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azdak at 12:05pm on 30/07/2008
azdak at 12:05pm on 30/07/2008Yesterday I went sailing with Wolfgang, in his little Laser, which seats one uncomfortably and two if you don't mind sitting with your nose pressed to your knees most of the time, and a constant entanglement of limbs and ropes and rudder. Nonetheless, I quite enjoyed it, and felt very Hornblower-ish when I was allowed to steer and call out things like "ready to go about".
I've been re-reading Hornblower, for the first time in about twenty years, and was disconcerted to discover that he's actually kind of an ass. I got really fed up with his perpetual angsting about his supposed inadequacies, but at least it was better than following the progress of his love affairs, which frequently led me to put a pillow over my head and groan. Only a male author could believe that this character was "the kind of man women easily fall in love with". Any woman I know in real life - and most of those I know from literature - would run a mile faced with this self-centred, condescending embodiment of stuffed-shirtedness. Except, I concede, Maria, whose relationship with "Horry" I find strangely touching, and not nearly as appalling as Forrester clearly expects me to (and her fate, and that of her children, makes me cry). Lady Barbara, by contrast, reminds me of my stepmother (this is not a recommendation) and I have enormous trouble believing the marriage ever recovered fromn her going off to Russia to pursue a career and him going off to France to screw Marie. I consoled myself for all these disappointments by writing fanfic in my head, in which Richard grows up to be a young buck about town, who runs up huge debts and despises his father (whom he refers to as "the Admiral") for being a skinflint and a bore (I think Hornblower's sekrit ambition was to be Sir Thomas Bertram; he certainly would have thought Fanny a model of womanhood).
I've been re-reading Hornblower, for the first time in about twenty years, and was disconcerted to discover that he's actually kind of an ass. I got really fed up with his perpetual angsting about his supposed inadequacies, but at least it was better than following the progress of his love affairs, which frequently led me to put a pillow over my head and groan. Only a male author could believe that this character was "the kind of man women easily fall in love with". Any woman I know in real life - and most of those I know from literature - would run a mile faced with this self-centred, condescending embodiment of stuffed-shirtedness. Except, I concede, Maria, whose relationship with "Horry" I find strangely touching, and not nearly as appalling as Forrester clearly expects me to (and her fate, and that of her children, makes me cry). Lady Barbara, by contrast, reminds me of my stepmother (this is not a recommendation) and I have enormous trouble believing the marriage ever recovered fromn her going off to Russia to pursue a career and him going off to France to screw Marie. I consoled myself for all these disappointments by writing fanfic in my head, in which Richard grows up to be a young buck about town, who runs up huge debts and despises his father (whom he refers to as "the Admiral") for being a skinflint and a bore (I think Hornblower's sekrit ambition was to be Sir Thomas Bertram; he certainly would have thought Fanny a model of womanhood).