Title: Inventing the Victorians – What We Think We know About Them and Why We’re Wrong
Author: Matthew Sweet
Genre: Nonfiction
When I originally picked this book up at the library, I thought it would be the sort of thing that appealed to me. A few months ago, I read The Victorian Internet, (or something with a similar title; can’t remember at the moment), and so I was already half-convinced that the the Victorian era is not what we generally think it is. Mostly because we tend to view it through the lens of Gilbert and Sullivan operetta and the era’s own equivalent of tabloids and junk sociology. In fact, Neal Stephenson’s neo-Victorians in The Diamond Age probably best encapsulate how we tend to think of the originals.
Beyond that, though, I think I’m probably handicapped by being insufficiently English to really grasp what the author is talking about in some cases. For one thing, American Victorian-era culture is quite different from English Victorian-era culture. Apparently, we in the west were responsible for the idea that furniture legs were draped or swathed in pantaloons…as a hoax played on a visiting English writer. Also, many of the cultural references, both past and present were lost on me. Had I no tbeen a truly devoted fan of Douglas Adams’ work, for example, I would have no idea at all what Bovril is. Or was. I don’t even know if they still make it.
But I digress.
The exploding of popular myths about the Victorians is cogent and obviously based on a great deal of research. The author is a bit too fixated on Oscar Wilde for my tastes, but not entirely without good reason.
Not light reading, though. It was a bit of a slog to get through, and while I am technically into the next day according to this post’s timestamp, I haven’t slept yet, so I’m not counting it.