Five Questions Meme

[osprey_archer]

Stealing troisoiseaux’s five question meme! I've been given five questions to answer and I'll give the first five commenters their own five questions.

1. How did you pick your default icon?

I’ve had this default icon for well over a decade now. I wanted something that wasn’t fandom-specific, because I knew that if it was a particular fandom icon I’d have to change it out when my fandom interests drifted, and I like the suggestion of daydream and imagination in the girl gazing out the open window.

2. Have you ever read a fic that you liked better than the source material (or that you liked despite not being familiar with the source material)?

Ahahaha so in my misspent youth I read LOTS of fic for fandoms with which I was unfamiliar (look, it was all right there on the crack_van LJ community, what do you want from me?), chief among them Man from UNCLE. Much later I saw a few episodes of the show, but I never really got into it, and if I’d been strictly truthful in the historical note in Honeytrap I would have copped to the fact that the germ of the idea came straight from the fanfic with no intervention from the show itself.

3. What's your favorite type of nature (forests, ocean, etc.)?

Forests, particularly northern forests: birch woods, spruce woods, the heavy dark trees and the stony shores of Lake Michigan behind.

4. What was your favorite class in undergrad?

Oh, this is hard to answer! This is not one specific class, but probably my Russian classes - I was with basically the same group all the way through, and we had class every day (the first year it was at 8:30 every morning), plus Russian table once a week and a yearly trip to the campus’s forest retreat Bjorklunden, where after dark the night before Easter we walked around the Bjorklunden chapel trying to keep our candles alight…

The Russian department did a wonderful job conveying not just the language but the history and the culture and the literature of Russia: in first year Russian they already had us reading Korney Chukovsky’s children’s poems and Daniil Kharms’ micro-stories. It’s fascinating to feel that you’re learning not just a language but a whole universe.

5. What's a childhood favorite media that didn't hold up to the nostalgia, and one that definitely does hold up?

When I was about eleven I fell headlong into a Tortall obsession, particularly with Daine the Wildmage and Keladry of Mindelan (and even now, you will pry Kel from my cold dead hands), but as I’ve gotten older I’ve become more aware of the shortcomings of the prose and the, IDK, underlying imperialism of the books’ worldview? The selectively approved-of imperialism. When Carthak conquers people it’s Bad, but when Tortall conquers people it’s whatever.

I don’t think you need to agree with the underlying worldview of a book to enjoy it: for God’s sake, I read Mary Renault. But the Tortall books are meant to be didactic - their didacticism is part of what I liked about them! I liked the fact that they were so baldly in-your-face about their feminism, so blatantly enraged by the limits that society sets on girls. So it becomes a real problem when some of the lessons turn out to be wrong.

On the other hand, Lillian and Russell Hoban’s Frances books are just as good as ever. What’s not to love about a sometimes cranky badger child who likes to sing to herself and go on long expeditions with picnics?

Comments

[landofnowhere]

Five questions, please!

[osprey_archer]

1. Dream travel destination?
2. Are there any books that you wish you had read when you were younger, or feel that you read when you were too young for them?
3. If you could magically acquire one skill, what would it be?
4. Favorite animal?
5. What got you interested in the Mendelssohn family?

[philomytha]

Your Russian classes do sound wonderful! I did a couple of years of Russian at secondary school but it was more functional and less culture - though we did do a language exchange so I spent an amazing couple of weeks in Russia, some staying with my host family and attending school, some touring. For some reason the thing I remember most is the old lady who came up to me in the street to yell at me for not wearing a hat - it was March. I was very proud of myself for understanding what she was upset about!

Can I have some questions?

[osprey_archer]

This may be partly a secondary school/university divide - I took Spanish when I was in high school and like your Russian classes, it was more functional and less culture. Although with Spanish there's also the difficulty that the language is spoken in a lot of countries with very different cultures, so do you try to somehow cover them all (which means you can't get in depth on any one) or pick one to focus on (but how can you pick just one...)?

But it was probably also that my university had just gotten a dynamite new Russian professor who really rejuvenated the department.

Questions!

1. If you could magically speak one more language, which one would you pick?
2. Favorite trip that you've taken?
3. Favorite book when you were eleven?
4. What do you like about boarding school stories?
5. Do you have any personal rituals or traditions that you follow?

[tei]

The Russian department did a wonderful job conveying not just the language but the history and the culture and the literature of Russia: in first year Russian they already had us reading Korney Chukovsky’s children’s poems and Daniil Kharms’ micro-stories. It’s fascinating to feel that you’re learning not just a language but a whole universe. I love this. This really does seem like the reason to learn a language, which can be hard to convey to younger students or students just doing a language because they have to. The point is not that the other language is somehow better than yours, or because it will help you get a job or communicate with people (though it might!) It's because fundamentally your way of understanding the world is not the only way, and the only way to even acknowledge that on a deeper level is to get far enough into a different way that you have access to things you wouldn't in your native language.

You're definitely right about the colonialism of Tortall-- and god, I had forgotten the Bad Empire was literally called CARTHAK. Which reminds me very much of the central point of a book I read recently on the history of Carthage, which pointed out that nearly every Western empire since Rome itself has attempted at some point to frame its colonialist aspirations with "we are Rome, and [insert Other Place here] is Carthage." APPARENTLY INCLUDES TORTALL

[osprey_archer]

Yes, that's the real root fascination of studying other languages! You learn a different way to see the world, and also see things in your own language/worldview that you maybe never would have imagined could be done differently if you hadn't seen that difference in action.

And YES, I suspect that Carthak is a conscious play on Carthage, although as you say the whole Rome vs. Carthage thing is so deeply embedded in the Western imagination that I suppose it could have been unintentional... "What should I call the evil empire? Carthak just sounds right somehow."

The whole "THEIR empire is evil, and OUR empire is good and just and basically not even an empire, really" thing Tortall has going on is also just extremely Cold War. Not that Tortall and Carthak are particularly comparable to America and the USSR in other ways, but there is an echo there.

Do you want questions?

[luzula]

"Björklunden" means "the birch copse" in Swedish. I wonder whether some Scandinavians had named it!

[osprey_archer]

IIRC the family who bought the property and built the original lodge had kind of a Viking theme going on, so that's probably why they picked the name!

Do you want some questions?

[luzula]

I already asked someone else for questions! : )

[asakiyume]

It’s fascinating to feel that you’re learning not just a language but a whole universe. --I love that. And totally agree that that's what good language instruction is, because to really understand the language and how it's used, you need to understand the circumstances, landscapes, culture in which its used (and which is created though its use). Those Russian classes sound great.

Strong agree on the Frances books.

[osprey_archer]

I have sometimes wished that I had taken more Russian literature classes in college, but one can take only so many classes at a time! And there were so many other things I also wanted to learn...

The Frances books were my (bread and) jam! True classics.

Do you want questions?

[asakiyume]

Sure!

[osprey_archer]

1. What's a skill that you're proud of having?
2. What's a treasured memory?
3. Do you have any unusual yearly traditions?
4. If you could have a telepathic companion animal, what kind of animal would you want?
5. Favorite museum?

[kore]

Ohh man I remember crack_van. I miss crack_van.

[osprey_archer]

Crack_van was such a good time and I mourned when it shut done. For a while I followed a rec community with a similar premise on DW but it's just not the saaaaaaame....

Do you want questions?

[kore]

Oh! Hmm not now, I'm not feeling that great, but possibly later....?

[lokifan]

I love northern forests too :)

Yeah, you can absolutely pry Kel from my cold dead hands, but I'd also be a bit scared of rereading them!

[osprey_archer]

I did a reread a bit less than a decade ago and a lot of this hit me then, but I suspect even more of it would hit now. Sometimes it is best just to remember the joy that a book brought you in the past and not reread now.

Do you want questions?

[lokifan]

Sure, haha!

[osprey_archer]

1. Tell me about your Keladry of Mindelan feelings?
2. What was your favorite book when you were eleven?
3. If you had a telepathic companion animal, what animal would you want it to be?
4. How did you choose your username?
5. If you could go on a two-month trip, all expenses paid, where would you go?