A Lady and the World

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu has been one of my favorite authors to read so far. She's an incredibly talented and educated woman that took her time to create invaluable works and letters during her time at home and her time traveling the world with her husband. Her Turkish Letters stood out as specifically important to me. Lady Montagu took the time and effort, although in private letters, to truly record the towns, cities, and country she spent her time traveling in. She was giving those in secluded England a very real and sympathetic view of third-world countries in her time. One of her letters describes her experience of a city while she was under disguise within their own culture. This shows that she was not a classic, white european that just saw underdeveloped areas as a way to create more money. She took time to observe and understand those around her in a way that you simply can't from hundreds of miles away.

I have a great appreciation for anyone that has an open enough mind to allow works like this to come into creation. The way she wrote was very reminescent of a book called Henderson the Rain King, by Saul Bellow. I have not read this book in a very long time, but the way it was written and the feel of the book is very familiar to the Lady.