Other things

Here is Figaro expressing his disapproval of Old English boundary clauses by sitting on them. I've sent a few off today, and I'm beginning to feel more like they're a possible thing. So I'm going to blog about culture instead.

1. Museums. From the Pinacoteca's art collection and the sculpture fragments in the medieval museum I get a sense of what the Bologna art style was in the late middle ages. Faces have thin, almond-shaped eyes like you see in painters like Giotto, only where Giotto's saints often look stern or even angry, these look like they're sharing some sort of happy mystery with you. Saints in the polittici hold open books and point at them; above the books they hold their faces in three-quarter profile and smile at you like someone imparting a secret. There's a sculpture of Justice (I think) in the medieval museum with just the same smile. I find this style very engaging, even moving.

2. Yesterday was Ladies' Day here in Italy. It seems that this is an international thing which Britain has somehow missed out on. I didn't notice until a supermarket gave me some sprouting bamboo as a tribute to my status as a lady. Now, remembering that women have had to fight some nasty prejudice in the past, like good old Woolf not being allowed into Trinity College Library, and such is all very well; but it seems mostly to be a day for giving flowers to The Ladies. Ah, the ladies, bless them! Where would be without them? A toast to the Ladies! So I don't think I'm going to campaign for its introduction to Britain any time soon. These two possibilities are wonderfully encapsulated by Russian examples on the Wikipedia page about the holiday, which is worth looking at: first a 1930s poster of a babushka crushed under symbols of household cares being helped to her feet by another woman, as together they fight the tyranny of stereotypical gender roles; then a much later card of some pretty flowers.

3. I haven't blogged about books for ages, so this is going to be mostly a list to help me remember later. I finished Julian Rathbone's Mutiny, which is good but not the best of his books. I think he suffers a bit from not being sure if he's writing a novel or history or something in between. It's a pretty horrendous subject anyway, if you think about it seriously, with terrible atrocities on both sides, and I think this held him back from his usual insouciance. Then I read The Bloodstone Papers by Glen Duncan, which was good but oddly downbeat. At least it educated me about Anglo-Indian culture, about which I knew nothing. I can see that the Anglo-Indians must have been in a strange place when the British left India. The Somnambulist by Jonathan Barnes was good enough fun that I will probably read his next one. Then I discovered that in Italy you can buy those green two quid Penguin Classics for three euros sixty, so I read Mansfield Park, David Copperfield, and Kim. I don't know when I've enjoyed novels more -- it reminded me of the fact that Classics can be hard work, but sometimes the tag is simply a shorthand for no-risk quality, unlike modern fiction where your money may or may not bring a return of reading pleasure. My favourite Austen is Persuasion, but I've always had a soft spot for Fanny in Mansfield Park, whom so many people dismiss as dull. It made me wonder when a GSOH became an essential for romance. Nowadays it would be hard to imagine a relationship which didn't involve shared jokes, but this must be quite a recent point of view. In Mansfield Park a good sense of humour is Mary Crawford's fatal flaw, with her talk of Admirals, rears and vices, because it indicates a superficiality about what's important. (I recently heard someone on Radio 4 talking about a history she's writing of personal ads, so maybe that will enlighten me.) I've also read a biography of Dante by Barbara Reynolds, which was very interesting. He spent quite a bit of time here in Bologna. I get the impression that Barbara Reynolds, like her god-mother Dorothy L. Sayers, is an interesting and combative old bird in the old British style. I also read Alaa al Aswany's The Yacoubian Building, which was good; its cover design probably helps it sell, but gives a false impression of triviality. A Dog About Town, by J. F. Englert was quite fun, though I dislike the fact that people are beginning to write books with animal detectives, like that German sheep one as well, because it means that when I get round to my rat detective series it'll all be old hat. The Good Husband of Zebra Drive by Alexander McCall Smith is reliably comforting; this series, like the Harry Potter books, has suffered from its massive hype. And I read Odd and the Frost Giants, a little book by Neil Gaiman, of which I approve, because it's part of the World Books Day scheme. Now I'm reading The Siege of Venice, by Jonathan Keates, because I thought I ought to know something about the Risorgimento. It's quite well written and enjoyable, and it's also interesting to find out about the people behind the street names, like Ugo Bassi and d'Azeglio. All Italian towns seem to have the same street names, in my limited experience.