For academics, the real New Year comes in September, and by January all good resolutions have been scattered to the four winds. So this time of year, with the cheeriness of Christmas on one side and the really-not-so-horrible horrors of the term to come on the other, always puts me in more of a Thanksgiving mood. The past few days I've been utterly absorbed in a book of letters among members of quite an affluent family of a few generations ago (more on this later, no doubt), and I'm feeling thankful for a few things which have really substantially improved our lot just in the short time since -- say, since 1950. So -- without retracting any of my usual grumbling about our wretched and potentially apocalyptic era -- here are some things I'm feeling thankful for:
1. Central heating. Almost everybody used to be cold and uncomfortable all the time until really quite recently. Thank god we don't have to be. (Now how did you guess this book is about English people?)
2. Respectful and sometimes even effective treatments for cancer. Better pain treatment too. There's still a ton of unnecessary suffering, but my god it used to be worse. And as late as the 1970s patients were being systematically kept in the dark. (When exactly did all that change, I wonder, and how?)
3. Effective cheap instant communications: cheap long-distance, cell phones, e-mail. This one is trickier. I do think that the death of the letter is a terrible loss: not just our lives, but our actual selves are less interesting than those of the people who used to sit down and pour out their thoughts and experiences, with some reflection and in detail, on a regular basis to their far-flung friends. Serious letter-writing is like the Mediterranean diet (I mean the real one, that used to make Cretan peasants live to one hundred): incredibly good for you, but not quite attractive enough for people to stick with when there are cushier alternatives. And that's really too bad. Still: think of the enormous amount of anguish and heartbreak, the terrible mistakes and misunderstandings and missed opportunities caused by letters delayed or gone astray, or garbled telegrams, back in the day. Thank god that's basically over.
4. Parenting taken seriously. Yes, I know it's gone too far, we're creating a monster race of overentitled overprotected zombies, but do admit. The level of parental neglect, selfishness, unfairness and outright cruelty that was socially acceptable just a few generations ago is quite something.
What else should go on the list? And for bonus points, what family have I been reading about? All the clues are there...
UPDATE: Two more indisputable recent contributions to human happiness:
1. Quick no-fault divorce. Surely the main cause of long-term declines in murder rates?
2. The photocopier. Remember the Gestetner? I literally cannot imagine trying to function as a teacher without the ability to create and revise handouts almost instantly.
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Well, the Threadkiller is hoping it is the latest book about the Mitfords, as she hopes to borrow it when the good Dr B is done.
Ahem. The Threadkiller forgets herself. Pplease ignore the above shameless plug, and return to your regularly scheduled blogging.
I'm guessing the Mitfords too, based mainly on the peculiar parenting practices reference - I'm recalling the child hunts from The Pursuit of Love.
Sorry, I think I meant Love in a Cold Climate - anyway, the one with the hons.
The wisdom of the interwebs triumphs again! I am indeed reading the correspondence of the Mitford sisters. Much darker in many ways than you'd expect (well, how could it not be), but riveting and cheering in all sorts of ways. Made me (i) wish I had five sisters too; (ii) contemplate making up a 'Which Mitford sister are you?' quiz for that site -- they're a pretty complete typology so it could work quite well, and it's absolutely fascinating to see which personality types end up nice/good/happy/content/none of the above and why; (iii) contemplate teaching a graduate ethics seminar with 'Letters of the Mitford Sisters' as philosophical text, for the same reasons, though it would mean outing myself as a crazy person; (iv) seriously mourn the death of the Art of the Letter.
We'll see if Threadkiller can pry my copy from my cold dead... oh all right.
Well, I can easily see our esteemed Spirit of the West as the radical, socially-conscious Decca, but the Threadkiller fears she is doomed to represent one of the nice but less interesting sisters, likely Debo. Though so far nobody has offered to make the Threadkiller the Duchess of Devonshire and presented her with Chatsworth as an enormous, manorial toy. However she is still keeping that door open, on the off chance ...
The Threadkiller was distressed, lo these many years ago, to discover she had become sister to one brother. Under no circs would she be pleased to be sister to four other siblings, regardless of gender, no matter how charming and witty they might be.
I felt the occasional twinge of fellow-feeling with the little known Pam, who was obsessed with her dogs and menu planning, and generally a puzzlement to outsiders. Otherwise I fear I'm a Nancy, though without the Paris clothes and the glamorous boyfriend and the tiny waist and the brilliant novels, hmm wait a minute...
The good thing about this game is that, if you can play it, you can also say to yourself, consolingly, 'At least I'm not Unity'.
And there I thought you were talking about the Waughs (but that's a recent biography, isn't it, not an exchange of letters). A lot of your points would apply, however.
Problem is, simple politics mean that none of us would want to identify as Diana or Unity, though who knows, there may have been aspects to their personality beyond Fascism. I would hope I was a better shot than Unity.
Yes, there's a recent Waugh family history 'Fathers and Sons', also quite gripping. And the crap parenting definitely applies -- Evelyn was something of an improvement over *his* father, and that's saying something.
Diana seems to have been quite a complicated character. I might try a biography of her and/or Mosley as I still can't make sense of them. Unity, alas, just had too small a pistol.
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