rthstewart | the shadow the original content creator casts

So. This isn't going to go near the authorial intent issues -- but it's hard to argue that Lewis himself would be as "nothing but married heterosexual sex in books please".

There's been lots and lots written about Lewis over the last 40 years. Because I'm a bookish sort, I've read a fair bit. That said, I'm not a historian or a literary scholar, so I'm just summarizing what others have said in print.

Fact One: Lewis' best friend as a kid was Arthur Greeves -- Lewis' memoir Surprised by Joy talks about the importance of their friendship. They remained friends and regular correspondents their entire lives. Greeves was gay.

Fact Two: After serving in WWI, Lewis established a household with Mrs. Janie Moore. She was the mother of his friend Paddy Moore, who was killed in combat. Lewis lived with Mrs. Moore for the rest of her life.

Fact Three: Lewis eventually met and married Joy Davidman Gresham, a divorced woman. They were married in a civil ceremony so Joy (an American) could become a legal British resident. However, they later had a religious ceremony. Divorced people were generally not able to be married in the Anglican church at that time -- Lewis had to hunt to find a priest who was willing to perform the ceremony. Joy's death led him to write A Grief Observed

One biographer -- Walter Hooper, who worked for Lewis as a young man and is his literary executor -- insisted early on that the relationship with Mrs. Moore was entirely platonic, and speculated that the marriage to Joy was never consummated. Other biographers don't agree. For what it's worth, I have to agree that Hooper's opinion is just weird. It's hard to imagine that young Jack Lewis would spend every weekend and some weeknights with Mrs. Moore during his university years out of some sort of idea that he was doing his duty by an adopted mother. Read Grief and you'll see that it was written by a man who'd lost someone he loved deeply and in every possible way.

The Lewis-Greeves correspondence has been published. Lewis knew Greeves was homosexual, and wasn't particularly troubled or concerned by this. He certainly didn't end the friendship over it. Lewis (before Joy) wrote about the distinction between religious and civil marriage for divorced people, and it's hard not to wonder what his opinion would be about same sex (civil) marriage rights today! Certainly his marriage to Joy ended up contradicting statements he'd made before meeting her about how remarriage after divorce wasn't an option for Christians.

Oh, and to add to the complex stuff, it appears from the Lewis-Greeves correspondence that Lewis himself had mildly sadistic fantasies as a young man. What's more, he read Greats at Oxford; Greek and Latin writers were not exactly G rated. I don't see how anyone could argue that Lewis himself would insist that a story is immoral and evil because it includes sex outside of marriage.

I highly recommend the Jacobs biography, The Narnian and also Laura Miller's The Magician's Book: A Skeptic's Guide to Narnia. There's also A.N. Wilson's CS Lewis: A Biography.

Edited 2012-01-16 01:50 (UTC)

Wow. thanks so much. I have just plowed through yet MORE of the "I don't write or read slash/homosexuality/incest." [the three are always equated] followed by "I don't think Lewis would be at all pleased or Lewis would be rolling in his grave" which is then followed by "Lewis was a Christian and these are Christian children's books," etc. The smug certitude of a segment of this fandom is really breathtaking when one considers that Lewis knew of the conduct, knew men who engaged in it, corresponded and wrote on the subject and that his very dearest friend was gay. He was obviously a very complex man.

The fact of his relationship with Greeves is so .. well, very much in keeping with the spirit that I see in the books I almost want to weep. While in some parts, Aslan is Not A Nice Deity, in other places there is such enormous compassion and tolerance. And now google fu leads me to this, Lewis and Homosexuality.

Thanks so much for the contribution!

I don't get it. You don't read slash/homosexuality/incest, fine. I myself stay away from incest and pedophilia. I'm also not crazy about AUs. That's my choice.

But I don't go seeking out stories with these things so I can write reviews telling them how bad they are. OY! What's the point? If I were reading your story and disagreed with elements of it, I'd either stop reading, or I'd be so captured by the writing that I'd read it despite those reservations.

That might have been my reaction to a certain story of yours back in the day, as a matter of fact. I may have even written a review like that, saying what I liked, saying what I had issues with, but I think even back then, when I was more uptight than I am now, I think/hope I had enough sense to phrase it AS my own issues that don't really say anything whatsoever about YOUR story. Just my own baggage that I bring to it, not the ONLY way it MUST be.

Similar to what you're running across with the Lewis fandom, I write for a cartoon fandom called Danny Phantom. The creator of the show, Butch Hartman, has gone on record as supporting fanfic and fan art, but being opposed to slash. Pretty vehemently opposed, as a matter of fact. Fandom divided into the people who support him on this and those who don't and do what they want.

I find a walk a middle ground here. On first reading of his anti-slash statement, I thought it was over the top (he said something about it shouldn't exist anywhere on the internet), but when I read it again, I could really see where he was coming from. For one thing, he was using "slash" not to just refer to gay pairings themselves, but the really graphic pornographic stuff. And there have been actual police cases of pedophiles using DP porn (art more than fanfic) to lure in kids. What do they call it? Grooming?

So when he says he's against that stuff existing anywhere on the internet and if you're involved in it, you're not welcome on his boards, that's what he's talking about, and I find I can't really fault him for that. He's not actually going after this stuff where it exists, he's just saying how he feels about how his creations are used and that if you disagree, you can, but go play elsewhere, not on his boards. And this is coming direct from him, not fans' interpretations of his intent.

I've written stories in his universe that involve sex between non-married adults (canon characters later when they're grown up) and I've made one of his canon side characters gay. But my stories aren't very graphic and don't involve kids having sex and certainly don't involve adults having sex with kids (the "slash" that seems to get his goat the most is the adult villain with the teenage title character which actually says nothing about consenting adult gay relationships and everything about adult control. In canon, the villain is actually non-sexually obsessed with the teen hero, so going to some sort of mutual love sexual relationship definitely pushes many of my own squick buttons).

Does what I write fit with the author's vision and intent? Probably not. But there is nothing in what I write that contradicts canon, either. And I do try to respect his stated preference that if people play in his universe, they don't write graphic porn, especially involving minors (and honestly, I don't really anyway), because I can see where he's coming from.

Don't know how closely that correlates to your situation where fans are projecting their OWN views onto the creator, who is no longer around to state for himself what he thinks, but the war over what "true fans" will write really sets my teeth on edge, and in my fandom, I can see both sides of it. But I still think in the end it comes down to: stay away from the stuff that isn't your cup of tea rather than trying to recruit people to doing it YOUR way.

While in some parts, Aslan is Not A Nice Deity, in other places there is such enormous compassion and tolerance.

Interesting that you say this. I actually had an epiphany while watching -- shoot... the Dawn Treader, I think? -- that the reason I've never really gotten, er, focused on the Narnia stories is that I find I really dislike Aslan. He's kind of an arrogant douche. Enormous compassion, yeah, I see that, too, but it doesn't override his douchiness, not for me, anyway.

But again, that's my own baggage and where my view on Christ may (or may not) differ from Lewis' and other Christians', and I don't think that gives me license to tell you how you should write Aslan.

Dawn Treader is probbly the douchiest Aslan of the three, having been taken over by the more "Narnia = Christian!" side of thinking.

But there's quite a few of us in fandom who write a more... capricious? Aslan, for exactly those reasons.

Oh

raykel you are absolutely right. I'm not one who has really delved into the peculiar capriciousness of Aslan but plenty of writers have. It's one reason why I've come to see the books as less Christian than many make them out to be, precisely because he's so far from the God I know. He rips four children from war and sends them off to another war, lets them grow up there and then sends them back with no explanation at all, lets his people suffer for over 100 years with the Witch and then hundreds of years under a brutal dictatorship that nearly wipes them out, he attacks and mauls a girl who is trying to escape a terrible familial situation, etc. etc. And then his solution, EVERYBODY DIES.

I've preferred dealing with him in a different way, but yep, there are plenty of folks who see many, many shortcomings there. One writer, Anastigmat, operates on an assumption that he's more like the capricious Greek and Roman gods. I sort of assume that since he says "I am true Beast" that he's not human, really doesn't relate especially well to humans, and just doesn't "get them."

Thank you for this, many many times over!! It will be some time before I work down my reading list to those books, but they are definitely on it now!

Seconding the recommendation for Laura Miller's book: I found it really enlightening (if not entirely complimentary) about Lewis' attitudes towards women & sexuality.

ETA: Which brings me back around to my original intended point, which is that regardless of what happened in Lewis' life, I can read the text, and the subtext, and from that I can see what he was saying about women, without having to know or even care what he actually believed. And I can react and respond to those unstated but clear assumptions, and to everything else in the text, and I don't care at all if someone thinks it's a horrible violation of Christian morals to do so.

There is no fanfiction police, and nobody gets to tell us that we're not allowed to go certain places in what is, in the end, a work of fiction. We may dislike what someone does with their story, and so we can ignore it, flame it, or mutter about it behind flock, but we have no authority over the writer and the content of the story.

... I do wish people would remember that.

Edited 2012-01-16 06:30 (UTC)

I'm curious, did you read Miller's book before the plunge into the fandom or after?

I agree completely, of course. After my first forays into fic, I did get to know, very well, one of the content creators whose work I had been fan ficcing. It was awkward in the sense that I never wanted the author to know that I had written fan fic from that author's original content, and I learned that we had some pretty different ideas about the author's work and characters. Different though we were, it never occurred to me change my fic. I knew there were things I'd done the author would not approve of -- and the author was alive and sitting right next to me. Was that disrespectful of authorial intent? I admit I never even asked the question.

You never know what people will pull from something and there's only so much control one can exert. There's a trend now in consumer protection to recognize that people do not understand disclaimers no matter how plainly presented. "Results not typical. You may not lose this much weight" and people come away thinking, "Bonus. I'm going to loose even MORE weight." When you can't control something so blunt as that, how can there ever be one single interpretation of anything, or an effort to enforce it.

At the risk of over-replying...

Yeah, I remember this. AW-KWARD. But at the same time, you know, you put your stuff out there, I don't think you get to dictate how the universe views it. Just because HE didn't intend his character to be seen that way doesn't mean you're wrong for reading it that way. Writers--good ones, anyway--have Bibles and Bibles of stuff that never make it to the page. It informs the characters as they appear, but readers can only take what's on the page and go from there. And I don't think where you went with his character was inconsistent with what was on the page, whatever the author's intent. Respect works both ways. Creators have to respect that other people bring their own things to their work, and it's actually a testament to their work if the characters come so alive that we each take with it something uniquely our own. I think I even told this particular writer that when he was, IMO, overreacting to how others saw his characters.

And sort of a corollary to that, but not necessarily the same thing, sometimes no matter how clearly you put your intent on the page, readers Don't. Get. It. I will never forget Aaron Allston sharing a story about how in one of his Star Wars books, a chapter from Kyp Duron's POV has him musing how he is so much more powerful a Jedi thank Luke Skywalker. And OH THE CRAP he got from readers about how DARE he say Kyp Durron is more powerful than Luke!!!!11!

No, Aaron did NOT say Kyp was more powerful than Luke. KYP said it. And it is perfectly in character for Kyp to (incorrectly and arrogantly) BELIEVE he is more powerful than Luke. But some readers do not get the concept of unreliable narrator, instead believing, if it's on the page, the author must think it so. ::headdesk::

So no matter how clear you're being, readers are gonna take what they want and divine intent to you (the writer) that was never there. Nature of the beast.

Edited 2012-01-16 15:24 (UTC)

I'm curious, did you read Miller's book before the plunge into the fandom or after?

After: I read it last winter, I think, so about halfway through writing Carpetbaggers.

there's only so much control one can exert.

Indeed. Ricky Manning (former executive producer of Farscape) once asked what the ficwriters would do if Brian Henson or David Kemper asked us to stop writing. I said, "Please don't ask." Our enormous affection for the source product is, in great part, the reason why we're playing there in the first place. I started to say "enormous respect", but that's wrong--fannishness is based more on emotion than that.

That was totally my reaction to Miller. I loved the book, even though I disagreed quite a bit with some of it. She made me think -- about writing, about the role Narnia played in my childhood (and continues to play in my worldview), etc.

Thank you so much for taking the time to share this, it's very much appreciated. Unless Hooper had powerful evidence that Lewis was wholly asexual, I agree, his arguments don't seem to hold much water.

I hadn't heard of the Jacobs work, and I had only heard Miller's mentioned in passing. I'll definitely see if I can acquire any/all of the titles mentioned via our library here.

Again, thank you!

OK, I wrote this earlier in an internet black hole, but I can now post it... pardon if I seem to get off topic a bit. I haven't proofed since I wrote it several hours ago:

The last point is something that I'm always fascinated with.

IMO, there is something beautiful about the openness of interpretation in written works. Now, there are some authors out there that write things CHOCK full of details, leaving very little wiggle room on interpretation. But there are others who manage to catch things so simply and beautifully in few words, and I may be in the minority here, but Lewis has ALWAYS read that way to me.

This is somewhat a tangent, since I'm speaking of the theater world rather than just the literary one (OK, so it's an offshoot), but it's what I know and is still relevant, I think. Let's take Shakespeare. Pretty straight-forward stuff, huh? They even have lexicons published so people can get try to understand the exact meeting of the plays word. by. word. But imagine a world where we all see the same Hamlet, over and over again, with the same themes stressed time and time again. Sorry... boring. I've worked on and seen several productions, from period setting and costumes, to pre-war 1930s Denmark, to ultra modern with lucite thrones. And each and every time, I got something new out of it, different themes would be stressed while the more popular ones would fade into the background. But guess what? It's still the same story, each and every time. It's just an infinite way of approaching it. And that's just wonderful.

But Shakespeare is dead. He doesn't have a say anymore in how his work is interpreted. Live writers kinda somewhat do, and it's fascinating to see who is more hands-on and off on the matter.

Back to theater... I work primarily on new works, never have been interpreted before. There are some playwrights (such as the one I'm working with now) who are completely hands off. Though he's readily available if we have a question (or even a change request), he's avoiding any and all rehearsals. He did his party already, and now it's up to someone else to run with it.

And then there's the case where the playwright insisted on being in in the room... and boy he would get so, so, so ANGRY when the director wanted to take it in one direction. "BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT!" I remember him near-screaming. But hello... it's what the director got out of it. How could the director (and the other people in the room supporting the director's choices) be the one in the wrong? This writer is NOT going to be present any other time this play would be produced. He cannot be assigning responsibility of interpretation on everyone else... it was his when he wrote it, is it not? If he wanted it done a certain way, then he could pull a Waiting for Godot and make sure that when someone gets the rights from Beckett's estate, then there must be a proscenium stage, there must be a tree, etc. etc. etc. And that's why people only need to see that play once.

And then there was the writer I worked with who knew he had control issues about his written work. It was a struggle to force himself out of rehearsal hall, but he knew it was for the best, and gave all of his trust in what was on the page and the producers. And he reaped a lot of benefits from it, too.... but still. It is out of his hands, especially now that the play is published. People will get out of it what they will, and that's that. As people will from Lewis' work.

Of course, I speak of all of this on the more literary front of things... the same cannot be applied to TV or film by any means. I would argue that the script in such cases are not as much as the source, but more of the tool of storytelling.

OK, I'll stop now.

"I would argue that the script in such cases are not as much as the source, but more of the tool of storytelling."

This. Yes. This is, I think, what every storyteller ought to strive for, and why the best stories are so rich. Because we, as storytellers, are mediums, not necessarily creators.

"BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT!" is hilarious and sad. Your observation about Waiting For Godot is so damning really -- you only need to see it once. Of course the Tweet feed has been full of this lately with folks debating just this. Sometimes it is a matter of, well, editing and writing, for lack of a better term. I mean, if it's a boat, and if you meant boat, you'd better write boat, and readers keep thinking you've written about an airplane, maybe the writing needs to be clearer. It is hard to let something loose, free into the wild.

Which leads me to the world of derivative work and the "respect" owed the original creation. In theater, is there ever this debate by the production team or the critics afterward as to whether the play was true to the writer's intent? Does it matter? Do people care?

For theater: sort of, I think. Plenty of discussion of whether a particular production of Shakespeare is illuminating or distracting/pushes too far. Although I don't know whether that's phrased in terms of authorial intent or in terms of some "faithful to the truth in the play". It's not a blanket "NOOOOOOOO!", of course.

D. would know way more than I do about this.

D. would know way more than I do about this. Waiting for

econopodder

Ok, musical theatre is more my area than straight drama, but from my personal experience, I haven't done one single production that has run completely according to script and score. There's always some tweaks and nips, and sometimes, some outright chunks chopped or changed. That's just how it is, though I'll be the first to admit that the endpoints are generally the same. Problem with intent? Not usually - that's just how it needs to be to get it on stage and working.

No idea whether that translates, but it's just a matter of adaptation, and surely all fic is in some way, shape or form, an adaptation of the original. I really don't understand why it's the cause of such angst. Preaching to the choir and all, but life's too short to get your blood pressure all wound up over this sort of thing. Oi!!!

Ok, musical theatre is more my area than straight drama, but from my personal experience, I haven't done one single production that has run completely according to script and score.

That's what makes it so fun to watch! You're never watching quite the same show twice. I watched one performance of Wicked where a wand flew out of an actor's hand and went whipping across the stage. She incorporated the mistake into her lines and went on. It felt like a special treat just for us; something nobody else would get to see.

Edited 2012-01-17 21:08 (UTC)

Yeah, sure they have the debate, mainly for the older material. It helps when you can bring a dramaturg on board, too! But I have seen many a stopped rehearsal as intent is debated/argued... especially between actor and director. ESPECIALLY then.

And, of course, critics LOVE jumping on the authorial intent train. Some of the big ones in my city ask for a copy of the script prior to seeing the show, so they can judge interpretation from there. And a lot of critics have their own agenda in the theater world, so of course they'll be nitpicking whatever they can...

But really? It all boils down to an individual's particular taste and what they want to get out of a production. Some like to leave the audience confused, others want everyone to walk out the theater of the same mind. Personally, I like the confusing ones... I worked on a Titus last year that had a ton of walk-outs mixed in with standing ovations on the same nights. It was pretty awesome.

I should add that Alan Jacobs (a Lewis biographer) is a professor at Wheaton College (the Illinois one). Which means that his evangelical bona fides are solid; the faculty there have to sign a statement of belief. It's not Bob Jones U, but it's still a conservative place.

As for the rest of the discussion about authorial intent, well, my creative outlets are visual/tactile, and so I'm not in the same space as you all. In my world, the discussions about copyright and authorial posession are different because they're about xeroxing patterns and keeping creators from earning a reasonable financial payment for their work. It's not about using someone's work as a springboard for your own creativity.

Oh, this is all so interesting!

I'm doing a Phd in History right now, and we're being explicitly taught that while history won't change, it's the historian's job to find something new to say about it. That is, to develop a new approach to events of the past in order to develop new insights about that event, and new meanings for what may come. This is a crude synthesis of it all, but I think it might be the nugget.

Moreover, historians now talk quite unabashedly about 'the historical narrative,' and recognize that to make one's history readable (ie: of value to other people, both scholars and the general public) we have to create a story of some kind. I suspect that historical details may be occasionally omitted in the interests of a good narrative, but that's my private suspicion.

So, if historians are doing this with RL, what's the biggie about doing it with fiction? I understand that there is an author, and an authorial intent, but their intent stops where my authorship starts. If I write a piece, even if it's derivative of your piece, you don't get to correct me, sorry. You may not like it, or even hate it, but you don't get to tell me that I'm wrong. That's the difference between fiction and non-fiction.

Regarding all that certainty about Lewis' intent? Remember, these are people with a zealous, excessive, overwhelming dependence on a text for their cosmology. There are many, many, many things available now to 'disprove' the literal veracity of the Bible, and they've mostly chosen to deny them (except for when it comes to health care). I think this same kind of blinker vision is being applied to Lewis, and anything else they come across. That thought leads me to other, much more uncharitable thoughts, so I'll stop now.

I find several parts of this disquieting.

I have a PhD in Global Affairs (Political Science) and just finished proofing the historical narrative that I'm sending to the publisher on Friday. In general, there's a huge difference between RL and fiction, that being ownership of the narrative. The historian has no claim to the actual events taking place, only your own unique description of the narrative. The writer has copyright on both. If the piece is recognizably a part of another story, then copyright applies. You can't pick up the story of HP, change names, dates, and places then resell it.

From one academic to another, deliberately leaving out historical fact because it disagrees with your viewpoint is still academic dishonesty. Admittedly, it's not as obvious as outright plagiarism, but it is what it is. Either admit that the facts doesn't fit or change your theory, but don't alter the facts.

My sandbox, and it is just as much mine, as the folks who write, is big enough for everyone to play in. I can leave space for people who want a culture of death without jeopardizing the culture of life that I want to live in. Further, I can do so without hurting anybody else.

Just because writers put something out there in fanfiction, doesn't mean that I as a reader am obligated to read/review or like/dislike. Comments to me are a reward for a job exceptionally well done. If I don't like it, I don't comment on it. If I don't have anything nice to say, I don't comment on it.

If there's a bad summary, or lots of misspelled words or you're obviously promoting underage sex/incest/slash/uber-vulgarity, etc. I won't read it. If there are fifteen reviews that all say "Ooh, I luv u. Right more." I won't read it.

If you tell me you're 13 and this is the first story you've ever written, I might read it. Maybe. If I'm up very later or am very obviously procrastinating on a book I would really, really like to throw in the trash.

What really intrigues me about this fandom, is that people who aren't philosophers, nevertheless subscribe to specific philosophic beliefs. At once, Peter embodies Scotus, but can't understand the words on the page. And may come much, much closer to being Narnian then they think.

- doctor dolly

I'm not sure what you find disquieting - can you elaborate? Because you seem to embody exactly the sort of readership we have been discussing as the ideal: the sort who can acknowledge another person's right to place their own 'stamp' or interpretation on a shared canon without necessarily agreeing with that vision. There's an unsettling element in this fandom that seems to feel any contradiction to their own interpretation is a personal affront to them and an insult to Lewis as the author.

What you've really asked is a series of questions, so I'll try to unpack them.

First and foremost - thanks for the opportunity to procrastinate on my book :) Ironically enough, it theorizes that there are certain advocacy groups who attempt to convert their rational moral authority into political influence. A very related topic.

As to what I find disquieting, most of us accept there is right and wrong with a definite difference between the two. In this specific instance, I'm saddened to think there are academic historians who might deliberately omit historical facts to tell their version of a good story. I am an end user of those facts, and if you omit them as a historian it negatively impacts me as a political scientist. To me, it's the same as the researcher at U Conn who fudged his lab data for the last 9 years.

I think what is disquieting about Narnia fandom is two-fold: 1) not only do we disagree about where the boundaries are between right and wrong, 2) we also don't collectively handle conversations about those differences very well.

In the end, there's a diversity of moralness, maturity, and experience in talking through tough personal issues. At the end of the day, most people don't talk about politics or religion. Narnia fandom, and this AU in particular, does both at the same time.

The other inherent problem, is that Lewis, and therefore Narnia, has the capability to make the reader introspect. The symbolism is so strong the reader does it instinctively. With or without author intent.

- doctor dolly

Hey, I'm always pleased to help an academic procrastinate! :D Sounds like an intersting topic -- though I hope you're unpacking it a little more; rational observation leads easily to the conclusion that such groups have existed for generations. Are you focusing on the wherefores of their motives or their methods and how they act on the population?

Regarding historians: I think a certain level of data cherry-picking is inevitable in every field; the goal and purpose of academic review is to minimize that level.

Regarding Narnia fandom:
Point (1) is also inevitable, I would think. No population of P > 1 is going to have unanimous consensus on moral boundaries (and my cynical side insides that a fair few samples of P=1 would have the same problem!). Negotiating the intersections of those boundaries is a necessary part of any social contract. Which suggests that the bigger problem for the fandom is (2), and it might be worth unpacking some of the reasons behind that.

I think

linneasr did hit on one major point when she mentioned that many of the people drawn to this fandom are already in the mindset of accepting authority (there's a term which escapes me at the moment), and inclined to accept authoritive sources at a very literal level. Because that's such a part of not only how they interpret the canon but also the world in general, a challenge to their chosen authority is a challenge to their worldview and uncomfortable to deal with.

Another factor I think plays a role is the age of the fandom; I suspect it skews rather young. Most of us here are at the older end, well into our full adult minds. The broader fandom, though, is probably right on the early edge of adolescence, and not really prepared yet to deal with having their views challenged on a rational level, or old enough to have learned the trick of accomodating multiple contradictory viewpoints.

I guess I'm coming out of the closet as to who I am in RL. I suppose it also doesn't matter that much since the state now requires me to post my resume online. The establishment of an non-governmental organization (in this case think World Wildlife Foundation) is different from possessing rational moral authority, which is different still from having political influence. Supposedly both the USA and China were using NGOs to spy on the UN in the 1950's, but I never did find any source willing to name names. (If they are the only ones using NGOs to spy on the UN I'd be shocked. And no I don't think we stopped either.)

Strangely enough, the current scholarly literature acknowledges only that NGOs (in this case environmental organizations) posses limited influence to change formal treaty outcomes during a 2-week negotiating session. Mostly, I set out to prove that NGOs are more influential than that by looking at how they were able to secure a permanent consulting role at United Nations Environment Program and used this consulting position to articulate a concept we call sustainable development in 1976 or so.

Onto the more pertinent part of your comments (for this audience at least) is why we don't handle difficult conversations well. I can think of several - ability to separate emotion from fact, inability to debate, lack of debater's understanding or completeness of their own worldview.

Age to me, contributes to most of this. I couldn't have done this at 13. My current religious world view developed in my late 20s/early 30s. And I grew up in a deeply religious family.

Most of my 18 - 20 year students will take 3 weeks or longer to figure out what it means to be logically consistent and how to talk with your classmates without starting a fight. And I consider politics to be less touchy than religion. That is in a controlled setting with a referee.

- doctor dolly

Um. I only have two minutes, so this may not be as detailed as needed, but I'd like to say another word about the practices of historiography, as I am being taught it.

Historians select, in order to write the history. We might select out of ignorance (not knowing about something that we're leaving out, by accident), we might select out of principle (we are doing a Marxist history, for example, instead of a domestic history, and, if so, this principle should be fulsomely articulated at the onset of the study), or we might select out of intentional omission (deliberately leaving something out).

The first finds itself corrected rather quickly, the second is honourable practice, because we really cannot include every single detail of an event and we should not claim or attempt to, even the micro-historians, and the last is the great sin of historiography.

I hope that in your use of the historical documents, you scrutinized the introductions where the historians wrote about their individual approach. That's where we disclose what WE think we're doing, anyway.

Argh! Three minutes late. Must go.

We started down this road a little bit before and now you all are developing it beautifully. To paraphrase from

lady_songsmith who is also relying upon Doctor Dolly and

linneasr, this particular fandom does have a high preponderance of membership that both trends younger and is philosophically inclined to accept and be very comfortable with arguments from authority. This may color how a segment interpret canon and the world in general and challenges to that authority are uncomfortable to deal with. (and really aren't any challenges to our world view uncomfortable to deal with?)

And folks, there's a scholarly article in here somewhere. Any takers? How those who are more likely culturally and psychologically to accept arguments from authority in real life are more likely to adhere to a conservative view of canonical construction in fanfiction?

On a side note, I joked in a Tweet that I'm not sure I'm smart enough for my own LJ. You all are really and truly amazing, not just in the obvious formal learning with the advanced degrees and teaching experience but in the ability to write and argue, and reflect.

Something for TWC? The thing is, in order to craft such an article in a resonsible fashion, you would have to develop and administer a test for how likely they are to respond to authority* as well as metrics for what constitutes 'canonical construction' and you'd have a hard sample to get: enough people willing to take the test who have written, reviewed, or otherwise expressed their views on fanfiction enough to constitute a solid body of evidence for analysis.

*My brain is still telling me there's a technical term for 'the measure of how well someone responds to authority' but it is unhelpfully refusing to cough up the word. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

I apologize for having to rush out this morning - the train won't wait for me. :-) I felt ham-fisted and thick all day long, though, having not addressed what was obvious the moment I was on my way to the station, which is your (Doctor Dolly's) anxiety that the historical narrative which you've just sent to the publisher is, in some way, inadequate and that way because of the perfidy of a historian somewhere along the line.

I can't speak to your specific situation, without knowing which sources you used and why you used them, and this may not be the place to go into all that. If you'd like to explore your particular case more, though, I'd be happy to.

I'm also not sure that I was adequately lucid in my original comment, as well. My statement "I suspect that historical details may be occasionally omitted in the interests of a good narrative, but that's my private suspicion." referred to the material I'm reading, not anything I would write.

Specifically, I'm looking at the role of late medieval climate changes in the Protestant Reformation, so I'm looking at a lot of biased material from both sides of the confessional divide, and this is the 20th C historiography (never mind the rabid, frothing-at-the-mouth stuff that was produced in the 16th C). My challenges are in sorting out the writer's biases, and some of them are clearly not nefarious. Some of them I don't have much respect for, in the end.

Whichever, to be able to provide a decent inter-textual analysis, not to mention the Lit Review, I need to recognize each approach. The historians I'm reading would probably, each and every one of them, be able to provide a complete justification for what they chose to select and include in their work. I just find that the confessional differences produce a historical discourse which is so selective that, much like the divide today between some Israelis and some Palestinians, it sometimes doesn't sound like it's addressing the same event.

I'm probably thread hijacking at this point, and I'll beg Ruth's apologies.

That's a very interesting insight about my anxiety, which I readily admit to. Although I suspect that the historical narrative is the best part of the book, I might have redrafted the theory four times, though. I should also add this sat on the shelf for 4 years while I worked in industry and I'm rather humbled to still be relevant after waiting this long to publish.

My comment was intended to be more general. Errors of omission whether deliberate or not are near impossible to sort out. In truth, I am whining about the same thing you're seeing in a different field. How do you ensure that you're accurate as a researcher when the underlying data set is off?

- doctor dolly

For the 16th C religious discourse, by going back to the primary source material. Most of what has been discussed during the 20th C is still available, and some of it is even available on-line now. Edward VI's journal, for example, is a bit of a hoary nutshell for English historians - they've been through it so many times, there's nothing new for most of them. But I went through it and found seven or eight references to the weather, and, along the way, read the thing. Now, when other historians refer to his journal, I have an opinion.

I do rely explicitly on the historical climatologists, and I wouldn't even begin to know if their data is wrong. Some of their research involves counting tree rings and the width of those tree rings, or analyzing ice-core samples from Greenland. They also incorporate documentary sources into their reconstitutions, though, and I'll be covering some of their ground again because I want to use those same sources for my analysis.

I would love to read this when you're done. I still work in climate policy professionally, although as a cap and trade consultant. I teach and publish when I'm not busy running my own business. <>

My dissertation was supposed to be on how business organizations reacted to the threat of the climate change regime, but my original advisor passed away. And the rest is history.

-doctor dolly

Thank you. :-) I'd love to work in climate policy one day.

Just barging in here to note, wow. Two women, in two parts of the world, who meet in a Narnia fan fic author's journal in a discussion that veers (very satisfactorily) from matters of textual interpretation, historiography, and historical versus fictional narrative, to a common bond on the subject of climate change.

I <3 the internet.

PS -- there is no thread jacking here. Digressions? Non sequiturs? teal;deer? No problem. Though I'll draw the line if someone tries to correct citation format.

There is so much I want to pose on the issue of the emergent political role of NGOs! I am very surprised at the limits of scholarly research in this area as I've had a lot of work with consumer groups over the years and during my volunteer stint in Eastern Europe, still more. I assume that most NGOs have a rational moral authority (at least to outsider observers) and that, to be cynical, they can be and usually are bought. (I understand this is a huge issue with migratory birds and wind farming right now, figuring out which bird conservation groups are in bed with the wind farmers and why). Maybe I'm thinking too practically and not theoretically enough (Peter channels my limitations, remember?) but I see two predominate ways in how NGOs translate their moral authority into political action. First, their members, during changes in administration, get appointments to government policy and law enforcement positions. This drives both the agendas of the agencies and to whom the agency will listen. Who a federal entity will listen to vacillates enormously -- Republican, it's the Chamber of Commerce and small business trade associations; Democrat, it's consumer groups. Second, the NGOs solicit money from business and corporate interests in temporary alliances to advocate a mutually beneficial position.

This is not operating at the level of treaties between nations except maybe it does in scenario one that depending upon the administration, representatives from NGOs end up being appointed to the teams that negotiate said treaties. Some time when you can share, I'd love the cite to the book.

Sorry, just want to throw one extra bit in here...

As I've stated probably way more times than necessary, I'm rather new to this whole writing thing. There are some things I very, very particularly want to get across so there's no room for misinterpretation.

That being said, though, there are a couple of elements, plot points, references, etc. that I'm feeling very loose about. On my NBB, I plan on dropping a few things in that if a reader to ask, "Wait, what's THAT about?", I want to answer with, "I don't quite know. What do YOU think?" Some I may eventually write about, others not so much. Who knows?

It just seems like a very, very fun thing to do! And I wonder how often authors do that intentionally.

I'm always intrigued people people who argue that writers' personal beliefs must be reflected in their writing--mine certainly aren't always! (Especially, say, in my Narnia fic, where I tend to give Aslan a lot of slack, even though a) atheist! and b) if I did believe in an omnipotent omniscient deity I would have to hate it.) Sometimes your personal credo doesn't work for the story you're telling, or the world, or the audience. Especially fantasy children's stories--you might have to change your theology around a bit.

I'm also intrigued by the idea that writers have one set of personal beliefs, even though (as in Lewis's case) those beliefs were forged over a lifetime, and we seriously don't have access to a lot of them (like the sexuality issue, for instance. Lewis was close friends with a gay man and seemed to have some S&M leanings himself, so...). Even if we could say with 100% certainty that Lewis was writing his direct beliefs into each book, what do we do if his understanding of Christ changed between LWW and LB? Which is the "true" Aslan?

Mainly, though, I don't think it's relevant. (I mean, I think it's interesting, to be sure--sometimes I am fascinated by what writers think. And I *do* think context is frequently important. A writer writing about two men sharing a bed, frex, is going to mean different things in a novel set during the civil war than a novel set right now. Which is why the Achilles/Patrocles ship war is ultimately futile, but I digress.) And that's for two reasons: first, because I don't think writers should be able to insist on their readers carrying around three biographies, a manifesto, and a commentary to understand the story. That's sloppy writing. I might have meant that, say, Will is an elderly basset hound, but if you have to read through my journal to the bit where I talk about how I've always believed in writing about dogs as those left behind by soldiers, and then read through a comment somewhere else about how I love basset hounds, and then read through another comment about how Will is the perfect name for a dog...if that's the way my story was meant to be read I am a sloppy writer. You know?

And second, like, whatever, author. The author is dead! I don't believe in the idea that there is one thing put into the story, and that's what the author meant, and that's the end. Readers get different things out (I mean, hell, what are Homer's thoughts on war, right?), and writers don't get to dictate that, even within the confines of the story. If I write a story that I think is totally about stalking, is it invalid if readers think it's about sainthood? (uuuuum actually I think I am going to go with yes here. NEVER HEALTHY, READERS. :/ Maybe the better example is: I interpreted--and wrote--that final section as Lucy finally getting some power back in that relationship, but other people have definitely seen it as the nail in the coffin of Aslan being an abusive boyfriend, so to speak. I don't think that's invalid at all--I think it's totally a valid conclusion from the text that I wrote. And my text speaks for itself, and I can't wander about telling people what to think, because the story is a story all by itself.)

I think also...like, sometimes writers mean for the hero to be perfect, and they say he's perfect, and they write it into the text, and they tell you in interviews, and he's still Edward Cullen. So authors can be wrong. Even Lewis. And I think Narnia fandom sometimes has a problem with that, because there's a weird contingent of fandom that wants to take Lewis as, like, a fifth gospel.

Right, so not much a philosopher, but I think you're onto something here. From where I'm sitting, belief isn't a fixed, unchanging constant. It evolves over a lifetime, changing as different life lessons educate us - growth of wisdom, and all that?

While I may have the same core tenets that I did at twenty, there's an awful lot of things have changed, to a greater or lesser extent, over the course of twenty more years. I think lady songsmith is certainly onto something when she notes age, mindset and mental maturity. From personal experience, I can attest that it's far easier to sit in some smug certainty about the rightness of your beliefs when're younger and have less exposure to life

I think that's so true! And it took Lewis a long time to write the Chronicles, so...

I think you probably also have a point about the fandom--Narnia fans tend to skew young, and it's probably a lot easier to be smug about what Lewis would have wanted when you're still a teenager.

Will was elderly basset hound? Oh gawd. I've always wanted a follow on fic, you know that, don't you? Ed and Nora meeting in a bookstore after the war? I WANT THIS FIC.

With sad eyes! Missing his master, away at war. Of course, Nora isn't a dog person. But she makes an effort.

Oh god I can't even. She asks after his family and he asks after her friend, and the afternoon under the apple tree is so far away that neither of them can quite recall the feeling, the warmth of the sun, the smell in the breeze. AND THEN THEY MAKE OUT. And then Ed goes to catch a train.

But where do they snog???!! They are in a bookstore on a rainy day in London? Or Cambridge, again? What section? Is she reading Milton and he is reading Joyce? Is Will with her? Or, perhaps they meet at a Museum in London. She is looking at illuminated manuscripts or Carroll's original Alice In Wonderland at the British Museum and Edmund is exploring the Rosetta Stone and the Parthenon pieces. Maybe he's in a squalid little flat that he shares with Lucy, Peter, and some itinerant Indian masons and Irish laundresses whose Chinese husbands have been deported and hollow cheeked concentration camp survivors. And they want to make out but small children keep sneezing on them and Will is drooling on Edmund's leg. But they make out anyway, because there MUST BE KISSING.

I am of two minds about authorial intent. On the one hand, I do like to respect the... integrity of canon, I guess? In other words, I want what I write to seem like a reasonable and organic growth from the books we already have. On the other hand, I do not think that canon is the be-all and end-all of the world. Sometimes I think Lewis's theology is abhorrent. Sometimes I think what he says just doesn't make any logical sense. (This is mostly stuff related to Calormen, btw. And also Rilian's age vs. Caspian's age.)

Also, I don't think my approach to writing fanfiction -- the whole "slip it in as if it could be canon" notion -- is the only way to interact with a text or film or what have you. There are people who want to fix a text. There are people who want to do something completely bizarre. There are people who just read a text very differently in the first place, so their view of what will slide right in is not going to agree with mine. And that's fine. They're all valid. I may find some of the end products completely aggravating, but this is not a zero sum game. All our stories can coexist without invalidating each other.

So I tend to find claims that "you're doing it wrong" short-sighted at best and mostly just very, very sad.

(YOU are NOT doing it wrong, btw. You are doing something very, very RIGHT. *hugs*)

Edited 2012-01-17 04:35 (UTC)

(YOU are NOT doing it wrong, btw. You are doing something very, very RIGHT. *hugs*)

thank you. I try very hard to tell myself that, especially when I see the discussion above which I don't have time to respond to at the moment. It is so lovely and the folks who come here and exchange ideas are extraordinary.

I vented on Twitter a little bit last night and then talked to someone in a PM. I got stung again, badly, recently, and so though I'm sure it seems I whinge an awful lot about this, the fact is, I am targeted. There are layers to the criticism. With some, God has told them not to read so they avoid it altogether and that I should be ashamed of myself for being so counter to Lewis and to Christianity when I purport to be a Christian myself. With others, they really wish I'd just take myself to another fandom (Twilight and Harry Potter have both been mentioned in the past) and to please stop trashing their beloved childhood. With others, they are fine with the per-marital conduct, but have fled with any hint of same sex conduct as too immoral to stomach. There's something else that has been operating too - people who read my work and might fav the "moral" stories or they use elements of my work in their own writing, but don't review though they review other work. I've concluded that I'm a dirty secret, like pornography in the brown wrapper for some. I'm good enough to read on the sly, and even good enough to borrow from, but too immoral to acknowledge.

I'm at the point where I really feel like they are winning. I shouldn't let the negative overwhelm the much larger positive, which I most gratefully recognize, but it's hard to not get incredibly discouraged over it when this is supposed to be a fun hobby.

I suspect, my dear Ruth, that it is because you operate in a sort of grey area of the fandom. There's a great deal out there which is far more 'immoral' in Their terms, but it is so clearly Out There that it might as well have great big neon warning signs on it to Them. Whereas you, while you write "not your children's Narnia", write a vision trending much closer to canon which might very well BE the children's Narnia, until those other elements pop out and bap the reader right between the eyes.* Having been lulled by the more innocent aspects of the story, They are far more upset to find the worm in the apple, as it were, than they would be if they had picked a clearly bruised one up off the ground. There's also the fact that your writing is far superior in technical quality than, oh, roughly 90% of the Narnia archive, and there's always a certain resentment even among more open-minded fans at finding a fic that's well-written, coherent, structured, detailed... and about something you can't stand.

*To clarify, because I know you are sensitive to criticism, I don't mean that those elements are not well-integrated with your story, structurally or thematically. I just mean that to the sort of Reader under discussion, they stand out from the text.

I agree with this. ALso, you write longer stories, so people get sucked in and then gasp! Ruth! You don't hate gay people! YOU'RE LETTING GROWNUPS HAVE SEX. And cue angst.

Whereas like I don't catch much flack for my femslash, and I can only assume that either I am writing it too subtly, or people recognize what's going on from the start and don't jump in.

One thematic element that hasn't been touched on in our discussion above is the role of Lewis' writings within Christianity. I wouldn't dream of speaking for the Catholics, but I will speak for the Protestants broadly, and for the Stone-Campbell movement (i.e. Church of Christ, Disciples of Christ, International Church of Christ, etc.) in particular. Lewis is, at some point in your adolescent life, a text used in Sunday School. I recall classes on both LWW and the Screwtape Letters before turning 16. Virtually every church I've attended uses this as a bible study at some point. Ergo, attacking or disagreeing or variances from Lewis equate with rejecting the teachings of the Bible.

Of course, non-compliant fandom will be attacked. Vigorously, Continuously. By people who hopefully will mature and understand they acted badly.

It is discouraging and you can (and should) feel this way. You continue to handle the criticisms gracefully and you continue to write. Both your writings and your attitudes continue to exceed my expectations.

- doctor dolly

That is really weird. I think I escape that myself because I basically do not write sex (not from any moral objections; it's just about as far from my forte as humanly imaginable) and thus the elements in my stories where I disagree with Lewis do not stand out as dramatically. Hmm. Now I kind of want to write a bunch of Narnians in an extramarital polyamorous sexual relationship, just for shock value. *sigh*

And yeah, like

lady_songsmith said, you probably hit more problems than people like, oh,

bedlamsbard would, if she posted on ff.net, because your stories do trend a lot closer to book canon and so the parts where you don't conform to a rigid, straitlaced view of Saint Lewis's Incomparably Pure Intentions (TM) come as an unwelcome surprise instead of as a confirmation of a prior bad opinion. The latter tends to make a person feel more secure in her/his worldview, but the former is an unpleasant jolt and may lead to lashing out.

Alas, speculation about potential motives is cold comfort to the person on the receiving end of said lashing out. Words DO hurt, after all. *deeper sigh*

Thank you and I'll try to be quieter about my whinging next time as I seem to have hijacked my own thread.

*ahem*

there is no thread jacking here. Digressions? Non sequiturs? teal;deer? No problem.

+1 *hugs*

Dear Rth,

I wish I had a quip or a comment that would help brush away the mean-spirited comments that some people make to you, or a magical shield that I could erect around your creative mind.

The value of the fiction that you are writing is soo big, in that you are providing grown ups with a way to see ourselves, our lives and our experiences & situations in Narnia. Narnia! A world of magic and wonder, where the beasts & trees talk and love!

I'm well into middle age (as you know :-)) and I don't want to leave my self & my maturity (if there is any) behind when I visit Narnia. It's a great place, but Clive Staples did write it for children, and at a certain point, I needed more juice to the story to be able to stay enchanted - which you are providing. Of course I want to see the complex, dynamic world I live in today reflected and refracted into this fictional place! Why wouldn't I?

There is a view of the world which believes that it is better, safer, and wiser to delimit and deny that which "shouldn't" be there (according to a 2000 year old story, but it's not necessary to go there right now). This is, at the core, the same view which veils women and hides them behind laws and walls "for their own protection." Do we really want to surrender to this view?

Have courage, Rth. You're writing fiction, and I do hope it's a fun hobby - because it's a very fun read - and you're also bringing light to a very dark corner of the world, for who knows who might read your material today and open their minds tomorrow? And if their minds open because you mentioned a same-sex giraffe-relationships in AW, perhaps they'll be kinder to a gay man or a lesbian in RL someday.

The meaning of what you're doing in Not-My-Children's Narnia is important: it's about freedom, and courage, and honesty & integrity. It's about having confidence in one's own imagination, and that's very important. Not to mention the occasional terrible pun.

Please continue writing.

Best wishes.
And lots of magical shields.

Write. Well, and right. Thank you. The less I saw the better and we'll just let this one go. Thank you again.

YES. I can't thank linneasr enough for saying all of this so elegantly. I only found this thread today (and that's because my own RL has been eating away all my energy and mental capacity), and at any other time I would be writing my own long commentary on authorial intent and fic and free speech, etc. However, at the moment I will simply agree wholeheartedly, and say that no one, Ruth, should be more proud of what they accomplish with their writing than you. Not-My-Children's Narnia conveys so much about love, hope, integrity, compassion, and all the kinds of love in the world. You have created so much that is beautiful, and you have given me ways to go back to Narnia as an adult that I never thought I would have. You are pushing others to reconsider their own moral compasses, and decide whether the values they adhere to are truly the ones they want to carry in the world. Do not be discouraged, ever, by the naysayers. Just remember how much we all love you for what you create.

Thank you for pausing in your very busy life to comment. I do hope things have calmed down and I know RL has been difficult!

I told someone today that I just feel more under siege than ever before. The loss of a couple of readers over recent chapters of AW really stings, still, in this case because I know they have not left the fandom, just me, so yeah, it IS personal. Then the usual steady stream of FB, commentary and PMs that use the word "uncomfortable," or mention nothing but the typo I missed two years ago, or that it's gotten dull and dry and whatnot and so I conclude that maybe it's a hint and I've overstayed the welcome. I know, DRAMA QUEEN. Ridiculous. Not even a First World Problem. So I did not commit pseudo-cide last night as I very much wished to and just soldiered on.

And I do hope you have some days of stress free goodness.

I just want to note that I have tried, three times now, to reply to you via PM. The first two times my messages were wiped out by forces beyond my understanding - LJ fluke? The third time, my wireless connection had cut out, and I lost all the text when I tried to send. It's not my fault! I will send you a regular e-mail at some point, and hopefully that will work better. :)

Really, sometimes Google Chat or Skype (text not voice) is SO MUCH EASIER. Hang in there!

I got stung again, badly, recently, and so though I'm sure it seems I whinge an awful lot about this, the fact is, I am targeted.

This bothers me so much. Just because you're a "grown up" and you write beautifully and evocatively, doesn't mean you should be expected to stoically or even acceptingly face the same sort of vicious tear-down behaviour aimed at young writers in the same section who are stumbling toward finding their voice. It's bullying in both guises.

I'm so sorry.

I could only be sorrier if you let them win.

Yes. THIS.

Love the icon. And thank you.

I agree absolutely. Rth, you have taken my beloved from childhood stories and expanded them and enriched them immeasurably. You do it with care and humour and gobs of research. This is a great gift to all of us.

Thank you again. And please continue.
And now I'm going to happily reread Harold and Morgan, having reread By Royal Decree last night.

ClaireI

the shadow the original content creator casts

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TAG! You're it! Aslan as a really bad deity

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Coming Back to This

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