![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
A Fiction-less Review Surface
Dec. 11th, 2014 03:57 pmHey,
It’s not all wizards and space captains with me. Sometimes I read non-fiction and here’s what I've been up to lately.
First up The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore. Although I've never really been much of a Wonder Woman reader, I was aware that her creator William Moulton Marston led a rather unconventional life. This particular book goes right down the rabbit hole and discusses the wide ranging influences that brought Wonder Woman to life.
Chief among these was the women’s suffrage movement in the early 1900’s and the early feminist movement. Marston was surrounded by women dedicated to advancing the cause of gender equality and it’s something that he himself endorsed. The book takes time to show the struggles women faced to gain the vote, access to birth control, and the right to an independent life. The book is pretty fascinating from that standpoint alone.
Marston himself comes across as a bit of a Stan Lee huckster. He invented the lie detector and spent most of his life trying to hype it and his reputation as a serious psychologist. The fame mattered a bit more than the actual science and you can’t be a famous psychologist if you can’t advance your own theories over everyone else’s. But he was an intelligent, passionate man and he attracted a number of intelligent, passionate women.
He married Sadie Halloway who eventually worked as an editor for The Encyclopedia Britannica. A few years later, Olive Byrne, the niece of feminist icon Margaret Sanger, caught William’s eye and eventually moved in with the Marstons as their “housekeeper”. Together, the three of them raised four children together and all of them supplied inspiration (and sometimes actual scripts) for Wonder Woman.
Really, I’m only scratching the surface here. Lepore has done a staggering amount of research into the Marston and the world they lived in, but manages to shape it all into a digestible narrative that isn't dumbed down. Highly recommended.
After that, I picked up Steel Bonnets by George MacDonald Fraser. If that name sounds familiar, he’s the author of the famous “Flashman” series of historical fiction, but in this case, the history is quite factual.
During the 1500’s the border between England and Scotland was basically the wild west. Families and clans on both sides of the border made a living raiding and fighting with one another. They were assisted by English and Scottish governments who were anxious to cause trouble even when at peace and the authorities they appointed to control the border region where either outsiders who got no respect or locals who made out like bandits.
Fraser’s history is well put-together. He starts by giving an overview of the region, major cities and geographical features and then covers the major families that lived in the area. In the second section he covers daily life and the nuts and bolts of raiding and in the last part, he actually goes through the history -- having oriented the reader with enough background material that they can follow what’s under discussion.
It’s a good system and is much easier to follow than some history books I've read. Certainly the span of time and the fact that many people shared the same names/titles would make it easy for a less-structured narrative to get bogged down.
As a bonus, the Appendix contains Archbishop of Glasgow's “Monition of Cursing” against the border reivers wherein that august clergyman calls down the wrath of god on anyone along the border who causes trouble. It’s a great piece and I hope to read it as a monologue someday.
My favorite quote from the book: “He had a weakness for gambling, shared by his wife Philadelphia (Robert Carey’s sister, and, incidentally, a most diabolical speller, even by Elizabethan standards)...” You get to see some of the original spelling by other writers and it’s all pretty awesome. Philadelphia’s must've been something.
later
Tom
It’s not all wizards and space captains with me. Sometimes I read non-fiction and here’s what I've been up to lately.
First up The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore. Although I've never really been much of a Wonder Woman reader, I was aware that her creator William Moulton Marston led a rather unconventional life. This particular book goes right down the rabbit hole and discusses the wide ranging influences that brought Wonder Woman to life.
Chief among these was the women’s suffrage movement in the early 1900’s and the early feminist movement. Marston was surrounded by women dedicated to advancing the cause of gender equality and it’s something that he himself endorsed. The book takes time to show the struggles women faced to gain the vote, access to birth control, and the right to an independent life. The book is pretty fascinating from that standpoint alone.
Marston himself comes across as a bit of a Stan Lee huckster. He invented the lie detector and spent most of his life trying to hype it and his reputation as a serious psychologist. The fame mattered a bit more than the actual science and you can’t be a famous psychologist if you can’t advance your own theories over everyone else’s. But he was an intelligent, passionate man and he attracted a number of intelligent, passionate women.
He married Sadie Halloway who eventually worked as an editor for The Encyclopedia Britannica. A few years later, Olive Byrne, the niece of feminist icon Margaret Sanger, caught William’s eye and eventually moved in with the Marstons as their “housekeeper”. Together, the three of them raised four children together and all of them supplied inspiration (and sometimes actual scripts) for Wonder Woman.
Really, I’m only scratching the surface here. Lepore has done a staggering amount of research into the Marston and the world they lived in, but manages to shape it all into a digestible narrative that isn't dumbed down. Highly recommended.
After that, I picked up Steel Bonnets by George MacDonald Fraser. If that name sounds familiar, he’s the author of the famous “Flashman” series of historical fiction, but in this case, the history is quite factual.
During the 1500’s the border between England and Scotland was basically the wild west. Families and clans on both sides of the border made a living raiding and fighting with one another. They were assisted by English and Scottish governments who were anxious to cause trouble even when at peace and the authorities they appointed to control the border region where either outsiders who got no respect or locals who made out like bandits.
Fraser’s history is well put-together. He starts by giving an overview of the region, major cities and geographical features and then covers the major families that lived in the area. In the second section he covers daily life and the nuts and bolts of raiding and in the last part, he actually goes through the history -- having oriented the reader with enough background material that they can follow what’s under discussion.
It’s a good system and is much easier to follow than some history books I've read. Certainly the span of time and the fact that many people shared the same names/titles would make it easy for a less-structured narrative to get bogged down.
As a bonus, the Appendix contains Archbishop of Glasgow's “Monition of Cursing” against the border reivers wherein that august clergyman calls down the wrath of god on anyone along the border who causes trouble. It’s a great piece and I hope to read it as a monologue someday.
My favorite quote from the book: “He had a weakness for gambling, shared by his wife Philadelphia (Robert Carey’s sister, and, incidentally, a most diabolical speller, even by Elizabethan standards)...” You get to see some of the original spelling by other writers and it’s all pretty awesome. Philadelphia’s must've been something.
later
Tom
