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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: The Problem of Susan, and of Narnia, and of CS Lewis
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
But how could you write an adventure story about children or younger teenagers any other way? If they are constantly under the orders of parents or teachers then its not really their adventure is it? So you might as well give up and go home.
At the very least, you could have an in-house dorm parent. The kids could sneak by him/her, get caught occasionally, and have someone to advise and comfort them when things were rough. At least they'd always know that an adult was readily available.
Sort of like Harry Potter. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Arabella Purity Winterbottom
Trumpeting hope
# 3434
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
(Every mother figure in Diana Wynne Jones books is evil, almost every father figure well-meanign but ineffectual).
And they're becoming worse, which is beginning to piss me off, rather. I have been wondering about DWJ's mother ever since Deep Secret, and Conrad's Fate convinced me that she has a "thing" about mothers.
Although to be totally fair to DWJ, Millie is actually good, nice AND competent as a parent and Mara in the Derkholm books is fabulous.
[ 16. January 2008, 19:42: Message edited by: Arabella Purity Winterbottom ]
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Hell is full of the talented and Heaven is full of the energetic. St Jane Frances de Chantal
Posts: 3702 | From: Aotearoa, New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2002
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adso
Shipmate
# 2895
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Posted
I've found an involved parent! ![[Yipee]](graemlins/spin.gif)
The father in Roald Dahl's "Danny The Champion of the World"!
I love RD's postscript to this book: "When you grow up and have children of your own do please remember something important: a stodgy parent is no fun at all. What a child wants and deserves is a parent who is SPARKY."
There's also "Jo's Boys" (sequel to "Little Women") where Jo and Prof Bhaer are closely involved in many of the adventures of their own sons and the other children at the school. Though, of course, this mainly works because most readers would have got to know Jo as a teenager and still don't quite see her as an adult.
From the few biographical details I recall of CSL's father, I'm not surprised CSL didn't decide to include the parents in any adventures.
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os justi meditabitur sapientiam, et lingua eius loquetur judicium. lex dei eius in corde ipsius, et non supplantabuntur gressus eius. alleluia.
Posts: 688 | From: pays de galles | Registered: Jun 2002
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PrettyFly
Ship's sunbather
# 13157
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Posted
Well, there are parent figures even if not actual parents - the beavers for example in LWW are sort of parent figures to the children, feeding them, guiding them, advising them.
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Screw today. I'm going for ice cream.
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Lynn MagdalenCollege
Shipmate
# 10651
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Lynn MagdalenCollege:
The only adventure books I can think of which have functional parents are A Wrinkle In Time, where the father has gone missing but is restored,
But he's not a functional parent for the main part of the story. He can't function as a parent because he's been captured by [NO SPOILERS] in an alternate universe!
Yeah, I didn't phrase that well; I was trying to say that even in a book like WiT with married, loving parents, one of them is missing.
True, prettyfly, the beavers do fall into a parenting kind of role (there was an old TV series called My Mother the Car; this could inspire My Mother the Beaver...!
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Erin & Friend; Been there, done that; Ruth musical
Posts: 6263 | From: California | Registered: Nov 2005
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Rossweisse
High Church Valkyrie
# 2349
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by maleveque:
...Now that Father Christmas hypothesis of mine.... should I write it up as a paper, or as a story?
Which are you more in need of, income or a doctoral thesis?
Ross
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I'm not dead yet.
Posts: 15117 | From: Valhalla | Registered: Feb 2002
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
I've never noticed a problem with Diana Wynne Jones. There's not enough time to check my collection now, but Millie and Mara jumped to mind instantly. Oh, and the mother in The Ogre Downstairs is good, but harassed. As for father figures being ineffectual - what price Chrestomanci?
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Wanderer:
I've never noticed a problem with Diana Wynne Jones.
IIRC, there's no parent in _Howl's Moving Castle_.
Back to Susan and her portrayal by CSL: has anyone yet mentioned that it is only children who can now enter Narnia, whereas in the beginning (Magician's Nephew) adults can travel there too - the Professor, Jadis, Frank and Helen. Is this an intended progression, or a retrofit?
And since _MN_ was written after _LWW_, was Lewis trying in a short-hand way to do his own Silmarillion - a creation myth for Narnia?
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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maleveque
Shipmate
# 132
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Posted
In TMN, the adults reach Narnia through "mechanical" means - the magic rings - rather than being called by Aslan. It is intentional magic rather than the accidental magic of the wardrobe (or the Telmarines in the South Seas wandering through a magic warp into Narnia).
Remember in the Last Battle, the now-adult Peter and Edmund have gone to dig up the rings in Prof. Kirke's old London home, as a result of the apparition of Tirian. So they must believe they can get into Narnia again by the rings - Aslan never makes any comment like, 'you'd never have gotten here with those anyway', which I would expect if the rings wouldn't work anymore.
Anne L.
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Life isn't all fricasseed frogs and eel pie.
Posts: 1496 | From: Washington, DC or thereabouts | Registered: May 2001
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Arabella Purity Winterbottom
Trumpeting hope
# 3434
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Wanderer:
I've never noticed a problem with Diana Wynne Jones. There's not enough time to check my collection now, but Millie and Mara jumped to mind instantly. Oh, and the mother in The Ogre Downstairs is good, but harassed. As for father figures being ineffectual - what price Chrestomanci?
Completely off the top of my head:
Miranda Chant (Christopher's mother) - shallow, able to be used by her evil brother.
Cat and Gwendoline's mother - dead at the beginning of the book.
Gwendoline herself as mother figure to Cat - tries to get him killed to further her own ends.
Polly's mother in Fire and Hemlock - petty and self-serving, ignores the way her boyfriends treat Polly.
Janine in The Merlin Conspiracy (Nick's mother) - tries to get Marie killed, aids and abets her evil brother Gram White, and is evil herself.
Franconia Grant (Conrad's mother in Conrad's Fate) - ignores Con altogether and resents him asking for the basic necessities of life.
Both grandmothers in The Pinhoe Egg - power hungry and vindictive. Mind you, none of the adults in that book barring the Castle staff come off very well.
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Hell is full of the talented and Heaven is full of the energetic. St Jane Frances de Chantal
Posts: 3702 | From: Aotearoa, New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2002
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
Several of the mothers you mention are weak, or missing altogether, rather than evil. And getting the parents out of the way is a staple of children's literature, as has been discussed earlier. Thinking a bit harder I would offer: Dark Lord of Derkholm, Year of the Griffin, Archer's Goon, Howl's Moving Castle, Black Maria as having good mothers - and Howl has a good stepmother even! For a writer as prolific as Wynne Jones I don't think the examples you mention are enough to say that all her mothers are bad - especially as in many books the parents just aren't around at all.
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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Lynn MagdalenCollege
Shipmate
# 10651
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
And since _MN_ was written after _LWW_, was Lewis trying in a short-hand way to do his own Silmarillion - a creation myth for Narnia?
I don't know that JRRT ever read the creation portion of the Silmarillion to the Inklings, or turned it over CSL to read. My understanding is that CSL wrote the stories as images or ideas occurred to him; the origin of Narnia is a good concept so, independent of the Silmarillion, writing the creation of Narnia would appeal, I think.
maleveque, I'd forgotten about Peter & Edmund digging up the rings... wow, definitely time to re-read Narnia!
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Erin & Friend; Been there, done that; Ruth musical
Posts: 6263 | From: California | Registered: Nov 2005
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
What APW said.
And the Queen of the Fairies Herself.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Lola
Ship's kink
# 627
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by adso:
I've found an involved parent!
The father in Roald Dahl's "Danny The Champion of the World"!
I love RD's postscript to this book: "When you grow up and have children of your own do please remember something important: a stodgy parent is no fun at all. What a child wants and deserves is a parent who is SPARKY."
I love the father figure in Danny, The Champion of the World and think its especially fascinating given that Roald Dahl's father died when RD was so young.
Lola
Posts: 951 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2001
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Lynn MagdalenCollege
Shipmate
# 10651
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Posted
It's totally a tangent, so maybe this is sticking a toe in the water to see if there's interest in discussing it, but how many of y'all read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell? Ken mentions the Queen of Faerie and all this discussion about the permeability of the worlds...
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Erin & Friend; Been there, done that; Ruth musical
Posts: 6263 | From: California | Registered: Nov 2005
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Rossweisse
High Church Valkyrie
# 2349
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Posted
Oh, JS&MR is an amazing book! I'd love to discuss it.
Ross
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I'm not dead yet.
Posts: 15117 | From: Valhalla | Registered: Feb 2002
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Cusanus
Ship's Schoolmaster
# 692
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom:
quote:
Originally posted by The Wanderer:
I've never noticed a problem with Diana Wynne Jones. There's not enough time to check my collection now, but Millie and Mara jumped to mind instantly. Oh, and the mother in The Ogre Downstairs is good, but harassed. As for father figures being ineffectual - what price Chrestomanci?
Completely off the top of my head:
Miranda Chant (Christopher's mother) - shallow, able to be used by her evil brother.
Cat and Gwendoline's mother - dead at the beginning of the book.
Gwendoline herself as mother figure to Cat - tries to get him killed to further her own ends.
Polly's mother in Fire and Hemlock - petty and self-serving, ignores the way her boyfriends treat Polly.
Janine in The Merlin Conspiracy (Nick's mother) - tries to get Marie killed, aids and abets her evil brother Gram White, and is evil herself.
Franconia Grant (Conrad's mother in Conrad's Fate) - ignores Con altogether and resents him asking for the basic necessities of life.
Both grandmothers in The Pinhoe Egg - power hungry and vindictive. Mind you, none of the adults in that book barring the Castle staff come off very well.
I was going to add Lenina in Cart and Cwidder but I think I'm being too harsh on her.
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"You are qualified," sa fotherington-tomas, "becos you can frankly never pass an exam and have 0 branes. Obviously you will be a skoolmaster - there is no other choice."
Posts: 3120 | From: The Peninsula | Registered: Jul 2001
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bush baptist
Shipmate
# 12306
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Posted
The mother in Time of the Ghost (which I think is terrific) is loving, if very over-stressed and distracted.
Posts: 1784 | From: drought-stricken land | Registered: Jan 2007
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lynn MagdalenCollege:
how many of y'all read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell?
I've read it. The author is sort of a friend of a friend - I don't know her personally (though I have met her a couple of times) but I know a lot of people she knows IYSWIM.
quote:
Ken mentions the Queen of Faerie
Well, that was in the context of Fire and Hemlock...
[PLOT SPOILERS FOLLOW]
... which is sort of a retelling of Tam Lin and gets very weird at the end.
And which clearly has two Nasty Mothers in it, and two Ineffectual Fathers. The protagonist trades in her dysfunctional family for a far worse one.
Though the second father-figure presents more as a Sophisticated Lover - one role masks the other.
You want to tell the girl, OK, talk to him about literature. Write letters to him. Meet him in hotel bars. Drink his champagne. Maybe even have sex with him (though it would get him many years in jail in the USA - I wonder if they let that book into libraries over there - it would technically count as statutory rape). But wehatever you do never be tempted to bear his children. You will end up holding the babies. And what's more, when they grow up, they will prefer him to you. If he's still alive of course, which never looks very certain. What with him having been promised to the Queen of Faery as a human sacrifice and all.
And of course the Queen is Not A Nice Person. Especially when posing as a gin-and-jaguar suburban Lady who Lunches.
Sort of like an episode of Hollyoaks in which the next-door neighbour turns out to be genuinely in league with the devil who really is going to drag the whole cast down the Hell if they don't do what they are told.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
I think we've established by now that Wynne Jones writes about good and bad mothers, effective and ineffective fathers. This is a long way from the sweeping generalisation that: quote:
Every mother figure in Diana Wynne Jones books is evil, almost every father figure well-meanign but ineffectual
and a lot fairer to a writer who has written so much so well.
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Wanderer:
I think we've established by now that Wynne Jones writes about good and bad mothers, effective and ineffective fathers. This is a long way from the sweeping generalisation that: quote:
Every mother figure in Diana Wynne Jones books is evil, almost every father figure well-meanign but ineffectual
and a lot fairer to a writer who has written so much so well.
Actually I'm not sure we have established that. The books I've read - by no means all of them, but many - pretty well bear out what I said. Its a very deeply ingrained thread through the books.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Rossweisse:
Oh, JS&MR is an amazing book! I'd love to discuss it.
Why not? I'll start one in Heaven.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
Ken, I think we're arguing about semantics here. If you really claim that: quote:
The books I've read - by no means all of them, but many - pretty well bear out what I said
is the same as: quote:
Every mother figure in Diana Wynne Jones books is evil
then I'm not sure we are using language in the same way.
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
To be fair on authors ( ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif) ), the use of archetypes isn't just to be encouraged, it's near-mandatory: for some deep psychological reasons, archetypes resonate with us, plugging into unconscious emotional sockets in our brain.
The Evil Mother is the other side of the coin to the Mother: the woman who eats her young where the expectation is for her to protect them with her life.
For sure, DWJ uses the archetype a lot, but not universally. I possibly overuse the Trickster archetype - but I do find it more fun than a standard Hero character. An Evil Mother instantly produces a protagonist (the child), and antagonist (the mother), and often a plot too. There must be conflict, or the story dies.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
Thank you Doc Tor. I must order your latest from my nearest bookshop.
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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wombat
Shipmate
# 5180
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Posted
Jumping back to the original OP somewhat--
Do you think the Narnia movies will do the affair of Susan as lewis presents it? Or will they change it?
(My biggest disappointment with what happens to Susan is that it basically happens out of almost nowhere. There is some vague foreshadowing of possible trouble in Prince Caspian,but when I read the novels, it was very much a 'Oh, by the way, Susan's fallen from grace when you weren't looking but it all happened off stage' which isn't very good storytelling. Imagine if Ron had vanished after the first few chapters of the last Harry Potter book, then suddenly turned out to have become a Death Eater off stage and is mentioned in the next to last chapter as having been killed off stage...)
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John Walter Biles
Historian in Training
Posts: 363 | From: Maryland | Registered: Nov 2003
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
But that's not really a fair comparison, wombat ... because Ron is one of three central characters all through the Harry Potter books, whereas Susan and Peter are finished with Narnia by the end of Prince Caspian anyway, and you have to assume their lives are going on apart from the Narnian story. I guess for those who see it as Susan's Eternal Damnation (with suitable strains of menacing music) maybe it is a big enough deal to deserve its own story, whereas those who, like me, see it as Susan missing THAT opportunity to go back to Narnia, with a long life still ahead of her to get her priorities straight, don't feel it needs an entire storyline of its own.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
There's no particular reason why not, LMC: according to your friend Diana's book, Lewis was forever encouraging younger members of his extended family, and even fans who wrote to him, to write more Narnia stories.
Something tells me the Lewis estate might have something to say about that now though ![[Frown]](frown.gif) .
(Of course, if they're reading this - I'd be up for an authorised project...)
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Pious Pelican
Shipmate
# 13120
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Posted
This is a fab thread, btw.
I have to say I’d be astonished if Disney do the film of TLB; it is just such a deeply weird book, quite apart from not being as well known as Lion, Witch and Wardrobe. One of the best strengths of LWW, Caspian, Dawn Treader, is that they work on the level of pure adventure story as well as allegory, or whatever you want to call it (as a child I blithely zipped through Aslan’s, er, resurrection without realizing that he was meant to be Christ!); not so much true of TLB, I think. I certainly don’t see there being heavy-handed comments made about people who get born in stables or Aslan morphing into Jesus, as happen in the book. If they do do it, I imagine they will probably make the issue of who Aslan is much more ambiguous than it is in Lewis, but that still leaves Susan. I have no idea how they’d do her. I’d love to see it!
I know some people have said that we’re overanalyzing Susan, but there does seem to be a pattern in books of this period of having underdeveloped characters whose main function is to be a substitute parent and who are always female (Susan and Peggy in Ransome, Anne in Famous Five etc.); I think Lewis’ treatment of Susan has to be seen in light of this. Perhaps the reason people often react so strongly to Susan’s story is that here the underdevelopment is much more high-stakes than, say, being doomed to making endless jam sandwiches for Julian and co. – Susan actually gets damned (or not-quite-saved, or what you will) because of it. Throw in some stuff about lipstick that can be read as comments on sexual maturity and you have an explosive mix. If Lucy, say, had been the one that “falls”, I think Lewis would have made his point about being distracted by the world more effectively; and because Lucy is a properly developed character, people wouldn’t feel that Lewis was being cruel to the “expendable” character. But of course it would have been much more shocking if it had been Lucy because she is the central character for much of the series.
PP
PS: somebody a while back asked how we know that Ransome’s Peter Duck and Missee Lee are metafictional: the first draft of Peter Duck was called ‘Their Own Story,’ and features the children sitting somewhere cosy in the wintertime, making up the story and the characters. There are also references to Peter Duck being imaginary in Swallowdale. Great Northern? may also fall into the same category, although the plot isn’t quite as fantastic as it is in PD and ML. As for what was said about Ransome being more in touch with children than CS Lewis was; Swallows and Amazons was actually written for the Altounyan children, and Ransome had a daughter of his own. As you can see, I have never really gotten over my Ransome obsession ...
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O Lord, thou hast searched me out and known me: thou knowest my down-sitting and mine up-rising, thou understandest my thoughts long before.
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bush baptist
Shipmate
# 12306
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Posted
But I don't think you can call Peggy a substitute mother -- she's always Nancy's little sister. ("The innocent child was easy prey for the smooth, smiling villain," murmurs Dorothea. She doesn't think of calling Susan an innocent child -- and who could?)
In fact, it's fascinating how much of a mother Nancy is, in every way except providing food -- she mothers Peggy through storms, she is very quick to care for people's feelings, especially her own mother (she knows exactly how much stress her mother can take) and even saving the Great-Aunt's face in front of that crowd of rescuers. She sweeps people along, but she cares for them all (except in S&A, my least favourite book of the series, along with Secret Water, which I hardly know).
Even when Peggy takes over the Nancy role in Nancy's absence, she's following exactly in her sister's footsteps, not emerging as her own strong personality ("Who taught you to shiver timbers?" -- well, the answer to that is obvious.)
Posts: 1784 | From: drought-stricken land | Registered: Jan 2007
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bush baptist
Shipmate
# 12306
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Posted
Sorry, double-posting out of shame at having strayed from the topic -- I don't think Aslan is actually morphing into Jesus in the closing scene of The Last Battle, I think the idea is that the reality which both have been images of is being revealed.
Posts: 1784 | From: drought-stricken land | Registered: Jan 2007
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Lynn MagdalenCollege
Shipmate
# 10651
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
There's no particular reason why not, LMC: according to your friend Diana's book, Lewis was forever encouraging younger members of his extended family, and even fans who wrote to him, to write more Narnia stories.
Something tells me the Lewis estate might have something to say about that now though .
That, to me, is the sad irony - CSL encouraged people to play in his world and his estate says, no no no no no! But Gaiman's story hasn't been attacked, so I think mostly the estate threatens and intimidates unknown authors. Even more
Welcome Pious Pelican - long may you enjoy the Ship!
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Erin & Friend; Been there, done that; Ruth musical
Posts: 6263 | From: California | Registered: Nov 2005
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
To be fair on authors ( ), the use of archetypes isn't just to be encouraged, it's near-mandatory: for some deep psychological reasons, archetypes resonate with us, plugging into unconscious emotional sockets in our brain.
Terry Pratchett's "Witches Abroad" explores this, among other things.
![[Cool]](cool.gif)
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lynn MagdalenCollege:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Doc Tor:
[qb] T But Gaiman's story hasn't been attacked, so I think mostly the estate threatens and intimidates unknown authors.
I'd find that hard to believe. Copyright lawyers aren't stupid, and Neil Gaiman probably has more money in the bank than J Random Fangirl. And he certainly has more reputation to lose (which his lawyers will worry about) and is more likely to get be widely read (which the Estate's lawyers will worry about)
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
Picking up on Pious Pelican's comment, I'd like to interject that alomost all kids go through a "stage" where the imaginative and fun stuff they were doing at 10 or 12 years old becomes stuff they are embarrassed about a few years later. - and then becomes stuff they are nostalgic about a few decades later! Witness the need most parents have to review their favourite books with theirmown kids.
Taqui Altounyan (the prototype for John in S&A, etc) reminisced in an article I can't find now about how he quite suddenly became insufferable and derogatory on "kid's stuff" at about 14, for instance.
I am assuming this is related to the onset of puberty and the corresponding mental adjustments that go with "growing up" (duh!)
I don't see that Susan (of either series S&A or Narnia) would be so much sexually obsessed (as if that would ever happen!) so much as simply moving into the "get me out of here" stage of her life, which happens to include lipstick or whatever as the physical symbol.
I also remember a line I have seen on the Ship, to the effect that "Whatever you are doing in your life now (as an 18 or 20 or 30+ year old, implied) would have made absolutely no sense to yuo when you were 10."
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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Lynn MagdalenCollege
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# 10651
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Lynn MagdalenCollege: quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor: But Gaiman's story hasn't been attacked, so I think mostly the estate threatens and intimidates unknown authors.
I'd find that hard to believe. Copyright lawyers aren't stupid, and Neil Gaiman probably has more money in the bank than J Random Fangirl. And he certainly has more reputation to lose (which his lawyers will worry about) and is more likely to get be widely read (which the Estate's lawyers will worry about)
So how do explain the fact that the estate has gone after small time authors but not Neil Gaiman? Your assessment is correct but what explains the behavior?
Horseman Bree, yes, that "I'm too cool for this stupid stuff" attitude... I remember it well... ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
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Erin & Friend; Been there, done that; Ruth musical
Posts: 6263 | From: California | Registered: Nov 2005
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Lynn MagdalenCollege
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# 10651
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Posted
Good point, Gwai-- Neil is pretty forthcoming on his blog but if some legal discussion was taking place he probably wouldn't be free to discuss it. I've assumed that we'd know by now but perhaps not--
[ 23. January 2008, 01:20: Message edited by: Lynn MagdalenCollege ]
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Erin & Friend; Been there, done that; Ruth musical
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