“Transvestite” appeared recently in a post. My son tells me that the word is now considered derogatory. “Cross-dresser” should be used. Duly noted.

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans has been on the New York Times bestseller list for over a half year. I understand that. The epistolary novel is a good read with sensitive portraits of many people. Before this success, Evans had failed to sell her previous seven novels. And yet she persevered. There is some sort of lesson here.

Perhaps it is time to bring back Gershwin’s musical, Strike Up the Band. The thin, satirical plot has the U.S. president imposing a 50% tariff on cheese. Switzerland objects. A cheese manufacturer then sponsors a war against the Alpine nation because he believes the country will be named after him. (The Red Nichols Orchestra was the pit band at the musical’s inception. It included Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Gene Krupa, Jimmy Dorsey, and Jack Teagarden.) Or perhaps Gershwin’s Of Thee I Sing should first be revived. It concerns the possible impeachment of a president, babies, and the threatened severing of Franco-American ties with the possibility of war. (It’s complicated.)

He said that we taxpayers would not pay anything for the One Big Beautiful Ballroom. Then we learned that the budget would include a billion dollars for security improvements to this OBBB. Distressing but hardly surprising that his initial statement was not correct. I, however, felt somewhat relieved when I learned that the security measures would include a black granite drawbridge over a moat with flag-blue painted walls containing gilded crocodiles.

I saw in a notable publication a notable person stating that Romola by George Eliot was not a minor novel. Then I saw in a different notable publication a comment by a different notable person that Romola was outstanding. Then I saw Romola on a list of top ten works of historical fiction. Then in an infrequently visited part of the library, I saw Romola in a dusty volume in a set of her collected works. (This volume also contains Theophrastus Such. ???) Although I had never heard of Romola a month before, I felt as if something was speaking to me, and I pried the book from its companions.

The lengthy book (the version I read was 527 pages of relatively small pages but also small type) is set in 1490s Florence. The principle characters are the Florentine Romola who marries the educated Tito Melema. Melema, of Italian birth but of Greek descent, becomes a conniving politician and an amoral husband. The book may contain many historical Florentine figures, but my knowledge is limited, and I only recognized Niccoló Machiavelli, who plays a minor role, and the heretical, according to the corrupt Pope, Dominican monk Girolamo Savonarola, who first brings faith to the nonbelieving Romola while his later actions lead her to doubt. Perhaps because I don’t know much about Savonarola, I was surprised that she showed him nuanced sympathy. For example, Romola struggles how to proceed in her marriage when she learns of her husband’s betrayals. Eliot writes: “The law was sacred. Yes, but rebellion might be sacred too. It flashed upon her mind that the problem before her was essentially the same as that which had lain before Savonarola—the problem where the sacredness of obedience ended, and where the sacredness of rebellion began.” Later the book states, “For power rose against [Savonarola], not because of his sins, but because of his greatness—not because he sought to deceive the world, but because he sought to make it noble.”

I followed the religious passions that led to the Bonfire of the Vanities, perhaps because there are many similar historical and contemporary examples. However, I found the political machinations and power disputes between Florence and its rivals — Venice, Pisa, France, etc. — confusing indeed. I confess limited knowledge of these events, but I felt that the book fell short in explaining them. For me, it was often a bewildering read. Romola is not on my recommended list, but let me know if you have a different opinion.