In "On Blondes," Pitman traces the social significance of blonde hair through history. Her tone is never snide or haughty - she (a brunette) is simply fascinated by the world of different reactions yellow hair may provoke. The book runs from Aphrodite to Margaret Thatcher RuPaul; I'm only up to Mary Magdalene. Here's my favorite part so far, a scathing passage against women's cosmetic fakery written by the Roman poet Martial in the first century AD:
Although, yourself at home, you are arrayed in the middle of the Suburba, and your tresses, Galla, are manufactured far away, and you lay aside your teeth at night, just as you do your silk dresses, and you lie stored away in a hundred caskets, and your face does not sleep with you - yet you wink with that eyebrow which has been brought out for you in the morning, and no respect moves you for your outworn carcass - which you may now count as one of your ancestors. Nevertheless you offer me an infinity of delights.
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Having finished it, I can say it absolutely lived up to my early expectations. Every chapter's interesting in a different way, especially the one on the freaky and misguided Aryan perception of blondeness. Up until that point I'd completely forgotten about those guys. Pitman does an excellent job of leading the reader down dozens of historical trains of thought, while maintaining a pretty cohesive narrative structure. There's way more to know about blonde hair than I ever would have guessed, and, told this way, it's fascinating.
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"On Blondes" may be purchased via Powell's here.
