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Top-level
The end of /The Sheep Look Up/: Opening the door to the visiting doctor, all set to apologize for the flour on her hands – she had been baking – Mrs. Byrne sniffed. Smoke! And if she could smell it with her heavy head cold, it must be a tremendous fire! "We ought to call the brigade!” she exclaimed. “Is it a hayrick?” “The brigade would have a long way to go,” the doctor told her curtly. "It’s from America. The wind’s blowing that way.” (6/7) 5 comments
 @marick I could almost agree with KSR's intention here if not for how much he misrepresents the Global South and the grassroots. Okay, the "bottom-up" might not work in itself, but why completely erase it and show Frank as the only one with agency in the refugee camps? Why is the only non-white, non-Northerner character with a name and a speaking role a terrorist / black ops specialist? If KSR just wanted to have "another way", he could have not ridiculed people doing work right now. @alxd You’re probably right. I don’t have any personal knowledge of how refugees behave. (My paternal aunts and my grandmother were refugees from Poland after WWII – they walked about 1000km from north of Warsaw to near Stuttgart. However, I was too young to ask them about the experience. My father was in an Allied prisoner of war camp, which I don’t think is very comparable. His stories depicted everyone as being passive – head down, trying to get along.) @alxd Will just add that my memory of the Frank character is that he was portrayed as more of a doofus than anything else, throughout his character arc. I never felt he was portrayed positively. In interactions with refugees, I imagine them rolling their eyes and trying to edge him out of the way. Less a “white savior” than “oh god, another loser who thinks he’s a white savior”. But I might have been reading something into it that wasn’t there. @alxd I can say that I found the “only non-white, non-Northerner character” an admirable one. Way more so than Frank. Somewhat more so than Mary (?). But that could be more me than what was written on the page. I am by nature inclined to “tear it all down”. It would be interesting to see what my wife thought of the different characters, as she is much more of a Mary type: incredibly patient in chivvying people to do what needs to be done. |
Gregory's Server
NEXT YEAR [the preceding pages cover December to November]
The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,
But swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread.”
– Milton, “Lycidas” (7/7)