around, but I need you back on my team for game night. We’re always killer at charades.” 

“Yeah, if you guys are a team again you won’t cheat at charades like you and Talia did,” Robin said. 

“That never happened,” He immediately responded, which made Robin roll her eyes and you only laughed. 

Your phone began vibrating on the table right as Eddie shifted the conversation and went into talking about band stuff; a gig that he and the guys had on Friday at a bar across town. 

Steve’s name popped up on your screen and when Robin noticed she let out a laugh. “Woah, did I kinda accidentally manifest him?” 

“Now you should try to manifest a good grade on your Physics test,” Eddie joked.

“Good idea!”

You grabbed your phone and then stood up from the table. “I’ll be right back.”

You headed down a random empty aisle and then answered the call. “Hi.”

“Hey,” Steve started. “So I told my parents about us and they want to meet you, so a dinner is set up for Sunday.” 

You took a second to process everything he had just said— which wasn’t a lot but it also kind of was— and then you were nodding even though he couldn’t see you. “Oh. Oh, wow, okay.”

“I can change it to a different day if Sunday’s not good.” 

“No, Sunday’s fine,” You told him, which was technically true because you had nothing going on that night, but you didn’t expect this to happen so fast so things didn’t feel entirely fine. Even though the quickness made a lot of sense because things were meant to happen fast— you and Steve were only doing this whole fake dating thing for a month. “Just please tell me it’s not gonna be at some way too fancy restaurant.”

“No, don’t worry, I convinced them to just do it at the house,” He said, which placated your worries just for a second, but then you weren't sure if meeting his family in his childhood home sounded much better either. However, it was only Wednesday, and you were quickly telling yourself not to stress about any of this until, at least, Friday.

“Okay,” You said instead of anything else. 

Things were quiet for a second and you were half-reading some of the spines of the books on the shelf in front of you before mindlessly speaking. 

“So, how’s your week been so far?”

“Okay, I’ll talk to you later.”

Both your and Steve’s words were said at the same time and then after the briefest of pauses with neither of you saying anything, it was as if you both wanted to immediately follow up and respond to each other. But as he was responding with, “Oh, it’s been good so far,” you were saying, “Okay, yeah, I’ll see you later.”

Another beat of silence hit and you kind of just wanted to end the call right there, but you stopped yourself. You hadn’t talked to him since game night and you were still trying to figure out what the dynamic between you two was aside from fake dating each other, and you were starting to think that maybe there really was nothing else to it. And maybe these kinds of moments only proved that. 

“How’s your week been?” Steve asked, and you were a little surprised that he actually wasn’t trying to end the conversation, and you honestly didn’t mind the mundane question being tossed onto you. 

“Good,” You answered, leaning back against the shelf behind you, and then started rambling a bit. “I had a test yesterday, which went fine, and Wednesdays are usually easy for me because that’s my least busy day so it’s been good so far too.”

“Nice.”

“Also, you got rave reviews from everyone after game night, by the way,” You said and then shook your head at yourself. “I don’t know why I randomly decided to mention that, but yeah.”

“I told you that I’m good at making people like me.”

“Even though that’s actually true, there’s something about you saying that statement that makes me want to hit you.” 

“Wow, ouch,” Steve said, but you could also hear him laugh. “And on that note, I’m gonna hang up now.” 

“See you Sunday,” You responded. “We can talk about it more later.” 

“Yeah, see you Sunday.” 

You hung up then and pocketed your phone in the back of your jeans as you headed back over to Robin and Eddie. 

Robin looked up at you. “Are you ditching us to go hang with Steve?” 

“No,” You answered, shaking your head and sitting back in your seat next to Eddie. “He just called to ask about doing something Sunday, so I’m seeing him then.”

There was no way that you were going to explain further and tell them that you were actually going to be meeting Steve’s parents; you knew exactly how insane it would sound if you did. 

“Okay, good because we need your vote.” 

Your eyebrows furrowed. “For what?”

“For what we should do tonight. Should we be boring and rot away on the couch, like we almost always do, or go to a party that Vickie just texted about that one of her Art major friends is throwing?” 

“It’s a Wednesday and you have a test tomorrow,” You reminded her.

“Yes, but this would be fun.”

“I think rotting away on the couch would be very fun too.”

Robin groaned at your words and Eddie smiled at you.

“Thank you for agreeing,” He said.

“Okay, don’t get too happy yet,” Robin said to both of you. “Talia still has to vote and now she’s the tiebreaker.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

Apparently, this night was one of the rare moments where Talia was in the mood for a party, so you and Eddie were ultimately outvoted and by nine o’clock, you all were headed to a house that was on a completely different side of town. 

Robin and Vickie broke off from the group pretty much immediately, and Talia was pulled into a conversation with someone she knew from a class, and you and Eddie were left with each other; which was something that happened more often than not. You two usually always stuck together at parties, and then after the Chrissy breakup, that became even more of an always thing. 

This night, you first both grabbed a drink and then walked around the small and too-packed house before settling in a random spot. After an hour, you wouldn’t say that you were drunk, but you definitely were comfortably tipsy, and that made the game that you and Eddie were playing ten times better; which was a weird mix between rock, paper, scissors and a staring contest. It was entirely childish and dumb and barely made sense, but what else was there to do? 

“I still don’t fully understand the rules of this game,” Eddie said, laughing a bit. 

You nodded, laughing too. “Me neither, but I’m pretty sure I’m winning, though.” 

“Okay, I don’t think that’s true.” 

You could tell he was about to say something else but then his gaze was focusing on someone behind you who he waved at after a moment. You turned around and saw Steve maneuvering through the crowd and walking over to you and Eddie.

It was Robin's idea for you to ask Steve to come to the party; although it probably should’ve been yours because it was a perfect opportunity to play up your “relationship.” However, you did tell him that you knew exactly how short notice this party invite was, so if he didn’t want to come, you’d be completely okay with it. But, he said that he had no problem with coming and turning on the fake dating charm for the night. His exact words were, “If you’re going to have to suffer through a dinner with my parents, I can easily go to a party for you,” which didn’t help ease any of your worries about what Sunday would be like, but, at least, he was coming tonight. 

“Hey,” Steve said, greeting you with a kiss on the cheek and wrapping an arm around your shoulders. 

You were suddenly glad for your slight tipsiness because it actually made it feel easy to lean into Steve’s touch and feel entirely okay about him kissing you. 

“Hi,” You looked up at him. “We’re currently in the middle of playing a game that doesn’t make any sense, but I’m winning.”

Eddie shook his head, laughing a little. “She’s definitely not winning. If anything, we’re tied.”

“If it makes you feel better to say that, fine,” You said with a shrug and only laughed when he rolled his eyes at you. 

“Can I know the rules of the game?” Steve asked. 

“It’s basically a mix between rock, paper, scissors and a staring contest,” Eddie started explaining and then stopped abruptly. “Hold on, Talia’s giving the signal. I’ll go help her out.” 

You nodded at his words as you looked at Talia and saw that she was, in fact, doing the very subtle wave in your guys’ direction. 

“Signal?” Steve asked you as Eddie walked away. He dropped his arm from your shoulders and went to simply holding your hand instead. 

“Talia is always hardcore flirted with at parties like this— Art majors are always so obsessed with her “vibe” for some reason. So we swoop in whenever she wants to get out of a conversation. It’s also something we all do, if needed,” You briefly explained. You looked over at her again and saw Eddie jumping into the conversation that she was having with some random guy. You had no idea what Eddie was saying, but he was moving his arms around excitedly, which made you smile. He always did something similar to that when saving someone from a conversation; an attempt to scare the random person away with his overdramatic antics. 

“Your friend group is so interesting,” Steve said and when you looked back at him, you noticed the amused smile on his face. “Also, you’re surprisingly chill right now. How much did you drink?”

“Only two cups of whatever punch was in the kitchen,” You answered, remembering just how bad it had tasted. “Did you just get here? I almost thought you weren’t coming anymore.”

“Yeah, the drive took a lot longer than I thought it would,” He said and you nodded. “I texted you.”

“Oh, I think my phone’s dead,” You responded, pulling it out of your jacket pocket to check, but it slipped out of your hand and hit the ground instead. You immediately reached down to grab it, and as you stood back up, you got hit with a wave of dizziness. “Woah, shit.”

Steve was grabbing your arm to steady you when you stumbled a bit. “I thought you said you only had two drinks.”

“Yeah, I did. I just stood back up too fast and got a little dizzy.”

“You wanna go outside for a second?” He asked, and suddenly the thought of getting some fresh air sounded really good to you. 

“Yeah, that’s a good idea.”

His hand found yours again and he led you to the backyard. There was nothing in the small yard aside from a rusty old lawn chair that was sitting under a tree in the farthest part of the backyard, but it was luckily just long enough to fit both of you.

“Be honest,” You started, turning to look at Steve. “How bad is Sunday night gonna be?”

He was quiet for a second and then shook his head. “Let’s not talk about it right now.”

“Oh, God. I’ll take that as very bad.” 

He bypassed your statement. “You want me to go grab you some water or something?”

“Nice job at changing the subject. I’m okay, though,” You said. “Do you want me to get you something? I can also be a chivalrous and considerate fake girlfriend.”

Steve laughed a little. “No, I’m fine.”

You noticed the sliding doors that led to the backyard open and then saw Eddie walk out. You let your hand slowly find Steve’s and then you pushed yourself closer to him, closing the final bit of distance between you two on the patio chair. 

“You okay?” Steve asked, and you realized how weird your previous actions probably seemed out of context. 

“Yeah, it’s just that Eddie’s walking over to us right now, so we should play it up,” You said and then gave Eddie a quick wave with your free hand.

“Oh, smart,” Steve said, seeing him and waving too. “You’re getting good at this.” 

You smiled at him. “I learned from the best serial dater.”

“I’m gonna take that as a compliment.” 

“You should,” You told him and then proceeded to say something that would’ve probably taken a lot more courage to say if you weren’t tipsy. “I wish I was more like you, I think. I wish I didn’t care about relationships and feelings because if I didn’t, I probably wouldn’t be hopelessly in love with one of the most important people in my life.” 

“It’s not hopeless,” Steve said, making his voice lower because Eddie was only a few feet away. 

You didn’t get the chance to think about saying anything in response to that before your best friend was standing in front of you and Steve.

“Hey,” Eddie started, eyes on you. “Talia wants to leave, so I’m gonna head out with her too. Do you wanna come with us or are you staying?”

Any other time, the answer would’ve been an obvious yes— in fact, he wouldn’t have even asked the question because he already knew your answer— you’d always leave with him. But this case was different because of Steve sitting right next to you, and a girl that “really liked a guy” would stay at a party with him, right? Your slightly inebriated brain was assuming the answer was yes.

“Staying with Steve,” You ultimately answered. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Eds.”

“Okay,” He said to you with a nod, and then looked at Steve. “Get her home safe, Harrington.” 

It was such a subtle statement, but it still warmed your heart all the same. 

Steve nodded. “Of course.”

Eddie looked at you one more time, giving you a final small smile which you returned before heading off. 

“It’s not hopeless,” Steve told you again, and that time, you felt a little bit closer to believing him. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

next part!

taglist (lmk if you want to be added or taken off<333); @eddiernunson , @loulouloueh , @the-aster , @blckburd , @totally-bogus-timelady , @yujyujj , @irhdifartzamfyaa , @mochminnie , @munsonssweets , @blckbrrybasket , @xprloki , @definitionwanderlust , @dwcode , @sun-fiower-seed , @keerysfolklore

[aedesluminis]

On Anne-Marie Robinot, Saint-Just's mother

What follows is a personal translation I did of an excerpt taken from the historian Stefania Di Pasquale's book Storie di Madri (A History of mothers) which includes a chapter on Louis-Antoine's mother. The notes at the end are included in the original work.

Marie-Anne Robinot was born in Décize on the 16th of January 1734, the daughter of Jeanne Philiberte Houdry (1712-1745) and Léonard Robinot (1701-1776), king’s counsel, royal notary and procurator in the bourg of Décize.

There are no contemporary pictures of this woman, but that doesn’t mean she was less important than others; the lack of any representation is probably due to the centuries that have passed since her death and to the destruction of personal belongings which occurred right after Robespierre’s fall and also, in particular, during the Restoration of the old European monarchies starting with the Congress of Vienna of 1815.

We don’t know much about her early years, except that she grew up among the Décize haute bourgeoisie of the 18th century and that she received a good education.

The French historian Ernest Hamel, who had met Saint-Just’s nephews for his grandfather was an intimate of the latter, wrote the following in his biography Histoire de Saint-Just:  «Madame de Saint-Just was a charming and charitable woman, who outlived her son by a few years, she was sad by nature; she had loved with excessive love this predestined son, who until the last day returned her motherly tenderness with filial adoration. » (1)

Marie-Anne was a very religious woman, attached to her family, but compared to her contemporaries, who submitted to paternal will on certain matters such as those concerning arranged marriages, and, although she loved and respected her father, she believed it was unfair that parents could decide the future of their children, especially when they were already sentimentally attached to another person. This is what eventually happened to Marie-Anne.

Mademoiselle Robinot fell in love with Monsieur Louis-Jean Saint-Just de Richebourg, knight of the royal and military order of Saint-Louis, marshal of the gendarme company under the title of Berry, son of Marie-Françoise Adam and Charles de Saint-Just.

The age gap between the two was of twenty years: he, a mature man, and she, a young thirty years old woman still unmarried.

Marie-Anne had already the occasion to show her obstinacy just a couple of months after meeting captain Saint-Just.

Unfortunately their union would have been opposed by her father, who didn’t approve their relationship since he considered Louis-Jean as a simple peasant son of humble origins. Monsieur Robinot didn’t consider his future brother-in-law equal to his rank. But perhaps was it just an excuse? At the time the Robinot family was composed of men only and a female figure, who knew how to handle domestic servants, was much needed. The young woman wasn’t evidently of the same opinion and, on the suggestion of some notary friends of her, she resorted to the only means available at the time to counter paternal authority: les sommations respectueuses.

During the Ancien Régime the law required the father’s consent to celebrate a marriage, but in case it was denied, people over 25 could counter the refusal through a process called sommations respectueuses. To accomplish that, one had to rely on a notary and ask the family members three times for the written consent. After that, if the request kept being denied, the person could still proceed with the marriage.

Determined to fulfill her dream, Marie-Anne took courage against her paternal authority and on 21 March 1766 she appeared before her father together with notary Grenot and two other witnesses both belonging to the nobility.

Outraged by such audacity, Léonard Robinot pretended to be absent. The same occurred on 22 March. The following day, the 23, the day of the last visit, Robinot left the house defeated, without uttering a single word. Happy and contented, the next day Marie-Anne signed the marriage contract and the ceremony was set for 30 May 1766.

The two married in Verneuil with a quick ritual, celebrated by the uncle of the spouse, Antoine Robinot, and among the wedding witnesses there were a carpenter, a merchant and a cabaret comedian (two of them couldn’t either read or write).

In a rage, the rest of the Robinot Family didn’t even want to go out of their house to see the spouses, especially the disobedient daughter. Surely the intimacy of the ceremony was thought necessary to avoid their reprimand.

Marie-Anne got pregnant a few months after the marriage and on the 25th of August 1767 a child was born, who one day would have made history, who would have fought and died for the freedom of his country.

The chosen name was that of Louis-Antoine, Louis like his father and Antoine like his uncle and godfather, the abbot Antoine Robinot.

The little Saint-Just was baptized the same day he was born in the church of Saint-Aré (Décize) and, according to the customs of the time, he was placed in the care of a wet nurse in Verneuil who lived in a house next to his uncle's. A few years later his sisters were born as well: Loise-Marie-Antoine in 1768 and Marie-Françoise-Victoire in 1769.

In 1771, however, Antoine Robinot died, the Saint-Just family was forced to take their son back and move to Nampcel, to the house which once belonged to Charles de Saint-Just (1676-1766), Anoine’s paternal grandfather. Marie Madeleine, sister of Louis-Jean, was there to welcome them.

They lived together peacefully for some time, then the family moved again to Marie-Anne’s paternal household in Décize.

According to the French historian Bernard Vinot, Léonard Robinot was a good grandfather, who doted on little Louis-Antoine. However the joy of that peaceful life was short-lived.

In 1776 Robinot died and the Saint-Just family moved one last time to the rural village of Blérancourt. It was a graceful and tranquil place. There, thanks to his military merits, Louis-Jean obtained consideration and privileges, usually reserved to the lower nobility.

Léonhard’s inheritance was split among his children and on 18 July 1776 the heirs sold the house in Décize to Claude Leblanc: that was the last time one could find the Saint-Just spouses’ signature in the town of Décize.

And so Louis-Antoine left in July 1776 the place where he had spent the first four years of his life forever, but he would have never forgotten the mountains and the river Loire, from where the fairies and myths of his work Organt would have come out. (2)

[...] Unfortunately a large part of the familial correspondence [between Saint-Just and his family] was destroyed both during the persecutions the family endured after the death by decapitation of Louis-Antoine and after the dreadful Restauration which started with the Congress of Vienna of 1815.

[...] Other than the pain caused by the death of her beloved son, Madame Saint-Just had to endure the humiliations of the Directory political police.

A mother who until the very end kept like relics those few belongings of her son, saving them from the thermidorian fury; today one can see those mementos in a display case placed in Saint-Just’s house, now a museum, in Blérancourt. In these cases it’s possible to admire a book of the young revolutionary man still with the violet he had put inside as a bookmark; a bronze plaque with an angel on it (once it used to be in Louis-Antoine’s bedroom) and a quill. That was all the poor mother could save, since even the young man’s clothes had been sold to the authorities.

Marie-Anne didn’t even have a grave to mourn her son, buried without clothes to prevent someone from reclaiming those tortured bodies. For Louis-Antoine’s remains were thrown into a mass grave in the Parisian Errancis cemetery, close to Parc Monceau.

Today this cemetery doesn’t exist anymore and the 119 human remains were moved to the catacombs in Paris.

From a missive by Madame Saint-Just sent to the prefecture of the Aisne Department, we know that the authorities still refused to give her back some of the belongings, despite the fact that fifteen years had passed since her son’s death:

To the Prefect of the Department of Aisne, member of the Legion of Honour. Marie-Anne Robinot, widow of the defunct Monsieur Louis de Saint-Just, former cavalry captain in Blérancourt and currently residing there, has the honour to notify you that, following the event of 9 Thermidor Year II, a commission named through a decree of the District of Chauny came to my house to seize all property titles belonging to me and my children, because of the sentence pronounced against Louis de Saint-Just, my son, representative in the National Convention; and that, as a consequence of that event another decree was released that allowed the return of the belongings to the parents of the convicts; I am in need of the titles of which I am concerned and which are currently deposited in the Archives of the prefecture of Aisne, I want to have the honour to ask the Prefect to be so kind to order the collection and delivery of my belongings through you; by doing so you shall have my most sincere gratitude and respect, Monsieur le Préfet, your humble and obedient servant. Widow Saint-Just. Presented on 18 February 1809.

[...] After the death of her son and with age advancing, on 5 June 1807, Marie-Anne decided to make a will, leaving everything to her two daughters:

To Louise, I leave a house, with a kitchen with a small cellar, an attic, a tool shed, gardens for 21 hectares with fruit trees, everything located in Blérancourt in Rue de la Chouette. To Victoire, a house with two rooms, a cellar, a hallway, an attic and office rooms, everything in Blérancourt in Rue de la Chouette. (3)

Madame Saint-Just died of a cholera epidemic four years after writing this small testament on 11 February 1811 in her house in Blérancourt, leaving the void and mourning of her daughters and nephews.

(1) Ernest Hamel, Histoire de Saint-Just, Paris, Poulet-Mallasis et de Braise, 1859, p. 26.

(2) In May 1789 in Paris L’Organt was published, it’s a poem divided into twenty chants in which Saint-Just criticized the absolute monarchy and clerical hierarchies.

(3) Claire Cioti, Saint-Just, cit.

[nodutra19]

Recommendations Based Off RGU

I already cobbled together Polyphony Garden (I saw someone else do an RGU pastiche based off Othello by Shakespeare, so I hope it's a valid work), but I wanna make a whole post recommending things I think fans of the Revolutionary Girl Utena anime would like based off themes and style. It's mostly books though. And of course, I'll provide trigger warnings.

Absolute Recommendations

The Pike: Gabriele d'Annunzio: Poet, Seducer, and Preacher of War by Lucy Hughes-Hallett

This is a biography on a man named Gabriele d'Annunzio, a progenitor of fascism who codified not just fascist ideals, but also aesthetics, including the Roman salute which would become the Nazi salute. He was one of the first major propagandists, a spearhead in aviation and the decadent literary movement, and much more. He was initially famous as an author and poet obsessed with beauty, but he emerged from the same strains as other Europeans. He directly inspired Mussolini, and Mussolini inspired Hitler. The biography is beautifully written, if somewhat poorly paced, a great examination of masculinity, fascism, the relation between reality and art, the strength of propaganda.

I do give an SA warning for it though.

Beloved by Toni Morrison

I get the feeling most American fans of RGU have read this but I figured I should list it anyhow and for anyone not familiar with American literature, or for people who aren't readers. This is a historical fiction novel about a woman named Sethe who is haunted both by her time as a slave on a plantation and the death of her baby. It's one of the saddest but greatest books I've ever read. I would love to teach this to a class one day.

I do give several warnings for SA, racism, and bestiality.

xxxHolic by CLAMP (as translated and adapted by William Flanagan)

It's not as deconstructive, parodic, dark, or abstract as RGU, but I think most people would like this. It's about 17-year-old Kimihiro Watanuki who possesses the ability to perceive and interact with spirits. Having grown tired of this over his short life, he one day meets Yûko Ichihara, the space-time witch who runs a wish-granting shop. In exchange for the shedding of this ability, she asks for something of equal value: to work for her. And so begins his service at her shop.

I should also mention that the sequel series xxxHolic Rei has been hiatus for nearly a decade. The series also has a sister work called Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle but it's honestly not worth reading if you ask me.

We Shall Now Begin Ethics by Shiori Amase

This is an episodic series about Mr. Takayanagi, a high school ethics teacher. It's a great crash course on philosophy, although I say that as someone whose only experience with philosophy has been Camus (and now Tolstoy).

I do give TWs for SA (especially the first three chapters, and one or two later on), self-harm, and general out-of-pocketness.

Me and the Devil Blues: The Unreal Life of Robert Johnson by Akira Hiramoto

Robert Johnson was a bluesman rumored to have made a deal with the devil. This is a fictionalized biography on him. Sadly, the series has been on hiatus for damn well a decade at this point and official copies are hard to get your hands on. But hey, the art is superb. I'm not Black, but it's refreshing to see manga portray Black characters that don't look like cartoons that Dr. Seuss grew up with.

Although seeing as how I'm not Black, I can't really judge the quality of either the official or fan translation (the image above comes from the fanscans.

I never did finish it so I can't give any TWs beyond "It takes place in the antebellum south."

And yes, it's that Akira Hiramoto.

The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert A. Caro

I want everyone U.S-born or U.S-residing, and everyone who hates car dependency to read this book, especially New Yorkers (especially especially the NY transplants). This is a biography on a man named Robert Moses who was New York's park commissioner for 39 years. Over his near-half-century tenure, he shaped much of New York. Many of the bridges, parks, and highways began with him. But over the years he cemented class and racial lines by prioritizing drivers and gutting public transit. He had "urban renewal" which displaced poor people from the few affordable neighborhoods around into "temporary housing," which he crowded with those people as he rebuilt their previous neighborhoods. By the end of the "renewal," the new housing was far out of the reach of the original tenants, and so they stayed in their new slums. This was a man who knew to maneuver the preexisting power structures and the court of public opinion. This is a book that examines not just a powerful person but the people on whom that person exercised his power. Robert A. Caro is a biographer I think Tolstoy would admire.

The only TWs I can give are for racism and general inhumanity. There's also one mention of SA iirc. Also, this book was published 1974. I guess at the time society hadn't made the complete transition to referring to African-Americans (and by extension other African diasporas and Black Africans) as "Black," so it uses the old word for them.

[sprawa-przybyszewskiej]

The following text was presented in Polish, under the title „Mortal deities of hidden thrones. Maximilien Robespierre in Thermidor as Stanisława Przybyszewska’s alter ego” during a comparative literature conference in May his year. My idea of in what part my PhD will be about her, and what I can and cannot publish before is still taking shape, but I really wanted to put this out here.

Stanisława Przybyszewska is remembered in the collective consciousness primarily as the author of „The Danton Case”, and secondly - as a lonely, unhappy person, living in isolation and enduring miserable living conditions of her own free will (in some sense even at her own behest). Thanks to this way of looking at her, it’s easy to classify her in the studies focusing on her, in various, constantly recurring orders, and everything that is less obvious than these two facts can be omitted equally easily. Since she is known mainly as the author of „The Danton Case”, naturally her second great drama, „Thermidor”, is being pushed to the side. And it is precisely here that her biography is reflected in the character of Robespierre, her idol and deity. When I talk about being reflected, I mean, of course, the construction of Robespierre as a person in a drama is done according to the same pattern that Przybyszewska's life in Gdańsk has followed.

What pattern was it? First of all, we are talking about an existence that is not only lonely, but also aggressively hermit-like. Przybyszewska is not only stubbornly stuck in Gdańsk, with which she had nothing in common with and which she didn’t even like, but she also rejected help from her family and the few friends; loneliness of this kind naturally involves a certain attitude towards the world and a certain view of the world. Here I would like to focus on the facts extracted from her biography, and only those that can be recorded in a somewhat visual way, because only this type of simple, inalienable information is the one that could have found a place in her drama.

The most important facts from Przybyszewska’s life: - Loneliness - Hatred - Hierarchical view [of the world/reality]

The first fact is loneliness, understood both in the physical and mental sense. The second was her hatred of people, which was not (most likely) a result of a flaw of character (unless we consider her severity to be a flaw), but rather of a complete misunderstanding that she met with at every step. In her opinion, this misunderstanding had a simple cause – it was her own genius, which she sensed and which she tried to develop in her creative work. The third fact is the specificity of her view of the world, based on a hierarchical view.

Facts from Robespierre’s life: [obviously I am talking only about his literary counterpart, and only in Thermidor] - Loneliness - Hatred - Being conscious of his existence within a certain hierarchy

Przybyszewska smuggles these three undeniable and simple facts into „Thermidor” as features defining one of the characters, Maximilien Robespierre. He also exists in seclusion - although he is undeniably the most important character in the play, he is not only absent throughout Act I, but he only exists when his absence is being talked about.

„And here we can refer to the geobiography, because Przybyszewska places her hero in conditions close to her own living situation: her Robespierre lives in a «Parisian cubicle resembling a kennel» and washes himself with icy water. [...] Robespierre's cold Parisian cubicle corresponds to the short description of a room in a barrack, made by Przybyszewska between 1927 and 1928 in a letter to her cousin, Adam Barliński: «a crumbling ice house, deprived even of running water»” (Marcin Czerwiński, „Uskok”) -> LONELINESS

Using historical knowledge, Przybyszewska places Robespierre's apartment in a lonely room in the house of a friendly family - but drawing from her own life, she definitely enhances the „vibe” of his place of residence in such a way that it corresponds as closely as possible to her own living conditions. This is not supported by historical evidence, because it is known that in the Duplay family, Robespierre occupied two comfortable and normally furnished rooms, the standard of which did not differ from the standards in 18th-century Paris.

„The present study, however, argues that in fact she takes a Gnostic view of history as an eternal opposition between matter and spirit, and that this dualism saturates the utopian project she undertook both in her art and in her life.” (Kazimiera Ingdahl, „A Gnostic Tragedy”) -> ASCETISIM

However, for Przybyszewska, deprived not only of the luxuries of everyday life, but also of even a semblance of normalcy, it seemed unthinkable to grant the person she depicted in her works - in „Thermidor” more than anywhere else - the very luxuries that she herself was deprived of, and which she didn't even miss that much. Przybyszewska loved Robespierre and considered him to be the highest being, which, due to her Gnostic view of the world, was combined with her love of asceticism. Asceticism, the rejection of the material world, is one of those practices that allow us to rise higher on the mental plane, so it was, according to her (and certainly: according to her Robespierre) indispensable of.

The second point of contact between the writer and the character is hatred. The topic as such appears frequently in her prose, but in her dramas it appears only in these two lesser-known ones; as if she couldn't write about hatred in a more „domesticated” way. Przybyszewska rewrote each scene in „The Danton Case” at least 4 times, usually 10 – „Thermidor”, however, is a play written first and not even completely finished, so there are a few stylistically jarring places in it. From the point of view of this essay, the most important thing at this point seems to be the description of hatred from the mouth of Robespierre himself.

„In fact: I literally had a fever while writing. Everything is boiling inside of me. I cannot give you any idea of how much I suffer terribly with this absolutely powerless rage in the face of stupidity. When I first read this article, I regularly felt physically sick: I couldn't eat for hours. Besides, the blood rushed to my head so much that I was careless by putting it under the tap. Such bodily symptoms never reach the level of rage in me because of my own affairs.” (Stanisława Przybyszewska, „Letters”) -> HATRED

This corresponds with Przybyszewska’s views;  she spent her adult life without finding understanding or friendship among people (or at least friendship on her, harsh and inaccessible, terms), and so she felt hatred on a similarly physical level; even if she admitted that she didn't feel that way for personal reasons.

The same can be said about Robespierre, who hates not a single man, but what a man aspires to. There are more mentions of hatred in Przybyszewska's rich epistolography, and in the creation of Robespierre as a literary character in „Thermidor”, „The Danton Case” and „The Last Nights of Ventoese”, in fact, there are more - in this essay I only want to highlight this similarity as something more than similarity, as pouring of the writer's personal experience into the „personal experience” of the character.

„When you read and interpret [Przybyszewska's] correspondence, dramas and prose, after some time you begin to notice the constant presence of evaluations - of the world, people, their behaviors and achievements - with a dominant black, negative tone. Przybyszewska must always know and say precisely whether a person and a work are great and outstanding, or small and unsuccessful; whether she is dealing with the first or fourth „level” of creators. (Ewa Graczyk, „Ćma”) -> HIERARCHICAL VIEW

The third similarity is what Ewa Graczyk has called the „hierarchical view” and there can be no doubt that Przybyszewska - by adoring Robespierre, admiring him, idealizing him in her plays - transmits this trait of hers onto him not so much consciously, but because the hierarchical nature of her gaze is an inherent part of her as a person and she is unable to create a universum which would operate according to rules other than those she herself had adhered to. And hierarchization is closely related to hatred.

„During the winter, I suffered from a fear - as incredible as it was downright unpleasant - that I had come too far for my years. While last year with every page I wrote, bad and clumsy as they were, revealed to me the beginning of some line of development, thus marking all the directions of the path destined for me, which I immediately tried to follow - now this comfortable feeling of apprenticeship, of beginning, suddenly left me. I have not abandoned my path, the only one that suits my personality and that I have recognized from my mistakes. But the anticipated goal was achieved. Already. It terrified me. I thought I had gone all the way around in one year. There was nothing left for me to do but die.” (Stanisława Przybyszewska, „Letters”)

Robespierre, placed in a situation undoubtedly much easier to bear than Przybyszewska was, does not share with her similar dilemmas. Why? Because Przybyszewska all her life was afraid that she was not good enough - or maybe she was not so much „afraid” as she was convinced that she had not yet reached the peak of her abilities. Robespierre, on the other hand, although from time to time he may experience dilemmas related to not knowing whether he sees and assesses the situation correctly, knows for sure that although he may not be the greatest, at the same time, there is no one greater than him. Therefore, Przybyszewska's fear and uncertainty are not foreign to him; altough the same cannot be said about her irritation and anger, and not her appraising, mathematical view of other people.

It is clear that Przybyszewska poured her life experience into Robespierre; she probably did not have many other opportunities to narrate any literary work - in all her works not only the same themes or types of people are repeated, but also the same solutions and considerations. This results from her own character, but also from one more thing, closely related to the hierarchical view: her isolation took place at the ground level. This is both in its metaphorical and literal meaning: Przybyszewska lived in her barrack, rented to her out of pity, separated from others only by too thin walls, and nothing else. What is missing in her life is the introduction of some distance that would allow her to consider her situation as something other than - depending on her mood - a deep misfortune or a forced, but at least temporary, stop on the way to somewhere greater. It is a position on the same level as everyone else, or even worse than that: it is a position among people whom she considered lower than herself, but for which she had no evidence.

„During the winter, I suffered from a fear - as incredible as it was downright unpleasant - that I had come too far for my years. While last year with every page I wrote, bad and clumsy as they were, revealed to me the beginning of some line of development, thus marking all the directions of the path destined for me, which I immediately tried to follow - now this comfortable feeling of apprenticeship, of beginning, suddenly left me. I have not abandoned my path, the only one that suits my personality and that I have recognized from my mistakes. But the anticipated goal was achieved. Already. It terrified me. I thought I had gone all the way around in one year. There was nothing left for me to do but die.” (Stanisława Przybyszewska, „Letters”) -> GEOMETRY OF EXISTENCE

At this point, it is worth returning to this fragment and taking a closer look at the underlined fragments. Przybyszewska thinks about her life using vocabulary related to geometry (she briefly tried to study mathematics in her youth). However, this geometry is flat, located on one plane - a line, a circle, a designated direction. She has no space to breathe. And this is not only due to the forced pause in creative work, but also – more of an everyday problem - because of her room:

„My current apartment measures 2.25 x 4.60 metres. Measure it and you will see what it means. On top of that, there's a window – half a size of a normal one.” (Stanisława Przybyszewska, „Letters”) -> GEOMETRY OF EXISTECE

There is little space, then, in any sense of the word, and she can only spread her wings through Robespierre, whom she admires but whom she secretly would also like to be: his room, at least, is upstairs. I say this sentence a bit ironically (although it is true), just to emphasize that he actually had more space. And when he left, after he disappeared from the political scene for some time (as it is the situation at the beginning of „Thermidor”), he moved away from people in more than one dimension.

And this simultaneous elevation to heights, even if only heights of a second floor, and remoteness from people in every other possible respect, is what pushes Robespierre's opponents to understand him in terms of divinity. There is not much in it of praise, more of a statement of fact that must be accepted before it can be refuted. So what is Robespierre's divinity in Thermidor?

First of all, it is his inherent feature, the lens through which others must look at him. It's not just those who know him personally and work with him - it's about France in general. But the point is not to list all the moments in which one of the characters recognizes Robespierre as a god - let's consider it as a fact, just as they recognize it, and let's get over it to ask ourselves: what does this mean?

The main meaning is panic. Przybyszewska, through Robespierre, at least partially fulfills the dream of achieving success and the associated with it strong reactions of the world to the presence of such a successful person. Fear in this case is the highest form of flattery, except perhaps sincere (really sincere) devotion. This fear is both an expression of hateful admiration and a driving force behind the characters' actions. It results from a reluctant but unwavering faith in the divinity of their opponent and it is transformed into taking action, into an attempt (as history shows and as Przybyszewska would have shown in the play if she had completed it: a successful attempt) to overthrow the one who is a god, but not a guardian. Whoever keeps his divinity locked inside himself cannot get rid of it, but he does not make it a gift to others, but rather a curse to himself.

-> MORTALITY OF A DEITY

Because Robespierre is a mortal god. Przybyszewska created thorugh him something like a parody of Christ: a man-god in whom each nature is equally weak and each loses. Since each of them loses, then, unlike Christ, each of them dies. He actually „is burning in the blast furnance of his spirit” - because he makes decisions that bring about his own destruction. This is similar to the situation of Przybyszewska, who – so it would seem - did everything in her power to alienate the people on whose financial support she depended; who stubbornly stayed in Gdańsk instead of moving to one of the cities where she could receive more help from her family; who refused to undergo addiction treatment even under the threat of losing her government stipend. Her own non-humanity is inscribed in her through pride, to which she openly admitted and called „satanic” – she is linked with mortality in the same way.

In Robespierre, humanity and divinity combine in an unusual way: he worships himself, he’s convinced of his extraordinary power, and every matter he undertakes confirms this belief. But what is a monstrance if not a kind of visible concealment? What is the meaning of his long, six-week stay outside the French political scene at a time when he is needed there the most?

In her book „FORMS: Whole, Rhythm, Hierarchy and Network”, Caroline Levine proposes the introduction of the term „affordance”. An affordance is an action that is hidden in a given object or concept; an action forced, as it were, by a form that is itself a kind of oppression. In „Thermidor”, the form that has the greatest importance for the plot is an enclosed space. On the one hand, we are talking about the meeting room of the Committee of Public Safety (Przybyszewska preserved the unity of the place in the drama), and on the other - about Robespierre's apartment, which is only briefly mentioned.

-> AFFORDANCE OF HIDING

His withdrawal and his absence create anxiety among his opponents. The fear mentioned earlier is related to how the other revolutionaries feel about Robespierre as a person - but there is more to it than that. His absence, which does not prevent him from having a perfect understanding of the political situation at that time, has something uncanny about it. He himself puts it best: “There is something uncanny about this business. It is as if one discovered venomous teeth in a paper snake, or a hangman's rope in a young girl's sewing case [...]”. There is a reason why these comparisons make us feel uncomfortable: they violate the natural affordances of the cases mentioned, since paper should not be venomous and a sewing case should not contain a hangman’s rope. A room in a family home should not in any way resemble a place where a dangerous animal lurks [in the Polish version Robespierre is being likened to a spider] - and yet Robespierre evokes this type of association in others, probably without being fully aware of it himself.

„I remember that I saw her several times in the morning hours, walking from her apartment (in the barracks) through the courtyard of the Gimnazjum Polskie, sideways and stealthily, so much so that it was difficult to see her face.” (Ewa Graczyk, „Ćma”) -> COMING DOWN TO EARTH

His throne – his altar – is hidden, therefore it’s deprived of contact with the earth and its inhabitants. When, after a few weeks of absence, he decides to come down, he causes not only panic, but also simple surprise. This is not far from the personal experience of Przybyszewska, who at some point began to avoid going outside, and when circumstances forced her to do so, her appearance caused quite a surprise among onlookers - and (just like Robespierre) she was at odds with people both on „the sidewalk plane”, and on the mental plane.

-> FALLING DOWN ONTO EARTH

However, the mere physical descent to earth does not mean that Robespierre has left the spiritual and mental heights on which he dwells as a deity. Saint-Just's warning is not just mere words, but an expression of concern about the entire situation that Robespierre has just unfolded before his eyes - a situation that is almost impossible to solve and poses a real threat to the „paradise on earth” for Robespierre is the Republic. Falling from a height is also a threat to the spirit and a reference to the fall of Satan.

-> A LITERAL FALL

It is also simply a signal of the beginning of defeat. The affordance of the closed room was violated, so by getting rid of his loneliness and separation, Robespierre also deprived himself of their positive aspects. The mortal god descended to earth, thereby shedding the protective layer provided by the distance between himself and others, between his plan and the reality in which he lived - and his opponents, whether in human form or in the form of a natural course things, they immediately took advantage of the situation. And here we can find a reference to the situation of Przybyszewska, who at some point started to avoid seeing her friends from Gdańsk – a married couple Stefania and Jan Augustyńscy - because Stefania was, in Przybyszewska's opinion, too perceptive and did not fall for the artificial distance put between them through the words of „Everything is fine”. Thus, the writer trapped herself in the form and allowed it to turn into a prison. This kind of action somehow justified her and took away the responsibility for improving her life.

(Caroline Levin,e „FORMS: Whole,Rhythm, Hierarchy, Network) -> AFFORDANCE OF ISOLATION

Any form is a type of oppression. By imposing its order, it also forces the way of seeing and thinking. Robespierre's paranoia did not appear out of nowhere - it is the result of isolation (the only person who acts as a link and a buffer between the closed form of Robespierre’s private room and the closed form of the meeting room is Saint-Just - and Saint-Just has been struggling with the war on the Northern front for several weeks). It is no different with Przybyszewska herself, whose attitude towards the world was largely dependent on her financial conditions, which she did not try to improve: "Since [Staśka] is not crushed by the grey of everyday and by the struggle for a piece of bread, the general hatred towards people and constant fear of them ceased” wrote her husband in a letter to Helena Barlińska.

-> THE DUAL NATURE OF AFFORDANCE

When it comes to affordance, there is one more detail we need to pay attention to. The physical form - in this case, a room - influences the spiritual form, but it also works the other way around. Robespierre's paranoia is therefore a factor whose affordances (e.g. haste, keeping a secret, high treason) have a real, negative impact on the Republic in general and his life in particular. Acting under the influence of the conditions he himself has created, he finds himself on the road to making more and more mistakes, making the situation worse, and driving himself into a dead end. The fact that he does not seem to take this possibility into account points once again to his divinity and the pride that comes with it.

-> THE AFFORDANCE OF ROBESPIERRE

From the depths - and heights - of his tabernacle, Robespierre commands the situation. He exerts an absolute influence, which at the same time is based on nothing more than his person. Therefore, it is his personal affordance, the effect not of a specific action, but rather the result of his presence in the world, the resultant of all his features. This is where he differs from Przybyszewska, who dreamed of having such an influence on the masses, or at least on a group of people. Thus, this confirms the thesis about constructing Robespierre in „Thermidor” as her alter ego - similar enough to be confused with her, but better and more powerful.

I would like to end here and take advantage of the opportunity to mention that after 216 days of genocide in Gaza, as of the day I have delivered this essay, there is no university left there. We have the right and opportunity to promote science, and therefore we also have an ethical obligation to stand on the side of the victims of genocide, who were deprived of this right and opportunity. I hope that in our lifetime we will see a free, independent Palestine.

[lamarseillasie]

Marat et Le Junius Français

I know it's been a while since I've done a post like this one, but that doesn't mean I've lost interest in writing about little-known anecdotes and adventures of Marat! One of them is the brief and chaotic existence of Le Junius Français, one of Marat's lesser-known newspapers, which he created and published during the month of June 1790.

The probable reason why hardly anyone knows that Junius Français existed (the only Marat historian I've ever seen mention it was Olivier Coquard in his Jean-Paul Marat, une lumière en Révolution : biographie d'un homme des Lumières devenu l'Ami du peuple) is that it only had 13 issues in total. Its publication was somewhat turbulent, lasting only three weeks, for obvious reasons. But it is still, in all its context, a very interesting and surprising periodical.

The creation of the short-lived newspaper comes at a complicated and somewhat hectic time for Marat, who had just returned from London in May and was keen to resume publication of L'Ami du Peuple and join the patriotic press. As usual, Marat had to remain underground, as he continued to be the target of legal proceedings and arrest warrants and the publication of L'Ami du Peuple was, unsurprisingly, banned by the authorities. In addition, there was also a constant fight against forgers - the fake Marat, plagiarists who published newspapers and pamphlets under his name, which may also confirm the influence and popularity he had gained at the time. These forgeries of L'Ami du Peuple began to appear in large numbers from 1790 onwards, and Marat made an effort to defend himself against them as soon as he returned to Paris. Not only him, but the Revolution in general was going through a turbulent situation. There had been conflicts involving bakers and grain, the question of war and federations, as well as other external crises that concerned France.

It was against this backdrop of accusations against conspirators, clandestinity and arrest warrants that Marat created Le Junius Français, a second newspaper, which was published for the first time on June 2, 1790. During its publication, Le Junius Français coexisted with L'Ami du Peuple, and both periodicals were published (almost) every day until the end of the first, in its 13th issue, on June 24.

On the structural aspects of the newspaper, Professor Coquard, already cited above as the main basis of this post, comments in Marat, L'Ami du Peuple [p.243]:

This second newspaper presents itself exactly like L'Ami du Peuple: an eight-page in-oitavo printed on poor quality paper that comes out of the workshops of "Guilhemat et Arnulphe, printers of Liberty, at 23 rue Serpent" and is distributed - door to door only - "every morning at number three rue Contrescarpe-Dauphine". Junius seems to focus more specifically on articles of denunciation, while L'Ami du Peuple is probably looking for more general political analysis. However, the two sheets are quite similar.

The name chosen by Marat for the newspaper, "Le Junius Français", also intrigued me. I found in this note apparently (?) written by G. Eljorf through Le gazetier révolutionnaire, a catalog of periodicals of the time, an explanation that seemed to me quite plausible and accurate about the title:

Lucius Junius Brutus and Marcus Junius Brutus are two figures from Roman history engaged in the struggle against tyranny, that of Tarquin and that of Caesar respectively. The pseudonym Junius had been used by an anonymous English pamphleteer around 1770 in a series of letters critical of the government of George III (Junius Letters).

We can speculate on various reasons why Marat might have created the newspaper in such a complex period. Perhaps it was one of his skillful political strategies to amplify his attacks on his enemies at a time of difficulty, but it could also have been the start of a newspaper that Marat actually planned to maintain, so that he could give L'Ami du Peuple another direction. The intentions and objectives of Junius Français, at least, are clearly explained on page 8 of the first issue:

This journal is particularly intended to follow the deaf maneuvers of the revolution's enemies, to reveal their relations with foreign cabinets, to vent the plots of traitors to the Fatherland, to serve as a cry of alarm, to disconcert their dark schemes.

The history of its sessions will be followed by reflections adapted to the subject, portraits of the authors of the most important motions, of the ministers and of the most remarkable figures in the history of the revolution. Finally, it will report on new events likely to pique public curiosity.

In fact, at least in the first issue - which I analyzed more meticulously than the others - he does what he says. He first scolds the Parisians, in the same fraternal and unmistakable style as L'Ami du Peuple, and then recounts the May 31 session of the National Assembly, where a case of conflict between the grenadiers of the Royal Navy regiment was discussed in which a group of patriots had been brutally mistreated. He speaks briefly about the decisions concerning the civil organization of the clergy and denounces the Dutch. He constantly maintains the spirit of denunciation, calling on the people to take revenge. Although his name only appears in 4th issue, it's not hard to spot Marat's pen in every word.

Marat unfortunately didn't manage to keep publishing Junius Français for long. Certainly, the newspaper ceased publication at the end of June for a number of reasons, and among them there is no doubt that Marat must have been overwhelmed with writing and managing the printing and correspondence for two revolutionary periodicals at once. Expenses, lack of time and problems involving the printers of both Junius and L'Ami du Peuple must have contributed to the sudden demise of this newspaper.

I found it interesting to bring up Junius Français because, as well as being one of Marat's most unknown and neglected works, it is also one of his writings that impresses me the most, since he managed to keep both newspapers going at the same time in a chaotic context in which he had to hide from the police, manage the publication of other of his works, solve plagiarism problems and at the same time pay attention to the political situation in France, which was becoming increasingly tense. His commitment, his incessant dedication to producing even in the most difficult and theoretically impossible times is always fascinating, to say the least, and Junius Français is an example of how Marat's revolutionary activity was frenetic and tireless even underground and under threat from the government. His attempt to maintain the two newspapers, despite failing, went beyond Marat's own limits and was, in a way, a good propaganda tool against his political enemies.

[blackboard-monitor]

book review: kirjeitä tove janssonilta [letters from tove] by boel westin & helen svensson (eds.)

Tove Jansson (1914-2001), for the uninitiated was a Finnish painter, author and illustrator, best known as the creator of the Moomins. She had an illustrious 70-year career, publishing her first works at 14 and last at 84.

Kirjeitä Tove Janssonilta (Brev från Tove Jansson in the original Swedish) is a collection of letters written by Tove throughout her life, spanning from the early 1930s all the way to the late 1980s. These letters form a sort of biography, recounting the various stages of Jansson's life, both personal and professional. She writes to her parents, her close friends, her various (male and female) lovers, and her publisher turned friend. She describes her travels, her art and the work of creating it, her love affairs, the Second World War, her summers in the Pellinki archipelago on the Southern coast of Finland, and the growing popularity of the Moomin franchise.

I currently work at the Moomin Museum, and I picked this book up at work to learn more about Jansson's life and to pass the time when it's slow. I read bits and pieces over the course of several months, looking for spots in the dimly-lit museum where there's enough light to read. And I enjoyed it very much, which is why I'm writing a book review for the first time in years.

I already knew the broad strokes of Tove Jansson's life, but the letters, written in her own voice, helped me get to know her as a complex, three-dimensional human being. Some things made me like her less and some things were deeply relatable, but having read the whole thing, I feel I know who Jansson was as a person and not just as a public figure. Her wartime letters were also a great insight into how life went on even as bombs were falling and her brother and boyfriend at the time were at the front.

The most enjoyable part of Tove's letters was not that they were interesting and informative historical documents, but the way she often managed to describe what felt like universally relatable human experiences in such an apt way. Here's a couple memorable exerpts (English translation by me):

"Ja silti – loma on kuin kevät; kaivattu ja ihana, mutta aina liian lyhyt, ilon alla aina niin äärimmäisen melankolinen." [And yet – vacation is like the spring; longed-for and wonderful, but always too short, underneath the joy always so extremely melancholy.]

“Ehkä voisin lähteä Klovharulle yksin kun kaikki on ohi ja kaikki ovat matkustaneet...? Mutten kerro sitä kenellekään, he vain huolestuisivat miten pärjään yksin. Kuka huolestuu siitä miten minä pärjään seurassa!?” [Maybe I could go to Klovharu by myself when everything is over and everyone has travelled...? But I won't tell anyone, they would only worry about how I'll manage by myself. Who will worry about how I'll manage in company!?]

The introduction to each section of letters by the two editors are fairly informative but not that in-depth, so I don't know that I would recommend this book for someone with no prior knowledge of Tove Jansson or her work (for that I suggest Boel Westin's Tove Jansson. Life, Art, Words), but for anyone with a passing knowledge who is looking for a more nuanced understanding of Tove's life and relationships, this collection of letters is a must-read.

Rating: 9/10

[lulu2992]

Hey there!

After reading your great insight on what to keep in mind when, say, writing the Seed brothers in fanfiction, I was wondering if you wanted to cap things off on what to keep in mind when writing Faith?

You don’t have to do it immediately, just when you have the time.

Hi! Sure, let’s conclude this “series” with the last member of the family, Faith Seed :)

First, while she’s referred to as a/the Siren by Dutch, a couple of NPCs, and in promotional material, this isn’t her official title in the Project. And as you probably know, Faith Seed’s real name is actually Rachel. However, unlike what the Far Cry Wiki claims, I’m quite certain her full name was never Rachel Jessop. Unfortunately, the biography on her Wiki page is partly made up and based on that incorrect assumption, so I really don’t recommend trusting it. This advice goes for all Far Cry characters, and I don’t think the Far Cry 6 Season Pass is a good reference, either, since the DLCs were written with the help of the Wiki.

In Far Cry 5, in addition to the story cutscenes, she has three sermons (here, here, and here), four answering machine messages (here, here, here, and here), and can also be randomly encountered in the Henbane River region as a “specter” (term used in the files). When she appears, she either hums the song “Oh The Bliss” (here and here) or talks to the Deputy. I think what she says really is worth listening to and adds a lot to her character. @teamhawkeye has done a tremendous job recording and compiling all her appearances in 9 videos (1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9)! As for Marshal Burke’s “apology video”, in which Faith also appears, it’s here.

I wrote a summary of what other characters say about her here (masterpost here), and all the NPCs’ comments about the Seed family are available here and here.

Faith isn’t in Far Cry Arcade and doesn’t have the same “combat lines” as most other characters, but you can still listen to everything she says during the final fight against her here.

Her deleted lines are here, and she has even more here. Most of them probably aren’t relevant anymore, but they’re still interesting and make me wonder what they originally had in mind for the character!

If I’m not mistaken, there’s only one note in Far Cry 5 written by Faith: the “Note for Tracey” (Hope County Jail). The note “A Confession” (Throne of Mercy Church) was also written by “Faith”, but it seems to me the author is one of Rachel’s predecessors.

Indeed, in-game evidence indicates Rachel wasn’t the first woman who took on the role of Faith Seed. There were at least two others before her, Lana and Selena, but we barely know anything about them or why they were replaced. Two letters, written by people who knew and loved them, can be found in the game in the Horned Serpent Cave and the King’s Hot Springs Hotel, but that’s pretty much it.

There was another note written by Faith, apparently cut from the game but still available in oasisstrings. It was supposed to be in her bunker, Faith’s Gate:

To my guardians, Because we have each other, we are already strong. But when the Collapse comes, this gate will need to be the heart of our strength. Guard it with your lives, knowing that any sacrifice you make will be for the future of humanity's greatest ideals and dreams. Jacob and Joseph have chosen you to guard this gate. You should be very proud. I know you serve me with love, but never forget that this will be your home, too. If you falter from this purpose, remember the bliss is there for you. With love, Faith

It’s worth noting that, in the game’s files, Faith (or the Henbane River) is sometimes referred to as “Selena Seed”. To me, this suggests that her identity and her backstory went through many changes during the development of Far Cry 5, and that might explain at least some of the grey areas surrounding the character.

Since she isn’t the Seed brothers’ biological sister and they weren’t raised together, The Book of Joseph doesn’t give a lot of information about her life before Eden’s Gate aside from what the game already tells us: she was a broken person, addicted to drugs, and was “adopted” by Joseph as his sister and Herald. When she joined the cult, since drugs are forbidden by the rules, she first had to overcome her addiction, and the book says she succeeded with the help of scopolamine (basically Bliss). It’s also explained she then worked with a geneticist named Peter, probably on developing Bliss. That said, in the game, he’s never mentioned, cultists never use the word “scopolamine” (always “Bliss”), and nothing clearly indicates it can be or has ever been used as a substitution treatment, so I’m not sure what’s still canonical...

Faith also appears in the short film Inside Eden’s Gate (not entirely canon to me but still good) where she’s played by Mackenzie “Kenz” Lawrén Johnson. I must admit Faith is my favorite Herald in the film; I really like Kenz Lawrén’s interpretation as well as her opinion on the character, which she gave in this interview!

Weirdly, Faith has often been referred to as the “half-sister” by the game’s main writers (such as here or here) even though she isn’t related to the Seed family in the game. It’s possible that she used to be but that was changed at some point. According to the Lead Writer, “Maybe she isn’t liked by the other two brothers as she didn’t grow up with them” (which is hinted at by NPCs and John himself in Far Cry 5). In a now-deleted interview for GameCrate, he also described her as “more of an outsider” and “probably the most fervent believer in Joseph”.

Greg Bryk, who co-created and played the Father, said he believed he needed Faith because “the maternal aspect of the feminine energy is missing” in his life even though it’s something “essential for Joseph to have”. He thinks there have been several Faiths because “when [Joseph] would lose faith, [he] would find another Faith.” And according to him, “she doesn’t need to have a specific energy because there’s something of an essence that [he needs] as opposed to a person”, and she almost has a “mother earth energy”.

While she does give a bit of information about her past life as Rachel in the game, saying she was “ostracized by her community”, “bullied by friends”, “abused by her family”, and “wanted to die”, it’s not always easy to know what’s true and what’s not when it comes to Faith because she’s known for being a master manipulator; lying is canonically part of her modus operandi. In a way, because Faith Seed is a role, I would say she’s also always performing. Unlike what a few NPCs claim, I don’t think that means she never tells the truth, but she’s still undoubtedly “very skilled at twisting the facts and turning any situation to her advantage”, as the game’s Narrative Director put it.

Although the details are unclear, I believe it’s true Rachel was “lost” and “broken” before she arrived in Hope County and joined the Project. It’s also true that, as Faith Seed, she’s now powerful, dangerous, and not innocent anymore, as her former best friend Tracey Lader, who knows her very well and witnessed her transformation (but was unable to stop it), warns the Deputy. I neither mean nor think the situation Faith is in is normal, healthy, or the best thing that could have happened to her, but I do think saying she’s unhappy with it, helpless, in danger, or that she only wishes she could run away from the cult really is a misunderstanding of the character. Faith knows what she’s doing, and she’s very good at doing it. To me, she’s the most powerful Herald.

Since the lore is a bit inconsistent, we’re not entirely sure how the Bliss works and who created it, but we know it’s an almost magical, hallucinogenic and pacifying drug made from “bliss flowers” (heavily inspired by Datura stramonium) that Faith is immune to, can control, and uses to brainwash people. “The Bliss” is also a place, but once again, the details are unclear. It could be her bunker, or maybe just a distorted version of reality that individuals who are exposed to the drug “live” in. Wherever or whatever it is, most people never truly come back from it or fully break free from Faith’s influence, as seen with the Marshal in the game…

In the Project, Faith’s role is to lure (hence the nickname “Siren”) people into the cult and convince them to follow the Father, often with the help of Bliss. If they keep resisting or are “too full of fear and doubt”, high doses of the drug can be administered to them and turn them into Angels, who are comparable to zombies according to some characters. Bliss irreversibly damages people’s brains, and those who become Angels unfortunately can never be saved. Faith and her followers seem to think they’re beautiful creations because they’re faithful to the Project and unable to sin. It seems she has the power to control them (at least partly), and the cult doesn’t hesitate to use them as “shock troops” or “slave labor and beasts of burden”, as NPCs say. They’re indeed very docile and resistant... as well as hard to kill.

Again, there are some discrepancies regarding what happens to potential converts in the Henbane River region, but it seems people first have to walk along the Pilgrimage path and, at the end of it, take a literal leap of faith from the statue of Joseph, just like Faith explains she did (even though whether or not the statue already existed at the time is a bit uncertain). As unbelievable as it sounds, NPCs confirm it’s entirely possible to survive the leap. After walking the Path, some pilgrims become Angels, some simply join the Project, and others don’t survive, either because they don’t make it to the end or die when they jump (maybe because their faith isn’t strong enough, I’m not sure how that works).

In the Family, Faith can be described as “the favorite child” (and I think that makes John jealous), who saw Joseph as her savior when they met and wants others to experience the same feeling, by force if necessary. Just like her brothers, she basically weaponizes her trauma and makes people relive a sublimated version of her life story: she targets the most vulnerable individuals, gives them drugs to ease their torment, and sometimes takes their minds away from them. Even though Faith is fully capable of thinking for herself, isn’t mind-controlled, was a drug user before she joined the Project (not after), and left her old self Rachel “in the darkness” willingly to be reborn as Faith Seed, she still became a new person for the Father and expects the same from anyone she converts, even if that means she has to completely brainwash them.

In conclusion, we don’t really know much about Rachel and her backstory, simply that she was broken, saw Eden’s Gate as a chance to start anew, and happily took it. Since she was young, desperate, and therefore suggestible when she met Joseph, one can wonder if Faith is simply a manipulated, brainwashed victim; a poor, helpless soul devoured by a cult. But although that situation is far from ideal or normal, she and other characters confirm that she too has teeth, and she doesn’t hesitate to use them. Rachel should theoretically just have been a victim, but as Faith Seed, she’s transcended this status. She’s found purpose, power, and is committed to her beliefs. Not everyone in Hope County precisely knows who she is, but now, she does. She’s a multifaceted mystery whom people tend to underestimate, and it’s something she likes to cultivate because that’s how she gets them. She’s a Siren, but in my opinion, also a Phoenix, who was consumed completely and rose up from her own ashes to be born again. Rachel was broken, but Faith is strong. Rachel lost herself, but Faith was found. Rachel was nothing; Faith can be anything.

[apazwtsn]

I hate this cover. Who designed it? What monster designs a cover like that? If it hadn't been the only copy I found of the book I wouldn't have bought it. I don't know anything about design but please, who thought this would be good? Which one of them is supposed to be Holmes? Or Watson? Or Moriarty? What does it even has to do with the story? What does this want to tell me? Really, I don't understand. Three random men from the shoulders up, floating on a white background with some waterfalls???? What the hell does that mean???? There is not even a hint that tells me that this is a Sherlock Holmes book. If you take away the title and the author, I'll think it's a biography or something like that. I bought two other Sherlock Holmes books at 2 for 1, much cheaper than this one, one of which had pages falling out and even so they have a better cover. Really disappointing.

edit: I EVEN JUST NOTICED THEY DIDN'T EVEN BOTHER TO WRITE WELL HOLMES. IT LITERALLY SAYS "SHERLOCK HOMES COLLECTION"

[veronicaleighauthor]

My Thoughts on “Moods”

It’s been forever and a day since I’ve written a rambling post on a book. Here we go!

::Spoiler Alert::

As you well know, I’m a huge fan of Louisa May Alcott. I’ve read many of her works, read the biographies on her, online articles, I’ve watched the American Masters docu-drama about her like a thousand times. I’m always eager for new bits of information regarding Alcott – like whenever new stories of hers are discovered. Those who are familiar with her life and works have probably heard about the first novel she published. No, not “Little Women.” Her first offical novel was called, “Moods” and it was published in 1864, four years before her best-known children’s classic. What was “Moods” and why haven’t we heard more about it?

Rather than writing “moral pap for the young,” Louisa May Alcott started out writing romances and “blood and thunder” tales. Gothic fiction, murder mysteries, thrillers…In 1860, she had an idea for new novel, and spent four weeks straight in what she called a writing “vortex.” She ate only when her family brought her meals, rarely slept, and didn’t stir often from her desk. Her world revolved around this novel and when she finally surfaced from her work, she was mentally and emotionally exhausted. She was uncertain of its quality; however, her family loved the book. She attempted to send “Moods” off for publication and there were editors interested in it, but only if she shortened it. Louisa put it away for a few years, only returning to it after publishing her acclaimed “Hospital Sketches.” Again, the editors wanted it shortened and she finally complied, believing it improved by the edits. Except for the ending, she wasn’t entirely pleased with that.

Three hundred dollars was her reward for her efforts. The payment helped her family immensely. The reviews were mixed though. One stinging review in particular stood out, authored by a certain Henry James (who later wrote “The Portrait of a Lady). He was especially insulting to it, and her in general, believing Louisa offered nothing fresh on the topic of which she wrote, but that there was no reason she couldn’t write a good book one day. The publisher rereleased the book again in 1872, following her “Little Women” fame, but it had been without her consent. When that publisher went bankrupt, Louisa got back her copyright and rewrote “Moods” yet again and published it as she wanted it. It was the book she just couldn’t let go. Despite what Henry James said, it had been inspired from life. The heroine was similar to Louisa in many respects, one character was based on Henry David Thoreau and another was based on Ralph Waldo Emerson – two men Louisa was known to have crushes on.

So, what was “Moods?” Was it any good? Or was Henry James justified in his criticisms of it? We can’t know what “Moods” was when Louisa wrote the first version of it. That draft has been lost. But when it was published for the first time, the public believed it was the story of a love triangle. However, in my uneducated mind, I believe it was meant to be a commentary on marriages and how they were not the “end all and be all” as it was once mentioned in the book. That was how I interpreted it anyway. Let’s begin with the heroine, who I would have rather seen remain single than end up married. I’m sure you can guess what happens in the course of the story.

(Maya Hawke as Jo March in 2017. I think she’d do a fantastic job portraying Sylvia Yule, so I’m using her for this post.)

Before our beloved Jo March, there was tomboyish, moody Sylvia Yule who bucked convention by wearing boy’s clothes to work in the family garden, snuck into her neighbor’s library to borrow a book, who preferred to go on camping trips with her brother and his friends, to settling down and marrying. Yes, she is determined to never marry. It isn’t long before Sylvia notices one of her brother’s friends, the bold, blunt Adam Warwick, who matches her in temperament and principles. She falls in love with Adam and is distraught when he abruptly disappears. A misunderstanding follows, leading her to believe that he married another. Despite having refused her brother’s other friend, Geoffrey Moor’s offer of marriage, when he proposes again, she accepts. Sylvia is determined to be happy with her new husband and it does seem it will be a successful union…until she encounters Adam Warwick on their wedding trip.

The truth is revealed – Adam isn’t married at all! He is free and wants to be with her, unaware that she is now a wife. They decide to keep their love a secret from Geoffrey, who is a good man and adores Sylvia, and who is a friend of Adam’s. Sylvia can’t handle living a lie and becomes convinced she must confess all to her husband. Deep down she wants to part ways, possibly even divorce. Geoffrey is brokenhearted when he hears this, but divorce is not an option. Not for him, not for her, not for the world they live in. He decides to go to Europe, to find some peace and maybe to one day come back if she wishes. As Sylvia sees him off, she is astonished to find that Adam will accompany him, in attempt to mend the friendship between him and Geoffrey. Sylvia later comes to the conclusion that marrying Adam wouldn’t be in her best interest as their marriage wouldn’t likely be successful. They were too alike; their union would be “uneven.” She summons Geoffrey back, to reconcile…the ship he is on sinks but his life is saved, thanks to Adam who gave his life for him. A broken-hearted Sylvia dies not long after Geoffrey’s return.

Though I loved “Moods,” there is one part of Henry James’s review I do agree with. He totally disliked Adam Warwick and I did too. For the life of me, I couldn’t see why Sylvia was in love Adam. Pedantic – I found him to be a pedantic jerk. But I guess there’s no accounting for first love. The other part of the story that I didn’t like was that Sylvia was killed off in the end. In the 1882 version, the ending was changed to Sylvia living and she and Geoffrey Moor continuing their marriage, which I feel was more of a realistic outcome for that era. I’m sure there were many couples who married and one or both spouses believed it was a mistake, but carried on I’m thinking of Newland and May Archer in “The Age of Innocence” by Edith Wharton. That was what they did in those days. Divorce existed, but not in polite society. Not for women anyway. Men could survive divorce, remarry, and there would be no judgment. Divorced women were scorned, shunned, and tended to “disappear” from that world. Ellen Olenska did as much in “The Age of Innocence.” That would have been an intriguing twist though – that Sylvia divorced Geoffrey Moor and had to deal with the 19th century repercussions of her actions.

All in all, I give “Moods” four out of five stars. I don’t think it was Louisa May Alcott’s best work – that honor goes to “Little Women” and “A Long Fatal Love Chase.” The writing was great – I just feel the editors had too much influence on the first version. Lousia May Alcott worked best on her own, she knew best how to craft a great novel. I’d really like to see an adaptation of “Moods” someday. The story may not have struck a chord with 19th century audiences, but I think it would be a success in the 21st century.

What about you? Have you ever read “Moods?” What were your thoughts?

[pizzafishandchips]

Book recommendation tag game

rules: recommend as many books as you like. please include genre and some basic information on it (either your words or a copy+paste synopsis). feel free to include cover art, a personal review, trigger warnings, and anything else! just don’t spoil the book!

Tagged by the lovely @southernreaches <3

And because this got long to where I felt I need a read more, I'll tag other people up here: @portman-natalie, @bluvixen

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Genre: nonfiction

Physician, researcher, and award-winning science writer, Siddhartha Mukherjee examines cancer with a cellular biologist’s precision, a historian’s perspective, and a biographer’s passion. The result is an astonishingly lucid and eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with—and perished from—for more than five thousand years. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance, but also of hubris, paternalism, and misperception. Mukherjee recounts centuries of discoveries, setbacks, victories, and deaths, told through the eyes of his predecessors and peers, training their wits against an infinitely resourceful adversary that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out “war against cancer.” The book reads like a literary thriller with cancer as the protagonist.

One of my favorite books, and I just remembered I've been meaning to get a physical copy for years now. There's something really moving about the way the author tells how cancer is so inexplicably tied with human history - don't get me wrong, cancer is still shit, but something about the book made it a little less scary in a, "Ah I think I understand you a little better now" kind of way

Bitter Medicine by Mia Tsai

Genre: romance, urban fantasy

As a descendant of the Chinese god of medicine, ignored middle child Elle was destined to be a doctor. Instead, she is underemployed as a mediocre magical calligrapher at the fairy temp agency, paranoid that her murderous younger brother will find her and their elder brother. Using her full abilities will expose Elle’s location. Nevertheless, she challenges herself by covertly outfitting Luc, her client and crush, with high-powered glyphs. Half-elf Luc, the agency’s top security expert, has his own secret: he’s responsible for a curse laid on two children from an old assignment. To heal them, he’ll need to perform his job duties with unrelenting excellence and earn time off from his tyrannical boss. When Elle saves Luc’s life on a mission, he brings her a gift and a request for stronger magic to ensure success on the next job—except the next job is hunting down Elle’s younger brother. As Luc and Elle collaborate, their chemistry blooms. Happiness, for once, is an option for them both. But Elle is loyal to her family, and Luc is bound by his true name. To win freedom from duty, they must make unexpected sacrifices.

I have to plug this. I have loved Mia's writing for years and I will not stop now. This book has everything I love: calligraphy-based magic system, beautiful romance, dick jokes, extremely accurate to the point that I'm almost uncomfortable lens into Chinese family culture to the point where there were times I had to put the book down and stare at a wall. Also Tony. I will never stop loving Tony.

A Magic Steeped in Poison by Judy I. Lin

Genre: fantasy, romance

For Ning, the only thing worse than losing her mother is knowing that it's her own fault. She was the one who unknowingly brewed the poison tea that killed her—the poison tea that now threatens to also take her sister, Shu. When Ning hears of a competition to find the kingdom's greatest shennong-shi—masters of the ancient and magical art of tea-making—she travels to the imperial city to compete. The winner will receive a favor from the princess, which may be Ning's only chance to save her sister's life. But between the backstabbing competitors, bloody court politics, and a mysterious (and handsome) boy with a shocking secret, Ning might actually be the one in more danger.

TEA MAGIC!! TEA MAGIC!!!!! TEA MAGIC!!! This book has wonderful worldbuilding that really brought back nostalgia from my childhood watching wuxia and xianxia dramas.

Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor by Xiran Jay Zhao

Genre: fantasy/urban fantasy

Zachary Ying never had many opportunities to learn about his Chinese heritage. His single mom was busy enough making sure they got by, and his schools never taught anything except Western history and myths. So Zack is woefully unprepared when he discovers he was born to host the spirit of the First Emperor of China for a vital mission: sealing the leaking portal to the Chinese underworld before the upcoming Ghost Month blows it wide open. The mission takes an immediate wrong turn when the First Emperor botches his attempt to possess Zack’s body and binds to Zack’s AR gaming headset instead, leading to a battle where Zack’s mom’s soul gets taken by demons. Now, with one of history’s most infamous tyrants yapping in his headset, Zack must journey across China to heist magical artifacts and defeat figures from history and myth, all while learning to wield the emperor’s incredible water dragon powers. And if Zack can’t finish the mission in time, the spirits of the underworld will flood into the mortal realm, and he could lose his mom forever.

I know they're more well known for Iron Widow but Xiran's Zachary Ying series (I think they have a sequel planned, dear God I hope that's the case) but I have to show some love to their other series that I don't think gets nearly the attention it deserves; it really tickles my urban fantasy bone AND my wish to see more Chinese mythology incorporated in modern fiction. I absolutely hate (read: love) how relatable Zach is for me and my experiences personally!!! 10/10 for being @'ed, would read again.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

Genre: historical fiction, romance(kinda)

In 1986, Henry Lee joins a crowd outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle's Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has discovered the belongings of Japanese families who were sent to internment camps during World War II. As the owner displays and unfurls a Japanese parasol, Henry, a Chinese American, remembers a young Japanese American girl from his childhood in the 1940s—Keiko Okabe, with whom he forged a bond of friendship and innocent love that transcended the prejudices of their Old World ancestors. After Keiko and her family were evacuated to the internment camps, she and Henry could only hope that their promise to each other would be kept. Now, forty years later, Henry explores the hotel's basement for the Okabe family's belongings and for a long-lost object whose value he cannot even begin to measure. His search will take him on a journey to revisit the sacrifices he has made for family, for love, for country.

This one is very near and dear to my heart due to its setting and certain parts of its subject matter (a Chinese lead in a book published in 2009??? A rare find for me lol). The title is exactly what you get: so bittersweet, with an ending that made me want to cry.

[nightlyteaandpaper]

ACOTAR Vs. Racialize Stereotypes

I am not going to speak on TOG because I have not read it and have no plans to read it; I do not care. At all. However, some things in this series kind of...turn my stomach around and I really need to let them out before I spiral.

I understand that Prythan is located in what would be the UK, so I am not mad about the number of white people displayed, especially since this is a traditionally published (1) fantasy (2) female-lead (3) young adult (4) turned to adult (5) novel written by a white woman (6) from upstate New York (7) who has never seen poverty a day in her life (8, and I read her biography, so I know that for a fact.) I'm not mad about that, because in my own story, despite it being very diverse (and I mean very diverse), the majority of people are black or half black, with there being some Indigenous people and South and Eastern Asian people (and very little white people.) However, while I am not mad at what is being portrayed, Im annoyed about how it is being portrayed.

In this series, we meet our first person of color in the form of Alis, the maidservant. At the time, we didn't know she was black or black-coded. Still, we quickly find out because, for some fucking reason, the glamor Tamlin gave his people also changed the color of Alis's skin, and this was because he didn't want Feyre to freak out... so, either Tamlin is a racist or Feyre is (this is a joke, please laugh.) However, what is not a joke is that Alis is depicted as the magical negro-troupe, where she gives sage advice and aids our disastrous main character. This being one-off , would not have been an issue, but for some reason...it is not. Within the same book, we meet the shadow twins who are still coded as people of color with tan skin despite being underground for fucking 50 years. If Rhysand, for some reason, is pale as a fucking ghost, everyone really should be pale, but the maids were people of color. In the first book, all the Help were people of color.

This, combined with the depictions of the Ilyrans, who are pretty much thought to be middle eastern men, as aggressive, backward people, is CRAZY. It is INSANE that the mostly white, NC is the progressive court of all the fucking land, but they refuse to do anything about the situation literally within their borders. They do a lot of grandstanding when it comes to feminism (which is another topic) but...do nothing to stop it. Instead, they just shit on the Ilyrans and call them backward and aggressive, and it is not lost on me that the two full-blooded Ilyrians who escape, shit on their ethnic group whenever they get a chance, and the one who is even remotely proud to be a bat-thing, is also depicted as aggressive and cocky and so very much obnoxious. It is also not lost on me that the three bat-dudes who escaped, all found their sanctuaries in the arms of white women. Of the women in the IC, none of them are people of color (I thought Amren was Asian and Morr was biracial, but that wasn't the case, in fact, she wasn't even related to Rhys on his mom's side.) And it is also not lost on me that the "objectively good" and feminist bat-boy of the trio is also half-white.

We have two POC High Lords in the series (good, I guess) and both of them get a raw deal from the author. Helion is a man who does not know he has a son (I also don't understand why Feyre is the one to figure this out when she has only been in this realm for, at most, a year and had literally just met Helion three days prior. Lucien has been alive for almost 500 years, and NO ONE, not even Helion, figured it out? They half to look a lot alike for her to put it together that easily.) Helion (also the bisexual High Lord) is a fucking hoe who has a child he does not know about in a completely different zip code. No one else has that issue, which would you think would be the case since some of these have been alive for...almost a thousand you.

And now we have my darling Tarquin. He is the youngest of the High Lords at 86. It is known that he would have given the literal shirt off his back if he could be friends with ANYONE, and he wanted to be friends with Rhysand because he saw something in that guy that he liked. And instead of asking "Hey, can we...can we see your book" and then, if Tarquin said no, they steal it, they just steal the shit. Then they had the audacity to consider sicking Amren on them because Tarquin, who was betrayed, gave them blood diamonds, but they never have this energy when it comes to their white counterparts.

Here is what gets my goat--there is something so insidious about a white-coded woman telling a black-coded man what to do in his own house. Tarquin had every right to want to kick Feyre and Rhysand in the teeth and throw them out, but instead, he calmly bitches for a few seconds and then tells Feyre to leave. Upon this, Feyre refuses to exit this man's house, while choosing to approach knowing damn well that his entire life is destroyed because of the butterfly affect her shitty (war criminal) actions in the Spring Court had on his court. And when he looks at the man who he wanted to be friends with and says, "take your mate and leave," Rhysand says "She is the High Lady of the Night Court; she can do whatever she wants..." the amount of entitlement that seeps through those pages made me sick and made me look up a few of SJM's controversial takes. The real-life implication of this entire scene is...crazy. Not to mention that it makes it seem that being the High Lady of the Night Court was more important than being the actual ruler of the current kingdom they are standing in.

What made me even more upset was that...even after all that, Tarquin steal forgave them and helped...

I don't think I need to explain why that is problematic. We are all smart here.

[chaosandcrimson]

no way is that HELENA MONTGOMERY.. they’re a 21-year-old HUMAN notoriously known for being ANTAGONISTIC & INSOLENT but there are some people who have seen them being ATHLETIC & DARING. if you ask me, they remind me a lot of being the baby of the family, flipping off your hecklers, and leaving sharp grooves on freshly smoothed ice, but that could just be because they’re considered the DEADPAN SNARKER around town. just keep an eye on them & see if their true colors shine through..

I knew you, tried to change the ending, Peter losing Wendy, I I knew you, leaving like a father, running like water, I And when you are young, they assume you know nothing

OVERVIEW

Name: Helena Casey Montgomery

Nickname(s): Lena, Lenny (by family), Hellcat (by Andros)

DOB: March 8, 2103

Age: 21

FC: Ciara Bravo

Height: 5'4"

Pronouns: She/They

Sexuality: Demiromantic Demisexual

Occupation: Professional Figure Skater

Relationship Status: Single (Closed)

[+] athletic, daring, rebellious [–] antagonistic, insolent, immature

BIOGRAPHY

Helena was born the fourth and youngest child in her family by quite a bit. Out of her three older siblings, the one that she has always been closest to—in age and in general—is her brother Dabi. And he is still 11 years older than her.

Because of the huge age difference between them and their siblings, they grew up feeling like they were basically being raised by five parents instead of two; which they didn't mind, but it did start to get a little grating once they were old enough to want some independence, and to not be constantly babied.

She channeled most of her frustration into sports. Her brother, a hockey player, was the one to take her to the ice rink for the first time, and it was love at first sight. Who wouldn't want to strap knives to their feet? It was sick as fuck.

As it turned out, they were pretty good at it too. A little unconventional for a figure skater, but that was part of the appeal—taking a very delicate and graceful sport and making it their own while very much being neither of those things.

As a teenager, she developed a tendency to talk back to any authority figure who tried to assert any kind of authority over her; her moms, her sisters, her teachers, even her figure skating coach. The only person that she almost never talked back to was Dabi. He could get overprotective at times, and that could be annoying, but she never felt smothered by him in the same way she did with others.

They struggled in school, mostly because they were focused on figure skating and not on getting good grades, and because they hated being in classrooms. It didn't take long for them to rule out college as simply Not Being For Them.

After graduating from high school, she auditioned and was chosen for a touring ice skating show. It wasn't long after she joined that one of the other skaters, Topher Devereux, very publicly quit the show. Afterwards, she asked him how much of what he'd said in his song was true. He said all of it.

They stuck it out with the show for a bit, if only for the pay check, but it didn't take them long to decide that no amount of money in the world was worth being a part of that bullshit. After quitting, they came back home and got in touch with Andros, an old figure skating friend, and learned that Topher was now coaching and choreographing. They all but bullied him into working with them as well.

She is slightly less antagonistic toward authority figures now than she was as a teenager—but only slightly. She still has a visceral reaction to being infantilised, and if she thinks you're being patronising, you will not hear the end of it.

[anotherhumaninthisworld]

What do we know of the rumours about Adele Duplessis being engaged to Robespierre? (Sorry for all the asks lately , your amazing answers are irresistible!)

Very little, unfortunately. The only thing we have hinting at it is the following letter, first published in Marcellin Matton’s Correspondance inédite de Camille Desmoulins (1836):

Citoyen Robespierre, So it is not enough for you (tu) to have murdered your best friend, you still want the blood of his wife! Your monster Fouquier-Tinville has just given orders to send her to the scaffold; two hours more and she will not be in existence. Robespierre, if you are not a tiger with a human face, if the blood of Camille has not inebriated you to the point that you’ve lost your reason entirely, if you remember our evenings of intimacy, if you remember the carrasses you lavished on little Horace, that you delighted to hold him upon your knee, if you remember that you were to have been my son-in-law, spare an innocent victim. But if your fury is that of the lion, come then and take us too, me, Adèle and Horace; come and tear away all three of us with your hands still dripping with the blood of Camille, come, come, and let us be reunited by one single tomb. F Duplessis

As can be seen, the letter appears to have been written by Annette Duplessis, Adèle and Lucile’s mother. It is undated, but from the context one can clearly see it’s meant to have been penned down on April 13 1794, right after Lucile has been sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Tribunal. The letter has been cited countless times in different biographies and studies. However, in 2018, Hervé Leuwers attached the following footnote to it when citing it in his Camille et Lucile Desmoulins: un rêve de république:

It is impossible for me to confirm the authenticity and the content of this second letter from Mdm. Duplessis, perplexed by the choice of tutoiement and the expression “tiger with a human face” (which recalls the post-Thermidor period); unlike the previous one, it is not kept at the BHVP.

The previous letter Leuwers is referring to is the following, likewise written by Annette Duplessis to Robespierre regarding the trial of her oldest daugther. While the other one is clearly meant to have been written after the final verdict has been pronounced, this one is from earlier that day, while the trial is still ongoing. I don’t know if this letter is somewhat of a new addition to the archive, but I’ve not seen any historian or author prior to Leuwers mention or cite it:

24 Germinal  Oh Robespierre, if there is still time, save the most innocent of creatures, save Camille’s unfortunate wife from death! It’s a mother in despair that adresses herself to you (vous), my daughter is close to succomb under the feet of the most infamous of calomnies. It’s today that she will be judged, tell the judges to suspend their judgment, tell them to save the innocence, candor and all the virtues combined. Robespierre, forgive me for my importunes, but my heart is broken and prey to all sorrows and it is only you in the world to whom I can speak with confidence, because I know the greatness of your soul and I am ready to succumb under the weight of misfortune. Citoyenne Duplessis

That Annette’s tone differs between the two letters and the fact that the second can’t be found at the BHVP (Biblioteque Historique de la Ville de Paris) are two things I wouldn’t say make the letter suspect per se, in the first case because Annette can’t exactly have been counted on to be entirely consequential in her behaviour given the circumstances, in the second case because Matton is confirmed to have given away an unspecified amount of the Desmoulins papers to friends before the majority was handed over to the BHVP in 1889 by his brother. (as a consequence, quite a few of the letters found in the Correspondance… can’t be found in public archives today). The fact that the letter makes use of an expression popularized after thermidor I consider more grave, even if it’s not impossible it is the question of a complete coincidence.

If it is true that the letter mentioning Adèle and Robespierre is apocryphal, the obvious question is of course who forged it and why. As I stated above, the letter was first published in Correspondance inédite de Camille Desmoulins (1836). The documents contained in that work were given to Annette Duplessis after the death of her daugther and son-in-law, who then kept them her whole life before passing them on to Camille’s distant relative Marcellin Matton shortly before her death in 1834, making him promise to publish ”those that may present any historical interest.” This means the only people who would have had the opportunity to forge the letter and sneak it in with the others before it got published are Annette, Adèle (who lived with her mother, and then Matton, for her whole life) and Matton. I can’t really come up with a satisfactory explaination for why any of them would want to do it.

For Matton, we should begin by pointing out that he is not above editing the letters given to him when it suits him. Mostly it’s about censoring sections or words either deemed ”too intimate” or with the potential to compromise the ”golden legend” Matton wants go give of Camille (examples of this can be seen here, here and here). As strange at it may sound to modern ears, this was an acceptable thing to do for the time, so it can’t really be used as evidence that Matton was a forger. It can also be added that Matton barely cares about Lucile, and when he does she only exists through her husband. It would therefore be rather strange of him to forge a letter regarding only her, with Camille just being mentioned in passing.

When it comes to Annette and Adèle, it’s even harder for me to come up with a rational explanation as to why they would dream up an engagement between the latter and Robespierre. A person who wishes to make stuff up about their child’s demise to make it more dramatic, or falsibly imply they used to date someone responsible for death of their sibling sounds strange to say the least, and in Lucile’s case it’s even stranger given that we know through several sources that she and her mother were close to one another. A parallel can be drawn to the alleged courtship between Charlotte Robespierre and Fouché. Here too, we only have a single source reporting mentioning anything, Charlotte’s memoirs written in 1834. There, Charlotte claims the courtship happened 1793, something which can hardly have been true since Fouché was already married to someone else by then. However, since making up that you were close to and even ready to marry someone involved in the death of a loved one is a very illogical thing to do, most authors have instead taken on the more rational idea that there were something between them 1788-1790 when both were unmarried and lived in Arras, and that Charlotte intentionally messes up the dates so that she can portray her older brother in a more positive light (he’s so virtuous he won’t let his sister marry someone who guns people down en masse, and therefore the engagement is broken up). I think the same way here in that Adèle X Robespierre must at least contain a grain of truth.

For me, the possible scenarios are therefore the following:

1. The letter is completely authentic, written by Annette on April 13 1794. She switched from vouvoiement to tutoiement with the hope that that would help influence Robespierre and just happened to use a parable that would also be popularized after thermidor. Robespierre having courted Adèle is also completely authentic. 2. It is true there was something between Adéle and Robespierre but the letter is written after the fact. Maybe Adèle and Annette wanted history to know about the courtship in order to underline that the dantonist purge was even worse than it may first appear, not just on a judical level, but on a personal one too. They forged the letter since it is easier for people to believe things brought up in a a context wherein you would have very little reason to lie compared to things insisted on forty years after the fact. Annette might also have wanted to better her own image and throw that first letter, where she’s more or less complimenting one of her daughter’s killers, under the rug, by writing a new letter containing the things she in hindsight might have wished she had told Robespierre instead.

3. Annette and/or Adèle really did make up the courtship (who knows, maybe Adèle was one of those people who wants to be remembered by history at all costs, even if it means implying she was about to marry Robespierre, although I wonder why they don’t underline the relationship a bit better if that’s the case). Alternatively, Matton forged the letter when publishing the correspondence without informing Adèle about it, or she knew but didn’t care/have time to publicly refute it.

Finally, if we assume it to be true that Robespierre courted Adèle, when exactly could it have taken place? If Charlotte Robespierre’s memoirs are to be believed her brother was engaged to modemoiselle Deshorties at the start of the revolution, and it wasn’t until October 1791 when he came home to Arras for a short stay and found out she had married someone else while he was gone that the relationship was broken up. If this is true, Robespierre and Adèle can’t have become a thing until at least late 1791. Robespierre is also said to have been married/engaged/promised to/relentlessly persued by Éléonore Duplay, whose family he lived with from July 1791 up until his death. Given the fact that so many contemporaries have reported something between them it feels like their relationship must have carried on for a considerable amount of time. The most plausible to me would therefore be that Adèle and Robespierre were courting somewhere in 1792 (when Adèle would have been 18), though the idea that the engagement lasted all the way until April 1794 when it was broken up by natural reasons and that Éléonore and Robespierre didn’t become a thing until the last few months of his life is of course something that can’t be completely written off. Nor do I suppose you can entirely dismiss the idea that Robespierre was dating several people at once without telling them…

It is also not completely proven it is Adèle and not Lucile that the letter is alluding to (I’ve actually seen some author make that conclusion). If that is so, the year where it’s most likely something happened between the two is 1789, when Camille appears to have taken a break in his pursuit of Lucile.

And thank you so much for your compliment! 😊😊

[ccohanlon]

from my bookshelf

Pytheas of Massalia was a Greek geographer, explorer and astronomer from the ancient Greek colony of Massalia — modern-day Marseille, France. In the late 4th century BC, he voyaged from there to northwestern Europe, but his detailed account of it, On The Ocean, survives only in fragments, quoted — and disputed — by later authors such as Strabo, Pliny and Diodorus of Sicily. The Extraordinary Voyage Of Pytheas the Greek by the noted British historian of ancient maritime Europe, Barry Cunliffe, attempts to draw out the reality of what was an extraordinary sea journey, from the Western Mediterranean north along the Atlantic coast of Europe to the British Isles, then even further north, to the near-mythic land of Thule. Cunliffe makes a strong case for Pytheas being “the first European explorer”, while identifying the most likely locations of Thule, sought so avidly by 19th and early 20th century adventurers and artists.

James Hamilton-Paterson’s Seven-Tenths: The Sea And Its Thresholds, published in 1992, more than two thousand years after Pytheas’s On The Ocean, is an ambitious, expressive exploration of the vast aqueous wilderness that covers three-quarters of our planet by a writer of remarkable literary accomplishment (he was one of Martin Amis’s professors at Oxford). Plumbing humanity’s complex, multi-faceted relationship with the sea, Hamilton-Paterson writes vivid, meditative passages about, well, everything — fishing, piracy, oceanography, cartography, exploration, ecology, the ritual of a burial at sea, poetry, and even his own experiences living for extended periods on a small island in the Philippines.

Tom Neale’s autobiography, An Island To Oneself: Six Years On A Desert Island, describes an altogether smaller, more solitary world: the island of Anchorage, part of the Suwarrow Atoll in the South Pacific. Born in New Zealand in 1902, Neale spent most of his life in Oceania: after leaving the Royal New Zealand Navy, he worked for decades aboard inter-island trading vessels and in various temporary jobs ashore before his first glimpse of his desert island home. He moved to Anchorage in 1952 and over three different periods, lived in hermitic solitude for 16 years, with rare visits from yachtsmen, island traders, and journalists. Among the last was Noel Barber, a close friend of my late father: he gave my father a copy of Neale’s book, in Rome, shortly after it was published in 1966 (I still have it). Neale was taken off his beloved island in 1977 and died not long after of stomach cancer.

The Starship And The Canoe by Kenneth Brower, published in 1978, is an unlikely dual biography of a father and son that draws intriguing parallels between the ambitious ideas of renowned British theoretical physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson — who, in the early 1970s explored concepts for interstellar travel, settlements on comets, and nuclear rockets that might propel mankind to the outer reaches of the universe — and his wayward son, George, who lived in a self-built tree house 30 metres up a Douglas fir overlooking the Strait Of Georgia, in British Columbia and devised large canoes based on Aleut baidarkas in which to paddle north to the wild, uninhabited littoral of southern Alaska. Brower’s descriptions of long passages with the younger Dyson in the cold, sometimes fierce tidal waters between Vancouver Island and the Canadian mainland are gripping and I have read them again and again. It is, unarguably, my favourite book.

The late, New Zealand-born doctor and sailor, David Lewis, is not as widely known as he was half a century ago, even by avid readers of sea stories, but from his earliest memoirs in the 1960s — of his participation in the first-ever singlehanded trans-Atlantic race (The Ship That would Not Sail Due West), and of incident-prone voyages to far-flung coasts with his young family (Dreamers of the Day, Daughters of the Wind, and Children Of Three Oceans) — to his practical, first-hand studies of instrument-less ocean navigation among South Pacific islanders, (We, The Navigators and The Voyaging Stars) in the 1970s, Dr. Lewis was not only the late 20th century’s most remarkable and intelligent writer on the sea and small-boat voyaging but also one of its most adventurous. My favourite of his several books: Ice Bird, published in 1972, an account of a gruelling, almost fatal voyage from Sydney, Australia, in an ill-prepared, steel, 32-foot yacht to achieve the first singlehanded circumnavigation of Antarctica.

It’s said that spending time anywhere with Lorenzo Ricciardi, late ex-husband of Italian photographer Mirella Ricciardi, was an adventure. A film-maker and former senior advertising executive, once described by a British writer as “a penniless Neapolitan count”, he gambled at roulette to raise enough money to buy an Arab dhow, which, in the 1970s, with little seafaring experience and plenty of mishaps, he sailed from Dubai to the Arabian Gulf, and from there down the Arabian to coast of Africa, where the dhow was shipwrecked among the Comoros Islands. The Voyage Of The Mir El Ah is Lorenzo’s picaresque account (illustrated by Mirella’s photographs). Astoundingly, several years later, Lorenzo and Mirella Ricciardi completed an even more dangerous, 6,000-kilometre voyage across Equatorial Africa in an open boat — and another book, African Rainbow: Across Africa By Boat.

Italian madmen aside, it used to be that you could rely on surfers for poor impulse control and reckless adventures, on the water and off. Back in the late 1990s, Allan Weisbecker sold his home, loaded his dog and a quiver of surfboards onto a truck, and drove south from the Mexican border into Central America to figure out what had happened to an old surfing buddy — in between checking out a few breaks along the way. In Search Of Captain Zero: A Surfer's Road Trip Beyond The End Of The Road is a memoir of a two-year road-trip that reads like a dope-fuelled fiction but feels more real than William Finnegan’s somewhat high-brow (and more successful) Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life.

Which brings me to Dana and Ginger Lamb. In 1933, these newly-weds would certainly have been looked at askance by most of their middle-American peers when they announced that they weren’t ready yet to settle down and instead built a 16-foot hybrid canoe-sailboat and set of on what would turn out to be a 16,000-mile, three year journey down the Pacific coasts of Mexico, Guatemala, Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica to the Panama Canal. Dana’s 415-page book, Enchanted Vagabonds, published in 1938, was an unexpected New York Times best-seller and today is more exciting to read than the ungainly, yawn-inducing books produced by so many, more commercially-minded, 21st century adventurers.

First published in Sirene, No. 17, Italy, 2023.

[pub-lius]

What in your opinion makes a good/well written history book? Can you give some examples?

i miiiight have talked about this before like 6 months ago so you might be able to find more info from me on this but idk. to answer this, im just sitting on the floor in front of my bookshelf HEJWBW

So contrary to popular belief, there are just as many factors that go into a non fiction book as a fiction book, and they all have their different styles. to make the comparisons im making, im gonna keep it between Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, Black Flags, Blue Waters by Eric Jay Dolin, Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates by Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger, The Three Lives of James Madison by Noah Feldman, and John Laurens and the American Revolution by Gregory D. Massey and George Washington’s Indispensable Men by Arthur S. Lefkowitz, just referring to them by their author(s)’ last name. these are all books i have on hand that ive fully read and annotated

Most history books will be in a biographical or chronological style, where they retell events relating to a person or period in order, and others will take a more narrative style, like what Kilmeade and Yaeger have done, but this is often used to enhance understanding by not constantly referring back to previous events. neither one of this is better or worse, but they open different opportunities for how the author will broach certain subjects.

this is where we get into the author. just like in fiction, the author’s opinions, biases, and preferences alter the way the book is written, mainly because they will highlight certain information that they personally believe is important, and their historical reasoning will reflect their personal biases.

the two authors that i think are most different in this respect are Feldman and Chernow. as we all know, i really don’t like Chernow, for the primary reason that his evidence is contradictory and his theories tend to be misogynistic. the contradictions in his book make it hard to take anything he says at face value and it eliminates all chance of his book being easy to read, along with the fact that he is very wordy.

when it comes to Feldman, his biography of James Madison is a lot shorter than anything Chernow has ever touched with a pen, even though Madison lived a great deal longer than Hamilton. this is because Feldman utilizes brevity more in his writing. the thesis of his book is in the title: that Madison’s life can be broken down into three sections, and he spends the book proving that while also describing his life. this book is therefore more academically reliable, but also easier to read and more trustworthy. he also uses sources for each one of his claims and chernow just pulls things out of his ass but thats neither here nor there.

speaking of sources, when you’re buying a book, flip through the index and see if they have both primary and secondary sources listed. they almost always do, but it’s important to make sure. don’t trust a book with no primary sources. there also should be a LARGE index, like enough that when you separate it from the rest of the book you’re like “oh! i dont have as much to read as i thought i did!” not only does this give you hope that you might have a life outside of this book, it shows that the book has been thoroughly and adequately researched

another factor is how much information is in the book. this has less to do with how long it is and more about the subject matter along with the length. for example, Dolin’s book is about pirates, which are largely very obscure historical figures, so you can infer that the book will be less about the individuals and more about the time period, being the Golden Age of Priacy. and it is! and there’s nothing wrong with that, its just going to give you less information on the individuals.

now when it comes to a book like Massey’s, it seems like an adequate length for a biography of one person. however i think a larger issue with Massey’s book is that he doesn’t give you the full picture of a lot of things, and that is my biggest gripe with this book. he doesn’t give the reader a lot of wiggle room when it comes to making their own theories, because he tends to state his opinion first and give minimal evidence afterwards.

im always on here ranting and raving about how good of a job Lefkowitz did, but he doesn’t really fit the criteria ive mentioned here. his book isn’t in formal writing (which isn’t a requirement but i prefer it), he leaves out a lot of details, and his book is pretty lengthy. however i think he can really be praised for just easiness to read. the truth is, history is boring, and its hard to find authors who don’t make it worse. Lefkowiz’s book is well sourced and well written and does give a really good picture of the time period and a good starting point for further research, and that is how you become my favorite book and my most frequent recommendation

its always gonna depend on your personal preferences and biases. studying history isn’t about getting rid of your biases, and more of using them as a tool or at the very least factoring them into your research. my biggest tip: just keep reading! find what you like and what you don’t bc im still doing that. get nitpicky. get funky with it. GO TO THE LIBRARY‼️

and remember kids, Ron Chernow meets his maker when he encounters me in the Denny’s Parking lot, bare fisted and ready to throw down. you can’t outrun destiny, Ron.

(for legal reasons, that’s a joke)