Immagine dell'autore.
12+ opere 959 membri 17 recensioni

Sull'Autore

Lucy Lethbridge has written foe the Observer the Sunday Telegraph, the Independent on Sunday Telegraph, the Independent on Sunday, the Times Literary Supplement, Art New, and Art + Auction. She lives in London.

Comprende il nome: Lethbridge Lucy

Opere di Lucy Lethbridge

Opere correlate

Slightly Foxed 12: The Irresistible Heptaplasiesoptron (2006) — Collaboratore — 26 copie
Slightly Foxed 15: Underwear Was Important (2007) — Collaboratore — 25 copie

Etichette

Informazioni generali

Data di nascita
1963
Sesso
female
Nazionalità
UK
Nazione (per mappa)
UK
Luogo di nascita
London, England, UK
Attività lavorative
nonfiction author
London correspondent
literary editor
Organizzazioni
The Tablet (literary editor)
The Catholic Herald (literary editor)
ARTnews (London correspondent)
Breve biografia
(fl. 1963-2007).

Utenti

Recensioni

Fine, but nothing to write home about.
 
Segnalato
expatscot | Aug 10, 2023 |
very repetitive, with the exact same quote appearing in multiple chapters. however, an interesting thesis, especially developed towards the end of the book, that domestic service, which evolved out of a medieval lord's retainers and entourage, did not actually disappear with the world wars and rise of household electronics, but rather has changed in shape and tone. the middle and upper classes still seek event planners (butlers, head maids), personal shoppers (cooks, lady's maids), cleaners, au pairs, etc.… (altro)
 
Segnalato
zizabeph | 10 altre recensioni | May 7, 2023 |
What cruelty is to Russian rulers, greed/status is to British and American rulers, although the two countries have somewhat divergent paths, with the emphasis being more on greed only in America and more on status as well in the UK. In America, you fire people because you resent paying their modest wages; in the traditional specifically-British rulers’ culture, you hire lots and lots of servants to tie your shoelaces so everybody can see them do it, you know.

Of course, it’s difficult, as this book tries to do, to give a voice to servants—here the literal British kind of servants—especially a hundred years ago or whatever. But Lucy tries, at least, and that’s worthy. It’s certainly a very domestic social history…. History for cruel boys, history for preening boys—history for everyone; yay! 🥳

…. I think that the details are useful. It’s not something where a single event strikes you, you know; it’s the attrition. And one detail at least is suggestive: the fact that the servants were often so young, you have this girl beginning service at the average (not earliest) age of fourteen, and so of course she’s not getting much in the way of being taught to read or write or anything. The employer—he can read and write books if he wants. She can scrub his shit away, you know.

…. It is kinda amazing how such a short time ago they didn’t even pretend or aspire to things, you know, just— yup, good jobs for good people, from good families! Shit jobs for shit people, who had better be kept under.

And that’s just how it should be!

I mean, you read novels by an about the affluent falling in love and discovering things, you start to like them maybe; but probably the bulk of them didn’t feel obligated to justify their position by being romantic with their sweethearts or reading a lot, and if they did, it was as a marker of status, and not a pure thing, you know. Masterly things are good for masters—ah, but for servants to be too good for such as them! And ah, for servants to be bad! How much better for servants just to be servants—and then I can be fat and lazy and stupid and comfortable, and no one will but tell me I am the village god.

And that’s just how it should be….

…. And it’s like, the worse I hold what I hold in trust, the more I imagine myself to deserve it, because I treat you right, you see the light, like a child of the light, and not just a servant, but I starve you of the light, then you are just a servant, so you clean the shit off the pots and pans, because you’re a servant, not somebody like me.

…. And of course the whole ‘servant question’ or whatever didn’t just magically vanish into white light with the end of the First World War, or whenever it was supposed to have happened…. People still have ‘romantic’ ideas about the servant-hiring classes and the recent past, so much so that the recent past isn’t really dead. Even though it’s the 2020s and we’re Americans, I wonder if most Episcopalians and other old-style lib Prots are so different from that. (Who you are speaks so loudly, I cannot hear what you say. Ralphie.) Obviously you can put the worst of the new world on TV and it sucks, but the old world is still here, and it’s still a lie. The only time they’ll talk about money in church is when the roof starts to leak—when they start asking. To learn about /making/ money, you’d have to be new age or something, not sleepy and rich and content! It’s like, if you were supposed to have money, you’d have it already. It’s like with dating. They allow you to date and bring dates, of course, in fact they assume you’ll marry and have children in there for as long as they’re still dependents, but it’s like, you know, on another level, if you were supposed to be married, you’d already be married.

Money is bad, because it makes me think of the servants. Money is bad, because They have servants!…. Money is for people who grew up with servants, and who die in assisted living, you know. And in America it’s the Southern version of servanthood, not the British kind, but the idea is the same. The nursing aide’s mom’s neighbor is NOT going to be coming into the assisted living residence to get taken care of, you know!

Why, it just wouldn’t do!

…. Speaking of the age of servants, to truly understand the past is not the same as to idealize or lie about it, and I think much of our educational system is basically a scar left over from the age of servants and employers-of-servants. Schools should teach kids relationships—I mean a teacher should teach, and not leave it to the bullies and the gossips—and spirituality, health, prosperity, and some more theoretical topics but basically if you’re in a trigonometry class it should be because you want to be there, because you want to be a computer person or whatever, or because you’re an intellectual, but that can’t be code for not liking people and not liking life. In the age of servants, school was basically something that Lord Billy had to prove that he really deserved to be born to money, that he was Better, and it had little to nothing to do with making people a success who weren’t born to it, you know. It still has that cast to it in many people’s minds; you can’t understand me…. (villain laugh).

Intellectuals can be very paranoid about their status, seeing as most people are not and probably never will become intellectuals, but helping the masses transcend idiocy, to serve the people, and to make the academy something other than the unearned benefit of a race, class, and gender that it was in the age of servants, won’t actually make things worse for the born intellectual, regardless of his or her born class, etc. Doing good doesn’t ruin us, you know. It’s acting on the fear that does that.

…. They demanded a lot of loyalty, and often didn’t give much back. It was almost like an inverse-thing, the whole worthiness trick.

I’m grateful that ‘those days are over’ mostly, and I know that we didn’t come this far, to only come this far! 🌝

The Christian church and its countries can be like a Six-paradise-from-hell: I get to be loyal to the group! In exchange for nothing! I get to be fleeced and leased and locked up! Hip hip, hooray! 😁

Not for the past and servanthood, but for the future country where work is good.

…. If the IRA and UDA terrorists of Northern Ireland are the textbook example of the Bad War, WWII, despite the almost textbook evil of the Nazis and even of the British Empire in India, may have been a good experience for some people. War is necessity, and sometimes a little necessity for an over-comfortable class of people can be good—all these rich Englishmen who thought that the purpose of life was having clean sheets, and who resisted labor saving tech because That’s Not The Way It Should Be, you have servants and you keep them in their place, you know, eating nutrition bars for six years or whatever they did, fighting Hitler, might have been good for them. I guess that’s why I dislike slogans and formulas about war. War’s certainly not the best thing or the answer to life—if war’s your answer to life in general, you’re probably a fascist—but war, like life, is more a mystery than anything else, even if, arguably unlike life in general, the best thing is to transcend it.

…. “Some living, some standing alone.”

I know you’re not supposed to go through life as cynical as motor oil, right, but as for me, I’ll never make dove eyes at Downton again and that, I think, is a good thing. It’s not good to like things that don’t have substance to them, things that misrepresent themselves. It doesn’t mean you couldn’t make use of a manor house in fiction, of course, just as materials, but the whole, ‘Ah! When the whole white race was loyal, and women were romantics!’—no. No, thanks, I’ll pass on the lies and deceptions.

…. We should all be able to be rich, if we want it enough to find it within ourselves, and /not just Mr Shallow & Arrogant/, whose life is one big superficial lie. Gosh, and some people would crack the whip for him! Deepak was right; a butler is a Perfect villain! 👹💂🏻‍♂️👹

I mean, it’s a little funny, but—honest to fuck, right.

(sigh) And, you know, sometimes people who can handle life’s basic challenges can help people be freer to deal with something bigger, if the person freed up isn’t just a lazy fake, and the liberating servant isn’t there because “you’ve got no choice and you’re not getting out, and you’re stuck because you’re less than…. And gosh, I’ll beat you up inside so I remind myself—I don’t have to be afraid, I’m not you!” 🤴🏻👵🏾

(deeper sigh) (waves off) But do what you want. It’s your life, right.
… (altro)
 
Segnalato
goosecap | 10 altre recensioni | Apr 14, 2023 |
This book feels like a wildly informative chat with a well-informed friend. Lethbridge definitely has scoured all the sources: contemporary accounts, movies, literature, newspaper articles, "sits vac" ads in the papers, the job registry and list goes on. Her grasp of the topic is momentous though she never feels the need to boast, simply to share the wealth.

A fascinating subject for me, an adequate book might have left me somewhat enthralled. What a treat to have something fantastic to read instead!… (altro)
 
Segnalato
ednasilrak | 10 altre recensioni | Jun 17, 2021 |

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Statistiche

Opere
12
Opere correlate
2
Utenti
959
Popolarità
#26,865
Voto
3.8
Recensioni
17
ISBN
50
Lingue
5

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