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jomiddlemarch · 16 days

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That it alone is high fantastical

“Oh, Mother, you’ll never guess! You’ll never guess in century of guessing!” Rilla cried out, sounding so much as she had as a little girl, for a moment, Anne could convince herself the War had never happened and that somewhere in Rainbow Valley, Walter sat writing a crown of sonnets in his leather-bound journal, his face dappled by the light, back braced against the bole of a birch tree, his grey eyes unfocused as he searched for his next word.

There was still a white stone in the graveyard. Shirley was in Toronto, having refused (albeit politely) to return to Glen St. Mary, much to Susan’s dismay, and Jem walked with a pronounced limp, his uneven gait announcing him as much as Mary’s voice.

There was a mystery there, Jem and Mary Vance, but Anne couldn’t see any way through it and Gilbert, lying beside her in bed, both of them tired but sleepless, told her not to try. Jem had seemed less removed, less falsely cheerful lately, and had begun talking about the medical course again, perhaps a specialty in obstetrics, a hospital practice. As far away from men dying in battle as he can get, Gilbert had observed and Anne had recalled Joyce’s little face, white as a mayflower blossom, and held her tongue.

Rilla, remarkably, given her exuberant entrance, had done the same in the absence of Anne’s response. Miss Oliver had left Ingleside some weeks ago, so there was no one to suggest Rilla either elaborate or calm herself, as her likeness to a whistling copper tea-kettle was increasingly pronounced.

“If I’ll never guess, dear, you must tell me,” Anne said. It was a relief that Rilla could still be the young girl she ought to be, for all that she wore Ken Ford’s diamond ring on her finger and was capable of a brisk, warm matronliness when it came to raising Jims, now reserved for the writing of letters to his new British stepmother and clucking over the missives she received.

“Faith Meredith has eloped!”

Anne did admit to herself she would never have guessed that, because for all her imagination, she wouldn’t have guessed something impossible.

“But, Rilla, Jem is with your father today, doing the Lowbridge rounds. Susan and I packed a lunch with plenty of pie for Dad and some of that flapjack Jem took to after being in England,” Anne said. He’d been in hospital in England, recovering from the injuries he’d sustained at the Front, in the prison camp, during his escape, none of which was spoken of. Only flapjack and stewed tea and how no cook in England was a patch on Susan and that you may tie to, uttered with some semblance of his old roguish humor.

“I didn’t say she married Jem, Mother!” Rilla exclaimed. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes were bright. She had a look of Gilbert at his most delighted about him, an expression Anne remembered from their childhood. Anne opened her mouth to speak but Rilla interrupted.

“It’s Bertie Shakespeare Drew! Faith Meredith is Mrs. Bertie Shakespeare!” Rilla said.

If Anne hadn’t already been sitting down, she would have, suddenly and gracelessly. As it was, the shirt she’d been mending fell from her lap.

“That’s—why, Rilla, are you sure?”

“I heard it directly from Mary Vance,” Rilla said, lifting a hand to stop Anne from speaking. “And Miss Cornelia Bryant. You know Miss Cornelia has no taste for gossip. Miss Cornelia’d heard it from Mrs. Meredith—”

“Poor Rosemary,” Anne said, before she could stop herself.

“Why poor Rosemary? I suppose they thought Faith and Jem would make a go of it, at least, perhaps Reverend Meredith and Mrs. Meredith did, but the War’s done funny things to people and Faith and Jem, they just didn’t fit any longer,” Rilla said. Sometimes, Anne felt Rilla reminded her of someone she couldn’t name and realized her youngest daughter spoke with the wisdom Anne’s own mother might have had. Plenty of folks in the Glen would find such a thought eerie, but Anne was comforted, for all that she ought to be the one offering a thoughtful explanation rather than receiving it.

“I suppose I meant the surprise, an elopement—”

“They must not have wanted to wait. Or were afraid someone would try to talk them out of it. Bertie’s mother maybe,” Rilla said.

Rosemary or her father, Anne thought. Jem, if he’d been given the chance, perhaps. Perhaps not, if Rilla was correct.

“Bertie Shakespeare Drew,” Anne said. “I remember when he was born. He’s just Jem’s age.”

“He’s not much like you remember him, Mother. He’s all tall and stalwart now and they say he’s going in for engineering, that he learned quite a bit in France, found he had a talent for that sort of thing. And his ears don’t stick out quite so much anymore,” Rilla said.

“There’re more things on heav’n and earth,” Anne said, mangling the quote a bit, fairly certain Rilla would not correct her. “D’you suppose Faith calls him Bertie? Or his full name—it’s quite a mouthful.”

Queenly Faith Meredith, the undisputed beauty of Glen St. Mary, who had a sense of humor but also a sense of herself as beyond any teasing, now to be Mrs. Bertie Shakespeare Drew. Anne smiled to herself and thought how Mary Vance would find a way to make Jem grin over it all. She’s lucky to get him, Mary would say, reversing the order the Glen would have assumed, and Mary, canny and unexpectedly kind, would have the right of it, perhaps.

Susan would be quite outraged and the pastry of her next pie might suffer for it, but Gilbert had always taken an unchristian glee in Susan’s outrage and wouldn’t mind the pastry being a bit heavier. It was still the best piecrust on Prince Edward Island, now that Mrs. Rachel Lynde was no longer living to give Susan a run for her money.

“Miss Cornelia said Faith was heard to call him Will, when she spoke to her parents. It’s after Shakespeare of course, and because he was so determined they marry,” Rilla said.

“And because Faith wanted to,” Anne said. She wasn’t sure if she meant the elopement or the name, but it was all of a piece.

“Miss Cornelia said they’d gone to New York for their honeymoon and she hoped Faith didn’t come back with a bunch of silly Yankee airs but Mary and I didn’t think that was likely,” Rilla said, sitting down beside Anne, picking up the shirt and starting to sew.

“She didn’t come back from England any different, after all,” Rilla said.

“Except that she didn’t marry your brother,” Anne replied.

“D’you know, Mother, even without the War, I don’t think they’d ever have gone through with it, Faith and Jem,” Rilla said. “It was, how shall I put it, like a childhood fairy tale, the honorable knight and the maiden fair, all sorts of adventures they had in Rainbow Valley. They were always going to grow up. We all were.”

Not Walter, Anne’s heart said. Not Joyce.

“I’m glad of Ken’s name, anyway. And don’t worry, I wouldn’t elope for anything. I want our families around us, as many as we can get, even if we have to wait. We’re rather good at that,” Rilla said. She’d finished the one shirt and picked up another. She peered at it, frowned. “I can’t think what Dad does to his clothes—”

“I’ve made up a thousand stories to try to explain that and I still don’t think I’ve figured it out,” Anne said. “Some things, my darling girl, are beyond explanation.”

This one's for @freyafrida because I didn't manage to squeeze Faith/Bertie Shakespeare into my Jem/Mary fic...

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freyafrida · 19 days

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✍️ Writer Asks! ✍️

Number four, please!

(Thrilling to have you so active lately, btw! 🥹)

hi! 🫶 thank you for so much good aogg content, i could not stay away!!

4. a story idea you haven’t written yet

i binge-write at least a paragraph the second i get an idea tbh, but my least developed one (like 2 paragraphs and some stray sentences):

AU where jem dies instead of walter (sorry jem). walter feels the need to Be There for faith since jem no longer can. starts hanging around faith and una's house in kingsport and falls in love with una. also rilla comes along to do household science and she and shirley and carl are the background comic relief.

(ofc i'd want faith to be happy too! would probably hint that she's starting to move on at the end, but idk with who. bertie shakespeare drew??)

also want to write jem/mary fic now although i have zero ideas for anything apart from the ship

#alternate ending is di and faith moving to the city and becoming. idk. flapper detectives #i've thought about this more in the past 10 mins than i did when first wrote the idea down lmao #ask #ask meme #gogandmagog #fic ramblings

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twyllodrus · 4 years

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"marquis’s son unused to wine"

tl;dr i’ve mistakenly concocted a conspiracy where evelyn waugh purposely wrote in tragic stories for non-straight characters who happened to be a part of the aristocracy in order to punish alfred douglas for being a scoundrel (where wilde was concerned) and a shoddy poet, in general oh and also, there are some downton abbey spoilers for seasons 5 & 6, beware

d'you ever feel the incessant need to vicariously live through some of the waugh’s characters? particularly, the marquis of marchmain’s youngest son who’s ‘unused to wine’ while on your marry way to cirrhosis?? or maybe the disgraced offspring of some lord, who gets double-crossed by a beau, after your group of friends gets tight on some champagne, disrupts a motor race & thrashes his car, and so now you’re forced to flee the country ?? it’s worth mentioning that – while i find there’s something visceral to the stories of sebastian flyte & miles malpractice – this is in no way me woobifing the man. honestly? kinda sorta fuсk? evelyn waugh ?? yea

but still there’s something almost universal about the sons of aristocracy being queer and getting the shorter end of the stick. well, for obvious reasons, especially, if we’re talking the first half of the previous century :/ yet, inadvertently, quite often, it has something to do with/is related to the title of the marquis specifically??

in short, the conspiracy goes: the son of the marquis of queensberry, – that is alfred 'bosie’ douglas, oscar wilde’s lover – was to blame. in part and while, after having done some research, i don’t believe waugh drew on the inspiration from him, not even partially – still there’s just smth to the idea of punishing the man by writing stories where someone of aristocratic blood is the one who’s being betrayed by his love; and maybe throw in the fact that he’s the one who is left forever pining, withering away & drowning in alcohol?

although, as i’ve said earlier, i don’t believe that was waugh’s mindset or motivation – according to waugh’s biography, he wasn't particularly fond of bosie on purely literaly grounds:

while “Waugh was "very sorry indeed to hear of Lord Alfred Douglas's distressed condition", and was glad to do anything he could to further the lord's "public recognition", after Douglas had died, “Waugh declined to join a committee to produce "an appreciation of the late Lord Alfred Douglas from a purely literary aspect" [...] "Waugh supposed that the commitee wanted to declare Lord Alfred the "greatest sonneteer since Shakespeare." He "could not agree with the judgement".” (Evelyn Waugh. A literary biography, 1924-1966 by John Howard Wilson, p. 102)

welp. take from it what you will

in truth, the conspiracy mostly stems from me misremembering the adaptation of vile bodies (written & directed by stephen fry) and assuming that, in the film, miles maitland was made into not just a son of a lady, but specifically of a marchioness ?? why, you might ask? i mean, it could’ve been a neat lil’ call back to brideahead revisited, just like with plover's eggs being off-handedly referenced in the bright young things (2003) – so why not the marquis part as well ?? ¯\_( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)_/¯

but still, my primary reasoning, for the change, used to be this: fry changing miles into being from the family one title away from the royalty – was done out of spite. fry’s spite towards alfred douglas, mm yes. you see, there’s this one quote by him floating around:

“I think he genuinely loved Bosie, and Bosie genuinely loved him. Even though Bosie was mad, petulant, impulsive, I don’t think he set out schemingly to manipulate Oscar. I think he manipulated Oscar in the way that a child manipulates a parent.”

and so, my single braincell perceived this information & ran with it by creating a link where there was none to begin with!!

plus, now that i think about it, it’s unlikely that fry would’ve revamped miles’ character on the grounds of something like this but, since that is not the case, and miles is no son of any marquis, on screen or otherwise – this theory completely falls apart.

unless, you count the fact that, after all, there is some slim connection between the characters of sebastian flyte & miles malpractice and bosie – waugh, in part, based their characters on someone named stephen tennant ('the brightest of the bright young people’), whose mother, in turn, happened to be a cousin of the son of the 9th marquis of queensberry... the guy’s mother was alfred douglas’ cousin, i’m–

the dots are connecteth…… reality ?? hacked…..

there’s also another instance of this, sort of? (and not to commit sacrilege on the main by mentioning downton abbey and stephen fry in the same post, but) circa season 5 we’re introduced to bertie pelham (edith’s future husband), who eventually becomes the marquis of hexham due to his cousin suddenly dying, off-screen, and passing the title onto bertie. 'tis worth mentioning that the said cousin, peter, the former marquis of hexham, was heavily implied to not have been 'a ladies’ man’ (julian fellowes answer for your crimes) at any rate, there's still something to the notion of being from an aristocratic family, yet not being expected to carry certain responsibilities by the virtue of being the younger sibling? – thus allowing for some freedoms, but not quite ridding oneself from the high probability of a public scandal

#bright young things #miles maitland #sebastian flyte #alfred douglas #peter pelham #vile bodies #brideshead revisited #downton abbey #long post #me? low-key kinning simon balcairn ??#by writing drivel at the ungodly hours ?#likely than you think #*fiona voice* au revoir

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johnmanciniwrites · 5 years

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Between the Idea and the Act

Thinking and Doing Pt 3: Defining Character (and Comedy)

If you’re a thinker you might tend to drift. To space out a little. Take your time. Get lost in thought. That’s okay. Just don’t forget to act.

Every action creates a reaction. Every stimulus issues a response. In between is the stuff of internal processing. Here’s the formula:

Action (concrete description)

Internal Processing (abstract exposition)

________________________

= Reaction (concrete description)

In the following paragraph, notice how “psychically” close George Saunders stays in the narration. Consider: what do you know about the emotional experience of the speaker?

From “The Falls” by George Saunders:

Morse found it nerve-racking to cross the St. Jude grounds just as the school was being dismissed, because he felt that if he smiled at the uniformed Catholic children they might think he was a wacko or pervert and if he didn't smile they might think he was an old grouch made bitter by the world, which surely, he felt, by certain yardsticks, he was. Sometimes he wasn't entirely sure that he wasn't even a wacko of sorts, although certainly he wasn't a pervert. Of that he was certain. Or relatively certain. Being overly certain, he was relatively sure, was what eventually made one a wacko. So humility was the thing, he thought, arranging his face into what he thought would pass for the expression of a man thinking fondly of his own youth, a face devoid of wackiness or perversion, humility was the thing.

Over thinking things, what? Neurotic characters tend to be interesting. And making small things big has always been a source of comedy. See any episode of Seinfeld for examples.

A character enters a scene and announces that they have BIG news to share. The other characters must react. In the following paragraph Bertie hears news of his friend’s engagement. Observe as he processes this and gauges an appropriate reaction.

From P.G. Wodehouse – The Mating Season

“…she admitted I was the tree on which the fruit of her life hung!”

Those who know Bertram Wooster best are aware that he is not an indiscriminate back-slapper. He picks and chooses. But there was no question in my mind that here before me stood a back which it would be churlish not to slap. So I slapped it.

“Nice work,” I said. “Then everything’s all right?”

The delay Wodehouse uses in Bertie’s internal processing helps provide distance to the emotion, drawing it out to great effect to get the most out of the punch line, “Nice work.” The suspense has a comedic effect.

Imagine if you will a crowded drawing room (a gaggle of coffee and sandwich chewers) into which enters a constable. He intends to arrest someone. Earlier in the story--also The Mating Season--Esmond, the vicar, had complained of the constable’s constant proselytizing. Frankly, he was sick of it. This earlier annoyance here comes to fruition.

The reactions of a gaggle of coffee and sandwich chewers in the drawing-room of an aristocratic home who, just as they are getting down to it, observe the local flatty muscling in through the door, vary according to what Jeeves calls the psychology of the individual. Thus, while Esmond Haddock welcomed the newcomer with a genial “Loo-loo-loo,” the aunts raised their eyebrows with a good deal of To-what-are-we-indebted-for-the-honour-of-this-visitness and the vicar drew himself up austererly, suggesting in his manner that one crack out of the zealous officer about Jonah and the Whale and he would know what to do about it.

So much of Wodehouse’s comedic plots involve characters impersonating each other for various reasons—mistaken identity being a classic comedic trope, a favorite of Shakespeare, among others. What would drive someone to masquerade as someone else? In the following paragraph there is a knock at the door. Mr. Crocker decides to open the door. Between these two actions, note the internal processing.

From P.G. Wodehouse’s Piccadilly Jim:

One of the bad habits of which his wife had cured Mr. Crocker in the course of the years was the habit of going and answering doors. He had been brought up in surroundings where every man was his own doorkeeper, and it had been among his hardest tasks to learn the lesson that the perfect gentleman does not open doors, but waits for the appropriate menial to come along and do it for him., He had succeeded at length in mastering this great truth, and nowadays seldom offended. But this morning his mind was clouded by his troubles, and instinct, allying itself with opportunity, was too much for him. His fingers had been on the handle when the ring came, so he turned it.

Why would an author spend such a long time describing someone thinking about whether or not to open a door? Mr. Crocker is a well-off American businessman who’s bored living in England with his wife. When he opens the door, he’s mistaken by the guests for the butler, which he pretends to be, which leads to a job offer. Incongruity and hilarity ensue. All of that for the turning of door handle? But it is the door that opens the plot to progressive complications.

#Writing tips #how to write #pg wodehouse #comedy writing

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