Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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fandomsecrets2016-08-01 06:37 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2016-08-01 06:37 pm
[ SECRET POST #3498 ]
⌈ Secret Post #3498 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 32 secrets from Secret Submission Post #500.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
Re: Para Handy discussion thread!
(Anonymous) 2016-08-02 09:30 am (UTC)(link)I didn't finish all the stories. I'm almost finished with the second volume (In Highland Harbours with Para Handy) and I intend to read the rest of them eventually, although not right now. I think I need a break from them for a while :)
I thought the whole time that this book was a really odd choice for a book club. Not just because they are short stories, but because there are so many samey short stories. And I did enjoy them. They are funny and endearing and pretty much the opposite of what I expected, which is always nice. But I'm frankly baffled to find something to actually discuss about it. I mean, this is pretty much the Scottish version of Three Men In A Boat. Which is also a very enjoyable book, but it rather lacks the depth and complexity to make it suitable for a book club discussion.
That's why I would have been really curious to see what the person who suggested it and all the people who voted for it we're hoping to get out of our discussion. But it looks like none of them bothered to show up for the actual event. I'd also like to add that I'm side-eyeing the person who suggested it pretty hard. :P Mainly because I'm a cheap shit and I'm certainly not going to buy one specific edition of a book where three quarters of its content are freely available in the public domain.
I'm not a fan of writing out dialect at all, because it's not actually meant to be written language and you always get it wrong to some degree, even if you are a speaker of it yourself and there's often lots of xenophobia/classism etc. attached to it. Although I have to say I thought Para Handy and the others were much easier to understand than the dialect of the working class in North And South for example, and it certainly worked well for the context of the story and the genre.
I also disliked the apparent attitude towards women in the first dozen or two stories. Also probably a product of its time, yes. Still didn't like it. The only women featured are romantic interests of the main characters or one-shot characters who are defined specifically as some other man's wife or daughter. Dougie's wife was particularly portrayed to be an annoying nag, which seems to be an accepted view of women in the context of the story. Even Para's wife is portrayed as basically mentally unstable (because she's a vegetarian) the first appearance she makes post-marriage.
Ha, look at that, I found something to discuss. The first part I totally agree with. It's a sausage fest, and even though I didn't expect any better, it's definitely a valid point. And the few women there are, are certainly not fully developed and complex individuals by any stretch of the imagination.
However, I would argue against the assumption that the portrayal of the female vs. the male characters was meant to ridicule the former and idolise the latter. I mean, this is pretty much straight-forward comedy. The huge disconnect between the way the characters - Para Handy himself especially - see themselves and how they really are/the reader sees them is a big part of the joke. Because we as readers know that those men are not the noble sailors they'd like to be, we know they're a bunch of lazy idiots with delusions of grandeur. Because most of the time the 'antagonists' of Para Handy and his crew are obviously in the much more reasonable position and it's pretty rare among the stories that Peter and the others actually get away with their antics unscathed. Hurricane Jack, for example, who seems to be Peter's personal hero is described in a deliberately over the top way as some kind of mythical seaman of the highest order who als seems to get taller and broader every time he's mentioned, when he is - to the reader at least - very obviously a petty, criminal douchecanoe. And that extends to the female characters as well.
I mean the story with the wife you mention portrays that very well, I think. They are flipping their shit over something so ridiculous and in such an exaggerated way, that the reader can't take it seriously and that's what makes it so funny.
Huh, I had more to say than I expected. Oops.
Re: Para Handy discussion thread!
I honestly kind of agree with you about the book club rec thing - like I had more trouble than usual coming up with some things to say. I feel like even if I'd read all the stories I still would have trouble in that regard because it's not like it would have affected an overall plot.
Your commentary on women is interesting too and I did not look at it the same way but I'm glad you brought that up. I'm kind of a literalist without meaning to be so I just take things at face value a lot. Even though some of the responses to things were funny and exaggerated, I didn't assume the response to Mery's vegetarianism was entirely exaggerated. I might be projecting a little bit because of the anti-vegetarian backlash I see a lot in our own culture though. Some aspects of it (macho manliness) might carry over, but even so 21st century US is still not the same as 1900-esque Scotland lol.
Hurricane Jack does seem to be a bit of a seedy douche, yeah. I haven't gotten to the series of stories that focus on him, but I've read a few where Para Handy talks about him. The one where he was first talked about was pretty funny, with the way the narrator kept saying "but tell me about the sheep" over and over and at the end "because he stole a sheep!" was still the only reason Hurricane Jack apparently got his name. xD