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donnaimmaculataLast week, it took my fancy to read Lucy Maud Montgomery's "Emily" series. I've never really been into the series as a child and have never owned and read the first book, so I hunted it down on the Internet. And then I met Dean Priest.
She heard him say, "My God!" softly to himself. [...] "How can I help you?" said Dean Priest hoarsely, as if to himself. "I cannot reach you--and it looks as if the slightest touch or jar would send that broken earth over the brink. I must go for a rope-- and to leave you here alone--like this. Can you wait, child?"
And then:
Emily knew he had been to college, that he was thirty-six years old--which to Emily seemed a venerable age--and well-off; that he had a malformed shoulder and limped slightly; that he cared for nothing save books nor ever had; that he lived with an older brother and travelled a great deal; and that the whole Priest clan stood somewhat in awe of his ironic tongue. Aunt Nancy had called him a "cynic." Emily did not know what a cynic was but it sounded interesting. She looked him over carefully and saw that he had delicate, pale features and tawny-brown hair. His lips were thin and sensitive, with a whimsical curve. She liked his mouth. Had she been older she would have known why--because it connoted strength and tenderness and humour.
Here, I had to stop reading and drink some cold water. Now, apart from the fact that I've got this insane thin-lips fetish (I'm probably the only person in the fandom who gets actually turned on by Snape's thin lips - instead of ignoring them bravely or explaining them away as being rather pouty, really, once one gets a better look at them. I rather ignore fandom!Sirius' lips being described as "full" and "girly" and - ew! - pink and - ewww! - fleshy.) - who could resist the connotation of "strength and tenderness and humour"?
But within a few paragraphs only, I fell out of love as quickly as I had fallen in. There are some things I do find disturbing, especially when they are voiced in passing and matter-of-factly. Then again, that's probably just me.
So, Dean Priest is doing very well, being equipped with attributes such as an "aloof dignity", "dreamy green eyes" and a "beautiful, musical and caressing voice". However, at the end of his conversation with 12-years-old Emily, he decides he's going to marry her in future. "I think I'll wait for you." At this point, Dean Priest dropped in my esteem from the top of the list of literary crushes right into nothingness.
I have this very deeply rooted aversion against grown men falling in love with girls who could be their daughters. While I don't think that Dean Priest is a pedophile (or, for that matter, Jane Austen's Col. Brandon or Mr. Knightley, who both fall in love with underage girls) and that his relationship to Emily is abusive, I do wonder what sort of man looks for a partner for life among little girls. It is not so much the relationship between the two characters I find disturbing but more the man himself. Because what makes me like a literary character is the fact that I can relate to them as I could relate to a real person. (This is why I like Rowling's novels so much: the characters feel real to me.) So while I feel about characters in novels just like I feel about people in RL, I apply the same criteria to them. If one of my friends, in his 20s or 30s, fell for a 12-years-old girl (like Emily, or Emma, who is 12 when 28-years-old Mr. Knightley falls in love with her) or with a 16-years-old girl, or even with a slightly older girl who's still at school and lives with her parents and leads a life so completely different from the lives my peer group leads, I would at least shake my head, be certainly disturbed and possibly alarmed.
So while I read and enjoyed Lolita (and fully understood what Humbert Humbert found so attractive about the girl), I find scenarios such as the one with Dean Priest or Col. Brandon's and Marianne's "romance" more disturbing. Because they are told in a way that indicates that it's perfectly normal to think of a schoolgirl as of one's future wife.
It is not so much the age difference that bugs me. (Two of my best friends are involved with/married to men twice their age.) It's more the difference in life styles and maturity levels. While I believe it's perfectly reasonable for a 50-years-old man to seriously fall in love with a woman in her late 20s, I don't think that a man in his late 30s should think of a 12-year-old as a potential partner for life. Again, if a friend of mine did, I would wonder whether he's not up to handling a woman his age, who is is equal in experience and maturity. And while I wouldn't necessarily think him a pervert (I can fully see the sexual appeal of young girls), I would think him weak. A grown man should know better than seduce underage girls just because he can and because they're willing (or unresisting). I don't underestimate schoolgirls; I was pretty calculating myself and got involved with far older men. But even then, I knew the relationships were not balanced and that I couldn't respect the men. I feel that if a man can't find his match among his equals, there is something seriously wrong with him.
This is incidentally the reason why I am not interested in Snarry fics. Not because I think it's necessarily an abusive relationship or because I think Snape is just blatantly forcing Harry - and the dynamics between them, all the hatred and aggression, is an aspect that strongly appeals to me - but because I lose a great part of my respect for Severus when he starts making out with Harry instead of focusing his energy on his equals. (What's wrong with Remus, eh?) Especially since Severus has experienced Harry as his student: there is a huge authority gap between them. Even if Snape is not actively abusive, he is the one with experience and in control - or should be. No matter how I look at this, whether Snape is actively in charge (thus abusing his position and manipulating Harry into a relationship), whether Snape merely follows his baser instincts (thus dehumanising himself) or whether Snape is seduced by Harry (thus giving up his control and giving himself over into Harry's hands), I lose a good part of my respect for the man.
This is merely an illustration of how my mind works and on why I am a dedicated supporter of relationships among equals. As to Snape/Black, while I can see them post Azkaban, I don't see them ending up together at school. In the narrative presence (well, before Sirius' death), they are both similarly fucked up, are both living under conditions they hate and haven't much control about their lives. They are equal in experience and situation (with regard to quantity, not quality).
But this is not supposed to be another pro-Snack essay. I originally intended to talk more about men's lips. Oh well. Maybe next time.
I need my bed now.
She heard him say, "My God!" softly to himself. [...] "How can I help you?" said Dean Priest hoarsely, as if to himself. "I cannot reach you--and it looks as if the slightest touch or jar would send that broken earth over the brink. I must go for a rope-- and to leave you here alone--like this. Can you wait, child?"
And then:
Emily knew he had been to college, that he was thirty-six years old--which to Emily seemed a venerable age--and well-off; that he had a malformed shoulder and limped slightly; that he cared for nothing save books nor ever had; that he lived with an older brother and travelled a great deal; and that the whole Priest clan stood somewhat in awe of his ironic tongue. Aunt Nancy had called him a "cynic." Emily did not know what a cynic was but it sounded interesting. She looked him over carefully and saw that he had delicate, pale features and tawny-brown hair. His lips were thin and sensitive, with a whimsical curve. She liked his mouth. Had she been older she would have known why--because it connoted strength and tenderness and humour.
Here, I had to stop reading and drink some cold water. Now, apart from the fact that I've got this insane thin-lips fetish (I'm probably the only person in the fandom who gets actually turned on by Snape's thin lips - instead of ignoring them bravely or explaining them away as being rather pouty, really, once one gets a better look at them. I rather ignore fandom!Sirius' lips being described as "full" and "girly" and - ew! - pink and - ewww! - fleshy.) - who could resist the connotation of "strength and tenderness and humour"?
But within a few paragraphs only, I fell out of love as quickly as I had fallen in. There are some things I do find disturbing, especially when they are voiced in passing and matter-of-factly. Then again, that's probably just me.
So, Dean Priest is doing very well, being equipped with attributes such as an "aloof dignity", "dreamy green eyes" and a "beautiful, musical and caressing voice". However, at the end of his conversation with 12-years-old Emily, he decides he's going to marry her in future. "I think I'll wait for you." At this point, Dean Priest dropped in my esteem from the top of the list of literary crushes right into nothingness.
I have this very deeply rooted aversion against grown men falling in love with girls who could be their daughters. While I don't think that Dean Priest is a pedophile (or, for that matter, Jane Austen's Col. Brandon or Mr. Knightley, who both fall in love with underage girls) and that his relationship to Emily is abusive, I do wonder what sort of man looks for a partner for life among little girls. It is not so much the relationship between the two characters I find disturbing but more the man himself. Because what makes me like a literary character is the fact that I can relate to them as I could relate to a real person. (This is why I like Rowling's novels so much: the characters feel real to me.) So while I feel about characters in novels just like I feel about people in RL, I apply the same criteria to them. If one of my friends, in his 20s or 30s, fell for a 12-years-old girl (like Emily, or Emma, who is 12 when 28-years-old Mr. Knightley falls in love with her) or with a 16-years-old girl, or even with a slightly older girl who's still at school and lives with her parents and leads a life so completely different from the lives my peer group leads, I would at least shake my head, be certainly disturbed and possibly alarmed.
So while I read and enjoyed Lolita (and fully understood what Humbert Humbert found so attractive about the girl), I find scenarios such as the one with Dean Priest or Col. Brandon's and Marianne's "romance" more disturbing. Because they are told in a way that indicates that it's perfectly normal to think of a schoolgirl as of one's future wife.
It is not so much the age difference that bugs me. (Two of my best friends are involved with/married to men twice their age.) It's more the difference in life styles and maturity levels. While I believe it's perfectly reasonable for a 50-years-old man to seriously fall in love with a woman in her late 20s, I don't think that a man in his late 30s should think of a 12-year-old as a potential partner for life. Again, if a friend of mine did, I would wonder whether he's not up to handling a woman his age, who is is equal in experience and maturity. And while I wouldn't necessarily think him a pervert (I can fully see the sexual appeal of young girls), I would think him weak. A grown man should know better than seduce underage girls just because he can and because they're willing (or unresisting). I don't underestimate schoolgirls; I was pretty calculating myself and got involved with far older men. But even then, I knew the relationships were not balanced and that I couldn't respect the men. I feel that if a man can't find his match among his equals, there is something seriously wrong with him.
This is incidentally the reason why I am not interested in Snarry fics. Not because I think it's necessarily an abusive relationship or because I think Snape is just blatantly forcing Harry - and the dynamics between them, all the hatred and aggression, is an aspect that strongly appeals to me - but because I lose a great part of my respect for Severus when he starts making out with Harry instead of focusing his energy on his equals. (What's wrong with Remus, eh?) Especially since Severus has experienced Harry as his student: there is a huge authority gap between them. Even if Snape is not actively abusive, he is the one with experience and in control - or should be. No matter how I look at this, whether Snape is actively in charge (thus abusing his position and manipulating Harry into a relationship), whether Snape merely follows his baser instincts (thus dehumanising himself) or whether Snape is seduced by Harry (thus giving up his control and giving himself over into Harry's hands), I lose a good part of my respect for the man.
This is merely an illustration of how my mind works and on why I am a dedicated supporter of relationships among equals. As to Snape/Black, while I can see them post Azkaban, I don't see them ending up together at school. In the narrative presence (well, before Sirius' death), they are both similarly fucked up, are both living under conditions they hate and haven't much control about their lives. They are equal in experience and situation (with regard to quantity, not quality).
But this is not supposed to be another pro-Snack essay. I originally intended to talk more about men's lips. Oh well. Maybe next time.
I need my bed now.
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no subject
Date: 2004-03-11 03:50 pm (UTC)The way Rowling handled the Snape/Black dynamics in OotP reminds me of the way she handles Draco: There is definitely potential for development of interaction/character, but she ignores it completely.
one of the things that consistently disturbs me about rowling is her seeming identification with dumbledore's "morality," ie Slytherins Are Bad (with maybe one exception... but even snape's iffy), Gryffindors Are Good (ignore the tyrants behind the curtain, please). Though, given the way she developed Snape and the marauders in OotP, she seems to be blatantly contradicting her own rule. ~_~ damn the woman and her ambiguity... I absolutely agree that Draco has a huge wealth of potential... Hell, I like to think that Lucius Malfoy is sort of the classier version of Sirius Black - doing what has to be done to serve his own interests and the interests of the ones he loves, no such thing as right or wrong. I don't know I don't know.... In interviews JKR makes me want to throttle her, but then OotP came along and completely jived with the characterizations if not the situations I had imagined... And, remember, this is all Harry's POV. I think it would take a hell of a lot for him to see Draco as anything other than a snobbish bully, and as Harry isn't very imaginative on his own and doesn't have the benefit of breaking into the other boy's mind...
I want to start waving banners. SUPPORT SLYTHERIN! ...Why am I only interested in fictional politics...?
*must avoid panic attacks about upcoming books*
no subject
Date: 2004-03-13 06:08 am (UTC)Yes! Definitely! The way she established Dumbledore annoys the hell out of me. I wasn't shocked by Sirius' and James' behaviour in OotP, though, because we've always known about Sirius that he had this violent streak, so it was all very much IC. I also think that Sirius, Remus and Severus are excellently executed as ambiguous characters. But Dumbledore isn't. In my opinion, Rowling didn't manage to make him a three-dimensional character, even though she tried to give him ambiguity, because his character gives the impression that he is supposed to be the main moral instance.
As to Draco - I think by now, Rowling could have fleshed him out a bit. She even managed to do so with Dudley and Petunia - and they have never seemed to have half the potential of Draco.
I was listening to the OotP audiobook last night and realised that what interests me most about the upcoming books is how Rowling's going to develop Dudley and Petunia...
And whether she will kill off Remus *whines*no subject
Date: 2004-03-13 06:33 am (UTC)I agree. I hate having to rely so much on speculation... I want some confirmation, damn it! Draco is complex and sympathetic!!!
I was listening to the OotP audiobook last night and realised that what interests me most about the upcoming books is how Rowling's going to develop Dudley and Petunia...
Well she did say that we're going to know what Dudley's Worst Memory is (yaaayyy!!!!! ...here's hoping it' doesn't involve aunt marge). so, yes, i think she definitely has some development in store for them...
And whether she will kill off Remus *whines*
Nahhhhhhhh..... Remus suffers too prettily. >:} His destiny is to go on and on losing people, forever, trudging along life's roads in self-imposed stoicism and misery. ...Well if I were writing the story... I had convinced myself she was going to kill off Snape!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ;_; But now I'm beginning to dip my toes back into tantalizing Harry-death scenerios.......
And as for Dumbledore... I'm holding my breath. I'm going to wait for the very end and hope hope hope that eventually he'll make some sort of sense.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-24 12:54 pm (UTC)To be fair, JKR has shown Dumbledore as a 3-d character- it is just that Harry has not absorbed that it, and so, we do not get thenuances until a second reading.
This man, this great wizard is also a wily one- or so he thinks. Does it not strike you that:
1) He commits an error of trust by not telling Harry what he needs to know
2) Depsite being comnsidered 'great' he has enough political enemies- or people who plain resent him- to be monitored by the Minstry toady and remobed from office? That editorials make fun of him in the paper?
3) That he treats his one oof his top teachers, a man who would proabably open a vein for him, like shit(emotionally, that is)
4) That he allowed his own knowledge of how Sirius could be (the bullying, the Shrieking Shack, amongst many others, I am sure)to allow this poor man to rot in prison, instead of speaking up for him (as he did for Severus)or calling for a trial
5) Running an viligante Order- above and beyond the Ministry- and losing many of his young people in the process.
Yes, JKR has set Dumbledore up to be kind, warm,crafty, clever jovial, etc. But she has also shown, in bits and pieces, that Dumbledore is capable of vainglorious actions, arrogance, emotinal distancing and not giving trust.
Does that make you feel better:-)?
no subject
Date: 2004-04-24 02:24 pm (UTC)I know she did; but from all I know about her view on Dumbledore, she thinks he is a good person.
My problem with Dumbledore is that I don't really see him as a character. He was established as a plot device, necessary to explain the background and to facilitate the solution at the end of each novel, which is a popular method in many children books. We've never seen him do anything great. Rowling told us he was great - e.g. via Hagrid. In the early novels, Harry's (and everyone's) trust in Dumbledore always seemed a bit off, because he never prevented any horrible stuff from happening; he merely arrived at the end, like clockwork, and offered a neat summary, a life lesson and a conclusion so that the author could finish the book without bothering with loose threads. In OotP, Rowling tried to flesh him out, but for me, it didn't work. I've always perceived D. as a plot device, a voice ex machina, and I don't buy his transition into a 3D character. This is, of course, merely my impression of Dumbledore and I know that the majority don't see him like that.
The morality issue in general is one that interests me a lot. I am pretty sure from all that is known from her interviews that Rowling has established Dumbledore as a highly moral character and as the major moral instance. In OotP, he admits he has failed, but it is caused by his love for Harry - a highly honourable notion. His former failures and blunders are not even mentioned.
There are several examples that particularly annoy me: In CoS, after the final fight, Harry confides in D. his worries he might be a Slytherin, but instead of pointing out that Slytherin is just a house like the others, D. says that only a true Griffindor could have pulled out the sword etc. I would gladly accept that this is merely an indication that D. is fallible after all, but from all that we've seen so far: Draco's lack of characterisation, the Slytherins as the House of Evil, I fear that D. speaks the autor's mind. Especially since he concludes his speech with the moral lesson that it is our choices that make us what we truly are, which is clearly Rowling speaking.
In GoF, not only D. knows about the dragons in the first task, but also (parts) of his staff, while Mme Maxime and Karkaroff are considered (and prove themselves) as not trustworthy. Why? Because they're foreigners? Because they're not Dumbledore? They've got exactly the same status as he has, being Heads of schools and judges. Again, I think this is the author's fault; she needs the others not to know, and having D. around means being able to explain plot holes away.
So all these little things make me think that Dumbledore, indeed, is established as the voice of truth and morality. And while I gladly accept the deconstruction of James, Sirius and Remus, who have morphed in very 3D characters, D. just doesn't work for me. (Although from all I know, Rowling thinks Sirius is a *good* person, too.)
(purely personal impression, as always *g*)