As posted previously, this chapter was a culmination of thought that goes back a year. I had intended to address this in Part 3, not here, as I'd not originally intended to tell the story of The Queen Susan in Tashbaan at all, or at least not in this way. Best laid plans and all that.

The Jewish Virtual Library
What We Knew And When We Knew It
Chronology www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/chron.html

The NSA Report, Eavesdropping On Hell
World War 2.net Timeline of the Holocaust, 1942
New York Times article discussing the NSA Report

I've been working toward this for a while now as I've tried to explore not only how Narnian culture is different, and how it made the Pevensies different, but why their exposure to that differentness is important and relevant. It's a thematic element that is woven throughout all the stories. I see that compassion and tolerance as a fundamental thematic element in the Chronicles and so have made it a centerpiece here, taking it out, stretching it beyond all recognition.

So. That's that. I need a drink. And an analgesic.

Chapter 11 of TQSiT will likely be up tonight. Oi. This one has taken A LOT out of me. It's sort of a culmination of thoughts I had a year ago when I first started thinking of Narnia, even if I did not anticipate it would end up being told in precisely this way. Lots of research and a lot of thought has gone into this. I just hope it works...

We now return to your regularly scheduled frivolity. Sometimes Real Life and Fandom pursuits are, as Buffy would say, "non mixy things." Regrettably, an update I really, really, really want to get done is getting buried in squash, turkey brining, dirty crystal, stained linens, and outfitting the guest room with soap, tissues and clean sheets for the out-laws. Ah well.

Chapter 10 is up! And this is an outtake from it!

( Lie Back And Think Of Narnia )

FF.net is broken. Maybe it will be fixed by the time I get Chapter 10 to upload.

Chapter 9, the Queen Susan in Tashbaan, Means and End, Part 1, The Means
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5209349/9/The_Queen_Susan_In_Tashbaan

Oh, and for the record, I am completely freaked out by the NFFR Award nominations. Blithering, terrified, and moronic. Yeah, that about covers it.

Off to buy a bowling ball, frozen Butterball, which, according to Cooks Illustrated (the Consumer Reports of cooking magazines) delivered the best results short of those heirloom birds at 3 dollars a pound, plus shipping and handling. The food safety experts agree that you want a bird that was slaughtered and hard frozen a few months ago when the processing lines were slow and that those heirloom birds might be coming from farms whose hearts, but not food safety heads, are in the right place. No brining or salting a Butterball though.

Fashion in 1942! And I'll post chapters 9 and 10 as soon as ff.net gets its act together. I am very aggravated this morning.

Fabulous shoes and summer dresses from the 1942 Sears Catalog

The shoes!




The January 1942 McCall's

Susan's Little Black Dress



Evening gowns:






And... really, the British 1942 Vogue magazine. A woman wearing a rationed silk dress... with dinosaurs. It's Mary Anning Russell, except with dark hair, in a dress, and with a handbag



Correction -- those aren't dinosaurs. Those are large, prehistoric mammals. They are quadrupeds and that's definitely a mammalian head. I'd guess an indricothere or giant ground sloth. The smaller, four legged one may be an early equine. Errm... yeah

Now, amongst all of you, I suspect I am the only one old enough to have recalled the sly, campy show The Avengers with bowler-hat wearing John Steed and his co-hort Mrs. Emma Peel.  I am not referring to the dreadful film, but to the TV series of the 1960s.  It was part Mission Impossible, part Dr. Who, part X Files, part Man From Uncle, and it was lovely.   None of this Tara King stuff.  Mrs. Emma Peel, played by the incomparable Diana Rigg was beyond awesome.  Smart, funny, sexy, deadly, with these amazing 1960s clothes and car and this whole "can do" bring it on boys sensibility.  And it occurred to me as I was thinking about Mrs. Jane Ellis under the desk with Mr. Robert Brown that I have unconsciously been channeling Mrs. Emma Peel in the characterization of Susan in TQSiT.  And with that as an inspiration... 

So that you too might share in the glory of Emma Peel,

Here's the show's intro -- the Avengers In Color!! 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0YOlU3SMgs&feature=related

Peel the Reel:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKKeVtWDEPw

And I found this hilarious remix of Mrs. Peel meets The Kinks, right down to her catsuits, nifty convertible, champagne, and boots.  It doesn't give her delightful snarky dialogue, but the look is there. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve9N9oaXU18

There's oodles more, but I was so excited, I had to share.  Emma Peel behind the couch doing goodness knows what with John Steed is just ever so much awesome.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled life and updates....  Real Life can Really Suck sometimes.

As related in Chapter 7, The Queen Susan In Tashbaan, What's Cooking

If this picture appears in the section on preparation of game meat, this is how you know you've got the REAL Joy of Cooking , from page 468 of the 1962 edition (the cookbook itself goes back to at least a 1932 edition)




Gray squirrels are preferred, as the red are a bit scrawny and gamey.

This is the Cookbook I grew up with and when my mom's old copy finally fell apart, I got a new one as a Christmas gift, but insisted on the Old version, with, yes, the squirrel skinning included. 

I wrote this out a few days ago as I was trying to decide whether to insert the conversation between Susan and Peridan in which he dances around the fact that the Shoemaker, a Faun, is probably homosexual.

So, I'm going there.  Again.  In Chapter 7 of TQSiT. 

"Nothing deceives like a document."  A quote from the spymaster, Intrepid himself, William Stephenson.

There is some of this that is just plain outrageous.  All documented, all true, completely outrageous, even in these days of Weapons of Mass Destruction. 

To the point of going there or not, I've really tried to make the cultures of Narnia different from 1942 England in order to provide the basis for the Pevensies being so comfortable with people and cultural practices that are different.  I've written of this so many times but in this chapter and the next, it really matters, or maybe that having laid the groundwork, we can leap with them the next step. 

Not only has the culture of Narnia made them tolerant, they have also witnessed first hand the intolerance of dissent and differentness in the Witch and Miraz.  They have come in, twice, at the end of reigns of terror.  Their people have been brutalized for over a thousand years.  This HAS to make them more sensitive to evidence of hatred, doesn't it? 

So now to underscore the point, I've gone after another sacred cow of Narnia fandom in homosexuality with Queen Susan's withering criticism of Peridan for being an idiot about it.  It's not slash, it's not incest, it's not any practice at all, whether Pevensie or someone else.  It just is.  Susan's reaction is a "so what, and what's it to you?"  It's about belief, being slow to judgment that belongs to Aslan alone, empathy, gentleness, and minding one's own business.  

So, why do I insert yet more gratuituous sex into the stories?  First, does it make sense in the story?  In this milleu, the answer has to be yes, for lots of reasons.  It can be part of the English boys' public school experience in one way or another (Lewis writes of it, in fact), it's part of the intelligence community of the time, it's part of the animal and plant kingdom, and it's in the lusty mythology of satyrs and fauns. 

Second, it's there because I'm preaching.  (Sometimes, yes, it's in there because it's fun and funny and gratuituous, or not always.)  It's showing that the racial, religious, ethnic and sexual prejudices and injustice that blind other people, that encourage people to look the other way and just not see it, these prejudices do not blind the Pevensies.  And that's important in this vision.  In this vision, being Narnian and bearing the charge from Aslan, means you cannot look the other way or treat others with contempt and condemnation because they are different.  

Anyway, I'll hit send.     

Reference to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy there.

Thanks to all who weighed in on the Harold and Morgan things.  It helped.  It got the thing out of my system and released in a friendlier environment (ouch, slings and arrows of outrageous fortune).

Further, I'm thinking there are two undercurrents -- exploring a working partnership that isn't about the romance but with some real substance and intrigue behind it; and smutty humor.  I had way more fun with Morgan's docu-philia than I thought would be possible.  Just cutting and pasting a form contract for the provision of services into my word processor and then playing with that language gave me all sorts of ideas.  For instance, there is this concept of sovereign immunity -- you can't sue the State, the government, or the King for normal wrongful acts, errors and omissions unless the sovereign agrees to be sued.  I could see a very amusing discussion between them on the subject of whether Harold could be accountable for acts done to Morgan's person.  Well, it would be amusing for me anyway.

In the future, I'll have to think also about whether to switch to a Harold or Morgan point of view.  It's been a while since I've gone that far in writing.  Been there, done that, got the t-shirt as the saying goes.  Ah the follies of youth.  In my old age, I am finding more enjoyment out of writing that relies on humor, salacious innuendo and the reader's imagination.

So, thanks again to those who checked it out. 



 

 

( Dots, with added sticky tongue )
Part 2 -- The Party of the First and Second Part

Harold and Morgan

The Not-A-Romance between the Evil Banker and the Just King.

 

Right then.  If you know the meaning of the title, you had one of two reactions.  You groaned in despair, or you squealed realizing that I finally gave into my baser impulses.

 

If you are the sort of reader who was appalled by the bawdiness of By Royal Decree, this is not for you.  ‘Cause it’s going to be worse.  Turn around now.  Really.  This isn’t my children’s Narnia.  This isn’t the Narnia of Christian allegory and the medieval cult of the Virgin.  This is different. 

 

Rather, this is for those of you (all five of you) who have been picking apart every sentence Harold utters and ever line I write in the many, many, many (many many many) pages I do write for hints of Evil Banker Morgan.  Or, those of you who haven’t read anything else but for reasons I will not speculate upon, you are rather fond of the Harold and Morgan resolution.

 

To come clean, in The Stone Gryphon, Evil Banker Morgan is She Who Must Not Be Named (or thought about) Ever – a sort of Morgan-mort.  You are dutifully persevering through everything else because you just want to read more of Evil Banker Morgan and Harold.  So, this is for you.

 

You don't want to go here.  I'm not just pushing the envelope.  I've put it through the paper shredder. 

Oddly, I'm not even sure if these first installments even merit a T.  But, it is as I envision Evil Banker Morgan and Harold.  Having done this, now, maybe, I can get back to QSiT.  

Part 1 -- Revision to Dots, with added sticky tongue

Part 2 -- All New! The Party of the First and Second Part

Bed Bug Sniffing Dogs: From Pet Shop to Pest-Stopping - Paw Nation

Because this is just so cool!

As the comments are indicating (and just going to show that I can never predict what will resonate with a reader), the Tarot Card readings with Agnes have been remarked upon as being a favorite part of this chapter.

The choice of cards was all the doing of anastigmatfic .  I told her what I wanted -- I need a card for a mentor, I need a card to describe Tebbitt as an intelligence operative, I need cards to show lovers but no love, I need cards for Peter, Edmund and Lucy, and she found them all.  She was very impassioned on the subject of the Knight of Pentacles for Peter as portrayed in TSG Part 1, and when Agnes speaks, it is anastigmat's thoughts and analysis you read.

In answer to the question and assumption, I said that I was looking for a card for Asim, to represent for Susan, the guide to come, the Light on Dark Paths.  She came up with the brilliant Chariot and Hierophant.  The idea of a man of divinity who has harnessed both light and dark in the direction he wishes them to go was all hers. 

For Lambert, I wrote out dialogue of the one who waits for Susan and again I received the lovely resting Knight of the Four of Swords and Temperance cards. 


So, need to be sure that credit goes where credit is due!!

Well, it's up, FINALLY!!  Tools of the Trade, 9,700 words, and a full two months since the last update.  Ugh.  I promise I won't start anything new.  Really.  Well, except maybe this retelling of Horse and His Boy. and inserting the Trickster into the pantheon of Calormene gods. 

So fun links
The Rider-Waite Tarot Deck from which Agnes reads
The Astrologer that British Intelligence really regretted hiring
A little bit about Saint Agnes, patron saint of young girls, virgins and rape victims
A little bit about the Trickster, Anansi, and Aunt Nancy

Insofar as De Wohl is concerned, this is an example of the sort of time compression that I use in the story.  He was actually most active in the U.S. through December 1941.  I'm bumping up their use of him about 6 months cause how can you possible leave out astrologers and Rat and Crow rumormongering in Narnia story?  Right?

In fact, the beginning of this chapter harkens back to Chapter of TSG, Part 1, in which Ed and Su are starting to figure some of this out. 

( Excerpt from Chapter 8, Lions' Business, Part 1 TSG )

I wish I could say that I knew I was going to do what I just did here when I wrote that way back 6 months ago or whever I posted it.  Nope. 

As for the lengthy note at the end, yes, I'd like to know what you think.  These things are an uncomfortable part of US history; to paint it as normal or ignore it would seem dishonest.  Yet, maybe fan fic shouldn't go there at all.  My solution was to show things that today would be denounced as stereotypical, yet align them with the positive connotation of Narnia.  I do not align Narnia with the frivolity and class-based Washington society in which Susan is also moving.  

So, thoughts?  Fire away!

yipee!!  This is very satisfying, to have a second story up and complete this year, even if the dangly bits I'm leaving unresolved are beginning to accumulate like dust bunnies under the bed.

But, a burning question.  Several reviewers asked as to the species of the physician.  I have three characters floating around in these stories, with actual name and species unidentified:

The General
Cook
The Physician

We now know that Cook can lob cabbages with fair accuracy.  We know the Physician is old and had an unhealthy fascination with primate mating and bonding systems.  So, what species is the Physician?  I figure he needs to have paws for grasping and that immediately limits us pretty much to mustelids, rodents, and a few others.  My two top contenders:
A raccoon
A porcupine

Admit it, a porcupine physician is pretty darn amusing, yeah?