Fantastic chapter as always! I got the notice on my phone and alas, spent most of the day outdoor and so could not sit down and read it until everyone came and gone and things have settle back to normal. That being said, I also debated whether or not to just print this out and read on the plane Tuesday but I just couldn't wait.
Anyway, it seems this chapter reminded more of the very earlier chapters of TSG. With all the people and varied discussions about Narnia, Spare Oom and the Good Beasts, it did feel like we were all drawn back into the very beginning, with Richard and Mary's arrival at Digory's office.
Thanks! I hope it did not feel like a re-tread! I just got a review that pointed out some of those things -- like the curtseying. And it's funny but the next chapter is very much like that too with the flashback and Mary specifically recalling the first tea in Digory's office. I'm actually pushing into fractured and unconventional families again in the Christmas chapter -- and still trying to figure out how to write Edmund and Jill. Also, wondering about the scene where they decide to give the picture to Asim... whether I need to write that. I don't think I do. And, whether I should recast that scene from Russell House and include it in the chapter. I may do that as a lot of people may not have read it and I can revise it in light of where AW has ended up and probably soften Richard and Mary a bit.
Errr. I dunno.
Have a wonderful time on your trip! Reports! We want them!
It did not feel like a re-tread at all! It was more like, 'oh, this reminds me of when TSG first started, way back before we realize how much madness this would lead to'. So it was all very good, with fond memories and all. :-)
I don't think you need to write giving the picture to Asim. It may help if you give it a line or two in passing in a future chapter, so people know to connect it to the other story if they hadn't read it yet.
While you might not need to write the seen about giving the picture to Asim, I at least would be very interested in seeing how that came about. I have lots of other thoughts about this and will either get them together in a longer review or break them up to keep them with the original thought.
Wonderful chapter, and I love the fact you've squeezed in the gay giraffes :-)
Seriously though, you've tackled some real biggies here. Elder care, sexuality (in several forms), faith and the nature of God. I think you've done a great job, and it always delights me that you're prepared to go there rather than glossing over the too-hard stuff.
edited because OMG Teal Dear. The same sex bonding in animals is really a very recent thing. Despite the jokes about "gay giraffes" the evolutionary biologists are very, very careful in their terminology. The Laysan albatross work is fascinating because it was 2009 before the researcher realized she was observing female pairs and there had been this HUGE effort for decades to explain away the significance of 2 egg nests when female albatrosses can only lay one egg at a time. There was NEVER even the theory put forth that there were really two females on the nest
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Re Digory/Richard/Peter, that all sounds completely logical to me. And yes, there can be incredibly difficult issues around ageing and infirmity and illness, and I do utterly get where you're coming from. I think perhaps that they have become, if not less relevant, then certainly more remote in modern times than in earlier eras when families didn't necessarily go very far from one another, and the generations tended to be very much jumbled together under one roof. In that situation, it's going to be very much more in-your-face and normal, I guess.
And now I really am going to have to chase down that albatross paper you've cited
What I can't find now are the scholarly articles from the 1970s referring to the same sex bonding and copulating as repugnant and aberrant. A New York Times overview that discusses the albatrosses, who will be making an appearance in the next chapter, is here. The Wiki article is a very good basic primer and is well-cited, though it gets a lot of its information from the book Biological Exuberance by Bruce Bagemihl which I have refrained from buying. If that book is wrong, the Wiki article is wrong, which is why I was glad to find the other citations and more recent articles.
Doctor Dolly: I haven't by the way forgotten about your Oxfam idea. I'm not yet sure how or anything, but the idea is now there, and I'm thinking about it, so thank you. (I feel at this point like humming, "I get by with a little help from my [imaginary] friends")
Yes, elder care is sad and hilarious both -- and so often falls to the wife and the daughters, though not always, of course. You will never go back into that particular box once you've been on the other side. Instead, your mission starts happening in other spaces because there are people who need you and the Lion's Paw knows how to put two and two together. This is beautifully eloquent. Thank you.
One is that God allows sin/suffering because he knows he can save us from it. The other is that he uses ones who have not seen, but yet believe to rebuke the ones who have seen and revolted.The later part of that is I suppose in the Christian Bible, the story of doubting Thomas, Gospel of John, blessed are those who have not seen yet still believe. The first part, I can
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maybe his anger at Aslan manifests itself in non-belief here
But I don't see it manifesting as unbelief: it is anger or frustration. Eustace cannot not believe in Aslan: he has met him. He knows his power. What he is struggling with is trusting or understanding Aslan.
Which is, in effect, what I was getting at in The Cave in Deerfield, because like Eustace, I find Aslan, no matter how benevolent, kind of pants as a deity. And like you, I don't have an answer.
Which is where I also feel the need to butt in. I'm also going to wave the poor theologian, terrible at self-examination flag, but my response is "why does there have to be an answer?" I like (and want) a nice answer tied up in a neat bow, just as much as the next woman. But I'm also old enough to know that life rarely hands us nice, neat answers, especially to the big theological/philosophical questions like these. Through a glass darkly, now I know in part, and all of that...
Long question short, does there have to be an answer? Life doesn't go that way for most of us, so why should/would I expect you clever writers to be able to answer all of the biggies for me? For mine, it comes back to doing the best I can with what I have been given - and surely that is all that any one of us can do.
Thank you. I'd been hoping to hear from you about certain aspects of this chapter but knew you'd be super busy so I appreciate you taking the time out
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Mary's struggle to work things through is somewhat personally familiar to me, although I was pursued the "room-dominating personality" approach that she's favored. So it's probably equal parts recognition and projection when I read this development for her.
With the scene of Mary and Richard's relationship, both the imbalance and the strength of the relationship came through, and both aspects made it all more real and more believable.
Late to the party once again due to being out of town all weekend... this chapter seemed so fast paced to me so it was hard to follow at times, but that is most likely due to a) it's late, reader is tired and b) group scenes of characters that I so need to go back and refresh my memory on!
The discussions here in this thread are fascinating with definitely lots to think about. As an uber self-reflective person, it's surprising to learn that you are not! You say someone pointed out that you are self-reflective through the fanfic medium, and I definitely agree with that! Know what's harder still? Self-reflection on self-reflection. (File that with the redundancy department of the redundancy department.) Just a note of observation, 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
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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
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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!
Comments 65
Anyway, it seems this chapter reminded more of the very earlier chapters of TSG. With all the people and varied discussions about Narnia, Spare Oom and the Good Beasts, it did feel like we were all drawn back into the very beginning, with Richard and Mary's arrival at Digory's office.
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Errr. I dunno.
Have a wonderful time on your trip! Reports! We want them!
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I don't think you need to write giving the picture to Asim. It may help if you give it a line or two in passing in a future chapter, so people know to connect it to the other story if they hadn't read it yet.
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Doctor Dolly
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Seriously though, you've tackled some real biggies here. Elder care, sexuality (in several forms), faith and the nature of God. I think you've done a great job, and it always delights me that you're prepared to go there rather than glossing over the too-hard stuff.
Waiting for part 2 with great anticipation.
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And now I really am going to have to chase down that albatross paper you've cited
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I haven't by the way forgotten about your Oxfam idea. I'm not yet sure how or anything, but the idea is now there, and I'm thinking about it, so thank you. (I feel at this point like humming, "I get by with a little help from my [imaginary] friends")
Yes, elder care is sad and hilarious both -- and so often falls to the wife and the daughters, though not always, of course.
You will never go back into that particular box once you've been on the other side. Instead, your mission starts happening in other spaces because there are people who need you and the Lion's Paw knows how to put two and two together.
This is beautifully eloquent. Thank you.
One is that God allows sin/suffering because he knows he can save us from it. The other is that he uses ones who have not seen, but yet believe to rebuke the ones who have seen and revolted.The later part of that is I suppose in the Christian Bible, the story of doubting Thomas, Gospel of John, blessed are those who have not seen yet still believe. The first part, I can ( ... )
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maybe his anger at Aslan manifests itself in non-belief here
But I don't see it manifesting as unbelief: it is anger or frustration. Eustace cannot not believe in Aslan: he has met him. He knows his power. What he is struggling with is trusting or understanding Aslan.
Which is, in effect, what I was getting at in The Cave in Deerfield, because like Eustace, I find Aslan, no matter how benevolent, kind of pants as a deity. And like you, I don't have an answer.
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Long question short, does there have to be an answer? Life doesn't go that way for most of us, so why should/would I expect you clever writers to be able to answer all of the biggies for me? For mine, it comes back to doing the best I can with what I have been given - and surely that is all that any one of us can do.
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With the scene of Mary and Richard's relationship, both the imbalance and the strength of the relationship came through, and both aspects made it all more real and more believable.
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The discussions here in this thread are fascinating with definitely lots to think about. As an uber self-reflective person, it's surprising to learn that you are not! You say someone pointed out that you are self-reflective through the fanfic medium, and I definitely agree with that! Know what's harder still? Self-reflection on self-reflection. (File that with the redundancy department of the redundancy department.) Just a note of observation, 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 ( ... )
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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
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