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bronze_ribbonsIn today's New York Times Book Review, Jeremy McCarter reviewing two new books about Arthur Conan Doyle:
I peeked a little at Elizabeth Goudge's Linnets and Valerians this past weekend (prompted by Dichroic, who wrote a delightful sequel-et in the comments to this entry - Nineveh, you may want to add it to your Wimsey-list if you haven't already) and I'm seriously starting to consider whether the trick to understanding J. K. Rowling's world-logic is to realize that she's writing in a Goudgean universe - not, say, a Dickensian one. When I read The Little White Horse earlier this fall, I remember thinking that I would have adored every word in it uncritically when I was ten - and that, while a part of me was determined to enjoy it (especially the feasts!), there's another a part of me that cannot help but groan, "Oh, please" at no one getting a tummyache at Maria and Robin's wedding banquet, and knowing that if Maria had tried to manage me the way she did everyone else, I would have hurled every last pink geranium at her and thought the world better for it.
If I squint at the HP series through a Goudgean lens, it starts making more sense than if I try to analyze it unfiltered (à la deathtocapslock). A universe where the current generation is far more clever than the ones before, for instance, succeeding wildly where their elders had failed (which, to be fair, is a classic children's literature trope).
Another thing I've recently realized is that, because my work has included paying attention to contemporary kidlit, I tend to forget that many other adults my age - particularly those who aren't parents - don't realize how sophisticated and wide-ranging its genres have become. So, for instance, someone who hasn't encountered Debi Gliori or Herbie Brennan or Jane Langton or Cynthia Kadohata or E. L. Konigsburg or Lemony Snicket or Nancy Willard might well hail Rowling as the first children's writer they've encountered whose characters are darker and more complex/ambiguous than the ones they remember from grade school. I'm not saying that JKR's characters aren't awesome, but what's niggling at me is more a sense that other writers aren't getting enough credit from the general public because they;re too rarely heard about unless the word "scrotum" shows up in the first chapter. [ETA: ...inspiring The Newbery Jewels, among other things.]
Speaking of which, Roger Sutton introduced "a first-class list of out-n-proud GLBTQ-and-sometimes-Y fiction" with the words "Who needs old closet case Dumbledore..." (go read the post - he mentions Susan Cooper and other authors as well, and there are additional recs in the comments). ...Roger's earlier comments on the brouhaha pretty much mirror my own reaction towards anything Rowling says these days - it's entertaining, but until she puts it into a book, it ain't canon as far as I'm concerned. Or, to quote another comment of his,
I hadn't seen the Maclean's review of The Seeker before now. I am charmed, especially since it's the first direct attribution I've seen of Cooper's reaction to the movie. It also mentions that when Cooper offered her papers to the director of the Toronto Public Library's Osborne Collection, during a ride to the airport, the director "gave me the greatest compliment I ever had as a writer. She ran into the curb."
Also, I haven't read these yet, but the Horn Book has reposted some essays Cooper wrote for them (on Tolkien and others), apparently for a limited time. If you scroll down, there are additional articles by Lloyd Alexander, Laurence Yep, and others.
This entry has gotten out of control. I'm going to resort to quotes-only Yuletide recs so I can go on to what I meant to be be doing after the NYTBR distracted me. *g*
Hanging Out, BFF. PC/Mac.
An Apple in Two. Twelfth Night.
The Only Jealousy of the Brothers Holmes. Sherlock and Mycroft, with references to other relationships.
Born to an Irish family in Scotland in 1859, Conan Doyle derived what Lycett calls his "fantasist" streak from his mother, who had a genius for telling stories, and from a childhood devouring Poe’s mysteries, Verne’s sci-fi adventures and Sir Walter Scott’s historical romances — all genres he later explored. His reverence for fact and logic was rooted in his medical training at Edinburgh, where the most colorful bunch of professors this side of Hogwarts exposed him to their powers of deduction, zeal for forensics and enthusiasm for cocaine.
I peeked a little at Elizabeth Goudge's Linnets and Valerians this past weekend (prompted by Dichroic, who wrote a delightful sequel-et in the comments to this entry - Nineveh, you may want to add it to your Wimsey-list if you haven't already) and I'm seriously starting to consider whether the trick to understanding J. K. Rowling's world-logic is to realize that she's writing in a Goudgean universe - not, say, a Dickensian one. When I read The Little White Horse earlier this fall, I remember thinking that I would have adored every word in it uncritically when I was ten - and that, while a part of me was determined to enjoy it (especially the feasts!), there's another a part of me that cannot help but groan, "Oh, please" at no one getting a tummyache at Maria and Robin's wedding banquet, and knowing that if Maria had tried to manage me the way she did everyone else, I would have hurled every last pink geranium at her and thought the world better for it.
If I squint at the HP series through a Goudgean lens, it starts making more sense than if I try to analyze it unfiltered (à la deathtocapslock). A universe where the current generation is far more clever than the ones before, for instance, succeeding wildly where their elders had failed (which, to be fair, is a classic children's literature trope).
Another thing I've recently realized is that, because my work has included paying attention to contemporary kidlit, I tend to forget that many other adults my age - particularly those who aren't parents - don't realize how sophisticated and wide-ranging its genres have become. So, for instance, someone who hasn't encountered Debi Gliori or Herbie Brennan or Jane Langton or Cynthia Kadohata or E. L. Konigsburg or Lemony Snicket or Nancy Willard might well hail Rowling as the first children's writer they've encountered whose characters are darker and more complex/ambiguous than the ones they remember from grade school. I'm not saying that JKR's characters aren't awesome, but what's niggling at me is more a sense that other writers aren't getting enough credit from the general public because they;re too rarely heard about unless the word "scrotum" shows up in the first chapter. [ETA: ...inspiring The Newbery Jewels, among other things.]
Speaking of which, Roger Sutton introduced "a first-class list of out-n-proud GLBTQ-and-sometimes-Y fiction" with the words "Who needs old closet case Dumbledore..." (go read the post - he mentions Susan Cooper and other authors as well, and there are additional recs in the comments). ...Roger's earlier comments on the brouhaha pretty much mirror my own reaction towards anything Rowling says these days - it's entertaining, but until she puts it into a book, it ain't canon as far as I'm concerned. Or, to quote another comment of his,
I don't think authors need stay home and shut up (well, I guess I could give some examples of some who should but I'm saving them for my memoirs) but I would like them to recognize that, when it comes to commentary on their own work, they don't get to make claims that aren't borne out by the text. [...]No points, either, for something "my editor made me take out." Which is why the heroine of the book not known as Tomorrow is Another Day is not known as Pansy O'Hara.
I hadn't seen the Maclean's review of The Seeker before now. I am charmed, especially since it's the first direct attribution I've seen of Cooper's reaction to the movie. It also mentions that when Cooper offered her papers to the director of the Toronto Public Library's Osborne Collection, during a ride to the airport, the director "gave me the greatest compliment I ever had as a writer. She ran into the curb."
Also, I haven't read these yet, but the Horn Book has reposted some essays Cooper wrote for them (on Tolkien and others), apparently for a limited time. If you scroll down, there are additional articles by Lloyd Alexander, Laurence Yep, and others.
This entry has gotten out of control. I'm going to resort to quotes-only Yuletide recs so I can go on to what I meant to be be doing after the NYTBR distracted me. *g*
Hanging Out, BFF. PC/Mac.
"That's a nice outfit," he said politely to PC, who was in what Mac considered a snazzy suit.
"Do you think so?" said PC dubiously. "I keep finding myself wearing it, no matter what I start out in. It just kind of... pops on, and I can't do anything else until I change. I'm not sure it's my color."
"Nah. You look good in blue."
"Really?" PC looked doubtful. "People use the words 'of death' to describe this particular shade of screen. That doesn't really seem very positive to me."
"I've got a beach ball of death. Don't get to play with it much, though.
An Apple in Two. Twelfth Night.
Antonio unfolded the pungent bundle of cloth and found the dress, yoke, and cowl worn by the washerwoman on her weekly rounds through the prison. She was supposed to arrive at a set and regular time, but she was apt to take up her duties at odd hours of the night.
Antonio smiled. "A good plan, my lady. I begin to see its outlines. And the outer guards? Bribed, I suppose?"
"Somewhat," the woman said. "I daresay that they don't suspect you, though. You must not be recognized. I didn't pay them that much. Do change, good sir."
"What, now? With you here?"
Viola rolled her eyes. "I do not aim to join the guards at their drinking contest while you kit yourself out, sir. I assure you, my sensibilities are by no means delicate. I lived as a man among men for months. Change, Antonio."
And change Antonio did, although he still had modesty enough to turn to the wall as he shucked his threadbare trousers and louse-ridden tunic. The washerwoman's clothing felt soft and thick and curiously comforting, as if each layer was a warm blanket on a cold night.
He put his hands on his hips and looked down at himself. The washerwoman was large woman, and if Antonio did not have the flesh to fill the dress, the cloth's empty spaces billowed out convincingly.
"I do not know if I can move in all these skirts."
"You can. Just don't let them drag on the floor or catch on anything." Viola pursed her mouth. "Skirts," she said, mostly to herself, "are a damnable nuisance."
The Only Jealousy of the Brothers Holmes. Sherlock and Mycroft, with references to other relationships.
there was between them that silent understanding that is seen only between survivors of shared trauma--soldiers who have stood together in bloody battle, or children who have endured much. Of this, they never spoke.
"What do you think of him, then," Sherlock demanded impatiently, as if it were not a new subject of conversation but the one under consideration from the start, "--my Watson?"
