A couple of links

[megwrites]

irysangel has posted a freebie short story that I definitely recommend. Zombie fairy tales for the win. Also, I defy you to think of the Disney version of Beauty and the Beast the same way again. Go ahead. It's a really good, and truly amusing story. Pixel stained technopeasantry at its best.

There was a great essay that truepenny wrote about Neil Gaiman's "Problem of Susan", which is a short story he wrote in reaction to C.S. Lewis's treatment of Susan in the subsequent Narnia books. It's a good view on Lewis.

But I didn't link it originally, because I realized that a lot of people might not have read "The Problem of Susan", which appears in Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things short story collection. Thus, the essay might not make much sense.

Then I realized I conveniently have a way to help out with that.

The Problem of Susan, as read by Neil Gaiman. mp3 format, 19.7Mb, 21:29 mins. Plus, there's a bonus preamble about him getting meningitis.

By the by, I would've sued or at least waggled a fist at the first doctor who said Neil Gaiman just had the flu. A patient presents with flu-like symptoms and neck pain enough to warrant pain meds and you don't at least run a couple of tests? Then you're sort of doing medicine *wrong*.

Anyway. So, now you have access to the story. And I do strongly encourage you to buy Fragile Things, or any Neil Gaiman book you can get your hands on. Particularly Smoke and Mirrors, which made me love short stories and poetry again for, like, a whole week.

Let me know if the download putters out. The file sharing this way is only good for a week, and for a limited number of downloads, but I'm more than happy to put it up again upon request.

However, if you haven't read the Chronicles of Narnia, or at least know the basics, I can't help you out there.

Comments

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

As a former medical field flunky, flu-like + neck pain is a pretty good meningitis giveaway.

Yeah, I know. I'm not even certified to do CPR, and I knew that. I'm just trying to imagine what the fuck sort of doctor gives you a laundry list of pain pills over the phone for what he thinks is the flu.

It's a good thing Neil's assistant was on the ball, because meningitis can really do damage.

I never did like how she was treated like some uber traitor just because she wanted to get on with her life and do some normal things.

Neither did I. Especially since it seemed like she was being punished for wanting to take control of her own destiny and live life on her own, stable kind of terms instead of holding off the entire process of growing up so that Aslan can sweep her back to Narnia whenever the fuck he feels like it.

And if you take the Aslan = Jesus metaphor into account, she's actually kind of like Lillith. She's being punished for the sin of saying, "Umm, no" whenever the big patriarchal God starts getting outrageous and demanding things for no good reason.

I had a teacher once tell me that it was because Susan had given into vanity and become superficial. And that sort of made me mad. Because apparently growing up and expressing any kind of sexuality is a no-no for girls in the Narnia-verse.