Undone - An LBC Post

Hey, Will Knott, thanks a bunch for leaving a cryptic topic for the LBC to write on and then disappearing into the wild blue yonder.  As a harassed wife and mother and four with the spouse and offspring forever clamouring for my time and attention, this wasn't a 'post 'n go' topic' for which I could stick up a photo, leave a Tweet-sized statement and run off to comment on other LBC blogs.  I tried to conjure up a picture using the word 'undone', but the photo that came up, I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole.  Just let's say if I used it, you'd think this was a post about male strippers before you'd even started to read. Strewth! (I'm probably reading too many historical novels lately - 'Strewth' is a corrupt version of an old-fashioned English exclamation 'God's truth!').

Speaking of historical fiction, as a book reviewer, it's my favourite genre.  It wafts you back into another time and place when life was simple.  There was no pressure to go on the net and check Facebook or one's blog. No. Life was at a slower, easier pace.  Well, apart from the fact that you had to do all your housework by hand. Wash the clothes, grind the spices, scrub the floor on your knees.   Yes.  And the possibility of dying in childbirth if you were a woman was practically a given. Okay, I love historical stuff provided it's nicely researched and reasonably well written, but apart from reading about it, I've no desire to return to the past.  Hills being greener far away and all that.

'Undone' seems to be an old-fashioned expression which means that one is ruined, facing disaster. As in 'alas, my dearest friend has betrayed me!  I am undone....'  

A publishing company whose books I review rather frequently has a line called 'Undone'.  Yes, it is a historical line of books (yay) and features short reads with damsels in distress being ravished by macho rakes, pirates and the like (Yay? Not yay!).  Well, for the record, I never review those.  Firstly, I'm never asked to do so.  Secondly, they are boring.  I mean who needs to read about Lady Helena Whomsoever having her wicked way in any number of positions and situations?  Or someone else having their wicked way with her? These matters are totally private in my opinion and I have absolutely no interest in vicariously experiencing someone else's shenanigans. Moreover, why is it that when people get it together in fiction, they always have the most amazing sessions with earth moving sensations and the like?  It's stretches one's credibililty rather too much.  Indeed, it's enough to make ordinary mortals madly jealous.  As one  author said in a group discussion on Facebook, these scenes are often lousy excuses for having no real story to tell.  At the back of every good book, be it hot or sweet,  there has to be a story worth reading.  Otherwise, what is the point?.

Then supposing one of those stories (I mean, one of those scenes in one of those stories) strikes a nerve somewhere and gets you all hot and bothered?  For a housewife, this is the ultimate nightmare, not to mention inconvenience.  I mean, there you  are, all primed and ready for action and you have to go and like, do the laundry?  Or peel the potatoes? Or (in certain situations) unblock a drain?  Now, there's a let down if I ever I experienced one.  So I tend to keep the bodice ripper books at arms length.  No wonder they're called 'hysterical historicals'.

That's a situation which in which  I would consider myself  to be 'undone'.  In the sense of 'alas', I mean.  If you know what I mean.


My thanks are due to freedigitalphotos.net for the image (courtesy of Stuart Miles).  And to my LBC blogger friends (links in sidebar) for the inspiration to keep on writing and blogging week after week.