chocolate and cashmere

Written last year when I was having my notebook fixed. Couldn't use Thai then. Not now either. Since I still can't figure out how to use Thai at school.

I have a few different moods for books and music. Sometimes I can't stand anything to do with love. Then I read history books and listen to any songs without words (not necessary Mendelssohn). Those are safe, love-free materials.

Not exactly in that no-love mood now, I'm currently reading two books. One is The Dressmaker, a novel about haute couture. The other is Agrippina: Sex, Power, and Politics in the Early Empire. The former turns out rather too sweet. I just finished 2 chapters but it seems to be very sappy from there. The main character is a dressmaker, so famous every other Paris socialite want her wedding dress made by him. Then he fell in love with one of those brides-to-be. Since Haute Couture and love have nothing to do with each other in my mindset, I'm quite disgusted by the development.

Agrippina is a consolation. No love mentioned at all. Marriage, bloodline, and infidelities are discussed profusely, but not love, never love. Agrippina married three times. The last time she married Emperor Claudius, her own uncle. Her blood was as royally blue as possible. She was a great granddaughter of Emperor Augustus; great niece and adoptive granddaughter of Emperor Tiberius; sister to Emperor Caligula; and later, mother of Emperor Nero.

She was accused of sleeping with her brother and her sons, not to mention myriad lovers. Supposedly she did all that for power, which is a concept I understand better than a dressmaker falling in love with his soon-to-wed client.

The author defends her. From coins and statues, she was not pretty. So he reasons she could not be the femme fatale everyone accused her of. It's interesting that the lack of beauty can save a woman's reputation.

She was accused of incests and infidelities so many times. The author believe the accusations shouldn't be taken seriously because the emperor, one of her supposed lovers, had so many lovers. She must have been singled out for political reasons. If this was a novel, it might be explained that she was singled out because from all the lovers, she was the only one the emperor loved. But no, the author doesn't believe love mattered in the grand scheme of things.

 In this matter the narration proceeds, dry but intriguing.

I tried historical novels set in the same time period. I don't like them. One said Cleopatra fell for Caesar at first sight. For all the love of everything dear, why should love matter when one is a vassal queen and her lover is the master of Rome?

It's not that I don't believe in love. But in such a grand setting, isn't there anything more interesting to write about?