Today:
Saturday Reading and Research will focus on exactly that: the history you have been reading this week and the research you've been working on. It's also the prime thread for requesting books on a particular subject. As with all our weekly features, this thread will be lightly moderated.
So, encountered a recent biography of Stalin that revealed all about his addiction to ragtime piano? Delved into a horrendous piece of presentist and sexist psycho-evolutionary mumbo-jumbo and want to tell us about how bad it was? Need help finding the right book to give the historian in your family? Then this is the thread for you!
Heyyyy I wrote this like 2 weeks ago but I'm finally around on a Saturday morning to post it, so here you go:
(I have linked to the companion website because it has a recording of a little aria Gaetano Guadagni composed for himself which you guys might like.)
This book came out this summer, unfortunately right as the fiscal year rolled over so I had to wait until the fall for the library to buy it so I could read it. Getting academic books bought for me on request but I have to wait, wah wah, the struggle is real.
Okay, so this is the first monograph biography of Gaetano Guadagni, who I’ve I’ve only talked about I think once on AskHistorians, but he was a pretty cool guy, eh killed it at acting and wasn’t afraid of Handel. Patricia Howard has been working on GG for years, and she’s previously re-written the historic record on some essential stuff about him, like what his vocal range actually was, and the fact that his birthdate was wrong for years (this for whatever reason happens to castrati a lot) and that his birthname was actually Cosimo! So she’s almost certainly the foremost expert on Gaetano Guadagni.
However that means she’s published a lot of her Guadagni research already to get this reputation, and the book has that pesky recycled feeling. The information on his early life, acting, limited composing, puppetry, and relationship to the character of Orfeo has all been published before, which is maybe like 30-40% of the book. There’s a lot of original stuff in here through, like the chapter on his work with Handel, which will likely prove to be the most heavily cited section because Handel’s so hot right now, and a tantalizing hint that Caffarelli might have given Guadagni a leg-up in his early career by getting him a gig in Lisbon which sheds a bit of a different angle on Caffarelli as well as the whole old school divo castrato vs. “reform” singer/actor idea. As Caffarelli is known more for maltreating other singers, it could be a hint that at least one of the old guard recognized GG’s raw talent in opera. Or maybe Caffarelli liked working with guys who shared his first name, who knows. But she unfortunately doesn’t explore this idea at all really. MOAR CAFFARELLI.
Unfortunately I think somewhere along the line she forgot that she was also supposed to be arguing for something in particular, which would be the title: why does Guadagni have the right to be called “the first modern castrato?” There’s a little bit tacked on the beginning and finish of the book about how he is the first “modern castrato,” but otherwise it is not mentioned in the book, and the term is not really defined. Maybe it was an after-thought when her editor said she needed a title? I mean I think I could make an argument for just about anyone to be the “first modern castrato” really, it’s pretty meaningless. Caffarelli was the first modern castrato because he was the first to successfully “go Vegas:” When he hit 30 he quit travelling for opera seasons and instead planted his ass firmly at the San Carlo in Naples, and people could damn well travel to see him for a change. Like a proto Elvis! Boom, modern castrato, there you go. Give me a name and 15 minutes and I’ll do another one.
In general though she gets bogged down by facts and details and doesn’t tell you what things “mean.” For example, Gaetano Guadagni was a big puppet enthusiast in retirement and had a full marionette theater in his house which took up 2 whole rooms, and he gave free shows for the neighborhood kids and would apparently also ambush unsuspecting visitors and make them sit through impromptu puppet shows. While of course this is just hilarious to think about by itself (“How’s your coffee? Well I know you must really be hoping to see one of my famous puppet shows.” “Oh, well, I--” “Ohhhh if you insist! I’ll just do a quick one.”), Howard doesn’t pull much meat out of it. She devotes a lot of words the history and details of late 18th century puppetry, which is all very interesting, but she seems to have forgotten to tell us what this love of puppetry might say about Gaetano Guadagni’s personality and theatrical spirit.
I really hate to be a sourpuss about this book, because she’s amassed an awful lot of original research on his life, like she’s made an almost complete itinerary of where he was for just about every season he worked (and it’s actually really freaking hard to do that for opera singers), but I think the art of Doing History and Telling the Story got lost in the focus on verifying all sorts of little bits and bobs from his life. I’ve got my own ideas about who Guadagni was and what his legacy is this magnificent, ridiculous artform that we call opera, but they’re the same ideas I had before reading the book, and I’m not sure I could tell what the author thinks in that vein. Having read most of her research articles before, I was hoping she’d get into more of an overall synthesis on his life and legacy in longform, but not so much. :(
Okay I’m not actually going to review this as a “history” book, because that would be shooting fish in a barrel. HOWEVER, I find the way history is interpreted and presented in historical romantic fiction absolutely fascinating, and more or less totally not discussed, so I am going to talk about sex in historical fiction. If you find clinical discussion of erotic literature unwelcome, turn back now. Basically this review is posted for /u/vertexoflife.
For those who may be interested in the history of sexual and popular literature, I think Outlander is potentially a transitional or “missing link” book for historical romantic fiction. So, there’s this popular trope that historical romance books are all very “glorified rape fantasy” in the sex scenes, as there’s a passive woman/active man thing, he pressures her into sex and is big and overpowering, she just lies there like a rug, etc. etc. For your mom’s grocery store paperbacks from the 80s and 90s this is pretty true, those historical romances did tend towards that sexual dynamic. But, for books published after 2000 this is quite untrue, this sort of “dubious consent” sexual content is extremely out of fashion in your small paperbacks of passion these days, judging from reviews. Depictions of sexual relationships in today’s straight historical romance books are now pretty scrupulously equal, yes-means-yes, and have women written as active and enthusiastic participants in sex. Obviously this is what Today’s Historical Romance Reader wants to read. But it’s hard to put your finger on when the switch was made, and by which authors.
Outlander was first published in 1991, and it’s weird because it sort of has both “grr big hairy man wants sex, submit to my will” stuff, a scene where he straight-up beats the heroine, and the heroine still being all “how droll to be time-transported to the days when men were real men,” etc, BUT it also has some much more modern stuff, like Our Dashing Hero being a blushing virgin and the heroine A Woman of Experience, also he performs cunnilingus. Nowadays in historical romantic books oral sex is always included, regardless of historical authenticity to sexual practices in any given time, because of course historical romance books reflect current attitudes about sexual relationships and practices, but in 1991 including that would have been a bit edgier. Curiously, Our Heroine does not return the favor on oral sex, which would be quite out of step in a book published today, downright unmannerly of her really. There may be a weird thing here where reading about cunnilingus became interesting to romance readers before reading about performing fellatio, but I think the more important element here may be that writing fellatio requires a very sexually enthusiastic/non-passive female character, and 1991 just wasn’t quite there yet for female characters. I think I’d have to conduct more “research” to nail this down. (Also depictions of sex in gay and lesbian historical romance is a whole ‘nother bag of Halloween candy, and that shall have to wait for another Saturday.)
So, reading this book now, more than 20 years after it was published, the stuff a reader then would have found pretty ordinary, the hero being a giant kitsch-Highlander who demands sex whenever he wants it, I find sometimes tacky and mostly really uncomfortable, and the stuff a contemporary reader would have found edgy like a male virgin and cunnilingus, I go meh, unremarkable. I think this book, with seemingly incoherent wife-beater-who-goes-down weirdness, could be an interesting “missing link” in the semi-recent evolution of the ideal masculine sexual/romantic partner in a historical romance book.
Since the author kept writing this series for a long while (the most recent installment was published this year) I half want to keep going to see how she continues to develop Our Dashing Hero/Heroine to match evolving tastes, but then again, only so many hours in the day… and if I read dialogue going “ooch I dinna ken” any more I will probably disavoy my Scottish ancestors and claim to be exclusively German-American.
Reading reports and assessments of Soviet naval strategy and prospects that were published in the late 80s and early 90s by Western sources. Always fascinating looking back at those sources discussing what the Soviet Navy will look like entering the 21st Century, and also how effective the Soviets were at frustrating Western speculation on the missions and strategies of their fleets and vessels. Frustrating to the amateur historian is that these same confused and debating sources seem to be the ones that are still widely referred to even after the collapse of the USSR.
Maybe its more of a POV lesson. I can now feel the same sense of futility a Western naval officer might have felt in trying to discover if the Soviets still regarded the attacking of Atlantic shipping lanes as their primary naval mission despite their 70s/80s tendency to engage simultaneously in "showing the flag" in Third World ports. and appear to engage in defensive posturing in home waters.
Who said history wasn't fun?