‘A Twist of Fate’ or, ‘A Victorian’s Best Friend’

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macular degeneration, Victorian

The morning was like any other. The scholar rose late and, with difficulty, made fresh tea and toast, put this breakfast on the table near her chair, and settled down to start her day of work. She poured her tea, then looked down at the papers that were the basis for the article she was writing. Only this time, she couldn’t see the words. She blinked. She took off her glasses. Nothing. The words were like blots of mud upon the page.

This was the experience of a Victorian scholar I know who has been diagnosed with macular degeneration (the dry kind, she told me wryly, in the tone of someone ordering a martini who doesn’t like to drink). She’s someone I’ve been close to for years, a fascinating expert in her field whose riveting stories of research and primary source detective work keep me at her house visiting for entire days. Her life—and she’s more than 80 years old—has been based on research and the fiction that covers her shelves (including some early and first edition Dickens and Coleridge).

For a person whose internal organs are in such excellent condition (it’s just her joints and that minor part of the human physique called “eyes” that are the problem), this is simply cruel. Especially for a Victorian. It’s precisely something you’d find in late Trollope. I haven’t told her that yet, but when I do, I’m sure our conversation will last hours. But our greatest hope in this situation is in a medium distant from the Victorian age, yet one that would have delighted Victorians, who adored the modern: the computer. Its monitor, at least, on which much of her work can live, is still her friend. And this means her research can continue. For now.

Morris and Memory

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Kelmscott Manor, Salisbury Cathedral, Uffington White Horse, William Morris

William Morris's "Peacock and Dragon" design, 1878

The designs of William Morris have always fascinated me since I discovered them at age 18. Newly graduated from high school, I took a month-long vacation with my mother to two of my favorite countries: England and France. In England, we stayed with a research colleague of my father for two and a half weeks, then spent three days in Kelmscott, where our hosts, where one member of the couple was another paternal research colleague, introduced me to the world of William Morris. Kelmscott Manor was closed during our visit, but my hosts had many examples of William Morris’s art around their house, and described every room in the Manor to me so well that, with their William Morris book in hand, I felt I had a fairly good understanding of the place. I’ve always liked the dense imagery of his designs, but, without much money after college, I didn’t think much about obtaining any of them for my own dwellings. A Victorian scholar who is a good friend of mine these days piqued my William Morris feelings when I first visited her home and saw her green Willow curtains. As I have been researching details for my current novel, I have delved once more into the world of William Morris and am, to put it mildly, in desperate need of a small fortune to satisfy my present desires.

A Poetic Take on Japanese-American History: The Buddha in the Attic

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Buddha in the Attic, Japanese-American history, Julie Otsuka

Lists compose this slender volume by Julie Otsuka, starting with the Japanese passengers on a ship to America, women traveling to husbands whose marriages have been arranged through the mail. Their belongings, their backgrounds, their names are all dangled before the reader, but not one becomes the central character for us to follow. Initially I thought that was a problem, as I am a person rather fond of plots and characters who grow, but the poignancy of the scattered stories had its own unique power, and the growth of characters—or, rather, the collective of characters—certainly occurs.

Seeking Spring Flowers

Tags

economic woes, happiness, hope

George Grossmith as "Ko-Ko" in Gilbert & Sullivan's "The Mikado." Think "The flowers that bloom in the spring tra-la…"

A grim winter day in New England is never the best time to learn about bad news, especially the economic kind that sinks one’s very heart. A friend had that experience when she was told that the garden center in which she works is being closed for the winter. The main office is still going to be open, and seeds will be planted, but the retail operation, which supplies our area with pots, houseplants, birdseed, and cards, will be shut from January until spring. And my friend has no work for those months.

In the Company of Loneliness: A Review of Gillespie and I

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Gillespie and I, Jane Harris, Scottish Exhibition

Some books are creep into the reader’s conscience like usual guests who have entered the room and whose presence, after a flurry of your own activity, you notice hours later. That happens rarely in real life, but a parallel happens throughout Gillespie and I (by Jane Harris) as Harriet Baxter, the novel’s narrator, dips in and out of the lives of the Gillespie family. Harriet is a well-meaning, kindhearted, single woman in an age where old maids were viewed with suspicion. Her sense of humor and her deep compassion help her aid her friends in the challenges they face, and, in some respects, protect her during her own challenges. Never once does Harriet complain of the loneliness and boredom of her life—as a single woman in her mid-thirties of independent means without family, and without a passion or an occupation, she drifts from interest to interest, latching onto whatever fascinates her most at a time—but the reader must wonder from time to time why her attachment to the Gillespies is so firm; indeed, she rarely mentions any other social acquaintance in her narrative.

The Pleasure of Sloth

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post-Christmas, sloth, wabi-sabi

After a holiday, there seems no better way to celebrate than to indulge in some Sloth, in particular if the indulgent one happens to have been the one who cooked, cleaned, and managed the holiday activities. Sloth is a state of mind much like wabi-sabi in which simplicity is best. Remaining in the confines of one’s bed in a state of partial stupor until quite late in the day (known by the unkind as “lounging”), requiring a family member to supply a cup of fresh tea on a tray to one’s bed, and, when finally rising, going about the house with porcupine hair left unbrushed for the household’s dismay, garbed in pajamas and robe, with no intent but to return to the bed or to a remote and cushy chair with a book—these are the common signs of Sloth.

But as in any state of wabi-sabi, Sloth offers myriad opportunities for perfection.