reading: zofia turbotyńska mysteries and some more misc. non-fiction

[sword_logic]

the Zofia Turbotyńska mystery series, written by Maryla Szymiczkowa, currently spans two books translated to english (Mrs. Mohr Goes Missing and Karolina and the Torn Curtain) and five total in the original polish, and follows a bored, nosy social climber as she decides that she can do detective work in mid-1890s kraków after reading some poe.

first off, Szanowna Pani Turbotyńska is one of the funniest, most enjoyable POV characters i've read in a really long time -- she is so deeply insufferable in such a specifically polish way. like, i have met this lady. she's at the counter at every urząd. she's my hairdresser. she's a shop owner. she gets so puffed up about Propriety and Manners and Society and very conveniently ignores her own hypocrisy. there's a moment in book two where she's internally hating on another woman for being A Dreadful Socialist and insinuating that women should get educations (good god can you imagine) and then she thinks to herself "i would not DARE presume to think that i, a woman, could do a man's job" and then promptly sets off to continue doing her Detective Work that made me laugh out loud. it takes a lot of skill to make a truly insufferable hypocrite of a character really fun, engaging, and endearing, and the authors (szymiczkowa is a pen name for two married authors) do a fantastic job of making you root for her even when she's shoving her nose into everyone's business just to come out on top, particularly as Karolina and the Torn Curtain is so personal to her.

Mrs. Mohr Goes Missing deals with a strange death in a convalescent home; Karolina and the Torn Curtain is about the gruesome murder of the main character's housemaid. the first book didn't get terribly dark, despite, you know, The Murders, but the second book immediately took a darker, much more somber turn. it was still really funny and really enjoyable, but the details surrounding the housemaid's death, once they're finally revealed, were so deeply brutal and haunting that i still feel affected by it after a few days. (dw, there is The Fuck some comeuppance.) both books end in the classic murder mystery "i have gathered you all here today" scene, which is really fun, and was satisfying in both books -- i'll admit that i've never read any of agatha christie's books, but this makes me want to change that.

these books were really fun for me because they're sooooooo so so polish, and they're set in a city i've been to a bunch of times, so my mental maps of both the culture and the location were serving me very extensively. i wouldn't say that these books feel inaccessible to Non-Polish People or anything, but they're so deeply polish even in the way that everyone talks to each other, even in translation, that i could picture conversations clear as a bell. i read really slowly in polish, but i think i'll try to get my hands on a copy of the third book; antonia lloyd-jones is also the primary translator for tokarczuk, so i'm assuming books 3 through 5 haven't gotten translated into english yet because of Empuzjon (which is... out in english now? maybe? and i should also read that, i guess).

predictably, i've also been continuing to read more about menswear!

How to Read a Suit by Lydia Edwards: kind of a visual timeline of The Suit as we know it, following its documented inception in 1666 through to its contemporary form, full of photos, paintings, and explanations. really cool!

On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder: bleak. particularly bleak knowing it was published in 2017 and here we are. worth the read.

Sword and Brush by Dave Lowry: really fascinating read; a selection of kanji related to budō along with short essays with interpretations, literal or metaphorical, and a bit of history. short, but interesting. (i started practicing iaidō in february! have i actually said this out loud anywhere? i can't remember, lmao. anyways, it's really cool, i really like it.)

Gentleman: The Ultimate Companion to the Elegant Man by Bernhard Roetzel

okay, this one i have a lot to say about. first and foremost, this is a book written by a white english guy, and oh good god does it ever show. there were a few passages where my eyebrows just about flew off my face. dude managed to talk about "the cotton industry" in america without ever saying the words slave or enslaved. there were a number of similarly batshit offhand remarks throughout that really made it clear this dude is, uh, very much the stereotypical White English Old Guy. on one hand, this is sort of part and parcel when it comes to reading about menswear; the suit as we know it was not originally a purely english invention (in many regards), but it is england that made it into a sociocultural requirement, and there is a lot of racism baked into The Suit as an overarching concept. but on the other hand, i have read a ton of books about menswear that like, aren't actively racist. the bar is not particularly high in the year of our lord 2025. And Yet.

moments ranging from yikes (he refers to blues music as "primitive") to lmao (direct quote: "A sight considered distasteful in many parts of the world: the bare male leg.") aside, this was actually a really informative book. i've read a lot that paints in broad historical strokes, but this was more of a practical guide (inasmuch as this can ever be practical, lol). the book is divided into several sections that address not just clothing (jacket, trousers, hosiery, shoes, etc.) but personal grooming and accessories too, which was really interesting.

there was a section on classic men's fragrance that really grabbed my attention, which was surprising to me because i am generally very scent-sitive and don't wear any fragrances, ever; most of my workplaces in the past many years have been scent-free by policy, thank god, so i have absolutely no reason for smelly things to be part of getting dressed. there were a couple that i googled out of curiosity because, of course, the only thing i associate with Men's Fragrance is when someone walks by with like a physical 30-foot AOE miasma of the nastiest cologne you've ever smelled, and some of them were described in ways that seemed very Not Men's to me -- lavender, rosemary, chamomile. i ended up getting a tiny sample of one of them (the lavender/rosemary/chamomile one) while at the fancy mall a few weeks ago and it really shocked me with how delicate it was; after a couple hours it just smelled like clean soap in a very pleasant way.

fashion "rules" are something i struggle with -- or rather, against -- in both this sphere and in lolita fashion, particularly as "influencers" find ways to profit off of smacking people on the wrist and declaring themselves to be The font of knowledge in some area. this book was, interestingly but not surprisingly, not explicitly focused on "rules" in any way; it just presented cuts, styles, fabrics, etc. as being Properly English for English Gentleman, with a handful of (very unintentionally funny) throwaway lines about italian or american style that came off as muttered asides. funnily enough, it was the section on socks that did this in the most thoughtful and interesting way: the author presented several scenarios (weather/season, event) and clothing choices, and then explored a number of sock options and how they might enhance other parts of the outfit or even provoke a change in shirt or tie for harmony. it was the same kind of exploration i really like about listening to lolitas break down their coord choices. this accessory pulls on that element in the print and these shoes take the look in this direction and swapping headdresses pulled it all together.

there was also a lot of practical advice sprinkled through this book in the form of how-tos with accompanying photos: shoe-shining, folding shirts, packing jackets in a suitcase. really interesting! the internet's double-edged sword when it comes to how-tos is that anyone can write anything, and every method is going to have people who swear up and down that it ruins the X to do it Y way; by the same token, just because something is published in a physical book most definitely does not make it correct. even so, it was nice to see all the how-tos, and the one on shoe-shining -- or rather, specifically, bull-polishing -- was really interesting. i also really enjoyed the sections highlighting how a certain thing is made, whether manufactured or by hand, and often there were comparisons of different methods too.

overall, as someone who's very much interested in english menswear and styles directly derivative of or parallel to it, this was a really enlightening read. just wish there hadn't been a "oooh, okay, we don't say that, buddy" or "your experiences are not universal" line every 10 pages. ("every young man knows the exciting feeling of being invited to his friend's country house for the weekend" my dude... what. i'm willing to bet that even the average english person's response is what.)

up next on for me is From Tartan to Tartanry, which is actually an academic publication and not a book (thank you resource-sharing at my library for letting me get this, lmao) about portrayals of scotland in historical popular culture specifically through tartan, and unpacking the (very english) "concept" of scotland. i read Tartan + Tweed at the end of last year and it was fantastic; i'm curious how this deeper dive will read (and if i'll be somewhat out of my depth as someone who really doesn't know that much about the history of the UK).

i'd also like to read Monica L. Miller's book on Black dandyism, which inspired this year's met gala theme; there was an essay by her in the book i'm currently reading (Artist, Rebel, Dandy, a compilation of photos, essays, and short blurbs on dandyism and famous dandies throughout history) and i really, really enjoyed it.