Valancy's Place

This was one of those weeks of unexpected things and things that had to be done in annoying online systems, and while it did feel at the end that maybe things had been accomplished it also felt that other things had not been got on with.

As in, I heard back from reviews editor apropos of review I sent off last week, and they would like a few tweaks.

I heard apropos another review that I thought was just chugging its way through the system that Proof Needs Checking, which was an online system of insufficient transparency and took longer than seemed necessary to confirm that my name was spelt correctly, so was my institutional email, and to add country to my institutional details.

Someone announced on Bluesky that they were now the reviews editor for A Journal that sounded like a possibility for pitching review of book I had been trying to find somewhere to pitch, and that is go.

Have also - since this also crossed my horizon - advance-solicited for review in journal I have form with, book I really want to see.

Plus, colleague on collaborative project rang during week about chasing up thing, and I chased, and this has involved a fair amount of scurrying round looking for An Alternative, or rather, who would actually be the contact for the alternative we thought of, as person I used to know has retired.

Also I found I had not changed with my bank the details of the credit card that the cc company had changed by issuing me with an entirely new card, rather than just a replacement for the expired one, and this took tediously longer than it should have done.

I have also had a positive contact to pursue re Another Project, but realise there is something I probably need to Sort Out first.

I did, also, at least start the 2 books for essay review....

Though honestly, given the gloom-n-doom about Teh Menz of late, this is really rather cheering:

It’s often assumed straight men are not interested in romantic fiction – but many are sharing their passion in forums online:

He doesn’t talk to anyone about his love of romance novels, communicating only with other users of a Discord channel called Romance for Men.... Straight men like Paul who read and write romance are largely invisible to the wider world. Women are the genre’s main audience, followed by queer romance, which is a well documented success....
At Mills & Boon, the best known publisher of romantic fiction, men account for only 4% of sales, according to an editorial director, while less than 2% of the UK’s Romantic Novelists’ Association is male. Almost nothing is known about how many men read romantic fiction, and why.
For those I spoke to, however, reading romance is more than just entertainment. It offers a kind of liberation, allowing them to feel deeply, imagine being desired, and accept parts of themselves that conventional masculinity has little room for. Many would only speak anonymously, worried about being misunderstood or mocked.

I have a vague, very vague, feeling that there have been male romance authors who concealed themselves under very femme pseudonyms (rather than the initials that women have concealed themselves under) but would be hard put to it to actually name any. Trying to remember whether Orania Papazoglou/Jane Haddam's Patience McKenna mysteries, set largely in the world of romance writing, at any point mentioned men among the various authors. In Robert Barnard's The Cherry Blossom Corpse, the apparent romance writer is not actually the author of the works attributed to her, but a hired performer at the event to be Cartlandy for promotional purposes because actual author is (?stereotype) a shy mousy girl, rather than a huge bearded bloke.

This is so something that is facilitated by The Internetz and e-readers. In bygone days, did men sidle into bookshops and say they were buying the volumes from the romance shelves for their wives/girlfriends/sisters?

(The 'shedding manly tears' thing was massively prevalent amongst the Victorians and seasoned veterans of Her Majesty's wars were soaking their whiskers over The Heir of Redclyffe.)

What I read

Finished The Whim of the Dragon.

Re-read of Dorothy Richardson, Oberland (Pilgrimage, #9) (1928) in anticipation of next week's online group discussion.

As it arrived, Sara Paretsky, Bad Company, just out, not VI Warshawski (chiz) but a standalone thriller which I give points to for having the protag a 70+ year old woman even if she was CIA back in the day: the intricate plot deals with stuff coming back from the past, a made-up former Soviet Central Asian country, billionaires who want to live for ever, almost as much internecine shenaningans as fighting the enemy, etc. Very readable, but I really wanted more Vic, really.

On the go

And then I finally succumbed to Pamela Dean, Tam Lin (1990). Have been trying to remember which trip to US it was during which I bought a second copy to sustain me during the trials of the return flight.

Have also started the 2 books for essay review, having got the review hanging over my head off to relevant reviews editor.

Up next

Some little while ago I discovered that there is a Robert B Parker Spenser thriller of which I don't seem to have a copy - I appear to have read but don't recollect much about it - have obtained cheap p/b off eBay and maybe that's next.

This is a book I am not going to touch with a bargepole, and I would offer serious health warnings to anyone considering reading it.

The subtitle is Genius, madness, and the mystery of syphilis, and I think, my dearios, I have already expatiated from time to time about my views on the subject of Syphilityk Geenyus while stomping on the grave of Thomas Mann and lighting copies of Dr Faustus on fire. (See here re posthumous libelling of Benjamin Britten, and, by association, Peter Pears.)

It was published in the early 2000s and surprise surprise, it was not exactly a major topic of conversation among the historians of psychiatry or of STIs whom I frequented in those days. It did get a review in Medical History but that is pleasingly scathing.

Do I even need to state:

a) how do you even state with any authority, pre-Wasserman testing, 1906 (or unless you have dug up and tested the remains) whether a particular individual even had Ye Pox?

b) correlation is not causation, right? a person may be a genius and have syphilis and those two things may have no relationship at all to one another.

c) given how rife syphilis was during that period and how many patients in mental asylums were there with a diagnosis of general paralysis of the insane, i.e. neurosyphilis, wouldn't you anticipate a lot more geniuses if there was some causative element? This is not at all an impression that comes out in the case notes.

However, I suspect this is one of those historimyths that continues to run and run

Okay, I will concede a certain amount of frustration with getting the microfilm apparatus working, and also, the thing I wanted to look at was at the far end of the reel, and this damned automatic system, unlike the good old hand-operated ones, means one is unable to fast-forward and rapid rewind but has to sit there while it takes its leisurely time.

However, I did find the article I was looking for and was able to email a pdf to myself, so that was a win.

I then went and had a somewhat mid sushi lunch at St Pancras, followed by a coffee from the hip organic coffee place in the corner of the entrance to BL courtyard - coffee okay, service not all that, sat and drank in sunny courtyard.

Then went and picked up my books in Rare Books and Music, this was because one was Notorious Banned Book which had to be consulted at desk adjacent to Reference Desk (as most copies were destroyed and this was presumably official deposit copy of record, fair). Actually I find that the copy I have (Paris edition) is the one with preface by noted litterateur of the day.

Also looked at two works on Banned Books which referenced it, one of which was not all that (confused Joe Lyons teashops with Lyons, France) and another which I need to return to if project is a goer. Might even see if the p/back or electronic versions are available at eligible price.

Then very agreeable busride home.

Today I finally sent off a reference that I have been fiddling about with for some while, and the deadline is coming rather imminent, so that's done.

(Really not sure why Younger Scholar even asked me....)

Have actually got down to cracking on with the review that's been hanging over me - I looked at the relevant email chain the other day and oops, the deadline went sailing past last month - and it's taking shape and I might even have had a finished at least draft, but -

Email from the archivist at Institution I was intending to visit later this week, saying that as it is literally only 2 letters that I want to consult, they could scan them for me?

YAY.

So then it was downloading and filling in and scanning and uploading the relevant form.

However I think I will still make projected visit to BL that I was going to combine with looking at those letters (which were not very far away) as planned later this week.

In other Not Quite Past It Yet news, ran the notion of doing a centenary edition of A Banned Book (that very few people have actually heard of), with scholarly intro, past A Colleague, who thought it might be a runner.

Am still waiting for response from Former Workplace apropos yet another thing.

Because I have to deliberately click on 'Feeds' on Facebook, I tend to get all sorts of stuff thrown up by default when I log in, because algorithm or something I guess.

And sometimes there are things I cannot turn my horrified eyes from -

- like the story of the mother whose 25-year-old daughter since graduating college has never held down a job for more than a few weeks because it drains her soul and creativity, but has gone on 3 expensive retreats to Bali, funded by doating father. And now wants to go on a fourth to get her chakras fully aligned, again, on parental dime.

Back in my young day the young'uns travelled overland to Exotic Parts on old lorries and coaches in search of Enlightenment, and I think it did not take the form of lush retreats on Bali. I was actually there, in Afghanistan, at the point where the overland route was becoming non-viable and travellers were driving straight across Iran without stopping.

Even so, one fancies that there must be more economical paths to enlightenment, even in these days?

Though maybe in these days, even on the Road to Nirvana, one's parents have tracking set up on one's phone to check how far one's got? Especially if they're paying for it....