Mary Hamer

Kipling & Trix

Easy Steps in Latin

In this major new book, Mary Hamer offers a new perspective on incest, making a link with the scandal of sexual abuse on the part of priests. She places sexual abuse in the context of the whole social order. Hamer's novel and innovative approach challenges the taboo on clear thinking around the subject of incest. She demonstrates the inherent contradictions in official accounts of the subject, from genetics and anthropology to law. Drawing on the work of American psychotherapist Judith Herman, she invites readers to focus on the neurological damage caused by traumatic experience, arguing that it is the overwhelming of one person by another that constitutes abuse, and it is this which causes the damage, not the fact of a close relationship. She brings together, in accessible form, key descriptions of the effects of abuse from analysts Sandor Ferenczi, Estela Welldon and Valerie Sinason She revisits the two real-life cases of Father Porter from Massachusetts and Sappho Durrell, daughter of the British writer Lawrence Durrell. She also draws on the work of artists and filmmakers to explain the way film and literature have helped to preserve our understanding of abuse and of its place in the world Films and novels featured: Murmur of the Heart, Art for Teachers of Children, Suddenly Last Summer, Through a Glass Darkly, Lolita, The Bluest Eye, The God of Small Things. Includes 16 film stills

A New Perspective

Incest

"For two thousand years images of Cleopatra have been distorted by the fantasies of European imagination and cultures. Our view of Cleopatra is structured not by the existence of the real woman but by the historical and cultural influences governing the various readings of her life. Each influence bears the traces of specific struggles for power and meaning. Mary Hamer recovers those traces. Cleopatra is often associated with desire but she also represents a woman's power to act for her own fulfilment. "Signs of Cleopatra" is a set of Cleopatra puzzles, using the Bakhtinian argument that a contest of meanings based around a figure allow issues of the widest importance to be organized and earthed through it. Taking particular images of Cleopatra from history, classics, literary studies and art history the author explores the differences between these images, concentrating on the specific social and historical formations which inform each reading and questioning the processes of representation itself."--from amazon.com.

History, Politics, Representation

Signs of Cleopatra

"Why is the name of Cleopatra still resonant after two thousand years? As lover of both Mark Antony and Caesar, and mother of four children by them, her name speaks of pleasure and of intimate relationship. But when Cleopatra was rendered a figure of contempt, first by Augustus, and then later by the Vatican, the desire for love became officially suspect in Christian Europe." "In the face of this contradiction, artists down the centuries responded by returning to the original Cleopatra, retelling her story and re-fashioning images of her. Mary Hamer selects a number of key examples, contextualizing them in time and place within European history. Exploring what these images meant to contemporaries, she opens up new and unexpected readings." "This updated second edition incorporates a new concluding essay examining the recent debate over the surprisingly contentious issue of Cleopatra's race."--BOOK JACKET.

Reading an Icon Historically

Helen Hackett

"The First Folio of 1623 is the definitive edition of Shakespeare's plays. It is more often than not the closest we can now get to what Shakespeare actually wrote. But the Folio's antiquated typography and cramped layout make it remote and inaccessible to modern eyes. The Shakespeare Folios on the other hand offer easy access directly to the First Folio by presenting the text in modern type but otherwise unchanged. All the First Folio's idiosyncrasies of layout and spelling, even its obvious errors, have been scrupulously left intact, but the text suddenly becomes as easily legible as the script of any modern play." "As an additional aid to understanding, readers will find, printed opposite each page of the Folio, the very same passage in a modern edition. So, whenever the Folio presents a problem, the reader can refer to this parallel text for a solution, either in the text itself or in the set of notes at the end of the book. These notes draw on the long tradition of Shakespearean scholarship and include full reference to surviving Quarto texts."--BOOK JACKET.

William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

WINNER OF THE VIRGINIA PRIZE FOR FICTION As young children, Rudyard and his sister ‘Trix’ flourished in the brilliant warmth and colour of India. Their happiness ended abruptly when they were sent back to England to live with a strict and god-fearing foster family. Both became writers, although one lived in the shadow of the other’s extraordinary success. The name Rudyard Kipling is known to millions, but what became of his talented younger sister? She was careful to hide her secret life even from those closest to her. Mary Hamer’s fascinating novel brings both Kipling and Trix vividly to life. In this fictionalised account of their lives, she goes to the heart of the relationship between a difficult brother and his troubled sister. Hamer peels back the historical record to reveal the obsessions which fuelled Kipling and his sister. Was he really better equipped to deal with conflict, heartbreak and loss than his beloved Trix? Review 'A historical delight' -Waterstones 'Hamer's book opens up the complex world of the Kiplings, moving between continents and momentous world events' -Daily Mail 'Illuminating new study... She writes clearly, pleasantly, and with a blessed absence of jargon.' -Times Literary Supplement 'Mary Hamer's Kipling and Trix elegantly walks the borders between fact and fiction in her retelling of Rudyard Kipling's story and his relationship with his sister Trix' - Historical Novel Society 'The childhood scenes are particularly compelling, revealing how brother and sister, though dependents, were gradually becoming rivals....The book is a rich collage of potent scenes - you shift viewpoint and we see Rud and Trix through the eyes of many others.' - Pam Johnson, Words Unlimited About the Author Mary Hamer was born in Birmingham. After reading English at Oxford she taught for the next twenty years and published works of non-fiction, before embarking at last on the adventure of imaginative writing.Kipling and Trix is her fifth book and first novel. Mary travels widely and has lectured in many countries. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the Guardian and the Independent. She has contributed to television and radio programmes, such as 'In Search of Cleopatra', Women's Hour and Night Waves. Mary is the Chair of the Kipling Society in London.

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