Maturin and the strings

I've just started Patrick O'Brian's Post Captain, and I got to this line:
'It's an odd thing about you, Stephen,' said Jack Aubrey, looking at him with affection. 'You have been at sea quite some time now, and no one could call you a fool, but you have no more notion of a sailor's life than a babe unborn.'

And here we have an authorial recognition of part of Stephen Maturin's function in these books (at least the first two): he doesn't know the things the reader doesn't know about sailing ships. Some of it gets explained in authorial voice, but there are bits that other characters can explain to the good doctor because he's the designated outsider. He's the equivalent of the time traveler, the alien, the stranger in a strange land -- which can be thematically interesting, to be sure, but it's also extremely functional.

And here's the thing that interests me: I don't mind seeing the strings. Sometimes I get extremely frustrated when the author telegraphs too clearly what a different element is being used for. "Yes, yes, it's a recurring image," I'll mutter, "how happy for you." Or, "Hurrah for Captain Exposition."* But when Dr. Maturin makes Captain Aubrey serve as Captain Exposition, I don't mind it.

I think it's because Dr. Maturin has other traits, and because this one makes sense in the context of the rest of his character. O'Brian has established him as the sort of man who notices a great deal about some things and nothing whatsoever about others, and so it all fits. Even if you know how it all fits, you don't feel that Dr. Maturin's toes have been cut off to fit into Cinderella's slippers -- so it doesn't matter if his shoes show up from time to time, because they're his.

And before that dreadful metaphor snaps entirely, I'd better go do something else and pretend I didn't say it.

*This, my dears, is the difference between an amiable reader and an uncritical one. I'll read just about anything, given half a reason. But I will not refrain from muttering about it.

Hazards of Con Attendance

I finally figured out what I want to read this week.

1crowdedhour and her co-conspirator haven't finished writing it yet.

Cons are dangerous things.

Not my lie

This evening got away from me. I was going to go in for a massage at 6:45, and it turns out they forgot to tell the masseuse I was coming, so it started almost 20 minutes late. I think she extended it a bit to make up for that, and then I ran through Hallmark again (rant omitted here), and when I got home, timprov and CJ were watching "Empire Strikes Back," so I went down with The Grey Road to be sociable, or quasi-sociable at least. And now it's 11:00. Oof.

What I wanted to say before I forgot: matociquala was saying that early in her writing, she had to tell herself different lies, and one of them was, "It's just for fun." And I've heard that before, and I just wanted to say: not me. I never did.

I think the problem is that while I respect fun immensely, "just" fun is different. "Just" fun has the freedom not to be taken seriously, so I can understand why it was a needed freedom for other people early on -- but people are always more than willing not to take my writing seriously. Or at least they were. Some of them still are. Today I got an e-mail containing the line, "Your book sounds serious rather than fantasy." (This was from an older family member.) I wandered the house clutching my hair and groaning. It's still a dichotomy for her, and she was surprised about what side of that dichotomy I fell on. (Well, hell, if I agreed with her, I'd probably be surprised, too.) It is very easy for other people to act like I'm finger-painting here. Agreeing with them was never a positive thing for me. I had to fight for time to myself to write in the first place. Telling myself it wasn't serious would have been the fast track to not doing it at all.

I think I need to do more things that are "just for fun." I think I need to do things without particularly serious intent. For me, what that probably means is that I need to dig out the paints again. But I'm loath to add requirements to my days. I'm not eager to put fun on a list to be checked off: have I included whimsy in my daily schedule? Yes, for 13.7 minutes. Good. Next we'll schedule the spontaneity.

Ummmmmm. Insert coherent ending here, all right? Because I'm going to go read more of Post Captain before I crash. Being a morning person is not all it's cracked up to be.