Alma Alexander: Writing the Other

[jimhines]

Alma Alexander ( Twitter, LJ) is a Pacific Northwest novelist, short story writer, and anthologist. Her books include “The Secrets of Jin Shei”, “Embers of Heaven”, “The Hidden Queen”, “Changer of Days”, the YA Worldweavers series, and “2012: Midnight at Spanish Gardens”; short stories have appeared in a number of recent anthologies, and “River”,

Comments

[lauowolf]

I have to say I'm a little uncomfortable by having Sperring take what seems to me a clearly tongue-in-cheek comment from Willis, and using it to turn her, of all people, into a straw man target as an example of lack of sensitivity and a general loose treatment of the historical period

[green_knight]

(Not Kari, just a historian.)

don't think anyone could have handled the sense of danger and fear of the Blitz with as much attention to historical accuracy and respect for those who lived through it as did Willis.

I think you're setting the bar very, very low. You can understand how historians work and think without making it your life's passion; Willis' portrayal did not strike me as realistic at all.

to experience for themselves the human suffering the Blitz caused and the bravery it called forth

How is that not treating history as a themepark? If you can stop suffering and go home, it's not real.

Sometimes a joke is just a joke.

It's a joke if you have privilege. For the people at the opposite end of suffering, the casual use of words like 'deathmarch' or 'Nazi' or 'rape' isn't funny at all. And if you feel that your right to make offensive jokes trumps other people's pain, well... you might reconsider that stance.

[lauowolf]

Does Willis make any such offensive jokes about Nazi's or death marches?
If so, I missed them.
But most of the academics I know I have heard at some point referring to their subject matters in terms similar to Willis's quoted remarks.

[la_marquise_de_]

Well, if you go and read my full post and all the discussion, you will see what I said, and that what I was actually commenting on was an article she had written about the books. And, as I also said, I have a direct connexion to the Blitz, which of course played into how I felt about it

[lauowolf]

"'to experience for themselves the human suffering the Blitz caused and the bravery it called forth'
How is that not treating history as a theme park? If you can stop suffering and go home, it's not real."

I'm assuming you actually read the Blackout series, and are not reacting only to the single quoted remark.
But to recap:
Initially the historians are outsiders, trained observers with superior knowledge of upcoming events that enables them to avoid real danger.
Later, though, they lose the ability to leave and are themselves trapped in the Blitz without the continuing historical details that would render them safe, and without the ability to just go home.
There is even a death.
I don't think there is a feeling that it is all a joke.
One of the commenters on Sperring's blog correctly characterizes Willis's remark as ironic: painful and frightening times make for good stories, though of course in real life they are much to be avoided.