LINES OF THE DAY

". . . But the past does not exist independently from the present. Indeed, the past is only past because there is a present, just as I can point to something over there only because I am here. But nothing is inherently over there or here. In that sense, the past has no content. The past -- or more accurately, pastness -- is a position. Thus, in no way can we identify the past as past." p. 15

". . . But we may want to keep in mind that deeds and words are not as distinguishable as often we presume. History does not belong only to its narrators, professional or amateur. While some of us debate what history is or was, others take it into their own hands." p. 153

Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (1995) by Michel-Rolph Trouillot

Saturday, January 23, 2021

RIP Sharon Kay Penman 1945 - 2021

 Sharon Kay Penman died yesterday, Friday, January 22, 2021.

Her last novel, The Land Beyond The Sea (March 2020), was the last novel I borrowed from the library, right before covid-19 closed everything in March.  I wasn't able to return it to the library until the second week in August, when a few branches re-opened, for pick-up and returns.




I had read Penman's previous novels in the sequence they were published.

She was one of those great historical novelists who researched the deep scholarship.  She delved into the academics' work as carefully as the scholars themselves researched their primary materials and read the original languages, out of which to create those scholarly resources she so carefully consulted.   I particularly appreciated how she embraced that history isn't fixed, how much new information can change what we thought we knew. Sshe expected this, acknowledged and adjusted, accordingly, as much as possible.  

Our household expresses that constant of historiography like this: "How much the 11th century has changed in the last ten years!"

Penman's books helped get me through some tough times, so immersive and dense with detail of the long ago they are.  Though history changes, her books will continue to help us escape for hours from a terrible present -- or just a very hot day, too hot, too humid, too glary, to go outside.



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