Two quick notes

[hedda62]

New post up at my author page - Something Alarmingly Plausible, No Doubt: Writing the Past - about how I approach my version of historical fiction. I'm just going to do one more "update" post, tomorrow or the day after, and then leave the blog alone until I get back from Italy.

And OH WOW fantastic episode of POI last night, perfectly grim and poignant and intimate and funny and laying the foundation for who knows what. I loved it all, and all of them in it, but number one was Fusco's glee-face. Friendly acts of revenge: better than falafel.

Comments

[felis]

and intimate

Yes, that's what I thought as well! The amount of knowledge these characters have of each other by now, their history with each other, came through in almost every scene they had last night, and it felt very natural and just worked for me. So happy to see Harold and Shaw working together again for example, they really found their footing with each other, and I love that he considers her a friend now. And the level of casual intimacy between Finch and Reese, despite their differences!
And then the pacing was right, and the balance of dark/funny/touching/..., and the whole thread of meaning and how and where to (not) find it, and for what -- all good. Really liked this one.

[hedda62]

I was comparing these first eps to the start of season 3, which I had all kinds of problems with, and realized that despite Harold's reluctance to engage, all the true tension is now coming from the outside of their little group, which was so not the case last season - Shaw and Harold were sniping at each other, and John seemed to be stepping away from his previous intimacy with Harold, and Root was still Public Enemy Number Whatever despite her thing with the Machine, and Fusco still hadn't achieved real heroism or trust (and Carter was still alive, but yeah). And now they all know each other so much better, or in John and Harold's case, they've found that closeness again.

I'm wondering now where the interpersonal drama is going to come from, but since the season's barely begun, they have lots of places to go with all that. I hope that tension comes from new characters!

[legionseagle]

As I've said in my blog, I really loved that essay and it's sparked all sorts of ideas about how truth and accuracy interact in historical fiction writing.

[hedda62]

Thanks, and I figured somebody would delve deeper into the Tonypandy thing - it's very good as a general concept even if the truth doesn't quite map to what Tey thought it was.

[legionseagle]

It's akin to what oursin refers to as a factoid, and which I've heard of also as a "zombie fact" - things like the story about Queen Victoria not believing lesbians existed so never criminalising lesbianism, but I think what Tey calls Tonypandy is more establishment than that, somehow.

[legionseagle]

I've got what I meant by "establishment" now. Tonypandy applies not just to popular but mistaken historical facts ("factoids" or "zombie facts") but to the sub-set of such which have become part of a particular group's mythology, giving a level of identity-based investment in them.

[hedda62]

Yes. Which makes the original Richard III story (as in Shakespeare) full of Tonypandy elements as well. Not to mention the welfare mother with the Cadillac and a zillion other modern examples.

[legionseagle]

Macdonalds coffee!