I am reading Corinne ou l’Italie by Madame de Staël along with Mothers by Jacqueline Rose.
I started Corinne back in September and stopped because I wanted something else at that time. But now I am back at it and I love reading it. It is a bit cliché because it is very “nobility begets perfect human beings” but the story is interesting (a free and independent French poetess falls in love with a taciturn English Lord who likes her but will in the end stick to a rather traditional marriage by marrying a quiet and obedient English wife), and I LOVE the writing and the setting (Rome, seen as a very beginning of the 19th century romantic city in ruins). Plus Madame de Staël is one of our feminist female writers, not so much read and it feels good to read her.
And I am reading Mothers, by Jacqueline Rose. This book is great and superbly researched (obviously). It is my first book by Jacqueline Rose, I see her as a pillar in feminist literary critique, and it was time for me to read her! At last! The thing is that I don’t want children and don’t really understand why people would want to reproduce. That said, it is important to understand the oppressive system – horrible to mothers – we live in and to support people who decide to have children. I’ll leave you with a quote that could be a guideline for everybody : “After all, it is one of the first principles of feminism that, if you want to challenge a stereotype, especially one masquerading as nature or virtue or essence, if your aim is to drag it down from its pedestal or yank it up from the dirt where it festers, then try and find where it all started. Better still, look to a place and time when - maybe - it was not even there.
