Bookworming in the Last Week of December

This morning one of my brothers went out to fetch the usual Saturday breakfast of croissants and a baguette, telling us after he returned that the pavement had been slippery with black ice. Our mother had also observed pedestrians from the window taking tiny careful steps as they navigated the streets. Yesterday evening I'd heard the whooshing of a Berliner Stadtreinigung snowplow on the larger street, but wasn't sure if the side streets and sidewalks had been sprinkled with salt or crushed gravel this time.

Last evening we had stove-related excitement again, as a while after I'd laid three more coals on the fire in one of our tile stoves, I smelled a 'hot iron' scent. I nervously checked the fire a few times but it seemed all right. Then some minutes later Ge. checked the stove and felt even more nervous, deciding to evacuate most of the coals. Based on the fierce heat that radiated from many of the tiles even for hours afterward, the whooshing draughts, the dry and frosty weather, and Ge.'s googling, we surmised that the draught must have been too strong and the fire too bright, so that old deposits of creosote may have started smouldering in the hidden upper niches of the stove. The piping hot tiles were a comfort insofar as we concluded that whatever deposits were there were hopefully still burning off so that they would stop being dangerous. Overnight we let the stove cool entirely, then in the morning restarted it.

I've been devoting most of my time to 'self-care': an hour of ballet and yoga yesterday, and a lot of reading. Short stories by contemporary Italian writers translated into German, an old romance novel by Mary Burchell translated into Portuguese, news from the New York Times and on the websites of Rundfunk Berlin Brandenburg and Tagesschau, and an even older romance novel from the early 1900s that was set amongst tourists in the Netherlands. The Dutch setting, and my Wikipedia searches for locations, were surprisingly relevant to my one university-homework-related enterprise: reading about 17th-century philosophy to figure out what an Enlightened man looks like. I finished the Spinoza chapter in A History of Western Philosophy, and have now hopped over to a biography from the 1960s published by the German house Rowohlt. Spinoza grew up as the son of Jewish parents who had escaped the Inquisition from Spain via Portugal to the Netherlands, and while much of the Jewish quarter of Amsterdam was razed during the Nazi occupation, two 17th-century synagogues, a church, and at least one stately house remain.

In turn, the history of 17th-century Amsterdam ties into late 16th-century trade, which is relevant to the Tudor era Beauty-and-the-Beast story that I'm trying to write again. The challenge I'm facing right now is the 'world building,' which is necessary if I want to write an interesting take rather than a thoroughly effete fan fiction. So, taking techniques from my university courses, I've been reading a long and rambling Elizabethan work by Sir Philip Sidney and taking notes on many of the 'topoi' (e.g. sheep: shepherds, lambs, piping, ...) I come across in it, to research Elizabethan Britain. It's startling how much in the English language has not changed over time, for example the colloquialism 'busy as a bee'; and Sidney uses a rich emotional vocabulary, ranging from depression to envy, which feels startlingly New Age.

I've been thinking of making the Beast a Spanish person who is hiding in England during the Armada. First of all, the challenge of being able to see an 'enemy' as a fellow human being is, I think, a very contemporary topic. As the granddaughter of Germany's fascist generation it's always boggled my mind how after World War II there seemed to be a wild range of reactions e.g. amongst American or British veterans toward Germans, ranging from the famous 'Little Vittles' operation (distributing chocolate and raisins to Berlin's children) to the opposite, and I think some of the same challenges are arising for example between Ukrainians and Russians. Secondly I seem to remember that the original French tale emphasized that the Beast didn't even have esprit (wittiness) to recommend himself. I think that the original tale was pressuring women to go along with arranged marriages, even if they are not attracted to their future husbands; so not all aspects of the source material are ones that I'm willing to pursue. But what I'm willing to pick up is the fear of seeming stupid — and few of us can help feeling stupid when trying to express ourselves in a second language, for example, so creating language differences between the protagonists will bring out that dimension. Thirdly, being an enemy of the state would explain why the Beast would need to live in secrecy. Lastly, the Spanish angle will let me weave in literature and history that I'm studying... That said, a lot of difficulties remain. A central problem with that era and its trade is, of course, the birth of colonialism; and it would be silly to write a story about e.g. a nice cozy winter spent at the fireside, if the more salient and less threadbare backstory is that one logged and stole the neighbour's forest for fuel.

Whenever I feel weltschmerzy and guilty, I've been reducing my carbon footprint by deleting old Twitter news digest emails from five years ago. It's disconcerting how much the world has changed since then, and how optimistic it was from my lefty point of view. For example, debates about weaponry that emerged in the German national news often referred to the ethics of exporting German-manufactured arms to countries that don't respect human rights. Xenophobic sentiment was attributed to and espoused by an extreme fringe, instead of a mainstream. And a gay rights activist who supports trans rights claimed, after she spoke out about a political debate, that 'J.K. Rowling never disappoints' ...

In the meantime, we still have a lot of uneaten Christmas gingerbread and chocolate and marzipan in our pantry. The revelry goes on!

Christmas Morning, 2025

Christmas Day is bright and clear, at the expense of the temperature: it was already -7°C yesterday evening, and it hasn't become any warmer. Car traffic is sparse, but more audible now, although one can hear the church bells well despite the layer of sound.

The youngest brothers, my mother and I have had breakfast: bread rolls with or without raisins, cheese, cold cuts, with tea and coffee. We have also started on our Christmas plates: Spekulatius, chocolate-coated gingerbread hearts filled with jam, Nürnberger Lebkuchen, fondant stars and shapes, sugar-speckled jelly shapes, Marzipankartoffeln, Pfeffernüsse, and satsuma oranges. Aside from the poinsettia-patterned tablecloth that my father's mother gave us in the 1990s, we also lighted tapered candles and tea lights. Then we sang two Christmas carols in the living room, beside the tree, which J. decorated yesterday evening.

Early this afternoon, a neighbour rang our doorbell to pick up a parcel, and we've been mildly busy on social media; but aside from that we've had little contact with the outside world.

I've been reading a book and thinking about whether I really feel like going outside again.

At midnight I'd had a little excursion to take photographs and out of sheer curiosity about who is still up and about at 11:59 p.m. at Christmas Eve in our neighbourhood. Frost was forming on the windowpanes and roofs of cars, Christmas lights twinkling sparsely from the apartment blocks, pedestrians were far and few between, but quite a few windows were alight. And at Nollendorfplatz, as always, the fluorescent bands of rainbow colour were glowing on the cupola of the U-Bahn station.

Shakespeare's Complete Works Reading Challenge: Sixth Day of Henry VI

WHAT IS THIS ABOUT? Last year I had a hankering to half-liveblog all of Shakespeare's plays ... in chronological order, onward from Henry VI, Part 1: written by Shakespeare (b. 1564) in 1591. Time travel to Elizabethan Age literature also feels strangely Christmassy, and therefore seasonal again.

Previous Henry VI blog posts

Act I Scene 1: Henry V's funeral | Scenes 2, 3 & 4: French dauphin meets Joan of Arc, Duke of Gloucester clashes with Bishop of Winchester, the Earl of Salisbury is killed in fighting in Orléans | Scenes 5 & 6: Joan of Arc fights Lord Talbot, French celebrate lifting of siege on Orléans | Act II Scene 1: The English reconquer Orléans | Scenes 2 & 3: Charles VII and Joan of Arc are defeated & on the lam. Countess of Auvergne tries and fails to kill Lord Talbot.

***

December 1
10:20 p.m.

Act II.
Scene IV.

Mary would have certainly disapproved of fighting...
La Vierge nourrissant le Christ, miniature d'un livre d'heures paris
by the Master of the Munich Golden Legend (fl. 1420-1460)
via Wikimedia Commons

A squabble amongst English lords takes place in London, in a garden where roses grow, beside the Temple Church that is run by the Knights Hospitaller and serves generations of lawyers-in-training. The future Duke of York lodges in a chamber at the Temple, too. Richard of York (Plantagenet) is the leading figure on one side of the squabble, the Duke of Somerset on the other side.

They want the Earl of Warwick to decide who is right.

Warwick diplomatically (albeit with arguably false modesty) offers a refusal:

Between two Hawks, which flies the higher pitch,
Between two Dogs, which hath the deeper mouth,
Between two Blades, which bears the better temper,
Between two Horses, which doth bear him best,
Between two Girls, which hath the merriest eye,
I have perhaps some shallow spirit of Judgement

...But, he adds elaborately, in this case he doesn't have a clue.

York and Somerset reply heatedly that it's not such a tough question, each one claiming that anyone who has eyes to see could see that they are in the right.

Then, eager to end the dispute, York (who seems the cleverer character of the two) asks the men around him to pluck flowers from the red rose bush to show that they are on his side.

The Bard doesn't make clear which legal matter York and Somerset were arguing about — Wikipedia suggests that the matter was trivial. Essentially, however, the two lords are discussing the line of succession to the throne of England. York's mother's parentage has given him a strong claim; but York's father was considered a traitor, imprisoned, and beheaded when young Richard was fewer than five years old.

It is the rosebushes in Shakespeare's telling that eventually led Sir Walter Scott and his 19th-century contemporaries to refer to the English civil wars of 1455 to 1487, i.e. the fight between the House of York and the House of Lancaster for the throne, as the Wars of the Roses:

At any rate, the men who believe in York's side of the argument are instructed to pick white roses; the men who believe in Somerset should pick red roses.

Warwick begins the selection, picking a white rose from a bush. Next Suffolk picks a red one.

But Vernon intervenes. He says that the lords should only keep up the exercise if it would truly end the dispute: the side that ends up with the fewest roses should concede defeat.

Although at first York and Somerset both agree with Vernon's intervention, the losing side changes its mind. As more and more white blossoms are picked, Somerset and his friend the Duke of Suffolk exchange insults with the York faction rather than give up.

York concludes by telling his enemy,

And by my Soul, this pale and angry Rose,
As Cognizance of my blood-drinking hate,
Will I for ever, and my Faction wear,
Until it wither with me to my Grave,
Or flourish to the height of my Degree.

Suffolk and Somerset flounce off the stage.

Somerset: Farewell ambitious Richard.

Afterward Warwick predicts,

And here I prophecy: this brawl today,
Grown to this faction in the Temple Garden,
Shall send between the Red-Rose and the White,
A thousand Souls to Death and deadly Night.

York thanks his supporters, and as they leave the stage he tells them,

Come, let us four to Dinner: I dare say,
This Quarrel will drink Blood another day.

Rather than plucking flowers to decide whether 1. Shakespeare's version of history or 2. my doubt of Shakespeare's version of history, is correct, I've checked with Wikipedia. In fact the Bard was not very accurate. It is beyond the scope of this blog to properly research the leading figures and events and causes of the Wars of the Roses. But I recommend a quick look at the biographies of Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset, Henry Beaufort, 3rd Duke of Somerset, and Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York, because they are entertaining tales in themselves.

"Detail on the West Door of Temple Church, London"
by Ethan Doyle White (2018)
Temple Church had to be reconstructed after WWII
but I am fairly certain that Shakespeare might have seen these capitals
in their original state.
via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

December 2

6 p.m.

Scene V.

The dying Lord Mortimer, uncle to Richard of York, is released from prison. York arrives for a friendly family visit. In this ahistorical scene, Shakespeare changes a few small details — like the fact that the real Lord Mortimer had revealed York's father's plot against Henry V and later sat on the commission that passed the father's death sentence.

I'm wondering whether to borrow Lord Mortimer's terminology the next time I visit the doctor:

Even like a man new haled from the Wrack,

So fare my Limbes with long Imprisonment:

And these gray Locks, the Pursuivants of death,

Nestor-like aged, in an Age of Care,

Argue the end of Edmund Mortimer.

These Eyes, like Lamps, whose wasting Oil is spent,

Wax dim, as drawing to their Exigent.

Weak Shoulders, over-borne with burdening Grief,

And pith-less Arms, like to a withered Vine,

That drops his sap-less Branches to the ground.

Yet are these Feet, whose strength-less stay is numb,

(Unable to support this Lump of Clay)

Swift-winged with desire to get a Grave,

As witting I no other comfort have.

He later adds, to let his nephew know without ambiguity that he is tottering on the brink of death:

the Arbitrator of Despairs,

Just Death, kind Umpire of men's miseries,

With sweet enlargement doth dismiss me hence

In real life, Lord Mortimer was sent to Ireland because he had a confrontation with the Duke of Gloucester. There he died of the plague, at the age of only 33 years — three decades before the Wars of the Roses began. That said, York really was his heir.

In Shakespeare's play, York tells his uncle Mortimer of the Duke of Somerset's insults in the Temple garden (Somerset had unkindly mentioned York's father's execution). He embraces his uncle's (fictional) cause to install the House of York on the throne of England.

Lord Mortimer is more cautious, telling York,

With silence, Nephew, be thou politick,

Strong fixed is the House of Lancaster,

And like a Mountain, not to be remov'd.

And so Richard leaves for Parliament, to settle the score with the Duke of Somerset...