| | A Renaissance-era pirate's cabin is often seen to be the furthest thing possible from a Austenesque dining room. After all, a pirate's life is full of all sorts of physical skills: tacking against headwinds, being skilled with a blade, knowing what trade routes carry the most valuable and unguarded prizes. Austen-era housewives are traditionally represented as passive, timid things, and their actions seem a part of an entirely different milleau: gathering families for dinners; seating table guests according to their stations and compatibility, always keeping an eye out for good matches for their daughters.
But when it comes to fictional situations, the two are more alike than one might think. The life of a successful literary pirate, like the life of a socially skilled Jane Austen protagonist, is made or broken on a single ability: the ability to judge and make use of both individual psychology and group sociology. Indeed, both the world of the dining room and the outlaw high seas, as found in literature, have another theme in common: they are places with strict and all-encompasing rules and power-structures, that are nevertheless constantly violated and renegotiated when no one seems to be looking.
Long John Silver knew this, of course, and showed his knowledge by his insistence on the ambiguous term "Gentleman o' Fortune." By assuming the name (and genteel mannerisms) of a civilized member of the upper class, he opened up new spaces for himself--he could command troops without resorting to excessive physical violence, but he could also negotiate skillfully with the forces of law and order. Indeed he is perhaps literature's greatest social chamelion, shifting his social identity seamlessly from kindly cook to vicious killer to nautical commander to kindly father-figure.
Mr. Wickham knows the power of social illusions as well. He takes on the role of a dashing soldier, and Lydia accepts it as the truth. Yet when they begin to live together, Darcy, Mr. Bennet, and Elizabeth--three characters who understand the flexible-but-real nature of society--play their own game with social conventions. Lydia and Wickham aren't married out of any religious or moral conviction (as much as D, B, and E might wish they were), but the bribe the forces them into the form of piety allows them to work within society. Wickham becomes, indeed, a "Gentleman o' Fortune," but he's intimidated enough to act the part and so for Lydia's sake (and Elizabeth's!) we are happy.
But in all cases, it is the indeterminate locations that are the source of adventure. This is what makes the desert island negotiations in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies so much fun--people switch from the role of hero to villain, subordinate pirate to ambitious soldier, rum-drinking Englishwoman to practical manipulator. Sometimes the roles work, and sometimes they don't, but the real-world results are always real.
This is a connection I probably wouldn't have made on my own, but lately I've been reading Robin Hobb's Liveship Traders series. In summary, it seems like a very odd hybrid: nautical adventure (and romance) intercut with scenes of a female-only household (the men are at sea) full of clashing personalities and one very difficult teenage daughter. But in the book it works, since Hobb has a profound understanding of how people work in culture. Whether the question is "should we liberate slaveships when we could be stealing jewels?" or "should I engage in a dumb game of bear-bating in order to look like a "real" crew-member?" or even "what clothes should I wear when meeting my daughter's suitor?", the fundamental issues are the same: "how do I want to appear and what difference does my appearance make?" And the real fun is watching how, in the play of appearances and masks and pretensions successful and unsuccessful, character is revealed and made.
Of course, Hobb does write unapologetic genre fiction; this is a fantasy story, which means action will drive the characters through emotional crisis to some sort of triumphant ending (though not, perhaps, the one we expected.) But it is the tapestry of mixed motives and social skills she weaves along the way that captivates. Hobb writes in the tradition of the greatest historical novelists, but without being enslaved to any particular historical period, she is able to consider touchy topics while minimizing their historical baggage. Hobb takes on: the cultural effects of owning (and transporting) slaves, the psychology of prostitution (from all perspectives involved), the effects of a culture swiftly evolving to strip power from women, the slow erosion of agreements made between a powerful king and his relatively powerless colony, and a vast arrays of stupid or wise decisions found on every level and every side of her unique society. But her fantasy world--and her wise understanding of the play of social identity--keep this from being a straightforward sermon. Instead she provides the reader with experience, of sorts: the ability to see actions which are similar to our own from an alien and relatively disinterested perspective.
(Two brief warnings: Hobb (as you might have guessed from the review) doesn't shirk from clear depictions of either sexuality or violence. Unrelatedly, she suffers from the most common plague of fantasy writers: rushed to publication, her books seem to contain at least 33% more words than are useful to her narrative.) |
| | Posted 5/12/2009 3:17 PM - 14 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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