(no subject)

[skygiants]

Among the books I found in Hay-on-Wye were a couple of Mary Stewarts I hadn't read -- I don't usually buy Mary Stewarts because genarti already owns them all in digital, but in this case an ancient paperback Mary Stewart felt so exactly the right sort of thing to be reading on vacation that I let myself purchase My Brother Michael anyway.

Now, it's relevant that before actually picking up My Brother Michael I very quickly zoomed through a tiny 1950s mystery novel that I'd picked up on a previous vacation and then shoved in the bottom of my backpack and completely forgotten about (hence how I accidentally broke my promise to myself to bring only one physical book for the trip). This book was called Double Doom and despite featuring the SURPRISE SIMULTANEOUS DEATH OF IDENTICAL TWINS was so profoundly boring that I have absolutely nothing to say about it except that as well as being boring it was also quite ableist; I only mention it because going from that back to Stewart -- published almost the same year! -- was like sinking into a luxurious warm bath. Her voice so vivid! Her descriptions so evocative! Having now finished it, I don't actually rate My Brother Michael among my top-tier Mary Stewarts, but all the same I have a really renewed appreciation for her gifts.

I also have a renewed appreciation for my wife's considerable gifts at driving rental cars on the wrong side through single-track rural roads, because the opening sequence My Brother Michael involves the protagonist coming unexpectedly into possession of a car to drive through Greece in and subsequently spending the next two chapters in white-knuckle panic attempting to navigate such perils as 'passing buses' and 'going in reverse.'

(ME, LOOKING UP FROM MY BOOK IN A CAFE: Hey, Beth, despite the fact that she's in Greece rather than Scotland, this book is shockingly apropos for our travels! And you've done so much better at passing buses!)

Our heroine also spends a lot of time climbing up and down mountains to look at historic ruins and attempt to connect with numinous feelings about the past, which we of course were also doing constantly. Our mountains were in a very different ecosystem, and our past ruins associated with a completely different culture; nonetheless it continued to feel like a very appropriate book to be reading as we poked around Skara Brae, and had a guide enthusiastically show us the gunpowder holes from when a farmer tried to dynamite the Standing Stones of Stenness, and crawled inside the Dwarfie Stane and held a small private concert for the probably-departed ghosts.

That said, for all the beauty of Stewart's prose and as much as I enjoyed vicariously experiencing the ruins of Delphi, I was also very aware throughout the book of how her characters were Doing Tourism ... the plot of the book involves the hero and heroine getting entangled & having to escape from the evil Communist who murdered the hero's brother during the war, which, fine, 1959, whatever, but what the book is about is classical history and art and the places where the magic of these things can still be felt; our hero & heroine uniquely good at doing so, as British classics majors.

"I think the secret is," our hero says, at one point, "that it belongs to all of us - to us of the West. We've learned to think in its terms, and to live in its laws. It's given us almost everything that our world has that is worth while. Truth, straight thinking, freedom, beauty. It's our second language, our second line of thought, our second country. We all have our own country -- and Greece."

Hard for me to read this book without thinking about who gets to claim Greece, and who gets to put it in their museums, and who gets to complain that living modern life has impinged too much upon the sacred sites of old for British tourists to really feel the magic the way that they wish. There are Greek characters in the book; they have faces, our heroine tells us, straight out of Homer; they either nobly sacrifice their families for worthy young British men, or they're cold-blooded murderers. You know. 1959. But you feel it more, or at least I felt it more, when you are also thinking with relief about how beautifully written and pleasant to read the book is, and how relatable to your own tourism experiences. There are ways and ways to be a Visiting Yank. Hopefully we avoided the worst of them.

Comments

[sovay]

Hard for me to read this book without thinking about who gets to claim Greece, and who gets to put it in their museums, and who gets to complain that living modern life has impinged too much upon the sacred sites of old for British tourists to really feel the magic the way that they wish.

That passage kind of exploded out at me the last time I read the book, too. I never did check and see if the attitude afflicts The Moon-Spinners (1962) and This Rough Magic (1964). Have you read Wildfire at Midnight (1956)? It's kind of her British folk horror novel and it actually doesn't work for me, but it interests me in part because she never tried anything like it again.

and crawled inside the Dwarfie Stane and held a small private concert for the probably-departed ghosts.

You never know. That's wonderful.

[skygiants]

I have read Wildfire at Midnight! I agree it doesn't work; the mountain worship doesn't land and the cast don't have any spark. It can't be that she can't summon up the fascination for British geography because she does do it in the Merlin books ... although tbh the Merlin books never quite landed for me the way they do for many, but I can't say it's because she doesn't make the landscape numinous.

Among other things, we sang them "Wellerman" -- so pleasing to have an audience for whom an old meme can't possibly be old news!

[sovay]

I have read Wildfire at Midnight!

I'm sorry! I had mercifully forgotten!

I agree it doesn't work; the mountain worship doesn't land and the cast don't have any spark.

I predictably love the unsquashable little nature writer who's much sharper and kinder than his first impression and want to fire the romance into the loch. I think it suffers partly from Stewart not actually having the same knack for country house mysteries as she does for romantic thrillers—the initially assembled cast is huge for a book of hers and she seems not to have been able to sustain the necessary interest in all of them to justify their inclusion, since I remember most of them falling by the wayside even as red herrings early on—but I have no idea what went wrong about the mountains, since My Brother Michael does the numinous with the Phaidriades in like two pages.

It can't be that she can't summon up the fascination for British geography because she does do it in the Merlin books ... although tbh the Merlin books never quite landed for me the way they do for many, but I can't say it's because she doesn't make the landscape numinous.

I love The Crystal Cave; the rest of the books fall off for me as they hew closer to established Arthuriana, but I still re-read them every five or ten years.

Among other things, we sang them "Wellerman" -- so pleasing to have an audience for whom an old meme can't possibly be old news!

I bet it sounded great.

[chestnut_pod]

white-knuckle panic attempting to navigate such perils as 'passing buses' and 'going in reverse.' -- that's so relatable, though!

I'll certainly never forget reading A Room With A View on my own way to Greece with a group of other Americans. Visiting Yanks and Visiting Brits alike certainly share some undesirable qualities.

[skygiants]

IMO it's the best and most vivid chapter in the book! Then she gratefully passes the wheel over to her love interest and never drives again.

Honestly I suspect Visiting Brits might be even worse about Greece in particular than Visiting Yanks, but that might be a fond delusion on my part.

[mme_n_b]

One of the strongest points the Acropolis museum makes is that many (most, if you let yourself be carried away by the way they present it) of the things they wanted to exhibit are gone. One comes out with a thorough dislike for Great Britain and Christianity, even if one was neutral coming in. It's a very strange museum experience, the only similar one I know is the Borghese gallery.

[skygiants]

oh my god, that sounds fascinating - thank you for mentioning it, I'm definitely visiting if I'm ever in the area.

[mme_n_b]

It was pretty mind-boggling for me. Take a look at this akroteion https://theacropolismuseum.gr/en/parthenon-fragment-akroterion-0 - besides being breath-takingly beautiful when shown against a background of the city and sky it's also mainly reconstructed (all the white parts). The original parts are left a different color so one can be properly shocked by how much was lost.

And it's all like that. Every single exhibit (or so it feels). "The missing parts are in the British Museum", "The missing parts were destroyed by Lord Elgin", "The missing parts were exploded by the Turkish government", "The missing parts were burned by Christian monks"...

[aella_irene]

I think it's this one, where I realised she's on the side of the people who later became the Greek military junta. Unless it is the Moonspinners.

[skygiants]

I think that's the Moonspinners, though I've not read it to be sure -- she's not on the side of anyone here really except her love interest and both of them are just sort of poking around looking for Treasure and Closure.

[ceitfianna]

I keep meaning to read more Mary Stewart, her books always sound fascinating. I've been to Delphi and the roads around it are terrifying.

[skygiants]

Then I suspect this book in particular will really successfully evoke Delphi for you!