And on the day
Feb. 14th, 2024 05:59 am1. ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
misbegotten got me flowers for Valentine's Day! They are on my desk at work, and they make my office so cheerful. <3
2. January books:
Fairy Tales and After: From Snow White to E. B. White by Roger Sale
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
This is a whole hot mess. This is the kind of "literary criticism" that drives me bonkers, the sort where the writer makes confident pronouncements about authors' psychology and desires and abilities with zero support. I mean, there is a certain degree of subjectivity inherent in literary criticism, but good literary criticism is not, "Golly, gee, I really do like this and really don't like that." The best literary criticism is close reading of texts and examination of themes and perhaps literary influences on an author and the cultural/historical context that influences a piece of writing. Sale says the most ridiculous things about these authors. Complete anti-rec.
View all my reviews
Francois Coty: Fragrance, Power, Money by Roulhac B. Toledano
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is an interesting read for a variety of reasons. First, I knew nothing about Coty the man or Coty the perfume empire before reading this biography; Coty's influence on perfume--in terms of creating scents; bottling, marketing, and selling them; and including them in cosmetic products--cannot be overstated.
The biography is written by two people, one of them the former wife (Elizabeth) of Coty's grandson. Her involvement in the project is interesting. Because Coty divorced his wife and she took him for half his fortune, she ended up with the Coty perfume empire; however, the man she remarried sold it to Pfizer, and one of the stipulations of the sale was that no Coty could ever work for the company again. So one of Elizabeth's clearly stated motivations throughout the book is to reclaim an inheritance that she feels has been stolen from her child and the other Coty heirs. Along with that, though, I get the sense that Elizabeth genuinely admires Coty and his perfumes and is fascinated with his intellectual achievements beyond their family connection. One textual feature of the book that annoyed me while reading is that Elizabeth's writing is italicized, and Toledano's is not, but I didn't realize that at first because Elizabeth's opening Preface is not italicized; her writing isn't italicized until the book proper begins, and it's interspersed with Toledano's. So at first, I thought her writing was just quotations, and it took me a few pages to figure out what was going on.
The book doesn't shy away from discussing Coty's infidelity or his antisemitism at length; while his antisemitism is never excused, it's hard not to come away from the book with the sense that Elizabeth believes that the infidelity is excusable, especially since she characterizes her divorce from Michel, Coty's grandson, as a mistake she made when she discovered his infidelity. She implies that she should have stayed married to him despite his infidelity, and she implies that Yvonne should have stayed married to Coty, especially since their divorce led to the ultimate ruin of the perfume empire.
Another thing I didn't like about the book is that I wanted pictures of the original Baccarat and Lalique perfume bottles and had to look those up on google instead. I did appreciate many of the pictures included, but I really wanted to see those most of all.
I definitely think this is worth a read.
View all my reviews
misbegotten got me flowers for Valentine's Day! They are on my desk at work, and they make my office so cheerful. <32. January books:
Fairy Tales and After: From Snow White to E. B. White by Roger SaleMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
This is a whole hot mess. This is the kind of "literary criticism" that drives me bonkers, the sort where the writer makes confident pronouncements about authors' psychology and desires and abilities with zero support. I mean, there is a certain degree of subjectivity inherent in literary criticism, but good literary criticism is not, "Golly, gee, I really do like this and really don't like that." The best literary criticism is close reading of texts and examination of themes and perhaps literary influences on an author and the cultural/historical context that influences a piece of writing. Sale says the most ridiculous things about these authors. Complete anti-rec.
View all my reviews
Francois Coty: Fragrance, Power, Money by Roulhac B. ToledanoMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is an interesting read for a variety of reasons. First, I knew nothing about Coty the man or Coty the perfume empire before reading this biography; Coty's influence on perfume--in terms of creating scents; bottling, marketing, and selling them; and including them in cosmetic products--cannot be overstated.
The biography is written by two people, one of them the former wife (Elizabeth) of Coty's grandson. Her involvement in the project is interesting. Because Coty divorced his wife and she took him for half his fortune, she ended up with the Coty perfume empire; however, the man she remarried sold it to Pfizer, and one of the stipulations of the sale was that no Coty could ever work for the company again. So one of Elizabeth's clearly stated motivations throughout the book is to reclaim an inheritance that she feels has been stolen from her child and the other Coty heirs. Along with that, though, I get the sense that Elizabeth genuinely admires Coty and his perfumes and is fascinated with his intellectual achievements beyond their family connection. One textual feature of the book that annoyed me while reading is that Elizabeth's writing is italicized, and Toledano's is not, but I didn't realize that at first because Elizabeth's opening Preface is not italicized; her writing isn't italicized until the book proper begins, and it's interspersed with Toledano's. So at first, I thought her writing was just quotations, and it took me a few pages to figure out what was going on.
The book doesn't shy away from discussing Coty's infidelity or his antisemitism at length; while his antisemitism is never excused, it's hard not to come away from the book with the sense that Elizabeth believes that the infidelity is excusable, especially since she characterizes her divorce from Michel, Coty's grandson, as a mistake she made when she discovered his infidelity. She implies that she should have stayed married to him despite his infidelity, and she implies that Yvonne should have stayed married to Coty, especially since their divorce led to the ultimate ruin of the perfume empire.
Another thing I didn't like about the book is that I wanted pictures of the original Baccarat and Lalique perfume bottles and had to look those up on google instead. I did appreciate many of the pictures included, but I really wanted to see those most of all.
I definitely think this is worth a read.
View all my reviews
