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

[rthstewart]

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.

Comments

[the_rck]

Hurray! This really brightened my morning.

I like Mrs. Pevensie a lot.

Thanks for writing!

[be-themoon.livejournal.com]

<333 I'm so sorry people have been being nasty about your writing, that's very rude of them (and it sounds like they have utterly ridiculous grounds to be annoyed on, too). I know I'm awful about reading and reviewing your stuff, but what I have read of it is really well done. It's also mature, and if they can't handle that - too bad for them. They're the ones losing out.

Also, the amount of research you do never fails to amaze me and make me want to applaud a lot.

[autumnia]

From my inbox:

Chapter 7 Title: Chapter 7 The Queen Susan in Liverpool
Words: 11,082

What happened to this being approximately 7,000 words? :-) Not that I'm ungrateful, mind you... far from it!

And oh, my love for Mrs Pevensie grew with this chapter. I may even forgive her for revealing the truth to Tebbitt.

So sorry to hear you've had a rough week, rth. I hope the many wonderful reviews there are (and will be) will help cheer you up!

[katharhino.livejournal.com]

I really liked this line: Had this variety always been in England and he had never noticed it before? The Pevensies tend to focus on the negatives of being adults in children's bodies, understandably. But there are definite positives. I mean, it occurred to me today while reading that I'd actually like the chance to relive my college days Now With 85% Less Stupidity.

My favorite parts of your stories are interactions between the Pevensies, too, and this chapter was ALL that, almost, so yay. From the hilarious and believable bickering, to the touching moments with Mrs. Pevensie (new, obviously, to this story but still counts as an inter-Pevensie conversation). I also liked Peter's reflecting back on how much he is and isn't revealing. One of the things I thought was a slight plot hole... or, not really hole but thin place, reading almost all of TSG in one sitting, was that they aren't more careful about appearing so adult. But I suppose they can't help it. Anyway, considering that secrecy and spying is a theme, I thought it appropriate that Peter would think about that.

My apologies for nearly disappearing after my last conversation with you... my semester of teaching started and then a number of things happened in my personal offline life, one after the other!

Can't wait for the next chapter and more Susan conversations. She's becoming one of my favorites.

[cofax7]

I enjoyed that, and I'm intrigued by your handling of Mrs. Pevensie, because fandom tends to just ignore parents, so this is a promising and creative change.

Baby John Lennon! Cute!

[min023.livejournal.com]

I think that I've observed previously that I don't have quite the same 'racial' take that you do, probably due to our different cultural contexts. So I didn't really feel like duck boots had been applied at all. Yes, I suppose that you could argue that there was racial stereotyping or slurring going on, but really? This is a period piece, it was all in context, and we all know just how much research you put in to make your writing contextually accurate. To be honest, I didn't really register that there could be a problem until I read your AN and LJs. Maybe that means that I'm blindly oblivious (and yes, sometimes I am), but what that really says to me is that there was nothing there so contextually jarring as to throw me out of the story.

Initially, I was like... What? Why wouldn't Kwong Lee know Peter? But then it clicked that they hadn't met, that Peter had never been to the Russell house, so that was well played. Be interesting to see whether any of the Russell Hall denizens have any new insights on the Pevensies to share with Asim.

I missed the beatle allusion at first, but now it's explained, that's very cute.

Syrena lets her inner novelist write comments

[(Anonymous)]

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...