What was life like for the “spare” sons of Jane Austen’s England? “How they chose a profession, or how their parents chose one for them, as Rory Muir demonstrates, determined to a substantial degree the quality and even the length of their life. Barring a couple of unlikely ways out, such as marrying a rich heiress (rare because rich heiresses tended to marry men at least as rich as they were), or coming into an unexpected fortune, ‘spare’ sons had to take up a career to support themselves, and it had to be a very select career if they wanted to remain part of the social world into which they were born. Things weren’t as bad for younger sons in the Regency period as they had been during the late 16th and early 17th centuries, when a dearth of highly paid professions meant that those without entailed prospects had almost no chance of enjoying a gentlemanly lifestyle.”

Making sense of the French Revolution: “In grappling with the Revolution’s central paradox, how hundreds of thousands of French citizens were slaughtered in the name of ‘liberté, égalité, fraternité,’ Jeremy D. Popkin’s A New World Begins takes a warts-and-all approach, if only to emerge, marginally, on the side of the omelet . . . One finishes A New World Begins with the sense that had things gone slightly differently, today’s France might be a much different place.”

Do we need another biography of Hitler? Andrew Stuttaford reviews two novel takes on the German dictator.

The white-morph gyr falcon—the largest falcon in the world—can fetch $400,000 on the black market. Enter Jeffrey Lendrum who “who grew up in white Rhodesia [and] became a passionate naturalist, placing his obvious physical courage and considerable knowledge at the service of research projects to protect rare birds of prey in Zimbabwe’s national parks. One of the specialities of this brave young man was to abseil down crags to check otherwise inaccessible eagle nests. However, these formative episodes were shared with Lendrum’s father, Adrian . . . Gradually it dawned on friends and colleagues that father and son were not just collaborators in the conservation work. They were stealing rare eagle and owl eggs, among others, and threatening the very birds they purported to love.”

Former Baltimore mayor sentenced to three years over book sales: “Pugh, 69, came under fire for selling $500,000 in copies of her “Healthy Holly” children’s books to the University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS) while serving on its board. She also sold 20,000 copies of the books to Kaiser Permanente for $114,000 from 2015 to 2018, and 10,000 copies to Associated Black Charities for nearly $80,000 from 2011 and 2016, both of which deals raised questions regarding conflicts of interest. In all, she made $850,000, according to prosecutors.”

Essay of the Day:

Lisa C. Hickman writes about Faulkner’s years in Hollywood in The Los Angeles Review of Books:

“Life in the 1930s for Faulkner and Estelle was a piling on of complex and blistering life events. The slow recovery after their daughter’s death and the plodding improvements at Rowan Oak continued. It seemed the couple inched toward stability only to have it evaporate. Faulkner’s work in Hollywood introduced the temptation of a lovely young script girl from the South. And there was yet another shattering family tragedy.

“Meanwhile, Faulkner’s creative output went unchecked. Every year, stories appeared in national publications: eight in 1932; three in 1933; 11 in 1934, the same year the genesis of Absalom, Absalom! came to him; and five in 1935.

“The publication of Absalom in the fall of 1936 was a triumph. An American tragedy in a Southern setting, the novel featured Thomas Sutpen, an unlikely antihero whose merciless quest for a dynasty — driven by a decades-old insult — proved his ruin. The son of a sharecropper, the young Sutpen was sent by his father to a plantation manor on an errand where an African-American butler in fine livery barred the youth from entering, telling him to use the back door, not the front. Stunned by the servant’s hostility and disdain, Sutpen’s naïveté was banished; and, though only 13 years old, this event set his course in motion. He would acquire a grand house, plantation, respectable wife, and father sons. Sutpen’s Hundred was his answer to the butler who refused to let him deliver his message. The challenging novel emerged despite marital difficulties and personal loss, a masterpiece conceived and completed while bouncing between Oxford and Hollywood.

“Navigating the contrast between his life in Hollywood — with a room at a trendy hotel — and the Faulkner home, Rowan Oak, tucked deep in the woods, proved challenging. While in Hollywood, Faulkner frequented restaurants and supper clubs popular with actors, movie industry deal makers, and writers: Schwab’s Pharmacy, Lucys’s, LaRue’s, Pig ’n Whistle, Musso and Frank (a haven for screenwriters), and The Players. The Players especially achieved Hollywood notoriety with its assignation tunnel leading to the nearby Chateau Marmont and its convenient location across from the Garden of Allah Hotel, an extended stay place with a legendary guest book including — Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Greta Garbo, Dorothy Parker, Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

“Little of this glitz and glamour extended to Mississippi. Apparently his inclination to socialize did not occur much in Oxford, where he and Estelle, to her displeasure, were mostly homebodies. Faulkner embraced the solitude and would remain silent for unnerving periods of time. His frustrating wall of silence wasn’t easily pierced. Estelle, who had been instructed by her mother as a young girl to be charming since she wasn’t particularly beautiful, enjoyed people, parties, and dinners. She wanted to go out and resented his stubborn streak. It was lost on Faulkner that Estelle didn’t have an alternative to her isolating existence at Rowan Oak.”

Read the rest.

Photos: The temples of Kyoto in winter

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