tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16420358.post4495574826251338658..comments2023-10-29T10:30:24.415+00:00Comments on fretmarks: Excerpts from A Good ReadPluvialishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13215485499944146575noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16420358.post-26351353872407272372007-11-04T14:58:00.000+00:002007-11-04T14:58:00.000+00:00I am interested (offended) by the casual assumptio...I am interested (offended) by the casual assumption that falconry and 'blood sport' are something that 'we' and our kind are above, that falconry is about subjugation and anti- freedom (but I grant your remarks). Those who see only texts have a hard time seeing animals as real and different (you have a nice line about this early in Falcon, about how-- I'm paraphrasing-- a pigeon would not see a falcon as a construct.)<BR/><BR/>And to claim that White's love of nature is some sort of compensation for being a homosexual is fairly ludicrous-- are all nature lovers only so in reaction to something? (Conflicted White may have been a tangle of sexual confusion but in his immediate circle of friends one's sexual orientation was hardly cause for offense-- see White- Garnett letters for instances).<BR/><BR/>I tend toward Matt's remark that being a sort of 'Green Tory' like White hardly means you are a fascist-- White was not Henry Williamson! We need more categories than we are allowed.<BR/><BR/>Most fatuous remark:Shriver.<BR/><BR/>"I would hardly get upset about it on an animal rights level because it’s just paper, right? It’s not a bird. So, I’m happy to torture animals in print as much as we like. "<BR/><BR/>O shit-- why not just do ANYTHING on paper? If I read a description of human torture that was lovingly lingered over I might suspect the author of being an unpleasant person. Theory can go too far. What White was describing was (a) not torture and (b) made him excruciatingly uncomfortable, as I think a perceptive reader still sees.<BR/><BR/>Helen-- despite which I love the symbol you have teased out of White taming the German bird!<BR/><BR/>Your own perceptions of the gos in the post above-- I'll write-- contain more wisdom than the collective heft of all these writers. -- Gos as cold dinosaurian predatory Other.Steve Bodiohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14434597061701369867noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16420358.post-89440929084407311562007-11-04T12:51:00.000+00:002007-11-04T12:51:00.000+00:00Thanks for the background on the school girl story...Thanks for the background on the school girl story! I should have looks it up but hated to risk it being less dramatic than I remembered. :-) <BR/><BR/>If all that these speakers know of falconry is from The Goshawk, I am reminded of Steve's point that it is a book about excruciatingly bad falconry. But that's different, of course, than an excruciatingly bad book about falconry!Matt Mullenixhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11198069782508775543noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16420358.post-63245713836570012642007-11-04T08:36:00.000+00:002007-11-04T08:36:00.000+00:00Ah, I've located the story; the problem seemed to ...Ah, I've located the story; the problem seemed to be that the girl complained about being sat, during a lesson, with a group of Asian students who had just arrived in the country and whose English was poor, and she started using some pretty grim racial epithets, and it all spiralled out of control. A full-time police officer seemed to have been "based at the school" and god alone knows what background underpins all this. It does seem problematic that she was arrested, though: blimey. <BR/><BR/>What interests me is the defensive nature of the remarks in this radio programme; it seems interesting that two novelists appear unable to treat the work with any historical distance. And interestingly of course, I think that much of the dislike of falconry, its form, and so on, is derived from The Goshawk anyway: it was so influential in creating a vision of what falconry was, in the 1950s and 1960s. Which is, an elemental battle, like Moby Dick in the mews. My reading of The Goshawk? First pass: It's a war book. White's writerly friends are all off fighting fascism in Spain. White fights fascism by seeking to civilise an irrational, German fascist hawk. And realises that he is, instead, the oppressor. <BR/><BR/>I am full of coffee. Can you tell? :)Pluvialishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13215485499944146575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16420358.post-35694640860547519652007-11-04T01:45:00.000+00:002007-11-04T01:45:00.000+00:00Pluvi there was a story a couple months back in wh...Pluvi there was a story a couple months back in which a London schoolgirl was arrested for...the name of the offense I can't recall, but something along the lines of anti-social behavior, for not wanting to eat lunch next to Muslin girls in her class. <BR/><BR/>I don't mean to minimize the discourtesy and probably the deeper issues involved there. But call the police!?<BR/><BR/>That's hard for me to understand. It's just what came to mind when trying to illustrate the ironry of someone bemoaning a goshawk's loss of liberty.Matt Mullenixhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11198069782508775543noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16420358.post-69042473613052684602007-11-03T23:44:00.000+00:002007-11-03T23:44:00.000+00:00Interesting. The bit that got my back up was the "...Interesting. The bit that got my back up was the "glorious sadness" of our countryside. There's an unreflectiveness to that, and to the stuff on hawking, that is maddening. I am not sure what you mean, Matt, about the "English schoolgirls" -- seems to me if someone refuses to sit next to someone purely because they are of a 'different race' that really is an appalling state of affairs. Absolutely agree with you about the surveillance society, though: and surely it is this discomfort about a lack of freedom which LEADS to this kind of sentimentality about hawks. <BR/><BR/>I will be musing more on this. I like the "book I mostly love" line; that's fantastic. TH White was nothing like Ray Mears. And there's more. But it's late; I've just come in, exhausted, from dinner with friends, so tired that I managed to scratch a three foot gouge out of the side of my car as I pulled in to the drive. Damn, damn, damn.Pluvialishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13215485499944146575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16420358.post-762932593353305902007-11-03T22:14:00.000+00:002007-11-03T22:14:00.000+00:00"And the character of the hawk, which is the most ..."And the character of the hawk, which is the most important character in the book, never quite comes alive for me in an anthropomorphised way. And I needed that, because there really are only two characters in this book."<BR/><BR/>...AND he objects to hawking. Jeez.Moro Rogershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03170995132520805860noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16420358.post-49928631388883711562007-11-03T20:31:00.000+00:002007-11-03T20:31:00.000+00:00We have to help with the pen-chewing over at Q.I f...We have to help with the pen-chewing over at Q.<BR/><BR/>I feel like I've just been slapped---but with something like a public washroom handtowel.<BR/><BR/>These two sentences caught my eye in particular:<BR/><BR/>"Jim—and perhaps the problem of a lot of listeners, with, now, in the 21st century—with somebody training a bird and mastering it and curbing its freedom."<BR/><BR/>A lot implied there and a lot obviously to get my crest up. But freedom? FREEDOM? Is it true that in London you are filmed secretly over 300 times a day? Is it true that English schoolgirls can be arrested for chosing not to sit next to people of another race? No need to answer, I'm ranting.<BR/><BR/>And this: "White himself is an old Shires Tory; if he’d have been happy, when would he have been at his happiest? I think he’d have been happiest as a Knight of the Round Table, you know, with a greyhound at his side, a hawk on his arm, and no personal problems."<BR/><BR/>What part of that would not be heaven??<BR/><BR/>(PS: I am about to go hawking. Don't tell Jim as I know it makes him uncomfortable.)Matt Mullenixhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11198069782508775543noreply@blogger.com