Take a look over at The Mad Genius Club. It's a blog by a group of established SciFi/Fantasy writers. They straddle the line of indie/traditional, have sometimes strong opinions, and give a lot of good advice.
edit: I forgot The Passive Voice--a writer and lawyer--yes, one person!
No need to delete. I will correct the error and will take full blame for it. (To get the error completely out, you might want to delete the quote of the erroneous quote.)
Tom is so clearly not a rapist and yet Bob Ewell is publicly identified as sexually and physically abusive man. Mayella Ewell is a surrogate wife for her father and a surrogate mother to her younger siblings.
The whole trial is a sham. Mayella Ewell grasping for some power, a cry for help regarding the abuse she is subject to, a mask for the feelings that she, a white girl might have feelings for Tom, a black man.
Attius bloody well knows this. At the very least he strongly suspects it (we all do, it is alluded to throughout the book). And yet he never goes after Bob in court. We feel that Mayella is only one or two forceful questions from blurting the truth, indeed, we feel that Atticus is softening her up for the killer question;
“Isn’t it true Mayella, that it is your father who rapes you, and not Tom who raped you?”
But that question, the truth, it never comes. The incest is accepted and ignored. A massive elephant with a monkey on his back weeping at the rear of the courtroom and it is skirted around because it is too deep a subject, to vast a ‘can o worms.’
What kind of man is Atticus then? Prepared to conduct a sham trial but not to confront the truth?
He is a part of that same vile establishment that protects paedophile priests; the people in power who don’t necessarily condone the act of Priests raping children, but who do nothing about it all the same. They accept it; turn a blind eye and cover up for the perpetrators. If a paedophile priest is exposed, the first defence they drum up is that the children deserved it, the children seduced the priest.
Atticus Finch isn't a policeman or a prosecutor. He's a defense attorney, and his job is to get his client acquitted when all of society believes him guilty.
Much less is he a social crusader, and that's good because in that time and place, any attempt to raise the specter of incest about a white man will face tremendous denial. And one tool of denial is scapegoating. If that jury, and that town and the county and the whole state, are asked to choose between believing* a white man guilty of incest on his daughter or believing* a black man guilty of a rape he couldn't commit, they will unfailingly believe the black man guilty, evidence be damned, on the strength of their own unchallenged beliefs on the innate differences of character.
As terrible as Mayella's situation is, conviction of Tom Robinson will only create another villian. The only hope for her is to first acquit Tom Robinson, in such a way that the people will actually believe he could be innocent. Only then will they be willing to look for another answer, and maybe push their blinders aside.
When you see it this way, you wonder whether Mayella might just have accused Tom and described the alleged rape in a way that she knew could be defended against. (Look at The Hammer of God, in which the murder tries to place the blame "on the one person who could not suffer.")
And the attack on Scout is meant to hurt the one man who knows, sure in his heart and without denial or excuse, of Bob Ewell's life of evil.
Did Lee mean to write this in? I'm pretty sure of it. If not, she created a plot with the complexity and ambiguity to allow it. But I'm convinced she meant it that way. And even if she didn't plan it that way, she saw that it came out that way; that's why she said, "... which makes you think."
edit: "believing" isn't quite an adequate word. For some of the people it is a question of belief; for others it is a question admitting privately to what they know to be true or of admitting publicly to that same knowledge. Such is the nature of denial.
edit: I imagine that Harper Lee was, at least for a while, appalled that To Kill a Mockingbird was considered appropriate for such low grades in school.
Thank you, Charles. The key word is transparently.
Just keep the mystery sound. Your shades are not to be Deux ex Machina.
I'm doing some edits on Shogran's Waifs.
Amy, before you argue about bringing action to a screeching halt, you might have a viewing of Blood Sport. Almost every critical action scene is interrupted by a flashback.
However, I can understand that "not thinking" is definitely the "new cool" among our presidential candidates. They must really be enjoying themselves, lol. Take care. Vern
Oh, Vern, you are guileless and innocent!
The essence of popular politics is feeding voters on their dreams, which you subvert to serve your schemes. That takes plenty of conniving, and conniving is thinking bent to a specific kind of end--to making people work, and choose, and vote for what you want, not for what they want. But it would be fatal to your schemes if you ever let the voters really see you thinking ... because it might teach them how to think
Third movement of Mahler's Ninth, followed by all of his Eighth ("Symphony of a Thousand"). Dudamel's monster performance of the latter, over 1,400 singers and instrumentalists, is on YouTube in two parts.
Mahler's Ninth is a meditation on his approaching death. The third movement (=rondo, burlesque=) gives me the impression of a man holding a drinking party on his way to the gallows. It is great for clearing your head.
The Eighth, unlike =anything= Mahler ever wrote, is a massive affirmation of the human spirit, and something more. Music may never sound the same again.
As long as my experience can be summed up in words, I write no music about it. My need to express myself musically, symphonically, begins where the dark feelings hold sway, at the door which leads to the other world, the world where things are no longer separated by time and space.
I'm still waiting for someone to ask the open question on =Shogran's Waifs=.
That's a K'ttle prod ...
Do they understand that the placenta is their baby's tissue, not theirs?
You don't need head injuries. There are people who believe that drinking their urine has theraputic value, just as there are women in the developed world who choose to give birth squatting in a corner, with nobody around for assistance.
Side note: I read that some children in certain parts of the 'autism spectrum' are helped by therapy dogs.
I've been under the weather for four days. This time the strep test came back negative. I've got ten days levoflaxin, and ten more if I still have symptoms at the end.
Meanwhile, I now know what the next chapter should be in B2, to bring Merran and Jamen together with P(n) (Current designation for a character). Amy, you may get your fondest with: a scene with urine in it. (And of course, I need to work on the previous chapter ...)
I'll also move the key part of the Kirsey-in-the-library episode into B2. I'm planning to Merran in the audience downstairs.
Ish, kibble!
I'm going to try another iteration on =Shogran's Waif's= (repub for points). I need to show what Amy and K. didn't see.
I've got between two and four 'mundane' chapters to do as character expo, then a couple of decision-time chapters, and one or two after that, and then, if I am lucky, a really mean knaves-and-fools chapter, and more nasty adventure. That's for Merran. Momma ... I'm still working on.
You're too late, I'm afraid. http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20121001
Is 'elf casting' anything like dwarf tossing?
You're too late, I'm afraid. http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20121001
I'm a genuine philanthopist, all other kinds are sham. https://youtu.be/K_9XH3Lyj8I
Pengrit is a paradox, no doubt, but she will survive. Besides, Merran gave her a whole purse of silver. In a world with less demand-inflation, Pengrit could survive for a week on just one or two of the coins, and she's got probably 110 of them. Of course, she'd have to be careful not to cause demand-inflation herself.
Pengrit was older and clearly already independent, for some meaning of that word. These are a lot younger.
It's not a question of obvious, but of belaboring the basics over and over again.
And yet, when I do remind of the basics--Merran's early training in doing multiple things at once--it's called out as being intrusive. I do it at a point where Merran is waiting for her enemies to recover--and should be measuring difficulty and planning.
Which suggests that I've failed to communicate the tempo of the battle.
When I'm very specific, and say that Merran composes and casts two spells in the same thought, Amy asks if I mean 'at the same time'. No, Merran's been doing that. She's been starting one as she finishes the previous. Now they come even closer, two separate actions in the same ideation. So I am telling you what's in my head. But you're not taking me at my word.
So I'm doing something wrong.
Were the kids credible?
There really are a lot of moving parts in that chapter.
njc wrote:A good workman respects her tools.
Is this a reference to T&A?
Depends on which T and which A.
JPL, worse than 'peak' and 'peek' is either of them for 'pique', or the W that intrudes on 'ring the changes' and 'reckless', and escapes from 'wreaking havoc'.
Yes, and that's the remarkable part--that Merran can fight in counterpoint. And when I liken it, during a catch-your-breath moment, to her early training with her father, to something she reverted to in B1Ch1, it's an irrelevant distraction. Instead, simple levitation should set off fireworks that aren't there and elicit a cosmic rimshot.
That Merran survives a Home Alone battle, and how, with such limited tools isn't astonishing in itself?
Clearly the padawan has much to learn ...
