Catherine Brown
Reader, I Married Him
Despite everything, I am six weeks married. The ‘everything’ is not the man. It’s marriage – an institution that I long hesitated to enter. For one thing, I didn’t understand what the state, the ultimate manifestation of the public, had to do with my private life. I considered a relationship a daily plebiscite, not a bond. If I were comfortable with sitting in one particular armchair for the rest of my life, why would I affix straps to the chair and ensure that I could not move? Could modern marriage be anything more than a romantic gesture, like the acquisition of a tattoo of the beloved one’s name, relatively easy to do but an expensive and embarrassing pain to get rid of? Was not the very idea of marriage, like many of its quasi-obligatory rituals, both retro and fictionalising – like the ending to a Victorian novel?
I answered these questions in my own way – but did not cease to be preoccupied by them as my wedding approached. I was working as literary consultant to Jed Mercurio for the recent BBC One adaptation of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, a novel that had no illusions about marriage and fully endorsed Constance in asking for a divorce
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Knowledge of Sufism increased markedly with the publication in 1964 of The Sufis, by Idries Shah. Nowadays his writings, much like his father’s, are dismissed for their Orientalism and inaccuracy.
@fitzmorrissey investigates who the Shahs really were.
Fitzroy Morrissey - Sufism Goes West
Fitzroy Morrissey: Sufism Goes West - Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah by Nile Green
literaryreview.co.uk
Rats have plagued cities for centuries. But in Baltimore, researchers alighted on one surprising solution to the problem of rat infestation: more rats.
@WillWiles looks at what lessons can be learned from rat ecosystems – for both rats and humans.
Will Wiles - Puss Gets the Boot
Will Wiles: Puss Gets the Boot - Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Twisters features destructive tempests and blockbuster action sequences.
@JonathanRomney asks what the real danger is in Lee Isaac Chung's disaster movie.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/eyes-of-the-storm