Reading 1001 discussion

For Discussion/comments.

I read this one last month because my dumb ass thought we were doing both the Tunnel and Interim for April at first glance, so its off my plate now at least.

Miriam is living at the residence of former pupils before getting on with the next stage of her life "the Interim" in question I assume. Book is still casually enjoyable, but more of the same vibe overall, except this one conversation near the end that I was obsessed with.

When Miriam is debating the Canadian guy about animal rights, I was having a great time. They were both making great points, and terrible points, and it was absurd but deep somehow? I thought that was great.

Miriam essentially made the point that living in Canada is innately animal cruelty and people should just leave for the animals instead of living someplace that requires fur coats....that got me chuckling. Fun fact, both currently and historically rich English people are the main recipients of Canada's fur trade for aesthetic reasons so....Miriam should have thought of that. Also essentially telling all Canadian populations they should live in warmer places for the animals (which would include Inuit people) is just -in modern parlance- peak white girl. That was very funny to me.

She then goes on to disparage animal research because it is cruel (it can be- I have colleagues who work with animal models), and makes the point that you can't study man through animals anyway. Which is not entirely true, but validating that animal models do accurately represent a given human phenomenon/response is a legitimately huge issue is science. So it was kind of cool to see that here.

She also has a line in there about she would rather see research done on women>men>children>animals in about that order (I could have gotten animals and children mixed up), due to how much pain they can take. Which is the weirdest feminist discourse I have ever read: but it was still kind of great given how she extrapolates about how women fuss over men but not other women not because we're catty and don't like each other, but because we trust each other's ability to handle things. Not always true, but I would agree there is an often unspoken understanding between women about our capacity for pain.

She also says at one point in the book though that the Canadian accent must hurt a woman's jaw: LOL. I love how we get discussed by other nations, its always so silly.

More of the same *sigh*. Although there were some interesting musings, I found this installment rather dull. I can't believe there are still 8 more books! Ugh. I hope the next installment proves more interesting.

I agree that Miriam has gotten to a stage in her development that she has some interesting thoughts with some reasoning behind them rather than the quick emotional judgements from the earlier books. However, her reasoning can also be quite off as exampled by the fur coat discussion. I have to admit I laughed at the idea of Canadians who shouldn't be living where they need furs.
I am finding that her life is now becoming three dimensional in that I, the reader, can see how things she has told me before are impacting her life now. For example, I found it interesting that based on my reading of the earlier books I had thought that she came away from teaching with no friends, but here we find her spending Christmas with her 'friends/students' from earlier. Did I read that wrong or did Miriam/Richardson write it from a place of moody friendlessness and therefore I remember her emotion but not her actual situation. Along that same line, she doesn't like Mrs. Dear (Eleanor) but she does seem somehow obligated to her. I questioned after the Tunnel if it was the simple obligation of a caring human being. Mrs. Dear shows up again and now Miriam seems to totally enjoy her company although she doesn't want to be responsible for her. Also, Eve's leaving her governess position for a chance at a shop girl position leaves Miriam confused. She wants Eve in London but not necessarily in her house. Honest confusion of a woman finding her way?
I do have to say that the way she handled the male boarders absolutely screamed of being naive to stupidity. If Miriam had framed it as knowing what she was doing and making choices that may not have been strictly within that time's protocol, it would have been one thing but she doesn't seem to have made choices other than "wanting to hear other languages spoken" or "going for a walk".
I did like the image of the musician playing a typewriter with curling paper in his hair.....

I agree with Gail this was more of the same but for some reason I found it much easier to read this particular volume in fact I ploughed through it in 2 days.

I am moving straight onto the next volume as July marks the madness that is the Booker prize and I want to get as much of this under my belt before that all kicks off.

Amanda I also enjoyed that conversation but found her observations about speaking Canadian very strange as apparently it was only affecting the women due to small mouths I mean really LOL

On the whole I am bored with Miriam and find it very easy to forget what is happening to her and why so I am grateful you are all here to prompt me.