tree_and_leaf: Watercolour of barn owl perched on post. (Default)
tree_and_leaf ([personal profile] tree_and_leaf) wrote2006-01-23 02:34 pm
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I've just stumbled across the [livejournal.com profile] talboys community, and followed a link to find an article about a proposed new original Wimsey novel by, of all people, Stephen King.



http://www.cemeterydance.com/page/CDP/FREEREADRockyWood

I have to say that I am glad it wasn't written - killing Harriet off is evil (if an interesting idea) and it sounds as if he was planning to turn Peter into a self-pitying drunk, which is just wrong. He is unable to cope with visiting Miss Climpson, who seems to be dying of cancer, which I don't buy, either. Peter would go, even if he had screaming nightmares about it afterwards.

Personally, I think that in the circumstances King posits - Harriet is killed in the Blitz while Peter is on active service - he would have struggled on manfully for the sake of the children. We can see from the short stories that he has a very close relationship with the boys, and I don't think he would sink into his grief so deeply that he could forget their needs. It would leave him a shadow of himself, yes, but I think Peter would keep going.

I might be persuaded to buy 'Peter (possibly a few years on) falls ill and just drifts away because he doesn't really want to go on living', but that: no. I think I'd even believe Suicidal!Peter sooner (as tidily as possible, and with a very apologetic note which leaves no doubt about it really being suicide), though again, I think Peter would live up to his responsibilities if it killed him.

What really caught my eye, though, was the mini-biography (somewhat inaccurate, since it implies that DLS' child was public knowledge in her life, and that she was criticized for anti-semitism at the time she was writing) which states that she 'wrote... plays in an orthodox Anglican manner.'

How on earth does one write in an Anglican manner?

Oh well - back to work (lots of articles on 13th Century Dominicans...)

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