I love Jan Morris!

If you know anything about Trieste, it's probably because you read something by Jan Morris. She was a soldier during the days of the military government here after WWII. That was when she was a he. She was transgender before transgender was cool.

I mention it because I just finished her book, Conundrum, where she talks about her life and the process of going through a sex change. It is beautifully written. I especially enjoyed the parts where she talks about the difference in how people treated her before and after.

Here is my favorite excerpt (p. 131 if you borrow the copy we have in our library)

"It is hard for me now to remember what everyday life was like as a man- unequivocally as a man, I mean, before my change began at all. It amuses me to consider, for instance, when I am taken out to lunch by one of my more urbane men friends, that not so many years ago that fulsome waiter would have treated me as he is treating him. Then he would have greeted me with respectful seriousness. Now he unfolds my napkin with a playful flourish, as if to humour me. Then he would have taken my order with grave concern, now he expects me to say something frivolous (and I do). Then he would have pretended, at least, to respect my knowledge of wines, now I am not even consulted. Then he would have addressed me as a superior, now he seems to think of me (for he is a cheerful man) as an accomplice. I am treated of course with the conventional deference that a woman expects, the moving of tables, the wrapping of coats, the opening of doors: but I know that it is really deference of a lesser kind, and that the man behind me is the guest that counts.

But it soon all came to feel only natural, so powerful are the effects of custom and environment. Late as I came in life to womanhood 'a late developer', as somebody said of me- the subtle subjection of women was catching up on me, and I was adjusting to it in just the way women have adjusted down the generations."

By the way, this book was first published in 1974.

I liked her book on Trieste, Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere. I also enjoyed The Venetian Empire.

Now I am eager to read some of her earlier work before the change. So fascinating.

Happy Reading this summer!