Chapter 13, Keep Your Friends Close

[rthstewart]

Despite hacking illness and holidays, I managed the first chapter of the next mini story arc, Keep Your Friends Close (chapter 13) and Your Enemies Closer (Chapter 14) to follow.  The story begins its wind up after that.

Once again in the category of, I couldn't possibly make this stuff up, the episode involving the stolen pamphlet, its frantic copying, and return with no one being the wiser is taken straight from The Irregulars, sans Gryphon.

 

“Marsh had given him a draft of a pamphlet written by his close friend Henry Wallace.  Entitled “Our Job in the Pacific” it summarized the vice president’s postwar goals, among them international control of the airways, economic assistance for the industrial development of Asia, and the demilitarization of Japan.  Wallace was also in favor of “the emancipation of colonial subjects” in the British Empire, including India, Burma, and Malaya.  Dahl could feel his hair stand on end.  Dahl, immediate realized the document’s importance, and knowing that his superiors would want to see it, he excused himself saying that he was going to finish reading it downstairs.  He quickly phoned his BSC contact, explained the urgency of the situation, and convinced him to meet him on the corner as soon as possible.  The agent knew something was up and materialized on the street in front of Marsh’s house in a matter of minutes. 

 

Dahl sneaked out of the hosue and handed the document through his car window, warning his partner in crime to be in back in half an hour or there would be hell to pay.  … [T]he agent went straight to the BSC’s Washington offices to make copies and made it back within the allotted time.  Dahl nipped back out, collected the paper, and no one was the wiser. 

 

[The document] created a bit of stir in New York and again when it reached London.  Churchill reported could hardly believe what he was reading.  … [The] American government’s postwar plans for civil aviation … coupled with the liquidation of the British Empire, inspired Churchill to cataclysms of wrath. 

J. Connant, The Irregulars, Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington.  pp. 121-122.

It's funny, when I first started mapping this out, I knew I would need a way to record and copy documents, Narnia-style.  That problem was solved with the dual action now part of the story.  You may also notice that I've stopped signaling the switch between Tashbaan and Washington.  I figure the reader is able to slide back and forth as well as Peter is at this point.

So, I hope you'll read and review.  

Comments

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

Yep, the liberation point is taken straight from the original pamphlet and the ongoing criticism of British colonial policies. At this point, I think most of the Indian National Congress, including Gandhi, have been imprisoned for agitating for Indian independence. The Quit India movement was huge. We'll actually be visiting the issue a bit in the form of leaks from Flobber's office -- again taken directly from The Irregulars.

It is strange, to be putting Narnia against Calormen, and England against the US in this regard. It's all a bit topsy turvy, because of course, we the reader bring the idea of Calormenes as slave traders into the brew and the role that slavery had in the Lone Islands. This is all, of course, in addition to my own harping upon the problems the Lone Islands posed to Narnia in this 'verse, and how delicately the Four tried to tread there.

[autumnia]

The Irregulars is now on my to-read list. I've been debating whether I should just buy the book or borrow it from the library.

I am curious though, did you purposely set up the Calormenes and the Lone Islands in By Royal Decree to mirror what was to come in Queen Susan? Or was it all just a happy coincidence?

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

Appallingly, it is coincidence. I wrote those first chapters of BRD after chapter 8 of Part 1, Lion's Business, where I developed the idea already introduced of Susan's father working for spies and Susan doing what she could to aid them. I had never envisioned writing Part 2, as I did, even at that point. (I had not thought to write Part 2 at all, at first and would never have undertaken it if you and a couple of others hadn't asked about it) When I first realized I was committing myself to Part 2, I was deeply concerned with how I could tell the story at all. I assumed no one would read a straight Spare Oom story, that I had to do it in Narnia-verse, and I was stymied as to how to do that. I'm not sure when I hit on the dual action, with Ed as omniscient narrator and Peter sitting as the reader, but it was much later on. Once I settled on the dual action, gosh, I think even posted over here on the LJ about what might be what -- Ettins, Telmar, Lone Islands, Galma, etc.

In TQSiT, Terebinthia actually sits in for the colonies, while the Lone Islands are Africa. If I'd been truly consistent, the Lone Islands would have been the colonial interests -- though of course the British had colonies in Africa too, so...

The fact is, the amount of making it up as a go along is pretty appalling. Time and again, things I introduced by accident ended up being important to the vision, or were things I ended up explaining. Mr. Pevensie at Cambridge, Jalur being in Edmund's Order, the splints first used in BRD, Lucy's letter to Peter in Chapter 4 of part 1, these are all things that I did not intend to have any special meaning, but have now become integral to the story. So far, I've not gotten myself into too many corners -- Archenland being New York or Canada is the most notable one that I couldn't get out of. Yeah, as if anyone remembered THAT one.

Something I've realized from review responses is that readers how are following both sides of this vision have sort of mashed BRD and The Palace Guard together. That's fine of course, good, even, but I have found it interesting.