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Kimi
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Oct 29 2009, 3:21am
Post #26 of 38
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something of a miracle that's he's still able to write - and write well. This is definitely up there in quality with the other recent books in the series.
NZ is part of British publishers' distribution, and I think we get the Pratchett books a bit earlier. This one only arrived in the library a week or so ago.
The Passing of Mistress Rose
My historical novels
Do we find happiness so often that we should turn it off the box when it happens to sit there?
- A Room With a View
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L. Ron Halfelven
Hithlum
Oct 29 2009, 12:41pm
Post #27 of 38
(227 views)
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Perhaps she means femine. That's a bad thing, at least for a board./
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"Boe ammen A-Rod veriad lîn. Andelu Yankees i ven!"
"Merin le Mo Rivera telim. Henio, aníron 44 saves boe ammen 1.76 ERA i dulu lîn!"
"Andelu A-rod ven."
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L. Ron Halfelven
Hithlum
Oct 29 2009, 12:44pm
Post #28 of 38
(249 views)
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I didn't register any hatred-- only condescension.
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I agree that the book is an unworthy sequel but I didn't think it was awful, just a waste of time.
"Boe ammen A-Rod veriad lîn. Andelu Yankees i ven!"
"Merin le Mo Rivera telim. Henio, aníron 44 saves boe ammen 1.76 ERA i dulu lîn!"
"Andelu A-rod ven."
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NottaSackville
Doriath
Oct 29 2009, 1:04pm
Post #29 of 38
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Thanks, for the thoughtful reply, Penthe, and I'll try to post some thoughts that do it justice. I'll also try, as you did well I think, to keep this topic from dropping to the ugly lows that discussions on topics such as this sometimes do. So on to some responses...
1) Not-Tehanu-related: I agree that feminism is a very good thing when it describes a desire for equality between women and men. Too often, though, I think the female version of misogyny hides behind the word "feminism", and that is not a good thing.
2) Just to be clear, you mentioned the Other Wind as well. I haven't read those books, so I can only comment on my experience reading Tehanu.
3) Did it offend you that many of the male characters and the society in the Archipelago generally hate and fear women and treat them with disdain in the first trilogy as well?
To be honest, I simply don't agree with the premise of that statement. I don't recall hatred and fear of women to have been in any way themes of the first three books *with one exception, to discuss in a moment*. When I think back on the first three books, the most I can say is that women usually didn't play a powerful role in books 1 & 3. But certainly fear and hatred and disdain of them didn't come into play in any way that I can remember. I'd be interested to know if I'm missing something here.
*exception: the saying "Weak as women's magic; wicked as women's magic" is clearly a case where women get the short shrift. However, the saying isn't "Weak as women, wicked as women", nor do I see men treating women that way because of this. The comment here is about magic, and how magic works in Earthsea (in the first three books). And the first three books do not present this as "women have the same kind of magic as men, but men simply hold them down because they hate and fear them", they present it as "the physics of magic simply works differently for women, therefore women occupy a different place in the magic heirarchy." It doesn't strike me as misogynistic to create a world where magic works differently for men and women. Patriarchal in this case, yes, misogynistic, no.
4) Or is it that you are so used to women being treated like that by men in fantasy, and in the real world, that you don't notice it at all - as Le Guin has said she didn't when she first wrote them?
As explained above, I didn't see it. So if you can show me how in the first three books men (as an entire gender) constantly treated women with hatred, fear and disdain, then we will have to revisit this point and I'll have to think very hard about my failure to notice this. Note that citing one or two bad interactions where a man might treat a woman badly (though I think even that will be hard to find) isn't the same as an entire gender treating the other gender badly.
5) Or do you think it is OK for women to be regarded that way, but not men?
No.
6) I disagree, by the way, that men are treated with hatred in Tehanu
Well, and as is no surprise, I completely disagree with that statement. Here are some examples:
- Aspen is portrayed as hating Tenar simply because she is a woman
- Aunty Moss explains to Tenar that men are not deep, that they are shallow, and crumble like a cracked walnut when they lose their power. Ged then goes on to fulfill this out right in front of our eyes.
- The very imagery of Aunty Moss cracking a walnut to describe a man losing his power is, well, obvious, I think.
- Ged and Tenar have a conversation where they decide that the only way men have any power is by withholding it from women
- The Masters of Roke, the wisest men in Earthsea, are portrayed as bumbling fools who simply can't fathom the idea that a woman might be useful to them as anything other than someone to point them to the next powerful man.
- Therru's father and ?uncle? are women-beating, child-burning, murdering monsters who lord power over women and control them through violence and fear
- Tenar's own son behaves boorishly towards her and "women's work"
etc.
What we have here is a constant pattern of men throughout the entire book [resented as acting poorly, doing horrible things and treating women badly things merely because men are weak, senseless and fearful of women. Do you not see it the same way?
7) I think that Le Guin is trying to examine what happens when men have an opportunity to stop using violence and exclusion as weapons against women and start treating women as human beings with the same rights, responsibilities and privileges as men.
I'm sorry, but the whole premise of that sentence is "men are bad and need to be reformed". What about that does NOT exactly prove my point?
8) There are also terrible female characters who allow men to torture children and act violently without caring about the consequences.
I guess I didn't see it like that. I saw Therru's mom as a victim of abuse at the hands of men, and victims of abuse don't just callously allow men to torture children and act violently without caring. They do so because they feel trapped an can't find their way out. The fault lies with the abusers, not the victim. Again, this is really about how the men in Therru's life completely ruin the females around them.
9) I don't think the book ever assumes that all or most men are like that. In fact, I think one of the explicit points of the book is that not all men (or all women) are alike.
I think Aunty Moss, acting as the narrator, completely makes the opposite point here in her descriptions of men. Do you disagree with that?
My guess is that some people think Ged is presented here as the counterpoint to show that men can change, and men can be "better". I would argue the exact opposite. Ged, is, throughout the book, a kind, gentle, wise and honorable man. He treats women with respect and doesn't use violence as a tool. But even Ged must travel through the lands of the dead, lose everything that ever made him "Ged", be unable to speak of his pain, and go into exile herding goats at the top of a mountain for months on end before he is able to do simple tasks like sharing "women's work".
If a wise, honorable, kind man such as Ged must do all that in order to simply be a decent guy in Le Guin's eyes, what hope is there for any other man born less perfect than Ged?
Notta
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sevilodorf
Dor-Lomin
Oct 29 2009, 1:35pm
Post #30 of 38
(225 views)
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wrote Little House on Rocky Ridge, Little Farm in the Ozarks, In the Land of the Big Red Apple, On the Other Side of the Hill, Little Town in the Ozarks.....
Roger's "right" to write the books was that he was treated as a grandchild by Rose and learned her stories. However, while close imitations of Laura's style they simply don't have that special touch. Very awkward in places.
Worse yet are the In the Days of Laura Ingalls Wilder by TL Tedrow who at least plainly states they are fictional and bear only the slightest relationship to accuracy in regards to Laura.
The Brookfield Years series about Caroline's childhood are by Maria D. Wilkes and again lack that "writer's voice" that Laura possessed.
Perhaps that is my only true condemnation of these books.. they are not Laura.
Fourth Age Adventures at the Inn of the Burping Troll http://burpingtroll.com
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sevilodorf
Dor-Lomin
Oct 29 2009, 1:38pm
Post #31 of 38
(226 views)
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If you ever have a chance to go, do so. Or go to De Smet in the summer where they hold the Laura Ingalls Wilder Festival and present a play based on one of the books on the prairie land adjacent to the old Ingalls homestead. The Surveyor's house from By the Shores of Silver Lake is in town and much much smaller than you would believe based on the book.
Fourth Age Adventures at the Inn of the Burping Troll http://burpingtroll.com
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NottaSackville
Doriath
Oct 29 2009, 1:47pm
Post #32 of 38
(262 views)
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Since it may be important to how people perceive my comments in this discussion
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I'm a guy. 
And I don't even know what femine means...
Notta
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L. Ron Halfelven
Hithlum
Oct 30 2009, 2:19pm
Post #34 of 38
(254 views)
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Oh well, I'm probably not the first to be fooled by "Notta".
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Unfortunately the n00b who came here the one time to complain about what a "femine board" this is is no longer around to explain it.
"Boe ammen A-Rod veriad lîn. Andelu Yankees i ven!"
"Merin le Mo Rivera telim. Henio, aníron 44 saves boe ammen 1.76 ERA i dulu lîn!"
"Andelu A-rod ven."
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NottaSackville
Doriath
Oct 30 2009, 2:47pm
Post #35 of 38
(232 views)
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And for the life of me, I can't figure out exactly why (though it also sounds femine to me when I say it, a fact I overlooked when I took it way back when). I guess maybe it's because it sounds like Lotta, which sounds like Lottie or Dotty? Or Nettie? Or Hatty? So maybe the pattern consonant-vowel-tt-vowel is a femine construct?
And thanks for the tip that femine is a TORN term, that prompted me to look it up in our handy search engine, and now I feel more like a true TORNsib.
Notta-female
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N.E. Brigand
Gondolin
Oct 30 2009, 8:03pm
Post #36 of 38
(245 views)
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Tolkien writes in the last appendix of LOTR that "Bilbo" was named "Bilba" in the language of the Shire, but Tolkien changed it to fit our sense of how masculine and femin(in)e names should end (examples of the latter: Donna, Bella, Anna, Kira, Jessica, Lara).
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We're discussing The Silmarillion in the Reading Room, Aug. 9 - Mar 7. Please join the conversation!
This week: "Of Maeglin".
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How to find old Reading Room discussions.
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NottaSackville
Doriath
Oct 30 2009, 8:38pm
Post #37 of 38
(223 views)
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See - I knew I should read that Appendix more often!
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I usually can't make it through that Appendix, though.
That fits also with other cultures who add an "a" onto the last names to indicate the feminine - such as married Russians.
Thanks for figuring that one out for me!
Maybe I'll have to change my nick to "AintnoSackville"
BTW - your post led me to a Google search, which in turn led me to this linguist posting on the topic, which I found rather interesting. Maybe I should consult one of those journal articles to find out if my "Aintno" has a proper male ending...
And, ironically considering the feminism topic at hand and this off-off-topic diversion from it, the above post states:
They cite papers by Ohala (1983, Cross-language use of pitch: an ethological point of view, Phonetica 40:1-18; 1984, An ethological perspective on common cross-language utilization of F0 of voice. Phonetica 41:1-16) in which it is argued that "small vocal tracts, which produce high-pitched sounds, are typically possessed by smaller, weaker, less threatening beings." Cutler et al. continue: "(It is hard to imagine a Tina more threatening than a Hugh.)
So now I guess I certainly AM guilty of a systematic attempt at thinking of women poorly, having subconsciously chosen a name that sounds feminine because its weak ending reminds us of the commonly-held perception that women are weaker. (kidding, of course!)
Notta, er, Aintno
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NottaSackville
Doriath
Oct 30 2009, 8:51pm
Post #38 of 38
(223 views)
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And I knew I should have googled before I posted that
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Turns out that "n" is the overwhelming letter of ending for male names these days, so maybe I should go with the grammatically incorrect Not An Sackville (NottanSackville).
Nottan
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