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A review by montims
Uitbarsting in rood by Antonia Fraser
2.0
Bleeeach! I read this straight after her Tartan Tragedy, and I am soooo tired of reading this pre-AIDS period stuff...
Young readers: be aware that in the 60s, 70s, and beginning of the 80s, it was perfectly acceptable to write of men who would be behaving discourteously if, upon first meeting a woman, they do not fondle her thigh, and a woman would be impolite if she didn't go to bed with him. Generally they would both then have a cigarette...
Jemima Shore behaves - very coolly - like this in both books. However, this is a review of the Splash of Red - the first intruder who bursts upon her is drunk and beats her up, then apologises. Because he is drunk, she says and does nothing about the beating; he also plant kisses upon her. The second intruder is not drunk, so he twists her nipple hard, and rests his hand on her thigh. They then sleep together. Another lover of her just-dead friend rests his hand on hers during lunch (he doesn't really want her - he's just being polite - though she does toy with the idea of sleeping with him). Yet another lover of the friend (as were also those two intruders mentioned earlier - the friend got about. She also, incidentally, had had 2 abortions - mentioned as a throwaway - and was said to not only enjoy the violence inflicted on her by her lovers, but to encourage and invite it) had made threatening and offensive phone calls to Jemima, and later confessed to spying on her and her friend in the friend's bedroom, through a peephole that he had made through the wall and a painting. "What's a little voyeurism among friends?" was her response.
Ack. I'm not at all a prude, but it is interesting how attitudes have changed over the last 25 years or so. I don't object to reading such things as a historical record of the tempora and mores, but the Jemima Shore trilogy I have just read was republished just a couple of years ago. I love Fraser's biographies, but these books were just tedious.
Young readers: be aware that in the 60s, 70s, and beginning of the 80s, it was perfectly acceptable to write of men who would be behaving discourteously if, upon first meeting a woman, they do not fondle her thigh, and a woman would be impolite if she didn't go to bed with him. Generally they would both then have a cigarette...
Jemima Shore behaves - very coolly - like this in both books. However, this is a review of the Splash of Red - the first intruder who bursts upon her is drunk and beats her up, then apologises. Because he is drunk, she says and does nothing about the beating; he also plant kisses upon her. The second intruder is not drunk, so he twists her nipple hard, and rests his hand on her thigh. They then sleep together. Another lover of her just-dead friend rests his hand on hers during lunch (he doesn't really want her - he's just being polite - though she does toy with the idea of sleeping with him). Yet another lover of the friend (as were also those two intruders mentioned earlier - the friend got about. She also, incidentally, had had 2 abortions - mentioned as a throwaway - and was said to not only enjoy the violence inflicted on her by her lovers, but to encourage and invite it) had made threatening and offensive phone calls to Jemima, and later confessed to spying on her and her friend in the friend's bedroom, through a peephole that he had made through the wall and a painting. "What's a little voyeurism among friends?" was her response.
Ack. I'm not at all a prude, but it is interesting how attitudes have changed over the last 25 years or so. I don't object to reading such things as a historical record of the tempora and mores, but the Jemima Shore trilogy I have just read was republished just a couple of years ago. I love Fraser's biographies, but these books were just tedious.