rthstewart | Chapter 7, the Queen Susan in Liverpool (and Finchley)

So, Chapter 7 is up. It's been a really rotten week, with Friday most definitely of the not fun variety for me especially. So, here's a bit of very, very long distraction. I have gone back and forth on whether to include the first of four encounters Susan has in Finchley. I decided that as the chapter is entitled Queen Susan, I should just ignore the fact that the chapter clocks in at 11,000 words and include the first one so you actually have some Susan rather than just Peter. The next one is very nearly done though based upon a review of my prior journal entries tagged "Going There" which I undertook in light of some recent yukiness, I'm going to expand it a bit. (Hopefully without polemic, but I'm in an expansive mood at the moment).

In any event, moving on, as you can see, I waded deep into racial territory and my thanks to those who aided in the research including Clio and

autumnia .

snacky had the excellent suggestion of contacting a Liverpool library, and I shall do that when I get deeper into the story. For now, sources include:

The Lascars -- sailors from the Indian subcontinent who sailed on European ships
Including, History of the Lascars
The Merchant Seaman's War -- Sons of Empire 28,000 Merchant seaman died during World War 2. The book notes that Europeans were “capable only of seeing Indians, Chinese, Africans and Arabs through the bizarre lens of racial cliché.”

The Chinese community of Liverpool comes from this site among others. There is a lot more to go there and I'm still looking for this book and will probably have to order it from the UK.

As for Liverpool generally, I spent time at the city's Museum websites and various other sites about the Durning Road disaster including here and here and here

Here are some fabulous pictures of Liverpool bicyclists, including members of the Home Guard mentioned in the story.

Last, you may blame

anastigmatfic and

snacky for the insertion of a 2 year old John Lennon into the story whose absent father was, in fact, a Merchant Marine. Really.

I've tried really, really hard to get these racial issues right, early on, because I'm going somewhere with it. I'm very cognizant of race fail in fandom. If you think I've gotten it wrong, please speak up, and we'll see what might be done.

In the next chapter, I'll go into the Caxton Hall rally and the issues of continuing apathy regarding awareness of the plight of Jews in occupied Europe. My source is British Jewry and the Holocaust. And huge thanks to

autumnia for the assistance there.

Also, again, a big thanks to the anonymous and unsigned reviewers. I really appreciate you weighing in. Thanks to everyone. The story broke 200 reviews this week and I'm very grateful.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

First, congratulations on another fabulous chapter! I'm afraid my comment will soon approach whatever word limit LJ imposes, but hopefully you'll bear with me and read the whole thing :-)

To start off, as someone who currently teaches small children, your first quote had me in stitches for a solid five minutes! Where do you find these quotes? They are always so appropriate, so fitted to your work as if you wrote them yourself.

A quick few nods to details in the actual chapter that I can't resist commenting upon:

"monochromatic pale skin and gray sky" is sheer brilliance. I have spent the past 3 years living in Spain--an occidental country which is not so drastically different from home, but every time I do go back to the US, for the first few days all I can see is round, doughy faces, bleach blonde hair (as if I weren't blonde myself), impossibly light eyes, and a very Midwestern sameness. It has occured to me before that part of what you write about is essentially culture shock, but not the culture shock of visiting Tashbaan for the first time, which is expected. It's foreign, it will be different. Anyone with half a brain in their heads should anticipate that. No, this is the traitorous sting of going home and finding that it no longer fits. That you no longer fit. That even the colors are not what you remembered, that it is somehow smaller, somehow less, somehow vaguely alien to what you have become Elsewhere. They call it 'reverse culture shock'. Discovering that what should have been home, what should fit like a glove, now pulls uncomfortably at your skin. That the face in the mirror gazes back with eyes that don't fit your own mental reflection. If the Pevensies (as one reviewer pointed out) don't make as much as an effort to act like the children they once were, perhaps it is not from stubbornness or obliviousness but from a different kind of forgetfulness: those old days of being just English schoolchildren are so far off that it's hard even to remember what they were back then and how they acted. Dissimulating works to some extent, but trying to be those children again would almost be a betrayal of everything they have lived in the meantime. And mere acting would seem stilted; they have grown up, and what adult really understands children? (Well, maybe Lucy, because she's just awesome like that!) I could go on, but will finally exercise some restraint!

On a related note, your Mrs. Pevensie (I also like the nod to Helen, but think it will work perfectly well with her surname... at least until Mr. Pevensie comes home!) is wonderful. The sorrowful acceptance of unexplainedly (is that a word? I think I'm losing my English) missing a large part of her children's lives, and feeling the need to ask permission to be let back in... the whole conversation was perfect.

And speaking of perfection, the beauty spell! You've given it so much more depth by relating it to the Lone Islands incident. Actually, the insight that touched me more wasn't regarding the slavers but rather what Susan said about Lucy being a woman, in Narnia, but regarded only as a girl. The context with the slavers is more practical, a more solid reason, perhaps. But the one that would affect me more if I were in their shoes would be the one that had been building up inside Lucy (and, really, both Queens) ever since their return: a woman stuffed in a girl's body. They've dealt with it remarkably well, but who could blame poor Lucy for feeling helplessly frustrated upon returning to her own land where she is Queen, but *still* only a little girl? She's coped with that in England, but that must burn more than ever back in Narnia.

And my comment is indeed too long to post. Splitting in half...

One of the things I love most about your stories is that, like with the beauty spell, they help me understand and appreciate the books better. (Not to mention the historical period--I am always overwhelmed by your research and wish I had that same dedication regarding my own projects!) I was particularly struck by your comment about writing Pevensies you would be proud to have your children emulate. It made me realize one of the reasons I love your Pevensies so much: each one, or parts of each all cobbled together, are the kind of person I want to be. Your heroes are real people, with flaws, but very Good with a capital G, and I deeply admire them. And you for being perceptive and insightful enough to write them!

I think I've come to the end of my ramblings, but have one last comment that I've hesitated to make for some time but feel the need to throw out there. The one thing that bothers me when I read your posts is your reaction when some narrowminded or callow individual comes along and disparages your work or your vision. I fully understand the desire to please readers-but I hope your inner Pevensies can vanquish that particular monster (maybe Eustace could whack at it with a certain second best sword). I don't like the idea of you trying to tailor your wondrous world to someone else's idea of what's right and proper. Whether that involves Edmund, Morgan, and honey or simply word count and more or less dialogue, I want to read *your* story, the way *you* conceived it. Feedback is all well and good, as is constructive (emphasis on the constructive!) criticism. But I hope you can find the balance of accepting the constructive bits while discarding what does not fit. You do not have to be a wardrobe holding all of your readers' expectations inside like Susan's selves! We are the ones entering your story, if I may be permitted to mangle the metaphor, and the choice is ours to embrace it or not, in all its different glory--which, after all, is what the Pevensies did in Narnia and are now relearning to do in England!

Thanks for bearing with me, and as always thank you for the pleasure of reading.
~Syrena

But I hope you can find the balance of accepting the constructive bits while discarding what does not fit.

Thank you for your thoughts and there's no reason to hesitate in sharing ideas. I've been taken to task over this from others and for some time. It's a thing and it's tiresome. I am a very poor judge of what readers will like -- this recent chapter showcased that again, actually.

Thanks you again! and thanks so much for reading and commenting!

Welcome back and thank you! The whole first 2/3 of this chapter were done for a while and I cut and edited and massaged and thought, you know, people really aren't going to be that interested in this. Song_smith has just been beating me over the head about this, but there it is. Regardless. the reverse culture shock is exactly what is going on. Ultimately, it is not the Pevensies who will change, but that England will change around them. It will become the place it is today where chicken tikka masala is the favorite dish. The Empire Windrush will arrive in a few short years, the immigration and citizenship laws change and unlike the US, England never prohibited inter-racial marriage. Yes, there is prejudice there, and that colonial past is so wrong for so many reasons. But, there is also this amazing, wonderful side and the Pevensies are discovering that you do not have to go to or be Narnian to experience this.

As I'm working through Peter and Susan's discussions, the issue of beauty as a woman's weapon is coming up again -- in follow up to some of Susan's experiences in Washington. I had not thought of Lucy's dilemma in the way you pose it and it's very thoughtful and I thank you for it.

Chapter 7, the Queen Susan in Liverpool (and Finchley)

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