The vulgar, not the Vulgate
A brief note on the word, ‘sex’. I find myself avoiding it often. It is an ugly word. Not because it is boorish, but because it is too refined. ‘Sex’ is clinical: sterile, precise, institutional. It comes from the Norman French, originally Latin – what philologists Reneé and Henry Kahane called ‘the status symbol of...
Polar bears in Auschwitz
“When I was in second grade, I found a piece of paper on my desk with the words, ‘You are a Jew’. I went home and asked: ‘Mum, what is a Jew?’ She explained that people have different religions, Christians, Protestants and Jews in Czechoslovakia. I said: ‘And we are Jews?’ The answer was a...
Dangerous for ordinary people
It takes great determination and mettle to give voice to silence; to look at closely, and truly see what has become invisible or been reduced to transparency. Louisa Treger evinces both purpose and mettle, deep knowledge and fine understanding in The Lodger, her debut novel about the writer Dorothy Richardson, someone who is often overlooked...
