I found it very difficult to get into this book and the first few chapters were heavy on case studies and the subjects written about in these chapters were not referred to in the blurb, which wrong footed me. When we do get into the chapters of transhumans, cosmetic surgery, body image, etc. it felt as if I was being ushered through them very quickly, in a hurry. In Bodies the writing style wasn’t for me, but in parts was insightful.
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Kate Lister says in the conclusion of her book A Curious History of Sex that the book could never have been a comprehensive history of sex, but it felt pretty comprehensive to me.
I liked that in the conclusion too she mentions sources tend to have come from medical texts and court recordings, actual testimonies are hard to come by. In particular when it comes to much-stigmatised sex work. I think it is important to consider those who couldn’t tell their story, the voiceless who could have been stigmatised in the society that they lived in at the time. The thought has just occurred to me: and who would have wanted to listen? And by that I mean if you’re on the margins of society, not many people take notice of you.
Subjects covered are language, fetishization, contraceptives and abortions, food, vibrators and the golden age of the bicycle, body hair and hygiene, tart cards, monkey glands (don’t eat before reading that chapter) the female orgasm and hysteria. I’m not easily shocked but the Lysol being marketed as a douching agent made me wince. The stuff you use to clean and disinfect your bins being sold to women, so that they could have a clean fanny because heaven forbid she smell bad in that area? What the fuck.
A Curious History of Sex was a fascinating read, covers a whole range of periods in history and for a history nerd, I was just enjoying learning about these things. It opens your eyes.
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I thought sometimes the fiction blurred into the non-fiction, as Graham Caveney blends his life experiences with examples from literature in On Agoraphobia. It was startling to me, to think of people like Emily Dickinson used as examples in On Agoraphobia, of having that affliction because I just have never thought of it before. Without using the name Agoraphobia, people in literature that stay in their homes and never leave has passed me by as struggling with the same anxiety that I do. I have been looking for more books on the subject, for solidarity more than a cure and I got both. This line ‘it is less a confidence than a confession, a coming out,’ made me realise how much shame I hold and my Agoraphobia is not something I can talk about. Shame festers and I know that but I always forget until I can physically feel the weight of something on me that needs dropping. As for cure, Graham Caveney writes about something called Flooding, a term coined by a researcher called Dr Isaac Marks. The method involves dropping the afflicted right into their fear, instead of gradually being exposed to it. That sounds very counterproductive to me, a way to make me never want to leave home again.
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The View from the Corner Shop is a diary for the Mass Observation Project, written by a Yorkshire shop assistant called Kathleen Hey, during the Second World War. There were gaps in the diary, which irked my sense of liking things to be in a certain order and the publisher puts in notes to give wider historical context. This does interrupt the flow. There was much focus on rationing and food. In all my history lessons as a child, I could never get my head around rationing. It sounds as if it would have been a nightmare. Especially in Kathleen’s situation, where they do not always receive supplies to the shop on time or at all and customers are expecting the produce that they need. In her diary Kathleen discusses cost of living, little/no increase in wages, and a self-appointed book buying ban … how similar some of the problems then were to those now. Looking at other reviews for The View from the Corner Shop, some say that this diary was boring. I hesitate to agree with that, but I did struggle at first with the book. It is a diary of an ordinary person, who perhaps was not expecting her book to be published so many years after events. I liked that this book is based in Yorkshire. Sometimes when reading about the war, it feels as if the focus is solely on London and the Blitz, so you forget that there are other parts of the country and were they affected differently by the war, and what experiences did they have? I liked as well that Kathleen feels like a completely different person to those we normally read about. She was not a mother, and she was not married. She was not a nurse. She lived with her sister, and brother-in-law, and helped them to run a corner shop.
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I cannot imagine becoming a Who fan from The Movie, so from that perspective Child Out of Time was an interesting read, written by someone who was a child in the 90’s and what a strange time that was to be a Who fan. With comedy sketches, The Movie, and having to look backwards in terms of finding new Who material, such as Target paperbacks, VHS tapes, repeats on TV and non-fiction books. At Hayden Gribble’s first Who convention, he met Deborah and Jack Watling. Not at all surprised to read ‘with a baby in the room and SATS exams to prepare for, The Invasion of Time was a catalyst to the ending of my love affair with Doctor Who.’ Because The Invasion of Time is a, uh, mixed bag. Although am I the only person who likes the appearance of the tin foil Vardans?
I like to read accounts of how people became fans of the show and what it means to them, Child Out of Time was very enjoyable to read.
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Poetic Insights 