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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Mordor: twinned with Slough
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Eigon
Shipmate
# 4917
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Posted
Really quite excited - last night I downloaded the Hugo awards packages to have a look at before I vote. This wasn't even possible when I last went to a WorldCon!
It's a great perk of Con membership, and I was very pleased to see that Paul Cornell's comic The Girl Who Loved Doctor Who was one of the graphic story nominations that is included (along with Girl Genius and a rather creepy George RR Martin offering called Meathouse Man). I wanted to read Paul Cornell's comic when it first came out, but missed the publication date because I don't live anywhere near a decent comic shop, so last night I had a look, and thoroughly enjoyed it. The Doctor goes to a convention and meets Matt Smith!
I seem to remember writing some fan fiction with a friend (to be fair, I think she had most of the good ideas) in which Spock goes to a Star Trek convention (time travel is obviously involved). It's one of those things that fans want to see their favourite characters do, and Paul Cornell did it brilliantly.
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Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind.
Posts: 3710 | From: Hay-on-Wye, town of books | Registered: Aug 2003
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Sipech
Shipmate
# 16870
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Posted
Finally finished N.T. Wright's Paul and the Faithfulness of God. Took 6.5 months to get through. ![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif)
As a follow-up, have now started on Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. ![[Help]](graemlins/help.gif)
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I try to be self-deprecating; I'm just not very good at it.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheAlethiophile
Posts: 3791 | From: On the corporate ladder | Registered: Jan 2012
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Scots lass
Shipmate
# 2699
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Posted
Quick book question - can anyone tell me some non-freaky twins in literature? I saw a play last night that had strange twins, and it occurred to me that many things with twins in make them a bit odd, which I find irritating as a (non-freaky, non-identical) twin. The only normal ones my friend and I could come up with were the Weasleys in Harry Potter.
That did mean that I'd instantly forgotten the twins in the YA book I've just read - Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, which was not only about twins but about HP-style fan fiction and which I recommend if you want something enjoyable that will take about 3 hours to read - but to be fair to myself, my friend wouldn't have known what I was on about if I'd used that example. But now I want to try and find some others!
Posts: 863 | From: the diaspora | Registered: Apr 2002
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
I loved Fangirl.
As for non-freaky twins, there was nothing freaky about either set of Bobbsey Twins (Bert and Nan, Freddy and Flossie) except having such impressive detective abilities at such a young age. I guess it depends how stretchy your definition of "literature" is.
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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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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
IIRC the Elinor Brent Dwyer Chalet School heroines include one set of twins and they seem to largely be typical of her heroines i.e. early naughtiness leads to later head girl material under the reforming influence of the Chalet school.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
In Josephine Tey's Brat Farrar there are ten-year-old identical twin girls who are minor characters. They are very different in their interests. Ruth is very concerned with the impression she makes on others. She cares a lot about how she's dressed. Jane's main interest in life is horses, and she is indifferent to dress.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
In Lori Lansens's The Girls, the twins are, in one sense, "freaky" in that they are conjoined twins but not at all freaky in the spooky sense I think you mean.
It's one of the most beautiful novels I've ever read, about sisterly love and the courage of people who live with disabilities.
Surprisingly not depressing but very life affirming.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
There are always the twins Daisy and Demi in LITTLE WOMEN, who seem to have been created by the author mainly so that she could use the cute names. In the later sequels the children are quite ordinary, the duller background kids to the more wild ones in the bunch.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
Scots Lass
Diana Evans' novel '26a' is about a pair of twins growing up in Neasden. It's not freaky, but the twins' lives are complicated by their parents' unhappy marriage, and also by the fact that their father is a white Northerner and their mother a black Nigerian. There's a hint of magic realism that the twins' deep connection with one another and their Nigerian ancestry emphasises, but social realism is predominant, I'd say. It's an interesting novel and well worth reading.
Regarding my current reading, I've recently finished Peter Mayle's 'A Year in Provence' - the charming granddaddy of what seems like a whole subgenre of travel books. I've now headed to the Far East with 'China Road' by Rob Gifford.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
I have slowed down in my reading of Remember, Remember (The Fifth of November) by a British author whose name I have forgotten. It is a brief history of the UK and I do not wish to go back 156 pages in order to find the lady's name as I am reading it on Nook study. It is a v. good history in spite of its short passages. I am about halfway through it....
Can anyone recommend a short history of The Great War? I am listening to the events of 100 years ago on Radio 4 and the music on Radio 3. My grandfather fought in World War I as a US Navy officer. I think my sister or I have his sword somewhere.... I remember seeing it in the cellar as a kid in Pasadena.
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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
I continue apace ploughing through all the nineteenth century children’s classics available for free on Kindle.
I can’t believe I never read Black Beauty before. It’s a flipping amazing book and I has a big sad that I've finished it already.
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
Posts: 3696 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Black Beauty is my 10-year old daughter's favourite book at the moment. I've lost count of the number of times she's read it.
I discovered yesterday that my husband had secretly ordered a copy of The Serial Garden without telling me - all of Joan Aiken's Armitage stories in one volume, including four that have never been published before. So I spent yesterday afternoon reading that from cover to cover. I think my favourite is still the one about the baby griffin (Mrs Nutti's Fireplace).
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
Oooh! Many thanks for telling me about that; now I just have to decide whether to keep it myself or give it to my mother... ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 1877 | From: England | Registered: May 2003
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
You could buy more than one copy, you know ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Just discovered that Seal of the Worm by Adrian Tchaikovsky is due out this week, so that's next weekend's reading taken care of...
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Oh, I'm glad I'm not the only one who dislikes Jill Paton Walsh's pastiches of Dorothy Sayers! They just don't work for me. Marrying Bunter off to a freelance photographer and giving him a cosy little mews flat so he can carry on being Wimsey's 'man' is Simply Wrong; modern ideas of how servants should be treated retrofitted onto an earlier society. It's nearly as bad as the later Pern books (I'm thinking of 'Masterharper' in particular here).
I have just read A Presumption of Death, which I did quite enjoy, but it was clearly not a Sayers novel! Having said that, it has inspired me to reread Sayers for the first time in yonks, so it is not entirely bad. I thought JPW did quite well on the social attitudes of the time (as far as I could tell) but I was rather dubious about some of the espionage related stuff. Even if Lord Peter did know about Bletchley Park, there is just no way he would have mentioned it to Harriet.
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 1877 | From: England | Registered: May 2003
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by JoannaP:
I have just read A Presumption of Death, which I did quite enjoy, but it was clearly not a Sayers novel! Having said that, it has inspired me to reread Sayers for the first time in yonks, so it is not entirely bad. I thought JPW did quite well on the social attitudes of the time (as far as I could tell) but I was rather dubious about some of the espionage related stuff. Even if Lord Peter did know about Bletchley Park, there is just no way he would have mentioned it to Harriet.
To clarify, Peter may well have known that there were boffins somewhere who could crack codes but he would not have known that they were at Bletchley Park.
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 1877 | From: England | Registered: May 2003
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
There is a new Paton Walsh Wimsey out, and I have it on reserve at the library. But if does not come up to the last quarter of ATTENBURY EMERALDS, I am going to give up on these. An intolerable deal of dross, to not very many flakes of gold.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
I am going to read THE LAST LION: Vol. 1, by William Manchester. It is the biography of Winston Churchill.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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chive
Ship's nude
# 208
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Posted
I've just finished Burial Rites by Hannah Kent which is the fictionalised account of the last execution of a woman in Iceland in 1830. I loved the book. The story of the crime wasn't what was fascinating, it was the details of what life was like in Iceland at the time. There was no prison so the woman was sent to live on a farm until her execution and the relationship between her and the farmer's family, her priest and the story of her day to day life was written beautifully.
I definitely want to go to Iceland now.
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'Edward was the kind of man who thought there was no such thing as a lesbian, just a woman who hadn't done one-to-one Bible study with him.' Catherine Fox, Love to the Lost
Posts: 3542 | From: the cupboard under the stairs | Registered: May 2001
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
I just started that yesterday, Chive! I'm only about fifty pages in but I had to stop and look at all the Iceland images online. What an amazing place.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Jack the Lass
Ship's airhead
# 3415
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Posted
I'm currently reading "1000 Years of Annoying the French" by Stephen Clarke. It's basically a romp through the last millennium of Anglo-French relations and history, 1066 to the Channel Tunnel and beyond, specialising in pointing out where the official French versions of historical events are, let's say, perhaps a tad airbrushed. It's quite fun, and it has to be said that thus far the English aren't exactly coming across as swashbuckling heroes either, though I think Bill Bryson would probably have done a better job with the material (I suspect Clarke was trying to be Bryson-esque here).
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"My body is a temple - it's big and doesn't move." (Jo Brand)
wiblog blipfoto blog
Posts: 5767 | From: the land of the deep-fried Mars Bar | Registered: Oct 2002
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Oh, I'm glad I'm not the only one who dislikes Jill Paton Walsh's pastiches of Dorothy Sayers! They just don't work for me. Marrying Bunter off to a freelance photographer and giving him a cosy little mews flat so he can carry on being Wimsey's 'man' is Simply Wrong; modern ideas of how servants should be treated retrofitted onto an earlier society.
Sorry, I'm going way back to a much earlier post to pick up on this comment which I didn't have time to ask about when it was posted. I'd love to know more about what this is Simply Wrong, from the perspective of someone who knows more about the time and place than I do.
Like most readers I like the JPW Wimsey books far less than the originals (but still have read all of them). I thought one of the things JPW did well was to explore how class boundaries shifted and the master-servant relationship changed post WW2. It seemed believable to me that while those roles were so rigid in the prewar world, in the 1950s Bunter's son could conceivably be going to school with Peter & Harriet's sons, and that Bunter would be struggling to maintain old-school propriety in a world where it was no longer expected. But, not having lived through that change in postwar British society, I can see that my assumptions may have been wrong. I'm just not sure why they're wrong and as the portrayal of class is one of the things that fascinates me most in the original Wimsey novels, I'd love to hear someone explain a bit more why JPW gets it wrong.
As my old thesis supervisor used to say (till it drove me almost mad), "Can you unpack that a bit more for me?"
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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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Pine Marten
Shipmate
# 11068
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Posted
I'm coming to the end of Rebecca's Tale by Sally Beauman, a sort of sequel to Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, and told by four different narrators, including Rebecca herself. It's very well-written, imaginative and an absolute page turner, filling in Rebecca's history and that of the de Winter family. Three of the narratives are set in 1951, and Rebecca's in 1931.
I don't know the author's other books but I might look out for them based on this one.
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Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. - Oscar Wilde
Posts: 1731 | From: Isle of Albion | Registered: Feb 2006
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
What is wrong with Paton Walsh's Wimsey? What I miss, terribly, is the facility with language and scholarship that Sayers gave her hero. Her Lord Peter was erudite and carelessly witty. If you are in trouble you might write a letter to Sherlock Holmes, but Lord Peter was, famously, the man that everyone wants to have tea with (in the Picadilly flat, with Bunter bringing in the scones). Paton Walsh completely fails to capture Lord Peter's voice and charm; I have no desire to share a scone with him.
And she lacks Sayers' literary power. She is an adequate mystery plotter, but that's the most you can say. With DLS at the wheel you always had the sense that she could zoom off anywhere -- drop in an untranslated suicide note in French, say, or have Lord Peter dressed in as a harlequin and driving a sports car through the countryside. The Paton Walsh books proceed on their track without any twists or tricks or fireworks. Entirely more plodding in tone. (Partially this could be blamed upon the period -- clearly the Roaring 20s is more fun than the war years or the 50s.)
The books are different, and less. Like eating cheese food from a can, instead of real cheese.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Trudy said: quote:
I thought one of the things JPW did well was to explore how class boundaries shifted and the master-servant relationship changed post WW2. It seemed believable to me that while those roles were so rigid in the prewar world, in the 1950s Bunter's son could conceivably be going to school with Peter & Harriet's sons, and that Bunter would be struggling to maintain old-school propriety in a world where it was no longer expected. But, not having lived through that change in postwar British society, I can see that my assumptions may have been wrong. I'm just not sure why they're wrong and as the portrayal of class is one of the things that fascinates me most in the original Wimsey novels, I'd love to hear someone explain a bit more why JPW gets it wrong.
SPOILERS FOR ANYONE WHO HASN'T READ 'THRONES, DOMINATIONS' AND 'THE ATTENBURY EMERALDS'
Well, you're right that there was a big shift in the master(mistress)/servant relationship post-WWII. You can trace it through passing comments in Agatha Christie or R. Austin Freeman's books; by the late 50s/early 60s the balance of power has definitely shifted in favour of the servants, who expect a little self-contained flat and plenty of spare time instead of half a bedroom in the attics and being at their employer's beck and call with only one half-day off a fortnight. But my objection to JPW's portrayal of the shift is that she has it happening before the Second World War (in 'Thrones, Dominations' which is set round about the time of the abdication crisis in 1936). Judging by comments in real contemporary fiction (as opposed to pastiches of it) the accepted career progression for a gentleman's personal gentleman was *either* to become the butler when his master got married *or* to save up enough money to buy his own business (usually a pub) and leave domestic service entirely. In either case he should have been able to get married. I think it would have been quite unusual for a valet to get married without giving up his job; the job involved being available to dress and undress his master at all hours of the day and night and wasn't really compatible with family life (NB: Downton Abbey is a modern pastiche of early 20th-century life too; and although Julian Fellowes is writing about his own social class he does sometimes ignore historical accuracy in order to make The Story more interesting/palatable for modern viewers).
Another problem is Bunter's wife. She's a great character and I have nothing against her personally, but she must be middle-class and Bunter is presumably working-class; the divide between them is at least as great, if not greater, than the divide between Harriet (middle-class) and Wimsey (upper-class). This is glossed over; Sayers might have allowed Bunter to marry a middle-class businesswoman, but she wouldn't have ignored the difficulties. It *is* possible for people to marry outside their own social class (mentioning no William and Kate in particular); to some extent it always has been. But in many ways it's easier for women to 'marry up' than it is for men, because of Teh Patriarcy (the traditional expectation was that women joined their husband's family on marriage). Paton Walsh appears to be unaware of this distinction.
Finally and most glaringly, the comments on the current political situation (scenes outside the Palace when the abdication is announced, Wimsey saying Edward isn't fit to be king) Just. Would. Not. Have. Been. Published. Not so soon after 1936. Not even if they are a fair representation of DLS's private opinions. No publisher would have touched the book with a bargepole. No commercially successful writer (which Dorothy Sayers was) would have considered putting such controversial comments into a work of light fiction. That was the final straw for me.
I borrowed 'The Attenbury Emeralds' from the library but didn't think much of it. If she had to kill off St George to satisfy her fantasy of making Peter Wimsey the Duke, she might at least have made more of it. He deserved better than to be dismissed in passing. After that I gave up on the rest of the series.
<disclaimer: I am not a social historian of the period either and all of this is what I've picked up from reading various authors who were roughly contemporary with Dorothy Sayers; a real historian will probably be along to correct me in a minute>
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
FWIW I believe that DLS herself suggested that St. George was on the bubble, and that Peter (and then Bredon after him) were going to succeed Gerald.
I found ATTENBURY utterly dull until the final big crisis (which I will not spoil for you). Suddenly the work snapped into focus, the characters' sufferings became genuine, and the work sat up in its coffin, flinging the heavy oaken lid aside, the Tesla coils crackling ominously above it, and was alive as the ominous organ music rose to a crescendo and the lightning bolts creased the sky above the castle battlements.
If the Creature can still groan and totter along, however marginally alive in spite of its sutures and bolts, in the next volume, then I am in. Otherwise, I am out.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
I agree with you, Brenda, that the voice (both in narration and in dialogue) which is so much the hallmark of DLS's Wimsey books, is missing in the JPW novels, and it's what I miss most. I'm not actually much of a mystery reader outside of these books and a few others, so I don't care much how the mystery unfolds; it's character development that I read for. I don't think there are many literary characters whose characterization is so closely wedded to the author's style as LPW's is with DLS's writing -- which, in a way, makes him the worst candidate to be taken over by another writer.
Thanks, Jane R, for "unpacking" the bit about social class and the servant/master relationship -- that does make a bit more sense now. I think most of what you say is probably right, although I disagree with you about it feeling wrong for JPW to include things in her novels that DLS wouldn't have been able to get away with publishing. Surely that's the advantage of writing the books in another era as historical fiction -- you can print things that people might have said, thought and done at the time that wouldn't have made it into contemporary books? I mean, presumably there were a lot of people at the time -- and Lord Peter, if a real person, might well have been one of them -- thinking or saying privately that Edward wasn't fit to be king. In that sense, surely the modern writer is able to be MORE accurate than the contemporary writer, who was constrained by the sense of what could and couldn't be published?
I guess I read the JPW books (and will continue to read any others she writes in this series) because I love these characters so much that even watered-down Peter and Harriet is better than NO new Peter and Harriet. But it does read a bit like fanfic, or like (as I said in a blog review) like watching actors playing the part of the Wimseys onstage, as opposed to watching the Wimseys themselves.
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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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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R
Another problem is Bunter's wife. She's a great character and I have nothing against her personally, but she must be middle-class and Bunter is presumably working-class; the divide between them is at least as great, if not greater, than the divide between Harriet (middle-class) and Wimsey (upper-class).
I think she could have grown up working class and learned skills that enabled her to join the middle class. She is apparently an expert photographer; I have no problem believing that someone like that could have started out working class.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
I suppose it's just possible that Bunter's wife might have grown up working class, but it's unlikely. You're forgetting sexism. Photography might have been an acceptable hobby for a middle-class girl with indulgent parents; it's not as likely that a working-class family would have allowed it or had the money to spare for professional-quality equipment (if her father had been in business as a photographer I think the family would have counted as lower middle-class rather than working-class). Ambitious girls from working-class families tended to go into nursing or teaching; setting up in business as a photographer requires a certain amount of capital investment (cameras and lenses were expensive back then).
There's also the question of occupation (allied to class); an independent businesswoman normally wouldn't consider marrying a domestic servant, even a highly superior and presentable servant like Bunter. From her other writings it is clear that Dorothy Sayers thought married women should be allowed to continue in their careers if they wanted to, but as someone from an age where they were expected to give up work on marriage I think she'd also have handled the question of Mrs Bunter continuing her business differently.
Trudi: quote:
I think most of what you say is probably right, although I disagree with you about it feeling wrong for JPW to include things in her novels that DLS wouldn't have been able to get away with publishing. Surely that's the advantage of writing the books in another era as historical fiction -- you can print things that people might have said, thought and done at the time that wouldn't have made it into contemporary books? I mean, presumably there were a lot of people at the time -- and Lord Peter, if a real person, might well have been one of them -- thinking or saying privately that Edward wasn't fit to be king. In that sense, surely the modern writer is able to be MORE accurate than the contemporary writer, who was constrained by the sense of what could and couldn't be published?
I take your point about modern writers being able to say things that contemporaries couldn't. Peter might have been one of those who thought privately that Edward wasn't fit to be king; on the other hand he might have been someone who thought it was Edward's duty to be king, however personally inconvenient it might have been, and disapproved of the abdication. We don't know, because the Peter that Jill Paton Walsh writes about is not the same character as Dorothy Sayers' Peter. That short story about him going to buy a secret formula from a French nobleman suggests that DLS might have seen him as the kind of person who put Duty to his country before his own private wishes.
I don't think 'more accurate' is a good description of historical detective stories. Modern authors writing a pastiche may have taken care to research the period; they may be free to show things that would not have been made explicit in contemporary fiction (such as political questions, or the exact nature of the relationship between Clara Whittaker and Agatha Dawson in Unnatural Death ), but they won't focus on the same things as a contemporary writer would have done and their understanding of the period will be different. Compare Regency romances with Jane Austen's works, for example; in both cases you have young women going shopping and worrying about what to wear at an important ball, but Austen merely sketches in a few details whereas a lot of modern writers who do Regency romances feel compelled to describe every detail of the heroine's dress. Austen was writing for people who knew what kind of things a young lady would wear to a ball, so didn't bother.
Don't get me wrong, I do like historical fiction. I'm even willing to put up with some historical inaccuracies if the story is good enough. I just don't like seeing Dorothy Sayers' characters being put through their paces by someone else...
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
I agree. Prefer Lord Peter on television or BBC radio, adapted from original stories by the original author!
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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Wimsey is so powerfully Sayers' creation that he is not a good example of a successful hand-me-down. Sherlock Holmes, however, has had many successful books written by authors other than Conan Doyle. My personal favorite is THE SEVEN PERCENT SOLUTION by Nicholas Meyer.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
Well, again, I think that's because of how closely LPW's character is tied to DLS's actual use of language -- it's much easier for another writer to adapt Sherlock Holmes (and so many have, often quite successfully) because the character is not so inextricably tied to the author's literary style.
I doubt there are any Wimsey fans who think the JPW novels are as good as the DLS originals (and none, I'm sure, who like them better) -- among LPW fans I know, the division is between those who think the JPW novels are flawed, but still worth reading, and those who think it was a terrible idea and the new novels are really not worth picking up. I'm in the former category.
I do think, though, that that whole question (addressed so well in your post, Jane R) about the relative merits of historical fiction as opposed to fiction written in the specific time period in question, is quite interesting. I read a lot of historical fiction (and write it as well) and I think often it does get at things that contemporary writers couldn't have gotten away with (or wouldn't have thought of) writing about. Your example of DLS's Unnatural Death is a good one -- she has to do some much beating around the bush just to let the reader know that these two women were lovers, whereas a modern writer could have said it much more plainly. But then, people of the time probably would have been very oblique in how they referred to that kind of relationship. I like that modern writers, re-creating a historical period, can be more direct about certain things -- whether it's having a character say that Edward VIII would have been a lousy king, or coming out and telling us that two characters had sex. (I had a terrible time as a younger reader with the scene in Busman's Honeymoon that's set shortly before Lord Peter and Harriet's wedding -- with all the allusions to shabby tigers and faint Canaries, I could never figure out if they'd actually had sex before the wedding night or not). And modern novelists will often write stories about people and settings that a contemporary novelist wouldn't have thought worth writing about. I love Pride and Prejudice, of course, but I also love Jo Baker's Longbourn because when I read novels of that era I always wonder what the servants were up to, and how much work it took to keep that whole edifice (even the edifice of genteel poverty like that of the Bennett family) running smoothly.
On the other hand, there are things -- and it's not even physical details, it's little things of thought and attitude -- that a contemporary novelist grasps that it's very hard for a modern writer of historical fiction to get right. No matter how much research you do, there's no substitute for living in the time period you're writing about and sharing the prejudices and preconceptions of your characters.
But of course, that doesn't stop historical fiction writers from trying!
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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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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
Few writers can bear to inhabit past attitudes we now deplore. Could you really write a hero or heroine who was, quite incidentally, racist or snobbish and stayed that way? There's always the urge to give anachronistic views from the get go, or have them develop them ('Eulalia suddenly realised that slavery was just plain wrong!')
It would be better of JPW's Wimseys could be just a teeny bit reactionary now and again.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
And distance is hard. We can just about get our heads around Victorians; there are still Edwardians alive here and there. Medieval people are more alien, and by the time you get back to the Roman empire -- to pre-Christian thought -- it starts to become really difficult.
I wrote a novel in which the time-traveling villain hid out in 300 AD. That he was so at home there enhanced his villainy wonderfully, but from his point of view of course he was fitting in and adapting fine.
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Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
Few writers can bear to inhabit past attitudes we now deplore. Could you really write a hero or heroine who was, quite incidentally, racist or snobbish and stayed that way?
The novel is frequently a form that expects its protagonists to change in some way, so you probably couldn't have a novel that focused on a white slave owner, for example, without having their attitudes develop regarding black people. That doesn't mean they'd end up happy to marry their daughter off to a black man (I'm sure there were plenty of white abolitionists who wouldn't have gone that far!), but their perspective would have to develop in some important way. Their minds would no longer be closed.
Love, of course, often transgresses acceptable racial and class barriers, which must be why it's useful as an indicator of moral as well as emotional transformation in the novel.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
No doubt. But that is about writing a historical character from the POV of a modern sensibility. What I am questioning is whether any writer can create a character as if writing as a contemporary.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Yes, but that's not the point, Svitlana. A modern writer would (obviously) write a novel from that point of view; any unrepentant slave-owners would be The Baddies and would probably get their comeuppance by the end of the book. But for Americans of the late eighteenth century, being a slave-owner was not incompatible with being pillar of society or even with being opposed to slavery in principle; Thomas Jefferson owned hundreds of slaves, for example, and only freed a handful of them. So eighteenth-century novelists writing about American society might have slaves around in the background for local colour (aargh - no pun intended) but their focus would be on the interactions of the white characters. British writers of the same period would not have featured working-class characters as the protagonists; not if they wanted their books to be published, anyway. Jane Austen couldn't have written Longbourn because at the time she was writing nobody was interested in the servants' relationships, whereas there were dozens of girls with inadequate dowries hoping to find a Mr Darcy of their own.
There are probably lots of basic assumptions we make (as members of modern society) that would seem odd to someone from the eighteenth century. We are opposed to killing animals just for their fur, but most of us are happy to wear leather and willing to tolerate vivisection. We care about the environment, but we also burn large quantities of fossil fuel so we can gossip on the Internet and holiday on the other side of the world. We hardly bat an eyelid at pictures of half-naked women on advertising hoardings, but any woman who tries to breastfeed her baby in public is labelled a slut. I'd love to know what the novelists of the 22nd century will make of us.
[ 09. July 2014, 12:01: Message edited by: Jane R ]
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Welease Woderwick
Sister Incubus Nightmare
# 10424
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Posted
We went to Larger Local Town to order Himself some new specs today then had a wander round the shops and the small branch of a larger local book chain was having a sort of book-fair thingy.
Yes, I do know it is dangerous for people like us to go to places like that.
Anyway, there, in full view, was a copy of William Dalrymple's latest - an analysis of the Anglo-Afghan wars of the 19th Century. How could I say no to that?
I couldn't.
Only available in India this year - first published in UK in 2013. And just under six quid for 500+ pages.
If I can finish with Paul Theroux tonight I can start the new Dalrymple tomorrow, cricket permitting.
![[Cool]](cool.gif)
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Fancy a break in South India?
Accessible Homestay Guesthouse in Central Kerala, contact me for details
What part of Matt. 7:1 don't you understand?
Posts: 48139 | From: 1st on the right, straight on 'til morning | Registered: Sep 2005
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Mmm. Firenze, I have tried it, climbing deep into the head of a historical figure. And a male one, to boot, but no point in doing things by half measures.
There's a sample up here:
http://bookviewcafe.com/bookstore/sample/revise-the-world-sample/
Tell me if you think I succeeded.
Alas, against my principles. Which are that critiques should only be conducted in the sacred privacy of one's writers' group.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
No, it's already out. I will certainly never rewrite it, and so no critique needed. Like the lady in the Sondheim song, I never do anything twice.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
Firenze and Jane R
I think I misunderstood you. I thought you were talking about a novelist today writing about a slaveholder of the 18th c., for example.
I'm well aware that a novelist of the 18th c. would see the issue very differently from how we might see it today, but there were nuanced perspectives then, as there are today.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
Meanwhile I am reading what is, one sadly suspects, the last Discworld novel, Raising Steam.
Quite apart from Mr Pratchett's sad state of health, I do wonder where the series could have gone - Ankh Morpork has become so civilised.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Scots lass
Shipmate
# 2699
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Posted
I was quite disappointed with Raising Steam, so I hope that the Tiffany Aching book which is meant to be still to come is good! If not then it will be a bit of a sad end to a great series.
I've just started The Goldfinch, and so far have read past my stop on the tube twice, I've been that absorbed in it. Plan A was to hold out and take it on holiday in a fortnight, but I've started it now and I'm not sure it will last that long...
Posts: 863 | From: the diaspora | Registered: Apr 2002
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moonlitdoor
Shipmate
# 11707
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Posted
Just to show to Trudy Scrumptious that there are some strange people around, I loved the Attenbury Emeralds. I've no pretension to being a literary critic, I am just a reader. Maybe it was because I have liked all Jill Paton Walsh's books, I am a big fan of Knowledge of Angels, and her Imogen Quy books as well.
As for Sherlock Holmes I recently read The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz, which I liked the best of any Sherlock Holmes books I've read, including any of Conan Doyle's originals.
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We've evolved to being strange monkeys, but in the next life he'll help us be something more worthwhile - Gwai
Posts: 2210 | From: london | Registered: Aug 2006
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
I really liked the Jill Paton Walsh Imogen Quy books and wish she'd write more of them rather than mangling Lord Peter Wimsey.
Referring back to the discussion of historical novels managing to give an authentic feeling of the times, I find reading Pat Barker, certainly her books set in WWI, give me a similar feel to books written at the time.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by moonlitdoor:
Just to show to Trudy Scrumptious that there are some strange people around, I loved the Attenbury Emeralds. I've no pretension to being a literary critic, I am just a reader.
Oh, I've liked all of them -- but did you like them as well as, or better than, the originals? That's the opinion I said I'd never heard anyone voice. Lots of people like JPW's version of LPW, including me, but usually with the caveat that they're not as a good as the originals.
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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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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
I read HOUSE OF SILK. It was OK, but no more than that.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Welease Woderwick
Sister Incubus Nightmare
# 10424
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Posted
I hope the Heaven Hosts won't be too mad at me for this but it seems to me that this is probably the best place for me to ask this little question.
Sometimes when I read a story which really moves me I will read it again within a few days or a week, sometimes starting again as soon as I finish the first round. The most recent example is an internet story which I won't reference but often with printed books as well. The earliest time I can recall when I did this I was about 18 or 19 [so getting on for 50 years ago] and I have certainly been doing it pretty regularly since.
I was going to ask does this make me weird? but then I don't care if I am or not, so - do other people do this?
[edited to make a bit more sense]
[ 10. July 2014, 09:41: Message edited by: Welease Woderwick ]
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I give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.
Fancy a break in South India?
Accessible Homestay Guesthouse in Central Kerala, contact me for details
What part of Matt. 7:1 don't you understand?
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