(no subject)

ceitfianna recommended me The Discovery of Jeanne Baret: A Story of Science, the High Seas, and the First Woman to Navigate the Globe. Which she was quite right to do, since, in addition to SCIENCE and ADVENTURES and AWESOME HISTORICAL WOMEN this particular bit of history also features CROSS-DRESSING and as we all know that is my kryptonite.

The basic historic facts about Jeanne Baret that seem to be undeniably true:

1. She was the housekeeper and probable-mistress of naturalist Philibert Commercon before he joined an expedition around the world . . .
2. . . . and his plucky botanist assistant 'Jean' while on that expedition.

(COMMERCON, after her disguise was exposed: Gosh, how astounding that my plucky assistant should turn out to have been a girl! Can't think how that happened!)

3. At some point or another on the expedition, everybody pretty much figured out something was up with 'Jean', although accounts are a little conflicted about when.

(CAPTAIN BOUGAINVILLE: Well, here we are on Tahiti, and all of a sudden those wacky Tahitians start telling us that our naturalist's assistant has been a girl this whole time! BIZARRE. Oh well, back to captain-ing.

TWO PASSENGERS KEEPING ACCOUNTS: Well, here we are on New Ireland, and the men on the ship seem to have figured out that the naturalist's assistant is a girl. That was probably pretty tough!

SURGEON VIVES: Hahahahaha come on guys, like anyone ever believed that story about 'Jean' being a eunuch.)

4. Commercon and Jeanne took off at Mauritius and did some more botanizing; Commercon named a bush after her; Commercon died, and a few years later Jeanne Baret married a non-com officer in the French army and got her ticket home.

5. Eventually the government granted her a pension for General Being Awesome On a Famous Voyage-ness which is actually a pretty happy ending for a real-life cross-dressing story, all things considered.

And this is all interesting and I am glad to know it! The problem is that it's not really enough to make up a book. No worries, though! Glynis Radley is more than happy to make up the difference by . . . . wildly speculating about things and then cheerfully assuming them to be true for the rest of the book?

( Cut for ranting! Some of it about possibly triggering things. )

. . . wow, I was more frustrated than I thought by all of this. I think it's -- well, partly because bad scholarship is frustrating, but also partly because the story in its bare-bone-facts version is such an awesome one -- and one that I am glad to know about! -- and yet this book seems so determined to take away as much awesome and provide as much depressing and angsty and cliched speculation as humanly possible.

AND SPEAKING OF things that are making people angry and frustrated: apparently LJ has fallen into its own ass again and done something to the comment pages? If anyone's switching over to DW who hasn't before, say hi over here/there so I know who you are!