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Jul. 19th, 2020 08:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsWhat happens when you read all the Mennyms books, apparently, is your friends start recommending you other extremely weird late-twentieth-century doll books, which is how I ended up with Amy's Eyes.
Amy's Eyes is a book about a ten-year-old girl in an orphanage who manages to bring her favorite sailor doll to life by reading to him a lot and then stabbing him in the head with a needle. Since both Amy and doll were made by Amy's father, they declare themselves brother and sister. So far, so good, I suppose, for a doll book.
The sailor doll then grows to full-size human status and sets off to be a sea captain, promising to return for Amy in a month. Unfortunately, the captain is delayed, and his letters are stolen by an evil orphanage admin, so Amy believes him dead ....
... upon which she, herself, begins to transform into a doll! from grief!
Not like a living, walking, talking doll. Just a sad little doll with button eyes. The orphan admins put her in a breadbox. Eventually the Captain does return for her; however, he decides it's better to wait to bring her back to full human status, for the following reasons:
a.) the Victorian authorities may be suspicious of a full-grown sea captain carrying off a small girl
b.) sailors are superstitious and don't want to sail with a woman on board, so it's better to spring a small girl who used to be a doll on them in the middle of the voyage than introduce her to them at the very beginning
c.) the Captain is sailing for treasure related to a shipwreck, and he thinks it will be helpful in hunting the treasure if they can snip Amy's button eyes off, bring her just enough to life that she can talk, have her identify the location of the treasure, and tell them where it is before sewing the eyes back on and completing her transformation to human form
This I think will give you something of a sense of the logic of the book.
(It's important to note that the Captain is the hero and loves Amy very much, and the book treats this eye-snipping plan as reasonable albeit misguided.)
Other highly sinister plot elements include:
- the Bad Sister, a sinister woman who has blackmailed the Captain onto letting her onboard the ship for a share of the treasure, resulting in the entire crew quitting and having to be replaced with formerly-stuffed animals; the source of various romantic misunderstandings involving a.) the Captain b.) the First Mate c.) the frog who acts as her scullery assistant
- Davy Duck, a rubber duck born with the spirit of mutiny in his heart, who is embarked on various evil doings including secretly guiding pirates to the ship, starting a bibliomantic cult centered on Mother Goose, and also sewing himself his own private duck army below decks
- Skivvy, a pair of long underwear that the Captain brought to life by reading it the entire Bible and then stabbing it with a needle; a nervous, religious entity, deeply concerned about the state of his soul, whose seduction by the Book of Revelations and the sinister allure of misapplied mathematics ("her name is Numerology, and she is a wanton. She goes her way by magic and divination and casts herself about promiscuously") may bring the ship and everyone aboard to its doom
All of these things eventually come to a head! Most of them do not turn out well! Miscommunications, mistaken identities, and apocalyptic prophecies abound! Amy spends a really distressing amount of time eyeless in a breadbox! It's an .... extraordinarily unique experience. I think the moral of the story -- if a moral indeed exists -- is to avoid obsession, and also numerology, and also be careful with your sister's eyes, if you happen to have the opportunity to remove them. But also, honestly, who knows. I livetweeted it here if anybody wants to follow along with the Twists and Turns, but also, boy, if you like weird kid's books, and are okay with a fairly high level of doll,pirate, and formerly-stuffed-animal body horror, it may be worth diving in without, uh, further preconceptions?
(For those concerned: Amy does eventually get her eyes back and spends the last several pages enthusiastically writing rather bloodthirsty poetry about the entire adventure. So that at least is all right.)
In a final note, the friend who told me about the book would I think appreciate it if I mentioned that Richard Kennedy, the author, has a Wikipedia page that focuses almost entirely on his role as a leading Oxfordian.
Amy's Eyes is a book about a ten-year-old girl in an orphanage who manages to bring her favorite sailor doll to life by reading to him a lot and then stabbing him in the head with a needle. Since both Amy and doll were made by Amy's father, they declare themselves brother and sister. So far, so good, I suppose, for a doll book.
The sailor doll then grows to full-size human status and sets off to be a sea captain, promising to return for Amy in a month. Unfortunately, the captain is delayed, and his letters are stolen by an evil orphanage admin, so Amy believes him dead ....
... upon which she, herself, begins to transform into a doll! from grief!
Not like a living, walking, talking doll. Just a sad little doll with button eyes. The orphan admins put her in a breadbox. Eventually the Captain does return for her; however, he decides it's better to wait to bring her back to full human status, for the following reasons:
a.) the Victorian authorities may be suspicious of a full-grown sea captain carrying off a small girl
b.) sailors are superstitious and don't want to sail with a woman on board, so it's better to spring a small girl who used to be a doll on them in the middle of the voyage than introduce her to them at the very beginning
c.) the Captain is sailing for treasure related to a shipwreck, and he thinks it will be helpful in hunting the treasure if they can snip Amy's button eyes off, bring her just enough to life that she can talk, have her identify the location of the treasure, and tell them where it is before sewing the eyes back on and completing her transformation to human form
This I think will give you something of a sense of the logic of the book.
(It's important to note that the Captain is the hero and loves Amy very much, and the book treats this eye-snipping plan as reasonable albeit misguided.)
Other highly sinister plot elements include:
- the Bad Sister, a sinister woman who has blackmailed the Captain onto letting her onboard the ship for a share of the treasure, resulting in the entire crew quitting and having to be replaced with formerly-stuffed animals; the source of various romantic misunderstandings involving a.) the Captain b.) the First Mate c.) the frog who acts as her scullery assistant
- Davy Duck, a rubber duck born with the spirit of mutiny in his heart, who is embarked on various evil doings including secretly guiding pirates to the ship, starting a bibliomantic cult centered on Mother Goose, and also sewing himself his own private duck army below decks
- Skivvy, a pair of long underwear that the Captain brought to life by reading it the entire Bible and then stabbing it with a needle; a nervous, religious entity, deeply concerned about the state of his soul, whose seduction by the Book of Revelations and the sinister allure of misapplied mathematics ("her name is Numerology, and she is a wanton. She goes her way by magic and divination and casts herself about promiscuously") may bring the ship and everyone aboard to its doom
All of these things eventually come to a head! Most of them do not turn out well! Miscommunications, mistaken identities, and apocalyptic prophecies abound! Amy spends a really distressing amount of time eyeless in a breadbox! It's an .... extraordinarily unique experience. I think the moral of the story -- if a moral indeed exists -- is to avoid obsession, and also numerology, and also be careful with your sister's eyes, if you happen to have the opportunity to remove them. But also, honestly, who knows. I livetweeted it here if anybody wants to follow along with the Twists and Turns, but also, boy, if you like weird kid's books, and are okay with a fairly high level of doll,pirate, and formerly-stuffed-animal body horror, it may be worth diving in without, uh, further preconceptions?
(For those concerned: Amy does eventually get her eyes back and spends the last several pages enthusiastically writing rather bloodthirsty poetry about the entire adventure. So that at least is all right.)
In a final note, the friend who told me about the book would I think appreciate it if I mentioned that Richard Kennedy, the author, has a Wikipedia page that focuses almost entirely on his role as a leading Oxfordian.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-19 01:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-21 12:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-19 01:17 pm (UTC)However, the stuffed duck pirate illustrations that you posted to twitter were in fact adorable.
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Date: 2020-07-21 12:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-19 01:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-21 12:54 pm (UTC)I mean the thing is that the prose really is quite good! It certainly exerts its own fascination! Nonetheless, were I an editor, I think I probably would have wanted to have a friendly conversation with Richard Kennedy about several factors, including the slutty numerology!
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Date: 2020-07-19 02:16 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2020-07-21 12:55 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2020-07-21 12:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-19 03:53 pm (UTC)… religious long underwear?
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Date: 2020-07-21 12:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-21 07:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-19 06:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-21 12:57 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2020-07-20 03:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-20 11:26 am (UTC)But how can he... this entire book is about how people who look for secret hidden messages in fiction are silly, and deriving random number codes to tell you what to do in life is worse. I straight-up thought it was a parody on Oxfordian theorists up to now!
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Date: 2020-07-20 04:14 pm (UTC)I thought the author was working out issues due to having been tortured by an older sister (or perhaps worse--a younger sister) while being raised by an evil nanny in an upper class household with uncaring parents and who was then further messed up by public school and/or boarding school.
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Date: 2020-07-21 01:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-21 01:03 pm (UTC)That... actually sounds like a pretty straightforward parody based on how Oxfordians perceive Baconians, though.
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Date: 2020-07-20 02:42 pm (UTC)I can only conclude the publishing industry was a very different place.
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Date: 2020-07-21 01:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-21 07:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-20 07:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-21 01:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-21 01:16 am (UTC)That said, I really liked the feel that was evoked by this book. I didn't read many sailing books as a kid and this set a lot of sea and salt associations for me.
As soon as ducks were mentioned I remembered the ducks. Oh my god. The eye thing didn't bother me as a child, and nor did stuffed animal gore though it was sad, but I worried about those ducks.
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Date: 2020-07-21 01:02 pm (UTC)As it turns out, you were right to be concerned about the ducks. :(
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Date: 2020-07-21 02:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-21 01:03 pm (UTC)I do really like both the cover of my copy and the illustrations therein.
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Date: 2020-07-21 04:55 am (UTC)I am legitimately surprised I did not read this book as a child, just because it had a ship in it, but I am confident I would remember a gematriya-obsessed pair of long johns.
(How does stabbing an object in the head with a needle grant it sentience? Am we not supposed to ask these questions? Put the plastic figure in the cupboard, turn the key?)
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Date: 2020-07-21 01:05 pm (UTC)(All we know is that all the other kids in the orphanage start talking to their dolls to try and wake them up once they see Amy's success, but the Captain is very confident that none of them will succeed because none of them know the secret of stabbing a needle in the head.)
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Date: 2020-07-21 07:13 pm (UTC)Skivvy was my favorite. Even as a small child, my heart went out to the nerdy longjohn scarecrow with severe anxiety issues.
Obligatory meme:
"I have created Life!"
"You fucked up a perfectly good set of pajamas, is what you did. Look at them, they've got anxiety."
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Date: 2020-07-21 11:56 am (UTC)Richard Kennedy, BEGONE!!!
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Date: 2020-07-21 01:06 pm (UTC)(Every child SHOULD be terrified by at least one book. It's mind-expanding!)
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Date: 2020-07-23 07:51 pm (UTC)SO many questions.
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Date: 2020-07-30 03:19 am (UTC)