rthstewart | Egads, she posted

He also wrote a brilliant set of books which I believe were autobiographical the first of which is called "My Family and Other Animals". My dad's got a copy in his study. If you can't get a copy and want one I'll type it out into a .doc for you.

IIRC, he also had a TV show for a couple of years on the BBC.

Will review when I have a free half hour. Am currently visiting family and will be visited by at least 1 small child tomorrow. Wish me luck!

My Family and Other Animals is one of my favorite books of all time. I have it here and have tried, with little success so far, to get my children interested in it. The madcap quality to it is brilliant. I love it.

SO EXCITED OMG. I am actually currently in the middle of a reread of the series since I have TSG and TQSIT on my e-reader and so maybe I will wait to read this chapter till I've caught up. But probably not. And there is other fic that I still haven't read that the alerts for keep staring at me in my inbox. I actually utterly fail at reading lately tbqh. But now this chapter is a thing that exists and that makes me excited!!

Thanks! That's so nice of you. I sorta figure it's been so long, no one cares. And I'm all flailing about the Big Bang -- how to work it into AW -- or just do something else. This chapter was really scary because forever and ever this was supposed to happen so much later and... stopping now. Too much navel gazing. I had to deal with Silver Chair and bring all the players together if only to split them up again. It is fun to pull in elements that have been in there for SO LONG. In the next chapter, I get to add in a bunch of things from the AU playing around, including the camels and the Duns Scotus books in the bottom of the Amazon.

Read, reviewed and very much enjoyed the chapter. It's an interesting look at Jill, to see the diversity in Russell House through her eyes and also when she talked about her own background.

I finally got around to watching "Mixed Britannia", that BBC series I linked a preview to for you a while back. I think you'd be fascinated by it. The first episode (the only one I've watched so far) discussed mixed race relationships in the UK from WWI up to start of the second War. There were interviews with adults who had grown up as part of a mixed race family -- British women marrying Arabs, Chinese marines, and West Indians, along with others from other far flung parts of the Empire. (You can catch interviews and some clips/episodes from the series on Youtube if you're interested.)

I should definitely follow up on that. There was a whole part that was supposed to follow, actually, in which Jill spends time with Kun in the garden and then goes and helps Lee cook. It was to end with the observation that Richard seemed to like Jill quite well, and then Kun pulls out the photo album that's behind a plaster block in the library and shows Jill pictures of Richard's family in Kenya, who he will never see again. Jill reminds him very much of his daughters/granddaughters. Further, there's the fact that Ruby will be there, too. It all just got too long.

It was also interesting to write Jill as observant, the first time I had a point of view character who I could characterize in that way. The others wouldn't notice things like the pots and the height of the Lady of the Green Kirtle, but Jill does. They've either seen it all before so it isn't new, or they just don't notice things that way. The ideas of her mother being so fashionable provides another lens -- her mother is from money and unlike most women who have appeared in the story, she's very conscious of her appearance. Appearance was very important to women and they really worked to maintain it to "keep up morale." It really puts a different spin on Susan's lipstick and nylons.

I thought it read as a huge info dump for Jill, but it did move things forward. I had to address Silver Chair. I had to develop Jill who is probably the least written of any canon character. I had to rebuild the story as this was the first HUGE departure from the original outline, parts of which I'd already written. They were always going to Russell House but it was in 1946, after the war, and the school was close (but there are no moors in Oxford, so I had to change that). The nurse (who was not Ruby) comes in at breakfast saying there's been quite the to do at the school, with a lion and all. Edmund and Lucy hare off to the school realizing what happened and Asim drives them and Mary is, again, in the dark. They don't let Peter go because he would go all Royal We so he rattles around the house and he makes a nuisance of himself and breaks things until Patel drags him off to go carry compost.

Errr, stopping now.

I had to develop Jill who is probably the least written of any canon character.

Hmm, not sure I'd agree on that point. I suspect Susan might actually be the least-written canon character: the bulk of TSC is from Jill's pov, whereas you only get Susan pov periodically through the first two books, and then never again. Just a thought...

Even when I posted that comment about Jill, I realized, oh, I'm not real clear about this, am I? I had meant that I have seen very little written in fan fic with Jill as a point of view character, or in fact, in stories much at all. She's pretty much in the same category with Frank and Helen and Digory but we have canon backstory on all of them. We have no canon backstory on Jill at all. She's very much an unknown. One of the reasons for my dithering had been what to do with Jill and I credit

anastigmatfic with giving me a path forward in our AU Everybody Lives, Nobody Dies comment fics.

Here's the Youtube link for the show, though I think it's only one of the episodes that's been uploaded. George Alagiah, the narrator/host of the series (who usually presents the 12pm news on the BBC) has a mixed race family as well, so it's really, really fascinating. I think there's been about 3 episodes in the series; I can email you links to them all if you want them.

And I'm really, really looking forward to seeing Jill meet the Pevensies.

Thanks so much! I'm still wallowing through things, but this is definitely something I want to develop. Jill is such a blank slate in this regard. I'd originally thought of bringing Susan to Russell House as well as Peter (just as I was thinking of having Ruby there) and at some point there are just too many characters to manipulate. It's hard to write and manage and it's much, much easier when writing only 2 or 3 -- four becomes very unwieldy. So, I think again, I'm back to not using Lucy or Edmund. But they are in school and until they get out of school there isn't a lot I can do with them. This is part of what is driving me crazy about this part of the story -- there's not much story to tell of Lucy and Edmund until they are a bit older -- especially Edmund.

OK, stopping now. Again. Thanks so much for the links!

Also, in your review, you mentioned how Russell House was reminiscent of the staff of Cair Paravel. Yep. Back when I was hacking away at both BRD and TSG Part 1, the ideas of a merging of the two started there. Narnia is here, and Narnia is very present in Russell House. This was a place that I wanted to be really magical. Doing the story in this way has meant I lost a lot of that WOW factor in the Pevensies' arrival there. I've had to build it in other ways. It's an incredibly important locale in significant part because of the remarkable people who live there.

Edited 2011-10-31 21:51 (UTC)

Yay! A return to Apostolic Way! And Jill! I've always been very fond of Jill, and your take on her adds so much more to work with. I didn't realize until they were on their way back to Russell House how great of an opportunity Jill's background is to provide a new way of looking at the Russell Household.

I love the "keep up morale" aspect of appearance, and the possible implications for Susan. There is so much more to appearance and attractiveness than the way it's often presented as either "ignore it and try to downplay it" or "be objectified and/or invite objectification" (for women, anyway- the politics of men's appearance is quite different but also under-examined, I think).

I think this worked very well and was not just a huge info dump. We learned a lot about Jill throughout, and also Eustace and Polly. It's interesting to see Eustace as the experienced one, and the beginnings of the very competent if still occasionally dragonish adult he could have become (I do want to get back to that AU...) If I have any criticism, it's that for someone who doesn't already know of your Jill's ethnic background, it's all rather mysterious until quite far into the chapter. I can't decide if it's mysterious-interesting or mysterious-confusing because I know already.

I do love Eustace's challenging attitude towards Polly (and everyone) over it, and his assertion that if they're all really Narnian than it won't matter at all. Absolutely perfect!

Thanks so much and it's lovely to hear from you! Hope all is going well!

I really should have added some links to the importance of maintaining your beauty to keep up morale that I found. That was something that came up as I was working through Jill and the bundle of traits I wanted to develop. She is such a blank canvas. We know nothing about her background at all. It's funny. On FF.net I'm getting some reviews such as, "wait, the book must described Jill! You are going contrary to the book" and there is no description of Jill at all or her family.

I want you to get back to that AU too.

I'll think about the mysterious or confusing part. Some readers have mentioned not quite getting it, or wondering why Polly suddenly understands Eustace's protectiveness and then see later what I meant. I come at it several ways in the chapter itself, on the assumption that not everyone knew where I was going. The chapter has to stand on its own. I just didn't want to Polly to say, "Oh look, an African girl!" it would be clearer if I did.

I had a lot of problems defining Jill. I had been planning all along to link her with Kwong Lee and Lin Kun over cooking, culture, and gardening, and then with the AU, thought of pushing her doctoring -- which made adding Richard to the mix a nice thing, especially since from his viewpoint, her mixed race is very much like his own children and grandchildren. I was talking to myself in the car and realized that with her emotions and emotional intelligence, acting ability (from SC), her connection with the horses in SC, her being attuned to the Narnian stars (TLB), and my desire to have her be more creative and nurturing, that Jill as an artist would mesh nicely -- someone who is sensitive and tactile. I need to puzzle this out more.

I did give Eustace a lot of the lines that Edmund and Peter used in the first chapters of TQSiT. Someone said she really wanted more of an observation of Eustace's non-odious behavior -- Asim with a quirked eyebrow or something. And she was disappointed that we did not get Asim's pov when he saw Eustace for the first time. That he seemed too casual. I'm working some of that into the next chapter.

Also, something that occurred to me -- how is Ed going to react to a Narnian Friend, in England, who is closer in appearance to his wife than anyone else in their circle? That occurred to me late and I'm not sure how/if I want to go there. I don't want the whole, "they all look the same" because no, just no. This is one brain wave that I may just drop as really unnecessary. I don't need to find NEW excuses for Ed angst, but I could do a whole, "Why doesn't Edmund like me?" Errr... maybe not. Typing and thinking aloud here.

I just didn't want to Polly to say, "Oh look, an African girl!" it would be clearer if I did.

Yes. that would be a bit unsubtle. But perhaps something more indirect connecting her appearance and the type of person Polly had expected? Similar to what you actually did, but giving a bit of a hint as to how / why her appearance makes Polly understand and have a higher opinion of Experiment house? That way you needn't nail down exactly what Jill's ethnicity is. I'm not quite sure if there's a good option there, but it would be a middle ground. On the other hand, it *does* make for a nice mystery for the reader, who presumably at this point in reading is pretty attuned to matters of race and ethnicity in wartime England.

Someone said she really wanted more of an observation of Eustace's non-odious behavior -- Asim with a quirked eyebrow or something

Yes! I'm glad you're following up on this.

how is Ed going to react to a Narnian Friend, in England, who is closer in appearance to his wife than anyone else in their circle?

It is an interesting thought, and it is something that should not be entirely ignored. However, presumably talk of Richard's Kenyan wife has at least gotten Edmund used to the idea that such things happen here, however rarely. And perhaps there is opportunity for an interesting conversation between Edmund and Eustace here. It doesn't sound like Edmund is ready to talk about Morgan anytime soon, yet if Eustace brings up Jill's treatment at Experiment House and elsewhere in England around Edmund, he would obviously have something relevant to say. Perhaps even a relatively detached observation that mixed race marriages were common in his Narnia, without going into his own. There's never been any indication that Morgan or her parents were viewed as unusual in the Lone Islands on any sort of ethnic basis.

Morgan and Jill don't look at all alike in my head btw. I mean, they both have medium-darkish coloring, but so do billions of other women. I have Jill cast as looking something like Bianca Lawson as Kendra (the 2nd slayer from Buffy the Vampire Slayer http://buffy.wikia.com/wiki/Kendra_Young who was of Caribbean origin) although without that character's ridiculous accent.

If nothing else, Jill and Morgan would carry themselves entirely differently. Jill is more confident (in general, as opposed to Morgan's very situational confidence) and has excellent communication skills (as opposed to... well, you know). Skin tone and possibly a willingness to speak their mind would be about all I see in common so far. And possibly an interest in crows :-)

I'll give myself from distance from the chapter and then go back and maybe tweak one of Polly's lines to make it a little more blunt. Edmund won't be meeting Jill for another chapter -- the Christmas chapter -- so I'll fiddle with it and see where it goes. The Crows are a bond between them but the point at which Jill and Edmund are both at Russell House is years away. In my head, I've started shipping Peter/Jill, which happened because someone last night start tweeting about Mary/Eustace and really I just need to shut up and write what I've got including Asim's wry observations about Eustace.

You've thought about appearance way more than I have. I don't cast or anything and when I was trying to figure out what Richard looked like, because Jill would be describing him, I asked

l_a_r_m to tell me. Pathetic really. (Loved Buffy, btw, and loved Kendra, ridiculous accent aside).

It's funny -- I know that writing POCs can be fraught with problem in fan fic -- writing the "other" and such. I have, so far, not found myself unwittingly in the middle of a flame war over this. A middle aged, stupid, American white suburban old lady writing cultures and races not my own is presumptuous (and while trying to dial it back to the 1940s) but one point of this exercise is to take a swipe at the nastiness I see in a fandom that is counter to the inclusive message of the Chronicles. Wiki says the books have been translated into 47 languages so why not try to shift and broaden the lens to expressly include some of those readers? I do have some international readers who have been willing to set me straight when something is off and I'm sure that will continue. With a large, multi-racial cast of characters it does mean that no one character carries a burden for the whole story as, for instance, the Black Best Friend or Asian guy in lab coat/martial arts who is necessary for plot exposition.

Edited 2011-11-02 12:43 (UTC)

A middle aged, stupid, American white suburban old lady writing cultures and races not my own is presumptuous

Definitely not stupid, and I won't hear a word to the contrary. You're writing outstanding fic addressing a host of complex issues of race, culture, sexuality and finding one's path in life while dealing with it all. The thematic positions you're advancing (particularly with respect to sexuality) are both sophisticated and approachable (even if you lose a few folks along the way). You can't possibly be stupid and pull this off. In chapter 9 you wrote of Peter expressing relief at "show[ing] ourselves for what we are". This is what you are. Do not downplay it or hide it.

Perhaps it is presumptuous to attempt all of the foreign cultures, but if writers never stretched beyond their immediate experiences, we wouldn't have much to read. Can you imagine if men never wrote women characters and women never wrote men? (Actually, I doubt you have to imagine very hard, as there are certainly writers who are so constrained). You answer your own question in pointing out that you do not simply have the token secondary minority character. You've found a way to introduce minority characters in a society where they typically take on the roles of servants without making them subservient. You've taken advantage of a real gap in canon to add diversity to the canon cast. And you address the discomforting aspects of the whole arrangement (Polly's difficulty describing the Russell Household). I'm a not quite middle-aged white guy. I can't tell you whether you're doing the ethnic minority experience justice. But you are certainly raising a great many questions and points of interest in my mind, and creating characters that I respect and would wish to know.

And I agree whole-heartedly with this. I can't claim a non-white ethnicity, either, but coming from Down Under, I definitely have a different cultural reference from those of you further north, and I'm still buying.

Thank you. I do appreciate it. I posted on

cofax7's LJ that I saw the following on Tumblr: "I just wish people would stop trying to stand up for Susan's character, and just see what she represents. C.S. Lewis used her to show those who deny God. Simple as that." In the same tumblr stream there was a woman mentioning how, as a Pakistani, the depictions in HHB always made her uncomfortable and sad and a girl came back and said, "why? There aren't any Pakistanis in HHB." To which Cofax said I was doing my best to correct this, 10K words at a time. Errrr. yeah

YAY!

How lovely to see Jill and Eustace again, especially this particularly-interesting Jill. I loved how attentive she was to Richard.

Now I was unable to discern this form the chapter (or perhaps I wasn't reading closely enough): is Jill's mother white, or her father? Would they accept a black woman into the WRENS at that time?

And yay for beautiful non-venomous green snakes, they're so lovely.

Thank you! for some reason, I did not think you were reading AW! Thanks so much. Yes, Jill's mother is white. It's in there, and some of it is inferred. I had seen pictures of women of color in the British service but I think they suffered much as the men did from the limited research I did. I remembered you saying that the WRENS at Bletchley Park were connected, wealthy women and t his became another instance of happy coincidence (this happens a lot in the story) as that was the direction I was taking Jilly's backstory. Her mother is from a wealthy, well connected family in the sugar cane business and her father's family is poor and black, though her father had the added cache of being a cricket player. There's this whole scene I had written and took out for later involving Jill discussing how Puddleglum's skin was brownish green and how much she liked being in a majority again, even if it was a majority of two to one with Eustace.

The full measure of British treatment of its colonial citizens in its service is one I really can't fully comprehend. There was obviously discrimination though I don't think it was as bad as the American, fully segregated service. There is a lot of anecdotal information about how well the Brits got along with the American black servicemen. And then you see posters like this:

Source: http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~pv/pv/courses/posters/images3/colonies3.jpg

Ooh, and keep in mind that the WRNS at Bletchley were envied/appreciated for the "splendid" uniforms compared to other services as well! That goes will with your depiction of Jill's mum, I think.

Oh, pretty snakes!

They are! If you like snakes! I didn't think you are reading AW?

Snakes are lovely animals, and I have always rather admired them. I tried to catch wild garter snakes a couple times as a child, but they were always too fast for me -- they escaped under fences or into tangled underbrush where I couldn't readily follow. :-)

I got stuck somewhere in the middle of TQSiT -- just after they stole the code book, I think -- and by now am rather intimidated by the weight of words I need to read to catch up. I keep resolving to start reading again, but somehow my resolve, my memory of the resolution, my free time, and my computer access never seem to overlap. :-( But one day!

As my tween would say, NBD. it's nice to see you over here regardless!!

I just want to let you know that my day was completely made by the notification e-mail of AW. I haven't read yet (exam tomorrow, I am planning on reading as a celebration of the fact that I will no longer be under the tyranny of exams for a whole 2 weeks) A review will be along soon, but I wanted to share the smile you put on my face just by updating!

~LotL

Good luck on the exams! I'm glad I gave you something to look forward to and I hope it doesn't disappoint!

Magnificent! And what a wonderful owl!

One very small point of information - not, I trust, plot-bunny-boiling - there is actually a moor just a few miles north of Oxford. It's called Otmoor, I don't know if Lewis knew it at all but Tolkien certainly did. It certainly isn't the moor behind Experiment House, though, as it's a sunken moor, not a raised one (this makes it Very Rare Habitat, and since I lived in the area they've turned it into a bird reserve; http://www.rspb.org.uk/reserves/guide/o/otmoor/index.aspx. Quite right too). Whether or not Lewis knew it, I'd like to think Richard, Digory and Polly were regular visitors at one time, if only because they really ought to have met Makareti Staples-Brown, who lived on the edge of the moor until her death in 1930.

So when I had your friending, I cringed inwardly, for here was a person who actually knew something about what I ficcing about. it's so humbling to pick up readers who continue to read even as I blunder through their expertise -- I've never been to Oxford, never been to Shropshire, never studied paleontology, or vertebrate behavior and anatomy, or ornithology or World War 2. I've merely spent 12 years dragging children to and being dragged by children to zoos, aquariums, and natural history museums all over the US and Canada. Thank you so very, very much for reading.

This particular moor placement was not an issue -- I could pack Polly off to Shropshire. I certainly did not realize the difference between a sunken moor and a raised one as is presented in Silver Chair. I know that as much as I try to be true to the time and place, there are some things that I cannot discern based on reasonable research, or that I have to have in place for the story to move forward and so just ignore. Sometimes it throws the knowledgeable reader out of the story and sometimes I have to rely on deus ex Leo.

Thank you again, so much. I really appreciate hearing from you. (and I love the puffin)

Very sorry, didn't mean to make you cringe! (Is now a good time to mention that my sister lives in Shropshire?)

I am surprised to learn that you've never been to Oxford - I thought you wrote the scenes in the museum & the Botanical Gardens extremely vividly.

What's the bird in your icon, may I ask?

Shropshire too? Oh dear. GULP! I TRY! I'm glad you thought those descriptions worked! The Museum and gardens had wonderful websites. I did have an issue with hummingbirds in a earlier version of part 1. I knew there were no beavers in England -- I had forgotten to check if there were hummingbirds! They've been everywhere I lived, so I got sloppy!

The bird of my icon is known as the "Angry Bluebird" and the species is Sialia sialis

Easter Bluebird Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1a/7z1e5531.jpg/197px-7z1e5531.jpg

Nope, no hummingbirds. If you ever really want to annoy Peter (and thrill Eustace) send a hummingbird hawkmoth in his direction - they really are quite disturbingly like hummingbirds - but I've only seen them twice, so they're not exactly commonplace.

If I hadn't thought your fic well researched and extremely enjoyable I wouldn't have sent you the friend request. Having said that, if I do spot mistakes, are you happy putting up with extreme British pendantry, or does it make you wibble?

Oh my goodness, I have never heard of the Hummingbird Hawk Mouth and they are WEIRD!!! And, according to wiki, an example of convergent evolution -- but huh, one an insect and one a bird. That strikes me as pretty wildly divergent. That is one cool bug.

As for mistake spotting, I'm pretty open to fixing things where I can (e.g., hummingbirds, Patel's home state of India) and readers have not been shy. I get annoyed at myself and in most cases there's room to fix it. An exception has been issues related to Peter's service -- I waffled on that quite a bit and it's imprecise in the story because I just can't fit it completely with the realities of World War 2 UK recruitment and service and university admission processes. (there was a reason I never intended to write the years between 1942 and 1945). Sometimes I just have to rely on deux ex Leo. Somewhere along the way, this became historical fiction and even the ones who know what they are doing and get paid to do it make errors.

So, by all means share. In most instances, if I can fix it, I will.

This issue is going to be very pronounced in the Narnia Big Bang I've committed to doing (what WAS I thinking?). I'm just going to have to shrug and tell the story and either the reader is going to go along with the fact that Susan and Peter are both too young but going to war anyway and who cares, or the reader isn't going to buy it.

it's called "fiction" for a reason, it's definitely not called fanfaction, so I'll suspend belief and ride along. Talking lions aren't quite inside the frame of reality called the "real world", are they (and yes, I'm discounting theology right now, cause if I go there, we'll neve get out again)

My husband Wellinghall (who has been peering over my shoulder, and knows quite a bit about WWII) says that lots of 16 year-olds lied about their age, and if they looked talented enough (or things were desperate enough) lots of recruiting officers pretended not to notice.

Yes, that's very true too. We had a very similar history down under, too. Perhaps moreso for WWI, when the Australian contigents sailed off to a distant war, one that wasn't on our doorstep. However, tradition has it that the practice remained common enough in WWII, since the minimum enlistment age was 20.

Thank you! Waves to

wellinghall. (Funny, my husband recently said, "I think you start writing again." Ahem. Hiding in the closet, oh yes). In this case, Peter will be old enough, barely, and I did find paratrooper data on 17 year olds at D Day and he would be over 18 at that point. Susan is harder, but.. well that's just the way it is.

So happy you updated!

Thanks so very, very much for reviewing. You are shipping Jill and Peter now? Funny, I was just thinking that would be an issue. Jill is, by the way, really reminding Richard of the family he will never see again and that's why he's being so emotional about it all.

Yea! Reading this made my morning. It's fun to see Jill and Eustace fitting in with the Russell household and trying to get used to being back in England.

Thanks for writing!

Thank you so much!!! I'm glad you liked it!

Wonderful chapter. I love the way you've reworked the Under Cover materials it all makes contextual sense. Nice one with Richard and Jill too - I hadn't considered the aspect of Richard missing his other family, and thus connecting with Jill. I've starting re-reading AW from the beginning, because it felt like I'd lost the context for the latest chapter. Reviews will be along in a day or so, once I've run the gauntlet of hips, spies, and reunions. : )

Awww, thanks, Min! I look forward to it!

Having now ploughed through my epic re-read, count me impressed. It's a great chapter, and for someone who runs screaming from the dread visual, you've certainly included a sensory feast here.

I'm a little curious about a couple of points here (when am I not?), if you would indulge me. I take your point about J/E being older that their years, but not adult. I'm wondering about your envisioning of their actual ages - canon would have them younger than Lucy at the time of SC, and she's maybe 11 or 12?

Another question about Eustace and the elder Friends. They've obviously met him when he was a prat, and at least had a re-introduction to the un-dragoned Eustace after VoDT. How well do they know him now? Is it just via letters, or has there been some other in-person contact?

And for that matter, what's the head canon say about the time gap between chapter 7/8 and the latest chapter? I remember you've said that you've compressed the time between VoDT and SC in this vision, just to get Jill and Eustace on stage (as it were), but I've lost track of the chronology. Are we fairly late in 1942 at this point, with perhaps 4-5 months in between the return from America and now?

Thanks so much for reading and reviewing. The books put Eustace as a year younger than Lucy, so in theory if Lucy is around 12, that puts them at around 11. Eustace and Jill's ages have always been funky because this is Eustace's second year at boarding school which I don't think starts until age 11? I played with the idea in Under Cover that they are older than their years, but not by years and years as the Pevensies are and I will continue to write them as more mature but also still as more like children.

I think Polly and Digs' contact with Eustace has been during that time when at the end of the summer when they were all at Oxford. So, it's been a couple of days. Eustace probably doesn't know much about where Polly lives, he's stayed with the Professor and he knows that his cousins are all still in school and can't help him. There might have been a few letters? I think Eustace has mostly been communicating with Edmund because of their similarity of experience and Susan (who he has not met yet).

As for the chronology, I might have at one point needed to compress the timeline but now I think I'm pretty close to book canon, if you assume that VDT occurred in the summer of 1942. This is sometime in October -- late October. The reason all the military-affiliated people are unavailable -- Elizabeth Pole, Capt. Clark, Asim, and even Patel, is because of the 2nd battle of El Alamein which begins on November 3. Patel is headed to Scotland because convoys for Operation Torch are sailing out of Scotland at the end of October (which is something I should probably mention). Where I'm going to have big gaps in time is once Susan and Peter head to war. There's very little I can do with Edmund and Lucy until after they out of school and I'm not going to try. There's maybe a chapter's worth of material for each. This has been a huge stumbling block for me as (to repeat the old refrain) the old concept did not have any of this at all. it's one reason for the dithering delay.

Edited 2011-11-02 13:01 (UTC)

That's very cool - thanks : )

Nowadays it normally starts at 11 or 16. However, when I was at school mutter mutter years ago, there were some from 8. I'm not sure about the state of things in the 1940s, but I rather think the standard ages for switching schools (and therefore likely points to start boarding) were 9 and 13. Winston Churchill started boarding at 5.

So there ya go. I've seen the "no boarding school until 11" a lot and I wonder if it's very inspired by Harry Potter?

I'm sure Harry Potter has a lot to answer for - but senior school from 11 is almost universal in the UK these days, it's only the very oldest and grandest (and most expensive) foundations that still start at 13. Boarding from 8 or 9 used to be far more widespread.

Harry Potter has a lot to answer for -- all those poor souls who go to King's Cross looking for Platform 9 3/4.

For a while there was actually some sort of display there, but when my friend and I went through King's Cross while I was in London it appeared to be hidden by construction. Not being a big Harry Potter fan, I was not overly dismayed.

Reading this was awesome. Yay, update!

I really love the additional depth to Jill (she's long been one of my favorite characters, and it's great to see her trying to figure out the Russell household - and, as you say above, the stuff she notices the others don't.)

Thank you so much! I so appreciate that you enjoyed her and I'm very happy that you posted over here! Welcome and thank you! Jill is such a blank page, it's been very challenging to try to start filling it in.

I can't wait to read it!! In the meantime, happy Halloween and enjoy a singularly appropriate image of an attempted murder: http://imgur.com/gallery/5fGK8. (Hope the link works.)
~Syrena

LOVE the picture of the crows and attempted murder. Absolutely wonderful!!!! I hope you enjoy the chapter, Syrena. Thank you!

I'm very happy to be back on the Apostolic Way. Enough hanging about, mooning over chapters 1-9! And this is a lovely one: a wonderful way to introduce Jill as one of the central players in the story as it is now.

Incidentally, when I was about ten years old, my (divorced) Dad had a girlfriend from Jersey. So we visited, and it turns out that I met Mr. Durrell at his zoo. I do remember the zoo, but not the Great Man himself, sadly; it's too bad, 'cause his books are sooo much fun!

Thanks so much! I so appreciate it! I love Durrell's books. My Family and Other Animals is especially hilarious.

Late to the LJ party, but the sentiment is the same as I left over at ff.net. Loved this chapter, so happy to finally meet Jill, and that last scene between her and Richard is very touching. Of course he misses his family... that moment really stuck out to me.

Thank you! You were right that her culture shock isn't as great. She was hardly in Narnia at all and unlike the Pevensies and Eustace, came from a more varied place in the first place. Something to develop a bit, maybe in the next chapter, is how much she liked the fact that Puddleglum had skin more like her own -- except of course she's not greenish. There's a lot of the AU in her development here and I'm still toying with Jill moving toward healing arts or going back to the idea of her being more artistically inclined -- or both. If I do that later, writing Jill as visual will surely be as challenging as writing Morgan with her finance. Maybe some day I'll try writing a character who is a middle aged, white, working mom from 2011 who falls into Narnia. "Wash your hands!" "Eat your vegetables!" "Pick up your socks!" "Punctuate your sentences properly! You call that an essay?"

That is an awesome owl video. Also awesome are Durrell's books and your new chapter. I enjoyed it a lot and look forward to Peter meeting Jill. I don't have much constructive to say right now, but thought I'd let you know I'm still here, reading your fic. :)

Thank you! I really appreciate it!

The new chapter had to wait printed for a whole week until I finally had a chance to read it with attention it deserves. The only consolation of this sorry situation is that I will have a week less to wait for a next chapter...
But here I am, ready to tell you what I think about all that.
First: Russell House. Good to be there once again. I love the ambience. And I like how Jill suited there perfectly well.
Second: Polly Plummer. Very professional investigation. No doubts we’re in the country of Sherlock Holmes...
Third: Jill. I must admit that I don’t remember much about her from the books. Chronicles of Narnia were my favorite books when I was 8-9 years old. When Eustace and Jill replaced Pevensie children as main characters I simply took umbrage at them and all the books which were not about Pevensies and was reading only those with PSEL. As a result I can still quote parts of LWW or PC, but I remember hardly anything from SCh. Nonetheless, Jill which you created (there is so little about her in books that we may say that this one is your creation) is a person I really like despite my old prejudice. What is rare, my first thought was that I like her not as a book character, but as a person - I believe her consideration for Richard is to be blamed for that. Her attitude towards him is really charming. Such a simple, but intelligent kindness.
I must say that at first I was a bit skeptical about making her half-black - I thought it’s a bit too much of a coincidence considering your interest in a topic of non-whites in Britain and multicultural Russell Household. Yet, in this chapter I bought it easily. But if you would write: "Oh look, an African girl!" I would throw all the pages with your story printed and never come back to it again. Luckily it was subtle enough for me to swallow. But I declare, that if you’ll listen to some of your readers and “ship” Jill with Peter I will take the first plane to USA and bash you in your head. Really, we have enough maritime stories in the fandom, don’t turn yours into one [*maritime story - story which can be fully described by information who is shipped with whom]. Anyway, they all die young so they won’t have much time for romantics. Good for me!
One general thought: your chapters are too short. I don’t know if that’s only me, but after ending each chapter my first thought is “Wait... Where’s the rest of it?”. I do understand that it’s a problem of having many characters without labeling few of them as “main”. But I really wouldn’t mind reading about Jill’s interaction with Kun and Lee.
Waiting for a Return of the (High) King. Hope you won’t make us wait too long.
Krystyna

Krystyna, only you could look at at 14,000 word chapter and wonder where the rest is! I'm working on it the next chapters and thinking about the Big Bang and how to do both at the same time. Harold and Morgan is on hold until I work through this. I am very weak willed. When someone says, "You know, what about?" And "I'd really like to read about..." and I usually have no self control and end up writing it. This is how I ended up with all of TQSiT and now am stuck writing the War when I never think I have the skill to write war stories. But, here I am.

I'm writing Jill's first meeting with Peter now. I'd originally thought to include Susan as well, but I'm trying to trim characters and so didn't want to write that. They'll be Christmas.

Several readers in ff.net have wondered where the idea of Jill as Afro-Caribbean came from. How counter to book canon am I? Well, the fact is, the books say nothing of her appearance or family at all. Nothing. She's a blank page. And for all that I've got this international cast of OCs, to my mind, it's different when you make a canon character a person of color. It's rare too that the source material is so vague that you really have no idea at all what she looks like. So, that's why I went with it. There was room here and I decided to not default to the white character. With all the others it can seem overkill -- I'd not decided to do Jill in this way when I started. I had no real ideas about Jill at all other than that she would bond with Kun and Lee over art, cooking, and gardening. I'd originally seen her too as finding a surrogate family at Russell House -- I've not fully resolved that as in my head, Jill's family is pretty solid. I suppose I could kill them off....

Thank you again for reading and reviewing.

So happy to see another chapter from you! You did a great job of showing Jill's initial insecurities about going to stay at Russell House and then having her fit right in with the whole crew. Thanks, and looking forward to the next one!

J. Apple

Thanks so much! I"m dithering right now over what Peter and Jill discuss and h ow to make it different from what has gone before. I so appreciate your comments!

And could you give us some interaction between Peter and Russell household? Till now it was happening behind our backs and we don't know how they perceive Peter - being biased after a talk they had with Asim (Crossroads part 3).
Krystyna

Egads, she posted

Gerald Durrell

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Yay!

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