So I suppose I will start with three major difficulties I had with this book. After getting a good way through this book I was thinking about how I would describe the style of writing, Then the perfect description hit me, gossip! A related problem for a book billed as non-fiction was how much of what was there appeared to be McKenna filling in substantial blanks with his speculation about not just what motivated people, what they were thinking, but even events large and small. I can understand the temptation and sometimes even the need (especially relating the years after the trial where maybe only a few occasional performance announcements or reviews of performances were all he had to go on), but I actually reached the point that I was only treating as supported by some sort of historical source those items McKenna actually enclosed in quotations marks. Probably a bit severe on my part, but I would submit that it is that sort of non-fiction book.
The third major problem, for me at least, was McKenna's referring to many of the characters sometimes as female and sometimes as male ( eg Ernest Boulton or Stella Boulton.) and what's more seemingly at random, that is not governed by the context. I would speculate that the author did this to give the reader an idea of the confusion the characters felt about their own sexual identity, or the similar confusion by those around them, or maybe even to provoke such confusion in the readers of the book? Unfortunately, for me at least, it often just led to total confusion about whether or not what was supposedly going on even made sense. As an example quoting from the book:
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The London and County Bank in Islington was a very long way from Peckham, and each morning Stella would have to rise shortly after six to make the tiresome journey. Sometimes she would take the train from Lower Knights Hill to Victoria and then catch an omnibus, or when the weather was kind she would walk some of the way and pocket the money.
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This is in reference to the occasion when Ernest Boulton takes a position at a bank that his father has arranged for him. Or at least that has to be the case from the surrounding context, not that his father arranged a position for Ernest in drag as Stella. So why the use of Stella here? In the end it just all too often left me totally confused about what was going on and whether Ernest (or the other characters this could be applied to) was done up as a man (Ernest) or as a woman (Stella)? It does matter, or did to me, in trying to understand whether or not the surrounding story and behavior of the cast of characters made sense.
One final minor perhaps observation on the use of the word hermaphrodite to refer to Fanny and Stella. I had to verify the definition of that word which is:
an individual in which reproductive organs of both sexes are present. Now Boulton in particular was by observation a very effeminate man, but there was nothing presented to suggest that he was a hermaphrodite.
So anyway with that out of the way this was an entertaining book presenting an aspect of the culture of Victorian England one does not find in the history books. As a society Victorian England has always been synonymous with a prim sexually repressed society. This book reveals that on a macroscopic scale this may have been so, but their were those on the fringe that were quite adventurous indeed. I learned that even preeminent medical doctors at the time practiced a lot of quackery. Or does the 'penis pump' actually work
? I learned a new, and I suppose strictly British, definition of the word punter. I also learned about the term mary-ann.
WTSharpe.
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Originally Posted by desertblues
Yes, WTSharpe, interesting and sad. Neil Mc Kenna paints a sympathetic picture of these two men, who seem to be the victim of different circumstances. They would have a more richer and rewarding life in these days; like Amsterdam where it is quite accepted to be like this.
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Yes, despite McKenna's efforts to often make their lives seem happier than probable reality, including some of his speculations (eg. Stella's renewed affair with the supposedly still living Lord Arthur Clinton in New York after the trial), their lives struck me as ultimately sad given the constraints of society at the time. Even Stella must have know that her fantasy of marriage to a nobleman could never be more than a fantasy. I have to offer an in the news comment, congratulations to England for just recently extending marriage rights to same sex couple.
Oh, I rated this with three stars for the reasons I mentioned. I am curious though as I have never paid any heed to the thread rating system. For me the rating results don't seem to display. Also why would it allow me to submit a rating result more than once?