I'm still feeling exhausted, but something very thrilling has happened: I've started a creative writing project! Over the past few years, I came with a variety of little scenarios to help myself fall asleep, occasionally noting them down on scraps of paper or on my phone. I recently devoted some time to gathering all of these random pieces of stories into a single master list, then chose one to work on and see what I can make of it. Since it's a historical crime/mystery narrative (my favourite genre!), this is what I'll probably be reading until the end of the year and for the foreseeable future.
One of the people who have inspired me to finally begin writing is the amazing Dr. Carson Brakke a.k.a. GlutenbergBible (her YouTube, Instagram and Tiktok accounts are great sources of erudition and entertainment).
She mentioned several times A Mouzell for Melastomus by Rachel Speght, a short text printed in 1617, and the first of three women-penned replies to Joseph Swetnam's anonymously published pamphlet The Arraignment of Lewd, Idle, Froward, and Unconstant Women. Rachel Speght was very young but manifestly already possessed a redoubtably sharp wit when she composed this glorious response to a misogynist's pathetic attempt at proving just how horrid women are. I giggled to myself as I read her point-by-point rebuttal of Swetnam's supposedly biblically based arguments. I've saved it to my Pocket account so I can revisit it next time I need cheering up.
I've always been under the impression that the Agatha Christie estate was extremely selective regarding the management of the rights to the Queen of Crime's works. I therefore picked up Marple, a collection of short stories by female authors featuring the incisive elderly lady sleuth, with utter confidence as to its quality – and was promptly disabused. With the exception of two or three, these pieces read like terrible fan fiction. Well, no, that's unfair: writers of fan fiction would at least have familiarized themselves with the original material, which some of these authors don't seem to have bothered to do. Of far better entertainment value is the "About the Authors" section, an arena where the contributors compete over the number of languages into which their works have been translated.
Given my interest in "school stories," I've heard a great deal about the Chalet School series by Elinor Brent-Dyer, most recently in an episode of the "Shedunnit" podcast devoted to health and illness. I was able to find the first volume, The School at the Châlet [sic]… and truly hated it. (That errant accent in the title should have warned me off…) The premise of this book – a young woman without qualification, experience or concrete plan opens an educational institution in a foreign country because she's poor – is so absurd, most of the pupils so indistinguishable, the punishments for minor pranks so disproportionate, the main incident so predictable, and the train accident inserted in the last few pages so random that I spent much of the time I wasted on this disaster shaking my head in disbelief that it was ever published. And that it was popular! And that there were 57 more!
This day, December 19, 2024, marks the 249th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth, which provides me with the perfect opportunity to mention my new favourite podcast: "The Thing About Austen." It offers a scholarly and loving but irreverent approach to Jane Austen's material world (episode 7 on the topic of spinsters is brilliant!), and is a must-listen for all Janeites.