Dragonfly: Jenny Reading Pt. 2 (A Literacy Moment, contd.)

In Dragonfly in Amber, we get, alongside Jenny's love of books, details about the literacy of the Fraser household, and also something about the character of reading in the 18th Century:

The manor boasted a small library, in fact, and if the evening leisure between work and bed was short, still it usually included at least a few minutes' reading. (580)

"The manor boasted" a small library--which was, indeed, a boastable feature.  Here's a little blurb from an article on the topic of book ownership in 18th Century Scotland:

Late eighteenth-century Scotland saw a period of growth in the availability of print material set against the backdrop of the Scottish Enlightenment. Yet despite much scholarly attention having been paid to the Enlightenment and an increasing interest in the books people were reading, little attention has been paid to the books that would have been found in individual Scottish houses and what they reveal about Scottish mindsets in these years. This paper addresses this topic, using a local case study of after-death inventories of personal possessions. These rich records reveal the size of household libraries, the varieties of books they contained, variation by occupation and social class, and the extent to which their owners engaged with and were influenced by debates and ideas of the time. In addition, the evidence allows us to consider the uses to which different types of books were put, examine differences between urban and provincial Scotland, and consider how and where people bought their books.

(Thank you, EBSCO and Scottish Historical Review! And if I'm silently thumbing my nose at Wikipedia, Wikipedia is none the wiser.)  The main thing to note here (besides the very interesting research!) is that the availability of print materials increases in the late  18th century.  The early Outlander novels take place in 1743-45, with the Lallybroch library being compiled some time before, as both of Jamie's and Jenny's parents are dead by the time the events in the first book take place (their father is only recently dead).  So the library would have had to predate this growth in printing, which demonstrates the wealth of Lallybroch as well as the special place reserved for literacy and learning in the Fraser household.

Further, reading is a communal activity, though I do question whether French novels--which were notoriously scandalous to Louisa May Alcott's 19th Century American heroines--would have been good family read-aloud material. Both because of the scarcity of reading materials (who would have two copies of a novel?) and the rarity of literacy (in a later chapter, Claire notes that a woman watches her write "with an almost superstitious awe" (633)), reading aloud would definitely have been typical in the 18th Century.  Numerous scholars--notably, literature scholar turned literacy theorist Walter Ong--have discussed the influence of oral storytelling even in 19th Century novels.  Ong famously mentions how "the author intones dear reader" as a reminder of the storyteller or the reader in a communal setting.  It is a nice touch to see this social reality of reading included in a work of historical fiction, though the little glimpses of literacy do not become important until later novels in the Outlander series.

Given its limited function--what function does literacy serve in the plot? it's fairly incidental--one might wonder why it is included at all, or question this bold assertion of Jenny's literacy.  Would she have been educated?  We are led to believe that her class and her family's inclinations toward learning make this possible.  But as the female head of household, mother of three at this point...  What is reading for her?  What use would she have had for literacy?  Would she have had time to read?  If reading is an adventure, is it an escape?  Does it distract from other duties?

The narrative answers these questions very succinctly:

"It gives ye something to think on as ye go about your work," Jenny explained, when I found her one night swaying with weariness, and urged her to go to bed, rather than stay up to read aloud to Ian, Jamie, and myself.  She yawned, fist to her mouth.  "Even if I'm sae tired I hardly see the words on the page, they'll come back to me next day, churning or spinning or waulkin' wool, and I can turn them over in my mind." (580-581)

In fact, Jenny's reading allows her mind to escape while her body remains very much present.  And this is something that readers of Gabaldon's fictions can very much appreciate, I think.  It is perhaps a contrast to more male-centered versions of escapist reading (I'm thinking of E. M. Forster's "The Celestial Omnibus"--you can read about it in greater detail here) that her transcendent reading does not remove her from the material world of people who depend on her.

Interestingly, at this point in the scene, the issue of literacy drops completely, transitioning into a description of the somewhat unsavory occupation of "wool-waulking," but not without leaving the reader with a compelling discourse on literacy and its use in the life of an individual--the 18th Century stay-at-home mom.  Most stay-at-home mothers whom I know (at least through blogging) are either readers, writers, or seamstresses,* and almost always combinations of two or more, as if this life of the mind is a natural extension of the daily lives that they live with their children, managing their homes.  It seems, in fact, an essential part.  And the internet enables and gives testimony to it.

Thinking about what a busy woman--too busy to read, but who reads nevertheless--gains from literacy, I was reminded of my favorite poem by Adrienne Rich (1929-2012), "An Atlas of the Difficult World."  This poem provides Rich's own discourse on literacy, as the voice of the poet envisions the people who will read the poem, and recounts the reasons they will read:

I know you are reading this poem  

late, before leaving your office  

of the one intense yellow lamp-spot and the darkening window 

in the lassitude of a building faded to quiet 

long after rush-hour. I know you are reading this poem 

standing up in a bookstore far from the ocean 

on a grey day of early spring, faint flakes driven 

across the plains’ enormous spaces around you. 

[....] 

I know you are reading this poem by fluorescent light 

in the boredom and fatigue of the young who are counted out, 

count themselves out, at too early an age. I know 

you are reading this poem through your failing sight, the thick 

lens enlarging these letters beyond all meaning yet you read on 

because even the alphabet is precious. 

And among the seemingly endless, democratic, Whitmanic catalog, these lines stand out:

I know you are reading this poem as you pace beside the stove 

warming milk, a crying child on your shoulder, a book in your hand 

because life is short and you too are thirsty. 

The lines straddle the line between hope and despair, but "life is short and you too are thirsty" resonates as the most profound testimony to the function of literacy--of literature--in the life of an individual.  The written word feeds us.  Gives us nourishment.  Specifically, like a mother.  A mother's mother.

There are, of course, religious resonances in the idea of being fed by the w/Word--but let's leave it at literacy for now.  Reading.  It is what it is--but what does it do?

A: It feeds the soul, which sustains the body.

Literacy--in either context--keeps the body from forgetting that it also possesses a soul.

*I use the outdated, gendered term "seamstress" and reject the more contemporary "sewers," which evokes toilet water in my mind.