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The Sunday Post is a chance to recap the past week, talk about next week, tell you what I’m reading, and share news. It’s hosted by The Caffeinated Book Reviewer, Readerbuzz, and Book Date.

The Sunday Post #329

On The Blog Recently

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In My Reading Life

Last week, I read The Woman's Hour: The Great Fight To Win The Vote by Elaine Weiss. This is a dense nonfiction book about how women got the right to vote in the US. It's not the most readable book because there are a ton of names and dates, and I can't keep that stuff straight, but it gave me a lot to think about.

I was surprised at how long it took for women to get the right to vote in every state. It took 72 years! This is the embodiment of the quote "If you're not at the table, then you're on the menu." Since female politicians were rare, women had to convince men to give them rights. Men in some states were more receptive to the idea than men in other states. Most male politicians were perfectly happy to make laws about women without any input from women.

It's interesting (but not surprising) that conservative women fought very hard not to vote. They said, "God doesn't want women to vote." And "We have to uphold traditional gender roles." And "Treating men and women equally is socialism." It makes me wonder how people will think about our time in 100 years. Will the stuff we're arguing about become rights that people take for granted? Will future people look at our politicians and go, "What the heck were you so afraid of?"

When we talk about women's suffrage, we also have to talk about racism. Some of the states only gave white women the right to vote. Many of the suffragists were fine with this and didn't keep fighting to get voting rights for all people. That's disappointing. Hopefully society learned something from it. (I'm guessing not. I don't have a lot of faith in humans.)

If you want to learn about women's suffrage in the US, then this book is worth reading. It's dense, but the knowledge I gained made slogging through the pages worth the effort.

Then I read a classic! It was Washington Square by Henry James. I now understand why romance readers want a happily ever after. I know this is a melodrama and not a romance, but I wanted somebody to be happy at the end! Instead, it ends with every character being dead or depressed forever and ever. Nice.

Washington Square revolves around Catherine, a plain and unambitious heir to a fortune. When a young man—Morris—comes courting, her father is immediately suspicious. Why would anyone want to marry his stupid, ugly daughter? Morris is obviously after the family's money.

Catherine's aunt comes to a different conclusion. She thinks Morris is sincere and wants the couple to marry. Catherine's father and aunt spend the entire book meddling in Catherine's relationship while Catherine does nothing. She lets herself be bullied.

The author is great at developing characters. Everybody in this book is realistically awful. I wish the author had done more with the characters, though. The book is like a low-budget play. Every scene has two or three actors sitting in a room, talking. The story is mostly dialogue with no description or action. I wish there had been more scenes of Morris and Catherine doing something (anything!) together. All their scenes of polite conversation just make them seem ambivalent toward each other.

Catherine finally stands up for herself at the end of the book, but she doesn't seem happy about her choices. So . . . she stands up for her right to be miserable?

Since this book is mostly dialogue, it's quicker to read than other classics, but I'm not sure what the author wanted me to get out of reading it. I guess it's a cautionary tale about letting your family control your life. Or it's a depressing story about how upper-class women are trapped between family money and their own wishes? I don't know. It's just depressing.

In The Rest Of My Life

Five things that made me happy last week:

1. It was my birthday. I'm not thrilled about being old, but at least there was cake.
2. It was St. Patrick's Day too! We celebrated with pizza and chocolate.
3. New episodes of YOU and Shadow & Bone on Netflix.
4. Speaking of TV, I started watching Lingo because I'm obsessed with Wordle. I could never be on that show. How do people think so fast?
5. I got a lot of blogging done. I even have posts scheduled. Who am I? I'm usually scrambling to get posts finished the night before they go up.

I Want Friends For My Birthday

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Take care of yourselves and be kind to each other. See you around the blogosphere!