Over Sea, Under Stone, Chapter 4

Chapter 4: In which Jane does her own investigating. In a completely unrelated state of affairs, no content notes for this chapter.

It's a new day, and the boys are off to their yachting expedition.  Before they go, Simon gives Jane the manuscript for safe-keeping. She once again points out a problem (handling the scroll damages it, so they need a safer place for it that Simon's socks), and for once, Simon is useful. He remembers the telescope case they found, and it fits the bill perfectly.

Left to her own devices, Jane promptly and literally stumbles over a useful clue: a local guidebook containing a map.  Using her powerful observation skills and not inconsiderable deductive power, she determines that the faint sketch on the manuscript is a map of Trewissick (even matching "King Mark's Head" to the headland's modern name: "Kemare Head"), and that the coastline has changed since the map was made.  Applying her earlier idea of seeking adult help, she decides to consult with the guidebook's author, who is apparently the local vicar.

Leaving Mrs. Palk under the impression that she's visiting the church (which she expects to do, despite it not being her main purpose) Jane makes her way to the vicarage.  It's in bad repair; the author of the book is apparently dead, but his successor, one Mr. Hastings, offers to help. He asks Jane about the coastline penciled in the guidebook*; she avoids mentioning the scroll, claiming to have found the other coastline or "something like it somewhere, in a book, or something." At this point, Mr. Hastings starts echoing the Witherses with questions about books and maps in the Grey House; he also has a rather strong interest in his predecessor's guidebook.  Jane deflects the inquiries, saying that they don't touch the house's books, and referring him to Captain Toms. Apparently, the two men aren't on close terms.  When Jane asks about the coastline possibly changing, Mr. Hastings discounts it.  He maintains that the local rock is granite and should change only very gradually.

To further cement Mr. Hastings' similarity to Mr. Withers, when Jane gets up to leave:

"He inclined his head gravely as he shook Jane's had, with a strange, archaic gesture that reminded her suddenly of Mr. Withers, when he left the Grey House.  But this, she thought, seemed more genuine, as if it were something which Mr. Withers had been trying to imitate."   

With that, she races back to the Grey House, and the chapter ends.  I expect next chapter we'll find out how the boys fared on the yacht, and they'll be hostile and/or unsupportive of her independent research.  I'm also torn between the vicar being on the side of the yacht-ers, and them being two competing sets of baddies.

New Characters:
Mr. Hawes-Mellor: Late vicar of Trewissick, wrote a now-hard-to-find book on the area.
Mr. Hastings: Current vicar of Trewissick, a suspicious character who doesn't maintain his house.

*Still Team Jane, but -5 points for writing in someone else's books.  At least it was pencil.

Over Sea, Under Stone, Chapter 3

Chapter 3:

CN: Racist/colonialist imagery, sexism, bullying, abilist language

The chapter starts with the children exploring the attic. It's full of old furnishing and housewares and nautical items (a ship's wheel, rope, canvas).

“It was like reading the story of somebody's life, Jane thought, as she gazed at the tiny matchstick masts of the ship sailing motionless forever in the green glass bottle. All these things have been used once, had been part of every day in the house below. Someone had slept on the bed, anxiously watched the minutes on the clock, pounced joyfully on each magazine as it arrived. But all those people were long dead, or gone away, and now the oddments of their lives were piled up here, forgotten. She found herself feeling rather sad.”

That is some smashing prose. Five points to Gryffindor.

While Jane's getting introspective, Simon's characterization goes a bit off-balance (unless he's meant to be fickle). Within 6 lines we have Simon both complaining that “All the really interesting boxes are locked”, and--after Jane reminds him, regretfully, that they “aren't supposed to touch anything locked”--insisting that “There's a lot not locked”. I suppose these could both be true (many boxes are not locked, but all the interesting one are), but the emphasis and presentation make it come across as inconsistency. Or perhaps, he's deliberately changing opinions to mess with Jane.  

Barney complains of hunger, and they sit down to a picnic. We get some more (not at all) fun sexism/gender essentialism when Jane tries to get her brothers to wipe the dirt off their hands before eating. This time, it's from Barney, because apparently you can't only have one sexist male character:

“Barney!” Jane squeaked. “Wipe your hand. You'll eat all sorts of germs and get typhoid or—or rabies or something Here, have my handkerchief.”

“Rabies is mad dogs,” Barney said, looking with interest at the black finger-prints on his scone. “Anyway, Father says that people make too much fuss about germs. Oh all right, Jane, stop waving that silly thing at me I've got a proper handkerchief of my own. I don't know how girls ever blow their noses.”

…

He sat down, pulled out his handkerchief, waved it ostentatiously at Jane, wiped his hands, and began to munch another scone.

Well, that's a bit to unpack. We, once again, have Jane doing/suggesting something sensible (cleaning one's hands between a dirty activity and eating), and her brother acting like she's completely unreasonable. While the specifics are off (rabies), the idea is sound: they're covered in dust, and it could contain anything from pulverized lead paint, to arsenic leached out of old books or wallpaper, to mouse droppings containing germs or parasites. Soap and water would be more useful than a dry handkerchief, but no one's disputing the method, they're arguing over the need. Barney even invokes their father—who, we'll learn in a few pages, is a doctor—as an authority to silence Jane. Yes, a male character who previously seemed to be an ally is using a male authority figure to stifle and contradict our main female character. It's like it's written from life.

An alternative interpretation is that we supposed to be seeing a younger sibling resenting the interference of (/assumption of authority by) an elder, but the casting of Jane and Barney in the roles nonetheless evokes sexist silencing tactics.  It's also consistent with the "child mother" characterization previously suggested for Jane, which carries it's own sexist baggage.

Barney's apparently also the designated jerk in this chapter, so he proceeds to throw an apple core into the corner, as is standard practice when staying in someone else's house. Simon has moved on from imagining racist stereotypes of witch doctors and gaslighting his sister, to trying scare the others by talking about rats. This actually bolsters Jane's case that they shouldn't leave food garbage in someone's attic, and the two of them make Barney retrieve the core. While digging it out from a gap in the corner, he discovers an old scroll.

There's lots of speculation about the scroll: how old it is, what it says, what language it's written in, how it would up in the attic. Simon thinks it's a treasure map, Barney's sure it was lost rather than deliberately hidden, and Jane observes it's great age and asks the really useful questions, finally conjecturing that part of the scroll is written in Latin. Considering that Simon has studied it for two years and she hasn't started yet--I'm assuming this means he's two or more years ahead in school, though it could be that the boys and girl are on different tracks--more power to Jane for being the one to realize this (and for getting some revenge by goading Simon the Bully for a translation).

Anyway, they get Simon reading the first paragraph, and Barney uses his encyclopedic knowledge of the Round Table to conclude that “Marcus and Arturus” are Mark, King of Cornwall and Arthur, the High King. The boys immediately leap back to the treasure map hypothesis, and Jane spends the next page and half as the designated party-ender, trying to argue (without having a specific reason) that they should tell their parents of the find. This is the weakest writing in the chapter, in my opinion, possibly because I'm firmly 'Team Jane' and she's being made to argue a position without little reason to support it.  In fact, neither side seems to have concrete argument for why their option is right--the boys want an adventure and think adults will spoil it (believable enough), and Jane just has a feeling that they should tell adults.  There is, admittedly, some acknowledgement that they may be out-of-bounds and that the map isn't theirs (and thus, the adults would make them put it back).  Nonetheless, I wish Jane had been given the chance to argue that adults could be useful (preserving the delicate artifact, translating the words the kids can't read, using a larger knowledge-base to figure out what is being referenced, having the resources to investigate further), or that they deserved to know (it being Captain Tom's property, he may be interested in it and happy that it was found). 

You know who else would be a good person to talk with? The Great-Uncle who is a professor interested in antiquities, has made historic finds in the past, and knows the guy whose house they're in.

Anyway, Jane capitulates, on the basis that they can always put the scroll back later when they're done, and advises caution in handling this artifact of unknown age and apparently fragile condition. Simon continues to give her grief for it. [New headcanon: Jane grows up to become a archival curator specializing in document preservation and restoration.]

It's getting dark, so they leave the attic, and try to tidy up before dinner so they're parents won't ask questions. Jane is once again thrown into a motherly role of getting dust out of Barney's hair, so their real mother won't notice.

At dinner, their parents are in bad moods (attributed to the weather and to unsuccessful work), and there's a fair amount of sniping between them and their children, and among the kids themselves. After dinner, two unexpected guests arrive while Merry simultaneously vanishes. Mr. and Miss Withers, who met Dr. Drew earlier in the day, claim to live near the family in London, and invite them all to visit the mysterious yacht tomorrow. The invitation is accepted by the group, though individual members demure (Mrs. Drew to work on her painting if the light's good, Jane on account of her seasickness). While making small talk, the Witherses manage to throw in a number of peculiar inquiries about the Captain's books and whether the children have gone exploring and found secret passages in the house.

Nope, not suspicious at all.

Simon gets one more jerky exchange, trying to persuade Jane to come on the yacht and saying that “you must be nuts” when she continues to refuse. In a rare show of support, their father tells Simon to “Leave her alone...She knows her own mind. No, they'll understand, Jane. No-one would want you to be worried about getting ill. See how you feel about going in the morning, though.” Stuck the ending a bit, but I'll give Dr. Drew 4/5 for supporting Jane's opinions and acknowledging her expertise on the subject of herself. His sons could really do with some lessons on that score.

The chapter ends with an ominous note that Jane actually felt uncomfortable about the Witherses (with the seasickness as an excuse because she couldn't figure out why she felt that way), and a reminder that Uncle Merry had vanished again.  Possibly it's ominous foreshadowing that they're evil and want the manuscript for nefarious purposes.

Scratch that: they're definitely evil and want the manuscript for nefarious purposes.

New Characters:

Mr. Norman Withers—From the mysterious yacht, sells antiques in London.

Miss Polly Withers—Sister to Norman, several years older than the children

Vayne—Yacht skipper

Captain Toms—“The Captain” who owns the Grey House, master of Rufus the Dog

Updated Characters:

Jane Drew-- Hermione Granger

Dick Drew (Dad)--A Doctor, lives in Marylebone, London

Mrs. Drew (Mom)--Apparently likes rum babas.

Professor Lyon—Aka Great-Uncle Merry, aka “Gumerry”, somehow known to Mr. and Miss Withers but disappears when they show up.  Adding Houdini to his Gandalf/Indiana Jones dual class.

Barney Drew—Less a feminist ally than previously thought, rather untidy

Over Sea, Under Stone Chapter 2

 CN: Racist/colonialist imagery, abilism

We left off with the children speculating about Great-Uncle Merry's disappearance, and chapter two starts with his re-appearance during breakfast the next morning. He chats with Dad about the weather (even answers a question about it!), and again demonstrates his feigned 'deafness' by ignoring Barney's inquiry about where he was last night. The “family rule that they should never ask their mysterious great-uncle questions about himself” is revealed, as Simon and Jane shush Barney.

I'm seeing a divide being set in place, where Barney is given a child-like freedom from convention (asking questions that would be impertinent or simply 'not done' by adults, being free with his imagination) while Jane and Simon have crossed to the adult side and try to follow all the unwritten rules of interaction of the society around them while assigning normal explanations to what they see. That's not very elegantly put, I'm afraid. At any rate, this is a fantasy book, so it's fair to guess that Barney's fantastic ideas are nearer the truth than anyone else suspects. There will certainly be quests and King Arthur mythos before this is over, and “Gumerry” (Barney's old nickname for Great-Uncle Merry, which is a lot easier to type) will have a role to play. Ditto that yacht.

Despite the non-answer, Barney persists with his questions, taking advantage of everyone else's distraction ('Oh look, a storm!') to ask “Gumerry...did you find it, what you were looking for?” and gets an actual response “No, Barnabas, I didn't find it this time.”

The plot thickens. As does the weather. The kids are trapped inside by rain (Narnia parallel?), and their parents step out of the scene—Mom to work (painting, I assume) and Dad to visit the harbor master. After some puttering around, in which Jane looks over the books on hand, Simon makes paper airplanes, and Barney complains about the rain, they get onto the subject of explorers. Simon reveals knowledge of exploration and colonialism tropes, though he's a bit vague and/or wrong on some details, Barney asks some insightful questions (he comes across as much more mature than Simon in this scene), and Jane suggests exploring the house as a fun activity. The more she speaks, the more obvious it is that she's the trio's Hermione Granger: smart and practical. Her and Barney put together the idea of having 'provisions' on the journey, and get Mrs. Palk to provide them with some scones, cake, and lemonade for an indoor picnic. Simon eventually joins in the game, making himself “captain of the expedition”.

Meanwhile , Barney picks up that the locals (Mrs. Palk, Mr. Penhallow) seem to have a long history with Gumerry, aka “the Professor.”

The kids explore the house, making up cannibals and natives and golden treasures (lots of racist stereotypes invoked in the process). Simon is quite big on the colonialist stereotypes and takes the lead (ie, bosses the other kids around). Barney challenges him somewhat. Jane keeps getting to be the grey-raincloud/voice-of-reason, despite the trip being her idea in the first place. She reminds them not to interrupt Mom, that they aren't supposed to mess with locked things, that the telescope case isn't theirs to play with (but obeys Simon by re-phrasing it as part of the adventure: they're on land! with landmarks! they don't need a telescope!), and so on. Nonetheless, she continues displaying her intelligence and observation skills: noticing that one bedroom resembles a ship cabin and figuring that it belongs to the Captain, deducing the existence of a passageway to the attic. Barney helps a bit there in both cases, and it seems like the hierarchy for useful conclusions is Jane (intelligence, observation) > Barney (imagination, curiosity) > Simon (some knowledge and a bit full of himself, but will go along with the others' ideas).

They all end up cooperating to shift the wardrobe (Narnia parallel!) in the boys' bedroom, revealing a door behind it. The door leads to a dusty ladder to the attic, which the children climb as the chapter ends.

It feels odd note that for no one (read: Jane, designated mature party) to remark that the attic is possibly out-of-bounds for them. We're told, by their mother, that everything they should stay out of has been locked up, but nonetheless not to snoop through any clearly personal papers/belongings. While the attic isn't locked, per se, I think being blocked by a heavy piece of furniture demonstrates a similar intent, and is worth a least a discussion. On the other hand, Jane got to take the lead in figuring out where the secret door was and didn't have to be the stick-in-the-mud. Yay! May this trend continue.

Over Sea, Under Stone: Chapter 1

Content Note: Bullying/gaslighting, sexism, minor physical injuries

The story begins with a family waiting at a train station in Cornwall. And by family, I mean our three child protagonists and their parents. Yes, there are parents, living ones even, present in a children's fantasy adventure story.

The children's relative ages are not established in the first chapter, but they seem to sort out with Simon as the eldest, Jane in the middle, and Barney as the youngest (I'm not sure if I'm remembering this from past readings or just guessing from their behavior). Barney shows a childlike enthusiasm which trumps social niceties: he's full of questions, and quick to voice his thoughts. Simon takes a superior tone throughout: he likes to show off his knowledge, even if it's not always strictly accurate, and is quick to judge other people. He's also rather quick to bully Jane, but is slightly protective of her as well. In my mind, he's Peter Pevensie without a sympathetic author fawning over him: trying to act like an adult, or at least use his age to lord over his siblings, but insecure and still falling into childish habits. Jane, despite being the (apparent) main focus of our third person narrator, tends to fade into the background during conversations. She shares some of Barney's enthusiasm (for the dog, for instance), and some of Simon's more conventional politeness to strangers, and seems to be the designated observant character. She notices the yacht, and Great-Uncle Merry's strange reaction to it; she has the idea to check the stray dog's tag for it's name and residence. She's also the one to “encounter” apparently-evil-flunkie Bill Hoover, and both defends herself to him and tries to diffuse the situation when Simon starts spoiling for a fight. But she speaks a bit less than the boys, and doesn't expect to be taken seriously by them--though it doesn't stop her from trying. I'm reading it as 'the middle-child used to being overlooked', though it could just as easily be 'the girl used to being ignored'.

Anyway, we open with the five family members, having arrived in Cornwall for a summer vacation, waiting for the Great-Uncle who is supposed to pick them up. We learn, over the first few pages, that Barney and Jane are fond of dogs and that Mom and Dad are less fond of the enthusiasm thus displayed (there could be some interesting backstory there). Mom apparently paints, and has been to Trewissick village before. Dad has brought fishing equipment along. The kids all known how to swim, and everyone's apparently fond of boats, except Jane, who is prone to motion sickness.

Middle child who gets sick on trains and boats? I am Jane...

Great Uncle Merry arrives at the station in a very beat-up car which he has apparently rented, reveals that the dog Jane and Barney like is with him (goes with the house he rented), and takes them all into the village. We learn that the family will be staying in the rented house for 4 weeks, and that Merry is the Worst. Houseguest. Ever. He apparently shows up without warning, leaves without saying goodbye, and trails along reporters in his wake. Why the reporters? He's Indiana Jones: when not teaching at a University or crashing his friend-called-niece's house, he goes around finding lost fortresses, valleys, and viking ships.

Fun as a character, he sounds incredibly obnoxious in real life. In addition to being completely inconsiderate, he apparently can't or won't answer even the most innocuous of questions, like 'Do those people you waved to know you?' or 'Why is it called the grey house?'*. Instead, he evades or ignores questions, and the family has a rule against asking where he's been. Such as, when he vanishes without warning right after they arrive and doesn't appear again until the next day.** It makes one wonder why Dad had such implicit trust that this guy would pick them up from the train station. It's given that Merry said he would, so perhaps the issue is that he always keeps his word and that's why he doesn't say anything directly. You can't hold him to a promise he hasn't made.

In fact, I'm going to head-canon that: Merry's rude and inconsiderate because he's bound to follow through on all statements, and thus can only preserve freedom to act and react by not talking about anything.

They reach the house, and the kids go exploring in the village before supper. Simon also notes the yacht that's been seen several times know (he is apparently as much a boat aficionado as Barney is a King Arthur fan), and takes the opportunity to start taunting Jane about ocean voyages in small boats. Barney sort-of berates him for this, but in a way that makes Jane feel defensive. I completely sympathize with her demanding that he stop teasing (motion sickness sucks), and in choosing to leave when he doesn't.

Simon grinned wickedly. “Smashing. Great big waves picking you up and bringing you down swoosh...and the deck going up and down, up and down--”

“You'll make her sick,” Barney said calmly.

“Rubbish. On dry land, out here in the sun?”

“Yes, you will, she looks a bit green already. Look.”

“I don't.”

“Oh yes you do. I can't think you weren't ill in the train like you usually are. Just think of those waves in the Atlantic, and the mast swaying about, and nobody with an appetite for breakfast except me...”

“Oh shut up, I'm not going to listen”--and poor Jane turned and ran...”

“Girls!” Simon said cheerfully.

Yeah, I don't like Simon this time around. He's a sexist bully, and I really hope his character development involves not being one anymore. That would be an excellent direction for him to grow in. Ideally in the next couple of pages.

So Jane runs away from the brothers who are teasing and defending her in ways that make her uncomfortable; in fact, she runs right into a bicyclist who also isn't looking. He blames her, she blames him, and he's very rude when she (who got knocked down and is bleeding) tries to help pick up his spilled cargo. Simon and Barney arrive, and Simon immediately takes issue with the unnamed boy. Jane tries to diffuse the situation and the boy leaves with a “--off, the lot of e'e”.  Jane, her knee still bleeding, physically restrains Simon from following, while the boy goes down to a dinghy and sets off, inconsiderately hitting several boats in the process.

This attracts the attention of an old fisherman, who gives some redundant local exposition: the boy is Bill Hoover, and he's clumsy and “evil-tempered”. Simon explains what happened, taking the blame for the accident on himself (“It was my fault, really, I made her run into him...”) but without ever apologizing to Jane, and while centering his own experience: Bill was rude to Jane and had the nerve to leave before Simon could hit him for it. [I completely skipped a whole earlier exchange in which Simon gaslights Jane at the train station—maybe the author was trying for childish bickering: “I can smell the sea!” “We're miles from the sea.”, but it came across as Simon needing to be right all the time and trying to make it so by stomping on Jane's enthusiasm and doubting her experiences. I expect more of this, unfortunately.]

The fisherman answers several of Barney's questions about Trewissick, the boats and fishing, and I can see that Barney's inquisitive nature will be a ready source of background information. There's some more patronizing of Jane (“take your little sister home and wash that leg”), and Bill-the-Bad-Bicyclist is seen boarding the yacht that caught everyone's attention earlier. According to the fisherman, Mr. Penhallow, Bill has been buying supplies and being secretive about why; he deduces that the boy is delivering them to the yacht.

Back home, Great Uncle Merry has vanished. Father is unconcerned, Barney imagines he's on a quest which may take years, and Simon reveals that Merry likes to look at old tombs in churches, while complaining about Merry not telling them why he left. I sort of agree with Simon here. Not that everyone's entitled to know Merry's private affairs, but that making plans with people and then ditching them without a word is rude. 'I have some things to do' would suffice, perhaps with a 'and will be back in the morning'.

Anyway, I read Simon here as a petulant child who's nonetheless trying to be practical/“adult” while contradicting Barney's fantastic/romantic imaginings. This rings pretty true for my experience as a 10-11-12-13-year-old, so I'm mentally putting Simon and Jane in that age range, with Barney just barely behind. Jane chimes in with a bland “I expect he'll be back in the morning”, which reminds me of Ana Mardoll's remarks on Susan Pevensie trying to 'sound like mother'. Of course, Jane's mother is at the dinner table with her, but I see some parallels here nonetheless. Jane's modeling her speech on adult platitudes in general, and specifically on her parents' trust in Merry. In other circumstances, an adult stepping out without explanation would be more likely resolved with a speedy return than a multi-year quest. It is more realistic to assume, in such cases, that the person will be back, and even if he's not, speaking hopes or wishes as certainties is something that adults do for reassurance. Given the subject's tendency to disappear for weeks or months without notice, Barney's fantasies are perhaps less far-fetched in this situation than they would be in others. Nonetheless, Mom and Dad trust Merry to return, and Jane is following their example by expressing confidence in him. I suppose I see Barney responding as a child by voicing his fears (Merry won't come back) and wishes (because of a quest) as facts, while Simon and Jane are trying to respond as adults with more mundane hopes and doubts.

Mrs. Palk, the cook/housekeeper is introduced—she looks like another good source of local lore, and a potential route to the kids' having space for adventure (mom and dad leave them with housekeeper, housekeeper wants them out of the way while she works, freedom to have adventures ensues). The chapter ends with Jane observing the mysterious yacht leaving Trewissick harbor. That makes five mentions in 16 pages, so it's safe to say that the yacht will be figuring into the plot more than just about anything else.

So far, I'm pleasantly surprised that we're breaking some youth fantasy expectations: Jane stands up for herself (somewhat) and expresses opinions, Mom and Dad are alive and active in the story, our protagonists are flawed and might not get a free pass from the author. At the same time, the fact that I don't remember them existing indicates that the parents will be completely extraneous to the plot and/or quickly removed from the scene. Also, Jane's characterization is woefully lacking compared to the boys. They not only get to say more (and thus show more personality), but they also have outside interests which (mild spoiler) will be relevant to the developing plot. Jane is not given any such hobbies as of yet.

The Cast So Far and What We Know of Them:

Barnabas “Barney” Drew—(Youngest?) Inquisitive, imaginative, loves dogs, knows tons about King Arthur, adventurous, seems fairly perceptive about people and his surroundings.

Simon Drew—(Oldest?) Bossy know-it-all, loves ships, tries to act like an adult, bullies his little sister, responds violently to other kids but can be respectful towards adults, doesn't get motion sick. A cross between Peter Pevensie and Peter Wiggin.

Jane Drew—(Middle?) Observant, reserved, gets motion sick, loves dogs, will stand up for herself but gives up because it's ineffective. Went back to the house for a handkerchief—Bilbo Baggins?

Mom—Paints, has known Merry for a long time but is not actually his niece.

Dad—Fishes, trusts Merry for unknown reasons.

Great Uncle Merry—Simultaneously Gandalf and Indiana Jones. Hat status unknown. Worst Guest Ever, and so far not a very promising host.

Mrs. Palk—Makes Cornish pasties

Bill Hoover—Bit of a jerk. 

Mr. Penhallow—Expository fisherman, seems to have some questions/thoughts on the Grey House and Merry, but doesn't voice them.

*“The Grey House?” Simon said. “Is that what it's called? Why?”

“Wait and see.”

Not spoiler: It's a dark-grey house with a grey-blue arch and a grey slate roof. Why Merry couldn't answer the kid's question without evasion is left as an exercise to the reader. My preferred explanation for the house's name is that “the Captain” who owns it is actually a novel-traveling Christian Grey, doing penance for his awful behavior in the romance genre by playing minor characters in a childrens' books. I conjure the Internet, by it's true name, to make this so.

**This actually is revealed on the first page of chapter 2, sorry for skipping ahead slightly.

Over Sea, Under Stone: Author's Note

Apparently, the internet does not yet have a deconstruction series of Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising sequence.  This is a problem.  And what follows is an attempt to rectify it.  

So, let's start at the beginning: Over Sea, Under Stone, the stand-alone children's fantasy adventure story which became the first installment of the series.  I encountered it in elementary school, some years ago, and enjoyed it immensely.  Let's see how it holds up today. I have a good idea of the main plot points, but will be hopefully turning a fresh eye to the execution, particularly to character interaction and development. Spoilers ahead, but only for the first book unless otherwise noted. (Style note, I'm going to use single apostrophes for paraphrases/suppositions/idioms and save the quotation marks for actual book quotations.)  

The copy I grabbed for this project begins with an Author's Note (date 2013, which explains why I didn't remember it). It's a nice two page explanation of how the book, and consequently the series was started, with a little background on the author herself (lived in London, worked as a journalist, wrote the story for a literary contest on “family adventure”). The two bits that leaped out at me were that she'd studied under Tolkien as an undergraduate (for which I am terribly jealous), and that her early childhood was shaped by the blitz.

As she put it, “Until I was ten years old, my family and I had spent a lot of time in the air-raid shelter in the backyard, listening to the bombs of World War II... My imagination and I grew up in a world in which nobody was safe.” That bit caught my attention because this project was inspired by comments on Ana Mardoll's Narnia deconstructions. While The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe featured a group of children around Cooper's age during the war, her work is, in her opinion, shaped by the experience of being a child at that time. I can't help imagining her as Lucy Pevensie, giving C.S. Lewis a look and saying 'No, this is a fantasy story which explores what it was like to grew up in the shadow of WWII.' Anyway, it'll be interesting to see if/how this knowledge shades my re-reading.

Resolving Love Triangles in Fiction

[This is a snark piece I wrote the other year while making up D&D-style dice charts for getting around writer's block.]

Congratulations!  You have successfully lined up two possible love interests for your protagonist. Now, as you attempt to tie up all the loose plot threads (except for the one on which you're hanging the sequel), you need to decide how to resolve your protagonist's romantic affairs.

Flip a coin. Do you pair your main character with:

Heads: The expected love interest. (Team Edward!)

Or

Tails: The slightly-less-conventional love interest who adds CONFLICT and DRAMA to the story, by attracting the protagonist while having a different alignment/super power/social background/other complicating feature. (Team Jacob!)

Meh, let's make it really interesting.  Procure 1d10 (ie, a decahedral die, typically with faces labelled 1 through 10), and roll:

1) Conventional lost interest.

2) Less-conventional love interest.

3) Keep them both. (ie, the Mechanicsburg solution)

4) Neither! Team Bella! Team Things-over-there-need-to-be-shot-full-of-arrows!

5) Slash!*  The love interests pair up, sans protagonist.  Your fans were going to write this anyway, so you're saving them the trouble.

6) Curveball. Your protagonist hooks up with the antagonist, because Draco Malfoy is really the more interesting character...

7) Happily Never After.  Your character makes his/her decision (flip coin for #1 or #2), but the 'winning' love interest actually decides not to pursue the relationship.

8) Keep 'em all.  Add in every other named character the main character(s) have ever expressed interest in, or otherwise favorably interacted with. (See Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, Friday, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, or any other works which contain multiple adult female characters)****

9) Multi-dimensional curve ball: your character isn't actually straight/cis/human/other assumptions made to this point, and all involved characters have to reconsider whether the situation works for them.  Roll again to resolve.

9') Roll 9 twice in a row, and your character become Captain Jack Harkness.  All pairings are now canonical.

10) Flip the coin: second place marries the protagonist's future child, who is conveniently just-like-mom. (Twilight, Anne McCaffery's Damia; see also TV Tropes "Squaring the Triangle"). Better yet, re-roll for another outcome.

*May or may not actually be "slash" depending on your definition thereof and the gender identities of the characters involved; my examples tend to be love triangles which a female-identified main character has two male-identified options, making this option "classic" M/M slash.

**Ok, so the examples in 8 are not so much triangle resolution, as a suggestion of a triangle, which soon began sharing one line segment with a pentagon, which itself shortly became a hexagon, which was subsequently cubed, and eventually led to two mutually exclusive sets, such that all members of set A ("intended to be sympathetic cis-male characters") have sex with all members of set B ("hot intended to be sympathetic cis-female characters") but with no other members of set A, and that all members of set B have sex with all members of set A, but only have platonic, non-jealous friendships with other members of set B.   But, hey, it's the twenty-first century.  Your polygon can be as slashy as you like.  And it can include non-binary identified characters. And none of them need be rape-apologist jerks.  The future's awesome like that.

A Guide to Literary Washington

Dear Writers Aspiring to Set a Story in Washington,

Thank you for your kind interest in our lovely state.  Please accept these local details for use in your story, to add verisimilitude and avoid internet mockery:

• The Great State of Washington contains multiple geographical regions.  We have desert. We have a rain forest.  We have mountains, and hills and islands and rivers and beaches and another mountain range and a bunch of other things.  It does not rain all the time.
• Note: The beaches don't generally have sand.
• Even the rainy places have warm sunny days.
• Vancouver, B.C. is north of Seattle; Vancouver, WA is south of Seattle.
• You can get a ton of different kinds of apples here.  We really like them.  The red delicious are sent out of state because they aren't good enough for domestic consumption.  (...That is a joke).
• Anthropomorphically speaking, Oregon and Idaho are our housemates; we share a spacious and somewhat dilapidated craftsman house, with tall ceilings and built-in bookcases around the fireplace and windows. Oregon is a libertarian hipster, who hates hipsters. Idaho just walked off the set of The Book of Mormon, and seems nice enough until suddenly, something-something, neo-nazis.  No one gets to mock these two except us.
• Alaska has the separate basement apartment and keeps weird hours, so no one ever really sees him/her (but there's always salmon in the fridge, really good salmon).  California lives down the block in a sort of arts-commune that may currently be on fire.  We occasionally team up with him/her to laugh at the east-coasters, but mostly we just complain about his/her driving. 
• Back before we were a state, we nearly started a war with Canada.  Over a pig. (Ok, it technically wasn't Canada yet.)
• We haven't always been awesomely progressive, but we like veering near it: women's suffrage in 1854? One vote away (in fairness, there were only, like, 15 guys voting on it at the time).
• Trees. Lots of trees.  We may have stolen part of Wyoming's and Montana's allotments.  Even the desert has tons of conifers.
• Yes, we did recently legalized pot.  Did you know we also have strict anti-smoking measures to protect indoor air quality?  Now you know.
• Also, Bill Nye. Ours.
• There is a town called George.
• Our state flag is green, because apparently the left wing took a time machine back to 1889.
• That bestiality stuff that keeps showing up in the "Know your state" memes? It's illegal and really not common at all. We promise.
• Forget 50 Shades of Gray.  We have two shades of gray: 'light winter sky', and 'darker winter sky'.  There are, however, at least fifty different types of rain (in the part that gets rain).     
• Our succession jokes are about one half of the state abandoning the other (Cascadia v. Inland Empire).  I don't actually know which one is leaving at the moment.  Sometimes, we propose 'swinging' with Oregon, but so far nothing's come of it.
• Yeah, we took D.C.'s name.  Serves them right, turning down our perfectly reasonable request to become the State of Columbia.  Keep it real, B.C.!
• Fun fact: our Canadians don't actually sound funny to us.  The speak normally, but have a lower drinking age and a few more hockey fans.
• If your Twilight fanfiction story involves colleges, consider these fun (public) options:
• University of Washington (UW, 'the UW' if east of the Cascades); flagship research institution in exciting, urban Seattle.  Lots of buildings named for Gates relatives. Branches in Tacoma and Bothell. Huskies
• Western (Washington University); right next to Canada, inevitably described as a 'private school education at public school tuition.'
• Washington State University (Wazzu, Washington State, WSU); chief rivals to UW;  likes football, beer, more beer.  Located on the Palouse (SE part of state) near Idaho. Cougars.
• Central, Eastern Washington Universities: no one remembers these. EWU is the eagles. 
• The Evergreen State College: hippie-school in the woods just outside of the state capitol. No grades and no football team, but very interesting and friendly people.  School mascot is the geoduck.
• There's also a number of private schools, mostly sectarian.  You might have heard of Gonzaga.  Local pronunciation: "Gone" "zag" (as in 'zigzag') "a".  Jesuit school in Spokane; basketball team is competitive.  Bing Crosby went there, but didn't actually graduate.  Although called the "zags", the actual mascot is a bulldog.
• Professional sports teams (we don't have more than one professional team per sport, and we 'share' with Oregon/Idaho/Alaska who have even fewer):
• Mariners (MLB, American League): have never even made it a World Series; almost always has some great players, had some truly amazing seasons in the late 90's, never lasts the post-season; based in SODO neighborhood of Seattle.
• Seahawks (NFL): Won the Superbowl the year before last, having qualified only once before that in 37 years of existence. Lost last year.  We still haven't taken down the decorations from the win.
• Sounders FC (MLS): Recent acquisition, small but boisterous fan base.  Shares a stadium with the Seahawks, just across the street from the Mariners.
• Supersonics (NBA): Formerly played at Seattle Center; left the state over a decade ago, and there's still bitterness over it.
•  Storm (WNBA): Still plays at Seattle Center's Key Arena; eleven play-off qualifications and 2 titles in fifteen years of existence.  No one remembers they exist.
• Major tourist attractions in Seattle include the Space Needle, Pike Place Public Market (ie, "The Market"), and the Fremont Troll.  Most locals do not spend large amounts of time at these establishments.  To add realistic detail, have your characters meet at/walk past distinctive but less famous landmarks.  In the Fremont neighborhood, for instance, there's a rocket ship, topiary dinosaurs. North America's largest free-standing statue of Lenin, "Waiting for the Interurban", Rapunzel (on the draw-bridge), and a post marking the Center of the Universe.
• The ferry system is pretty nice.  If your characters need to get to/from Seattle and the Oympic Peninula of any of the islands in Puget Sound, a ferry may be appropriate transportation. (More info here!)
• Wool flannel shirts are very comfortable, and popular among east-side people and some west-siders.  Just don't make every single character wear them unless your story's set in a lumber camp.

In regards this blog...

It's a place for writing, meta-writing, thoughts on writing, literary analysis, and other topics which don't belong fit my sewing blog.  I make no promises regarding quality, readability, or proper use of the 'rule of three', but the blog-format is useful for organizing thoughts, so voila.  Updates will be sporadic, depending on what I have to say.