Chapter 6 of The Heart's Landscape

[tocryabout]

The Name for Its Own Sake, first chapter of the second part, so maybe everyone who was wondering if I'd abandon it will relax now. I'm slow, but I am not faithless, for the names of my readers are written on the palm of my hand. (Anyway, it's only like three weeks since the last update! And I was in the hospital and not writing for one of those weeks, which means I am ON FIRE.)

Words not recognised by OpenOffice's spellcheck:
wasabi
Toyotas (got a problem with the Japanese, OpenOffice?)
headbutt
subarachnoid
MedicAlert
telepath

[Read from the beginning.]

Comments

[to-cry-about.livejournal.com]

I thought it was because telepathy doesn't exist and stuff, but then it recognised "unicorn" and "basilisk" but not "thetan" or "Xenu" so now I don't know what to think.

[hoeyon.livejournal.com]

Very nice, especially about the science and religion and wasabi. Thanks for sharing.

[to-cry-about.livejournal.com]

Even being warned ahead of time about wasabi wasn't enough to keep me from slathering it on like Nutella. I avoid non-tempura Japanese food now.

Re: reactions

[to-cry-about.livejournal.com]

I also kinda love you spell it "Dr" without the "."

It's a little faux-British, but somebody pointed out that it's illogical to use the dot (indicating missing letters) when the end of the abbreviation is the end of the word, so now it bugs me to do it the North American way.

((headdesk)) ((headdesk)) Yes, lovey, but have we ever read Foucault?

Bleh, I have. Someone in pastoral theology would have too. Joel's read enough that maybe he should be suspicious, but I hope his reasons for instinctively buying into the status quo are clear too.

((facepalm facepalm)) Oh no, it's called SYMBOLISM and I think it's going to bite Joel on the ass. Oh dear.

I don't take a uniformly negative view of the Eden Incident, if that helps. Nor do I think it's about sex, at all, so that's not where I'm headed.

That's it because I had to break the chapter in two there. More (relatively) soon.

Re: Not easy being a mystery, is it?

[to-cry-about.livejournal.com]

It is "so do we", but it's somewhat common amongst the rubes of Eastern Ontario to say "so don't I", which is so ungrammatical it should cause space-time to fold in on itself.

Snogging I can promise you. Yes.

All shall be revealed regarding the telepaths in Neurocherche, but probably not all in the next chapter. Three or four plots going here, c'mon. :P

Re: reactions

[to-cry-about.livejournal.com]

They were having guilt-free sex in the garden, guaranteed (since they were like the animals) so I think it's just that Europeans are horny control-freaks and as soon as they got hold of this Middle Eastern religion they had to sexx it up good. Judaism is amazingly non-sex-obsessed, so obviously it's our problem.

Anyway, I'm always annoyed by feminist readings of it that only care about what OUR society has interpreted it as in the past, ignoring what other cultures thought of it (like the East) and what the story itself may still have to offer to a new perspective. And this is why I hate English courses. [Although I still hate them less than philosophy.] THE END.

Re: reactions

[youngest-one.livejournal.com]

So what do you think the whole Eden incident was all about? I have my own ideas, but I'd love to hear yours.

Re: reactions

[waterstrider.livejournal.com]

My view is pretty orthodox--I think that Judaism has always been focused on doing God's will, even before the giving of the Law. Sex is a part of that, but it's very, very far from the whole story. Being in the presence of God and still choosing not to follow him is the Old Testament definition of wickedness. It's a moral problem, not a sexual one (in our English-speaking culture "immorality" is often synonymous with sexual indiscretions, so I think it's important to pick up on that).

The other side of the coin is that the temptation was very understandable, even noble: surely it's a good thing to want to know good from evil, and be like God? Later in the NT we find that yes, God did have that plan for us, and still wants to share his life with us so that we can be like him. The desire wasn't a bad one. The problem was that we second-guessed God and his timetable, and the bond of trust was broken. What followed was (I think) not so much a punishment as a natural consequence of not dwelling in God.

This is why it makes me roll my eyes when feminist critics reduce it to OMG THEY ARE BLAMING THE WOMAN. No. The man was with the woman when the serpent was making its pitch; that's in the text. Have people blamed Eve? Yes. Is that what the story is about? No. Both sexes had an equal opportunity to sin or not, and both chose to sin. That Adam blamed Eve is, well, the story of humanity. A real feminist reading would recognise this as a realistic detail, not a normative claim about uppity women ruining everything.

[youngest-one.livejournal.com]

Can I take a few moments to reiterate that I love what you're doing with Paul? The little details about how his mutation affects his life, and how he copes with it, are fascinating.

I was suspicious of Neurocherche from the beginning. Probably because it emphasized letting go, trusting in outside forces that poke about in your brain, and Joel's never really had good luck with that kind of thing. I want to like the young Dr. Gervais, but keep getting a bad feeling about this whole project. A part of me keeps pointing out that a chip in the head would do a great job of keeping track of a mutant like Joel, who'se immune to other types of monitoring. And I keep wondering if this and Department H are connected in any way. The two encounters with telepathy were very creepy and well written.

Hodya and Joel are doomed, aren't they? I mean, long distance relationships are hard enough to manage as it is, and when it's someone like Joel, who has problems with relationships already......His dialogue at the end, when he's promising to give here everything, without really knowing what that is, really rang true. Depressing, but true.

[waterstrider.livejournal.com]

Probably because it emphasized letting go, trusting in outside forces that poke about in your brain

Henri Nouwen's The Wounded Healer has a lot of interesting stuff about the medical system and how it makes people feel powerless. Patients are totally at the mercy of the professionals, the hospital system, insurance and medicare. And there's very little that can be done about that, short of putting the whole country through medical school. Being sick is being vulnerable, and knowledge is power.

I'm just getting my feet wet with Hodya, but I think she might be one of the healthiest characters in the mix--she's able to date other people and continue seeing Joel because she likes him, without being possessive or needy about it. It COULD work. But some people prefer to be needed.

[chalcopyrite.livejournal.com]

Hi! I just found your stories recently -- um, yesterday? -- via brown_betty, and I just wanted to stop by and tell you how much I've been enjoying reading. Thanks!

[to-cry-about.livejournal.com]

Ooh, thanks, I like being able to put faces (well, LJ profiles) to the numbers on the site counter. [Sorry I sometimes don't reply to comments quickly enough on this LJ. Stupid exams.]

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

There are wonderful, precise feedbacks above (specifically, red shoes), but they echo what I love about your story. Your characters are incredibly vivid and your language incredibly precise.

I'm trying not to freak out that I will have an evil institute coming up in my fic before long. Oh well, we're both riffing off someone else's property anyway.

You are wise and generous, do you know that?

[to-cry-about.livejournal.com]

Man, if there's not at least one evil institute in a plot-based fic, you're doing something wrong. That's my position.

I always feel like I'm floudering helplessly and not being precise enough at all (is that irritating to hear from other writers? like "oh, you thought that was good enough? NOT FOR ME, I'm too special!" it's always my first response to writing-based compliments, anyway). *is pleased, ruffles feathers*

How am I wise and generous?