Very sad to never read any new words of Mantel’s, so here are some old ones I keep returning to, from her 2004 essay Some Girls Want Out, excerpting liberally in case you’ve run out of London Review of Books articles this month: After a miserable life, Gemma died of TB in 1903, when she was 25. She is an old-fashioned saint, Italian, passive, repressed, yet given to displays of flamboyant suffering – to public and extreme fasting and self-denial, to the exhibition of torn and bleeding flesh. Her behaviour recalled the gruesome penitential practices of her medieval foremothers and resembled that of the ‘hysterics’ of her own day, whose case histories promoted the careers of Charcot, Janet, Breuer and Freud. B
I just loved her writing so much. A dinner party with Hilary Mantel and Diana Wynne Jones would be my idea of heaven. As far as I can tell they never crossed paths but there is something similar, to my mind, about their writing: how you don't just read their books, you fall into them.
Wow. Thanks so much for sharing that. I wish more was made of the connection of what's happening today between the mortification of the flesh of yesterday.
It’s the sadomasochism of Ancient Rome. We’re all cast as actors in a BDSM drama. Who do you think the U.S.A. reveres? Look at their buildings public and private. They even imitate the architecture of Ancient Greece and Rome! That’s just my two cents, anyway. I don’t ever submit to domination (survived a narcissistic grandparent in my family of origin) and I hope you don’t either. EVER. The domination of our consciousness is actually a thing. I think civilized people are expressing group mental illness. Stay strong! ☮️❤️🐾
She was a very sweet lady. I don’t care if that’s an uncool thing to say.
I just loved her writing so much. A dinner party with Hilary Mantel and Diana Wynne Jones would be my idea of heaven. As far as I can tell they never crossed paths but there is something similar, to my mind, about their writing: how you don't just read their books, you fall into them.
Deep and profound.
Wow. Thanks so much for sharing that. I wish more was made of the connection of what's happening today between the mortification of the flesh of yesterday.
Reading this made me cry
I’m grateful you brought this piece to me.
I can’t find words which represent what Mantel’s interpretation of Gemma’s life bring to my mind.
It’s the sadomasochism of Ancient Rome. We’re all cast as actors in a BDSM drama. Who do you think the U.S.A. reveres? Look at their buildings public and private. They even imitate the architecture of Ancient Greece and Rome! That’s just my two cents, anyway. I don’t ever submit to domination (survived a narcissistic grandparent in my family of origin) and I hope you don’t either. EVER. The domination of our consciousness is actually a thing. I think civilized people are expressing group mental illness. Stay strong! ☮️❤️🐾