Linkage

[sartorias]

frumiousb has a thought-provoking riff on illustrating the other, or fiction inside a culture not one's own

Comments

[sollersuk]

You have hit on one of my own pet peeves. I find far too much of what I tend to refer to as "stuffing modern attitudes into period costumes".

And I've never yet come across anything where the characters are impoverished Samurai hanging out in Edo, which would be a great setting.

[sartorias]

rachelmanija told me about a fascinating city where there are quakes every day, and a volcano is still flowing. I'd love to read something set there.

[ambyr]

And I've never yet come across anything where the characters are impoverished Samurai hanging out in Edo, which would be a great setting.

It's set in the provinces and it's a movie, but--have you checked out Twilight Samurai? Lovely depiction of the beginning of the Meiji Restoration from the perspective of a very poor Samurai on what would end up being the losing side.

[slobbit]

I haven't seen Twilight Samurai yet, but it was recommended to me by several members of my traditional school of Japanese swordsmanship. Which says something.

[ambyr]

Especially since the entire movie contains something like five minutes of swordfighting. . . .

[sollersuk]

That sounds much more my scene! Thanks; I'll look out for it.

[simonator]

D'Accord. A great movie. I don't know enough to have any idea whether it is true to the period or not, but it is a wonderful movie.

[haikujaguar]

I too hate this.

Another irritating one: feminist heroes in time periods where no such thing would be, and in fact, holding such beliefs would be laughable.

I want the whole of a time period, not just the pretty parts.

[sollersuk]

After my own heart! The whole point, for me, is getting inside another culture and mindset, whether I am reading it or writing it

[sartorias]

Well, I'd read that.

Yeah, I had to put down a vampire regency someone recommended--the vampire stuff was the same old, and the Regency stuff was mined from Heyer, which tends to give a too-often-xeroxed effect.

[sollersuk]

This person has also perpetrated something Regency which would have gained infinitely from being mined from Heyer. If the writer can't be arsed to do the original research, at least they'd get it right if they nicked it from Heyer.

[sartorias]

or mostly right. Heyer changed a lot of stuff, both paradigm and details, but she knew what she was doing. Her copyists don't.

Otherwise, amen.

[asakiyume]

That story sounds amazingly good. I'd read it too.

[avengangle]

Yeah. Another common convention for 21st-century (usually female) writers, who cannot bear to write a woman of, say, the 19th century in England without making her an extreme bluestocking.

[frumiousb]

I like it when the writer can somehow find a way to give history a feminist reading without violating the bounds of the likely. It's why I love a film like The Piano or The Ballad of Little Jo but can't abide some of the more unlikely feminist happy endings.