(no subject)

[dchenes]

I'm most of the way through Up the Country, and some of the things in that book are almost incomprehensible. Part of it has to do with the fact that I'm not a Victorian-era Englishwoman (so I don't worry about having to dismiss the servants for theft and/or improprieties), and part of it has to do with the fact that what Emily Eden was writing about was the present for her and history for me. Even so, though, there is no way in hell you could persuade me to go tromping all over India in a caravan for most of a year in 90-degree weather while wearing a corset and a skirt down to my ankles. (I bet she slept in them, too, which is probably why she complains so much about not getting any sleep.)

Anyway, it's interesting reading when it isn't horrifying. Some day I'll get all my various thoughts about colonial powers together and write them down, but today is not that day.