although the later Billabong books are perhaps a bridge between the two, with Norah and company talking about tuning into psychic radio waves?
The use of technical language for paranormal experiences is surprisingly old! I've seen it in fiction as far back as Kipling's "Wireless" (1902). I think there are just a lot of different concepts of extrasensory whatever blurring and blending in this era. Its science fiction and horror are the same way. Emily's second sight feels deliberately folkloric to me.
Mary Stewart's Touch Not the Cat (1976) rests its romantic premise on a straight-up soulbond, the suspense part of the novel deriving from the fact that although the heroine has an intimate mental map of the man with whom she has been telepathically linked since childhood, she has no physical idea of what he actually looks like.
are you thinking that Montgomery needed to write a version where the heroine could get together with the Snaith/Priest character, where it would be the right and dream-fulfilling choice for her?
Yes: the attractive world-traveled outsider-dreamer with the tawny hair, the whimsical, sensitive mouth, the touch of cynicism, and the bitter laugh as real romantic hero, not bona fide terrible idea; I have not been able to find any literature on it, which is nuts, but the characterization seems far too close for coincidence, especially since Montgomery doesn't otherwise seem to use this model of dude as a recurring type. The age gap is not a factor with Barney and neither is disability, but his reputation is worse than Dean's. They are of course majorly differentiated by the fact that Barney can support Valancy for who she is while Dean falls down so hard on that front that after more than thirty years I'm still disappointed in him, but visually, it really struck me that even with all the similar descriptions, Barney's eyes are Emily-violet. Dean's are Priest-green.
(Totally and fortunately absent from Valancy's relationship with Barney is also the thing where Emily's relationship with Dean is consistently vectored through her dead father—by both of them—which is so weird that I can't even tell if the books notice it. As probably discussed the last time it came around on your journal, Emily Climbs sincerely doesn't work for me as a novel, which means I have spent a lot of time since childhood thinking about it.)
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Date: 2024-04-08 06:51 pm (UTC)although the later Billabong books are perhaps a bridge between the two, with Norah and company talking about tuning into psychic radio waves?
The use of technical language for paranormal experiences is surprisingly old! I've seen it in fiction as far back as Kipling's "Wireless" (1902). I think there are just a lot of different concepts of extrasensory whatever blurring and blending in this era. Its science fiction and horror are the same way. Emily's second sight feels deliberately folkloric to me.
Mary Stewart's Touch Not the Cat (1976) rests its romantic premise on a straight-up soulbond, the suspense part of the novel deriving from the fact that although the heroine has an intimate mental map of the man with whom she has been telepathically linked since childhood, she has no physical idea of what he actually looks like.
are you thinking that Montgomery needed to write a version where the heroine could get together with the Snaith/Priest character, where it would be the right and dream-fulfilling choice for her?
Yes: the attractive world-traveled outsider-dreamer with the tawny hair, the whimsical, sensitive mouth, the touch of cynicism, and the bitter laugh as real romantic hero, not bona fide terrible idea; I have not been able to find any literature on it, which is nuts, but the characterization seems far too close for coincidence, especially since Montgomery doesn't otherwise seem to use this model of dude as a recurring type. The age gap is not a factor with Barney and neither is disability, but his reputation is worse than Dean's. They are of course majorly differentiated by the fact that Barney can support Valancy for who she is while Dean falls down so hard on that front that after more than thirty years I'm still disappointed in him, but visually, it really struck me that even with all the similar descriptions, Barney's eyes are Emily-violet. Dean's are Priest-green.
(Totally and fortunately absent from Valancy's relationship with Barney is also the thing where Emily's relationship with Dean is consistently vectored through her dead father—by both of them—which is so weird that I can't even tell if the books notice it. As probably discussed the last time it came around on your journal, Emily Climbs sincerely doesn't work for me as a novel, which means I have spent a lot of time since childhood thinking about it.)