Maskerade by Terry Pratchett

published 1995

[Two witches are visiting a dress shop in Ankh-Morpork, prior to a visit to the opera]

‘My friend here wants a new dress,’ said the dumpier of the two. ‘One of the nobby ones with a train and a padded bum.’

‘In black,’ said the thin one.

‘And we wants all the trimmings,’ said the dumpy one. ‘Little handbag onna string, pair of glasses onna stick, the whole thing.’ 

Madame Dawning [said] ‘This is rather a select dress shop.’

‘That’s why we’re here. We don’t want rubbish. My name’s Nanny Ogg and this here is … Lady Esmerelda Weatherwax.’…

The dress was black. At least, in theory it was black. It was black in the same way that a starling’s wing is black. It was black silk, with jet beads and sequins. It was black on holiday.

‘It looks about my size. We’ll take it… And now we’ll go back into the shop and have a poke around for the other stuff,’ said Lady Esmerelda. ‘I fancy ostrich feathers myself. And one of those big cloaks the ladies wear. And one of those fans edged with lace.’

‘Why don’t we get some great big diamonds while we’re about it?’ said Nanny Ogg sharply.

‘Good idea.’

[This 2nd picture would have been an ideal illustration for Granny Weatherwax if it hadn’t already been used on the blog to stand in for Molly Bloom (quite the classical singer herself) in Joyce’s Ulysses.]

observations: It would take a long time to explain what Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax are planning at the opera tonight: the best thing is to read the book. In this entry on another of his books, we explain why Terry Pratchett is so good, and so worth reading.

Maskerade is a wide-ranging satirical take on opera, musical theatre (particularly Phantom of the Opera), and ballet dancers (‘half a dozen of the[m] sharing a stick of celery and giggling…they’re all half-crazed with hunger’). The operas are called Lohenshaak and La Triviata, and the splendid jokes and sharp remarks keep coming and coming.

The two witches want to travel by coach:

‘Have you got any special low terms for witches?’

‘Yeah, how about “meddling, interfering old baggages”?’

In a nice touch, Nanny Ogg has a witch’s hat that performs like an opera hat:

She pulled out a flat, round black shape and banged it against her arm. The point shot out. After a few adjustments her official hat was almost as good as new.

There’s a mystery to be solved, and it’s not bad, with a touch of GK Chesterton’s Fr Brown (‘…to be seen and not noticed…’) and a funny bit about recognizing the Ghost: ‘Good grief! You can recognize him because he’s got a mask on?’

The top picture (from the Library of Congress) is of opera singer Anna Fitziu – in fact Granny Weatherwax needs to look like an opera patron, someone who will make a donation, but the clothes look right.

Links on the blog: Pratchett looks at equally serious and important entertainers in the clowns’ funeral scene in Men at Arms. Real-life opera singers (though possibly not less extraordinary than TP’s) here and here. Plenty of other witches - Eastwick, Christie, Halloween, Pendle...

Westwood by Stella Gibbons

published 1946  chapter 4

[Margaret has found a rationbook belonging to Hebe Niland, and is going to return it]

Margaret walked quickly, wondering if her clothes were suitable, and then scornfully telling herself that even if she did see Alexander Niland he wouldn’t notice what she was wearing, and then remembering that he was a painter and would naturally notice everything. She had tied her hair with the velvet bow and put on a dark-brown suit with a yellow and crimson handkerchief knotted under her chin, and her shoes and stockings were heavy and good, as were the shoes and stockings of most girls in England in those days. Her heart beat faster than usual and she was almost trembling; so much of her craving for a more beautiful and satisfying life took the form of wanting to meet interesting people that the possibility of meeting one, however briefly, excited her painfully…

Hebe must be his wife, or perhaps his sister? No, she seemed to remember that he had painted several portraits of his wife. Hebe Niland. It was a strange name and Margaret thought it a beautiful one. Someone with that name started with an advantage lacked by someone named Margaret Steggles.

observations: Claire Messud’s The Woman Upstairs (entry last week) reminded me of this book – Margaret, leading a limited life in wartime London, is pulled into the lives of the Bohemian, arty and very grand Niland and Challis familes, through the chance of finding the rationbook. She is totally exploited by them – they are absurd, pretentious and selfish, but they are all too clear-eyed about Margaret. Everyone is horrified when Gerard Challis says that one of the servants has a slave mentality ‘she has enjoyed giving her life to us, you know’, but really their attitude to Margaret is much the same. And the truth is that – like Nora in The Woman Upstairs, like Frances in Alys, Always – she wants a way in to the family, and if helping out means she gets it, then fine by her. (Though Nora and Margaret could learn a thing or two from Frances.)

You can’t help feeling that poor Margaret’s plight would have been much eased if television had been available to her. Her home life is awful:

Mrs Steggles settled down with some fancywork …. and the daughter read in silence. A great dreariness filled Margaret’s heart.

If only they could have watched Strictly together in those long uncomfortable evenings, Margaret would not have had to go out stalking. She and her new friend Zita are sooo turning into Barbara Pym heroines by the end of the book (see here on the blog for Pym’s stalkers in nice cardis and comfortable shoes).

The book is so intriguing that it’s going to need another entry, later this week.

Links on the blog: Hebe Niland wears a hat that is ‘nothing but a huge black and white flower.’ New York hat fashion at the time was obviously exactly the same: see this entry for details.

The picture is from the Imperial War Museum’s wonderful collection of photos from the period – this is from the Ministry of Information, showing utility clothes.

Dress Down Sunday: N or M? by Agatha Christie

published 1941 chapter 2

LOOKING AT WHAT GOES ON UNDER THE CLOTHES

[Tommy and Tuppence Beresford are working undercover and discussing their noms de guerre]

[Tommy said] ‘But why Blenkensop?’

‘Why not?’

‘It seems such an odd name to choose.’

‘It was the first one I thought of and it’s handy for underclothes.’

‘What do you mean, Tuppence?’

‘B, you idiot. B for Beresford. B for Blenkensop. Embroidered on my camiknickers. Patricia Blenkensop. Prudence Beresford. Why did you choose Meadowes? It’s a silly name.’

‘To begin with,’ said Tommy, ‘I don’t have large B’s embroidered on my pants. And to continue, I didn’t choose it. I was told to call myself Meadowes. Mr Meadowes is a gentleman with a respectable past–all of which I’ve learnt by heart.’

‘Very nice,’ said Tuppence. ‘Are you married or single?’

‘I’m a widower,’ said Tommy with dignity. ‘My wife died ten years ago at Singapore.’

observations: Last week Clothes in Books was wondering about step ins - ‘as opposed to what?’ we wondered. One of the blog’s favourite followers, the knowledgeable costume expert Ken Nye (contributed to Anne Boleyn, Shepperton Babylon, Nijinsky, and Doris Keane…) spoke up: as opposed to camiknickers, ‘which would have dropped over the head and buttoned between the legs.’ It’s obvious when it’s pointed out.

Robert Barnard rightly describes Tommy and Tuppence as everyone’s least-favourite Christie sleuths (at one point Tuppence says ‘Sometimes I feel that we never were any use,’ and the reader nods sagely). Here they are looking for spies in a seaside resort during the Second World War – see this earlier entry for the strange story of how the book brought Christie under suspicion herself.

Tuppence is described as having ‘twittered’ in the book, though this means her annoying talking – she would no doubt claim she has put it on for cover, but the reader knows better. She does, however, tell someone

Cut out the compliments…I’m admiring myself a good deal, so there’s no need for you to chime in.

---and her daughter at one point is nervous that her mother is going to be unfaithful to the dreary Tommy, doing something described as ‘off weekending with someone’. If only.

At one point she is threatened with torture by dental instruments, just like Marathon Man, only 30 years earlier.

It is interesting and surprising that her underwear is monogrammed – books of the time often mention laundry marks, but this is something more fancy. The American etiquette writer Miss Manners says that if you are a housemaid who marries a Duke then you can have his crest embroidered on your underwear.

Links on the blog: Anne Boleyn wore a B round her neck. In an entry on Death on the Nile, we commented on Christie’s use of a Biblical story – this time there is David’s son Solomon, and a very reasonable conclusion for Tuppence to draw, eventually….

With thanks to JS (again) for language detail.

The young woman is from the Clover Vintage Tumblr, the other picture is the Royal monogram of Princess Beatrice of Battenburg, a daughter of Queen Victoria.

Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann

published 1966   Jennifer in the 1960s

Jennifer returned to New York the first week in January. Senator Adams was detained in Washington for a few days, and Anne went with her as she bought her trousseau.

‘Everything must be different,’ she insisted. ‘Striking, but – you know – subdued. You’ve got to help me, Anne.’

They were in the fitting room at Bergdorf’s when Jennifer suddenly leaned against the wall. ‘Anne … have you an aspirin?’

She was ashen and the pupils of her eyes were dilated. The fitter rushed for the aspirin. Jennifer sat down…

Jennifer lit a cigarette. ‘It’s passed now. But that pain – it was a real bonecrusher…’

The fitter returned with the aspirin and the head saleslady came rushing in, visibly concerned..

Jennifer selected three dresses. The salesgirl thanked her, got her autograph for her niece and wished her luck.

observations: The news is not going to be good for Jennifer when she does have a checkup.

Poor Jennifer – the kindest and most harmless of the girls in the book – is a moviestar, with all the outward signs of success, but her body is abused by the people around her in the most blatant way. It’s not symbolic or a metaphor, it’s just factual: she has a facelift, and hormone shots for her breasts, she undergoes a sleep cure to lose weight (all organized by someone else), and in a chilling moment she tells Anne that of course she will be able to have children, because she has had seven abortions, so must be fertile. The ending Susann chooses for her is awful.

All this is related by Susann in her flat, weirdly non-judgmental style: she doesn’t blame male oppression for what happens to the women, nor does she judge the women for what would have been seen then as bad behaviour. Julie Burchill claims the book for a feminist tract in her 2003 introduction to a Virago edition – it’s more that the facts are all there, and the reader can make of them what she wants. Susann just seems to be shrugging her shoulders.

A moviestar today might have more control over her life.

This book has featured before, and is seen by me as a (rare) Clothes in Books failure. The picture, take a look here, is very nice, but it is not right for the text, which features Jennifer again. So I am taking the opportunity to offer two other pictures:

which would suit the description better. Both show dresses by Jean Patou, and are from the Dovina is Devine ll photostream. The top picture is from another great resource, the Clover Vintage Tumblr.

The Greeks and Greek Love by James Davidson

published 2007   chapter 11

Xenophon emphasizes that [Spartan] Boys had one cloak which they wore throughout the year, even in summer, the better to prepare them ‘also for summer heats [thalpe]’. Plutarch says tunics were banned from Twelve, they had one cloak for the year, and boys did not bathe or anoint themselves, except on certain days of the year. All of this seems perfectly consistent: Spartan Boys, like Cretan Boys, kept their kit on. Now also perhaps we can understand why the legend of the EarthquakeTomb makes such a play of the Cadets having stripped off and run out to exercise all covered in oil. That ‘stripping off’ and ‘running out’ must, as in Crete, have been the ceremony of leaving boyhood and entering into adulthood, just like the ephebes of Athens at the Panathenaea running naked from the altar of Eros to the altar in the city, carrying torches.

observations: Even James Davidson (who seems absolutely lovely) perhaps doesn’t quite know who this book is aimed at. Near the beginning there is a footnote to explain what the subject and object of a verb are. That’s on page 12. On page 3 there is a quotation from an unnamed ancient author. If you look up the footnote to see who wrote it, you are told ‘Arr.’, and nowhere in the book is there any possibility of finding out what that means – because, apparently, it is a standard abbreviation. I can’t really believe that anyone who knows what ‘Arr.’ means (Arrian) also needs to be told about grammatical cases…

But who cares? This is a fabulous book about the ancient world, beautiful to look at with fascinating illustrations, a joy to read, and very informative. Obviously it is primarily about Greek homosexuality (a subject on which there seems to be little academic consensus) but it also takes in everything else about Greek life. It is serious and scholarly, of course, and Davidson plainly has an extraordinary depth of knowledge, and an easy familiarity (apparently) with every aspect of the ancient Greek world – you’d know that from his previous, wonderful, book, Courtesans and Fishcakes (which even manages to persuade you that the title isn’t just whimsy). But you by no means have to be an academic to read it: you just need to be willing to be pulled into something strange and extraordinary, with a beautiful phrase, a surprising anecdote, or a memorable image on every page. His writing style is easy and accessible, and also inventive: you have to read the book to find out what doing the do, homosex (guess!) and archaeologicable mean.

The picture is of a sculpture of a Spartan officer from the Wadsworth Museum in Connecticut.

Links on the blog: More of the ancient world in Herodotus here and here, and Mary Renault’s The Persian Boy (which contains quite a lot of doing the do).

One Pair of Hands by Monica Dickens

Published 1939   chapter 4   set in the 1930s

[The narrator is working for a dress designer]

When I took in the tea the drawing-room was draped in lengths of material of all colours, and the three of them were flinging themselves among it, holding up a piece here and there and exclaiming ecstatically. I put the tea-tray down on a vacant stool and was just going out when Martin Parrish rushed at me with a bit of gold lamé, and, commanding me to stand still, draped it swiftly and skilfully round my form. He stepped back with clasped hands, surveying with his head on one side, and I stood there feeling like one of those improbable-looking effigies in shop windows. ‘Look!’ he cried, calling upon the other two to admire. ‘Quite perfect for that blonde type – the whole effect in gold could be too marvellous. Take a note, Kenneth; what’s the number of the stuff? Oh, yes. Here – avoid any contrasts with BX 17 – accessories, etc., unbroken line important to carry on colour effect…’

‘No, don’t go away, I haven’t finished,’ said my employer irritably as he advanced on me with a length of black taffeta which he bunched round me…

observations: In the days before Young Adult books were invented, there was a kind of grown-up book felt to be suitable and appropriate for the libraries of girls’ schools: light but edifying reading. Books like this one – a jolly, supposedly true account of someone’s life as they tried out a career, full of anecdotes but also giving you a clue as to what life was like. Nursing featured a lot: this one is about being a cook.

Monica Dickens was the great-granddaughter of Charles Dickens, and so rather posh: her selling point is the hilarity of a young woman of her background going into something so menial as cooking. (She also wrote more of her true-life adventures – nursing again - various novels, and the Follyfoot children’s books.)

Online friend Lucy Fisher (guested on Lark on the Wing, see also  her blog) pointed out this scene to me, and while I loved this bit, when I reread the book I was disappointed – I had remembered it from my own girls’ school years as being quite good. Now, I find it snobbish, mean-minded and tiresome: Dickens is plainly dreadful at the job most of the time, but is very put out if the people paying her get cross about her bad food, clumsiness and carelessness. It’s not clear if she’s being ironic here -

I must have struck it unlucky - most of the people I went to never wanted to see me again…

- but it’s very believable.

The top photo - from the Library of Congress - is of actress Winifred Bryson. The other woman in a gold dress was used on the blog to illustrate Jane Gardam’s Long Way From Verona, a YA book that would make for much better reading for a modern teenager.

Smallbone Deceased by Michael Gilbert

published 1950   chapter 12

[Investigator and lawyer Henry Bohun has a part-time job as a nightwatchman at a warehouse]

The door opened softly and a young man came in. They all look so alike, thought Bohun. Young, tough, white, boxer’s face. Black hair, white silk scarf, old battledress. This one carried a gun and looked as if he knew how to use it.

Bohun let him get three paces in the room before he kicked the switch. A steel shutter came down across the door, thudding softly home across its counter-balance. Bohun got cautiously to his feet and said with almost ludicrous earnestness:

“Think before you do anything rash. I’m certain you wouldn’t like the police to find you locked in here with a dead body.”

“Open that unprintable door,” said the young man.

observations: Margot Kinberg (at her terrific Confessions of a Mystery Writer blog) was talking about memorable scenes and characters in murder stories, and I put this one forward: Bohun and the burglar will chat in a good-humoured way while waiting for the police to arrive, and he asks the burglar about something that’s puzzling him. The burglar gives him a helpful answer, a clue, and our hero – well, he doesn’t let him escape but he helps minimize the crime. We don’t ever find out the burglar’s name, and he doesn’t appear again, but it’s a scene that sticks in the mind. And there is another memorable minor character, the taxi driver: How did he know his fare was a lawyer? “Norways tell a lawyer” said Mr Ringer. Plus the young woman who has just been proposed to: “I shall make a rampaging wife!” she says - something we can all aspire to.

Michael Gilbert’s books had very varied settings, from a Cathedral Close (Close Quarters) and the solicitors’ office in Smallbone, to a prisoner-of-war camp and the HQ of a political party - but action scenes weren’t particularly his line. This is a very traditional Golden Age story: it includes a floorplan of the offices, and that magic moment when a character is scared by noises, opens the door and says ‘Heavens it’s you!’ in great relief....New chapter.

There is also very solid, satisfying clue-ing: what’s the implication of that letter addressed Dear Mr Horniman? Why is it meaningful that one of the secretaries is near the office on her day off - might she not be just doing her shopping?

Lawyers feature hugely in detective stories, but usually because they are in charge of the will, though in this crime story there is an anagrammatic, husbandly secret.

The picture is from an army surplus site – the white silk scarf was too big an ask, life has got harsher in the intervening years.