A very zombie love affair

After a long silence, we hear again from our eighteenth century correspondent, Mary Wollstonecraft who has much to relate of her  philosophical progress since she last wrote here.

I am sitting down to write this half-way between Paris and Lille which I hope to reach before tomorrow night. I am tired from the journey, and being with child has affected my capacity to reminisce – nonetheless, dear loyal reader, I will now attempt to bring back with words some of the painful events that have plagued me since I last wrote here.

'Tis two years now since I fled infected London for Paris – two wonderful, peaceful years, when the only upsetting events were the occasional loss of a dear friend to the guillotine. 'Tis in Paris that I met my dear beloved Imlay, adored companion and father of my child to be. France is mercifully free of zombies. I believe the revolutionary practice of using the guillotine often and plenty has so far prevented a general infection of the country: the blade that slices through the neck is democratic enough in that it kills zombies and royalists alike. M. Guillotine, I should note, was one of the early proponents of the view to which I fully subscribe that in order to destroy a zombie and prevent it from rising again, one should separate its head from its body.

Where have all the women gone?

In my head, the great writers are women. Sure, there's Balzac. But is he really as good as Jane Austen? Don't think so. And there's Victor Hugo - eminent - but he can't touch either Charlotte or Emily. What's a better read? Dickens or Mrs Gaskell? What's a better social commentary: his Hard Times or her North and South? I know which one I'd vote for. And Sartre's novels are nothing to Beauvoir's, certainly. And contemporary fiction - well, that's mostly women, isn't it!

Still, this all seems to be in my head only, because Universities world wide are having fights about whether or not to revise their mostly male syllabi.

Now in my branch of writing, philosophy, there's even more of a gender gap. One that's not quite ready to close yet, as men are still hogging the front line in the syllabi and the university jobs.

Back to London, leaving the zombies behind.

This is another guest post by the young Mary Wollstonecraft. 

We have just arrived at Hoxton. Our boxes are yet unpacked, and the house has not been cleaned for us. Eliza and Everina are presently dusting and scrubbing with our maid. But I have been allowed some rest time because I said I was suffering from the headache. I do not like to lie, and in truth I do have the headache, but I must admit I do not perhaps need the rest as badly as I have given to believe. However 'tis all the same to them. Mother has gone straight to lie down, and father out to investigate the neighbouring ale houses. I am left in charge of my sisters. My older brother Ned is already gone to the house of our uncle where he is to learn the business, and my younger brothers,  James and Charles, are bringing boxes in the house, still. All are accounted for but Henry.

I'm writing an opera. With zombies.

A little while back I made a pitch to Andrew Lloyd Webber for a musical (well, not really, I wrote a blog post about it, but you never know, maybe he read it). It was called: Mary Wollstonecraft, a Musical Life. I'm thinking of changing it to Mary Wollstonecraft, a Musical Life with Zombies. For one thing, I've got the material. But mostly, I think it would sell more tickets.

A Vindication of the Rights of Zombies

Another guest post from the lovely Mary Wollstonecraft.

It has long been my impression that our world is riddled with inequalities both in nature and in our treatment of each other. What has never been till now quite clear to me is how little those we treat as inferiors owe their inferiority to nature and not prejudice. In some cases at least it is obvious that it is our societies' treatment of them that has rendered them inferior. (I think that French manners, in particular, are much to blame for this.) Such is the case, I am now convinced, with zombies. Is a zombie by its nature a brain chomping, limb dropping fool, or has it been forced to become so by the prejudices of our society?

How to journey to the North of England in difficult circumstances.

This is a very special guest post from the sixteen year old Mary Wollstonecraft, who writes about moving to Yorkshire because her feckless father, once again, lost all his money.

Dear Readers

It has been requested of me by a friend that I make a humble contribution to a sort of log book, the nature of which I am as yet unclear about. If I reflect on the topic it seems to me that the weblog is not a letter nor a diary, and perhaps 'tis closer to the pamphlet. I have seen a pamphlet, several, indeed, in the library of my new friend's father – he is a philosopher, I believe. But I must not digress already. My task, if I may call it so, is to recount to the best of my as yet unrealised abilities, my experience of growing up a young woman in late eighteenth century, zombie-ridden Yorkshire.

In flight movie

Nothing terribly exciting to report in Lost. Except that my husband has finally started watching it. He's on episode four, I think. First season, that is. I think he's hoping to catch up with me before the finale. He's on about two episodes a week. So anyway, he says: there are some really weird things happening in Lost. Yes, people. This is what it used to be like! Remember? Before season six began? We used to tune in every Wednesday (that's if you stream or download) for our dose of weirdness. But what, I ask, has happened so far in season six that could qualify even as slightly unusual? (Ok, there's the whole alternate reality thing, but when you've already had flashbacks and flash-forwards, you're a bit blase about that kind of stuff). So I'm thankful to my husband, and all those really behind people out there who're watching seasons before the last, for reminding me that Lost was once exciting.

Er, I thought I'd do a book review now, but I can't remember last time I read a book that wasn't Twilight or Mary Wollstonecraft related, so I'll pass for this time.

I'll do a product review though. I like the idea of these.

Lately I've been looking into pets (does it count as product if you can buy it? Or do you have to consume it? We certainly go through a lot of them). At the moment we've got turtles, Elvis and Priscilla, and a goldfish, Mimi. We used to have a Rodolfo fish as well, but Mimi outlived him (take that Puccini!)We can't have a cat because husband's allergic and we live on the ninth floor. We can't have a dog because our son is extremely afraid of them. But it's good for children to have pets, and in particular, it's good for children with autism. So I'm thinking about it. I took my son to the pet shop today to see if he'd show affinity to anything there. But the only thing that didn't freak him and attracted him was the fish. And we've already got one of those. I did some research on the internet a while back, and something that I think would be good for him is the teacup pig.

They're adorable, smaller than a dog, clean, don't bark, and can do tricks like ride on a skate board. But let's face it, we live in Turkey and people just wouldn't get the pig thing. Plus we'd probably eat it.

So I'm more than moderately attracted to what a friend referred to as a donkey no bigger than a house cat. Turks get donkeys (they're not allowed on the motorway but we could work around that.) More importantly, we wouldn't feel the urge to eat it.