2008

The Woman in White

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins is a great (and lengthy) summer mystery read.  Walter Hartright, a struggling artist, is about to begin a new career as a tutor to half-sisters Marian Halcombe and Laura Fairlie.  Just before he leaves London for Cumberland, he encounters a mysterious ‘woman in white,’ in evident distress.  I won’t reveal too much more of the plot, but this 1859 novel deals with powerlessness (of women in particular) in the face of injustice. Have any of you read Collins before?  (I also really liked The Moonstone).  What do you think?

The Mysteries of Udolpho

I recently finished The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe.  I have read her Romance of the Forest, and Udolpho had been on my list for awhile.  It was most famously lampooned in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey.  In my freshman year of college, I took a course on gothic literature and we actually read excerpts from The Mysteries of Udolpho.  Our teaching fellow explained that it even though it was one of the formative (and genre-defining) gothic texts, it had been so thoroughly panned in the course feedback that they decided to drop it from the course.  One of my classmates said that she had read it on her own and it was a waste of time, and that she felt very disappointed in the mysterious “reveal.”  So I certainly had a good deal of forewarning, but I still wanted to read it myself.  Udolpho’s heroine is the young, beautiful and virtuous Emily St. Aubert.  She is a Frenchwoman and a good deal of the novel is her traversing the ‘sublime’ landscapes of France, Italy, the Alps and the Pyrenees.  After the death of her parents, she is spirited away by her aunt and new, villainous step-uncle Count Montoni to Italy.  They first travel to Venice, and then to Montoni’s ancestral pile-the Udolpho Castle of the title.  There, Emily becomes a prisoner, and realistically becomes concerned that Montoni will sell her to the highest bidder.  Radcliffe is also famous for creating the “explained supernatural”-a trope probably most exploited by (and familiar to viewers of) the Scooby Doo series.   Terry Castle is an academic who wrote the introduction to my Oxford edition, and she makes a very good case for The Mysteries of Udolpho‘s contributions to our current understanding of death and memory.  However, if you’re a general interest reader, I’d probably advise you to skip it.  If you’re interested in an early gothic story, I’d recommend The Monk by Matthew Lewis.  It’s much juicier, and a good deal shorter than 672 pages! Has anyone else read The Mysteries of Udolpho?  What do you think?

Eat Locally

One of my favorite trips in the summer months is to…Copley Square. You know how there’s a big library right there at the Green Line stop? Well, right across from it, on Tuesdays and Fridays from 11am to 6pm, there is a farmers market. There are many farms represented here, all selling delicious locally grown produce (and some are certified organic). In addition to produce, you can shop for uh, pottery. You can get sammiches, pizza, and breads from Iggy’s Bread. Sometimes there is a stand for Equal Exchange coffee. The goat cheese picnic lunch guy is there. Stillman Farms is also there with their coolers of meats. You can buy pies, cookies, brownies, honey, flowers, herbs and nut breads. If you can’t make it to the one in Copley Square, try finding another one! And when you go, make sure to take plenty of cash.

MYSTERY!

One of my favorite summer traditions has started up again with MYSTERY! on PBS.  This summer they seem to be featuring Inspector Lewis, Foyle’s War and the Inspector Lynley Mysteries.  And it looks like it will be the final season for both Foyle’s War and Inspector Lynley.  I’m not crazy about their credits redesign and Alan Cumming as host, but I always love a good British mystery.  I also find that most British productions feature the same rotating crew of about 80 actors, so there’s always a familiar face. The Inspector Lynley and Lewis mysteries are also based on literary detectives-Elizabeth George writes the popular Lynley mysteries and Inspector Lewis is a spin-off of Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse series.  You can pick up one of these at Snell Library today!