Random war/Charioteer/queer history related observations
* There is not a single Laurie/Andrew fic on the AO3. Isn't this... slightly odd?
* So the Plymouth Brethren were/are a peace church. This stunned me a bit, though perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised. It makes the symmetry between Ralph and Andrew all the greater: Andrew, the pacifist who comes from a family of soldiers, and Ralph the sailor who comes from (presumably) a family of pacifists.
* A book I was just reading estimates that twenty out of 150 Balliol students in 1939 were pacifists. I guess Laurie didn't go to Balliol, then, because the COs at the hospital seem to take him by surprise? You would think there would have been some in Charles's set at least.
* From Hello Sailor: The hidden history of gay life at sea: "Mary Renault's The Charioteer sensitively evokes a naval officer's relationship with a young medical orderly in a hospital after Dunkirk was evacuated...." YES. YES, THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED IN THAT BOOK. (Ralph/Andrew shippers are everywhere!)
*
kindkit has been doing some great digging recently, unearthing the history of homosexuality in WWII-era POW camps. His latest post is well worth a read.
* From Masculinities in Politics and War: Gendering Modern History, the article on 'Temperate Heroes' by Sonya O. Rose:
The weekend of the evacuation from Dunkirk in June 1940, Sunday Pictorial declared 'war on the nauseating young men who pretend that they believe in "peace."' The editorial proclaimed: 'We don't like the elegant sissies who fester the restaurants of London, gossiping like girls about their "hearts" and "inner souls." They've got more scent than sense.' And a scathing two-page article condemning pacifists appeared in Sunday Pictorial a week later under the headline PACIFISTS AND PANSIES. The article described the applicants for exemption as 'pale lilies,' 'long-haired mental perverts with no chins, no character and no spirit,' and 'national pansies,' in contrast to 'a man who was a man, not a pansy.'
I think it was also the Pictorial which also had a go at Oxford students (and Balliol students in particular?) who hadn't enlisted yet, drawing attention to their 'coloured corduroy trousers and shimmering silk shirts.' Well, there you are then.
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* So the Plymouth Brethren were/are a peace church. This stunned me a bit, though perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised. It makes the symmetry between Ralph and Andrew all the greater: Andrew, the pacifist who comes from a family of soldiers, and Ralph the sailor who comes from (presumably) a family of pacifists.
* A book I was just reading estimates that twenty out of 150 Balliol students in 1939 were pacifists. I guess Laurie didn't go to Balliol, then, because the COs at the hospital seem to take him by surprise? You would think there would have been some in Charles's set at least.
* From Hello Sailor: The hidden history of gay life at sea: "Mary Renault's The Charioteer sensitively evokes a naval officer's relationship with a young medical orderly in a hospital after Dunkirk was evacuated...." YES. YES, THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED IN THAT BOOK. (Ralph/Andrew shippers are everywhere!)
*
kindkit has been doing some great digging recently, unearthing the history of homosexuality in WWII-era POW camps. His latest post is well worth a read.
* From Masculinities in Politics and War: Gendering Modern History, the article on 'Temperate Heroes' by Sonya O. Rose:
The weekend of the evacuation from Dunkirk in June 1940, Sunday Pictorial declared 'war on the nauseating young men who pretend that they believe in "peace."' The editorial proclaimed: 'We don't like the elegant sissies who fester the restaurants of London, gossiping like girls about their "hearts" and "inner souls." They've got more scent than sense.' And a scathing two-page article condemning pacifists appeared in Sunday Pictorial a week later under the headline PACIFISTS AND PANSIES. The article described the applicants for exemption as 'pale lilies,' 'long-haired mental perverts with no chins, no character and no spirit,' and 'national pansies,' in contrast to 'a man who was a man, not a pansy.'
I think it was also the Pictorial which also had a go at Oxford students (and Balliol students in particular?) who hadn't enlisted yet, drawing attention to their 'coloured corduroy trousers and shimmering silk shirts.' Well, there you are then.
This entry was originally posted at http://naraht.dreamwidth.org/522795.html. Please comment there using OpenID.