An Advent Calendar of Stories - 24th December 2011
And the final story in our Advent Calendar of gorgeous Pros-y stories, is the one that I can't resist at this time of year, and that I will curl up in bed with tonight:
In the Deep Midwinter (The Larton Chronicles) by Rhiannon
Because how can you not love these lads, AU or not...
On the morning of Christmas Day Doyle looked at the bright green ( Read more... )
In the Deep Midwinter (The Larton Chronicles) by Rhiannon
Because how can you not love these lads, AU or not...
On the morning of Christmas Day Doyle looked at the bright green ( Read more... )
One thing that's always puzzled me about this section in particular, and someone who is much more familiar with the stories than I am might know the answer - is Bodie meant to be R. Catholic in Larton, hence the use of 'Mass' for the Christmas Eve service? Doesn't seem to go with the wellies and hounds and the Irish hunters(!). Or does it just mean he's from a High Church Anglican background?
I know he's got a good chance of being from a Catholic family in the series, being "Liverpool Irish" and all, but the character background seems wrong in this one. Even in canon he doesn't have to be Catholic - his favourite club, Liverpool FC, was founded by an Orangeman, Everton was known as the Catholic one (at least thus spake Wikipedia).
On another ranttopic, what is it with all the stories giving Doyle a Catholic background? Don't people know their UK demographics and how relatively unlikely that would have been? Or that an Irish surname doesn't mean you're Irish or your parents were, or your grandparents??? I think there's a good case for Doyle's parents being Methodist myself.(2)(3)
(1) Not that it couldn't go, I am against rigid stereotyping as a general principle. But this is a peculiarity that deserves an explanation.
(2) Not meant to knock anyone who makes him Catholic for Apparitions crossover purposes, of course. Needs must! *g*
(3) And I really, truly have nothing against people who are Catholics. It's just that it's such a fandom meme - if Doyle has a religion it must be Catholic. With a side order of Celtic mysticism to counteract the bad taste of Popery. Huh?
Err... Christmas dinner beckons - I'm off!
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Oddly enough, someone the other night said "Does anyone fancy going to midnight mass?" and my first question to her was "Oh, are you Catholic?", cos that's what "mass" means to me! And she said "Oh no, we've just always called it that..." - they're not High Church or anything either, just ordinary...
In Larton Bodie is a Catholic, cos he's actually half-Irish, and I assume it must be an authorial thing, that Rhiannon herself might be half-Irish and from that kind of background - or at least familiar with it - and that's why she pulled him that way... But then, to me, I can absolutely see his being RC as part of wellies and horses and hunters, though perhaps not a particularly well-known part of the culture?
In other fic I agree with you though - I do find it weird that some stories go on about their Irish background, when the only reference to anything like that is Doyle's "half-Irish son of a bitch" in Klansmen (and I'm not at all convinced he meant it literally either, he could well have meant it as an insult back then - half-Irish meaning doing-something-stupid...)
But hah - no, I don't think alot of writers do bother about UK demographics, and that an Irish surname doesn't mean you're Irish! People in various countries relate to surnames and ancestors differently too - in America, for instance, lots of people describe themselves as "I'm Irish" or "I'm Scottish" when their family left those places generations ago. And we have lots of American writers in Pros, so I tend to assume that they're thinking that way...
I reckon Doyle's parents wouldn't really have been anything, especially if he had the slightly erratic background which I think's implied by his dodging Bodie's "I thought you were from Derby" (yeah... well... we lived here for a bit..." rather than anything more solid - though yeah, that's just my interpretation! *g*) And I'm not mad-convinced Bodie's would have been either, though as you say, if he was from Liverpool it makes it a bit more likely...
But for me, Larton is a very stretchy AU - why does Bodie love horses, for instance? I can stretch that to the way he seems to love driving, and perhaps his knowledge and obsession with guns (he's as technical and knowledgable about the horses, and loves playing with them!) And how has Doyle become a writer, when he's so active in Pros, and (for me) one of his characteristics is movement... But I can see where Rhiannon's extrapolating from his thinky-ness too, so I can stretch that far. And I love the absoluely canon glimpses we get of them, which draw it all together, for me...
But - yeay for your liking Larton after all! *g*
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In Larton Bodie is a Catholic, cos he's actually half-Irish
Ah but I didn't assume that the one means the other. For example on the Irish side he could be from one of the old, somewhat privileged "Anglo-Irish" families, who were mostly Protestant & who may have been gentry or related to such in England as well. They didn't all pack up & leave after 1922, though - tradition of service, that sort of thing - and stables and horses and big Irish hunters *g*. But I'd have to re-read with an eye for that sort of detail. ETA: found the reference and you're right - it's in the first one, when Doyle's laid up after the hunt and...
"You're not trotting along with them, Bodie, taking your place in the family pew and all that?" asked Doyle.
"No, I went to the seven o'clock at St. Joe's over at Heathdene. Now are you ready for some breakfast?"
"One of those, are you?" said Doyle.
"Yes, I am."
So yes, that's pretty clear :)
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"he could well have meant it as an insult back then - half-Irish meaning doing-something-stupid" - I didn't hear it often, but I certainly did hear "that's Irish," to mean "that's stupid" at school in Pros era. I remember it well because the person I first heard it from was very proud of the Irish connections in their family, and I think it took them a while to realise what it actually meant!
Incidentally, I have found a zine in which Betty is Irish. Scotch Doubles: review over here.
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And *headdesk headdesk* for even Betty being Irish now! You know, there's a reference for that sort of thing in Larton too, come to think of it - Doyle's talking to... Colonel Heaton, I think? Bodie's uncle - about Bodie's decision to leave Ireland properly and make his home in England: "Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, It's with O'Leary in the grave," said Doyle. "I'm afraid Bodie still sees it that way."
"It never was, you know," said the Professor.
...but I think alot of fanfic writers still see it that way... *g*
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Celtic mysticism - ah yes, Doyle's Irish grandmother (what, you mean this is not in canon?) fits in here, and I presume this is responsible for Doyle-the-Wiccan too.
Anyway. Larton. Yes. I do like it very much - although as the cast expands in the later ones, I get hopelessly bogged down in who is who. I now understand why there is a glossary at the end - and I love the extra things it includes. But the things I like about it are the least Pros-y elements of it. I like the staccato speech patterns, the riotous hunt antics (somewhat out of my compass, but I know enough young farmers events attenders to suspect they are all too true) and the deadpan reactions - Doyle's response in the quoted passage is a classic example - and the interaction of Doyle and Bodie with the publishing world. I really liked the terse references. Again, the "One of those, are you?" quote is a good example. And all the sex is concealed behind that kind of "You're not coming near me tonight" "Ow. I ache" sequence, and you have to think "Hang on, the sun has gone down and risen again between these two lines".
I did feel when reading it initially that I lacked a lot of background. Specifically, I am not a fan of fiction set in huntin', shootin' and fishin' circles, and I wondered whether it was a respectful homage to such things (no, honestly) or a fairly wicked satire. I like to think the latter, but I'd be interested to know whether it's true. Also, the whole British/Irish/Anglo-Irish thing is something I know not enough about.
But argh, Christmas must have got to me, because yes, this zine is now stacked next to my bed, and was even before this recommendation.
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Also hee for having just quoted in a comment above, something relevant to your comment here too, the whole "Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, It's with O'Leary in the grave," bit. I suspect, though I'd have to do research properly, that alot of the Irish-lads/Wiccan-lads/Celtic-mysticism lads comes from American authors still romancing the country and applying it to our lads. I think I wrote somewhere else in this thread that I'd been struck when in the US that people tended to identify much more with their ancestors/lands of their ancestors than we do over here, and I'm guessing that's part of it too - they don't realise that people here cling less hard to history in many ways, perhaps because we're comfortably surrounded by it all the time, and (perhaps mistakenly) confident of it and our place in it...
I definitely reckon Larton is a gentle send-up of the whole Counties brigade, but I love that it lacks aggression about it all. It would be so easy to write a biting satire, but I think that would be far less re-readable, and actually not get the points across in such a memorable way... That said, the British/Irish/Anglo-Irish thing is something I'd like to know more about too...
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Yeats of course - a Protestant Anglo-Irishman *g*
I suspect, though I'd have to do research properly, that alot of the Irish-lads/Wiccan-lads/Celtic-mysticism lads comes from American authors still romancing the country and applying it to our lads.
Which is interesting, because there are loads of Australians with Irish ancestry, but I don't think it's made a great deal of here, except for St Patrick's day & then everyone's a little bit Irish - more likely if you're from Scottish forbears is my impression, but that may be my heritage showing through. But was Jane of Australia actually Australian (South Australian IIRC)? I think she was, but married an American. Anyway she's the one from these parts who has that whole thing going (The Dreaming Stone, etc).
I think there are also likely to be connecting type things that work through authors' affinity with New Age movements, Science Fiction/fantasy, SCA... connotating Bodie & Doyle's "action man" status with some sort of pure warrior culture (good) as opposed to repression & civil control (evil, or at least a dubious thing to be cheering on!).
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