crooked house

Babies in Literature: Breastfeeding (and Smoking) Toddlers in Pat Barker's The Eye in the Door

Pat Barker's The Eye in the Door is the second novel in her trilogy about British soldiers traumatized by World War I trench warfare. These particular passages, childhood memories of one of those soldiers, working class Billy Prior, struck me as particularly apropos in light of all the fuss last week about the breastfeeding mom on the cover of Time. Since the novel is set in 1918 when Billy is supposed to be twenty-three years old, this first memory would've taken place around 1900.

The bell of the shop rang as he pushed the door open. How old? Four? Five? A smell of cat pee and tarred string from the bundles in the corner. Beattie's cat had never been able to resist marking those bundles. Mrs Thorpe plonked their Alfie on the counter while she paid her bill. Alfie swung his short legs in their sturdy boots, puffing away at a fag end though he was only three. Between drags, he sucked his mother's breast, puffing and sucking alternately, peering round the white curve at Prior, who was a Big Boy and therefore an object of interest and suspicion. It was late in the afternoon. Mrs Thorpe would be far gone. Jugs of best bitter were her favourite, chased down by sips of something medicinal that she kept in a flask fastened to her thigh with a home-made elastic garter. Whiskey for the heart, brandy for the lungs, gin for the bladder. Alfie, guzzling away at his mother's milk, looked contented, and well he might, since it could hardly be less than 70 proof.

Shocking, isn't it? But it's the smoking and the drinking that are so shocking, not the breastfeeding. In Mrs Thorpe's defence, the dangers of smoking and alcohol to developing children weren't understood at the time -- and breastfeeding was just the way mothers fed their kids, for as long as they could. After all, she wouldn't have had to pay for that milk.

This next passage is about a brief encounter with Mrs Thorpe and another woman Billy has when he goes back to his own village in 1918.

Before the war, women used to sit on their steps in the warm evenings after dark, postponing the moment when the raging bedbug must be faced, and taking pleasure in the only social contact they could enjoy without fear of condemnation. A woman seen chatting to her neighbours during the day quickly felt the weight of public disapproval. 'Eeh, look at that Mrs Thorpe. Eleven kids. You'd think she could find herself summat to do, wouldn't you?' Now, looking up and down the street. Prior saw deserted doorsteps. Women were out and about, but walking purposefully, as if they had somewhere to go.

He supposed it was Mrs Thorpe's name that came particularly to mind because she'd been one of the worst offenders, with her lard-white breasts the size of footballs, and Georgie or Alfie or Bobby worrying away at them, breaking off now and then for a drag on a tab end. Or perhaps, subconsciously, he'd already identified her, for there she was, coming towards him, divested of the clogs and shawl he'd always seen her in and wearing not merely a coat and hat but flesh-coloured stockings and shoes. It was scarcely possible the attractive woman with her should be Mrs Riley, but he didn't know who else it could be.

They greeted him with cries of delight, hugging, kissing, standing back, flashing their incredible smiles. There was a saying round here: for every child born a tooth lost, and certainly, before the war, Mrs Thorpe and Mrs Riley had advertised their fecundity every time they opened their mouths. Now, in place of gaps and blackened stumps was this even, flashing whiteness. 'What white teeth you have, Grandma,' he said.

'All the better to eat you with,' said Mrs Riley. 'And who are you calling Grandma?'

Mrs Thorpe asked, 'How long have you got, love?' And then, before he had time to answer, 'Eeh, aren't we awful, always asking that?'

'Two days.'

'Well, make the most of it. Don't do anything we wouldn't do, mind.'

He smiled. 'How much scope does that give me?'

'Fair bit, these days,' said Mrs Riley.

He remembered, suddenly, that he'd sucked the breasts of both these women. His mother had been very ill for two months after his birth, and he'd been fed on tins of condensed milk from the corner shop, the same milk adults used in their tea. Babies in these streets were regularly fed on it. Babies fed on it regularly died. Then Mrs Thorpe and Mrs Riley had appeared, at that time, he supposed, lively young girls each with her own first baby at her breast. They had taken it in turns to feed him and, in doing so, had probably saved his life.

Vivi Models

We got this fancy dress at the Giant Baby and Children's Sale last Saturday for 4 bucks and it may very well have been the best 4 bucks we have ever spent. Vivi has worn it pretty much every day since then. This is the selection of jewelry she almost always wears with it. The pony bandaid is a deliberate choice.  She asked me to take pictures of her in this outfit today. The pursed lip thing is something I'm afraid she picked up from me when I look in the mirror.

c

This is one of her more artistic shots. When she viewed this photo, she expressed displeasure about the slightly rolled sock so please keep that in mind when judging the styling here.

Anguish.

During the shoot, she inexplicably ran to get a comb, which she matter-of-factly inserted in the keyhole and proceeded to pose next to. During further discussion I gleaned it is supposed to be Alice's key.

Fiddling dramatically with the "key."

Pose with light switch.

Solitude.

A slightly Toulouse Lautrec effect.

Somebody That I Used to Know: A Song We Now All Know All Too Well

So this Goyte "Somebody That I Used to Know" song and the Walk Off the Earth cover video are everywhere and those of us with kids are particularly familiar with both of them. (We happen to know a two-year-old who immediately dons a suffering expression and begins singing ALL THE WORDS every time it comes on, which is often. Hi Eden!) The parents of the kids featured below videotaped some of the many, many, many times the song was requested by them during car rides.

 

A Dangerous Maze and the Common Sense Media "Unwatching" Contest

I never should've let Luke watch Marie Antoinette as such an impressionable age.

Common Sense Media is asking for your stories of moments when you wish your child hadn't seen something on television, in a movie, or online. I shared the story of my own horrible moment like that here. Please do go read it and if you like it, vote for me! Or share your own and vote for yourself. (I did. You can win a $500 Amazon gift card!)

Luke Caught His First Fish!

Give a boy a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a boy to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Give your sister a fish and freak her out with the glare of its glassy dead eyes. Somebody better teach your mother how to prepare and cook a fish from scratch if you keep this up, kid. (I am quite impressed -- I do not think I have ever caught a fish.)

Madame X

I just discovered this painting Portrait of Madame X by John Singer Sargent on pinterest, where I pinned it to my board entitled "Noses." (It is a board devoted to attractive people with prominent and/or interesting noses. You'd think I had way too much time on my hands.) Curious about the identity of the lady, I looked it up. She is Virginie Amélie Gautreau, a Parisian socialite and notorious beauty originally from New Orleans, and this gorgeous, elegant painting was her undoing -- she had to retire from society after it was shown. And Sargent had to leave Paris. From Confessions of An Unrepentant Art Junkie:

So what did cause such a scandal with Mme. X that Sargent could no longer find commissions and soon had to move to London? According to Mary Alexander, it was the strap and the jewels. Let me explain. Sargent has portrayed Mme. X in the notorious black dress with jeweled straps. She shows off her wedding ring by displaying it against her black satin skirt. She also wears the tiniest of tiaras, barely there, in the shape of a crescent moon: the symbol of Diana, the Goddess of the Hunt. In the 1880s no one would wear evening dress without jewelry, earrings, bracelets, brooches and necklaces. The fact that Mme. X has only her wedding ring and tiara on, suggests that she is home from an evening out and has removed her outer wrap and jewelry. The wedding ring is, however, intentionally prominent. When Sargent originally showed the work in 1884, Mme X’s right strap was painted so that it had fallen off her shoulder, baring her chest suggestively. As Ms. Alexander pointed out, while these standards would change completely within the next couple of years, in 1884, the only contemporary works showing women in such states of undress, were Toulouse Lautrec’s paintings and drawings of prostitutes. Showing Mme. X in such a state lacked the propriety one should expect in a society portrait. Simple as that, according to Ms. Alexander.

Through letters between Mme X and Sargent, Ms. Alexander proved that initially the sitter was pleased with the portrait, though she found the process of posing for it tedious, so we know her initial reaction to the work was not the reason for its infamy. Ms. Alexander says that because it showed the Parisian society matron in a state of undress and posed as Diana “the Huntress,” with her haughty, aristocratic bearing, it lacked the dignity that Parisians expected of society portraits. Though there was a long tradition in French portraiture of portraying aristocrats as classical heroes or goddesses, this was not Mme. X as a Goddess. Her tiara and its reference to Diana allude to her as a huntress/seductress, not the embodiment of a classical goddess, and the strap, fallen off her shoulder and pressing into her arm reinforced the sexual power of the image, but all that seemed acceptable even to the sitter, until the picture was shown in the Salon of 1884.

Oh how times have changed. Apparently the hussy wore lavender powder, as well. There are two novels about her that I am about to track down: Strapless and I Am Madame X: A Novel.

Taschen's The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm

Sara just alerted me to the existence of this book and it is definitely going on my wishlist. The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm contains 27 fairytales and lots of vintage illustrations from the 1820s to the 1950s. They are STUNNING. You can leaf through 100 pages of the book here.

 

Drink the Wild Air

Ralph Waldo Emerson, found on Lauren Cerand's How I'll Spend My Summer pinterest board. (It's way more fun to plan how you'll spend your summer than to recap it once you're back "in school.")

Fairy Door

There are a couple of trees in our yard just crying out for this Fairy Door. You can buy the accessories -- the little windows with the flower boxes and the lantern, which LIGHTS UP AT DUSK AND TURNS OFF AT DAWN -- but I'm wondering if they're overkill. I should've ordered this for Easter but I didn't and now May Day is tomorrow. Perhaps for the summer solstice? (Also, don't you think "Fairy Door" would be the perfect name for a gay bar?)

Sylvie and the iPhone

Over the weekend, Sylvie discovered the iPhone, which, up until now, has been monopolized by her brother (when it is not being used by yours truly). She particularly likes Animatch (currently her favourite), the Itsy Bitsy Spider, Wheels on the Bus, Old McDonald, and Draw and Tell from Duck, Duck Moose, Monkey Preschool Lunchbox, and the e-picture book The Monster at the End of this Book. (That book is over 30 years old and seems finally to have  found its true medium. Everyone in the family loves it.) Do you have any favourite iPhone apps for kids?

For some reason, every time she plays on the iPhone she has to wear her Anne of Green Gables hat. We are now calling it her iPhone hat.