Doll Bones

[calimac]

I just read a YA fantasy called Doll Bones by Holly Black (Simon & Schuster, 2013). B. had been reading this library book to me aloud while we were out driving one day, and I was sufficiently caught up in it to ask to sub-borrow it to finish.

I like the characters; they're captivating and are what made me want to finish the book. I like the fact that they play imaginary-world games together but do not fall into the cliche of visiting their own imaginary world. I like the fact that the fantasy element is elusive and possibly imaginary, manifesting itself in the form of what would be awfully eerie coincidences. I like the fact that the secret quest takes the heroes to an obscure town in eastern Ohio that I've actually visited. I like the it's-assumed-you-know-them references to earlier fantasy that the characters have read (especially Lloyd Alexander, and also Tolkien). I like that this is a present-day book in which the heroes are able to get away with doing things that are illegal (stealing bicycles and a sailboat), immoral (tearing pages out of a library book), and fattening (eating donuts for breakfast).

Here's another thing I particularly liked. The protagonists are three pre-teens whose friendship had been forged by improvising stories taking place in their shared imaginary world. But now the youngest of them fears that the other two are outgrowing it.

"I thought that ... we'd have something that no one else had - an experience that would keep us together. I can see you changing." She turned to Zach. "You're going to be one of those guys who hangs out with their teammates and dates cheerleaders and doesn't remember what it was like to make up stuff. And you--" She whirled on Alice. "You're going to be too busy thinking about boys and trying out for school plays and whatever to remember. It's like you're both forgetting everything. You're forgetting who you are. ... We had a story, and our story was important. And I hate that both of you can just walk away and take part of my story with you and not even care. I hate that you can do what you're supposed to do and I can't. I hate that you're going to leave me behind. I hate that everyone calls it growing up, but it seems like dying. It feels like each of you is being possessed and I'm next."

And that is what happened to Susan Pevensie in the Chronicles of Narnia. Is it clear now? Can we get out of our thick heads the ridiculous notion that Lewis damned her to Hell because she'd become sexually mature? That's not what this was about in Lewis, and not in Black either.

Comments

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

This may seem like a strange comparison, but I am reminded of nothing so much as Doris Lessing's account, in one of her novels, of the British Communist Party in the days when Stalin's crimes were becoming known. She has her characters getting together, and asking, "Is so and so still in the party?" "No, they broke with the party three weeks ago." And to them it feels like the person dying, because of course it makes them a traitor, and as good Communists they can't associate with a traitor; but at the same time they all anticipate that the day will come when they'll see one more damning revelation, and it will be just too much, and they too will have to leave the party, and lose all their friends and the cause that's given meaning to their life—so they dread the truth as if it were a fatal illness. It was heartbreaking to read, even for me, a confirmed libertarian who had no sympathy for Communism, and who grew up long after Stalin was recognized as a mass murderer and there was no surprise about it.

One of the people on my friendslist, ffutures (short for Forgotten Futures, a game he published based on Victorian sf), published a bit of fanfic on LJ a few posts back that explained what was happening with Susan in terms of the Dr. Who continuity. His Susan wasn't Lewis's Susan, but she was brave and resolute and eventually was granted a different redemption.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I trust you see the vast differences as well. Susan, or Zach and Alice, are not disillusioned or finding damning revelations about their childhood dreams; they're just losing interest. And Poppy (the character who's speaking) is not fearing losing touch with them for being forbidden to associate with them, but because they'll no longer have their interests in common.

Apparently that Susan story you refer to was written and published by someone else, and linked to by the person you name. I don't have time to read it right now, but if, as advertised, it's about Susan remembering Narnia later on, that's exactly what Lewis hoped she would do to redeem herself.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

That's a clear and well stated analysis. No, I hadn't worked out all of that, but you're right; in fact when I think about it, the situation Lessing describes is almost the reverse of Susan's.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

Actually, no, it is by ffutures; the person he linked to was someone else who admired the story and posted a link to it. But the original story is a long way back on his journal (he posts more often than I realized). If you're ever curious it's probably easier to go to the archived version (http://archiveofourown.org/works/1134136/chapters/2292513). Sorry about the failure to provide proper bibliographic information in the first place.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

You're quite right. It's always seemed very clear to me, too: I wonder whether you need to have been the youngest sibling to understand this sort of thing? (I certainly remember having very similar feelings when my brother and cousin - both three years older - were suddenly beyond playing Post Office with me.) Did Warnie lose interest in Boxen before Jack was ready? Did Branwell go the bad because Charlotte abandoned him in Angria? There's a whole psychodrama here, which might have been uncovered much earlier had Freud not been an eldest child.

[danceswithwaves.livejournal.com]

I'm the oldest sibling, but I saw the same thing in friends of mine, though I couldn't articulate it as well. (Perhaps the articulation is a younger sibling thing.) I was just less interested in the "growing up" bits that others of my peer group were interested in, and fought against it more. It was awkward at times, but I think what ended up happening was it morphed from games into stories and didn't lose much in the process.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I don't think I ever consciously abjured the loves of my childhood because I wanted to seem Grown-Up, which is what Lewis charges that Susan did, but then I never had really "juvenile" tastes, even as a small child. I did, however, go through a period in adolescence where some of the stories I liked as a child seemed puerile to me. Not all, but some. Some of them I recovered a love for in my 20s, some acquired a nostalgic patina, and some had just been attacked by the suck fairy.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I agree, but you will never convince those who cannot forgive Lewis for being Christian. He therefore must be a misogynistic pig.

[kattahj.livejournal.com]

There are bits in the SF trilogy that make me side-eye Lewis pretty hard when it comes to women, but I just couldn't take Pullman's criticism of Narnia seriously after he claimed that one of the morals of Narnia was "boys are better than girls," when, in every pair/group of protagonists, it's the complete opposite. (Which of course can be sexist in its own way, but that's not what he addressed.)

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Yup. As for the space trilogy, which definitely has problems, I think Lewis balanced that out in Till We Have Faces, which is better than the space trilogy anyway.

[kattahj.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that one is just brilliant.

[nellorat.livejournal.com]

You make the story book sound very interesting; I've jotted it down to get.

That is a good passage to shed light on what happens to Susan.

[kattahj.livejournal.com]

I hate that you're going to leave me behind. I hate that everyone calls it growing up, but it seems like dying. It feels like each of you is being possessed and I'm next."

This resounded so very strongly with me. It reminded me of a book I read a few months ago in Swedish by an author called Iris Johansson, who is autistic and who spent a lot of her childhood in what she called "the real world" and others called "fantasies". She told of a girl she knew who was a very talented singer, and whenever she sang or spoke of singing, "she was in the real world," but other people pressured her to set more realistic goals for herself, and so she gave up singing and Iris never saw her be in the "real world" again.

A lot of time, what is dubbed as realism strikes me as so incredibly reductive of what goes on in a person's mind or even in the world around them (just think of all the little creatures living in our eyelashes!) and it's so painful to see that narrow focus being toted as all there is.