Another Young Trollope

[ellen_kushner]

When you write historical/ historical fantasy novels, you need to be able to imagine looking at the world through very different eyes.   One of the best ways to do this is by reading source material:  text from an earlier period, in which cultural suppositions are clearly stated - and usually unexamined by the writer . . . Unless, that is, he is

Comments

[swan_tower]

It makes me yearn for the days of the omniscient narrative voice, when you could get away so much more easily with that kind of description.

[ellen_kushner]

Yes!!! But it seems to me that In Genre is one of the last bastions of narrative flexibility - no?

[swan_tower]

Also, I've noticed that "complexion" as a facet of description seems to have fallen by the wayside. I mean, I'm not even sure what a "bright" complexion is. Pale, I presume, but what else? Ruddy and dark and sallow and bright complexions are all over the place in older literature, but I hardly see it used nowadays.

[swan_tower]

Thank you for making that click into place in my head. It makes perfect sense now.

[paulshandy]

My Chinese students see shades between each other, but think people from India are black. I've also had plenty of Chinese students refer to themselves as yellow, so I usually tell them to use the word "tan" if they go to America to study.

[paulshandy]

Genre and narrative flexibility reminds me of when I read up on polymer science to court a graduate student in that department. It's basically the science of arranging atoms/compounds of material to be flexible in one direction and rigid in another, agile in one direction and tough in another. Each genre is a different literary polymer. Hell, each writer might be a different polymer, but similar enough to get lumped together by the marketers.