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mylogicisfuzzy's review against another edition
2.0
I am leaving Hughes's book without reading the final chapter because I don't see the point of finishing. While this is a book about Victorians, they are not 'Undone' and neither does the book contain 'Tales of the Flesh'. The four chapters I have read are ostensibly about: 'Lady Flora's Belly', 'Charles Darwin's Beard', 'George Eliot's Hand' and 'Fanny Cornforth's Mouth'. In reality, they are not about any of those body parts, instead we get gossip and envy at Queen Victoria's court, squabbles between George Eliot's biographers and so on. How stupid of me to expect - from the title, that this book would be about Victorian society's attitudes to the human body and perhaps a bit about Victorian medicine. How stupid of me to expect, once the chapters have been titled after very specific people and their very specific body parts, to expect there to be much about those specific people and those specific body parts.
In the chapter about George Eliot, for example, with its proposition that Eliot's right hand was bigger than her left, due to Eliot making cheese and churning butter at her family home, Hughes doesn't examine whether or not this could have been possible or not. At one point she mentions that Eliot was a housekeeper and a dairymaid for about 15 years. But a little later she says that Eliot was at a boarding school until 16. So, for how long was she actually keeping house? Hughes doesn't say - but Wikipedia does - five years. Would that really be enough time for such a big physical change? Finding out doesn't seem to have been Hughes's priority and it is this - lack of detail in one hand and abundance of unnecessary detail in the other, that really bothered me.
I got this book because it had a good review in Sunday Times Culture, sadly, it is not the first time in recent years that ST recommendations turned out to be duds.
In the chapter about George Eliot, for example, with its proposition that Eliot's right hand was bigger than her left, due to Eliot making cheese and churning butter at her family home, Hughes doesn't examine whether or not this could have been possible or not. At one point she mentions that Eliot was a housekeeper and a dairymaid for about 15 years. But a little later she says that Eliot was at a boarding school until 16. So, for how long was she actually keeping house? Hughes doesn't say - but Wikipedia does - five years. Would that really be enough time for such a big physical change? Finding out doesn't seem to have been Hughes's priority and it is this - lack of detail in one hand and abundance of unnecessary detail in the other, that really bothered me.
I got this book because it had a good review in Sunday Times Culture, sadly, it is not the first time in recent years that ST recommendations turned out to be duds.
isalavinia's review against another edition
2.0
I started this book with enthusiasm, thinking I'd get what was promised in its introduction: an account of the body in the Victorian era.
What I got was just the rehashing of biographical facts that anyone even passingly familiar with the the people discussed would already know. In fact, most of it is freely available on wikipedia.
Hughes just recounts the biography of her subjects and drags each one down with information that is just a repetition of what others have already written about them.
"Why did the great philosophical novelist George Eliot feel so self-conscious that her right hand was larger than her left?"
She got it by churning butter. Wow. Groundbreaking.
"Exactly what made Darwin grow that iconic beard in 1862, a good five years after his contemporaries had all retired their razors?"
He had facial eczema, which is something that is reported everywhere where Darwin's health is mentioned.
"Who knew Queen Victoria had a personal hygiene problem as a young woman and the crisis that followed led to a hurried commitment to marry Albert?"
Everyone. The crisis, unlike what is implied, had nothing to do with how often the queen bathed, but with the horrid way Lady Flora Hastings was hounded by the queen, who accused her of being pregnant, and how badly things turned out for Victoria when Lady Flora finally died of liver cancer. Marrying Albert and producing an heir boosted her popularity.
And it goes on in the same vein, the whole book feels like one giant clickbait.
I can only recommend it to those who know nothing of these people and the time period, as it's a nice intro.
What I got was just the rehashing of biographical facts that anyone even passingly familiar with the the people discussed would already know. In fact, most of it is freely available on wikipedia.
Hughes just recounts the biography of her subjects and drags each one down with information that is just a repetition of what others have already written about them.
"Why did the great philosophical novelist George Eliot feel so self-conscious that her right hand was larger than her left?"
"Exactly what made Darwin grow that iconic beard in 1862, a good five years after his contemporaries had all retired their razors?"
"Who knew Queen Victoria had a personal hygiene problem as a young woman and the crisis that followed led to a hurried commitment to marry Albert?"
And it goes on in the same vein, the whole book feels like one giant clickbait.
I can only recommend it to those who know nothing of these people and the time period, as it's a nice intro.
renske's review against another edition
3.0
The book wasn't at all what I expected of it, to be honest. It felt like I was reading a different book than I was promised. However, it was entertaining nonetheless.
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