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| A Small and Passing Thing by Lindelea | 2 Review(s) |
|---|---|
| Larner | Reviewed Chapter: 38 on 4/22/2023 |
| If Freddy is behind this return to gentility I just might smack him up alongside the head myself! | |
| FantasyFan | Reviewed Chapter: 38 on 10/20/2003 |
| This is the fruit of your ruminations on the resistant-to-change and generally-comfortable social structure of the Shire? I suppose it's somewhat artificial to have charcters talking explicitly about something that would be so subtle and understood in the culture itself, but then exceptional times and all that... Estella discusses what she knows of her family's arrangements for her marriage, and Rose and Mari are not envious of her any more. But you certainly haven't written anyone comfortable with the situation. Estella mourns the loss of her friends, the lost of her freedom and the loss of a future she might have dreamed of. Rose may not have thought twice about Estella's station had she not gotten to know her as Tilly or Twig, but it's not making her happy now to serve Estella a tray or be dismissed from her pain. It was telling how Tilly described herself as 'going away', but it wasn't a physical leaving she was talking about. Author Reply: I think it takes time to become used to the way things are. When you're young, you're idealistic and you can imagine things as they might be if they were different. When you're old you have less energy and you're more pragmatic. The fact that we can become complacent in the face of social inequity says a lot, doesn't it? Look how long it took laws to change in the USA after the Civil War, about 100 years, wasn't it, before change started to take place? It always used to frustrate me, to ask a question and be answered with, "That's the way it's always been." Now I find myself tempted to say the same thing to our children, when I see that it would be impractical or take too much time or blood, sweat, and tears to change something. I guess I understand things better now, or something. | |