Snowflake Challenge: Day 3
Jan. 3rd, 2019 07:45 pmDay 3: In your own space, share a favorite piece of original canon (a TV episode, a song, a favorite interview, a book, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much.
This feels like being asked to decide one'a favourite family member... which my father does often and only about 80% jokingly, which is why he's Not It. Anyway, taking strength in the indefinite article and my recent review for Yuletide, let's say The Charioteer, which is a novel set in 1940 and centres on Our Protagonist (a posh Oxfordian who's half-Irish and traumatised and disabled post-Dunkirk) finding his feet in the queer circles of fictionalised Bristol, and his way in a love-triangle with a Conscientious Objector somewhat younger than himself, who he thinks is unaware and chaste, and the older and self-aware man on whom he had a schoolboy crush. I love it for N number of reasons, not least that I used it to charm my SO of eight years into becoming friends with me when we first met.
And now, a bit from the novel that unfailingly wrecks me:
I've always loved those lines, since first reading the novel--huh, ten years ago nearly--and it's not quite possible to overstate how much. They come after some eight pages of fighting about whether or not to break off a relationship that has crept up on Our Protagonist (Laurie/Spuddy) and swept him off his feet in a moment of emotional vulnerability. Ralph's spent those pages arguing his side of things (they're in love, why the hell not), accepting--with rather good grace under the circs--that Laurie loves someone else, and agreeing to polyamory with some astonishment at the idea that he wouldn't be accommodating. (The reader, and Laurie, have met one of his exes who tends to sleep around a lot so I mean, Laurie is more surprised and irritated by Ralph's acceptance of The Other Man than I was even the first time I read the novel.)
But anyway, all to no avail. It wouldn't work, Laurie says, he'd feel bad, and The Other Man would know, and Laurie would rather deprive himself of a shockingly compatible relationship than hurt His feelings. No rational or emotional argument Ralph puts forward is convincing enough, and I've gotta tell you, I'm extremely gay and if a dude said all the things to me that Ralph does to Laurie, I'd be buying my trousseau. Laurie however, is made of sterner stuff.
Okay, then. Ralph, horribly practical, interposes the last thing he's got between Laurie and the door: his body. How d'you convince a 23 y.o. whose libido is just reawakening after a terrible injury and resultant PTSD to not leave you in favour of chastely pining for The Other Man? You fuck him into submission.
Yeah. Ralph Lanyon is his own set of warnings, as![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lilliburlero keeps saying. He's not a particularly nice man, but he does know what will work, and he does know that Laurie won't like him for it, but he will stay--for a while, but it's 1940, for a while is longer than most people have. Of course it's not as though Laurie is particularly nice in the moment either because he doesn't mean to keep staying with Ralph and all the high-minded chastity doesn't last longer than a popsicle in May when he's around the boyhood crush who's grown into a generous lover.
A n y w a y. Right, so. I love this bit because of the craft of it, but mostly because of the way it exposes Ralph's awareness of his sexual appeal--or the appeal of his sexual availability, at any rate--and his absolute willingness to exploit it. Being the sort of person who likes breaking her own heart, I also love it because of their mutual cruelty. A substantial section of the (minuscule) fandom also accepts that Ralph was briefly a prostitute, which makes this Worse Not Better, because of course he knows his appeal, but Christ does Laurie have to like him most for that?
...I promise I don't always like it when people are angsty and fucked-up.
This feels like being asked to decide one'a favourite family member... which my father does often and only about 80% jokingly, which is why he's Not It. Anyway, taking strength in the indefinite article and my recent review for Yuletide, let's say The Charioteer, which is a novel set in 1940 and centres on Our Protagonist (a posh Oxfordian who's half-Irish and traumatised and disabled post-Dunkirk) finding his feet in the queer circles of fictionalised Bristol, and his way in a love-triangle with a Conscientious Objector somewhat younger than himself, who he thinks is unaware and chaste, and the older and self-aware man on whom he had a schoolboy crush. I love it for N number of reasons, not least that I used it to charm my SO of eight years into becoming friends with me when we first met.
And now, a bit from the novel that unfailingly wrecks me:
'Come here, then,' said Ralph with gentle arrogance. 'Come and say goodbye to me.'
Afterwards he said, 'Are you going to be angry with me, Spuddy, as soon as you're alone?'
Does me in every single time, and not just because of the devastating elegance of that "Afterwards", though I'll absolutely admit that Renault's insouciant obliquity about sex is something I find incredibly appealing. Afterwards he said, 'Are you going to be angry with me, Spuddy, as soon as you're alone?'
I've always loved those lines, since first reading the novel--huh, ten years ago nearly--and it's not quite possible to overstate how much. They come after some eight pages of fighting about whether or not to break off a relationship that has crept up on Our Protagonist (Laurie/Spuddy) and swept him off his feet in a moment of emotional vulnerability. Ralph's spent those pages arguing his side of things (they're in love, why the hell not), accepting--with rather good grace under the circs--that Laurie loves someone else, and agreeing to polyamory with some astonishment at the idea that he wouldn't be accommodating. (The reader, and Laurie, have met one of his exes who tends to sleep around a lot so I mean, Laurie is more surprised and irritated by Ralph's acceptance of The Other Man than I was even the first time I read the novel.)
But anyway, all to no avail. It wouldn't work, Laurie says, he'd feel bad, and The Other Man would know, and Laurie would rather deprive himself of a shockingly compatible relationship than hurt His feelings. No rational or emotional argument Ralph puts forward is convincing enough, and I've gotta tell you, I'm extremely gay and if a dude said all the things to me that Ralph does to Laurie, I'd be buying my trousseau. Laurie however, is made of sterner stuff.
Okay, then. Ralph, horribly practical, interposes the last thing he's got between Laurie and the door: his body. How d'you convince a 23 y.o. whose libido is just reawakening after a terrible injury and resultant PTSD to not leave you in favour of chastely pining for The Other Man? You fuck him into submission.
Yeah. Ralph Lanyon is his own set of warnings, as
lilliburlero keeps saying. He's not a particularly nice man, but he does know what will work, and he does know that Laurie won't like him for it, but he will stay--for a while, but it's 1940, for a while is longer than most people have. Of course it's not as though Laurie is particularly nice in the moment either because he doesn't mean to keep staying with Ralph and all the high-minded chastity doesn't last longer than a popsicle in May when he's around the boyhood crush who's grown into a generous lover.A n y w a y. Right, so. I love this bit because of the craft of it, but mostly because of the way it exposes Ralph's awareness of his sexual appeal--or the appeal of his sexual availability, at any rate--and his absolute willingness to exploit it. Being the sort of person who likes breaking her own heart, I also love it because of their mutual cruelty. A substantial section of the (minuscule) fandom also accepts that Ralph was briefly a prostitute, which makes this Worse Not Better, because of course he knows his appeal, but Christ does Laurie have to like him most for that?
...I promise I don't always like it when people are angsty and fucked-up.
