[FIC] The Dragon Year, by Firerose (12)

[espresso_addict]

Written for miss_morland's prompt 'Tenar/Flint, pre-Tehanu: How much does Flint know about his wife's former life as a priestess? Do they ever talk about it?'

ETA: luzula has recorded an audio version, linked from here

Comments

[torn_eledhwen]

Beautiful, from start to finish.

[espresso_addict]

Thank you, Eledhwen! It was hard to be in Flint's head, but I felt his side of the marriage needed a voice.

[corbistheca]

Oh, wow. Oh, wow. This adds such lovely layering to what we know of Tenar's life "between" and you've built it so deftly -- beautiful. The story is a knife-dance itself.
~ c.

[espresso_addict]

Ooh, thank you, Corbistheca! I've wondered since I first read Tehanu mumble mumble years ago how on earth Tenar's marriage worked out -- there are so many questions there -- and it was great to get a prompt that finally pushed me into trying to find answers for a few of them.

[the_wild_iris]

I love the detail in this - all the similes and references and asides that keep the world vivid and consistent. And the pen-portraits of the minor characters ('the sort of man who should have had a thick black beard, but didn't'). It's very much the domestic Gont of Tehanu.

But it's Flint's story, and it's his voice that makes it. Matter-of-fact and kind and yearning and annoyed; perceptive enough to be intrigued by Tenar's strangeness as well as frustrated by it. I liked him a lot more than I'd imagined I would.

[espresso_addict]

Thank you, Wild Iris, for these lovely comments! I'm so glad you liked the details -- especially the black beard, which I added at the very last minute on a conviction that Heno really should have had one.

Matter-of-fact and kind and yearning and annoyed; perceptive enough to be intrigued by Tenar's strangeness as well as frustrated by it. I liked him a lot more than I'd imagined I would.

I'm glad I could persuade you to like him a little, at least. The portrait one gleans from the scraps in Tehanu is so negative, and yet Tenar is clearly deeply grieving for him at the opening, so their life together can't have been so bleak. I handwave a bit that things picked up when they had children -- I can imagine Flint trying his hardest to be a kindly father, if only steering clear of the example of his own father

[miss_morland]

Oh, wow.

*has goosebumps*

Really, this is fantastic. Not only the writing, which is lovely and graceful, but also the subtlety, the details, and the structure. Speaking of which... The ending, with its linking together Gont and Kargad, so to speak, is so perfect.

And of course, I *love* your Flint. To be honest, I never saw him as portrayed negatively in the book -- rather, it was the patriarchal society of Gont which was criticised, IMO, not Flint personally (because we never really hear anything about him at all). But I adore your portrayal of him as a man who loves his wife 'as he loves his land' (what a wonderful simile!), even though he doesn't understand her.

I do wonder what Tenar thought of Heno and the slaughter of the 'barbarians', though. Heh.

[espresso_addict]

Oh, thank you, Miss M! I'm so glad the ending worked for you -- the idea of Tenar dancing the knife dance at Oak Farm has been in my head for ages, just waiting for the right stimulus to make me write it down.

To be honest, I never saw him as portrayed negatively in the book -- rather, it was the patriarchal society of Gont which was criticised, IMO, not Flint personally (because we never really hear anything about him at all).

Tehanu feels to me censorious of Flint, though I agree it's difficult to get at how much he's just a convenient embodiment of the Gontish patriarchy. I was thinking particularly of the bit in 'The Master' when Spark comes home & equivocates when asked whether he's staying, and the narrator says: 'So Flint had answered her questions for twenty years, denying her right to them by never answering yes or no, maintaining a freedom based on her ignorance; a poor, narrow sort of freedom, she thought.'

I do wonder what Tenar thought of Heno and the slaughter of the 'barbarians', though.Me too! Flint has no idea, so

[miss_morland]

Just wanted to let you know that I've recced this at the fangirl_tour. :-)

[espresso_addict]

A very belated thanks, Miss M! (I've been off LJ for yonks for family reasons.) That looks like a very useful comm to browse. And, by the way, I noticed yesterday that you did another batch of EM Forster recs for crack_van -- I'm really looking forward to reading them.

[luzula]

Squee! I love this! Your language is wonderful--I love writing that manages to be spare and not say too much, but still be so evocative (like Le Guin's is). You really bring Flint alive, and the culture clash that their marriage must've been in the beginning. I quite like him, and also the domesticity of the fic.

Oh, and the ending is just wonderful. I like that he's turned on by her knife dancing. It might just be the exotic nature of it, of course, but it feels to me like some kind of acceptance of her differences, too.

[espresso_addict]

Oh, thank you, Luzula! Spare yet evocative was exactly what I was aiming for in the style.

I like that he's turned on by her knife dancing. It might just be the exotic nature of it, of course, but it feels to me like some kind of acceptance of her differences, too.

I'm so glad the ending worked for you -- the knife dance scene was my first idea for the story, but it took a while before I realised how the scene had to play out. I do think Flint is attracted to her Otherness, but hadn't considered when he married her how difficult it would be for her to slot straight into his mother's place in the farm.