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Blah, blah, LIFE
Jan. 7th, 2009 11:09 pmSO, life is going reasonably swimmingly. I have a part-time job at liquorland which is HORRIBLE but helping me with these little things called "solvency issues", so that's nice. I'm knuckling down a bit on my research essay (which is important because it needs to be mostly done in like, three weeks, and it's supposed to be ten thousand words long, so... um.) Unfortunately I'm trying to study texts that hardly anyone has written anything about, from an era that is not super-popular, and so most of the crit I've found has been either very straightforward and not very useful, or possibly useful but extraordinarily non-straightforward. Here is an example of me encountering rage, since I know that my anecdotes about That Time An Academic Made Me Furious are sooo compelling to y'all.
ME: *reads Peter Hunt's book on Arthur Ransome/S&A*
PETER HUNT: So, like, the Walkers are super mature and fleshed out, but the Amazons are like, totally not fleshed out. Also they're sooo immature, and Nancy is a monomaniac who can't give up childhood things. Look how she behaves in Secret Water, when John is being all grown up and mapmaking! And remember that discussion which goes like:
See how Nancy is so immature in that sequence? LULZ, the amazons suck!
ME: ARGH. Okay, first off, I think wandering around mapping and conquering a territory called Secret Water and labelling it with all kinds of fanciful things is only marginally more mature than playing pirates, and I think you're reflecting a masculinist bias in that assumption (although I do think the mapmaking urge is interesting in the context of the books' relationship with C19th British Imperialism and associated urge to taxonomise nature and the land.)
STILL ME: BUT SECONDLY, all your assholishness about how Nancy sucks (SHE DOES NOT)? Didn't you notice yourself ANSWERING THAT QUESTION in the scene you quoted? The reason John appears more mature in that scene is because he is looking forward to his future - to his career, which will allow him to continue in his independence and retain aspects of his own fantasy/leisure life (sailing/seamanship.) Nancy, on the other hand, has read Little Women: she knows perfectly well that for her, leaving the island will entail, not a fulfilling life in a career she enjoys, but marriage and motherhood. Now, Nancy is actually wrong about this, because in nine years' time WWII will come along and shake everything up - but the point is here that this isn't a sign of Nancy being an underdeveloped or childish character, or rather it's not a sign that John is more mature than Nancy - it's just a sign that John has better options than Nancy.
PETER HUNT: *can't answer, because he is a book.*
NOTE: THIS MAY BE A SOMEWHAT BIASED REPRESENTATION OF WHAT PETER HUNT WRITES IN HIS BOOK "APPROACHING ARTHUR RANSOME" BUT SERIOUSLY.
This writer has, seemingly without irony, written approvingly of Swallowdale that it is preoccupied with the code of practical things, praising John's obsession with raising the Swallow and his father; in the very next paragraph, he writes that Susan's monomania (he loves to use this word to describe girls, apparently) grows WEARYING when she worries about the others; he adds that it is authorially endorsed, claiming that Ransome's passage about how valuable Susan is to the expedition is a result of Ransome writing for adults, not for children. AND THEN IN THE NEXT CHAPTER HE CALLS RANSOME SEXIST BECAUSE HE MAKES SUSAN AND NANCY PRONE TO SEASICKNESS. Dude! A little introspection! You call Susan boring and claim that praise of Susan's practical talents is authorial insertion, while praise of John's practical talents is a good part of The Code, and then you call RANSOME a sexist. UGH.
ME: *reads Peter Hunt's book on Arthur Ransome/S&A*
PETER HUNT: So, like, the Walkers are super mature and fleshed out, but the Amazons are like, totally not fleshed out. Also they're sooo immature, and Nancy is a monomaniac who can't give up childhood things. Look how she behaves in Secret Water, when John is being all grown up and mapmaking! And remember that discussion which goes like:
NANCY: We'll stay on Wildcat Island forever and ever!
JOHN: Hahah, nope, me and Roger are going to join the Navy and perpetuate violence and the patriarchy and absent fatherhood, awesome eh? Also, we're totally going to die in WWII, but I don't know that yet.
See how Nancy is so immature in that sequence? LULZ, the amazons suck!
ME: ARGH. Okay, first off, I think wandering around mapping and conquering a territory called Secret Water and labelling it with all kinds of fanciful things is only marginally more mature than playing pirates, and I think you're reflecting a masculinist bias in that assumption (although I do think the mapmaking urge is interesting in the context of the books' relationship with C19th British Imperialism and associated urge to taxonomise nature and the land.)
STILL ME: BUT SECONDLY, all your assholishness about how Nancy sucks (SHE DOES NOT)? Didn't you notice yourself ANSWERING THAT QUESTION in the scene you quoted? The reason John appears more mature in that scene is because he is looking forward to his future - to his career, which will allow him to continue in his independence and retain aspects of his own fantasy/leisure life (sailing/seamanship.) Nancy, on the other hand, has read Little Women: she knows perfectly well that for her, leaving the island will entail, not a fulfilling life in a career she enjoys, but marriage and motherhood. Now, Nancy is actually wrong about this, because in nine years' time WWII will come along and shake everything up - but the point is here that this isn't a sign of Nancy being an underdeveloped or childish character, or rather it's not a sign that John is more mature than Nancy - it's just a sign that John has better options than Nancy.
PETER HUNT: *can't answer, because he is a book.*
NOTE: THIS MAY BE A SOMEWHAT BIASED REPRESENTATION OF WHAT PETER HUNT WRITES IN HIS BOOK "APPROACHING ARTHUR RANSOME" BUT SERIOUSLY.
This writer has, seemingly without irony, written approvingly of Swallowdale that it is preoccupied with the code of practical things, praising John's obsession with raising the Swallow and his father; in the very next paragraph, he writes that Susan's monomania (he loves to use this word to describe girls, apparently) grows WEARYING when she worries about the others; he adds that it is authorially endorsed, claiming that Ransome's passage about how valuable Susan is to the expedition is a result of Ransome writing for adults, not for children. AND THEN IN THE NEXT CHAPTER HE CALLS RANSOME SEXIST BECAUSE HE MAKES SUSAN AND NANCY PRONE TO SEASICKNESS. Dude! A little introspection! You call Susan boring and claim that praise of Susan's practical talents is authorial insertion, while praise of John's practical talents is a good part of The Code, and then you call RANSOME a sexist. UGH.
