Robin McKinley's Blog, page 146

Grinch Eve

 

I'm a winter flowering pansy. So I'm flowering. What's your problem?

Please note snow and ice in the pot.  I have no idea.  This heroic object has been sitting exactly where you see it through this last month of snow, ice, snow, ice, snow, and ice, on the front stair at the cottage.  The reason the pot's at an angle is because it's sitting in a miniature snowbank.*

           Two of Peter's presents still haven't arrived** so I was out sprinting through the town this morning, knocking little old ladies aside and trampling small children underfoot, in search of replacement gifts for The Man Who Is Impossible to Buy Gifts for and Whose Birthday Was Only Eight Days Ago.  I was modestly successful.***

            But as I was bolting from shop x to shop y I had to pass by ye olde gifte shoppe which ordinarily does not see a great deal of me unless I need another New Arcadia tea towel/mug/postcard to frighten some American friend.  And my hand reached for the latch and my feet had taken me over the sill before you could say I'm TIRED of waiting for all our missing Christmas ornaments to reappear.  

Oooh! Shiny!

Yup. Bells.

Yes they have teeny clappers and they make a funny ghostly almost-ringing noise.

As you're wrestling with the little *&^%$£"!!!! which are all possessed by demons (like some tower bells I could name).  They're on a stretchy gold cord and what they love best is going SPROING and then knotting themselves into a yellow-tin-foil rat king.

I had ASSUMED they're plastic but they kinda feel like . . . veneered gingerbread.

 

LOOK! LOOK! LOOK WHAT I FOUND! METAL HOOKS!

But . . . but . . . they're the wrong shape! They're the right hand hooks--the left hand one is an old one. Boo hoo! Waaaah!

I haven't decided if I can bring myself to use the new ones.  They look so . . . insecure.   Of course I do have a pair of needle-nose pliers. . . .

* * *

* I keep worrying about how much garden I'm going to have left by spring.  I also wonder if I'm going to have any pots left.  I'm resigned to the terra cotta ones all being brick dust by April but plastic—witness my ex-dustpan^—doesn't like getting this cold either, and what I'm really worrying about are the fancy lightweight fibreglass pots that I loooove madly but that cost. a. bomb. and if all of them have gone I may take up ferrocement^^ sculpture or something instead of more plants.^^^  

^ Which I'm still using because I haven't remembered to buy a new one yet.   The dirt tends to fall back out again through the cracks so you have to slide a piece of cardboard under it and then get it to the trash really fast. . . . 

^^ Which I assume you can frost-proof, since they make houses out of it. 

^^^ Ajlr tweeted this today: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/expect-more-extreme-winters-thanks-to-global-warming-say-scientists-2168418.html

Go away!  Frell dranglefabbing off!  I don't want to hear about it!  They've been wrong before!  They can be wrong again.  They can be wrong again now.  I object to the idea that I'm still living in Maine.  In Maine with an hour less winter daylight.  . . .Okay.  An hour less daylight but better footpaths.  At the moment the footpaths are a good deal more negotiable than the [pedestrian] pavements in town, where the unshovelled snow has been beaten into a hard, glossy lonsdaleite-like surface that makes even those of us equipped with yaktrax a little nervous.

 ** We may have to do something radical this year like celebrate Valentine's Day.   Or maybe I'll just save them till next year.  Assuming that they do eventually arrive.   The frelling interwebz are really magnificently unreliable just at the minute.  Since I rarely get anything much sent out in time for the actual 25th of December I sign up for those 'email me when the life size plastic reindeer are back in stock' alerts and re-order when I can.   I've had two count 'em two web sites crash fatally on me in the last twenty-four hours—I mean big national mail-order companies, both of which I've used several times before—after I'd already struggled through to the end of the check-out process.  In one case to the end of the check-out process twice.  This is enough to turn Santa Claus into Super Grinch.  As I have pointed out in a crisp and brutal fashion to both of them.  I actually got a nice email back from the first one saying that they've decided to change their money-extracting software because what they're using is so unstable.  YOU DIDN'T WANT TO DO THAT BEFORE CHRISTMAS??? 

*** Thank the gods for mmmph.^  Also for grzzzf.  Which latter I admit is at least half for me, but when you're dealing with the Impossible Man you snatch frantically at any prospect, even the dubious ones.  And I'll be glad to see it. 

^ Remember:  Peter reads the blog.

Melbourne PRC – guest blog from B_Twin & Ithilien

Melbourne, Australia, PRC

On a pleasant summer afternoon, eleven Australian McKinley book-lovers gathered together in the grounds of a grand old Melbourne mansion for a picnic to celebrate the release of PEGASUS. The group consisted of bellringers, librarians, software engineers and an odd farmer^. Although dark clouds threatened nearby, there were only a few drops of rain during the afternoon.

The mansion in the gardens

Attendees (except for the late-comers)

Some of the attendees had already read PEGASUS, others were very excited by the prospect of a new Robin McKinley book. There was also much admiration of the gorgeous PEGASUS covers. After the posters were drooled over, the two mods – B-twin and Ithilien – conducted the official raffles for the 2 posters and copy of PEGASUS. All three items were won by excited fans.

A very happy librarian (wearing PINK!) with her prize copy of PEGASUS

The festivities continued with a feast inspired by SUNSHINE. There was blueberry pie, apricot pie, caramel mud cupcakes, sandwiches, vegies with crackers & dip, lemon bars, two types of choc-chip cookies, fruit & custard tarts and a huge punnet of fresh cherries! The drinks table groaned under the weight of the thermos for tea & coffee, water & grapefruit juice, ginger beer and cordial. No one left hungry!

Mmmmm. Thanks for the fruit tarts Audrey! :)

Conversation was non-stop and covered many Robin McKinley novels as well as libraries, e-readers, fantasy books and bellringing.

The afternoon was rounded off when 3 attendees went across the road from the park to ring bells^^ at St James, Gardenvale.

Thanks to forum members Audrey and Susan in Melbourne who worked hard to make this a success. :)

———

^ 5am start… cooking, check sheep, more cooking, drive for 3 hours, PICNIC. ;)

^^ A highly unusual activity for readers of this blog… ;)

The Grinch Gets Her Tree Up

 

There are two Grinches in this household, two Grinches out of two members* which makes the Christmas thing kinda hard.  So, yesterday, I said to the other Grinch, it's the 21st of December.  I want our tree stuff OUT of the attic and IN the sitting room and I want it TODAY.

            Peter was amused.  Never mind.  He got the stuff down from the attic.

            And then I seem to have spent an unconscionable time last night writing the second part of my dissertation on JANE EYRE.  With a little help from other people.

              So I didn't get to the tree till tonight. 

tree. Ta da.

              Yes, it's fake.   I've told you about the two-storey trees we used to have at the old house, which stood in the elbow of the stairs to the first floor.  This is one of the things we gave up when we moved into two small houses.  So, since we'd never liked killing trees–and I think because we had made a secret pact to become Grinches–the first year in town Peter went out and bought a fake tree.  Peter puts it together every year–all the branches pull out for storage and have, therefore, to be jammed back in for use–so he's allowed to have nasty, irritated, negative feelings about it.  I think it's great.  It is a correctly shaped, somewhat furry green object that you can hang stuff on, it doesn't prickle your hands to death, shed needles all over the house**, or make you feel horribly guilty for killing a live thing. 

               First stage.  Wrapping the stem in sparkly.

several colours of sparkly

               A fair amount of general house-decking will occur also;  I've got swathes of the stuff.  I've shown you our matched Mythopoeic Society lions, haven't I?  Probably last year at this time, when I did the same thing.***  Peter won the kiddie for THE ROPEMAKER and I won the adult for SUNSHINE. 

Lions in bondage. Sparkly bondage.

               The first ornaments to go up every year since I bought them:  two reds and a white.  Of course now I wish I'd bought more.

Yep. Rose. Of course.

                WHERE ARE THE REST OF THE FRELLING HOOKS?  ARRRRRRRRGH.

There are THREE MORE BOXES

                 Hooks.  Relief.  Although dumping them on the floor was a big mistake, since they don't pick up against a slippery flat surface.   More ARRRRRRRRRGH.#

These also move around of their own accord of course. You can tell that by looking at them. Never trust an S curve.

                  Decorated tree. 

All over sparkly.

               Every year since we moved into town we have the same conversation:  Peter, I say, we're missing some ornaments.  In fact we're missing a lot of ornaments.  Blrrgh mmmbl grah, says Peter.  Peter, I say, we had a two storey tree.  Where are all those ornaments?   It's a mystery.  It's a mystery this year too.  I'm still hoping they'll turn up.  It'll be one of the things I mutter on my deathbed:  I wonder where all those nice Christmas ornaments went.  You know, the glass icicles and those William Morrisy gold things from the Met Museum, and is that a white light I see shining at the end of a long tunnel and people waving?  And what about the really nice horse ornaments that Kathy gave us?  Or the reindeer?  Oh, all right, I'm coming, I'm coming.##

But there are enough to decorate both sides of a little tree at the same time.

                 I think it's a nice touch, the top of the tree bent over with the weight of its angel.  I feel a little like that myself–always supposing that that's a good angel weighing down my shoulder.  But I think it is.  Good angels are so earnest.

Angel on a mission. Very earnest.

                 Happy Day After the Winter Solstice.  Hey!  The days are getting longer!  If you had a minimicromeasureymonitor you could probably demonstrate it!

* * *

* The hellhounds don't count in this case.  They don't buy people presents.  They don't agonise over buying people presents.  They aren't cruising the web at 3 am looking for that perfect t shirt they saw last July and IT'S GOTTA BE HERE SOMEWHERE.  They say, is it chicken?  If it's not chicken, we're not interested.^

^ Sometimes they aren't interested even when it is chicken.  I love this weather we're having, you know?  I love it so much.   I love it even more for the fact that the hellhounds like to eat snow and then they get stomachaches and won't eat.   This enhances my pleasure in winter no end.  Just . . . No.  End. 

** Christmas tree needles are, of course, self-motile.  Don't give me any nonsense about clinging to your jeans-hems and the bottoms of your house shoes.  They move by themselves.

*** No imagination.  It's very sad.

# Remember metal hooks, she says wistfully?  That you could stretch and pinch and so on?  The plastic ones just lie there, or break.

##Actually I'm still hoping they'll turn up when I FINALLY get Third House sorted.  FINALLY.

JANE EYRE, II

 

http://melissa-writing.livejournal.com/410076.html  'But Robin . . . he LIES to her.' 

Yes he does.  Eventually you have to say 'I liked this book/character;  it worked for me;  I didn't like it;  it didn't work for me.'  And just by the way, I find it absolutely weird, Melissa, that you think the book is fabulous but dislike Rochester so much! 

            I'm afraid this post is likely to be terrifyingly long because I'm going to make my life a little easier and quote a lot, since I also want to respond to some of the things people have said on my forum.  I suggest a fresh pot of tea and a large plate of cookies. . . .

            But first, to respond to Melissa's post: 

Jealousy.  Sorry, this made me laugh.  I can sure see you're not a Scorpio.  I am, and jealousy is just part of the package.  It's also a dead common human emotion—or fault, if you prefer:  I'd be happy to be without mine—but the majority of us, I'd guess, get through without behaving any worse than those of you not so burdened.  It even provides a service—jealousy is a sign that the thing in your life that's arousing it needs looking at.  (I can think of nicer calls for attention . . . but still.)  I don't myself see anything in the way he tells the story—the way Bronte tells the story—to suggest that he's going to turn into a brute if/when he falls in love—possibly again, but really for the first time, since this story of jealousy is about the foolishness of young men, and specifically of himself.  What strikes me in this scene is how clear it is that he's already falling for Jane and already wrestling with the awful choice he's going to have to make, and the awful situation he's in—and how much more awful it's going to become as soon as he lets himself realise he's in love with Jane.  He's not even terribly interested in this story of his young self—' . . . waking out of his scowling abstraction, he turned his eyes towards me, and the shade seemed to clear off his brow.  "Oh, I had forgotten [the mistress]!"'  This is not the pathological brute still brooding on the escaped possession.  And as for Jane's not being shocked . . . well brought up young ladies, which Jane is not, are expected to pretend to be shocked . . . but wealthy men did take mistresses, and everyone in that world knew it.  She's merely failing to be hypocritical.   Lack of 'normal' hypocrisy is one of the things Edward falls in love with her for.  The only scandalous thing is Edward telling her about the indiscretions of his youth:  but this is part of the (somewhat eccentric) building of their relationship.

            And, well, um, so is her listening to him.  Okay, it's politically incorrect, if you like . . . but she is eighteen years old and spent the first ten of them being the poor relation and the latter eight at Lowood, a 'charitable institution' for homeless girls, which is to say jail (or gaol);  and he's thirty-five or so and has, as they say, been around.  He is going to have more stories to tell than she is.  One of the fascinating things about Jane is just how self-taught she is:  how wholly she has created herself with precious little outside help:  that's also part of her draw for Edward, that she is so strong a character and yet so clean and clear.  He is—it seems to me—attracted to the clarity;  he's been banging around the world looking for something, having lost himself and his self-respect by trying to please his thoroughly unpleasant father and older brother.  It's to his credit that he immediately recognises Jane's worth—we've been told often enough how pretty she is not, as well as lacking in little items like money and family connections.    

            Moody and surly?  Eh.  I'm moody and surly, and I have one or two friends.  And a reasonably sane if long-suffering husband of twenty years.

            And 'She's the mirror here. He talks; she listens. He educates sweet innocent Jane'?  Horsefeathers.  I'm demonstrating a little surliness here myself.  Usually when we hear Edward monologuing, he's talking to some aspect of the story—Adele's background, for example.  But look at the conversations Bronte gives us between Edward and Jane:  look at their first exchange after Edward's fall, when Jane finds out who the mysterious horseman was:  ' . . . are you fond of presents?'

            'I hardly know, sir;  I have little experience of them;  they are generally thought pleasant things.'

            'Generally thought?  But what do you think?'

            'I should be obliged to take time, sir, before I could give you an answer worthy of your acceptance . . .'

            This exchange always makes me laugh;  this is so Jane—and so not a pliant girl eager to be some man's mirror.*  And, um, if I were watching my husband romance another woman in my house, I would certainly be tetchy, but if I set fire to his bed-curtains that would still make me a homicidal maniac who ought to be locked up, although a clever barrister might get me off on grounds of diminished responsibility. 

            I agree however that reader sympathy for Edward Rochester pretty well stands or falls on whether one can weather that he lied to Jane about the tenant of the attic.  It's a grotesquely repulsive—and alienating—thing to have done.  I can get over it because I see him as loving her so much he cannot bear the thought of losing her—the thought of losing her makes him a little mad himself—and I see him as loving her for the right reasons too:  her intelligence and her strength of will and purpose.  Her clarity.  Her selfness.  Edward has always, from the time Jane meets him, lived rather near the edge, on account of the strain, the despair of hopelessness of that mad wife in the attic—one of the things I'm always intrigued by when I reread it is just how near the edge he seems to me to be—the same edge that the repellent lunatics in WUTHERING HEIGHTS spend the entire book over.  But it's like:  oh, yeah, those Bronte girls, they were sisters.**  And one of the things they shared, apparently, was knowing how screwed up love and circumstances can make you.

            And Melissa . . . so suggest something.  I'm a crank.  I guarantee I will have an uncooperative take on something else we could argue about.          

And now from the Days in the Life forum.

[These are merely in the order they were posted:] 

Melissa Mead

As a person who would've been locked in an attic myself, though (because of physical disability), I've never seen Rochester as someone that I could be attracted to. 

Well, no!  Not necessarily!  Most Famous Cripple in Literature, Tiny Tim, CHRISTMAS CAROL!  And I'm pretty sure both Charlotte Yonge and Louisa May Alcott (and Mrs Ewing) have the occasional physically disabled character tucked away here and there—and the rather awful Clara in HEIDI, although she doesn't stay disabled.  Oh, and THE LITTLE LAME PRINCE—and he does stay disabled.  I will think of twenty-seven more, better examples as soon as I post this.  Suggestions welcome.  Venturing into nonfiction, Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man, went to school till he was twelve, and while his problems would get a lot worse later on, he was still clearly disabled.  (According to wiki his mum was disabled too, but they don't know the details, and she managed to marry and have kids.)  And Florence Nightingale spent more than half her life erratically bedridden and unable to walk.

            And while it's too late (1924) to be really relevant here, my favourite 'disabled' romance:  PRECIOUS BANE by Mary Webb.  The heroine has a harelip and knows she is physically repulsive and will therefore never be loved, never marry nor have children.    Wrong. 

Black Bear

. . . institutionalization at that time usually resulted in an early death, either from disease, abuse, or misadventure. Rochester's desire to fulfill his responsibility to his wife and to care for her despite the fact that she is apparently homicidally psychotic is Bronte's way of showing us that he IS a good guy, even when it's to his own detriment.

This is how I've always read it.  I grant you the way he goes about it is less than a perfect system, but that seems to me part of his kettle of fish:  he hates the situation and is furious and despairing about being caught in it—and he is caught in it.  And, of course, it's great for the plot of a melodrama.  One of the things we haven't got into is the strong tradition of Gothic literature that JANE EYRE swims in. 

danceswithpahis

I feel that St John gets a great big FAIL because he misses the whole point of the faith he's wanting to go preach in India . . . Jesus . . . said that the greatest commandment is to love God with everything you have and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself. Paul, who wrote much of the New Testament, said that without love you gain nothing, have nothing, and are nothing, no matter what "good deeds" you do. In light of this, someone who pretends he's going to go share Christianity with the heathen Indians but is cold and compassionless has severely betrayed his faith. . . .



We haven't talked about St John either.  Poor old St John, whom everyone hates.  I don't, actually.  He's the polar opposite to Rochester, isn't he?  Coldly, inhumanly perfect, and therefore imperfect?  And he also wants to marry Jane, although for the wrong reasons.  I believe in the reality of his faith and his desire to serve—he's just not very good at it—he's not very good at people.  He's flawed too, just differently.  It must be significant that the book ends with Jane reading St John's last letter.  He knows he's dying;  the Indian climate has done for him.  "'My Master,' he says, 'has forewarned me.  Daily He announces more distinctly, 'Surely I come quickly!' and hourly I more eagerly respond, 'Amen;  even so come, Lord Jesus!'"  She believes in him and therefore so do I;  I think he got himself sorted out, just as she and Edward did—that that's the point too.

zerlina

It is precisely Mr Rochester's flaws that make him attractive and Mr St. John's cold, unloving, unlovable perfection that have you cheering for Mr Rochester. 

Yep.  Clever girl, our Charlotte. 

Judith

I don't have a problem with him [lying]. It is, of course, my 20th/21st century morality in contrast to that of the writer. When reading that part, I always find myself saying, "Jane, you idiot, take him up on his offer! Go to the south of France with him and live happily ever after!"

Sorry, but this really makes me lay my ears back and prepare to kick.  I do not feel you can take Jane's decision out of context like that.  As you say, that's your modern morality.  I think you need to leave it at the door, and pick it up again on the way out.  If you can't feel Jane's fatally insoluble dilemma—exactly the same as Edward's, from the other side—then there's no story.  She/they wouldn't live happily ever after!  That's the POINT!

My big objection to him — and it's a HUGE one for me — is his treatment of Jane when he torments her with Blanche Ingram and when he does the whole gypsy fortune-teller bit. It's just plain sadistic and uncalled-for, and I couldn't see myself ever forgiving it.

Yes.  I see this.  It's valid to me too, like the fact that he lies to her—yes, he lies to her.  Yes, he plays with her appallingly over Blanche Ingram.  (Although the gypsy fortune-teller thing makes me go, What?, every time.  The only way I can buy Edward Rochester disguised as a gypsy fortune-teller is to remind myself firmly that the Gothic literature tradition allows a few flights of nonsensical fantasy, and this is JANE EYRE's.)  I see it as another manifestation of what a mess Edward's past has made of him—having recognised Jane's worth he can't bring himself to court her straightforwardly;  she is too self-contained, self-possessed;  he has to try to startle her into some expression of love.  It's not, ahem, attractive.  I get it, but it's not Edward at his best.  

E Moon

Intellectually, I can understand Charlotte Bronte's reasons for depicting relationships between men and women as she does…but I still don't like 'em. (I'm not a fan of George Eliot, either, and for some of the same reasons.)

 Love George Eliot.  Just by the way.  And I'd argue against you about this too.

Charlotte needed serious doses of psychoactive medications herself, IMO. All those harshly controlled heroines…all the emphasis on control issues, for that matter…and the stifling "squashed" feeling of the writing itself…ick. Bits of Shirley escape that but in the end our heroine is finally mastered by the stern, unyielding character of the tutor. Shudder.

 I see it as a clear-eyed demonstration of what it felt like, being an intelligent woman in that world.

. . .  it isn't his keeping her in the attic that set me against him, but his dishonesty–not just the original Bluebeard's Secret sort of thing, concealing who was up there, though that was bad enough (to me), but his intention to marry Jane and make her a partner to bigamy, which would give her no legal standing at all, in an age when the protection of marriage meant so much, and remove her status (small though it was) as a virtuous spinster. 

He's half-mad with the impossibility of the situation—with loving her, knowing he can't have her, unable to face losing her.  I don't say no to what you're saying, I just say that I see where (I think) he's coming from.  I also believe that he does love her and would have stood by her.  He would know what he's doing by making her party to bigamy;  but I'd say that one of the things Bronte has made clear both through his decision to take care of Bertha rather than dropping her in the river one night and by raising Adele is that he keeps his promises. 

Jeanne Marie

I liked Rochester – not just found him attractive, but LIKED him, in the way that Jane did on her first encounter with him. Firstly, he actually addressed her and had conversation with her, in a manner equal to equal – not common among male-female relationships of the day.

YES.  I used to keep going back to JANE EYRE when I was in college and reading Victorian literature by the yard.  I love Dickens, but his 'virtuous' women make me nuts.  He was good at the sick cookies—not the ones you'd take home to the family.  I loved it that Edward Rochester is even-handedly cranky.  I'd've liked him less—as Jane says of herself—if he'd had more 'address'.  

Secondly, as is mentioned by Robin and others, his willingness to take in a child who might but probably isn't his speaks volumes as to the basic quality of his character.

I think that a lot of the reveal of the mad wife in the attic (who I truly believe was mad – again, why distrust the author's story without cause?) is, in my opinion, not only to reveal Rochester's basic goodness of character, despite his dishonesty to Jane about it, but also to say something about the folly of youth. Rochester, in his youth, wanted to be in his father's good graces, and saw a way to do it that wasn't illegal nor repugnant – and, to refute another comment, no he did NOT know his wife was mad when he married her. HER family knew it, and we suspect that Rochester's father and brother knew it, too, which argues strongly for THEIR characters as being the real Bad Guys in absentia of the story. How cruel is it to tell your child " hey, marry this woman and we'll accept you back into the family we threw you out of," knowing she was mad but wealthy – clearly their motives are highly suspect. Rochester's willingness to marry wasn't based on anything but a desire to be welcomed back into his family. I've known people to do worse things for the same reason. Again, it argues strongly for his essential goodness that he doesn't throw her into an institution when he discovers she's mad, but has her cared for privately, in his own home, albeit secretly.

Yes.  One of the reasons I found Melissa's take on the wife in the attic thing so surprising (okay, despite MADWOMAN IN THE ATTIC which I should admit I found rather long and hectoring) is that when Bronte finally lets him tell his story it's almost too slanted in Edward's favour—it's too obvious that he was set up for ruin.  I was really rattled to find out that anyone could take it any other way.  And just in case anyone is going to say that Edward would tell his own story to the woman he loves to excuse himself as much as possible, Mrs Fairfax tells Jane early on that he was badly treated by his own family and that that is partly responsible for his gloomy outlook. 

Susan Cassidy

Robin says, "I can see no good reason not to believe the story as we're told it…Edward Rochester's tragedy—and Jane Eyre's—to my eye is that Rochester is as trapped by his society as his (mad) wife is trapped in his attic."

This is so true to me. You don't have to like Mr. Rochester, but you have to take him within the context of Bronte's story (where she makes it clear that his wife was locked up because she was mad). You don't have much of a book if you don't accept that premise.

YES.  And Susan Cassidy has now said in about a hundred words what it's taking me a couple thousand or so to say. . . .

Diane in MN

There are obviously melodramatic aspects to Bronte's treatment of Bertha, but she was writing in the middle of the 19th century, and as Robin and many others point out, there weren't a lot of options for dealing with insanity. Rochester has money and could probably have afforded to set up a separate establishment for his wife somewhere else, but that wouldn't have served Bronte's story. There are certain givens that the reader has to accept if she is going to go forward with the book in hand, after all.

Yes.  She was writing in a specific time and a specific literary tradition.  And the bottom line for me is . . . I love JANE EYRE to pieces.  It's one of my desert island books. 

            So there, any nay-sayers who've read this far.  Nyah.

 * * *

* Much as it pains me to quote Shakespeare, I always think here of Othello: 

She loved me for the dangers I had pass'd,

And I loved her that she did pity them.

In my Shakespeare-resistant defense, I love them from Verdi's Otello, not from the frelling Bard.  They're the basis of the most fabulous love duet.  Even if Desdemona was the most lamentable wet.  Speaking of standard drippy females. 

** I need to reread TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL.  I remember it as being overtly darker than JANE EYRE but less loopy than WUTHERING, but I wouldn't want to rely on it.  I can't remember anything about AGNES GREY although I'm pretty sure I read it.  And yes, I've read all of Charlotte.

Central England PRC – guest post by southdowner, photos by CathyR*

It was lovely to meet Firedancer and CathyR at Waterstones in Birmingham last week. CathyR had the furthest to come and as is often the case she arrived before either of us Brummies. It's always hectic in Birmingham city centre in the shopping weekends before Christmas, and I found unaccustomed queues which is my excuse for arriving last; once there we settled down with cakes and Pegasus

Waterstones with (L to R) southdowner, Firedancer, CathyR**

and chatted about the important things in life – bellringing, cakes and Pegasus! Firedancer is a keen member of the local library and so we plan to arrange a larger PRC on the UK release with some local fantasy reading groups involved; I'm looking forward to that, but I'm glad we also had our intimate PRC now – it was such fun.

CathyR and I are both committed ringers (a term I use advisedly) but I might have persuaded Firedancer to come ringing with me to see what she's missing. I'll let you know how we get on :)

After meeting and greeting we braved the cold and headed out for the German market. Larger than some Christmas markets in Germany, we had a great time "window" shopping.

Firedancer and I discovered a mutual love of guinea pigs and our enthusiasm rather disconcerted CathyR – the evidence,

with CathyR hiding behind the camera :D

There are food stalls, ornaments, jewellery, and then there are hat stalls – we just had to try on a range of McKinley themed hats – dragon (bonus points to anyone who spots the dragon hat :) ), bee, cake…

as well as just plain daft – the fingers make that point …

And then of course we saw THIS and couldn't resist taking its picture

- the only Pegasus we found in the market (and we looked really very thoroughly); on our way back past the stall it had gone, not that we were solely focussed on pegasi you understand, but we did all check individually!

And then on leaving the market we found this -

and for reasons of taste (well, it is EXTREMELY pink!!!) we then had to take a photo *g*

The temperature had really started to drop by now, so we repaired to Selfridges cafe and made inroads on more food and drink while having a really enjoyable discussion on our favourite Robin books and suggestions for reading for CathyR who still has a few unread. Firedancer and I discovered that we had both found our first McKinley book at the same independent bookshop in Birmingham (now sadly defunct) in pre internet days.

Next to our seats in the cafe were displays of various handbags and luggage, and some were spectacularly eye catching…

(CathyR) We also wondered whether it could ever be right to want want want the shiny purple handbag with a fluffy monkey attached, which was for sale near our table…

And the answer to that is yes! Yes! YES!!!! The bag was large enough for several books, the colour fantastic, but the monkey made it great ;) though I admit that I was alone in my monkey madness.

The day went far too soon, and as it began to get dark outside we said goodbye and headed for home. Thank you Robin not only for Pegasus but also for the opportunity to spend time with such lovely people.

* * *

*except for one photo take by an extremely friendly man at the next table in Waterstones cafe whom we importuned :P

** don't we all like red!!!

Bells and Carols

 

I haven't got the brain for JANE EYRE tonight.  You'll have to wait till tomorrow.  Or Tuesday.  Or Wednesday.  Tomorrow I have A MEETING WITH POTENTIAL NEW VOICE TEACHER*, DENTIST FROM R'LYEH, and, if I'm still walking after the tender ministrations of The Thing That Ate Atlantis, I'm supposed to go ring some more bells tomorrow night.  MORE BELLS.  MORE BELLS IN THIS WEATHER. AAAAAUGH.

            I had three service rings today.  This is at least one too many, especially when one of them is at Old Eden in this WEATHER**.  Not to mention time of frelling year.  It's barely daylight when I have to get up for Sunday morning service ring which is seriously disorienting for someone who prides herself on sleeping through that knock on the door from the frelling deliveryperson who can't read that the package says 'LEAVE THE SUCKER behind the gate' and will take it away again, leaving a card that says 'we tried to deliver, but you are a lazy slut and we know you have dishes in the sink and cobwebs in all the corners*** and you don't deserve this parcel so the phone number on this card is the one that is programmed to disconnect you when you get to the sixteenth choice on our automated phone-answering system.'†

            We were the Faithful Four today:  Niall, Penelope, Vicky and me.   At the first ring that was all we were—and Penelope's shoulder is bothering her so we needed to nurse her through so she'd make it to the end of the day—four is a lot better than three.  We hopefully got all eight bells up and then Niall amused himself by assigning us to different series—usually you just ring the front ones (1, 2, 3, 4) or the back ones (5, 6, 7, 8), but we were ringing things like 1, 3, 4, 6, or 3, 4, 5, 8.  Niall was trying for the beginning of that Tchaikovsky concerto that goes dingdingdingCRASH . . . He looked at me.  Don't look at me, I said.  I like the weird augmented/diminished minory things that make everybody else's ears hurt.  And the neighbours complain.††

            So then I went home and stapled hellhounds into their new arctic gear—which is too large, but this is better than too small, especially in this weather—and dragged them out while they held onto doorframes and railings and said no, no, we can keep our legs crossed a little longer, like maybe April.   Eventually I let them drag me back to the cottage where, to their undisguised horror, I bundled them into Wolfgang.†††  It took me most of half an hour to chip Wolfgang out of his parking slot‡ and collateral damage included breaking my dustpan.  Plastic doesn't like getting that cold.‡‡

            Second service ring . . . I walked to Old Eden, and very odd it felt too, hellhoundless.  I was inclined to be sulky about superfluous walking, but since at the moment hellhounds feel all walking—that is, outdoors—is superfluous, I don't feel too guilty about shortchanging them.‡‡‡  But while the county council is clearly working its (cold) butt off—there were sanders and gritters out there scattering their welcome largesse on the main street when I was coming back from first service ring, which is not exactly late on a Sunday morning—the back roads are all deathtraps and there is no front way to Old Eden.

            And the bells.  Dear gods in the (deaf) heavens, the bells at Old Eden in this weather.  Niall and Vicky and I got the rotters up, and it took three or four times as long as it should do because the wretched things just stick periodically and say 'no.  Won't.  And you can't make me'—and they do this serially so the other two of you are hanging around while one of you is hauling away desperately and muttering ineffective charms§ to make the beastly thing SWING.  ARRRGH.  We had a fifth person, Ginny, Old Eden's tower captain and only local ringer, but she doesn't actually ring much, so between Penelope's shoulder and Ginny's lack of confidence, that was Niall, Vicky and me on the front line again . . . and I've changed my mind about the five at Old Eden.  The three is worse.  The three, as Vicky says, is malicious.  Guess who was on the three.  The five just comes down on you all the time.  You can at least rely on it to keep coming down on you.  The three dives and swoops like a frelling swift, which is fine in a bird, but not on a bell you're trying to ring in some semblance of order and rhythm. 

            By the third service ring, back at New Arcadia, I was beginning to feel a little less than totally on the spot.§§  We had a fifth ringer again, Roger, who, unfortunately, can ring methods, which meant we had to ring methods, and since Penelope had this shoulder scam going she got to stick to the treble.  I was thinking, however, as I negotiated Grandsire doubles with no tenor (sixth bell ringing last every row) to steady the proceedings, that this is one of the more distressing practical manifestations of progress:  what you can ring when you're too tired to think.  I'm not complaining, exactly, but it does feel rather like driving at speed down a small dark lane with no headlights.  Any moment now there's going to be a terrible crash. . . .

            Meanwhile Peter had been possessed by the deranged notion of attending the service after that last ring, which was the (slightly pre-) Christmastide nine lessons and carols.  For loyalty's sake I said I'd come too.  Frelling British and their frelling alternative tunes to carols I grew up with and they only give you the WORDS not the MUSIC.  Haven't these people ever heard of hymnals?  You just get the little printed order of service and are expected to cope.  Okay, I'm not going to argue about Vaughan Williams' arrangement of O Little Town of Bethlehem even if I'd never heard it till I moved over here, and actually both Hark the Herald and It Came Upon a Midnight are really pretty too.  But they're not what I know.  And then there are those someone-is-playing-ping-pong-with-your-head moments when you know the tune from somewhere else (not that you can remember where, but you're pretty sure it's not a Christmas carol) and have never seen the words before in your life.  And vice versa.

            However after twenty years in this frelling country (not to mention a passionate attachment to Vaughan Williams and/or anything that sounds like a British folk tune) I've picked up most of their idea of the standards.  And . . .

            . . . I was having a really good time.  It didn't occur to me till about halfway through—when I was amusing myself singing alternate verses of Silent Night an octave up in head voice and an octave down in chest voice—that this is the first Christmas since Blondel wreaked a certain amount of implausible magic on me—I started voice lessons with him I think August a year ago?  Last December was much too soon for me to be noticing much difference but I sure noticed it tonight.  We had a seriously augmented choir for the service and for two of carols toward the end the choir director exhorted us the congregation to go for it, because the choir was going to be singing a descant/trying really hard to throw us off.  Fine.  I like a challenge (occasionally).  So I was singing like a mad thing.  And at the end Peter turned to me and said, you realise this was all a secret plot for me to hear you sing, since I never seem to.  You sounded really good.  —Awwwwwwwww.

            I hope I like My New Voice Teacher.  Except that Peter has just come downstairs to tell me that I may not be going anywhere as it's supposed to be snowing all tomorrow afternoon. . . .           

* * *

* !!!!!!!!!!!!

** Have I mentioned the weather?  In the last ten seconds?  It's 20F/-6C out there and the wind chill makes it 14F/-10C.  Yes, it's worse in Wisconsin (and Antarctica).  I don't live in Wisconsin (or Antarctica). 

*** I should be so lucky it's only corners. 

† One of Peter's presents still hasn't arrived. 

†† Although this is the time of year when the neighbours pop out of the woodwork and thank us for ringing the bells, which is pretty satisfying.  I wish a few of these people would take it into their heads to learn to ring however.  It would be even more satisfying to have the Faithful Eight.  

††† Although we have developed a system.  They jump in resentfully and then stand there staring at me and daring me to make them LIE.  DOWN.  So then I swathe them in blankets and then I make them lie down.  They are, I have to say, totally adorable, folded up in their box and almost disappeared except for noses (and the still-rather-resentful eyes) under layers of swaddling. 

‡ I also had to chisel the dustbin out of its glacier since collection day is tomorrow.   And sweep the frelling stairs to the famous gate behind which I am hoping to find a parcel some time tomorrow. 

‡‡ Yes, I shovel snow with my dustpan.  This is less insane than it sounds—remember that my cul de sac is a jigsaw better suited to medium-sized hedgehogs and small goblins, and is only slightly too large to make a good game board, you know, one of the ones where you have to move forty-three pieces around to get the forty-fourth out.   If I used a snow shovel I would merely be hitting myself with it (tolerable) or putting dents in the car next to me (intolerable) or putting dents in it by ramming the little retaining wall for my flower bed (counterproductive).  Also, I have nowhere to put a snow shovel at the cottage.  I may eventually get one for Third House, but the road and the driveway there are flat.  

‡‡‡ Thank the otherwise evil weather gods that this weather is happening when they're four years old, rather than four months or even two years, when they'd hate the outdoors just as much but would be driving me mental indoors.  As it is their napping skills have become truly impressive in the last two years. 

§ No, no!  Charms!  Just charms! 

§§ I tend to be a little short of sleep on Sundays.  For some reason.

JANE EYRE

 

First, you need to read this, as posted to Twitter a couple of days ago*: 

Blog up on "Arguing with @robinmckinley (or why Rochester isn't attractive)"– http://melissa-writing.livejournal.com/409385.html 

I cackled wildly on Twitter and declared I was going to REBUT.  But the fact is that I stink at debate and hated writing academic papers in college.  So this isn't going to be as amusing for the audience as you might have expected. 

            My bottom line is:  I read what Melissa's said and scratch my head in puzzlement.  Because I can see no good reason not to believe the story as we're told it.  Which is that Mr Rochester's first wife went mad and he keeps her in the attic—yes, locked!  But you know she does things like bite her own brother—'she worried me like a tigress'—and declare she's going to drain his heart of blood!  I think this is perhaps a good reason to keep her under some sort of restraint!  She also set fire to her husband's bedroom on a little extra-curricular jaunt!  He keeps her in the attic because he doesn't know what else to do with her!  Now, granted, this doesn't look too good—assuming for the purpose of my argument here that she is mad—but yes, what does one do with a dangerously, a violently mad wife?   Sending her to an institution, such as there were in Bronte's day, would be a lot worse—an institution that would take a homicidal madwoman?—at least in the attic she's kept clean, warm and fed, even if her keeper's company is a little wanting in empathy as well as reliability. 

            I don't myself see that there's any textual support** for the idea that she only wanted some independence of thought and action or some room to develop her individuality.  And even if you want to discount, on the same feminist grounds, that her mother had been tossed in the booby hatch, she also has a 'complete dumb idiot' of a younger brother.  You say:  'We know that the things that were called "mad" in women were a bit wrong minded.'  Well, yes, but that's not to say that 'real' madness, real inability to cope with the world, real murderousness didn't exist.  I have no idea where the lines run, and at some distant intersection on some invisible horizon I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that everything we called madness in the 19th century and are calling madness in the 21st could be effectively treated.  But meanwhile . . . I think the first Mrs Rochester is acceptably demonstrated as mad.

            I also feel there are at least two strong arguments for Edward Rochester's character as a mostly decent bloke who loses it when he falls in love with Jane Eyre.  The first one is Adele.  He's taken her in because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time—but he has taken her in, and he's raising her as best he can, which includes hiring a governess.  He admits to Jane that she might be his by-blow—but he also remarks, dispassionately, that she probably isn't.  He has still taken her in and declared her his responsibility.

            The second and to me even stronger argument in ER's favour is his relationship with Jane.  His relationship with Jane indeed is why your suggestion that he might have locked his first wife up for being insufficiently passive really startles me.  He falls in love with Jane for standing up to him, for answering him as one intelligent human being to another and not as a servant to the fellow who pays her salary, or as a little weak woman to a big masterful man.  And I don't see any indication—beyond, I admit, some fairly frilly 19th century language—that he's planning to 'break' her once he's married her—there's a remarkable lack of the old spirited-mare-taming language that makes me seriously nuts in a lot of so-called romances, including recent ones (grrrrrr).  "'My bride is here,' he said, again drawing me to him, 'because my equal is here, and my likeness.  Jane, will you marry me?'"

            I admit I don't much like unreliable narrators, and I need a really strong whap up longside the head to accept that I have to interpret a book in that light.***  But Jane Eyre doesn't need to special-plead Rochester's story;  she put out the fire Mrs Rochester set to burn her husband in his bed;  she helped bind up Mason's bleeding arm, and watched the pretty scene when Rochester drags Jane and the three men who have exposed him to the attic where Grace Poole (mostly) keeps the inmate under control.  Yes, I've read A MADWOMAN IN THE ATTIC†—and WIDE SARGASSO SEA††—and I'm fine with retellings and reinterpretations and inspirations—and the fact that the Victorian patriarchy was a bad thing for women.  But I don't, personally, think that either MADWOMAN or SARGASSO illuminates the original novel much.  Edward Rochester's tragedy—and Jane Eyre's—to my eye is that Rochester is as trapped by his society as his (mad) wife is trapped in his attic.  Yes, he lies, and yes, that's his big fat ugly moral failure—that he would have married Jane on false principles if he hadn't been caught out—and yes, that makes Jane Eyre his superior, because when she finds out, she leaves him, despite that she loves him as much as he loves her.   And yes, it takes a deus ex machina fire (although to be fair we have already had the mad wife established as an arsonist, and Grace Poole as too fond of her tipple) to bring our hero and heroine finally together.†††  WIDE SARGASSO SEA is a superb and affecting novel in its own right—it doesn't change JANE EYRE.  And if I'm going to go for a postmodern reinterpretation, I'll take THE EYRE AFFAIR.‡

            But I don't object to anyone finding Con more attractive. . . . ‡‡

* * *

* One of these days I'm also going to write a Defense of Twitter.  Or maybe I won't, and once a week will give myself a Free Blog Day when I just list all the great stuff I've retweeted over the past week.  Hmm.  Decisions, decisions.   

** Just using the phrase 'textual support' makes me feel faintly queasy. 

*** One of many reasons I never liked CATCHER IN THE RYE—or WUTHERING HEIGHTS, which is one of my Most Hated, but this has little to do with questions of unreliable narration and everything to do with the utter loathsomeness of the characters.   I love both TURN OF THE SCREW and HEART OF DARKNESS, but I would attempt to argue that they're not told by true unreliable narrators because you know going in they're not dependable by the layered narrator thing:  somebody's reading somebody else's manuscript, somebody is listening to somebody else telling a story.  —I quailed here and thought this may be my old English lit major training emerging horribly into the light of day^—back, back, thou Thing!—but no, wait, it's common sense.  It's gossip or Chinese whispers after it's been through a few retellers.^^  Although at this point I might suggest in a very small voice that possibly you have to assume that any narration in first person is classically 'unreliable' because the author is god and only one point of view is inevitably incomplete.^^^  But I'm not going to suggest it tonight. 

^ Well not day precisely 

^^ WUTHERING HEIGHTS goes here too, but it doesn't need any more unreliability.  Feh.  People who are on Twitter may have seen the discussion about being a JANE EYRE or a WUTHERING HEIGHTS person a few weeks ago—although I'm sure this is one of those regular cultural memes that keeps turning up—you tend to be one or the other.  JANE EYRE all the way, me.  

^^^ Which would include JANE EYRE.  And, um, SUNSHINE.  And BEAUTY.  And DRAGONHAVEN.  And FIRST FLIGHT.  And ALBION.  And NOT THE WICKED STEPFATHER STORY.  Maybe I just won't suggest it. 

† http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Madwoman_in_the_Attic 

†† http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_Sargasso_Sea 

††† I think it's much more interesting that Bronte felt she had to cripple him than any question of what caused Bertha's insanity.  

‡ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eyre_Affair

‡‡ Kind of nuts, but . . .

Pegasus Party Update – down to the wire! (Black Bear)

 

Well, much as I hate to say it, we are reaching the end of 2010, and along with it, the end of the our Pegasus Release Celebrations!  We've still got 3 more to go (see below) and I've been flooded this week with PRC reports from far and wide.  I don't want to give anyone short shrift, so I may need to double up a bit with Robin's actual blog entries or something to get caught up–or we'll just give Robin a big Xmas break next week and have a few PRC reports in a row… :)

Victoria L., in Manhattan Kansas, threw one of the biggest PRC parties to date–20 attendees, at her local Waldenbooks, with plutonium-dense chocolate treats and sugar cookies for all and sundry (see this PRC thread for her recipes, they look amazing.)  She writes:

My friend Janet is the Assistant Manager at my local Waldenbooks. So when I asked if I could throw the book release party at the store she and her manager, the uber awesome Melissa, said yes. At that point, they had to get the OK from corporate*, which is why I didn't sign up for a party right away. Once we got the go-ahead, Janet and I swung into action**. After all, we hadn't done our annual Literary and Culinary Event***this year and the other big fundraiser we normally work on got cancelled. I just had to throw a party.

Janet ordered as much of Robin's back list as she could and set up a lovely end cap in a prominent location in the local Waldenbooks. She also used it to advertise the release party. The bookstore staff told all of their patrons during the post-Thanksgiving, Black Friday Sales and the following weekend. She even told the staff in the surrounding stores, too.

 

Check out that endcap display!

I organized the food and did the baking. The refreshments consisted of:

Little Chocolate Things With The Density of Plutonium****

Sugar Cookies

American Shortbread

Mixed Nuts

Lemon Punch

Tea

I did most of the baking on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, taking advantage of my mother's huge (and by then empty) kitchen to make double batches of everything. I finished up the baking and chocolate assembly Monday after work. Tuesday night, I hauled everything in the back door of the book store — where I promptly set off the security alarm. Luckily, the police didn't descend. I'd hate to think what kind of reaction I'd have gotten when I told them "Honestly, I was just breaking in to deliver cookies!"^

There is nothing petit about these petit-fours....

I had everything set up and ready to go in the back room well before 7:00pm. Then, at 10 minutes till, Janet and I schlepped everything out to the front and set up by the registers in a prime meet-and-greet spot. I hung around the table, explaining about the party, the book, pointing out the other McKinley titles, encouraging people to eat, pushing Robin's books, and answering questions.

Most of the shoppers looked, nibbled, smiled. I managed to get copies of Robin's books into a couple of "I want to buy this" stacks. Quite a few customers signed up for the drawing. I had a couple of requests for recipes, too. I also wound up helping random people find other books.

When I asked, Janet said she sold out of one title, Spindle's End, the first day the display went up. By the time the party happened, she'd sold out of two more titles and had filled the gaps with more Pegasus.

The party went until 9pm when the store closed. We drew the names for the book and posters, then I packed up my stuff. I left most of the remaining cookies for the bookstore staff and went home satisfied. Janet said I was the best ghost employee ever, and gave me a copy of Pegasus as a thank you.

I also managed to leave without setting off any alarms. Go me.

—–

* It's corporate. I can't just say "Hey! I want to throw a party in your store!" I don't want to get my favorite pushers in trouble. I need my addiction.  I could go to the competition, but their floor staff and managers aren't nearly as fun or as helpful.

**  This sounds so much more active and complicated than it was. Mostly it involved a "Hey, wanna….?" side bar conversation and a couple of quick e-mails.

*** It's an upscale bake sale-cum-contest. Each entrant makes two identical cakes, one to eat and one to auction off. A panel of judges decided on the main awards for presentation, flavor, etc.  Tickets are sold at the door, and the public votes on their favorite cake. The event is hosted by Her Royal Highness Marie Antoinette. (Yes, "Marie" and her court wear costumes.

**** It's a weeks worth of chocolate crammed into a petit-four format. I haven't mastered the petit four construction to my satisfaction. I have crammed maximum chocolate decadence into the dish. The recipe was inspired by Lois McMaster Bujold's Ma Kosti character and one of her desserts. The name of the dessert is the description taken directly from the book.

^ After all, how many thieves bring footed glass serving plates with them? And table cloths? Or tea pots?

—-

Well done, Victoria L.!  Go you, indeed.  More of her photos can be found here on the Photobucket album.

AND NOW…..The final countdown of PRC parties!!

Sacramento — Saturday, December 18. 3pm at the Borders Books on Fair Oaks Blvd. in Sacramento. Organizer: Sarahkp

Los Angeles/Orange Co – Tuesday December 21, 11 am at the Borders just off 57 in Brea. Organizer: Peanut

Dallas/Fort Worth – Wednesday afternoon, December 29, at the Borders in Arlington. Exact time has yet to be set, but will be soon! Organizer: livvispatula

Birthdays, funerals, snow, etc

 

It's snowing again.  The news is gibbering that This May Be The Worst Winter since 1963.  It's by far the worst winter in the twenty years I've lived here, and the first thirteen of them were out in the country, where it's a good two or three degrees colder than in town.  Our old village still has snow lying from the last load.  And it's only the middle of December.  It's not even winter yet:  three days to go.

            Hellhounds, yaktrax and I are at the mews, and I keep going to the door and looking warily out.  It's dropped a good ten Fahrenheit degrees today;  it was raining this afternoon, and it started snowing this evening.

            It was raining as I trotted dismally down the pavement toward the church in my good clothes, good clothes including my good wool coat* because the church is much too cold for sitting around in in a mere raincoat.**   Peter's neighbour was a soldier—I'll call him Leonidas—so there was a double line of regimental types (dripping with medals, I might add, very alarming) standing by the door.***   And when they brought the coffin in it not only had the Union Jack draped over it, but his sword and his hat rode on top on either side of the wreath of red and white roses, and I kind of lost it . . . although not nearly as badly as I lost it at the end, when the regimental bugler standing at the back of the church played Last Post. . . .

            The father of a friend of mine died yesterday.  She is one of the don't-need-all-the-fingers-of-one-hand-to-count-them friends, one of the friends who are my real family.  He was family too;   I perhaps didn't do so well in the biological family department, so we had a joke that her parents adopted me.  He was diagnosed five years ago with a disease that has been eating him up slowly, inch by awful inch.  Given the situation it was absolutely time for him to go . . . but . . .

            I kept getting—let's call him Hector:  he would have made a good prince, and the last five years have been a doom even uglier than being dragged through the streets by a nasty, faithless little git who happens to be good with a sword.  I kept getting Hector muddled up with Leonidas this afternoon;  Leonidas was also much loved.† 

            Today is also Peter's birthday.  We'd been planning to go to Wisley†† and have lunch and a stroll around the garden†††.  Leonidas died last week;  and then we heard that the funeral was today.  We decided to have dinner out instead. 

            Then they started predicting snow for Thursday.

            Then Hector died.

            Colin had a peal to ring today, and I didn't guarantee to be back from Wisley in time, so we'd cancelled handbells.  And then I thought handbells would cheer me up—and Peter said yes, fine, go—so last night I phoned round and both Niall and Fernanda were willing.   We'd stop promptly, for once in our lives, so I could get off to our birthday dinner.

            Then the mavens started not merely predicting snow, but declaring a weather advisory, especially in the south of England.  Don't go anywhere if you don't have to:  all this rain is going to freeze, and then the snow will cover it up.  Whereupon I started worrying about dinner.  It's a pub with atmosphere plus terrific food, and it's not far—but it is down an insanely windy little road with no shoulders and a straight drop into the local river.  I dithered and wrung my hands—and the local radio station was interrupting its normal programming‡ to tell you to go home and stay there.  Peter, bless him, pulled the plug:  let's stay home, he said.  Thank you, I said.

            Meanwhile I was still going to get my handbells;  serious meteorological unpleasantness shouldn't be till later.  I was feeling a bit shifty about handbells on Peter's birthday, when the birthday part had already been rather wrecked by funerals and weather.  Plus I am longing to ring the trebles to bob major—eight bells, four people—which is what I've been whaling away at on Pooka,‡‡ so here I am deserting my husband on his somewhat less than optimum birthday for only moderate selfish personal gain. 

            And then Niall showed up and said, oh, by the way, Colin is coming.

            Colin?

            Yes.  His peal got cancelled—because of the weather.

            . . . So we rang major.  And it's working.  Practicing ringing handbells on my iPhone is WORKING.  UNMODIFIED RAPTURE.  This is ridiculous, right?  You have no idea. 

            It also started snowing at 6:30. 

Yes, that's a black plastic garbage bag. And that's another hamper, from his kids (great minds, faced with Impossible Men, think alike). The quail were already in the oven by this time.

            One of Peter's birthday presents, The Man It Is Impossible to Buy Things For, was a hamper from one of these fancy-food-through-the-post people—whom I wouldn't ordinarily go near because they're too frelling expensive, but Peter does like to eat, and it's a way of spending some money, you know?  So we tucked in to Boneless Quails with Foie Gras and Pistachio Stuffing and they were excellent.  Also right after we'd had the conversation about staying home I ran down the street to our local posh wine shop and said I want a bottle of really good claret that I can joggle around and toss into the back of the car and we can still drink tonight.  So we had that with the quail.  And it was also excellent.

            And then in the middle of dinner the phone rang.  I think I've given up on the Cherub, and Oisin had given me the name of someone he knows.  I have a meet up, chat, and maybe sing a little, introductory lesson with maybe-my-new-

Man, gift, penknife, kitchen disaster area

voice-teacher, next Monday.

            But in a year or so, when I ring my first quarter peal of bob major on handbells, it's going to be in Hector's memory.             

* * *

* The dressed-up proper-lady coat that I only remember is missing one of its large, silver cod-military buttons when I go to put it on.  Sigh.  This has been going on for years. 

** Fortunately I had an excellent rose-bestrewn umbrella 

*** I'm such a pacifist it's not funny—and no, I have no answers, I just can't deal with killing people—but I totally believe in society's responsibility to look after those who get shot and blown up for our benefit and defense, however misguided I think the system is.  

Contents of the black plastic garbage bag. So how would you wrap three draught excluders? (We need at least two more, but it's a start.)

† Favourite story:  he retired early from the military for health reasons, but sitting around home was boring.   An ad caught his eye:  a financial advisor was wanted in a prestigious local firm.  Must have extensive experience and be under forty-five.  Leonidas was in his mid fifties and had no experience—not as a financial advisor.  He got the job.  And retired (again) as the most successful advisor the company had ever had. 

†† http://www.rhs.org.uk/Gardens/Wisley 

††† And the gift shop.  There's a new book on ROSES in the RHS catalogue that I have my eye on. 

‡ Peter gets a medal, speaking of medals, for listening to our appalling local radio for emergency updates. 

You want to know what he's reading, right? Mwa ha ha ha ha

‡‡ For anyone late to the party:  Pooka, aka Apocalypse, is my iPhone, and Mobel is the iPhone method-bell-ringing simulator:  http://www.abelsim.co.uk/

Squicky Vampires, cont

 

In the first place, thank you all for the tweets and comments on both the blog forum and Facebook from people who know Con is not handsome.  Let me say . . . whew.  

On Twitter, @TessaGratton said: Con being creepy and spider-like and alien is one of the reasons many of us love that book.

Oh good.  That's the right reaction (especially the 'love that book' part).  If you want Con to be gorgeous and sexy and so on, SUNSHINE is really not your book.  But by all means don't find this out until after you've bought a copy. 

. . . Also the pastries.  

I tweeted back here that I laughed till I nearly broke a rib when I found out that the human heroine of my vampire . . . erm . . . at that point it was still a short story . . . tale, was a baker.  A professional baker.  This was probably the first thing I found out about her—the first thing that made her her and not someone else, not some other vampire slayer [sic].  It's pretty impossible to separate Sunshine from her bakery—or her obsession with food and with feeding people.  The scene at the end, after everything is more or less over with and Con and Sunshine are at Sunshine's flat and Sunshine is trying to figure out if she can bear to live with what she's done . . . and she's just fried herself some eggs:  'I stood there holding a skillet with three beautifully fried eggs in it and said miserably, "I can't even feed you"'—all irony to the fore.  But this was one of the guidepost moments for me (after I found out it was a frelling novel), one of the tiny but crucial places where the story grounds itself, where I-the-insecure-chronicler know what's going on.  '"I feed people for a living.  If I don't do it I'm a failure.  I identify as a feeder of . . ."'  Sunshine has to feed people, and she's (involuntarily) allied herself with someone she can't feed.  Except by dying.  I'm not sure how visible this is going to be to anyone but me, but this is very similar in terms of character tension as part of the structure of a story with the pegasi wanting human hands and the humans wanting pegasi wings.  I'm drawn to unbridgeable gaps, and to what extent you can negotiate with or around or over them, and how you go about living with them when you can't negotiate. 

            And of course I personally love Sunshine's kind of food.  Including that Charlie's is a coffeehouse but it also sells champagne by the glass.  You can see why the Story Council immediately thought of me when this story thumped through their mail slot.  Or possibly they let me have the champagne by the glass detail to make me work harder.

Black Bear tweeted: My thoughts when I read Sunshine: "At last, a writer who knows vampires should be f***ing CREEPY!"

Well, we used to, you know?  I'm not sure what happened.  Stoker's Dracula is creepy, and for all the hysterical Victorian silliness it's still the ultimate vampire novel for me.  Maybe Hollywood's responsible.  I totally got off on the Louis Jourdan Dracula* http://baharna.com/store/CountDraculaJourdan/CountDraculaJourdan.htm although I thought he was as icky as he was attractive—the revelation to me was that he was attractive despite knowing that this is an undead monster who's going to ruin your life.  Shanaqui on Twitter was the first person to suggest that Con is compelling—yes.  The attraction of a vampire is a bit like a sort of fast, compressed version of heroin addiction:  you're gonna die, but you can't help it.  Prospero37 suggested that it's also the attraction of the bad boy (or girl)—yes, but it's that attraction to the wild side taken to its pathological extreme.  You're going to die of wanting to take a few risks, of wanting to feel the adrenaline surge of danger.**

@annathepiper:  Swoonability doesn't necessarily mean basic handsomeness; can also be intense charisma. E.g., Tom Baker as the Doctor.   

This is a line that I would like to tapdance over and back and around a bit, but not tonight.  I don't actually like—or respond to—handsome guys.  George Clooney.  Meh.  I agree about the old Tom Baker Dr Who.  But while vampires may very well have charisma, we're not talking romance—under which category the subheading swoonability usually appears—here.  We're talking death.  This is why swoony vampires get on my nerves.  Sex and death, yes.  Romance and death, no.  Old Bette Davis movies to the contrary notwithstanding.

@spacklegeek I may picture Con like NG's Sandman,*** but that doesn't mean I want to meet either of them in real life. shudders

Yes.  Exactly. 

From the forum: 

Jabenami:  I can see where the mistake came from, I mean, aren't all vampires tall dark and broody? Don't they all look like Angel? (season 1 of Buffy, not season 5 of Angel) 

It's kind of amazing, the little circles we keep going around.  Sex and death, sex and death, sex and death . . . whimper.  Want romance.  So we get romance and . . . I adore Buffy and I totally bought the story line, but you're a teenage girl and you finally go all the way with your boyfriend because you love him and you know he loves you and it's okay and . . . he turns into bloodsucking monster demon from hell.  What was I just saying about Victorian silliness?  Whedon does a much slicker modern take on it, but Stoker would recognise this.  And it still works.  

. . . Sometimes I wonder how many people make the mistake of deciding that the character in question is attractive because they want them to be.

Yes.  Although here we get into the definition of 'attractive' again.  Attractive is not necessarily the same thing as handsome or beautiful—or good.  And the scary end of attractive is compelling.  Compelled doesn't include that you get a choice. 

SShadow:  As soon as I read the bit about Con being handsome, I thought, are we still talking about the same book here? I've always loved the way Con is described; his appearance is vague, but the way Sunshine feels about it is anything but. And I love that he isn't handsome. I'm glad the importance of this point is not just my imagination.

::Beams:: 

rhymeswithcarrot: 

"He's powerful and enigmatic all right, but the kind that makes you want to throw up."



YES. . . . I loved Sunshine the first time through, of course, but after reading more of the modern vampire mythos I came back to Sunshine with a whole new appreciation for how creepy Con is. Vampires are not sexy! If your boyfriend wants to eat you, you probably do not want to be dating him.

I think I may need this on a t-shirt.  If your boyfriend wants to eat you, you probably do not want to be dating him.

Jabenami:  I admit, I was reading the review and blinked in surprise when I got to the moment where Con is called "handsome" and then started snickering to myself as I realized what the rest of the blog post would likely be about.

jmeadows: LOL!  That is exactly what I did too. 

aperry1027:  Me too!

You all know me too well. . . .

[aperry1027 continues:]  I love Sunshine . . . Con scares the living daylights out of me though.

Oh good.  Very sensible of you.

Just cause he formed a friendly alliance with Sunshine does not mean he stopped eating (drinking) other humans…

WELL YES.  THANK YOU FOR GETTING THIS.  Cheez.  Only the lion tamer goes in the cage with the lions and it's not exactly safe for him/her either.

. . . And forgive me but, Rhett Butler was just not an appealing person

I'm not arguing.  (And Clark Gable:  I can't take anyone with those ears seriously.)   But this brings up another tangent:  you can have a major life-destroying case of the hots for someone you know is a total jerk.  Or a serial murderer:  think of all those marriage proposals to guys on death row.  There are a lot of vampire-versions where the vampires don't necessarily kill humans—at least not every time—they have slaves who are addicted to being dinner.  I have more sympathy with Captain America than a lot of Buffy fans, and I thought that particular story line worked very well. 

anne_d:  Con? Handsome? Wait, what??? To quote the Elder Daughter, "What is this I can't even".

An excellent phrase.  And applicable to so many situations in modern life.  Well, my modern life anyway.

Con is compelling. Con might even be described as charismatic, in the scary evil sense, but handsome, no. A world of no. 

Yes.  I referred to this scene last night.  It's from the first part, where they're still chained up in the ballroom.

            Con is speaking:  "If you have the strength of will you can stop me or any vampire. . . . [Magical wards] will . . . prevent inhuman harm to a human.  But they can only do that if the human who bears the warding holds against the will of the one who stands against. . . . Rarely can any hold out against our will . . . looking into a vampire's eyes is any human's doom."

            'In horror I said:  "Then they do ask you to kill them.  They do beg you to . . ."

            "Yes," he said.

            'I whispered:  "Then, is it . . . okay, at the very end?  Do they . . . like it, at the end?"

            'There was a long pause.  "No," he said.'

OKAY.  I AM SERIOUSLY CREEPED OUT.  VAMPIRES ARE CHARISMATIC AND EVIL.  At least in SUNSHINE's world.

Black Bear:  Mr. Rochester OR Colin Firth's Darcy. Two examples of characters not supposed to be handsome who get forced into it on the big screen anyway.

Again, a potential topic for another evening.  The blandification of attractiveness by making it merely handsome. 

Though I never thought Orson Welles was all that attractive, personally. His eyes are kinda weird. 

You mean the way he looks like he's going to go mad with an axe any minute?  Yes.  He could have made a really good vampire. 

greenmother:  Con is not sexy or handsome, but he is compelling. That's probably a useful trait for a predator, no?

Indeed.  Exactly.  It's, uh, why we still have vampires. . . .

Cindy Marks on Facebook:  And yes, I totally got that Con was icky. Still, when she slams into him… I sort of forgot the icky… perhaps thanks to current vamp images

Well, yes and no.  Remember that barring Laurell Hamilton's Anita Blake (and Buffy, of course) SUNSHINE was kind of in front of the wave.  When SUNSHINE first came out vampires were still more standard-issue icky, I think, even when the sex was pretty overt.  But the sexual aspect has always been there (they bite you in the neck!), so one of the things I think SUNSHINE is about—in hindsight;  remember that I'm not consciously making any of this stuff up, and neither of the two NSFW scenes in SUNSHINE had any conscious input from me at all—is just how hard you have to push the two north ends of the magnets together before they'll touch.  Even if they jump away again the minute you let go.

Georgia Beaverson: I read Nancy's review and the first thought in my head was "Con? Handsome? I think not." . . . One of the reasons I have read Sunshine again and again is b/c Rae & Con's attraction is, like Con, "Other."

OTHER.  Yes.  My preoccupation with unbridgeable gaps again. 

Melissa Marr:  Sometimes I adore you, especially when you're just a teeny bit surly.—

SURLY?  MOI?  You wrong me, madam, you wrong me . . . um . . .

On to the Con v Rochester chatter. . . Con isn't handsome, but I guess I always feel like he's attractive–& honestly, more so than I ever thought Rochester was. R is sullied by his actions in ways that make him seem far LESS attractive (I say as a lit-teacher-who-loves-JANE EYRE). Con is more open about who/what he is, & in the knowing is all the more appealing. "Beauty is truth, and truth beauty" yes?

And this is the point in the round-up where I say AAAAAAUGH I have to go to bed, and I definitely have to pursue the handsome/compelling/attractive-is-as-attractive-does in some other blog.  Because yes, I agree, except that I do find Rochester attractive, not least because he is so fatally flawed.  Thank the gods he's not one of these perfect frelling heroes who watches you when you sleep GAAAAAH. . . . 

* * *

* I'm afraid to watch it again now.  I haven't seen it since it first came out—and in those days was shiny and new and amazing—and meanwhile I've grown into a nasty cynical old cow. 

** Prospero37 also says:  Personally, rather have a cookie and read Sunshine.  

*** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sandman_(Vertigo)