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edenfallingBack around Christmas, I attempted to explain the Yuletide fic exchange to my family. (This was easier for me than for some people, since I have been explaining fanfic in general to them since about 2003.) Somehow this got tangled up in discussion of gifts in general, and my sister and father decided that I ought to write a story for them under vaguely Yuletide-like conditions. It could be Vicky's birthday present in March.
"Okay," I said. "1000 words minimum, using a character of your choice in an obscure fandom of your choice. Who do you want me to write about, and what's your prompt?"
Dad and Vicky conferred -- Mom had, by this point, decided we were all being silly and bowed out -- and informed me that I had to write fanfic for "The Wendigo," a short story by Algernon Blackwood, written sometime between 1906 and 1910.
"What character?" I asked.
"Doctor Cathcart," Vicky decided, and this was quickly qualified to: "Doctor Cathcart, in New Orleans, drinking a burra-peg. You can figure out everything else -- whether it's before or after the hunting trip, why he's in New Orleans at all, and so on."
"You got it," I said, and the conversation moved on to other things.
Tonight I pulled out the copy of Blackwood's Tales of Terror and the Unknown and began rereading "The Wendigo," which is a story that holds a notable place in my family's internal mythology. (It comes of having a summer cabin on an island in the north woods near Lake Windigo. The story is traditionally read aloud, after dark, in a room illuminated by nothing but firelight. For the absolute best effect, you want a storm to blow up overnight once you finish reading, or you have to be visiting somebody else's cabin and then walk home through the woods in the dark.)
It surprised me, in a deeply unpleasant way, to realize how utterly racist the story is. (Also ethnocentric and classist, but the racism hit me first and hardest.) I had not noticed when I was twelve and Dad read it to me and Vicky for the first time. But Blackwood is a product of his time, gender, his race, his country, and his class (turn-of-the-century white upper-class British male), and his attitude toward Punk (the Indian cook) is appalling. His attitude towards Joseph Défago (the French-Canadian guide) is not much better, and his attitude toward Hank Davis (the British Canadian guide) is still pretty condescending. He fetishizes the woods, and talks about places where 'man' had never set foot -- what, did the native people not exist? Do they not count as human?
I am having to grit my teeth and mentally chant "product of his time, product of his time" to get through some of the most egregious passages.
What is most frustrating, I think, is that underneath that awfulness the story is still gripping and chilling, and the actual descriptions of the north woods are vivid and compelling. So I am sitting here thinking, "This is such a wonderful story. I understand exactly why it's part of the family tradition. But oh god, it is making me cringe, and I want so badly to rewrite it wholesale in order to take out the prejudice, the ethnocentrism, the stereotypes, the dehumanization, the..." and so on and so forth.
It is really upsetting to go back and look with open eyes at something you love and realize all the ways it is unforgivably wrong and hurtful.
Still. I will be writing that fic for Vicky. Possibly I can even use it to address some of my issues with Blackwood's world-view, since I don't think Vicky has reread the story recently, and (I am ashamed to admit this) I am not sure Dad has ever noticed the problems. *sigh*
"Okay," I said. "1000 words minimum, using a character of your choice in an obscure fandom of your choice. Who do you want me to write about, and what's your prompt?"
Dad and Vicky conferred -- Mom had, by this point, decided we were all being silly and bowed out -- and informed me that I had to write fanfic for "The Wendigo," a short story by Algernon Blackwood, written sometime between 1906 and 1910.
"What character?" I asked.
"Doctor Cathcart," Vicky decided, and this was quickly qualified to: "Doctor Cathcart, in New Orleans, drinking a burra-peg. You can figure out everything else -- whether it's before or after the hunting trip, why he's in New Orleans at all, and so on."
"You got it," I said, and the conversation moved on to other things.
Tonight I pulled out the copy of Blackwood's Tales of Terror and the Unknown and began rereading "The Wendigo," which is a story that holds a notable place in my family's internal mythology. (It comes of having a summer cabin on an island in the north woods near Lake Windigo. The story is traditionally read aloud, after dark, in a room illuminated by nothing but firelight. For the absolute best effect, you want a storm to blow up overnight once you finish reading, or you have to be visiting somebody else's cabin and then walk home through the woods in the dark.)
It surprised me, in a deeply unpleasant way, to realize how utterly racist the story is. (Also ethnocentric and classist, but the racism hit me first and hardest.) I had not noticed when I was twelve and Dad read it to me and Vicky for the first time. But Blackwood is a product of his time, gender, his race, his country, and his class (turn-of-the-century white upper-class British male), and his attitude toward Punk (the Indian cook) is appalling. His attitude towards Joseph Défago (the French-Canadian guide) is not much better, and his attitude toward Hank Davis (the British Canadian guide) is still pretty condescending. He fetishizes the woods, and talks about places where 'man' had never set foot -- what, did the native people not exist? Do they not count as human?
I am having to grit my teeth and mentally chant "product of his time, product of his time" to get through some of the most egregious passages.
What is most frustrating, I think, is that underneath that awfulness the story is still gripping and chilling, and the actual descriptions of the north woods are vivid and compelling. So I am sitting here thinking, "This is such a wonderful story. I understand exactly why it's part of the family tradition. But oh god, it is making me cringe, and I want so badly to rewrite it wholesale in order to take out the prejudice, the ethnocentrism, the stereotypes, the dehumanization, the..." and so on and so forth.
It is really upsetting to go back and look with open eyes at something you love and realize all the ways it is unforgivably wrong and hurtful.
Still. I will be writing that fic for Vicky. Possibly I can even use it to address some of my issues with Blackwood's world-view, since I don't think Vicky has reread the story recently, and (I am ashamed to admit this) I am not sure Dad has ever noticed the problems. *sigh*
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(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-24 05:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-24 10:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-24 07:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-24 09:04 pm (UTC)It would be easier if they were also bad writers, you know?
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-24 11:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-24 09:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-24 12:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-24 09:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-25 10:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-26 01:36 am (UTC)