I was pretty young when I read the books. Now I'll have to read them again to refresh my memory get a clearer picture of the author. Finding out that the book does indeed drip with sexism might ruin the experience, but I suppose that's for the best.
quote:Finding out that the book does indeed drip with sexism might ruin the experience,
O.o
(This post EDITED after reading the War of the Worlds thread which explains it.)
Now that you say it, there are no strong female characters at all, but I just put that down to the author's total misunderstanding of females or unwillingness to write about, which is not uncommon in early science fiction... I see that you (dkw) guessed the sexism was unconcious, which explains it.
First, don't forget that since you're seeing the novel through the eyes of the narrator, who may be intentionally sexist, it may actually be part of the point.
That aside,
Some young men evem nowadays seem to write the most awful female characters, especially in the wife/girlfriend position simply because it does not occur to them to try and get in the head of this female character and realise that they should write them as if they were the same as any female friend they have- or even a male friend. Critiquing stories written by nineteen-year-olds (my own age, so not generally sexist at all) this year, I got a reputation for pointing out the puppet characters, often female, who were put there to kiss the lead character goodbye and wish (usually) him godspeed on his exciting adventures. It's not hard to horribly misrepresent the other side.
From the biography of John Christopher:
quote:In 1932 he moved to Hampshire and attended Peter Symonds' School, Winchester, until the age of 16, when he left to work in local government.
Exactly how many women is he meeting at that time period, attending a posh boys' school and working in government? If nowadays people can be unconciously sexist, someone writing in the sixties, with perhaps a loose grasp on and experience with women might end up with a great deal of sexism.
Yes, the women are weaker, thinking back, but I honestly never noticed "sexism" as such. perhaps, dkw, your hypothetical children will not notice either- I recall being disappointed by the girls but being a child of the nineties I just put it down to being weak people that the character happened to run into. I wouldn't just toss them out. If you want to talk to your hypothetical children about the books, you should but don't stop the hypothetical them from reading something they may to their eyes be just a quirk of the writing.
Just my opinion, although of course it's up to you and any other people out there.
posted
I think sexism that isn’t obvious is sometimes worse. It’s not just a lack of strong female characters. It’s that boys were valued as workers and girls were valued as ornaments (to the point that they’re just as valuable preserved in glass like butterflies). And yes, it was the “masters” that did that, not the “good guys,” but the human societies seemed to have pretty similar values, although they left the girls alive. The goal at the end of the book was to create “a society of free men,” and they meant men. To accomplish this they sent out missions to recruit boys before they were capped. They planned for this society to grow in secret for years, yet it apparently never occurred to them that it might grow faster and with less dangerous recruiting if it were bi-gender. And while it was growing they were going to be learning how to be a free society, establishing the social mores that they’d live with when the tripods were finally defeated, and women wouldn’t be a part of that.
I don’t care whether my hypothetical children notice it or not – chances are they wouldn’t, since readers tend to identify with the main character. I did – never even noticed the sexism, or that I would have been excluded from the free society, because I identified with the main character rather than with the girls. I’m not one to ban books, or forbid kids to read whatever they want, so if they get a hold of them somewhere else I wouldn’t take them away (though we would be discussing the gender issues after they read them) but I will be damned if I’ll encourage or enable my daughter to read something that tells her she’s most valuable as a freeze-dried decoration.
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posted
I liked them, and still do. I would just make sure the next thing my child read would have a strong female role.
Keep in mind that in his time it wasn't unusual to think those type of things. I would not be surprised if the message is "updated" for the movie, adn that would be a good thing. Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
I guess I saw it in a different way. Yes, Eloise should have been a stronger character, but the horror in which she died was supposed to shock us. We were supposed to be appalled by what the Masters were capable of, taking what humans see as beautiful and polluting it.
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Does anyone know anything about the movie? It says on IMDb that it's supposed to come out in 2009, but nothing else has really been said. I've recently been rewatching the Tripods series online, and it makes me so happy. Those books were the some of the ones that got me into sci fi in the first place. I'd like to see some update on what's actually going on with the movies, but I'm not really sure how to start. Has anyone else heard anything?
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posted
I don't know if I still have it, but I wrote John Christopher back in the 70s telling him that I thought it would make a magnificent movie. He wrote back telling me that BBC was thinking of doing it.
The guy who played Cameron in Ferris Bueller is what I think of when I read about Beanpole.
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posted
Did you really? That's kind of amazing. And I suppose I could see Cameron playing Beanpole, although I do love the huge glasses and bushy eyebrows of the BBC's Beanpole.
Also, did anyone notice back in the day how horrible the acting is in the BBC series? I'm watching it now, and it's so amazingly bad, but I love it all the same.
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posted
I hated these books. My fifth-grade teacher read them to us and I hated them.
I should probably re-read as an adult to see if I still hate them or if I just was having a hard time and issues with my teacher.
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posted
I felt that way with Animal Farm when I first read it. I suggest going back and re-reading it. It was an amazing series. At least I thought so.
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posted
I reread them as an adult and still enjoyed them. But I tried rereading the Prince in Waiting trilogy and just couldn't get through it.
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posted
Oh Lordy! I watched half of the first series on Tripods onthe BBC when I was 11, I was glued to the box for the econd series and filled with rage when the BBC "didn't bother" with the third.
Apparently the Tripods series was a pioneer of CGI special effects.
I shall look forward to his greatly - I hope they pull it off (and remain true to the story and not base it Kansas or somewhere to "make it accessible to the US audience").
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