i talk too much

[derien]

I never shut up.

I talked way too much in someone else's journal, today, sucking the life from the conversation.
Quick summary:
1) Victorian homoeroticism (Watson/Holmes, Bracy/Gedge), and certain LOTR pairings (Legolas/Gimli, Merry/Pippin) rule. (I didn't say that Legolas/Aragon shippers can bite my lilywhite, but... That's just wrong. And not in a good way.)
2) I'm a spaz.

We went to Bean's and got some good stuff - 40% employee discount is cool. Today was cooking day for eor - he did about seven hours in front of the hot stove. I did laundry and groceries.

Now much to do before sleeping - packing and lunch makings for hiking tomorrow.

Comments

Gay Holmes, part two

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

Given Doyle's documented interest in homosexuality in various cultures and his admiration and friendship for Wilde and Casement, both of whom he supported after their disgrace, I think we can safely say he wasn't homophobic (at least not by the standards of his time). Wilde and Casement were also politically deviant, given their support for Irish independence. Added to this, when we have all these code words that other people applied to Wilde (and most of the theatre/writing world knew Wilde was gay) applied to Holmes, I think there's a damn good case to be made for Holmes being deliberately written as a gay man. By not outright stating anything, Doyle would escape prosecution for obscenity, but some- many? - of his readers would know what he meant (Wilde himself used the same tricks, as did Gilbert and Sullivan in their satire on Wilde).

As for the argument that we don't know what an author intended (which so many people use when a theory they don't like or agree with is put forward) - I just don't agree. Are we ever going to find a sworn affadavit from Doyle saying "I wrote Sherlock Holmes as a sexual invert"? No, we are not. But we don't need to, because the code he used wasn't meant to be impenetrable, it was meant to be understood. And by reading his works in the context of 19th century society and other 19th century literature, it is understandable (and the same can be said about any literature, from any time period - it is understandable, we can see both what authors mean to say and what they deliberately leave out - which can, of course, underline what they mean to say even more strongly). And readers can see quite clearly what is in a text, once they even begin to understand the code - subtext really is there, after all. Where we do have an author's confirmation, it frequently only confirms what the reader has already seen (like the Buffy/Faith subtext being officially confirmed as existing, or the moving of Tara-as-queer from subtext to text - the viewers already knew). An author's imprimature may be nice for a particular reading, but it is supremely unecessary for careful readers/viewers who respect the text enough not to read their pet theories into it,, and respect it enough to read what it actually says.

Re: Gay Holmes, part two

[derien.livejournal.com]

Wow. I'm impressed. And convinced. This is pretty much condensed from "Strangers?" Or other sources that you know/knowledge you have from reading Victorian literature?

Re: Gay Holmes, part two

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

The first part is mainly a presentation of Robb's argument about Holmes, these two paragraphs are my opinion on that argument and on the "author's intent" argument - a large part of the literary work of Biblical Studies and Classics, for example, aims at learning how to separate out layers in a text, see what the various writers and editors are saying and how they argue with or modify the views of earlier writers. If it's possible to have a good degree of certainty about what a long-dead writer in a totally different language is doing with their text, it's possible to do it with a far more recent text where there are so many other texts to cross-check it with.

I don't think we can say with 100% accuracy that we absolutely know Doyle wrote Holmes as a gay man - but I'm happy to say that the burden of evidence points that way. Being able to ask Doyle (or any writer, including living ones) for an opinion wouldn't help either - would the Doyle who great admired Wilde give the same answer as the Doyle holding the telegram about his son's death iin the trenches or the Doyle obsessed with spiritualism of the 1920s? Authors change their minds about their own work, or just plain forget, or don't have their research material handy and so blather - but texts can be checke by themselves and must be, for they are what we have when the author is gone. (My favourite example of an author's opinion contradicting their own text is C J Cherryh's view of one of the characters, Dr Jordan Warrick, in her book Cyteen - she has said several times what a bad father this character is, how he'd be horrible to his son(s) lives and careers, what an all-round nasty person he is, caring only for his own work and professional reputation. Yet the character sacrifices his freedom and his personal reputation to save his partner and 17 year old foster son (who have no legal rights and could even be legally killed - I'll say no more if you haven't read it) and his own 17 year old son son, who is being framed for murder. There's quite a difference there! And his genuine love for all three of these people is underlined in the book, yet Cherryh thinks otherwise!)