Happy Valentines Day! I hope you have either a handsome prince/ss or a romantic read to cuddle up with. I won’t supply the kisses, but I’ll have a go at a few words. In this newsletter, you can
take a look at Valentines Day in times past
reflect on a new novel by Anthony Doerr, and the power of stories
and see how I think the two are connected
Valentines Day Victoriana
The super-sentimental Victorians loved Valentine’s Day. It was a big thing in nineteenth century Australia. Families with daughters, especially, waited eagerly for their anonymous mail on February 14.
In 1846, when Hobart’s total population was just over 60,000, one stationery store alone sold 8,000 Valentines. Books of rhymes were published to help the poetically-challenged. Some of the verses were less than loving — who would want a Valentine addressed ‘To an Old Maid’, ‘To a Bad Dancer’ or ‘To a Conceited Fellow’? Even politicians received Valentines, although theirs were often critical. This Victorian version of trolling was called a ‘black Valentine’ or an ‘anti-Valentine’.
Victorian lovers didn’t stop at paper cards. Pastry cooks baked sugar hearts and buns shaped like lovers’ knots. Golden birds dangled brooches and other jewellery in jewellery shop windows.
As the century went by, the cards became more cynical, satirical and ‘degenerate’. This one is less innocent than it appears:
A Melbourne newspaper in 1887 thought Valentines were ‘mawkish sentamentalism’. By February 1898, not one Valentine went through Melbourne’s GPO. It took a full century for Valentine’s Day to rise in popularity again in Australia. I don’t remember receiving any Valentines even in the 1980s…
From my Reading Shelf - Believing in Books
I did get a welcome book this Christmas though — Cloud Cuckoo Land, the new book from Anthony Doerr, (who wrote All the Light We Cannot See).
It has an unusual structure, spread across six points of view, in four time periods, from Ancient Greece into the future. Doerr is such a good writer he pulls it off — each character and setting is really engaging. Although I did find myself wondering at the end — what was the theme that brought them all together? Part of the point seemed to be that books are a wondrous escape, to Cloud Cuckoo Land, from the harshness of life. They help us heal, and cope.
But the space age girl character finds stories are as unreliable as reality. The Ancient Greek text of the title turns out to be incomplete, forever missing. This reader found herself rebelling, and wanting to skim the allusions to literary theory about texts being full of holes, and meaning randomly assigned.
I prefer to think stories are like a tardis, or a flying carpet, that take you somewhere else. I LOVE flying carpets, magic wardrobes and golden goblet portkeys. I don’t much like the author pointing to the holes I’m standing on, pulling out the magic carpet from under my feet.
Flying carpets and Valentine’s Day
Speaking of which, I shall pull on my seven league boots, and leap back over to Valentine’s Day. There’s now as much profit-motivated marketing around 14 February as there ever was in the Victorian era. Also, anyone who has been in a long-term relationship knows daily life often falls sadly short of romantic ideals.
But, like stories, Valentines Day and other special events can be a flying carpet or a tardis. They take us out of the mundane everyday. They help us remember that there is something powerful and magical about love. Let’s not dismiss it. Let’s ignore the holes in the relationship carpet for a day. Even if you don’t have a Valentine in your life, let’s believe in transcendent love.
Wishing you moments of wonderful magic, in or out of books.
PS A Request
The first print run of Where’s the Red Button? has sold out [yay :) ] If you bought it and think other readers might like it too, could you put a review on Amazon? (Link here and below). Only a sentence or two, about what you thought was good and who it might appeal to. Or just a star rating. Either help the book get seen. Thank you!