Mar. 24th, 2022

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After having some issues with The Great God Pan, I went on to read three more Machen novellas in quick succession.

The White People: It seems I can only listen to even quite restrained vintage horror when I'm feeling physically well, which is odd. Somehow it's too stressful for a sick morning.

The White People (retrospectively unfortunate name, I know) does some of the same stuff as Great God in terms of generating atmosphere and concealing information, but employs similar strategies significantly better. The Vibes were very successful, here. Perhaps the story's strongest conceit is its young female narrator in the key section, and how her perspective shapes the story and governs the sharing and withholding of information. The nurse choosing to share her old religion with the girl is interesting, and almost suggests a fear of class contamination. The passage along the old brook is HIGH KEY modelled after medieval romance journeys to the fairy realm.

A lot of post-colonial hay could be productively made out of the fear of the demonic 'black man' ravaging a girl on her wedding night in the first of the novella's medieval vignettes. 

The Red Hand: A quasi murder-mystery that's nominally about cavemen and actually about exactly the preoccupations of the previous two novellas I read. (Also, I believed the murdered man struck out because he'd already claimed the treasure and was trying to conceal his crime. Was that wrong? If so, why did he attack his former friend?)

The Angels of Mons: Opens with a really interesting chronicle on how the urban legends surrounding divine intervention in favour of the British during WWI developed and spread based off Machen's short story. The actual "Bowman", which gave rise of the myth, is less emotionally affecting than the two successive stories. All are propaganda, but the latter two are quite well-executed, even if you have no investment in the long-ended conflict. It's surprising how bald they feel, but then I'm sure 'get Covid for capitalism' looks equally nude and dubious to anyone in saner environs. 
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The 12:

Very good, as expected of Les Cites Obscures. The flood v. intriguing, and good to see more of this world outside of the cities themselves. It's odd that by now, I think more stories than not occur in this dieselpunk era. My overall impression of the world is still firmly of that earlier Belle Epoque period.

There is, however, a one-page sexual assault sequence that some readers might find disturbing (the graphic suggestion or even the bare fact of which I really don't feel adds much to the story).

Anne of Avonlea:

So Anne, 16 and a school teacher now, broke her No Corporal Punishment rule and whipped a student with her pointer. The kid (Anthony Pye) respects her now, because her whopping was just as good as a man’s. I hope this child can just eventually come to terms with his BDSM instincts in an environment better suited to that.

It’s weird/annoying though, because from the SECOND the corporal punishment thing was introduced I was like, 'oh Anne’s idealism is going to be Humbled here', and SURE ENOUGH. The text's very anxiety on this point is almost a testament to the writer's knowing, on some level, that this is actually dumb, and that educators can well get on without this. I find the apologism occasioned by that defensiveness uncomfortable. To even get Anne to do this, LMM writes her into some bizarre toothache fugue state. This feels especially weak given that Anne’s been calmer when people were literally and actually dying around her, on multiple occasions. Up until this point, Anthony Pye has been 'letter of the law' good, but surly. So why would he suddenly put a mouse in her desk on the day she’s very visibly in her worst mood ever? Unless he does just crave that attention?

Other thoughts:

- Sunlight is streaming through trees onto some moss, Wang Wei u up??
- Fff this child getting into god because he enjoys jam and he’s heard god ‘makes preserves and redeems us’
- Anne, stuck in a roof like a hentai trope: I’ve had an idea for a poem, DIANA!! Bring me a pencil.
Diana: oo, you should sub this to The Canadian Woman—
- I kinda dig Miss Lavender, though Aisha and I had a long discussion about her 'quirky' practice of calling her maid Carlotta IV (not her name) and then broader contexts of re-naming as enchantment and practice of power in the series (Anne's own renaming of Barry's Pond, the whole island having already been Renamed by settlers, the fact that during the time covered by these books there are two native settlements on Prince Edward Island that are never mentioned herein).
- ‘She found him in the kitchen, stroking Ginger’s gay, dead body with a trembling hand’ I know it’s a parrot but what an epitaph
- Wow I didn’t expect Marilla/Rachel to be endgame
- Anthony Pye, the BDSM child, responds to Anne's leaving the school by getting into two huge unprovoked fights with other boys. Once again I am asking him to grow up and learn BDSM etiquette.
- Mrs Allen still sings lullabies to her lost baby????? Devastating.

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