TRUE CAPTIONS THE ARTIST DIDN'T WANT YOU TO SEE.

THE SECRET HISTORY OF WONDER WOMAN - JILL LEPORE

 

More the history of Wonder Woman's creator and the history of the women's movement in the US. William Moulton Marston was a psychologist who is credited with designing and testing the first lie detector with some limited success. An academic, and an early achiever in the medicine of the mind, he was, like H.G.Wells, a proponent of the rights of women and their right to share his bed.

The women's movement is covered because of Marstons relationships with the women involved early in the search for equality with men and particularly the right to use birth control. One of them coincidentally had an affair with Wells for some years.

As to Wonder Woman, Marston conceived the idea of a female Superhero and  used the strip as a vehicle to show how women were being held back, chained up and punished because they were women in a time when being a wife was the ultimate prize. Throwing off the chains in each strip was a demonstration of woman achieving freedom.

Marston himself had a rocky road in academia and continued to be fired from university positions because of his radical views on women's lib and his personal life, which offended those who knew about it. Wonder Woman and her fight to remove the shackles of domesticity also reflected badly on him. He was fascinated by the idea of women locked in chains or otherwise immobilsed to the point where it must have been a fetish.

The book ends just as Lynda Carter gets name-checked and doesn't cover that TV series at all. A great read.      

A MAN OF PARTS - DAVID LODGE

A fascinating tale of the life and loves of H.G.Wells. Not much about his books and an awful lot about his love life. It seems Wells had a great deal of trouble 'keeping it in his pants' as it were. He had affairs, short and long-term, and casual assignations. His wife knew about these affairs and agreed Wells could put it about as long as she knew who with and where. He was obsessed with a utopian view of sex and marital relationships where faithfulness wasn't an issue as long as the pleasure outweighed the responsibilty. Making demands on him guaranteed a girl would be cut off in a short time.

That sounds like it could be boring but the writing is superb, an engaging narrative.   

NICK HORNBY - SONGBOOK

 

Picked this one up recently. Hornby gives us the benefit of his opinion on songs, lyrics and music as an art form. I read it with YouTube open at my elbow. References High Fidelity now and then. Well worth a read by anyone even slightly interested in popular music. All right then, rock music. BUT published in 2002. I'm ready for the 2017 version.  

            ALICE IN WONDERLAND - PART TWO

So just after I wrote about Oysters and Pussy, possibly the same night, I saw the Secret Life of Lewis Carroll. Mainly interesting, a good background to Dodgson's life.

I was unaware of the picture of the naked Lorina Liddell but I still have questions I'd like answers to.

One - Dodgson was a keen and apparently proficient photographer. He took photos of all those writers and artists and no-one would doubt his talent. He took those photographs as Charles Dodgson. 

Two - The so-called paedophile picture was examined by experts and commented on as a true rendition of Lorina Liddell. My query is why it was attributed on the reverse to Lewis Carroll and not Charles Dodgson. The expert also noted that the picture had been cropped, leaving one to assume that the attribution was written later. But why Carroll? Why not Dodgson? Does the writing look like Dodgson's? And was the picture of Alice Liddell with her left nipple coyly showing deliberate or accidental?

Three - That leads me to wonder about Dodgson's mind and how his mind saw what I believe was a seperate personality that occasionally blurred with the concrete figure of Dodgson. I'm not quite talking split personality but here's a man who has found fame because his stories have achieved world-wide recognition under an assumed name. Although it was kept secret for a while, the news came out. Surely there could have been moments when he puffed out his chest and assumed his other personality? 

Opinions abound, maybe thousands, about Dodgson's state of sexual mind, but I suspect the picture is more innocent than criminal. 

                                                              

           

                    ALICE IN WONDERLAND

                          Oysters and Pussy

I can't think of another book ever published that attracted and still attracts so much attention from writers and artists. The recent films of Alice in Wonderland (good) and Through The Looking Glass (crap) are good examples. Reviews of the latter are universally bad. I saw it late last year on an A380 Airbus - Businss Class -  and was appalled. Even five glasses of Moet and Chandon failed to take the edge off this rubbish. I assumed Tim Burton had had another brain explosion but I apologise to Tim because the Director was James Bobin, althoug TB was a Producer and should have been keeping an eye on Bobin.
Anyway, Alice continues to inspire. Pinterest has near to 10,000 boards dedicated to her illustrations, many of which are in dubious taste but nevertheless often executed by very talented hands. Arthur Rackham gave us good Alice. Don't forget ballet and stage musicals and such.
Do we believe those stories about Dodgson and his possible attraction to little Alice Liddell, she of the long hair and shy demeanour? I write of the unsavoury suggestions that ill-wishers put forward from time and time, and have for a long time, wanting find scandal for their own purient pleasure. These people would also find fault with Judy Garland and Lindsay Lohan. 
I've put some pictures below to illustrate the talents of artists who wish to depict Alice. There are at least anothe twenty billion on the Web.

  

 

You all remember the oysters I'm sure and her pussy's name was Dinah I think.

 

VOGUE SAYS IT ALL

I seem to remember this quote is from the Vogue 100 years issue. How true.