(no subject)

My new column is up on BiblioBuffet. I think it's something to do with a bunch of new books that use fantsy in their history, or history in their fantasy, but Brian and I got wet through five separate times on our way to and from five different museums, so I can't remember (we had a great day - Brian is terrific company).

My glib theories of two weeks ago hold, but also have fallen completely apart. I need to define them very carefully and allow more space for how specific authors approach history. The truth is that writers are each and every one highly individual and don't fall neatly into patterns. Museums are less individual but I'm not actually writing about museum narratives, though I can if anyone wants. I did a lot of analysis of the narratives of museums, trying to find out how writers operate. Anyhow, Brian thinks like Brian, not like Gillian's theory, likewise Chaz thinks like Chaz and Elizabeth thinks like Elizabeth. I need to put them in the contexts of their work and then work out how they fit into my lovely designs. They do actually fit. My theories are all fine - they're just not clean and neat anymore, and I have to remember that Brian is Brian and Chaz is Chaz and Elizabeth is Elizabeth.

What all this means is that I have a path I can take when I approach modern historiograhical theory, for my next big step. This I don't have to do til I get home. I'm still allowed to think, but mostly from here on in I shall be trying to find the stuff of about 6 characters. It's novel time! (Actually, I thought I was supposed to be doing that today, but today was like going to a library and finding that the books you have ordered are not useful for your project but are brilliant for something related). With some exceptions, I find museums surprisingly tough to build characters from. Conflicting narratives again. The museum itself has a narrative and the teaching has a narrative and wedging my characters' private lives in was just a bit of a pain. I have taken a bunch of material away, however, and shall work on it futher.

Barley Hall (the most important of the 5 museums, from my point of view) devoted its top floor to costumes from famous historical filmic stuff. It was a bit "Mr Darcy meets The House of Elliot." Since photos were allowed and since I have quite a few friends who melt at the thought of the costumes of film (and the actors who inhabit them) I took pictures of each and every costume and will produce a slideshow on demand.

I have some HG Wells I owned not (first non-serial edition, 1907). I also have an 1805 book. Thus passeth the morningstar...

And now I need to progress with drying off. Did I say that today was very, very, very wet?

(no subject)

I have a half hour before I check out and lose this wonderful internet connection. You may or may not hear from me from Paris (depends on the state of the wifi - I don't have the energy I had early in the trip, to go chasing - if it is not easy to get, then I shall be incommunicado, I'm afraid.).

This morning is all about recouping energy. I shall go straight to the station when I check out, and sit down and relax over a cuppa and then over lunch. After that it's train to London, change for Paris and try to make sense of my notes (the ones that tell me where the hotel are). I get there in time for a late dinner.

My Paris time is probably the most crowded of the whole period (why I'm trying not to overdo things today), simply because a lot of the research I was doing in the UK was background for the research I'm doing in France ie I can't skip any of it. This means that the long train rides will be spent thinking it through and sorting my brain. I can't distract myself with the narratives of others any more (except possibly tomorrow night)- from here on in, it's all about my own narrative and those of my characters. They're starting to emerge.

I realised over breakfast that I finally know what one of my people would have thought about unreliable silver coinage. Also, I now know what the coinage weighed when one tossed it - this makes a vast difference to how someone sees a coin. Heft or lack of heft, tarnish or lack of tarnish- these are big things for individuals. I have a bunch of reproductions from various times if anyone wants to see what I'm talking about. Ask me when I get home. It's funny, though, that the museums were wonderful and the staff were helpful, but that I get the biggest insight from the cheap reproduction coinage.