While reading Doris Lessing’s excellent novel, The Golden Notebook, I was stopped by a reference to a “fake Tudor pub.” My fascination with the layers and back-alleys of fiction revved up my useless thought synapses and proceeded to explode that simple statement into a morass of brain activity … masturbation of the little gray cells, if you will.
What is a “fake Tudor pub?” From the novel, I understand that the characters consider such a pub as sneer-worthy. But in the 1960s, when the novel was written and presumably when its narrative took place, how many authentic Tudor pubs were there around town, especially ones with authentic Elizabethan bartenders?
I would think, realistically, the the problem is in the terminology since a “real Tudor” anything is a near-impossibility, except in a museum. So perhaps we should refer to this pub as a real 1960s public house that was made to look like an authentic Tudor pub. Does it boil down to the question: is a real copy of a real Tudor pub the same as a fake Tudor pub? Should intent be taken into account? If I’m not trying to convince you that it is a real Tudor pub then can we really say that it is fake?
This same dilemma popped up in gender studies: is a man dressing and acting like a woman the same as a fake woman? Does it require an operation to become a real woman or is it still a real man living as a fake woman? Is “Trans” an identifiable and acceptable genre? In the animal world, as I recall from Junior High biology and Nature’s Half-Acre, many creatures go through phases of life. How different is the process for a gender migration (transgender) from a caterpillar turning into a butterfly or a tadpole turning into a frog? I vaguely remember there are creatures that change genders and even creatures which embody both genders.
In the animal world there are many varieties of gender and gender specific activities. Since man is just another animal, would we expect it to be different?
So two transvestites walked into a fake Tudor pub … you’ve heard it before?
A Celebration of Reading 