it's funny when you do start to reflect on your thought processes, scene developments, plot decisions, or whatever in your responses here and then you cut yourself off. I say: reflect!! reflect!! It's fascinating to hear and always leads to such great discussions! Goodness, am I that transparent? I FREQUENTLY write something that is very tl;dr and very self-reflective and invariably end up deleting it. I do this A LOT. I figure it's pretty boring and who cares about me?
As for the gay animals -- I'll do more with this in the next chapter. I got whacked in a comment for not being a proper Catholic by implying too much by extension to humans. There are so many ways of responding and I'm still reeling a bit (OK, a lot, hence making me more likely to withdraw. I admit this one hurt). As I was stuck in traffic this morning, I talked to myself about the following: 1) the careful researchers are very clear, we can't (in this world) impute human to the animal or vis-versa. They are animals and it's different. 2) BUT in this cracky fic vision they are animals and fully sentient so that means what exactly? It means, as I thought has been clear over and over and over, that these things stand in for profound cultural differences and that as Susan says way back in Part 1, but which is repeated over and over, the charge is to love all, even those that are different and even those whose behaviors are not our own and to celebrate the differentness rather than try to eliminate it. Further, it explains that having grown up in this really wild, radically different place, the Pevensies are tolerant and understanding. And... I just did it again... wrote long thinky and just deleted it.
anyway, stopping now because I'm getting aggravated in that thrown my hands up, delete the accounts and run away mode, so time to get to RL.
Thank you for reading and I hope you had a great weekend!
I'm sorry you were upset by one of the reviews on this chapter. I'm certain that for every person who apparently takes offense at your writing, there are very many of us who appreciate your courage to tackle profound subjects and willingness to share it with others. And appreciate the honest, thoughtful, caring and often humourous way you do it!
I also think it is neither fair nor courteous to judge a person's private religious views by their writing, especially when that writing is fiction.
Thank you Clairel! It's fine. I go through this periodically. I just went back to one of my first discussions of it here, in October 2009, after I posted Queen Susan's withering criticism of Peridan in Chapter 7 of TQSiT. As Halpern will point out later to Mrs. Caspian, Hitler went after his kind, too, because sodomites don't propagate the Aryan race. That helped remind me of why I push. I am interested in the issue intellectually. I think the observer bias that persists even today is fascinating and I really feel for just how challenging this would be for Richard. Regardless of the cultural/sociological bias of the 1940s, as a scientist he can't square non-reproductive behavior with Darwinian principles. Both issues remain very relevant in today's scientific circles. But I pursue these issues for other reasons too. Sometimes I am preaching, sometimes I'm moving a thematic idea forward, sometimes I'm setting the stage for something to follow. That's all true here. Anyway, too much navel gazing. Back to it!
It seems to me that with the sentient animals, it becomes an issue of appreciating other cultures on their own terms (and applying the lessons to one's own culture, as the Pevensies certainly did as Narnian Monarchs completely immersed in new cultures). The fact that the behavior exists in the dumb animals of Spare Oom becomes another echo and reminder, with the talking animal experience a bridge to help explain and accept it.
I do find Richard's difficulty very interesting here (especially in view of his thoughts in the scene where he jokingly propositions Peter as an amusing way to drive off Asim and his questions). I'm looking forward to this being followed up in Chapter 12. I'll hazard a guess that it might involve a view of humanity as different from and above animals, no matter how thoroughly Richard appreciates the animal world. The idea that apparently counter-evolutionary behavior is not some sort of subversive invention of sentients might sting as much as the idea of apparently counter-evolutionary behavior in fact having some natural role.
Psst. I think we are alone now. Everyone else has moved on to discuss food. I am deeply indebted, again, to your insight. Neither Richard nor I have thought about the issue so deeply. I've had long, long responses and thoughts written, and I just deleted them. You're busy with your deadlines and I won't intrude anymore than I have on your time. Thank you so much. I hope I can measure up to expectation. I've been writing and re-writing 12 and just took another look at Peter and Richard's conversation, which will be their last while Richard is coherent.
Don't worry about imposing on me with replies! I enjoy reading them, and will answer any questions if and when I can- it's good for me to switch mental gears sometimes. Although don't feel obliged to go dig up those deleted responses either (I've written and deleted several replies to other posts and comments because they just jumped the shark somehow and couldn't be salvaged).
This particular scene prompted a fair amount of thought on my part which had as much to do with the delay as me being busy. Having read so many instances of your thoughts on and research into life and attitudes of the era, and your comments to Claire about how this would be challenging to Richard, it took me a while to work out what might make sense beyond some sort of religious gut reaction. Clearly Richard's an experienced and tolerant man (enough so at this point to view his original field notes critically), so what *else* is affecting his views? What would a man his age in the 1940s not even think to question? I don't know if I got it right (or if there is a right) but it was a fascinating line of thought.
I rather hope Richard gets at least one more semi-coherent moment with Jill, but that's just me enjoying their scene before rather than looking at the needs of the story :-)
And you're welcome! Thank you, again, for processing it all (from everyone here) into such wonderful and thoughtful stories!
Clearly Richard's an experienced and tolerant man (enough so at this point to view his original field notes critically), so what *else* is affecting his views? What would a man his age in the 1940s not even think to question? I don't know if I got it right (or if there is a right) but it was a fascinating line of thought. From a New York Times article that led with the story of the albatrosses, "Homosexual sex between ostriches was interpreted by one scientist as “a nuisance” that “goes on and on.” One man, studying Mazarine Blue butterflies in Morocco in 1987, regretted having to report “the lurid details of declining moral standards and of horrific sexual offenses” which are “all too often packed” into national newspapers. And a bighorn-sheep biologist confessed in his memoir, “I still cringe at the memory of seeing old D-ram mount S-ram repeatedly.” To think, he wrote, “of those magnificent beasts as ‘queers’ - Oh, God!” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/magazine/04animals-t.html?pagewanted=all
It is this very contemporary shock that I was trying to get at. In 1987, scientists are flipping out over "gay" butterflies. In 2009 researchers are finally realizing that these loving pairs of albatrosses, who have been anthropomorphized into symbols of heterosexual, marital fidelity, are in fact, female pairs. These findings are sending evolutionary biologists scrambling for explanations. Today. So, imagine what it would be like for a 50 year old man in 1942?
As liberal-minded as Richard is, and the man's got issues with the scientific establishment already, it is shocking today, so I thought it would be shocking to him.
I'd thought I had the chapter locked down and I keep fiddling with it, trying to address these things in a way that makes sense. I've got a long flashback with Lucy and Aidan and a bit of Morgan and Edmund, which I think is sweet, though I suspect people will think it dull and suburban. It's telling a bit about their relationship and the doubts Lucy has going forward here and Aidan embracing Narnia. It's setting up what happened after they left, and more of how the War impacted family life here and really what it means for Lucy and Edmund to have left their spouses behind. Peter and Richard close it out. Then FINALLY Peter and Mary have a normal (and gawd I hope non-subtextual) conversation, then we jump to Asim and a brief return of my boyfriend Col. Clark.
And... going to write now. just had an idea.... Anyway, really I don't mean to be distracting you. I really appreciate you taking the time to share your ideas. We can always take this to LJ messaging too -- just go to user info and click on Send Message.
As for the gay animals -- I'll do more with this in the next chapter. I got whacked in a comment for not being a proper Catholic by implying too much by extension to humans. There are so many ways of responding and I'm still reeling a bit (OK, a lot, hence making me more likely to withdraw. I admit this one hurt). As I was stuck in traffic this morning, I talked to myself about the following:
1) the careful researchers are very clear, we can't (in this world) impute human to the animal or vis-versa. They are animals and it's different.
2) BUT in this cracky fic vision they are animals and fully sentient so that means what exactly? It means, as I thought has been clear over and over and over, that these things stand in for profound cultural differences and that as Susan says way back in Part 1, but which is repeated over and over, the charge is to love all, even those that are different and even those whose behaviors are not our own and to celebrate the differentness rather than try to eliminate it. Further, it explains that having grown up in this really wild, radically different place, the Pevensies are tolerant and understanding. And... I just did it again... wrote long thinky and just deleted it.
anyway, stopping now because I'm getting aggravated in that thrown my hands up, delete the accounts and run away mode, so time to get to RL.
Thank you for reading and I hope you had a great weekend!
Reply
I also think it is neither fair nor courteous to judge a person's private religious views by their writing, especially when that writing is fiction.
ClaireI
Reply
Reply
I do find Richard's difficulty very interesting here (especially in view of his thoughts in the scene where he jokingly propositions Peter as an amusing way to drive off Asim and his questions). I'm looking forward to this being followed up in Chapter 12. I'll hazard a guess that it might involve a view of humanity as different from and above animals, no matter how thoroughly Richard appreciates the animal world. The idea that apparently counter-evolutionary behavior is not some sort of subversive invention of sentients might sting as much as the idea of apparently counter-evolutionary behavior in fact having some natural role.
Reply
Reply
This particular scene prompted a fair amount of thought on my part which had as much to do with the delay as me being busy. Having read so many instances of your thoughts on and research into life and attitudes of the era, and your comments to Claire about how this would be challenging to Richard, it took me a while to work out what might make sense beyond some sort of religious gut reaction. Clearly Richard's an experienced and tolerant man (enough so at this point to view his original field notes critically), so what *else* is affecting his views? What would a man his age in the 1940s not even think to question? I don't know if I got it right (or if there is a right) but it was a fascinating line of thought.
I rather hope Richard gets at least one more semi-coherent moment with Jill, but that's just me enjoying their scene before rather than looking at the needs of the story :-)
And you're welcome! Thank you, again, for processing it all (from everyone here) into such wonderful and thoughtful stories!
Reply
From a New York Times article that led with the story of the albatrosses,
"Homosexual sex between ostriches was interpreted by one scientist as “a nuisance” that “goes on and on.” One man, studying Mazarine Blue butterflies in Morocco in 1987, regretted having to report “the lurid details of declining moral standards and of horrific sexual offenses” which are “all too often packed” into national newspapers. And a bighorn-sheep biologist confessed in his memoir, “I still cringe at the memory of seeing old D-ram mount S-ram repeatedly.” To think, he wrote, “of those magnificent beasts as ‘queers’ - Oh, God!”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/magazine/04animals-t.html?pagewanted=all
It is this very contemporary shock that I was trying to get at. In 1987, scientists are flipping out over "gay" butterflies. In 2009 researchers are finally realizing that these loving pairs of albatrosses, who have been anthropomorphized into symbols of heterosexual, marital fidelity, are in fact, female pairs. These findings are sending evolutionary biologists scrambling for explanations. Today. So, imagine what it would be like for a 50 year old man in 1942?
As liberal-minded as Richard is, and the man's got issues with the scientific establishment already, it is shocking today, so I thought it would be shocking to him.
I'd thought I had the chapter locked down and I keep fiddling with it, trying to address these things in a way that makes sense. I've got a long flashback with Lucy and Aidan and a bit of Morgan and Edmund, which I think is sweet, though I suspect people will think it dull and suburban. It's telling a bit about their relationship and the doubts Lucy has going forward here and Aidan embracing Narnia. It's setting up what happened after they left, and more of how the War impacted family life here and really what it means for Lucy and Edmund to have left their spouses behind. Peter and Richard close it out. Then FINALLY Peter and Mary have a normal (and gawd I hope non-subtextual) conversation, then we jump to Asim and a brief return of my boyfriend Col. Clark.
And... going to write now. just had an idea.... Anyway, really I don't mean to be distracting you. I really appreciate you taking the time to share your ideas. We can always take this to LJ messaging too -- just go to user info and click on Send Message.
Reply
Leave a comment