Thank you. I'd been hoping to hear from you about certain aspects of this chapter but knew you'd be super busy so I appreciate you taking the time out!
I know that you were one of the readers who expressed in interest in more regarding Richard and Mary and what the "good" of their relationship looks like. This was an effort to get at that (OCs OMG! WHY WHY WHO CARES - as said below, I'm feeling insecure and defensive again). But there were good times for them and while the relationship was certainly inequitable, it did give both of them things they wanted, for a time.
I am, once again, awed by the insight of others with your comment about how Mary is trying to work things through rather than blast through them. One of the tenets of my Mary characterization from the very beginning is that she wants the word to revolve around her and yet it never does. (The contents of that plaster block that she and Eustace just unearthed are another old, old idea).
The where of Russell House was always more important than Mary herself. In my head canon it was this open, welcoming, beautiful place to which things came -- more train station that hospital. This chapter was a huge, huge departure from what was supposed to have happened, 3 years ago when I outlined it where each person who arrived at Russell House (in 1946 or later) found something transporting and incredibly important. I don't need to do that as much having established already, argumentum ad nauseam and ad infinitum that Narnia and Spare Oom are inter-connected.
Come January with more time, if you are interested, the scholarship on non-reproductive relationships in the non-human animal kingdom is very interesting reading -- even apart from the study itself and the wide spectrum over which it occurs, there's the human reaction to the research, which is a study in and of itself. My best judgment is that the evolutionary biologists and geneticists who are looking at the issue are super-careful in their language so as to avoid getting drawn into the applicability or non-applicability of non-human behavior to human politics. I rambled a bit about this in response to snitchnipped and so won't repeat other than feeling this desire to run away again, lather rinse repeat ad nauseam and ad infinitum.
no subject
I know that you were one of the readers who expressed in interest in more regarding Richard and Mary and what the "good" of their relationship looks like. This was an effort to get at that (OCs OMG! WHY WHY WHO CARES - as said below, I'm feeling insecure and defensive again). But there were good times for them and while the relationship was certainly inequitable, it did give both of them things they wanted, for a time.
I am, once again, awed by the insight of others with your comment about how Mary is trying to work things through rather than blast through them. One of the tenets of my Mary characterization from the very beginning is that she wants the word to revolve around her and yet it never does. (The contents of that plaster block that she and Eustace just unearthed are another old, old idea).
The where of Russell House was always more important than Mary herself. In my head canon it was this open, welcoming, beautiful place to which things came -- more train station that hospital. This chapter was a huge, huge departure from what was supposed to have happened, 3 years ago when I outlined it where each person who arrived at Russell House (in 1946 or later) found something transporting and incredibly important. I don't need to do that as much having established already, argumentum ad nauseam and ad infinitum that Narnia and Spare Oom are inter-connected.
Come January with more time, if you are interested, the scholarship on non-reproductive relationships in the non-human animal kingdom is very interesting reading -- even apart from the study itself and the wide spectrum over which it occurs, there's the human reaction to the research, which is a study in and of itself. My best judgment is that the evolutionary biologists and geneticists who are looking at the issue are super-careful in their language so as to avoid getting drawn into the applicability or non-applicability of non-human behavior to human politics. I rambled a bit about this in response to