Reading and thinking

I read a bunch over break.

I received "Call the Nurse: true stories of a country nurse on a Scottish island" for Christmas. This is, as it says, a (fictionalized to protect the individuals involved) recounting of cases that a nurse (Mary MacLeod) took care of on a Hebridean island. Some of the people are funny and loveable - the island has its very own Mrs. Malaprop, whose husband corrects her but finally gives in to just shaking his head in response to her increasingly funny mistakes. And there are a lot of big tough men who seem to have a softer side - they look out for children, and animals, and the nurse herself.

There are some hair-raising stories of people doing heroic things to help others - a young woman suffering from a relapse of leukemia is carried through the snow to a point where a helicopter can make a very brief stop, in the hopes of getting her to a mainland hospital to save her life.

There are also some horribly sad stories of people mistreating others.

The book resonated with me because I think a lot of rural or semi-rural areas have some similarities - the funny characters who are maybe slightly daft but no one says too much about them because they don't hurt anyone or themselves. And the people who know everything about everybody. (MacLeod talks of the "jungle telegraph" on her island - it's almost uncanny how people seem to know someone needs help even before the person can ask). And, sadly, the cases of abuse that are hushed up until it's really too late.

Most of the stories, though, are funny or heartwarming and it's an interesting portrait of a place and a time (the early 1970s, when electricity was just first coming to the islands). I enjoyed it a lot, and I wound up loaning my copy to my mom so she could read it.

I also read "Diary of a Provincial Lady." This one is also set in the UK but is very, very different - it is a light, humorous, sort-of-episodic story of a family living some distance from London (hence, the "provincial."). It's set between the wars - I guess it was written in 1929? That's a favorite era for me to read about, Edwardian Britain.

 It's the diary of the "Lady" of the title. I found myself thinking in the manner of the narrative - she would stop and ask herself questions, or give herself memoranda. Occasionally in the books Things are Capitalized for Effect (either genuine, or intended ironically), and I find I kind of do that in my head with my thoughts. (if that makes sense). I found the book very funny; some others might not. It's a sort of arch humor where you do need to read between the lines a lot. And in some ways her life is very different from mine. (Then again, her Lady Boxe - essentially, the Provincial Lady's nemesis, a very wealthy and attractive woman in her town - is a character type you find more or less everywhere, I've noticed: The Woman Who Is Better Than You. (except she really ISN'T)). Also, the Lady in the book has servant trouble, something I have never had to worry about. (My scullery maid can never quit; my Cook will never roll her eyes and murmur about how bad things might happen if the flue isn't seen to right away*....)

I first heard of this book on the yarnstorm blog, and Jane Brocket seemed to enjoy it better than she did Mrs. Miniver (which I liked a great deal). Apparently this book smacks less of privilege, or something.

(I have to admit, I still prefer Mrs. Miniver. One thing I found a bit distressing about the Provincial Lady was how profligate she could be, and how willing-to-spend in the face of serious debt. I suppose it's differences in one's upbringing, but I know if I had my great-aunt's ring in hock, and approaching the end of the time when I could redeem it, I would not be able to think of buying new clothes, tennis party or not). Still, it was a very funny book and I sort of want to read the others in the series. 


(*Because, of course, I am my own Cook, scullery maid, footman, upstairs maid (except I do not have an upstairs), Gardener, and everything else....)

I also re-started reading "The Guns of August," which is Barbara Tuchman's account of the opening days of WWI. I tried reading this a few years ago and bogged down; I decided to give it another go as this is the 100th anniversary year of the start of what was then called the War to End All Wars.

I still find it tough sledding. For one thing, I don't know much of the  history of that time (I think WWI is hard to teach to schoolkids; unlike WWII or the Revolutionary War, there's not really a clear "this is what they fought for" ideal - WWII was presented as the War to Defeat Hitler (less was said, when I was in school, about Japan, other than Pearl Harbor) and of course the Revolutionary War was the founding of the United States, and a war against taxation without representation (or so it was presented).

Also, something that annoys me more than it should: some of the Germans (von Francois) have French-ish sounding names, and there's at least one Frenchman (whose name escapes me at the moment) whose name sound German, which adds to the confusion.

And Tuchman writes it more as military history - what troops moved where and when - and I find that harder to get a handle on than more "straight" history. But it does seem to me that there was a lot of lousy communication, a lot of commanders and minor aristocrats swanning about not realizing how awful the war was for the actual fighting men, and lots of civilians caught in the crossfire and really suffering. (Well, I suppose that last is true of any war, no matter where it's fought.)

I decided to swap it out a bit last night with another book I have, called "The War that Ended Peace" which is on the same topic (but which, so far, I am finding a little easier to follow the thread of). The author, Margaret MacMillan, describes the burning of Louvain (in Belgium). Louvain had a large and well-regarded library, which was burned by the Germans as they came through. (Apparently it was a "the peasants are resisting us, let us teach them a lesson" sort of thing). Also, 250 of the citizens of the city were more or less randomly shot - apparently everyone was called out into the town square and people were just selected. Ugh.

Macmillan also talks about a man from Louvain, recounting what happened in court - he got through the loss of the bridges and even the murder of some of the citizens okay, but he broke down and wept when he spoke of the library having been burnt. (Also, Rheims Cathedral in France was destroyed.)

She also has maps in the book, which are larger and clearer than the ones in the Tuchman book. (I think that's because my copy of the Tuchman book is a mass-market paperback, so the maps are shrunk down and are kind of smudgily reproduced). On one of them, the one of the Eastern front, I found myself tracing the path of the Dniester and Dnieper and Bug Rivers with my finger....and thinking.

Thinking about "The Horse, the Wheel, and Language," which I read last year. About how, in some respects, European culture originated around those river valleys, and what we would think of as the roots of most modern European languages started there. And how wheeled vehicles apparently first came to Europe through that area (probably from the Middle East). And how sheep and cattle first became part of the human landscape.....and yet, how different, some four thousand years later, people shooting each other - an Archduke, who ironically, might have been the man who could have prevented at least some of the whole mess we now call WWI, was shot driving in his car in that general part of the world.

How much the world has changed from the time that those were open steppe. I can almost imagine what it was like then, having been out in some of the remoter areas of mixed-grass prairie (the sand hills of Nebraska) - how you can see seemingly forever without seeing another human or human artifact, outside of the humans you are with; the sound of the wind through the grass; the feeling of remoteness under the huge bowl of the sky.

Speaking of the roots of early language - on Bored Panda (which seems to be one of those random-magazine type websites that has all kind of cultural stuff, ranging from stuff that makes you go, "What?" to stuff that's really kind of cool), they have some maps showing the most likely origin sources for some European words. The patterns are interesting and I wonder if some of the more recent words (like pineapple) show the fact that the language families were essentially established before a need for the word arose, whereas older words like "beer" and "church" show more differences. (I'm presuming the data on those is valid; some of the other Bored Panda stuff seems sketchy but given that they list the language family of origin....I tend to trust those maps more than I might some)

In some cases Finland shows how it's allied with a language family other than Indo-European....it differs from the other countries. (I wish they had done "wheel." And "sheep." And some of the other words that David Anthony argued went back to the very origins of Indo-European....)