cahn

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 21:49:36 GMT

( Math competition(!), math summer, standardized testing, A's school has not imploded this year... yet. New calling for me. )

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The Jewish War: Last half of book 6

Sun, 26 Apr 2026 23:39:38 GMT

Last week:Lament for the destroyed trees and landscape around Jerusalem. A woman eats her own child. More discussion of Titus and whether he wanted to spare the Temple or not. The Carthage and Alexandria precedents for Romans treating defeated opponents. Torching a temple = REALLY BAD LUCK. The timetable of the siege of Jerusalem set by Vespasian's ascent as emperor.

This week: The aftermath of the burning of the temple, and the end of the siege of Jerusalem. Still some pretty awful stuff.

Next week: Okay, going to try to read all of book 7! We'll see how this goes.

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The Jewish War: First half of Book 6

Mon, 20 Apr 2026 04:34:58 GMT

Last week: Sieges are awful. Josephus tells us that Titus really totally felt bad about all the awfulness (even though he didn't stop them) and there is a theory that maybe by "us" he meant "Berenice." Titus had dancing boys?? (Josephus does not mention any, sadly.) Does Samuel the Lamanite in the Book of Mormon owe anything to Josephus speaking truth to the wicked? Unclear. Talmud on the Sages vs. the Zealots as an interesting correlated story to Josephus. Poppea's complexity including both an interest in (conversion to?) Judaism as well as being ruthless; comparison to Constantine's much better press.

This week: The temple is destroyed.

Next week: End of Book 6.

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The Jewish War: Last half of book 5

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 03:57:52 GMT

Last week: Titus saving the day single-handedly as a millenium-old trope. The synoptic gospels foreshadowing these events, and discussion of the abomination of desolation. The Yom Kippur service description of the priest in his vestments. How much Titus might have intended the destruction of Jerusalem, and when, and how much that question may be different from how Josephus feels like he needs to justify it? A mention of R. Yochanan ben Zakkai, which all of you should definitely tell me more about :D

This week: Jerusalem is under siege. It's quite awful for those under siege, what with famine inside the city and getting crucified by Romans if they try to escape. Titus and Josephus continue to be blameless and awesome.

Next week: First half of Book 6: "...from its rebuilding by Haggai in the second year of the reign of Cyrus to its capture under Vespasian was 639 years and 45 days" (270).

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In Memoriam (Winn)

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 05:38:35 GMT

5/5. I am having SO many feelings about this book that I am not sure I can actually articulate them all. But also I am very aware that my feelings are entangled partially in, uh, currently being obsessed with a fanon ship that maps super easily on to this one, so you know, as usual, I am not to be trusted about my feelings and I'm very willing to believe that it might not hit quite right if one doesn't happen to be exactly in that situation? Anyway... it's about these two eighteen-year-old boys who start the book at boarding school together in 1914. Sidney Ellwood is half-Jewish, social, charismatic, demonstrative, loves and writes poetry. Henry Gaunt is half-German, intense, introverted, anxious, loves ancient Greek. (...I also have Feelings about characters who quote poetry. And, as it turns out, ancient Greek.) The two of them have strong and more-or-less repressed feelings for each other. (Gaunt's feelings are particularly repressed.)

But. It being 1914, it rapidly starts being about something else than boarding school.

I should probably also mention a huge, extremely gigantic content note for trench warfare and historical levels of wounds and death.

( no spoilers, perhaps mild meta-spoilers, but at least I am more-or-less coherent )

Major spoilers, starts reasonably coherent but rapidly devolves into word-vomiting

I was so sure that one or both of Elly and Gaunt would die because it struck me as That Kind of heartbreaking book plus which I guess I've been socialized to understand that Teh Gays Always Die (and Carruthers and Sandys died so early on!! :( :( ), and I really REALLY wanted them to have a happy ending, I can't actually think of the last time I've wanted that so much for a couple, and when they got together I felt like, okay, at least they got one happy time before one of them died! All I wanted was for someone somewhere to get some happiness in the end.

The only thing that surprised me was that Gaunt died when the book was only half over. (BURGOYNE.) I was sure then that the next half would be Ellwood writing poetry about him, like Tennyson, or like Sassoon. I was SO surprised when he turned out to have survived! And then my reaction was that the book was now going to find new and exciting ways to break me (true, but not in the way I thought), and I spent most of the second half of the book worried Gaunt would die in some other way, and expressed that I was never going to forgive Winn if Gaunt died, or Ellwood did, without Ellwood finding out that Gaunt was still alive.

I absolutely absolutely adored Hayes and his friendship with Gaunt and his more prickly friendship with Ellwood and the contrast between him and the public schoolboys (who always get promoted over him, the poor guy), and him looking after Ellwood (both physically and e.g. warning him away from Watts) even though he thought Ellwood was looking down on him. I was also convinced he was going to die because I loved him so much (I actually said that I thought he would make it to the end of the war and then die, just to spite me. I actually said this!) And he didn't die but he ended up with BOTH LEGS (or at least 1 1/2) gone! I was like. Winn. Could you not have left him ONE leg?! COME ON. I would rather Gaunt or Ellwood had lost their legs. HAYES.

(Also Hayes panicking to Ellwood and Ellwood trying very very badly to reassure him (no wonder Hayes doesn't want to write him), then Ellwood having that exact panic after he's invalided out, omg)

I absolutely loved that Elly was into poetry and used poetry to basically articulate his emotions (I do the same kind of thing -- a lot of how I understand the world is made up of quotations from novels and poems and songs; my head has been full of Sassoon and Owen writing this post) and that moment when he declaimed Keats at Gaunt and Gaunt had to accept that he was in love with him, except that was when Gaunt knew he was going to die, auuuuugh. And also when Elly lost his poetry and then -- that little glimpse of how he might be getting it back at the end -- auuuuuugh

And also Gaunt and his ancient Greek and how sometimes he just quotes in Greek and I love it

And also I love that Winn doesn't just give us the one side, when Gaunt gets captured by the Germans it's a very stark reminder that although we've been POV English, the English aren't the only ones dying in this war and that even if it's easy for the English soldiers not to see the German soldiers as people and vice versa, they both are. And Gaunt being half-German of course knew this from the beginning, which adds another layer. This line, augh: Had it not been for his khaki uniform, no one should have known he was the enemy.

(And that shattering German POV, for just a minute.)

And also the prisoner-of-war scenes which are almost comic, we needed some of that at that point in the book, and ALSO Pritchard and Devi totally being like oh, yeah, no big deal at all about Gaunt being an "invert," and making ordinary jokes about it like they would about anything else and being totally accepting, instead of all the rejection and awfulness Gaunt's been fearing (and might have gotten from someone else), and that healing something in Gaunt so that he can face his love for Elly and actually tell him that, and be okay with it even if Ellwood can't love him back, I LOVE THIS and I know it's absolutely wish-fulfillment, but we already saw the part where Caruthers basically committed suicide so he didn't have to deal with the terrible consequences of being homosexual (augh!), so yeeeeeah I didn't need that to happen again, that was quite all right.

And then I read the bit where Maud says she's not going to marry Elly and I was cheering for her and also thinking that okay, even if everyone else's life is messed up (I still worried that Ellwood and Gaunt wouldn't find each other again, at this point) maybe Maud is the one character things will work out for, because it would be awful if she married Ellwood

AND THEN THEY DID MEET AGAIN
And they were both so damaged! Except that Gaunt, having been in the POW camp instead of fighting for a while, had recovered a bit mentally if not physically, and Ellwood was completely broken, augh. I had not thought that they would have to deal with shell shock instead of death, but of course they did

And Maud and Gaunt making up, and Maud being supportive and Gaunt apologizing (he really has been awful to her) and them speaking in Greek to each other <3

This bit: "Sometimes I think the War is harder on parents than on soldiers," said Pritchard. Gaunt could tell he was lying, but Gaunt would have lied too, if he had thought of it. And then, having learned from Pritchard, he says it to Mrs. Ellwood AUUUUUGH

(I said this before, but, now that I have the spoilers to back me up: all the little moments of kindness between characters that didn't have to happen, but did anyway, are I think what make me so hopelessly a fan of this book)

I think as we get close to the ending my thoughts just get more and more incoherent as Winn breaks my heart over and over again and I hadn't at all thought it would be because things were more-or-less going to be okay except that they can't exactly be okay but they can be as okay as possible:
Devi being ALIVE
CYRIL ROSEVEARE giving them the Brazil out!

"You don't have to give me your answer now, of course," said Roseveare. "I've already written to my uncle about you, just in case--"
He didn't finish. They both knew what he meant: in case I'm killed before I can help you.

Also: KEATS
Gaunt giving Hayes a JOB (and not a job as his freaking valet, either, not that I don't love Lord Peter but... like, let's let Hayes have a little class mobility here, that's the LEAST we can do)
"I'm not playing, either."

I mean, the rational part of my brain knows that the book is doing a few backflips to give them an ending where they can be alive and together ~~and not be Alan Turing~~ (although hi I found while writing this post that Robert Graves actually had the experience of almost dying of a lung wound and being reported dead, like Gaunt, though not because he was a pow, so it's not like she's completely making UP backflips, either) but the rest of my brain does not really care -- I think because we saw all the ways in which things could go wrong, it's a little like Carruthers and Sandys ( :(((((( ) and Aldworth and the Roseveare brothers and Lantham and -- and everyone else -- are the other stories that didn't work, that ended tragically, so in a sense my brain thinks of it like survivor bias; not everyone did die in WWI, or even most of everyone; someone had to survive; it might as well be them.
And also because they didn't survive unscathed. At all. Either physically or mentally. Which also seems -- reasonable, statistically speaking.
Also because no one should be Alan Turing (including especially Alan Turing) and I don't at all mind a universe where my characters ARE NOT (now, can I have a fix-it AU for Turing)

Physically speaking: Sassoon (who admittedly did not get his face shot off) lived until age 81 and Graves lived until age 90 after getting shot in the lung, so my headcanon is that Ellwood and Gaunt lived a very long time together :P

And then that last, awful twist of the knife. OH COME ON, the book was DONE and we were all going to live happily (or at least hopefully) EVER AFTER and now the third Roseveare brother is dead (as he dreamed back in the beginning, that was a shoe I had been bracing to drop for forever and when I finally let my guard down...). (While I was reading about WWII poets... I guess this happened to Wilfred Owen. Augh!)

And the LAST PARAGRAPH which didn't even register for me the first time -- I might not have actually read it properly then, because I was too busy trying not to throw the book across the room because Cyril was dead: Let us, like the soldiers of Waterloo, have our century of peace and prosperity, for we have paid for it in blood.

:(
Well, I'm thinking about that a lot this week.

( Here, have the Sassoon poem 'They', because it's been rattling around in my head for days now )

And I suppose reading this book, now, is: well: I think this should be required reading for anyone who tells the old Lie: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.

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The Jewish War: First half of Book 5

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 03:51:31 GMT

Happy day-after-Easter!

Last week: Eyeliner shows that the Zealot faction is really bad! (No, really!) The Year of the Four Emperors, and those emperors discussed. Nero and his end. Lord Hervey of Frederician salon makes a surprise appearance!

This week: Titus attacks Jerusalem, but the factions have already done a lot of the work for him...

Next week: Rest of book 5!

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The Jewish War: Second half of Book 4

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 05:01:11 GMT

Last week: Mass suicide (canonical), Constantinople (not present in canon), pro-surrender factions, the translation of "bandits/terrorists/troublemakers" (apparently "lestes" in Greek). Anyone familiar with the Talmud want to weigh in about the question of marrying a raped-by-a-Roman woman in Jewish society?

This week: Jerusalem continues to be torn apart by various factions. Simon son of Gioras makes his appearance. The Year of the Four Emperors happens, with Vespasian finally making his bid for emperor.

Next week: Half of book 5? To where? From selenak: until the tale of Kastor duping Titus has concluded: “…for they believed nothing but that their opponents had thrown themselves into the fire."

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The Jewish War: First half of Book 4

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 03:51:30 GMT

Last week: Josephus really hypes Vespasian up! Galilee is also very nice! Discussion of Josephus' prophecy of Vespasian, both in Josephus and in Feuchtwanger's novelization, with detours into Antonia and Caenis.

This week: Internal strife in Jerusalem! Lots of internal strife!

Next week: Last half of book 4.

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Thu, 19 Mar 2026 03:50:28 GMT

This last weekend was a lot, church-and-music-wise. All good!

( Organ workshop, youth orchestra, stake conference music, stake leadership change )

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The Jewish War: Book 3

Mon, 16 Mar 2026 05:48:50 GMT

Last week: The Jews are basically in an abusive relationship with Rome and have no good options; they choose the particular bad option of picking a war with Rome that they can't win. The Romans are terrible. Also continuing discussion here about Britannicus, Messalina, and the Praetorians.

This week: Vespasian comes down like a ton of bricks. That whole !!!! part of Josephus happens, where he gets stuck in the cave with a bunch of others and invents and wins the Josephus problem (well, in the text it says they draw lots, so he doesn't actually really cite what developed into the problem) (*) and surrenders to the Romans once he and another guy are the only ones left, and prophesies to Vespasian that he will become emperor. (selenak: Is it Feuchtwanger's invention to add the nomenclature of Messiah in there too? That definitely... upped the ante.)

(I'll comment more on this tomorrow -- I got done with the reading late and obviously barely got this written.)

Next week: first part of book 4, to "Despite the Zealotes didn't exactly behave as if they disbelieved the prophecies, they themselves contributed to their fulfillment" (Josephus describing the Zealotes as the worst!) (388)

(*) E. wanted to know what I was reading, so I told her about the Josephus problem, and she said, "Real-world applications of math!"

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Operation Mincemeat (books and musical)

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 04:03:50 GMT

idek, I am continuing to fall so hard for the musical of Operation Mincemeat in a way that I sometimes do with theater-plus-music but haven't done for a while (I think the last time I got so fannish about something like this was Don Carlo(s) but for completely different reasons; hey, I can't really predict these things). There are clearly a lot of reasons (okay so yeah the whole hot-charismatic-women-in-suits thing is definitely still a thing), but one of them has to do with the tension between what is actually happening in the musical (a comedy/farce but with a lot of strong feelings bubbling under the surface) and what is happening on a meta level, as it's the kind of musical that cheerfully plays with semi-breaking the fourth wall whenever it feels like it, and the very nature of the way all five actors have to continually interlock and sing together in different combinations and switch from being in conflict to being in sync or vice versa gives a very strong meta vibe of teamwork/found-family.

Operation Mincemeat (Macintyre) -- so I read it! about the actual historical operation using a corpse with faked invasion plans to fool the Nazis, and it was very good and I don't feel like writing it up properly, so, here, instead, have a few totally random things that may or may not make sense:

- the part that I found most compelling was the bit about Baron Alexis von Roenne, whom I had never heard of before but who was Hitler's favorite intelligence analyst and who seems to have been quite intelligent and cautious, and also who wrote a report basically saying, "welp, so, these random invasion plans, found by our not-known-for-detail-or-for-incorruption guys, and which additionally haven't really been examined at all for, say, any kind of counter-espionage tells, contain information that is CLEARLY ALL TOTALLY TRUE." It turns out that he actually had become anti-Nazi and by 1943 "was deliberately passing information he knew to be false, directly to Hitler's desk," and although von Roenne (understandably) did not leave any actual documentation, Macintyre thinks it is very very possible that von Roenne did not believe a word of the Mincemeat faked papers... but... figured he might as well help out the British in their far-fetched plot. As far as I can tell from Macintyre, Hitler did not actually find out about the part where he was passing false information, but he was friends with the guy who tried to assassinate Hitler in July 1944, which unfortunately was enough reason for him to be executed horribly in October of that year. :(

- Macintyre mentioned that in the documentation, Glyndwr Michael, the man whose body lent itself to the Mincemeat deception of the "man who never was," ("Bill Martin") was considered a suicide by rat poison, but Macintyre postulated that it was just as possible that it was an accident, e.g. if Michael had gotten hungry enough to eat poison-laced bait. And I rather appreciate -- which I am sure is 100% intentional -- that the musical lyrics say "This homeless chap in Croydon / Accidentally ate rat poison."

- I found it absolutely hilarious that the musical scene switching between Ewen Montagu and Charles Cholmondeley partying and the seriousness of the submarine going to Spain to release the body is actually something Macintyre spells out! (They did not do a bar crawl as in the musical, but rather attended the theatre with the tickets used to flesh out Bill's cover story, with dates, one of which was Jean Leslie.) No wonder they wanted to make a musical of this!

Finding Hester (Edwards) -- I also read this, on the recommendation of troisoiseaux and nnozomi. This was just really sweet! And I super appreciated reading it after the Macintyre. It's a love letter to the power of internet fan groups who can Find Things Out -- here, they tracked down Hester Leggatt (who was first erroneously called Hester Leggett), the MI5 secretary who wrote Bill's love letters, and found out who she was and a lot of cool things about her life, including that she was not the embittered spinster that Macintyre portrays her as, nor the long-bereaved-fiancee that you might think from watching the musical, but someone who had a rich social life and a long-term lover (who was married, and it sounds like they may have eventually separated because he wouldn't divorce his wife). And who wrote a lot of letters! <3 It's a great counterpoint to Macintyre's book and a good reminder that people, in general, are more lovely and complicated and multi-faceted than they look, and than they might come across in a cursory first glance at their life.

I had to laugh at this bit near the end of the book:

The story of Operation Mincemeat seems to be cursed to carry with it inaccuracies and mistakes in books, articles, documentaries and any other form of media that features it. It even continues into media about the musical now, with articles continually getting things wrong regarding the writers, the actors or the show itself. Perhaps it is simply a matter of us now knowing far too much about the musical and having accidentally become Hester Leggatt experts, and the errors on these subjects specifically stick out to us. Maybe every book and article out there is wrong at least once, and we just don't have the knowledge to pick up on it.

I am here to tell you courtesy of salon, or at least selenak and mildred_of_midgard are here to tell you, that last sentence is true!

On the musical itself: I have been listening to the soundtrack somewhat nonstop in the car, and this means my poor A. has also been listening to it somewhat nonstop. He is not particularly a fan of the musical, but now he recognizes a lot of the lines... Anyway, so, this happened:

There's a song, "Making a Man," where the MI5 team is talking about constructing and describing the persona of the fictitious-man-behind-the-corpse who will be used in Operation Mincemeat. The first time it came on in the car when A. was there, he had his own thoughts on it:

Montagu: A mind that is stronger than iron
A: Alan Turing!
Montagu: That shines like a light in the dark
A: Yep!
Montagu: And a body that could wrestle a lion
A: ...never mind.

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The Jewish War: Second half of Book 2

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 05:09:41 GMT

Last week: Lots of discussion of various contemporary Roman emperors and their families: Claudius, Agrippina, Nero, Britannicus. Quinctilius Varus and Arminius make an appearance as well. Also Josephus wants to tell you ALL about the Essenes, and none of us knows why but maybe we will find out sometime in the future?? (ugh, I haven't finished replying to comments yet on this either, sorry! -- hopefully will get to that tomorrow)

This week: The Jewish war starts! It's a mess. We do finally meet our hero Josephus, who is just the most heroic, clever, and brave guy. (Probably devilishly handsome too, although this is admittedly not in the text.)

Next week: where shall we read to in Book 3? ETA: All of book 3 for this week!

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Love Dramedy (Fairbanks)

Thu, 05 Mar 2026 05:03:15 GMT

Hey so remember I talked about Lyssa Fairbanks' first book, Love Medley, about med school romance hijinks? Her second book is now out: Love Dramedy. Signed hard copy available here (immediately) and ebook available here (pre-orders will be delivered March 5).

Love Dramedy is about the same group of med school friends as Love Medley and is F/F and I love it a lot.

Isabelle Sutton has always been "the pretty one" and always feels like she needs to prove that she's good enough for med school, which is getting harder as she has not been doing well on her med school exams -- and she needs a project to help her show that she's a good residency candidate. Trix Winstead is a neurodiverse software CEO who is just coming off of a friends-with-benefits relationship that imploded spectacularly, leaving behind a scandal for her company -- and needs a project to help her rehabilitate her company's reputation. You'll never guess what happens next! (You have guessed. Yes. Well, you might not have guessed about the hot lesbian bar encounter/one-night stand that happens first, but there's that too, it's great!)

I love Trix's spectrum-ish self, and Isabelle is a sweetheart. And I really like about Lyssa's writing how it's not just about the romance, but also about the friends and the story.

As for Love Medley, I was one of the major betas for this book. And also as for that one, please don't talk publicly about Lyssa's real name or how I know her :)

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Tue, 03 Mar 2026 05:42:30 GMT

Time to update on the kiddos! ( Screen time; E's classes; math competitions; A's school is not visibly a dumpster fire which is I guess progress; A is growing up )

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The Jewish War: First half of Book 2

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 05:14:29 GMT

Last week: Discussion on how Herod stacked up against various Roman emperors in terms of body count of his nearest and dearest; how Friedrich Wilhelm might hear the Josephus text; Herod throwing money around; Cleopatra!

This week: ...uhhhh there was a lot going on and I haven't actually finished the reading yet *ducks* -- I am doing that right now and I should most likely be able to comment tomorrow. (I don't anticipate this being a problem again for at least two more months, and most likely not then either; this was a confluence of various time sinks that doesn't usually happen all at the same time.) But I wanted to go ahead and get the post up because I know you guys have read it... (ETA: have finished the reading now :P :) )

Next week: finishing up Book 2!

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The Jewish War: Second half of Book 1

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 03:07:07 GMT

Last week: Some really interesting discussions on (among other things) Caesar Augustus, the temple in Egypt, and the destruction of the temple (in Jerusalem) as divine punishment and also free will.

This week: More Herod! Definitely went quite a bit faster than last week! Featuring lots and lots of family drama... the kind that includes a ton of bloodshed. I'll talk more about it in comments.

Next week: selenak can you give us a halfway point for Book 2? It looks a bit shorter but I'm also going to be crunched for time next week (and definitely won't be able to post until Sunday) so half a book is what it's going to have to be! ETA: Death of Emperor Claudius!

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Education meme

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 22:50:10 GMT

Educational meme from thistleingrey (also seen at a couple of other places under lock). I've answered for both my sister and myself (generally similar answers, sometimes not), as well as for my kids. (Will eventually lock.)
( Cut for length )

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The Jewish War: First half of Book 1

Sun, 15 Feb 2026 06:35:40 GMT

I am super not promising to always have this on Saturday, but yay long weekend!

Last week: I know some of you reading this study Talmud -- Josephus asserts at the very beginning that the "sufferings of the Jews" (presumably, in context of Josephus' writing, Titus destroying the temple, etc. though we won't get there for a while) are their own fault: "no foreign power is to blame." It was pointed out that the Talmud may (?) have its own opinion(s) as to whether the destruction of the Temple and the resulting diaspora was divine punishment? And regardless of the former, may also blame Titus? (I also don't know yet, because we haven't gotten there yet and won't for a while, whether Josephus himself thinks it's divine punishment or just plain old temporal consequences. My vague recollection of Feuchtwanger's Josephus is that he was thinking more of the latter, which is also very much borne out by this week's reading.)

This week: First half of Book 1 (Ch 22 / Par 444):

Okay, I must say the first part of this was a slog for me -- flitting between a lot of people I didn't know. Good thing we have this reading group or I might not have got through it. As it was, I had to take copious notes to even make a stab at writing up a summary (I won't promise I'll do this every week, but I had a little extra time and quite frankly I knew I wouldn't remember who any of these people were next week if I didn't), and I'm going to put them in comments so this post doesn't get super long. At least Josephus felt it was "inappropriate to go into the early history of the Jews," which would have made it really long. Anyway, it got substantially more interesting once Herod showed up!

Next week: Finish book 1.

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The Jewish War: Preface

Mon, 09 Feb 2026 03:12:27 GMT

This week: All right! As a preface to Josephus Book Club, I am just reading the preface this week and we will do a bigger chunk starting this next week (see below). The preface is just a few pages long (I'm reading up until what in Oxford is paragraph 30, "All of these contents are set forth in seven books... I shall now begin my narrative as indicated at the start of my summary.")

I'm sure you all will have deeper things to say than I do about this, but wow I am just amused by how Josephus just starts out pulling no punches about how annoying and inferior he thinks the other historians are. (The footnote to The historians of this war fall into two categories... hearsay... or distort the facts namechecks Justus, who featured prominently as a frenemy in Feuchtwanger's Josephus trilogy.) I do like his logic in saying, hey, if you want to make the Romans look good, why make the Jewish side look feeble? Also his logic in saying, hey, actually, it makes more sense to be writing contemporary accounts for which one has eyewitnesses, as opposed to writing about ancient history "as if the ancient historians had failed to give their own accounts sufficient finesse," lol. (Although I guess that is what academic historians do!)

Titus Caesar is also namechecked, lookin' good.

The footnotes also say that historiographical writers generally claimed impartiality, so Josephus talking about his personal feelings of sorrow here is atypical, which I thought was interesting.

In fact, looking over the whole sweep of history, I would say that the sufferings of the Jews have been greater than those of any other nation -- and no foreign power is to blame. Oooooof. I guess that's a good tagline to pique interest in the book, though...

(I'm really glad I read Feuchtwanger's Josephus books first to orient myself, though!)

Next week: We'll start Book 1! selenak advised that we read up to Herod the Great's killing his favorite wife. My Oxford edition has "verse"/paragraph numbers but not chapter numbers as selenak's has, but I think (selenak, please let me know if this is incorrect) in my edition the idea is to read up to paragraph 443/444: Maddened by unbridled jealousy, Herod ordered the immediate execution of them both. Remorse quickly followed rage: his anger subsided, and his love was rekindled. The heat of his desire for her was so intense that he could not believe she was dead...

WELL ALL RIGHT THEN. I can see we have lots of sensationalistic gossip ahead of us!

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An Academic Affair (McAlister)

Mon, 09 Feb 2026 03:08:38 GMT

thistleingrey mentioned that it was a solid depiction of academia and characters in academia, which immediately piqued my interest. I have read Ali Hazelwood's The Love Hypothesis and enjoyed it, and I know Hazelwood is in academia, but I sometimes thought... well, let's just say that it's a romance between a grad student and the young hotshot professor in her department, and... okay... that part... is totally realistic actually... but I feel like I kind of got stuck a lot in all my feelings about the potential deep pitfalls. Hypothesis was also, I think, much more concerned with primarily being a romance novel and secondarily a novel about academia.

Anyway, this is unabashedly a romance novel, complete with marriage-of-convenience and sometimes even the one-bed trope, but without any particular kinks like professor/student :P But the thing that makes it interesting (to me) is that it's at least as interested in both the experiences of the precariat (*) and also familial relationships as it is in the romance itself. In fact, it does not have a conventional romantic Act 3; here the Act 3, as well as the understandable but frustrating misunderstandings that prolong it, is passed squarely on to the familial relationships rather than the romantic ones. Which I personally really like!

The two main characters, Jonah and Sadie, are adorably academics. (**) I laughed out loud when Jonah said, "I'm all for radically revised gender roles in the heteronormative institution of marriage, but I should still pay for my wife's engagement ring," if only because I've never heard anyone else talk that way in a romance novel -- though if you have, please rec it to me. (Their engagement is the aforementioned engagement-of-convenience and the ring is $27.99, I hasten to append, and she pays for his ring.) (lol, I think I actually paid for my engagement ring, because it was an important transaction involving me and an important piece of jewelry -- what?)

Anyway, I rarely like romance novels, but I liked this one!

(*) I did not know the term precariat: the precarious proletariat, that insecure class of unstable work and low wages -- but I was familiar at least by reputation with the academic pre-tenure-track life that the term describes, in the sense that it is one of the many reasons why I did not pursue academia

(**) Jonah likes using footnotes; I guess your mileage may vary but I found it adorable, perhaps inevitably

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Operation Mincemeat (mostly the musical)

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 05:07:55 GMT

okay, I was not expecting to have quite SO MANY feelings about Operation Mincemeat, the musical, but indeed I do. (I have listened to the cast recording about seventy times and have not been able to see it live, though I, uh. Have now seen it, see end of post.) I don't think I have had so many strong feelings about a musical since Hamilton, only in many ways they are wildly different feelings?? Hamilton is a fancy big-chorus-dancing musical that is concerned predominantly with valorizing a particular hero (Alexander Hamilton) in a eh-mostly-historical way while offering up somewhat revisionist-considerations of some of the other US's famous Founding Fathers, with a major thematic concern of race, but which adheres to pretty standard gender considerations. OM is a budget-vibe musical starring five people who are both the big parts and the chorus, that is concerned predominantly with both rather revisionist-considerations, in a mostly-historical-fiction way, of a particular type of hero (a heavily fictionalized Ewen Montagu) who is known for his part in the WWII shenanigans of Operation Mincemeat, while at the same time offering up larger parts to people who were not at all famous, with a major thematic concern of gender.

( Starting with: There are FIVE people in the cast! )

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The Jewish War read-along (or: Classics Post #2)

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 05:05:29 GMT

Our beloved problematic author, Flavius Josephus, with the wild plot twist in the middle! Is anyone still interested in doing this thing?

I have the Oxford World Classics edition; I looked around and I liked this translation, and it's got copious footnotes. Each "book" is a little less than 100 pages on my kindle, and I think I can probably read about 50 pages every week (we can see how it goes and whether I can go faster or must go slower), so I propose dividing the first "book" into two, and reading half one week and half the next. (I did read the intro this past week, but I'm not sure how much I got out of it.) selenak, would you be able to find a good dividing point of that first book? My goal would be to post every weekend (probably on Sunday, but depending on time) on the reading thereof.

I also feel I should open up this post for general classics discussion if anyone wants it. Depending on how my reading goes I also reserve the right in this post to review whatever other random classics-related or modern-historical-novels-set-in-the-time-of-the-classics reading I do.

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Don Carlo (Vienna 2024)

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 06:31:24 GMT

okay I had SO many feelings about this 2024 Vienna Don Carlo. Watching another whole Don Carlo in early 2026 was not actually in my plans (having watched lots of bits and pieces in late 2025), but uh I may have written a fic involving a fictional staging of this opera that doubled the role of Posa, and then Ladybug_21 mentioned that they'd heard of a production with doubles of all the historical characters -- meaning not Posa but the other main characters -- and of course I had to go find it. I am here to report that it is this absolutely wild regie modern AU that I adored and found completely riveting. Those of you who dislike regie would greatly dislike it (although the singing is great, consider listening to the audio) and those of you who like regie would quite enjoy it, I think. The director is Kirill Serebrennikov, and now I want to see any opera he ever does. I found the staging (with a couple of exceptions) a rather coherent and fascinating concept.

(So as to put this outside of the cut: this is the 4-act version. Joshua Guerrero is Carlo, Étienne Dupuis is Rodrigo, Roberto Tagliavini is Filippo, Asmik Grigorian is Elisabetta, and Eve-Maud Hubeaux is Eboli. I had not heard or watched any of them except Dupuis, but I thought all of them were great, the singing was just gorgeous and their acting is wonderful too. I am really loving the modern trend of opera singers being great actors.)

( I went in unspoiled except for the above and LOVED being unspoiled, so I'm putting all of this under cut, just in case -- spoilers for the entire production. )But tl;dr: I did feel like the updating of the setting did drive home what an opera of big themes and big emotions Don Carlo is, and how the relationships (except for Filippo-Rodrigo, in this production) drive the big emotions that drive the opera. (Interestingly, the singers don't touch very much; Rodrigo and Carlo do a little, and Elisabetta and Carlo touch hands very briefly in their last duet, and then of course embrace right before Filippo walks in -- but as opposed to that heartbreaking Bastille Don Carlos I saw, it still all works without the touching, and just highlights how our society is much less touchy-feely than it could be.

I really liked it, and I was both thinking about it days later and humming little bits of the score.

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Black Ships (Graham)

Fri, 16 Jan 2026 04:05:35 GMT

This book, via selenak, was just very relevant to my interests and I adored it so much! It's one of those books that I didn't really want to end. It's a retelling of the Aeneid from the point of view of the Sybil, with nods towards making it Bronze-Age historically plausible.

Gull begins her life as the daughter of a slave in Pylos, and is apprenticed to the Pythia, the oracle of the Lady of the Dead, becoming Pythia herself when the current Pythia dies. After Troy (here called Wilusa) is sacked for the second time, the black ships of the Wilusan prince Aeneas and the remnants of his people land in Pylos to try to capture back some of their people who had been slaves (including Gull's mother, though by that time she has died). When they depart, Gull/Pythia goes with them as their Sybil on their sea adventures as the People search for a home...

I just really loved so many things about this, starting with that retellings of epic poems are always my jam. I loved Gull/Pythia and the way in which centering her and her experiences centers the lived experience of the women of Wilusa. I loved the way that Aeneas and the Wilusans are portrayed as refugees, because that's what they are. I loved that the gods, while they do appear on the edges, are mysterious beings that may be real and may be wholly belief; and that they aren't toddler-level petty and vindictive like in the Aeneid. I loved how Pythia and Xandros had that sort of fealty-love thing going with Aeneas, uh, not that this is a hardcore thing I love or anything.

Of course I was very curious about how Dido would be portrayed, even without knowing (as Graham says in her afterword) that Carthage didn't... actually... exist during this time period, so that Aeneas & Dido would have to at the very least be revamped. ( Mild thematic spoilers. )

One of the things that's really interesting here is the through-line of how the world is getting worse, piracy is getting worse, civilization is crumbling. Gull/Pythia can see that all of this is getting worse during her journeys with the black ships, and has gotten worse since the previous Pythia's days. And yet, as the reader knows, and as Pythia comes to dimly see, the arc of civilization since that time will curve upwards, and Aeneas will be part of that. (And I find this a somewhat comforting thought in some ways...)

I'm rather impressed that this was Graham's first book, which I had no idea about until I finished and went looking for more books by her! Occasionally there may have been a tiny bit of unevenness, but it just manages to weave together so many things in a way that I admired so much, and I thought it was extremely strong, much less as a debut! Sooooo now I'm gonna reread Judith Tarr's Lord of the Two Lands to get myself in a proper Alexander mood, and then I shall go on to read Graham's Stealing Fire :D

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Simulant and synthetic diamonds (and others)

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 01:42:21 GMT

So I'm going to talk about one of my major fandoms (that I don't usually talk about here), shiny things, because I can! (I started this post more than a month ago and it is high time to actually finish and post it.) In particular, I want to talk about diamond simulants and lab diamonds (although there's also very recently been some cool stuff about lab sapphires too). The funny thing is, I've never been a super fan of diamonds in general. I mean, I'm not going to say no to them! they are very shiny, and they have some cool dispersion (splits light into component colors, like a prism, so you get little rainbow flashes if it's cut well), and I love that they're super hard and come in octahedral crystals, but I have always been a colored stones kind of kid. But! In the last ten years there have been a ton of developments in this fandom relating to diamond simulants and lab diamonds, which I think is very neat.

First I want to define what I'm talking about.
Natural diamonds / earth-mined diamonds are diamonds that occur naturally in the Earth's crust and are mined from the ground.
Diamond simulants are not diamonds, but other substances that look enough like diamonds that they are used in jewelry that might otherwise use diamonds. I'll talk about cubic zirconia and moissanite as diamond simulants later on.
Synthetic diamonds / lab diamonds are chemically identical (*) to natural diamonds but are made in a lab.

( Apologies if you happen to love diamonds, but I find the whole natural diamond thing kind of obnoxious in several ways. )

( Brief discussion of cubic zirconia, and the rise of moissanite )

( The rise of lab diamonds )

( Lab ruby/sapphire: Some recent cool news on the lab sapphire front )

( Photos )

(*) There are little things that can be different, so generally speaking lab diamonds can be distinguished from natural diamonds by a laboratory, but basically they're both made of carbon and look identical, especially if you have the same "grades" in one as another.
(**) When I refer to "carat" in the context of diamond simulants in particular, I will always be referring to "size of an ideal-cut diamond," which is about 6.5mm in diameter for a round diamond. Simulants will have different weights than a carat, of course, but generally the industry refers to a "1 ct moissanite" as something that mimics a 1 ct diamond, even though the corresponding cubic zirconia will actually be heavier than a carat and the corresponding moissanite will be lighter! Of course, "carat" when referring to colored stones just directly means the weight of that stone.
(+) www.diamondcz.co.uk came along in 2004, importing well-cut cz from China, and took well-cut cz from a relatively expensive niche market to super cheap!
(***) And even less (<~$300/ct last I looked) if you're willing to deal with Chinese companies directly -- it turns out there are whole subreddits devoted to both moissanite and lab diamonds that have instructions on this.
(****) Also emerald and garnet! Lab emerald in particular is a very big thing, very popular these days among people who buy lab gems, though emerald is not as much my thing so I don't know as much about it. Lab garnet can also be doped to get a lot of different colors, which is fun. Emeralds can't be made by the super cheap processes so they've taken a couple of decades longer to get cheap enough to be popular, but nowadays you can easily get them cheaply.

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