#she was like wow you know who Radclyffe Hall is

[artemismatchalatte]

Not me having a mild panic attack at the grocery store when I realize how fucking expensive life is. 

Not me also heavily fantasying about hot fictional and/or historical women. The. whole. damn. day. 

Not me also stuffing fried chicken in my face. 

Definitely not me saving about fifty articles about Radclyffe Hall for later browsing completely unrelated to my grad research (or is it???)

[klaineharmony]

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This is not AT ALL the next chapter of “Defend,” and wow, I have feelings about the 345 words I just wrote. More under the cut.

Okay, so this is from “Over the Wall,” the WWI story that is part of the Defend ‘verse. You might remember this post where Kath meets Toupie and the Hackett-Lowther Unit. This scene has been in my head for a while, but I wasn’t sure I was going to write it, and I’m even less sure I’m going to keep it. So let’s call this - a possibility. If I use it, there will be a reason for it, as I am really not about gratuitous cheating, particularly with queer characters. That’s an ugly trope, and one that I really despise. But, I think this moment is about Toupie as much or more as it is about Kath, and I hope you all know by now that I would include more context and fill that in. For now, I’ll just say this: The best historical knowledge we have at the moment says that Toupie was the model for Stephen Gordon in The Well of Loneliness, and that the book basically blew up her friendship with Radclyffe Hall, because Hall more or less outed her without her permission.

For a heartbeat, something hot and needy and painful clawed its way up Katherine’s chest, but in the next breath she felt as cold as if she had plunged into the Hudson in January, and she turned her head, pulling away from Toupie’s warm lips.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, reaching for and blindly finding Toupie’s hand. She squeezed the older woman’s fingers, hard. “I can’t. Not that I’m not flattered, but -”

 “Too many other people holding your heart?” Toupie guessed gently.

She was more right than she knew. Katherine nodded, tears slipping down her cheeks. “And David most of all. I miss him - God, I miss him, but that’s all the more reason not to do this. And it wouldn’t be fair to you, either. If I were different - but I have people who love me, and who I love, and my heart is with them.”

“It’s all right,” Toupie said, squeezing back. “I understand. You are an extraordinary person, Katherine Plumber Jacobs. I hope your David knows how lucky he is.” 

Katherine nodded, pressing her lips together to hold back her tears and giving Toupie a shaky smile. “I think he does. And I know how lucky I am. But I hope you find someone to love you, Toupie. You are amazing, and you deserve that. And you’ll always have a friend in me.”

Toupie nodded, her eyes solemn. “And I know you well enough to know how much of a gift that is, Kath. Thank you.”

Katherine nodded, letting go of Toupie’s hand, and Toupie stepped back, her more customary lighthearted attitude slipping back into place like a mask at a masquerade ball. 

“Well,” she said, “I’m going to see how many hours I can catch before the Germans pound another trench to a pulp. We’re almost sure to have to go out tonight.”

“Stay safe, Toupie,” Katherine said, doing her best to match Toupie’s tone. “Bring our boys back, and yourself, too.”

“Oh, don’t worry about me,” Toupie said with a wink. “You know the Germans couldn’t catch me if they tried.”

[artemismatchalatte]

A Grad Student’s Notes on The Well of Loneliness (1 of ?)

I started (technically re-reading) Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness, the banned British Lesbian classic from 1928. I read this book once ten years ago but man, I must have been sleeping or something then because wow this slaps very hard (and I’m not even on page 50 yet). 

So far, Hall writes more like a Victorian writer than someone like Woolf or Joyce who both more closely embody modernism (the three were contemporaries which is why I compare them). 

Her heroine Stephen Gordon is said to be very close to Hall herself. She was also a rich couple’s only child and was attracted to women. The historic term which she used to describe herself was “invert” which was based on German sexology in the late 1800s and early 1900s; male inverts were thought to have female souls and female inverts were thought to have male souls. Hall’s novel featured a main character who was a female invert, like she herself was. Likely Hall would either be a butch lesbian or trans today (we can’t say which because she lived before there was a clear delineation between those two identities; the two communities have been extremely close historically). 

Stephen’s relationships to her parents and her first crush on one of the young maids is detailed in this section of the book. She’s closer to her father than her mother. She idolizes both her parents who don’t really seem to know what to do with her. She’s protective of her hyperfeminine mother and tries to copy her father and the stable master whom she comes to trust as a good friend. 

Her father is also shown secretly studying a German theory of sexology book late at night (Ulrichs) because he thinks his daughter is an invert. Hall did eventually go study in Germany as a young woman so that’s probably where she learned about these theories herself. Weimar Germany had surprisingly progressive attitudes towards LGBT people and had one of the biggest gay and trans communities in Europe in the 1910s and 1920s. Hall went there in the early 1910s before WWI and that’s where she met one of the major loves of her life, the singer, Mable Batten. 

Hall’s faith (she was a Catholic) informs this novel much more than I had expected. Young Stephen becomes obsessed with trying to cure the Maid Collin’s injured knee by praying to Jesus to take the pain instead. She also directly says she’s fine with taking punishment if she’s caught thinking about Collins when she’s supposed to be doing her school work. Hall doesn’t shy away from the intensity of Stephen’s feelings; the rawness of her characters’ emotion reminds me of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights (an instant favorite for me). If you’re going to love you may as well love with a reckless abandon that borders on madness or religious devotion (take your pick). Both Hall and E. Bronte would agree on this point. 

Collins is dismissed for an affair with the footman, who is also sacked. Stephen’s next obsession is her horse that her father buys her for her birthday who- I really wish I was kidding-she also names Collins. There was known coding between women and horses in Victorian pornography so much of her audience would know what she’s doing here but even without that connection; Hall’s basically winking at us here because she made it so obvious that we know the insinuation. 

Not even fifty pages into the book and I can already see why 1920′s England lost it’s mind over this. I am a 21st century American Lesbian myself and some of my reactions at different points were also- “Did she really just say that? Oh, girl...” And yes, she did. Hall wrote extremely clearly so it’s impossible to mistake or misinterpret her message as anything else. 

This is the story of a masculine little girl who grows up to realize that she absolutely adores women (to the point of her own self-destruction, at times, which is a whole ‘nother level of ouch to read especially if you’re WLW yourself).

Hall did not shy way or back down when challenged in court over the matter at her censorship trial. Say what you want about the girls and horses, but hats off to Hall for making a valiant attempt to defend gay rights and gay love through penning this novel.