Category: Books

Review: Generations (Jean M. Twenge)

Matthew ELeave a comment

Last week, thanks to the good offices of the Ottawa Public Library, I read Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents―and What They Mean for America’s Future by Jean M. Twenge.

As longtime readers will know, and as others will not know, I am into the generational-cycle theory set forth by writers William Strauss and Neil Howe in their books. So I wasn’t coming to this book fresh and unspoiled; I definitely went into it with an already-existing perspective.

Twenge’s main argument is that one generation is different from another because of the available technology in their respective formative years. I don’t think that’s a dumb thing to say, but there are a couple of reasons why I think it could be improved upon.

Twenge cites Strauss and Howe, but disagrees with them; she characterizes their argument as saying that generational personality is formed by the generation’s reaction to a major event in their younger years. That’s close, but really S&H say that generational personality is formed by the generation’s reaction to the whole era of the generation’s younger years. So, Strauss and Howe do consider the available technology as part of what helps shape emerging generations… along with the available culture, parenting styles, older generations, social problems, and everything else they might meet in the world.

Still, if Twenge wants to say it’s just the technology, not the other stuff, that’s fine, it’s her book. The problem I have with it is this: technology isn’t a force. It’s something people make. And those people are doing things for their own reasons. So, when she says that rising generations are influenced by the available technology, she’s really saying that they’re influenced by previous generations. Which isn’t that different from what Strauss and Howe were saying.

Plus… I have a hard time with the idea that technology actively influences anybody. Technology has no agenda of its own; it just allows people to extend human nature further in directions it was already going. The most I’d be willing to say is that the emergence of a new technology may allow a rising generation to express its priorities in ways that weren’t available to previous generations… but it doesn’t do anything to set those priorities.

Most of the book is Twenge’s exploration of a collection of research datasets that she digs deep into to describe today’s living generations. This part of the book is worthwhile and thorough, in that she gives us a picture of six generations that we might not be able to get anywhere else. If I ever buy my own copy of the book, which I might, it will be because of this part. The trouble is, Twenge’s argument about technology is not further developed in these sections. The generational descriptions are strictly factual and don’t say anything one way or the other about whether people grew how they grew or did what they did because of new technology. Or not much, anyway; maybe I missed it.

So I have my differences with Generations: TRDBGZMGXB&S-AWTM4AF. I think its argument is too limited and not presented forcefully enough, but it has worth anyway.

Just a couple more items for the Strauss-and-Howe-heads who may be reading this:

  • like everyone else, Twenge doesn’t use the S&H birthyears for the generations. She’s got the Boom running from ’46-’64 of course, she puts the Millennial-Zoom boundary earlier in the ’90s than I’ve seen before, and she’s got the Polar generation starting I think in 2013 or 2014
  • she cites S&H’s Generations and Millennials Rising, but in the GenX chapter she discusses 13th GEN briefly without noting that it was written by Strauss and Howe. Why? Did she forget? Not notice? It’s strange

Review: The Fourth Turning Is Here (Neil Howe)

Matthew ELeave a comment

This is a review of Neil Howe’s new book, The Fourth Turning Is Here. This part, above the line, I’m writing in early July, before the book is out and before I’ve read any part of it.

Neil Howe has been writing about generations for a long time. He and his late coauthor, William Strauss, wrote a series of books about their concept of generational cycles starting with Generations in 1991. Their second book, 13th Gen: Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail?, in 1993, is a study of what we now call Generation X, and it’s the one I read first. I thought it was really interesting and hunted up their other stuff, and when their third book The Fourth Turning came out, I (along with a lot of other people) spent a lot of time on the message boards of the book’s website. This eventually led to a series of get-togethers in Washington and Nashville where we met Strauss and Howe, and also to some of our bons mots being quoted in their fourth book, Millennials Rising.

A quick description of Strauss-Howe generational cycles. First, a stage of life is about 20 years long. You’ve got youth (0-20), adulthood (21-40), midlife (41-60), and elderhood (61-80). Roughly speaking. This is all roughly speaking. Second, a generation is about 20 years long. A Strauss-Howe generation is a group of people in the same society who were born within about a 20-year period, who therefore shared similar coming-of-age experiences, and who therefore largely share a similar generational personality.

Third, a generation will give to society what it perceives to have been missing from society during its youth. (History produces generations; generations produce history.) Fourth, there’s a four-stroke cycle of generational types that repeats, always in the same order, and this generational cycle is visible in history, art, literature, and legend.

Fifth, this cycle produces 20-year eras (or “turnings”) that can be characterized by which generational type is in which age bracket at the time. Like, at one time you’ll have type 1 in youth, type 2 in adulthood, type 3 in midlife, and type 4 in elderhood. Then forty years later the type 1s will have aged to midlife, the type 2s will have aged to elderhood, and we’ll have new type 3s in youth and type 4s in adulthood. And their respective personalities will be one of the things that make these eras feel different from each other.

Sixth, this gives us a repeating 80-year cycle of historical eras. Again: all very roughly speaking.

This isn’t science, and yet it also isn’t historicism. Howe and Strauss think they’ve found a pattern, and they’ve identified a mechanism that they think produces it and will continue to produce it. They haven’t been afraid of making predictions, and a lot of their predictions look pretty good after a couple of decades. But a lot of what they’re talking about is inescapably subjective, and as such I don’t think it’s really falsifiable.

Many will say that this is a crackpot theory and that generations aren’t really a real thing anyway. I get that. I don’t agree, but I do think there are things to be said on that side. Anyway, I won’t argue; you don’t need to agree with me. There are other objections that can be made, of varying levels of validity. That’s all fine.

My perspective is, I think Howe and Strauss are on to something. The generational cycle makes sense to me, and since the mid-’90s, when I first learned about it, it hasn’t stopped making sense to me. It has vastly increased my understanding of history, by giving a shape to it. It’s fun to talk about. If you want to look into it, you can.

Some specifics. The “fourth turning” that Strauss and Howe refer to is one of their types of historical era, also called a “Crisis”, in which visionary Prophet generations (like Boomers) are in elderhood, pragmatic Nomad generations (like GenXers) are in midlife, capable Hero generations (like Millennials) are in adulthood, and sheltered Artist generations (like Zoomers) are in their youth. In this kind of era, society goes through a drastic and dangerous fundamental change that makes everything after it different from everything before it. Like the American Revolution, or the Civil War, or the Depression+World War II. Their book The Fourth Turning (1997) was a warning to everyone that such an era was coming and we would do well to get ready for it. The meaning of the title of the new book, The Fourth Turning Is Here, is obvious in this context.

I’m wondering, first, what the writing is going to be like in the new book, now that William Strauss is no longer with us. Both Howe and Strauss wrote books separately on other subjects, so it’s not like Howe can’t do it on his own, or anything. But my experience of them was always that Strauss was the showman of the two (he’s the same William Strauss who cofounded the Capitol Steps troupe), while Howe was quieter. It could make a difference.

But mostly I’m wondering what Howe is going to tell us about what’s going on. See, I think, and I’m not the only one, that the Crisis era began with 9/11 in 2001. I think that’s when Everything Changed. It’s true that that would mean that the Crisis came early; it gives us a pretty short third turning (or Unraveling era), from 1984 to 2001. That’s not necessarily a problem, though; something similar may have happened around the Civil War, depending on who you talk to. But my understanding is that Neil Howe considers the financial crisis of 2007-08 as the inciting event of the Crisis. He probably has a good reason for this.

But it has implications about where we are now. If the Crisis started in 2001, then here in 2023, after more than 20 years, we ought to be about ready to come out of it, if in fact we haven’t already. And I think it’s plausible that we have! But if it started in 2007, then we’re almost certainly still in it, and we’ll have to brace ourselves for a few years more of this nonsense.

Understand what I’m saying, because I’m not interested in sounding any more cracked than I actually am: I’m not saying, “we have this pattern, it says we’re in a Crisis era, therefore we’re going to do this and this and this”. It’s not deterministic like that. The generational cycle pattern is trying to be descriptive, not prescriptive. It’s more like, “we have this pattern, it suggests that people have an appetite for doing this and this and this, and that we won’t get tired of it for another few years, and until we do we’ll still be able to describe the era as a Crisis”.

I don’t want to speculate (one prediction I’m very confident about: there will be advice on how to prepare ourselves for the next turning!) too much about what’s in the book, but that’s what’s going to be at the top of my mind when I read it. A few more things I want to touch on while we have time:

  • Strauss and Howe have many prominent readers from the upper echelons of U.S. government circles. In the ’90s the cover blurbs made much of the fact that both Newt Gingrich and Al Gore liked Generations, for instance. Bipartisan, you see. More troublingly, the Project for the New American Century, Paul Wolfowitz’s group, were way big into the generational cycle, presumably trying to find a way to bend the arc of history in favour of their own nefarious ends. And of course ol’ Steve Bannon is also a fan, probably for the same reason. I swear you don’t have to be evil to like this stuff! If I could kick Bannon out of the club I would.
  • Strauss and Howe write from a U.S. perspective, and here I am up in Canada. I’m not the researchers they are, but what reading I have done has always suggested to me that Canada is on the same cycle as the U.S.A., give or take a couple of years here or there. If I’m right that the Crisis ended in the U.S. on January 6th, 2021, when Trump’s coup failed, then I would say that the Crisis ended in Canada on February 21st, 2022, when the convoy was finally cleared out of Ottawa, for instance.
  • Strauss and Howe may use different generational boundaries than you’re used to. It’s the least interesting thing to argue about, but I’ll list theirs just so we can proceed on a basis of shared understanding. Note the boundary between the Boom and GenX in particular. Today’s living generations:

The G.I. Generation (often called the Greatest Generation) (Hero): 1901-1924 (2023 age 99-122)
The Silent Generation (Artist): 1925-1942 (2023 age 81-98)
The Boom Generation (Prophet): 1943-1960 (2023 age 63-80)
Generation X (formerly called the 13th Generation) (Nomad): 1961-1981 (2023 age 42-62)
The Millennial Generation (Hero): 1982-2005? (2023 age 18?-41) (or, my speculation: 1982-1997? (2023 age 26?-41))
The Homeland Generation (often called Zoomers) (Artist): 2006?-?? (2023 age 0-17) (or, my speculation: 1998?-2018?? (2023 age 5??-25?))
a new Prophet-type generation (Prophet): 2019??-?? (2023 age n/a) (or, my speculation: 2019??-?? (2023 age 0-4??))

  • One thing about this generational stuff is that the best way to do it, by far, is in retrospect. There’s obviously no way to look at a newborn baby and say, “this baby is clearly going to end up with a different generational take on life than that two-year-old over there”. A lot about how we view the Millennials and Zoomers will depend on how we come out of the Crisis era into the first turning (or High era). We’re using the generational pattern to pretend we know more about what’s going on than we really do. Again, these generations and eras are purely descriptive: people will do whatever they do for whatever reasons they do them, and the generational terms are for making sense of it afterwards.
  • I suppose I should point out, if it wasn’t clear already, that I hold both Howe and Strauss in high regard, that their ideas have been very influential on me, and that both men were very kind to me the times we met. (At the same time, I like to think that I’ve still got enough healthy skepticism to disagree with them, or split with them entirely, if and when I think it’s warranted.) So this review is certainly not going to be a big slam.

Now for the part I wrote after reading the book.

Okay, I read it. I went through it pretty fast, but just flipping through it again while writing this, I think I might need to take another pass at it. I can do the review, though!

First things first: I wasn’t sure how different this book would be from the four previous books Howe and Strauss wrote about the generational cycle. I’m pleased to report that the narrative voice is the same, and the presentation of the material is as good or better than those other books. Should I have taken this for granted? Anyway, I didn’t.

Part of this is because Howe continues to reuse descriptions and citations that he and Strauss have used many times before. In how many different places have I read their metaphor about GenXers walking on a deserted beach that’s been ruined by Boomers? It’s here again (although significantly altered!). This is fine, for two reasons. First, every comic book is someone’s first. (That’s an expression. I’m not saying this book is a comic book.) Most of this book’s readers will be encountering the generational cycle for the first time. You have to write for them and not for the small clique of eccentrics who’ve been with you for decades. Second, how many different ways does one need to describe the same things over and over again? It’s a big book; no need to reinvent the wheel.

But, longtime Howe-and-Strauss readers, be warned: there is a great deal of material in this book that you’ve seen before.

Some of it’s better than it used to be, though! I was always dissatisfied with how Strauss and Howe dealt with music in their books. There would be a passage of, “This generation listened to this kind of music, and that generation listened to that kind of music, and…” and my reaction would be, yes? I’m sure they did; what of it? But in The Fourth Turning Is Here, Howe expands on this with some intriguing ideas about generational types and music. I don’t know if the subject is fully developed yet, but Howe has at least taken a definite step forward with it. That’s one example. Overall I would say that, yes, this book is worthwhile for generationheads.

In the first half of this article I described my disagreement with Howe about the timing of the Crisis era. Now that I’ve read The Fourth Turning Is Here, I understand Howe’s position much better. First, he manages to fit 9/11 into his ideas about a third turning (Unraveling era). Second, if I can interpret him here, you can’t have a Crisis without a lot of drastic action and chaos and death, which we have not yet had. Sure, the last fifteen years have been plenty eventful, but they haven’t been, from a U.S. perspective, World War II eventful. And, according to Howe, that’s the kind of scale that Crises operate on before they’re done. In this light, my argument about how the Crisis may be already over is like I’m trying to fulfill the technical requirements of a Crisis without actually having one.

I don’t know if I agree. I think it’s possible that Howe is insisting that this Crisis will resemble previous Crises more closely than he can know for sure. I’d say the same about his characterization of the Millennial generation, which doesn’t remind me of any Millennials I know. I’d say the same about his continued prediction that a Gray Champion figure will emerge to lead society through the worst of what’s to come. To quote Dennis Miller (another Boomer), when talking about Bill Clinton in a context remarkably similar to this one, “Maybe!… but I’m not getting that vibe.” The good news, and the bad news, is, we’re all going to find out. (Except, some of us might not.)

(I do have a dog in this fight. I have two sons, of an age such that if I’m right about the timing of the Crisis, they’re Homelanders, or Zoomers, who spent the Crisis at home not catching Covid. If Howe is right, they’re Millennials who have not yet seen the end of the Crisis. Since the role of Hero generations like Millennials is to be footsoldiers in the Crisis, that’s a prospect that scares me more than a little, so I’d rather I was right.)

A couple of things I wasn’t enthusiastic about. First, Howe deals with the current political climate with that kind of both-sides-ism that never fails to put me off. I don’t think it’s responsible. I do, grudgingly, understand it, though. First, Howe is trying to sell this book to conservatives as well as liberals (and has a day job in which I imagine he has to deal with a lot of conservatives). Second, he’s not dealing with “who is right” as much as he’s dealing with the question of “what are people going to do”, and that is a separation that can be made. I still don’t like it, but I’ll let it go.

Second, I think Howe underestimates the role that climate change will play in the Crisis. He mentions it, but focuses more on politics and economics as the things that the rest of the Crisis will be about. Maybe he’s right, but I think it’s a huge oversight.

At one point, Howe writes that the dominance of superhero movies is coming during a Crisis era, just as comic-book superheroes were in their Golden Age during the previous Crisis era. And that is an excellent point that, somehow, entirely escaped me up until the point that I read it. How did I miss that? I of all people should have clued into it. Maddening. Thank you, Neil Howe, for showing me how to tie my shoes. I’ll try to pay better attention.

When illustrating the personalities of the generations, Howe and Strauss have often used pop culture references to make their points. And I don’t think this has ever been their strongest suit. The characterizations often seem a little off. One example that struck me in this book is Howe’s reference to “works for me!” as a GenX catchphrase of the ’80s. Which… I mean, we said it, sure. It was around. But on the one hand I feel like their must be better examples of the kind of stuff we said, and on the other hand I mostly associate “works for me!” with the title character of the cop show Hunter, where Hunter was played by (Boomer) Fred Dryer. So: a little off, but nothing that really damages an argument.

But then there’s Howe’s repeated description of Douglas Coupland’s novel Generation X as “sardonic”. I don’t know if you’ve ever read any Coupland. He has a sense of humour that he isn’t afraid to use, and he likes his pop culture references… but he isn’t sardonic. He’s one of the most earnest writers I’ve experienced. Douglas Coupland has some things he wants to get off his chest. Generation X in particular is (loosely) about characters who are trying to leave ‘sardonic’ behind, and who eventually arrive at a point of genuine affirmation. It’s still a very GenX book! But it doesn’t help to get things like this wrong.

I had one criticism in mind for this book that I’m going to back down from. Originally I was going to say that a big problem with this book is that it’s not really telling us anything about what’s coming. That it’s no different from The Fourth Turning in that it gives us the same prediction about what the Crisis will be like, but doesn’t give us any details, even with a quarter-century more information about it. But when I was flipping back through the book, I decided that that wasn’t true. On one hand, the generational-cycle theory has been developed some more, and Howe gives details about the structure of a Crisis that do shed more light on what it is we’re up to at the moment. This is one reason I have to reread it; I have to pay more attention when he writes about things like “regeneracy phases”. On the other hand, Howe and Strauss made their names by predicting only as much of the future as they thought they could, and no more. Unrealistic of me to hope that Howe’s got some kind of crystal ball now.

I predicted above that Howe would give us advice in this book for how to prepare for the upcoming first turning (High era), and he doesn’t exactly. He discusses that future extensively, but he doesn’t give us a checklist to consult. Fair enough. I’ll call my prediction a wash.

Overall it’s a well-written book that made me think hard about a subject I already knew a lot about, and made me want to read it again. Bonus: it may give us a way to navigate a decade of danger. What more could I ask from a book?

Conclusion: if you’re interested in this generational-cycle idea, and you can only get one book, this is the book you want. I think you should be interested, but you must be the final judge of that. Whether Strauss and Howe are right or wrong in their theory, Howe has done an admirable job of presenting their case. I give The Fourth Turning Is Here a strong recommendation.

On Ngaio Marsh: Names

Matthew ELeave a comment

Ngaio Marsh, if you haven’t read her stuff, was one of the great mystery novelists. She wrote detective novels featuring her great creation, Inspector Roderick Alleyn, from the ’30s through to the ’80s. She was more prolific than Sayers and more literary than Christie, though not as colourful as either.

One of the things I had always noticed about her books was the exotic names she’d give to her female characters. On the average, there’d be one female character per book with a name that you’d never expect to see any real person wear around. Of course, Marsh’s own name, “Ngaio”, is quite uncommon outside New Zealand; it’s a Maori word. It’s easy to imagine a connection between Marsh choosing an unusual name for herself (“Ngaio” was actually her middle name; her first name was “Edith”) and choosing unusual names for her characters.

Inspector Alleyn, for instance. I always have to look up how to pronounce it. Or his wife, Agatha Troy: a standard enough name, but she’s called “Troy”, not “Agatha”, which is unusual.

When I say a name is unusual, I might mean several things: a word not usually used as a name pressed into service, or some noticeable alliteration or rhyming, or simply a name that’s really rare or elaborate. Or sounds cooler than real-life names tend to sound. I don’t consider a name that originates in a language other than English to be unusual just because it’s not English, but, in a classic detective story set in England partway through the 20th century, it might be just unusual enough to be the most unusual one in that book. (Note that Marsh set quite a few of her mysteries in theatres, so some of these unusual names are stage names, which means they have an excuse for being larger-than-life.)

So I went through all the Inspector Alleyn novels and short stories, and picked out the most wild-ass women’s names from each book, and listed them below. But as I was doing so I noticed that a lot of the male characters had equally weird names, so I thought I’d list those too.

I’m not criticizing Marsh for giving her characters these names. I just find it interesting.

Women:
A Man Lay Dead (1934): Nothing of interest here. Angela North, Rosamund Grant, Marjorie Wilde. She hasn’t really found her rhythm yet.
Enter a Murderer (1935): It’s between Janet Emerald and Dulcie Deamer.
The Nursing Home Murder (1935): Still finding the range. The pick of this novel is either Cicely O’Callaghan or a hospital matron named Sister Marigold.
Death in Ecstasy (1936): Dagmar Candour.
Vintage Murder (1937): Pretty conventional again. Carolyn Dacres, Valerie Gaynes, Susan Max.
Artists in Crime (1938): First appearance of Agatha Troy, but the real standouts in this book are Valmai Seacliff, and, if you need more, Sonia Gluck and Phillida Lee.
Death in a White Tie (1938): I dunno. Lady Evelyn Carrados, I guess.
Overture to Death (1939): Idris Campanula. It was probably old Idris who inspired me to do this list in the first place.
Death at the Bar (1940): Decima Moore.
Surfeit of Lampreys (1941): The sisters Frid and Patch Lamprey. (Actually Friede and Patricia, but Marsh does use nicknames.)
Death and the Dancing Footman (1942): What would you rather: Sandra Compline, Chloris Wynne, Elise Lisse, or Lady Hersey Ablington? They’ll all do.
Colour Scheme (1943): Probably a maid named Huia. It’s a Maori name, and so not necessarily unusual, but I’d rather that than Barbara Claire.
Died in the Wool (1945): Ursula Harme.
Final Curtain (1947): Millamant Ancred. (But note also her relatives, Jenetta and Fenella Ancred, and young Panty Ancred (nicknamed for Patricia. What’s Marsh have against Patricias?).
Swing Brother Swing (1949): Several to choose from. Cecile de Fouteaux Pastern and Bagott (that’s all one name; “Pastern and Bagott” is the surname), Félicité de Suze, and Carlisle Wayne.
Opening Night (1951): Martyn Tarne, although there’s also Gay Gainsford.
Spinsters in Jeopardy (1954): Slim pickings here; Annabella Wells, I guess.
Scales of Justice (1955): Kitty Cartarette.
Off With His Head (1957): Camilla Campion.
Singing in the Shrouds (1959): You can have Jemima Carmichael, or possibly Mrs. Dillington-Blick.
False Scent (1960): Anelida Lee, or maybe Pinky Cavendish.
Hand in Glove (1962): Let’s say Nicola Maitland-Mayne. Or Moppett Ralston (nickname for Mary).
Dead Water (1964): Elspeth Cost.
Death at the Dolphin (1967): Destiny Meade.
Clutch of Constables (1968): Hazel Rickerby-Carrick.
When in Rome (1970): Not much here. Sophy Jason?
Tied Up in Tinsel (1972): Cressida Tottenham.
Black As He’s Painted (1974): Xenoclea Sanskrit.
Last Ditch (1977): No obvious winners, but you can have Julia, Selina, Julietta, or Carlotta Pharamond, or Dulcie Harkness, or Susie de Waite.
Grave Mistake (1978): Verity Preston or Prunella Foster.
Photo Finish (1980): Isabella Sommita.
Light Thickens (1982): There seems to be some kind of minor character named “Rangi”, which I can’t imagine what it’s short for.
“Death on the Air”: Phillipa Tonks.
“I Can Find My Way Out”: Coralie Bourne or Dendra Gay.
“Chapter and Verse: The Little Copplestone Mystery”: Nobody really. Fanny Wagstaff?

Men:

A Man Lay Dead (1934): Hubert Handesley.
Enter a Murderer (1935): Arthur Surbonadier.
The Nursing Home Murder (1935): Very ordinary names in this book. Derek O’Callaghan?
Death in Ecstasy (1936): Raoul de Ravigne, or maybe Jasper Garnette.
Vintage Murder (1937): Hailey Hambledon.
Artists in Crime (1938): Basil Pilgrim.
Death in a White Tie (1938): Colombo Dimitri.
Overture to Death (1939): Jocelyn Jernigham.
Death at the Bar (1940): Nobody really stands out. I’ll take Sebastian Parish.
Surfeit of Lampreys (1941): There’s a chauffeur named Giggle.
Death and the Dancing Footman (1942): Aubrey Mandrake.
Colour Scheme (1943): Dikon Bell or Septimus Falls.
Died in the Wool (1945): Fabian Losse.
Final Curtain (1947): Cedric Ancred.
Swing Brother Swing (1949): Breezy Bellairs, Happy Hart, or Sydney Skelton.
Opening Night (1951): Parry Percival.
Spinsters in Jeopardy (1954): Carbury Glande.
Scales of Justice (1955): Octavius Danberry-Phinn.
Off With His Head (1957): Nobody really. Ralph Stayne?
Singing in the Shrouds (1959): Aubyn Dale.
False Scent (1960): Bertie Saracen.
Hand in Glove (1962): Either Percival Pyke Period or Bimbo Dodds.
Dead Water (1964): Ives Nankivell.
Death at the Dolphin (1967): Peregrine Jay.
Clutch of Constables (1968): Mmm, maybe the Rev. J. de B. Lazenby. (Dunno what the J and B stand for.)
When in Rome (1970): Hamilton Sweet.
Tied Up in Tinsel (1972): Hilary Bill-Tasman or Frederick Fleaton Forrester.
Black As He’s Painted (1974): Not much to choose from. Samuel Whipplestone?
Last Ditch (1977): Jasper Pharamond or Cuthbert Harkness.
Grave Mistake (1978): Walter Cloudesley or Basil Schramm.
Photo Finish (1980): Montague V. Reece.
Light Thickens (1982): Dougal Macdougal.
“Death on the Air”: Septimus Tonks.
“I Can Find My Way Out”: Canning Cumberland.
“Chapter and Verse: The Little Copplestone Mystery”: Richard De’ath.

On The 13 Clocks

Matthew E2 Comments

I haven’t updated this website in quite a while. I am still writing. Not as often as I’d like, but I am still writing.

Here’s something that I realized recently. And for all I know, I’m the only one who’s realized it. I did search the web to see if this was a well-known thing, but found nothing.

It has to do with James Thurber’s fantasy novel The 13 Clocks. The 13 Clocks has been somewhat in the news recently, thanks to Neil Gaiman’s laudable efforts to bring attention to it and get it back into print. I first heard of the book, I dunno, a bunch of years ago and tracked down a copy at a library discard store. I liked it but I don’t know if I had reread it since that first time before just recently.

When I heard about Gaiman’s crusade, I thought to myself, I should read that again. So I read it to my son as bedtime reading. Now, there’s one part… hold on.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

There’s one part where Zorn, the hero of the story, and his friend the Golux have to collect a bunch of gems in a really short time. They’ve heard of a woman named Hagga who cries gemstones, so they figure they should go to her. They use this magical rose that they have to find their way to her, but when they get there, they can’t get her to cry. She’s all cried out because everybody wants her gems.

The good news is, tears of laughter produce gems too. They don’t last as long as the cried kind but Zorn doesn’t mind that. So they try to get her to laugh. This doesn’t work well either, and it looks like they’ve failed. And then, suddenly, Hagga starts laughing like crazy for no particular reason and cries jewels all over the place. Zorn and the Golux collect up the gemstones and thank her and take off out of there.

So, when I read it, I thought that that was pretty weak. They need her to laugh, and she doesn’t, and then all of a sudden she does? Inexplicably? Because of nothing that Zorn or the Golux did? That’s no way to tell a story. So why did Hagga laugh?

But! Then I noticed the last paragraph of that chapter, after Zorn and the Golux have left:

Inside the hut, something red and larger than a ruby glowed among the jewels and Hagga picked it up. “A rose,” she said. “They must have dropped it.”

Obviously this is the magical rose they used to find her in the first place; that part is no problem. The key thing here is, “dropping a rose” is a euphemism for farting. And in the world of The 13 Clocks, the boundaries between the metaphorical and the actual are pretty blurry. So maybe that’s what Hagga was laughing at! Maybe Thurber had the plot of his fairy tale, and the fates of Zorn of Zorna, Princess Saralinda, and the evil duke, all depend on his own fart joke.

Does this hold water for anybody?

I’d really like to know what Neil Gaiman thinks about it. Oh well…

The Princess Scale 6: Cimorene of Linderwall

Matthew ELeave a comment

It’s been a long time since I did one of these. I should start doing them more; I like it.

Let’s go over the rules again. What we’re trying to do is examine princess characters in popular culture and give them points for how much they deviate from the helpless-princess stereotype.

1. Qualifications: 1 point for being the daughter of the reigning king; 0 points for being the daughter of a dethroned king, or who is only princess because she marries a prince, or she’s like an emperor’s daughter or something and doesn’t have the exact title; -1 points if she’s just from a non-royal rich or noble family. The idea here is that first we want to pin down whether our character is, technically, a princess.

2. Skills: 0 points if she’s totally useless; 1 point if she can do anything useful at all; 2 points if she’s good at archery or magic; 3 points if she can do something typically masculine like swordfighting.

3. Love Life: If she’s somebody’s love interest, that’s 0 points. If she’s the hero’s love interest, that’s -1 points. If she’s happily single, that’s +1 points. If she’s the main character of her book or movie or whatever, +1, and if she’s gay, also +1.

4. Beauty: -1 points if she’s the most beautiful of all; 0 points if she’s beautiful; 1 point if she’s cute or tomboyish or if her looks aren’t specified; 2 points if she’s described as plain; 3 points if she’s described as ugly.

5. Accomplishments: Does she do anything useful in the story? If no, 0; not much, 1; some, 2; if she’s indispensable, 3; if she starts off dependent but overcomes it, an extra +1. And if she screws everything up she gets -1.

6. If she becomes Queen at any point, another +1.

7. If she has close female friends her own age, +1.

8. If there’s something else cool about her that’s not captured by this list, +1 or maybe even +2.

9. If she’s portrayed, as a character, with particular skill or depth, +1 or even +2.

Note that I eyeballed this whole scale; I’m not pretending that there’s science involved here. And if anybody has any ideas for other points to rate on here,

Today we’re looking at Princess Cimorene of Lindenwall, the main character (more or less) in Patricia C. Wrede’s Enchanted Forest Chronicles. (It’s a weird series because the fourth book was written first, and then the first three were written as prequels. And Cimorene isn’t even in the fourth book much; her son is the main character. So we get Cimorene’s adventures in the first book, and that’s cool, and then the second book is from Mendanbar’s point of view (Mendanbar being the guy Cimorene eventually marries). And those are both good. But they can be good because they’re deep background for the fourth book. The third book is from the PoV of Morwen, Cimorene’s friend, and it’s full of setup for the fourth book and suffers because of it.)

Princess Cimorene of Linderwall
Fictional Source: “The Enchanted Forest Chronicles” by Patricia C. Wrede (1985 through 1995)

1. Cimorene is a legit princess. (1)
2. Cimorene has all kinds of skills. She tries to learn swordfighting but doesn’t get very far; I give her partial credit for that. (2.5)
3. Cimorene ends the first book happily single, and I’m tempted to give some credit for that, except that the fourth book had already been written so there was never any thought that she should stay that way. She’s the hero’s love interest in book 2, but is arguably the main character of the series, so that maps out to 0 points altogether. (0)
4. Cimorene is specifically described as beautiful, even if it isn’t the fluffy blonde kind of beautiful that they apparently favour in Lindenwall. (0)
5. Cimorene is indispensable. (3)
6. Cimorene does become Queen. (1)
7. Cimorene actually has quite a few friends. Even if you don’t count Kazul, there’s still Morwen, and also Alianora, another dragon’s princess. (1)
8. I don’t think there are any other details that she needs credit for.
9. No, it’s a pretty light series of books; no extra credit here.

So that’s a total of 8.5; let’s put it on the board.

Rankings:

Princess Projectra (9)
Princess Cimorene (8.5)
Princess Leia Organa (7)
Princess Elizabeth (5.5)
Princess Amy (5.5)
Princess Buttercup (-3)