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Mar. 8th, 2013 09:35 amLast night I turned in my thesis draft as it currently stands! ("As it currently stands" involves several large [BRACKET] sections at the end, but.) I was supposed to have a meeting this morning, but it got cancelled because of the snow, so now I don't have anywhere to be until half past noon and IT'S LOVELY. Thank you, snow!
It also means that I actually have time to write up a book!
I knew about For Darkness Shows the Stars as "post-apocalyptic Persuasion," which made me super intrigued but also kind of wary. I mean, Persuasion is very much not an adventure story, and very much is a book about Regency social class, and how would you even do that . . .?
The answer, it turns out, is "worldbuilding!" I'm not going to provide you all the details of how Diana Peterfreund gets to something that approximates Regency class structure in such a way as to highlight the themes of Persuasion, because that's a lot of info-dumping and also I still don't know how I feel about some of it, but there were a couple things she did that I really liked:
- RESPONSIBILITY. You know how, in theory, estate ownership is supposed to be a model in which the owners earn their privilege by taking personal responsibility for the well-being of everyone on their estate? Of course our Anne Elliot equivalent (here called Elliot North) believes this, deeply, and acts in accordance with it. And then the model is problematized and called out by other people within the text, because obviously it's a problematic and paternalistic model -- but Elliot is a good person and a responsible person, and in her terms and her cultural worldview, this is what being a good person and a responsible person means. Peterfreund knows this doesn't really justify Elliot's privilege. But Elliot doesn't know that, because this is her culture. (In case this isn't clear: I really, really like Elliot.)
- SOCIAL CHANGE. The culture that Peterfreund sets up is a culture in flux, as all cultures are, eventually, in flux. And the protagonists are involved in that to a certain extent, but it's not like anybody's LEADING THE REVOLUTION here. They're pretty much just doing what they do, and dealing with their own problems, and their worldview shifts, and coping with how these changes affect them. And that's something I always want more of in science fiction -- cultures that aren't static, and the stories that happen within the context of that cultural change.
I mean, there were also some things I liked less -- someone remind me, was Wentworth such a dick to Anne in the early parts of Persuasion? Because Kai, the Wentworth-equivalent, is SUCH A DICK to Elliot in the early parts of this book -- and the ending is very have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too in a way that emotionally I'm fine with but intellectually I am a little dubious about given the rest of the themes of the book.
But overall I really, really liked it. Am I in for the sequel, which is reportedly based on a gender-swapped Scarlet Pimpernel? I'M SO IN!
It also means that I actually have time to write up a book!
I knew about For Darkness Shows the Stars as "post-apocalyptic Persuasion," which made me super intrigued but also kind of wary. I mean, Persuasion is very much not an adventure story, and very much is a book about Regency social class, and how would you even do that . . .?
The answer, it turns out, is "worldbuilding!" I'm not going to provide you all the details of how Diana Peterfreund gets to something that approximates Regency class structure in such a way as to highlight the themes of Persuasion, because that's a lot of info-dumping and also I still don't know how I feel about some of it, but there were a couple things she did that I really liked:
- RESPONSIBILITY. You know how, in theory, estate ownership is supposed to be a model in which the owners earn their privilege by taking personal responsibility for the well-being of everyone on their estate? Of course our Anne Elliot equivalent (here called Elliot North) believes this, deeply, and acts in accordance with it. And then the model is problematized and called out by other people within the text, because obviously it's a problematic and paternalistic model -- but Elliot is a good person and a responsible person, and in her terms and her cultural worldview, this is what being a good person and a responsible person means. Peterfreund knows this doesn't really justify Elliot's privilege. But Elliot doesn't know that, because this is her culture. (In case this isn't clear: I really, really like Elliot.)
- SOCIAL CHANGE. The culture that Peterfreund sets up is a culture in flux, as all cultures are, eventually, in flux. And the protagonists are involved in that to a certain extent, but it's not like anybody's LEADING THE REVOLUTION here. They're pretty much just doing what they do, and dealing with their own problems, and their worldview shifts, and coping with how these changes affect them. And that's something I always want more of in science fiction -- cultures that aren't static, and the stories that happen within the context of that cultural change.
I mean, there were also some things I liked less -- someone remind me, was Wentworth such a dick to Anne in the early parts of Persuasion? Because Kai, the Wentworth-equivalent, is SUCH A DICK to Elliot in the early parts of this book -- and the ending is very have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too in a way that emotionally I'm fine with but intellectually I am a little dubious about given the rest of the themes of the book.
But overall I really, really liked it. Am I in for the sequel, which is reportedly based on a gender-swapped Scarlet Pimpernel? I'M SO IN!
