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cahnI got The Long Winter, Little Town on the Prairie, and These Happy Golden Years out from the library, because my friend DFK had a blog post a while back on LIW... I'd forgotten how much I love these books.
Because DFK's post had a link to a link to this essay I was thinking a little about the historicity of the books. It doesn't bother me at all that (as the essay states) she made up a spring from which they got water. I'm totally willing to compromise on details, and even larger details, like if the Liza Jane incident didn't happen, or was a little different. But her courtship with Almanzo? I'd be totally crushed if it didn't happen like that. Especially where he's all "Would you like a ring?" and she's like, "It would depend on the ring!" Ha!
By the way, the linked essay leaves a rotten taste in my mouth, as essays usually do when they start analyzing things too much. Dr. Seidman says, "I want Eliza [her six-year-old daughter] to understand the limitations of the American past on matters of social justice, gender, and race. Yet I also want her to be able to experience that intense relationship with Laura. How can she if she doesn't trust her?" Your second instinct is right, not your first. Your kid needs to trust Laura. Eventually she will grow up and figure out the social justice and whatever herself eventually. And LIW is-- she is an honest writer; she tells things according to an underlying truth, a clear-eyed and grace-filled look at the world. (Well, except for Nellie Olsen, who Laura/LIW is totally not fair to, at all, probably-- she's the only 1D character I can think of. But even then it serves to flesh out Laura, who is a really good girl in most ways... but once you get on her bad side, and do it repeatedly...) And this means that even when the societal attitudes are different from those of modern society, the underlying truth comes through.
For example, Laura doesn't care one bit about getting the vote (something which, well, I'd be really annoyed if I didn't have); yet the underlying truth is that she's as feminist, within the bounds of her society, as any heroine I can think of (I love the bit where Almanzo tries to put his arm around her, and she's all, "Um, I think not-- hey look, your horses are going crazy, I wonder why!") and she is NEVER hobbled by her society, or even thinks to be -- and I've always thought of Laura as totally independent. Of course, growing up in the 1980's, I assumed that I was going to vote when I grew up, and that having it withheld from me would be wrong. And simultaneously I was able to hold the idea in my head that LIW didn't care about having the vote, and that was not wrong either. Even when I first read this as an, I don't know, eight-year-old, I was able to do this. (I have a similar relationship with To Kill a Mockingbird, one of my all-time absolute favorite books.) Now, it's very true that Dr. Seidman comes to about the same conclusion, but it just kind of annoys me that she's asking the question at all.
Back to this idea of honesty-- contrast Rowling, who doesn't have that core of integrity (or if she does, I'm not sure I like her worldview). For just one obvious example relevant to my LIW example above, Rowling has decided that Spunky Is Good, so of course Ginny, when she gets old enough to actually be interesting, has to be Spunky-Feminist, to the extent that she snaps at her boyfriend for holding the door for her-- AND at the same time is playing stupid hard-to-get mind games with Harry! Now, I'm not saying that such contradictory attitudes can't exist in the same person-- most people, like me, are a mass of contradictions-- but Rowling doesn't ever add any depth to this to show us that it's consistent. And so I am led to the conclusion that she is sloppy, or cheating-- there's no underlying truth there.
ETA: I meant to say that Rowling doesn't always have that core. Harry himself is really well done that way, even when I don't like Harry himself... the other characters' mileage varies greatly.
Because DFK's post had a link to a link to this essay I was thinking a little about the historicity of the books. It doesn't bother me at all that (as the essay states) she made up a spring from which they got water. I'm totally willing to compromise on details, and even larger details, like if the Liza Jane incident didn't happen, or was a little different. But her courtship with Almanzo? I'd be totally crushed if it didn't happen like that. Especially where he's all "Would you like a ring?" and she's like, "It would depend on the ring!" Ha!
By the way, the linked essay leaves a rotten taste in my mouth, as essays usually do when they start analyzing things too much. Dr. Seidman says, "I want Eliza [her six-year-old daughter] to understand the limitations of the American past on matters of social justice, gender, and race. Yet I also want her to be able to experience that intense relationship with Laura. How can she if she doesn't trust her?" Your second instinct is right, not your first. Your kid needs to trust Laura. Eventually she will grow up and figure out the social justice and whatever herself eventually. And LIW is-- she is an honest writer; she tells things according to an underlying truth, a clear-eyed and grace-filled look at the world. (Well, except for Nellie Olsen, who Laura/LIW is totally not fair to, at all, probably-- she's the only 1D character I can think of. But even then it serves to flesh out Laura, who is a really good girl in most ways... but once you get on her bad side, and do it repeatedly...) And this means that even when the societal attitudes are different from those of modern society, the underlying truth comes through.
For example, Laura doesn't care one bit about getting the vote (something which, well, I'd be really annoyed if I didn't have); yet the underlying truth is that she's as feminist, within the bounds of her society, as any heroine I can think of (I love the bit where Almanzo tries to put his arm around her, and she's all, "Um, I think not-- hey look, your horses are going crazy, I wonder why!") and she is NEVER hobbled by her society, or even thinks to be -- and I've always thought of Laura as totally independent. Of course, growing up in the 1980's, I assumed that I was going to vote when I grew up, and that having it withheld from me would be wrong. And simultaneously I was able to hold the idea in my head that LIW didn't care about having the vote, and that was not wrong either. Even when I first read this as an, I don't know, eight-year-old, I was able to do this. (I have a similar relationship with To Kill a Mockingbird, one of my all-time absolute favorite books.) Now, it's very true that Dr. Seidman comes to about the same conclusion, but it just kind of annoys me that she's asking the question at all.
Back to this idea of honesty-- contrast Rowling, who doesn't have that core of integrity (or if she does, I'm not sure I like her worldview). For just one obvious example relevant to my LIW example above, Rowling has decided that Spunky Is Good, so of course Ginny, when she gets old enough to actually be interesting, has to be Spunky-Feminist, to the extent that she snaps at her boyfriend for holding the door for her-- AND at the same time is playing stupid hard-to-get mind games with Harry! Now, I'm not saying that such contradictory attitudes can't exist in the same person-- most people, like me, are a mass of contradictions-- but Rowling doesn't ever add any depth to this to show us that it's consistent. And so I am led to the conclusion that she is sloppy, or cheating-- there's no underlying truth there.
ETA: I meant to say that Rowling doesn't always have that core. Harry himself is really well done that way, even when I don't like Harry himself... the other characters' mileage varies greatly.
