Jul 18

Jul 18 Heat and steam

CALORIFÈRE, n. This is an old-timey French word that means “heater,” which I was able to guess because I married a chemist who sometimes says words like “calorimeter”—a device that measures heat in chemical reactions—and also because “calor/e” is Latin/Spanish/Italian for heat. I have nothing to say about this word; I’m just really excited that I guessed it.

I found “calorifère” while reading Charlotte Duvette’s Intérieurs parisiens—hey, this counts as Capital-R Romance, I read a book in French for once! it was mostly pictures, but shhhhh—a lovely collection of images of Parisian homes from the middle ages to the present day. Nominally this was research for the historical romance novel I’m writing, but I don’t actually need to know anything about the middle ages or the present day for that, just a scant few years of the nineteenth century. I read the whole book just because it was a pleasure to look at. I’m nosy and I love looking inside other people’s houses.

Paintings tend to focus on the private lives of the wealthy or the artistic elite, but this book did make an effort to include images of the lives of regular folk, which I appreciated. Still, most of the images are of lavishly decorated interiors, like the one below. Apologies for the mediocre photo—this painting is hard to find online. It’s the home of pianist, composer, and music teacher Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmermann, painted by Prosper Lafaye around 1840.

At the time, Zimmermann lived in Paris in what is now the ninth arrondissement, but in 1840, the system of arrondissements didn’t exist yet. The neighborhood is Nouvelle Athènes, which was full of artsy types (Alexandre Dumas, George Sand, Frédéric Chopin) in the 1830s and 40s and is still full of art galleries today. The giant metal box next to Zimmerman is the “calorifère” in question, possibly some kind of newfangled steam or water radiator based on this Gallica article that I skimmed, which is linked because I married a person who might like to look at some old diagrams of steam heat, and maybe you would like that, too.

On top of the heater, inside that glass bell, is Napoléon’s death mask. This seems like a macabre thing to own, but Duvette writes that it was a common decoration in the 1840s and it sold for “a few centimes.” For roughly contemporary reference, in Les Mis, at one point Marius buys a small loaf of bread for ten centimes. So the death mask is inexpensive. Still a weird thing to own! Other new, notable design details of the moment: displaying dried bouquets in glass bells, putting furniture on wheels (Zimmermann’s armchair, the round table, and I believe, the piano). Anyway, apparently Zimmermann’s salon was the place to be if you were a musician in Europe at the time.

Here’s a portrait of him painted by Antoine-Jean Gros in 1815. He was a good-looking young dude. But maybe also kind of a jerk: Wikipedia notes that he refused to teach the American pianist and composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk, denying him entry to the Paris Conservatory without an audition, because “America is a country of steam engines.” But France, in addition to being a country where people used to decorate their homes with cheap casts of Napoléon’s death mask, was on its way to becoming a country of steam heat, so I’m not sure what Zimmermann’s point was.

In small-r romance, here are some books I read.

The Jasmine Throne (f/f, both cis and lesbian, fantasy) by Tasha Suri. This is maybe more of a fantasy than a romance, but goddamn what a fantasy it is. And what a romance. Malini is a princess, sister to a cruel and power-mad emperor, and she’s sentenced to burn alive for scheming to put her less-awful brother on the throne. She refuses the death sentence, so instead the emperor imprisons her at the top of an abandoned, haunted temple in the conquered land of Ahiranya, where she meets the servant Priya, who was once an acolyte of that temple and still wields its magic. Priya longs to see Ahiranya liberated from the empire, and she and Malini use each other in turn—until the manipulation and political machination turns into grudging respect, cautious friendship, and then love. This book has such a cool, complex setting that develops differences of religion, class, gender, and ethnicity within the empire, and its plot takes on the thorny questions of revolution and its costs. The magic is cool as hell, too. Also: some real creepy shit. I loved the large cast and the many different points of view. Content guidance from the author. (Plus pregnancy and birth.)

Subtle Blood (bi m/gay m, both cis, historical) by KJ Charles. Sometimes I love a book so much that I don’t know what to say about it. I put off writing this silly little paragraph for three weeks because every time I think about this book, I just want to start sobbing and/or reread immediately. The intrigue is twisty, the plot is action-packed, the prose is sharper than Will’s emotional support knife, but most of all, the declarations of love are powerfully personal and deep. You really see why Will and Kim are the best people for each other and how they make each other better (and maybe sometimes a little worse, but we love their stabbing, lying ways). My faves Maisie and Phoebe are brilliant and there are several other cameos from the KJCharles-iverse that made me happy. Everything I wanted. Content guidance from the author: References to self-harm (not shown taking place). On-page violence, threats of violence, and murder. Emotionally abusive family. Vomiting.

See you next Sunday!