The Crimson Ribbon by Katherine ClementsDo the wlw end up together : No5/10I didn’t realize qu

The Crimson Ribbon by Katherine ClementsDo the wlw end up together : No5/10I didn’t realize quite how little I know about the English Civil War until I started reading this book. I think I maybe heard Oliver Cromwell’s name mentioned once in AP World, but that’s about all I had got. Ruth Flowers is a servant in the home of Oliver Cromwell until the beginning of a round of witch hunts forces her to flee to London. With little to go on she ends in the home of Elizabeth Poole, a woman who would soon become a prophet testifying at the trial of a king. This novel depicts many of the horrors of the time period, from the mob mentality of the witch hunts to a deserting soldier clearly suffering from PTSD. Much of this book revolves around the politics of who’s currently in charge and how exactly to spread your opinions about them, which adds plenty of intrigue on top of Ruth’s growing closeness with her mistress. While Ruth’s character is imaginary, Lizzie’s is not. She’s a woman who dared to advocate for the rights of women in a time not only hostile to such ideas but ravaged by a civil war. There’s incredibly little information about her available, despite the fact that she published many treatises and appeared before Oliver Cromwell to oppose the execution of King Charles I. I love to read about forgotten women of history, so I thank this book for introducing me to yet another lost figure. However, let me just say that this book fell into some of the more tired tropes in wlw representation. Keep reading ahead if you don’t mind the spoilers. I found the ending of the book quite heart breaking but also poetically done as Lizzie made quite the statement on her way out and then…. I read the author’s note at the end. Elizabeth Poole is not in fact executed, but rather lives to a much older age. I was incredibly upset that the author chose to deviate from the character’s real fate and instead to show her punished for her opinions and sexuality. Why would Clements chose to kill a gay character whose real life counterpart lived a long life when “kill your gays” is one of the most prevalent harmful tropes in LGBT literature? I also had major issues with Ruth then ending the novel with a male character she had previously rejected because of his violent past. While I enjoyed the body of this novel, the end made me uncomfortable with its similarity to so many of the lesbian pulp novels of the 1950s and their mandated “death or heterosexuality” endings, especially given that this was the author’s invention rather than historical realism.  -- source link
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