Cat Reads & Thinks Things

Hi! I'm Cat, and this is my blog about all things literature and books! I post commonplace book quotes, annotations, and any thoughts (or crazy ramblings/tangents) I have about things I read.

[catreadsandthinksthings]

“Anne’s horizons had closed since the night she had sat there after coming home from Queen’s; but if the path set before her feet was to be narrow she knew that flowers of quiet happiness would bloom along it” (444).

Montgomery, L. M. Anne of Green Gables. Wordsworth Editions, 2018.

[catreadsandthinksthings]

“‘Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It’s splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world’” (234).

Montgomery, L. M. Anne of Green Gables. Wordsworth Editions, 2018.

[vanillye222]

[catreadsandthinksthings]

Felt.

[catreadsandthinksthings]

“All lives are stories, and history is made of stories” (xii).

Marilynne K. Roach, Six Women of Salem: The Untold Story of the Accused and their Accusers in the Salem Witch Trials.

[catreadsandthinksthings]

“I don’t know what it would take to really change the world. But couldn’t we get together and try to figure it out? Couldn’t the we be bigger? Isn’t there a way we could help fight each other’s battles so that we’re not always alone?” (324).

Leslie Steinberg, Stone Butch Blues

[catreadsandthinksthings]

“Words are alive; they change and grow, reseeding themselves in our verges with all their wild hybridity” (197).

Allyson Shaw, Ashes and Stone: A Journey Through Scotland in Search of Women Hunted as Witches

[catreadsandthinksthings]

One third of the homeless men in this country are veterans. And we have the nerve to Support Our Troops with pretty yellow ribbons while giving nothing but dirty looks to their outstretched hands. Tell me, what land of the free sets free its eighteen-year-old kids into greedy war zones hones them like missiles then returns their bones in the middle of the night so no one can see? Each death swept beneath the carpet and hidden like dirt, each life a promise we never kept. (Lines 52-62)

Andrea Gibson, "For Eli," Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns

[catreadsandthinksthings]

I wanted to tell you about July 4th in northamerica and the lights computerized shrapnel in white or red or fast-fuse blue to celebrate the only revolution that was legitimate in human history I wanted to tell you about the baby screaming this afternoon where the park and the music of thousands who eat food and stay hungry or homicidal on the subways or the windowsills of the city came together loud like the original cannon shots from that only legitimate revolution in human history I wanted to tell you about my Spanish how it starts like a word aggravating the beat of my heart then rushes up to my head where my eyes dream Caribbean flowers and my mouth waters around black beans or coffee that lets me forget the hours before morning But I am living inside the outcome of the only legitimate revolution in human history and the operator will not place my call to Cuba the mailman will not carry my letters to Managua the State Department will not okay my visa for a short-wave conversation and you do not speak English and I can dig it

June Jordan, "Independence Day in the U.S.A."

[catreadsandthinksthings]

Thoughts on Allyson Shaw's Ashes and Stones: A Journey Through Scotland in Search of the Women Hunted as Witches

I just finished Allyson Shaw's Ashes and Stones, and if I had to rate it, I would give it five stars! This is a beautifully written and thought-provoking book about the Scottish witch hunts. Shaw paints a detailed picture of the witch trials in Scotland, making it personal and engaging for readers.

Shaw, despite being fairly specific in location, truly encompasses a great deal in her book. She not only discusses individual trials but also the memorials to those accused of witchcraft, providing a small rhetorical analysis of the effectiveness of each site. She provides context on the lore and beliefs in Scotland during the period that are central to understanding the accused and their confessions. Shaw calls attention to how the so-called "witches" were and are often sexualized and makes readers realize how violating the process of the trials must have been for Scottish women. She describes the impact of the hunts then and now, and how one reconciles claiming the identity of a witch today and the dark history that comes with the label. Shaw talks about how locations in Scotland and elsewhere have capitalized on the witch-hunts in ways that allow fiction to overshadow the real and painful history of the hunts at best and disrespect and dehumanize the accused at worst. Shaw ends the book by calling for better memorials for the witch hunts and those who suffered because of them. She demands that we fully acknowledge this dark time and those who created it in a way that is respectful and compassionate towards the people accused.

This book is unlike any other I have read about the witch trials. It is so incredibly empathetic, inspiring, and well-written. I got lost in the stories Shaw told. It made me question how I think about the witch hunts and how they are depicted today. I cannot praise it enough and highly recommend it to anyone interested in Scottish history or the history of the witch trials.

[catreadsandthinksthings]

“Fascism is not insanity—unless evil itself, all evil, be insanity, (a point that can certainly be argued psychologically, and philosophically, in the abstract. War is not abstract.)” (81).

Nancy Cunard in her Letter to Ezra Pound

[catreadsandthinksthings]

“We still need magic because we want to believe in something bigger than ourselves—that there is wonder in the world and that we can partake in it” (212).

Tabitha Stanmore, Cunning Folk: Life in the Era of Practical Magic

[catreadsandthinksthings]

“Professionalism in medicine is nothing more than the institutionalization of male upper-class monopoly. We must never confuse professionalism with expertise. Expertise is something to work for and to share; professionalism is—by definition—elitist and exclusive, sexist, racist, and classist” (101).

Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English, Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers

[catreadsandthinksthings]

“‘Arthur," she said, "Now listen to me! And all your barons whom here I see. O King, I have loved your vassal, This one, here! I mean Lanval. In your court he's accused of crime. I didn't want him to have a bad time For what he said; all along, You know, the Queen was in the wrong; He never asked anything of her; As for his boasting of his lover, If the law's satisfied by what you see, May your barons set him free!’” (9)

Marie de France, Lanval

[catreadsandthinksthings]

“It is normal to want to manage our own lives, and it is fundamentally human to hope that there is something bigger than ourselves to which we can turn when things go wrong” (208).

Tabitha Stanmore, Cunning Folk: Life in the Era of Practical Magic

[catreadsandthinksthings]

“Sylvia would have liked him vastly better without the gun; she could not understand why he killed the very birds he seemed to like so much” (76).

Sarah Orne Jewett, "A White Heron," The Portable American Realism Reader

[catreadsandthinksthings]

Thoughts on Tabitha Stanmore's Cunning Folk: Life in the Era of Practical Magic

So, I just finished Tabitha Stanmore's book, Cunning Folk, and it has been a super fascinating and educational read! Initially, it sparked my interest because one of the comments of praise on the back called it a follow-up to Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English's Witches, Midwives, and Nurses, which I read and loved in college. I would certainly say that it does feel like a sort of sequel to Ehrenreich and English's work in that it demonstrates that not all practitioners of magic in the medieval and early modern periods (14th to late 17th centuries) were considered witches, and that many of these magic users, or "cunning folk" as Stanmore calls them, were like the healers, wise women, and witches Ehrenreich and English described. Stanmore also demonstrates that many of these cunning folk were not persecuted as witches, while still acknowledging how misogyny played a role in accusations of witchcraft, such as cunning women being more likely to be suspected as witches compared to cunning men.

Overall, Stanmore teaches readers in this book a great deal about the magical practices and beliefs of the medieval and early modern periods. She asks us to keep an open mind about magic but thoroughly considers the multiple possibilities (magical or otherwise) in each of the situations she describes involving cunning folk. She shows how most people in these times differentiated between cunning folk and witches; they were not considered to be the same thing. Stanmore explains how people in the periods she discusses viewed cunning folk as morally good or neutral, and they were often hired to perform magical services. In contrast, witches were seen as evil, doing harm for harm's sake, and making deals with and serving the devil. However, in her efforts to differentiate between cunning folk and witches (in terms of period beliefs) and to maintain an open-mindedness about and belief in magic, Stanmore can misalign both potentially innocent cunning women and those accused of being so-called "witches." Still, this is a minor issue (and really more of a nitpick) in an otherwise incredibly interesting book. Stanmore paints a picture of medieval and early modern magical and supernatural beliefs, showing us how they have evolved and reflecting the societies of these periods. It was an enlightening read that I highly recommend!

[ashstfu]

i don’t think people understand how much of life is grief. not just people dying, but losing the version of yourself you thought you’d become. grieving the city you had to leave. the friends you lost not in argument, but in silence. the summer that will never come back. the feeling that maybe you peaked at 12 when you were reading books under the covers and believing in forever