Quirk

Jacques and His Master, Milan Kundera, based on the novel Jacques le fataliste et son maître by Denis Diderot, English translation by Simon Callow. Readaloud. I'd read the Diderot novel some years ago, in French, in the Project Gutenberg version; I'm pretty sure some of the subtleties were lost on me. The play felt structurally a lot neater than the book, but I maybe just didn't appreciate the structure of the book? Like the original book, this adaptation was meta, but being a play it expressed its meta-ness in different ways. It played up the male-gaze-y aspects of the book in ways that were not so fun. However, I got to read the Innkeeper, who is the only female role with agency in the whole play, and had a blast with it.

The Strength of the Few, James Islington. A warned me that the book was not as good as The Will of the Many, and he was right. Adding fake-Egyptian and fake-Celtic plotlines to the fake-Roman story from the first book meant that the worldbuilding overall felt shallower. However I'll keep reading and hope for more payoff in later books. (Also I grumble that in this fake-Roman worldbuilding, words ending "us" pluralize to end in "ii", e.g. "stylii".)

The Life of Sophia Jex-Blake, Margaret Todd. I finished this, and enjoyed it; it is very much a Victorian Biography, but I like that sort of thing. (There is one modern biography of Sophia Jex-Blake, which I may try to track down for extra context.) I enjoyed watching Sophia come of age, visit the US to get a sense of the state of women's education, and finding her way to her calling as a doctor and an advocate for women's medical education. It's delightful seeing just how much of a Charlotte Bronte fan Jex-Blake was; she's so determined to emulate Lucy Snowe from Villette that she shows up at a school in Mannheim which has already rejected her application to be a teacher there, to persuade them to take her on in whatever capacity they can, which ends up being as an unpaid substitute teacher.

After that, we get a blow-by-blow account of Jex-Blake's long endeavour, not just to get a medical degree that will allow her to practice in the British system, but to clear the path for other women to do the same, becoming a minor celebrity in the process. (There's a funny bit about a letter than a young Robert Louis Stevenson wrote to his cousin, saying, roughly, "Jex-Blake is clearly on the right side of history, but I wouldn't marry her". Jex-Blake, who preferred women, learned about this letter many years later, and her reaction was "LOL, I clearly admire Stevenson more than he admired me, but I never had the slightest desire to marry him!") This is sometimes dramatic, as Jex-Blake and the rest of the "Edinburgh Seven" are admitted to the University and then have to deal with angry male classmates and a lukewarm administration that chickens out on them midway through, on top of their regular coursework; but it also gets a bit dry at time.

The closing section, about Jex-Blake's final years in retirement, has a special warmth; Margaret Todd is writing from memory, having lived with Jex-Blake through that time, though she has completely effaced herself from the narrative. It would be easy to blame Todd for not better documenting her own life and Jex-Blake's, except that her own story is itself so sad; as I understand it, she had become depressed and isolated after Jex-Blake's death, and died, possibly of suicide, just months after this book was published.

Ariadne in Mantua, Vernon Lee (1903). Readaloud. This play sets itself up as being in the Extended Shakespeare Universe: "The action takes place in the Palace of Mantua through a period of a year, during the reign of Prospero I, of Milan, and shortly before the Venetian expedition to Cyprus under Othello." However it's an odd, sad play, and not one that Shakespeare would have told. One of the laws of the Shakespeare Universe, as I interpret it, is that nobody dies of unrequited love; you can't die of a broken heart unless somebody else dies first to break your heart. (Ophelia is arguably an exception, but still her father dies first.)

Mona Maclean, Medical Student, Graham Travers (a pseudonym for Margaret Todd). I enjoyed this, though the romantic happy ending dragged out a bit. I feel that the title does it a disservice, as it is not a school story; there are a few scenes in the medical school setting, but that's not the main focus of the story. It is however enjoyable as a late Victorian novel with an introspective and intellectual protagonist, feminist themes, and strong female friendships. Also, the love interest recites the poem Stradivarius by George Eliot, which I was glad to be introduced to.

The Life of Sophia Jex-Blake, Margaret Todd (writing under her own name this time, even though Gutenberg uses the name Graham Travers). Sophia Jex-Blake was one of the first women doctors in Great Britain, and founded the medical school that Margaret Todd attended; the two of them became life partners. So far I've only covered Sophia's youth and education; she was a gifted child who chafed at the Victorian education system that wanted to shape her into a well-behaved young lady, but fortunately manages to get onto a path to a real education. The biography has just covered her brief romantic relationship and unhappy breakup with Octavia Hill, who went on to be equally awesome.

The Strength of the Few, James Islington. Sequel to The Will of the Many, and a change of pace from all these old books by and about women. Not as good as the first book, mostly for structural reasons, but still very readable. I'm about 80% in and it's getting to be a bloodbath, but hopefully there will be interesting plots twists in what's left.