world enough, and time

[freckles_and_doubt]

The nice ophthalmologist man was completely unable to find anything wrong with my eyes, which is reassuring. The focus problem I had on Monday with the optician seems to have entirely disappeared. Either my left eye was playing silly buggers, or the optometrist had an Epic Equipment Fail, or possibly there was a semi-transparent ghost haunting the left eyepiece on the great big machine thingy. Now the only problem is that the anaesthetic drops have left me feeling all sleepy.

It's Friday! Random linkery seems appropriate. This is a pleasantly sarky superhero short story by John Scalzi. And this is a geekfest. Cute geek pics, and interesting list of terms MIT Media Studies uses in its Geek Entrance Exam, a horribly high proportion of which I recognise without the need for research. Has anyone actually read The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao?

Today's Forgotten Childhood Gem: Lucy M. Boston's Green Knowe series. These are part of that tradition of English children's fiction which includes writers like Penelope Lively and William Mayne, whose novels deal with the misty, amorphous and occasionally chilling slippage between the past and the present. I love the Green Knowe books for their slow pace and their rich, sensuous depiction of the world of an English country house and gardens, as well as for the gentle intertwining of history, particularly folkloric history, with the contemporary (in this case, 1950s and 60s). Their main characters are Mrs. Oldknowe and her grandson Tolly, but other characters are featured in each of the books (including, memorably, an escaped gorilla whose presence is all about mystery and pathos rather than comedy or threat). It's difficult to convey the atmosphere of these books, their sense of intensity and significance despite the slowness of actual event, and the presence of the house itself as a locus of security and history. They also slide quite easily into the spooky: I remember being thoroughly creeped out by the nastily vivid witchcraft of An Enemy at Green Knowe.

Comments

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

I could live with Cyborg cats everywhere. I feel I could dissuade them from trying to consume me.

[mac1235.livejournal.com]

Meow!

[pumeza.livejournal.com]

I so loved the Green Knowe books and all their slightly creepy cousins as a child - can still feel the atmosphere. Thanks for reminding me :-)

Ps did you know there is an animated film version of The Magic Pudding?

[bronchitikat.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I remember the Green Knowe series, don't remember the gorilla though, must have missed that book.

Remember William Mayne too. Good stories.

[nellie-darlin.livejournal.com]

Oh my god, the Children of Green Knowe! I had COMPLETELY forgotten about that! Gosh they were creepy...

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Hah! my work here is done. This is precisely the kind of reaction this Retro Kiddielit Month is trying to provoke. The Green Knowe novels were indeed creepy, but also gentle and often beautiful. (I re-read the whole lot over the weekend. They make me cry. Then again, practically anything seems to make me cry).