In which there are sacred cows (or hooved animals of your choice), Bigots by God, and The Innocents
- St John the Baptist church, Beckford, has some unusual C12th stone carvings including a centaur with a spear (another view for context) apparently intended to resemble King Stephen's coat of arms. A depiction of the "Ransom Theory" better known in English lore as the Harrowing of Hell represented by an image of Jesus stabbing a wolf's head with a cross while he fishes (LITERALLY) someone out of the underworld ON A HOOK, OW! [click for stabby hooky Jesus embiggened]
Although my personal favourite is the tympanum over the main door in the south porch which appears to depict a cross supporting a vulture and the sacred Last Rolo ("Do you love anyone enough to give them your last Rolo?") watched by a donkey with four ears (right) and a unicorn with four ears (left) [click for little donkeys embiggened]. The scholarly explanation for this last image is supposedly that it's a picture of Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit, watched by two hoofed animals with random quantities of ears and/or horns (no, rly, lol). It's a mystery, clearly.
- Lexicophilia: I've recently been enjoying the village names of Nempnett Thrubwell, and Marston Bigot (from "by God", lol).
- So, what are you doing, thinking, wondering about, reading, watching, making, or writing, that you don't usually post about?
- Reading, books 2016, 216
195. The Innocents, by Margery Sharp, 1972 (but set 1939-46), is a novel that examines disability and society (from a social model perspective). The narrator is an anonymous first person in her 60s and so well done it's like listening to an old friend chatting over tea, however, any genre savvy reader will realise from the beginning that our hostess is an unreliable narrator who uses the tactic of openness about the minor flaws of herself and her community to gloss over much worse, especially That One Thing Which Happened. This is my eleventh Margery Sharp novel and this narrative voice is unique so far, which I believe was a deliberate artistic choice by the author because the effect reminded me of [spoiler] similar narrators in classic murder mysteries [/spoiler]. The title refers not only to innocence/guilt but also to innocence/experience in reference to the protagonist and the learning disabled girl she is looking after, who is characterised as "simply retarded, not autistic". Expanding on the novel's theme of disability within society, which is skillfully done while remaining wholly within middlebrow literary traditions, the cast also includes an off stage epileptic young man who commits undramatic suicide (a form of self harm that was a recognised at the time as a possible side effect of phenobarbital [and phenytoin]), and an on stage wheelchair user who was disabled in the Second World War but becomes a new father and is feted for doing so. We are shown, not told, about their community's helpful and unhelpful attitudes towards all these people and at least one other local who is, perhaps wrongly, deemed a malingerer instead of an arthritis sufferer (and how that accusation of worthlessness impacts negatively on the self-esteem of one of his disabled relatives). Also includes, because Margery Sharp: a likeable pioneering woman vet, a strongly positive portrayal of a woman doctor, and a brief moment of anti-anti-Semitism. (4/5 maybe 4.5/5)
• On polite silences... or otherwise: [...] I waited for Mr. Hancock to continue in I hoped impolite silence.
• Lol: Of course with so much ground I need to employ a gardener two days a week, but am happy to say he is not a character.
• The protag is haunted by The Luggage: [...] I felt the twin brass locks of its eyes regard me ironically. [...] I do not often dream, but it must have been in dreams that for several subsequent nights I heard the words "Ootacamund, Delhi, Simla," then "Delhi, Simla, Ootacamund," pronounced in a deep, leathery voice.
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Although my personal favourite is the tympanum over the main door in the south porch which appears to depict a cross supporting a vulture and the sacred Last Rolo ("Do you love anyone enough to give them your last Rolo?") watched by a donkey with four ears (right) and a unicorn with four ears (left) [click for little donkeys embiggened]. The scholarly explanation for this last image is supposedly that it's a picture of Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit, watched by two hoofed animals with random quantities of ears and/or horns (no, rly, lol). It's a mystery, clearly.
- Lexicophilia: I've recently been enjoying the village names of Nempnett Thrubwell, and Marston Bigot (from "by God", lol).
- So, what are you doing, thinking, wondering about, reading, watching, making, or writing, that you don't usually post about?
- Reading, books 2016, 216
195. The Innocents, by Margery Sharp, 1972 (but set 1939-46), is a novel that examines disability and society (from a social model perspective). The narrator is an anonymous first person in her 60s and so well done it's like listening to an old friend chatting over tea, however, any genre savvy reader will realise from the beginning that our hostess is an unreliable narrator who uses the tactic of openness about the minor flaws of herself and her community to gloss over much worse, especially That One Thing Which Happened. This is my eleventh Margery Sharp novel and this narrative voice is unique so far, which I believe was a deliberate artistic choice by the author because the effect reminded me of [spoiler] similar narrators in classic murder mysteries [/spoiler]. The title refers not only to innocence/guilt but also to innocence/experience in reference to the protagonist and the learning disabled girl she is looking after, who is characterised as "simply retarded, not autistic". Expanding on the novel's theme of disability within society, which is skillfully done while remaining wholly within middlebrow literary traditions, the cast also includes an off stage epileptic young man who commits undramatic suicide (a form of self harm that was a recognised at the time as a possible side effect of phenobarbital [and phenytoin]), and an on stage wheelchair user who was disabled in the Second World War but becomes a new father and is feted for doing so. We are shown, not told, about their community's helpful and unhelpful attitudes towards all these people and at least one other local who is, perhaps wrongly, deemed a malingerer instead of an arthritis sufferer (and how that accusation of worthlessness impacts negatively on the self-esteem of one of his disabled relatives). Also includes, because Margery Sharp: a likeable pioneering woman vet, a strongly positive portrayal of a woman doctor, and a brief moment of anti-anti-Semitism. (4/5 maybe 4.5/5)
• On polite silences... or otherwise: [...] I waited for Mr. Hancock to continue in I hoped impolite silence.
• Lol: Of course with so much ground I need to employ a gardener two days a week, but am happy to say he is not a character.
• The protag is haunted by The Luggage: [...] I felt the twin brass locks of its eyes regard me ironically. [...] I do not often dream, but it must have been in dreams that for several subsequent nights I heard the words "Ootacamund, Delhi, Simla," then "Delhi, Simla, Ootacamund," pronounced in a deep, leathery voice.
This entry was originally posted at http://spiralsheep.dreamwidth.org/607986.html and has
comments Please comment there using OpenID.