For anyone wondering where I've been, or why the hell I still haven't written up "Be the Serpent" yet, I'm currently in an extremely involving production of "A Christmas Carol: The Musical," in which the ensemble is in almost every scene or is changing clothes and in every rehearsal and any spare time I've had has been going to my Halloween costume. After we launch this weekend, hopefully I have more time to do well, anything else.
However, during breaks, I've been reading this book, recommended to me by a castmate who was already reading it. I didn't know anything about Ruth Goodman's bona fides or what she does as a day job exactly before reading it,, but it sounded like re-creating and re-enacting historical practices is Her Thing. Sure 'nuff, Amazon bills her as a historian who's done TV shows on re-enacting period life on the BBC.
The book is exactly what it says on the tin, with each chapter covering say, waking up in the morning, meals, work, recreation time, all the way to nookie in the back of the book. It's totally a research book and not something with plot beyond that, but I did enjoy the author's personal asides about things at times warming up the narration, such as talking about switching from Tudor to Victorian corsets being something she physically adjusted to moving-wise pretty well, but she broke out into horrible rashes and started having issues with her voice. I also enjoyed the snarking about how crinolines are fun, but make you Very Drafty Down Below. She notes that wearing modern-day costumes made with modern-day techniques just aren't the same, going into great detail about how each outfit changes how you are able to move.
"I have made and worn a variety of Victorian women's clothes; suffered through numerous corsets and sworn at several sowing machines; hand-sewn whole outfits in styles up to the mid-1850's; and persevered with hand-turned and treadle-driven (powered by the worker's feet) machines while making later clothes from the period. I have learned the techniques for 'fanning' a corset, for handling horsehair, and I have spent hours drawing threads for handkerchief edgings. It has been enjoyable, time consuming and extremely interesting. There is no single resource that can make you better understand and appreciate the written accounts of the time. And if the making has taught me a great deal, so has the wearing."
There's also a section on "stay bands," i.e. more or less corsets for toddlers, and how the author's 2-year-old wanted her own. She loved it!
I did crack up at a photo of an extremely hot pink outfit, with the caption, "The newly invented chemical dyes exploded on the fashion scene after 1856. For the next fifteen years, it was not possible to be too brightly dressed."
And frankly, some things are goddamned horrifying and now you know why Victorians died so damn easily during this time period. Like I walked up to my castmate after reading the drugs chapter and she was all, "I KNOW!!!!" "Morphine, opium, cocaine, laudanum, heroin, chloroform, ether, aspirin and cannabis were all purchasable, without any form of medical supervision, and all for a very few pence, at any pharmacist's shop by the end of the century." OH GOOD GOD I CAN'T EVEN WITH THIS.
There's an entire chapter on "A Trip to the Privy," which I read during a lunch break at the theater, during which the custodian came in and was told about ah, a particular disaster in the men's room. Very fitting :P I also read about "The Great Stink of 1858," which I will not elaborate on further. Also, of course, women are always the ones cleaning the chamber pots, while "most men were blissfully able to walk away from this dirtiest of tasks." I note that those weren't intended for #2 and more for middle of the night pees. Make darn sure you always put it in the same place, everyone has their own pot, and put the lid on!
The author points out that "hunger is at the root of" the historical Victorian experience, as most people were quite short due to malnutrition, especially the poorer people. The author mentions that her appetite and food preferences temporarily changed while living a Victorian lifestyle. "Foods that I would simply dismiss in my twenty-first-century lifestyle became delicious." Mediterranean foods became "thin and unsubstantial" and she developed an appetite for pig's trotters and jellied pig's heads. "My body was telling me in no uncertain terms that it needed plenty of carbohydrates and animal fats to sustain the Victorian lifestyle." She lost interest in strong flavorings as well. However, her actual weight never changed even with all that hard work.
As for the sex chapter...attitudes varied between "It's healthy for a man to have a wife and a bunch of prostitutes" vs. "He should be curbing his lust!" I was particularly flabbergasted by the reusable condom made out of sheep's guts that was delicately tied on, then washed out and allowed to dry before re-use. I was amused that the author "attempted to make such condoms," but it sounds like she wasn't able to exactly replicate all the precise details.
Anyway: I think this is a comprehensive review of the topic, and the author tries to make it lively where she can and create plotlines (of sorts) when following people in history here and there. So, four stars. However, this NYT review frankly does an even better job of covering this book than I do.
"One of the great pleasures of “How to Be a Victorian”? There’s a shudder on almost every page."
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