Where have I been all this time ...
Jan. 11th, 2003 07:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
truepennyand what have I been doing, that I've never read Sarah Caudwell before?
I'm about halfway through The Sirens Sang of Murder and am loving it. L-O-V-E-ing it. I'm alarming my husband--who doesn't find wordplay funny in-and-of-itself in quite the same way I do--by giggling hysterically over passages such as:
"... as he approached our table I was surprised to find myself thinking ..." Julia paused and looked dreamily at the ceiling, drawing deeply on her Gauloise.
"Thinking," said Ragwort, "if that is indeed the appropriate word for what we take to have been a not wholly cerebral activity--thinking what, precisely?"
"Thinking," said Julia, "and I agree, of course, that it was not a process in which the intellect was predominant--thinking, as it were, 'Dear me, what a remarkably stylish bit of goods.' Or words to the like effect. What I chiefly experienced was a sudden shortness of breath and a peculiar queasiness in the pit of the stomach, similar to mild indigestion."
"At her first sight of him," Selena said firmly, "her pulse quickened, and she was stirred by a strange emotion which she could find no words to describe."
Sarah Caudwell. She's a god.
Sadly, Ex Libris says she died in 2000. There are four Hilary Tamar books, and that's all we're going to get.
Ave atque vale, Sarah Caudwell.
---
WORKS CITED
Caudwell, Sarah. The Sirens Sang of Murder. 1989. New York: Dell Books, 1990. p. 61.
I'm about halfway through The Sirens Sang of Murder and am loving it. L-O-V-E-ing it. I'm alarming my husband--who doesn't find wordplay funny in-and-of-itself in quite the same way I do--by giggling hysterically over passages such as:
"... as he approached our table I was surprised to find myself thinking ..." Julia paused and looked dreamily at the ceiling, drawing deeply on her Gauloise.
"Thinking," said Ragwort, "if that is indeed the appropriate word for what we take to have been a not wholly cerebral activity--thinking what, precisely?"
"Thinking," said Julia, "and I agree, of course, that it was not a process in which the intellect was predominant--thinking, as it were, 'Dear me, what a remarkably stylish bit of goods.' Or words to the like effect. What I chiefly experienced was a sudden shortness of breath and a peculiar queasiness in the pit of the stomach, similar to mild indigestion."
"At her first sight of him," Selena said firmly, "her pulse quickened, and she was stirred by a strange emotion which she could find no words to describe."
Sarah Caudwell. She's a god.
Sadly, Ex Libris says she died in 2000. There are four Hilary Tamar books, and that's all we're going to get.
Ave atque vale, Sarah Caudwell.
---
WORKS CITED
Caudwell, Sarah. The Sirens Sang of Murder. 1989. New York: Dell Books, 1990. p. 61.
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Date: 2003-01-11 07:28 am (UTC)The fourth book, alas, is weaker than the rest.
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Date: 2003-01-11 08:58 pm (UTC)Sadly, even in our brave new modern world, I don't think a woman would be treated in as gender-neutral a fashion as Hilary is; male is still society's default gender. But that's a flaw in our world, not Caudwell's. Within the books, it's quite clear to me that we're not supposed to be able to tell.
I am saddened but not surprised to hear that the fourth book is weaker. I shall make a particular effort not to read them in chronological order, in that case.