We started the day at Taste, a cosy cafe with the best croissants in town. Camilla took me to a riveting lecture on Mary Shelley and her novel Frankenstein. Shelley's mother, Mary Wollenstonecraft, died in childbirth and her father, William Godwin, was a forbidding man, a philosopher who was said to believe, "if you cannot write an epic poem which will knock all others on its head then you are despicable." Mary read at her mother's grave and, when she was 16, was swept off her feet at that very grave by the married poet Percy Shelley. Their philosophical affair led them to a life abroad, and to the death of Shelley's wife Harriet and her unborn child. All these intense events fed into the novel. You may take the intensely glamorous path of following your convictions, but it can also be narcissistic and destructive. In the book, the female characters all come to a bad end because of the ideals of their menfolk.
I wandered about while Camilla went to more classes. St Andrews is a dual town, one part for students, and the other for the usual sort of person. There's a ruined castle, stones of which were used to rebuild the quay at the tiny little harbor. There's a ruined cathedral with an enormous graveyard that's still used. A street full of lobster pots, a pair of swans, a handful of second hand shops and bookshops, and many little eateries. I am saying nothing about golf because it is an invisible world to me. (Speaking of which, please read China Mieville's The City and the City. Thank you.)
Camilla collected me from the windswept prospect and we went to a lecture relating the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Arabian Nights, and Jorge Luis Borges. It was a little hard for me to make the connections (it had to do with book as artifact vs. storytelling), but each individual chunk was fascinating. The lecture style around here is somewhat old fashioned, with the teacher standing in a corner with a microphone and a remote for their slides, and no interaction with the audience. I suppose it has to be that way, but as an elementary school teacher, I protest! Nevertheless, there were some genuine gems in her talk: In the British museum, cuneiform tablets were laid out on trays "like a jigsaw that some naughty giants threw in the air." George Smith, an engraver, was recruited to assemble them. When he did so, and found extra-Biblical evidence of a flood and of Noah, he tore off his clothes and ran about shouting. He was restrained, and afterwards presented a paper to the Society of Biblical Archaeology.
There was also a slide of a talismanic piece of clothing, written all over with magical texts.
Afterwards, Camilla went to the dorm for dinner and I tested a kebab place to have my first 100% terrible meal in Scotland.
I wandered about while Camilla went to more classes. St Andrews is a dual town, one part for students, and the other for the usual sort of person. There's a ruined castle, stones of which were used to rebuild the quay at the tiny little harbor. There's a ruined cathedral with an enormous graveyard that's still used. A street full of lobster pots, a pair of swans, a handful of second hand shops and bookshops, and many little eateries. I am saying nothing about golf because it is an invisible world to me. (Speaking of which, please read China Mieville's The City and the City. Thank you.)
Camilla collected me from the windswept prospect and we went to a lecture relating the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Arabian Nights, and Jorge Luis Borges. It was a little hard for me to make the connections (it had to do with book as artifact vs. storytelling), but each individual chunk was fascinating. The lecture style around here is somewhat old fashioned, with the teacher standing in a corner with a microphone and a remote for their slides, and no interaction with the audience. I suppose it has to be that way, but as an elementary school teacher, I protest! Nevertheless, there were some genuine gems in her talk: In the British museum, cuneiform tablets were laid out on trays "like a jigsaw that some naughty giants threw in the air." George Smith, an engraver, was recruited to assemble them. When he did so, and found extra-Biblical evidence of a flood and of Noah, he tore off his clothes and ran about shouting. He was restrained, and afterwards presented a paper to the Society of Biblical Archaeology.
There was also a slide of a talismanic piece of clothing, written all over with magical texts.
Afterwards, Camilla went to the dorm for dinner and I tested a kebab place to have my first 100% terrible meal in Scotland.
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