Reading in the Bath (Clean: An Unsanitised History of Washing - Katherine Ashenburg)

Member Name: Zmugzy

Product:	Clean: An Unsanitised History of Washing - Katherine Ashenburg
Date:	26/03/09 (294 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A wealth of facts, anecdotes and quotations to keep you highly entertained.

Disadvantages: First few chapters are a bit of a chore.

Canadian writer Katherine Ashenburg takes us through centuries of filth and bad odour, washing and bathing in Western societies, from Homer's Greece through to the malodorous middle ages and right up to our present day over-sanitised age where a multi-billion dollar advertising industry incessantly manipulates us into eliminating or disguising our natural human odours at all costs. I requested this book as a present after reading a review about it in a weekend newspaper. The topic seemed original and I thought it would be interesting to compare our clean obsessed society with those of times gone when, as Ashenburg writes; "the scent of one another's bodies was the ocean our ancestors swam in" - a time when a bar of soap was a rare thing, keeping clean meant changing your shirt and having a good wash meant sprinkling some water on your hands and face. The book also explores how past attitudes towards privacy, health, religion and sexuality in different western nations have influenced or been associated with the way people wash. The overall message that comes across is that 'cleanliness' is a highly subjective concept.

The written text totals just on 300 pages with the first two thirds concentrating on Europe and the last third focussing mostly on the advertising industry and emerging attitudes to hygiene in the USA. The chapters are set in chronological order starting with the Greeks. We only learn about the rich Greeks of course, bathing in cold water after a stint in the Gym and we discover how bathing for well-off Romans was a highly social activity whereby hours were spent each day relaxing naked in pools of varying temperatures eating and socialising with friends, business colleagues and prostitutes. Like the Greeks they didn't use soap but instead were oiled and scraped by a slave or servant.

Chapter two covers the rather dirty Christian period where washing was generally discouraged. Apparently the dirtier you were the closer you were to God. Medieval Christians would prove their holiness by not washing at all and many a religious monk or hermit would express their sanctity by spending their days 'writhing in their own excrement' so that one could 'rejoice in smelling the good odour of a brother from a mile away.' Chapter three takes us through the early middle ages and the rise and fall in popularity of public bathing in Europe and how this was influenced by the Turkish Hamam and the far more hygienic invading Muslim armies.

The middle of the book is probably the most intriguing part, mainly on account of it being the filthiest. For hundreds of years it was believed that bathing in warm water was bad for you because the water and all the germs it contained would enter your body through the pores. The Black Death in the 14th century merely confirmed this belief. The plague put people off bathing for over 400 years because the medics wrongly believed that excessive bathing was partly the cause. And so it was that the courts and palaces of 17th/18th century Europe were filled with the stench of Kings and Queens. Elizabeth I bathed once a month "whether I need it or not" she would say. Her successor James I washed only his fingers. The French Court of Versailles must have positively reeked as every type of powder and oil was used to mask the pervasive pong of one's neighbours as well as one's own. The odour of Henry IV was 'notorious' as was that of his son Louis XIII who used to remark: "I take after my father, I smell of armpits!" The sweaty monarch Louis XIV, after bouts of energetic exercise, would clean himself simple by changing his clothes. In fact it became the customary belief in the 17th century that the cleansing properties of fine linen kept the body clean more conveniently than 'risky' bathing. If you could afford it, you got washed by changing your shirt.

I don't have many gripes with the book but I felt at times that the chorological ordering was unoriginal and a little bit tedious, especially in the opening chapters. It seems that historical books about any subject always have to deal with what the Romans and Greeks did first. But it is probably the fact that they seemed to bathe all day and kept themselves exceedingly clean which makes the first fifty pages a bit of a bore and slightly repetitive. Understandably perhaps, due to the available historical written records, it's the cleanliness or otherwise of the aristocracy and middle classes that dominate the chapters. There is less personal insight into how slaves or peasantry washed for example and it is only when we get to the 19th and 20th centuries that we get more of an idea of lower class washing habits.

Other reviewers have referred to the gross and 'not for the squeamish' contents of this book, but for me it wasn't quite dirty enough. Instead of really smelling the malodorous excrement of history you get merely a passing whiff. I was left wanting to know more detail for example, of what it was really like in 17th century Italy and France when it was the custom for gentlemen to excuse themselves during polite conversation with fine ladies in order to relieve themselves in hallways and on staircases. I also felt that an opportunity to include a bit more humour in this book was missed. One could imagine someone like Stephan Fry having a field day writing about reeking armpits and nude public bathing.

On the whole though, this is a very informative read. The book is well organised and highly accessible. Clearly the author has researched the subject matter thoroughly as is evident by nearly forty pages made up of notes and a bibliography at the back of the book. There are also decorative illustrations and small boxed-off vignettes scattered throughout the pages that add a certain charm and make the book very attractive on the eye. The wealth of facts, anecdotes and quotations throughout the chapters detailing the rituals of medieval steam baths, the curious advice of medical practitioners and the hygienic regimes of monks, monarchs and mistresses are enough to keep you turning the pages. More importantly perhaps the book draws light on our own quite bizarre present day obsessions of scrubbing and cleaning our bodies and dousing ourselves daily with copious perfumed concoctions. This is one book I would highly recommend for reading in the bath.

Summary: An insightful account about the history of hygiene.