I'd plead being busy, or being sick, but honestly I should be used to both by now. So, in the interest of a certain level of upfront disclosure: I really, really like sleeping.
I have done things, though! I've read two novels in the past...five days?...or so, and I've been assured by both professors who assigned them that finishing either is a commendable task. I actually didn't find Manhattan Transfer as tedious as I was told it would be. Mysteries of Udolpho, however, would pretty much literally be about two hundred pages shorter with half the scenery description cut. Yes, Ms. Radcliffe. I get it. The French countryside is pretty. Can we move on to the kidnapping, please? ...okay, you can describe the Italian countryside for another dozen pages first. And then a five page poem. Is Valancourt ever going to actually do anything? (SPOILER ALERT: He doesn't.)
I confess to skipping most of the poetry. Not that I don't like verse, but...I like some verse; odes and sonnets to sea-nymphs, trees, and bats can only go so far with me.
However, I digress somewhat. There are enough nerds writing book reviews online* without me helping out too much.
Over the weekend, besides reading, I also headed into Colchester downtown with Kersten (a German exchange student who, like me, has Fridays off class). It was cold and a bit windy, but otherwise not bad for walking around, assuming you hadn't, like an ass, left your hat in your wardrobe.
Kersten and I, after spending way too long in the visitors' centre looking at maps and souvenirs, headed to the Colchester Castle. Which is a museum. In a castle. But it's a very little castle -- the sort built of rubble as well as brick, and a tower that doesn't loom so much as it stretches a bit. But it's still a castle.
Unfortunately, I was a little disappointed with the museum itself. Part of this was due to plain old bad timing; Friday afternoons are common times for local field trips, and there were three elementary classes wandering about. And this is, as I sad, a very little castle, and the museum is restricted to but a portion of it. Result? It was more than a bit loud. However, the main source of my disappoint lay in the approach the museum took. It focused nigh-exclusively on the Roman occupation of Colchester. Boudica's uprising had a decent section, but this also focused mostly on the Romans she attacked. Also, the most prominent image of her displayed was an enlarged screenshot from the movie. The Anglo-Saxons, who came after the Romans, were relegated to two small sections of shelving and relatively little explanation of their culture or influence. Even a "We don't know much about the impact of the Anglo-Saxons" etc, etc would have been appreciated. Of course, I'm Viking-mad and terribly difficult to please on that front. Also, to be fair, the Romans left the most interesting (to the general public) and most numerous artifacts.
I would have disregarded the bias completely, though, if I hadn't also been struck by what I found to be a lack of respect toward the space they were using. In a few places, tucked away in corners of exhibits, were wrapped pieces obviously in storage, not display. Again, mostly ignorable and could be chalked up to poor planning.
Except one of those "corners" was a cell-made-memorial to a Quaker who had been imprisoned in Colchester Castle for his faith, and died in that cell. And now it was storage -- like it wasn't considered part of the museum, like it wasn't really worth viewing.
That really, really bothered me. While it seems to be typical in England for memorial to live alongside the everyday, I had not yet seen memorial completely disregarded. Treating such an exhibit with so little respect, in my opinion, borders on outright insult. Persecution based on faith is an ugly part of every nation's history -- but that doesn't mean it can or should be ignored. I suppose it is easy to forget that the people who lived one hundred, two hundred. . .one thousand years ago were still people. To, perhaps, a vast majority, it is difficult to consider these people as any more than a faceless name on a plaque.
(I do still recommend the museum for visitors to Colchester -- most especially if you have kids who might get antsy during a tour of a larger facility. There are also several kid-friendly, touchable exhibits, including sets of costumes and mirrors for modeling them.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*See, it's funny because I also have written a few pieces for The Internet Review of Books.
No comments:
Post a Comment