I was already falling way behind on book reviews even before The Summer of Tendonitis – “the summer of”, I say, as if it’s anywhere close to being healed on this, the last day of summer – and now I’m so far behind I’m not sure there’s any point in trying to remember what I thought about books I read in January. Why why why don’t I take better notes? I sit down to read with a pen and notebook and immediately get so lost in the text that I forget all about the concept of notes. I never learn.
I do have a pretty clear memory of reading William – an Englishman by Cicely Hamilton, however. Written in 1918 as the First World War raged around her, Hamilton mercilessly skewered the pompous men and women who were so fixated on their stubborn, tiny perspectives on social issues that they completely missed the towering disaster of a global conflict bearing down on them. I was stunned by how relevant it still is. Some things never change, I suppose.
William – an Englishman is the first title re-published by Persephone Books which “reprints neglected fiction and non-fiction by mid-twentieth century (mostly) women writers.” There are currently 139 titles on Persephone’s list and you better believe I’m going to try to track down as many as I can.
(Back in March, I wrote about Persephone title number three: Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple. The fusspot in me believes I shouldn’t have done them out of order like this, but I think I was so jazzed about the Whipple book right after I finished it in March that I couldn’t help myself. It’s an exciting life, I tell you.)