#The Yearling

[arthistoryanimalia]

For #WhoopingCraneDay :

N.C. Wyeth (American, 1882-1945)

The Dance of the Whooping Cranes, 1939

oil on panel, 30 x 22¼ in. (76.2 x 56.5 cm);

printed as a plate in the illustrated edition of The Yearling (1939)

[queer-cinephile]

our enhanced and colorized versions of this photo of Gregory Peck circa 1945

[wesleysniperking]

Usopp and the story of his beloved pet lamb is akin to a classic novel

Usopp will always be multifaceted and complex given what he represents and encompasses. I still haven’t figured him out myself. Yet, I always give him grace and want to further my understanding of him because I care. Therefore, I’d like to communicate another connection that’s been on my mind lately.

So, I want to revisit certain facets of Usopp that make me wonder if Oda intended his storytelling to be even more significant than it appears at face value. Many have discussed this and offered excellent interpretations. Yet, what I’m trying to say is that Usopp and storytelling represent the childlike wonder in all of us. What some may see as immaturity in Usopp isn’t necessarily that.

For instance, with the Going Merry, Usopp was like the protagonist in old books like "The Yearling" and "Old Yeller," where they’re forced to shoot their beloved animal because it keeps eating their family’s crops or has been infected with rabies—situations that are devastatingly inevitable. This is a representation of Usopp up to that point pre-time skip. He had to be that protagonist.

Although "The Yearling" and "Old Yeller" deal with themes of facing reality and a loss of innocence, the act of shooting the animals represents handling it on their own terms. Later, as adults, these protagonists can deal with similar situations with the care they needed when they were younger and faced such paralyzing decisions.

I thought that Water 7 and Enies Lobby was Usopp’s "Old Yeller" and "The Yearling" moment. He had to part with his dear pet lamb because he had to face reality. If people treated Usopp’s letting go of the Going Merry in this way, instead of just seeing it as a guy crying over a ship, the humanist approach would be much more prevalent.

I thought that might have been intentional on Oda’s end, but I can’t read his mind. So, yeah, the Going Merry was like "Old Yeller" and "The Yearling," (or Flag), and Usopp was the boy.

usopp community (it is still a wip but you can post anything)

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Winslow Homer - "Homosassa river", 1904

* * * *

“A mark was on him from the day's delight, so that all his life, when April was a thin green and the flavor of rain was on his tongue, an old wound would throb and a nostalgia would fill him for something he could not quite remember.” ― Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, The Yearling

[youmakemereai]

[radio-therookie-blog]

Hard to believe he was doing this sweet character as he was finishing such a rascal as Newt in Duel in the Sun.

[solutreanfloridian]

Kitchen at the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings house. Cross Creek, Florida.

[one-with-the-tree]

So far The Yearling has just been 80% our main characters killing or otherwise mistreating animals. With the occassional racism and ableism and sexism thrown in for good measure.

[philhoffman]

PSH films released 30 years ago this year:

THE GETAWAY (1994), dir. Roger Donaldson — as Frank Hansen

THE YEARLING (1994), dir. Rod Hardy — as Buck Forrester

NOBODY'S FOOL (1994), dir. Robert Benton — as Officer Doug Raymer

WHEN A MAN LOVES A WOMAN (1994), dir. Luis Mandoki — as Gary

[frostyreturns]

Frosty Ruins The Yearling

This is a movie where there isn't much to say because it's such a simple movie. However I like the simple charm of it, anything like this in the settler/pioneer time period is going to be interesting at least a little. On the other hand I'm not as much a fan of the setting as I am for some other similar stories. The marshy swampland homestead doesn't speak to me the same way as a little house on the prairie or a winter cabin in the woods.

That being said when a story is simple and wholesome it can also be boring at times. However there is one rather exciting but pretty brutal part. There is a scene where a pack of dogs fight off a bear…and there were no camera tricks, no special effects…they just literally filmed dogs fighting a bear. At first I thought maybe the animals were trained really well and none of them were actually trying to hurt each other…then I watched the bear practically suplex one of the dogs and I realized…no this is just from an era where you could just make animals fight and hurt each other on camera for the sake of the movie. Now I'm no PETAfag, I'll gladly kill and eat a bear but I don't see any sense in being needlessly cruel to animals and abusing them for entertainment in a film doesn't qualify as a legitimate reason to harm an animal. Especially when it's called the Yearling and centers around a boy taking care of an animal. So that didn't sit right with me but not in a way where it would ruin the whole movie.

I also think the anachronistic acting is kind of funny because you have an actor who is clearly not a southener saying words like Tabacci with clear dignified enunciation, and not even really attempting to speak like someone who actually had that accent..but he says the words like as though he did have the accent. It's ridiculous but again it can be looked past because most of the acting from this era was pretty bad by todays standard.

I also kind of hate the music, all these old movies from this era had that same super high pitched ambient wailing/singing where you can't hear a word of it. Part of the reason is the tinny sound quality being awful but even if it was perfect with modern audio I can't see enjoying it.

One of the problems I had plotwise is their explanation for why the mom is so cunty, I didn't buy at all. "I lost a child so I'm mean to the one I have now"…what kind of sense does that make. The man buys her a gift and she yells at him for being stupid for wasting money. Like I get the point is that it's a hard life and even minor luxuries we would view as neccessities were rare and ill advised given how close to the edge they lived…however you can make that point graciously. You can insist something is too much and that you don't need expensive gifts…and also accept them graciously instead of yelling till everyone clears the room and only admitting to yourself you appreciated it in private.

Also spoiler alert if you plan to see this now ancient movie and haven't yet. I also don't get the ending, making the kid kill his pet himself, him running away almost getting himself killed. I really didn't understand any of the characters in this, maybe it's that the characters are supposed to be that way, maybe it's that it's a story from another time and place, but I just thought all the main characters behaved kind of ridiculously. And I didn't like the message of the movie either and the obvious comparisons between the deer growing and the boy growing up. The whole message is life sucks and now you know how badly its gonna fuck you. On the one hand part of the reason it sucks is because you forced the boy to kill his own pet for no reason and then let him nearly die in the woods, that's not a life thing that's a you fucked up thing. There could have been a message about how life is difficult and part of growing up is realizing that without presenting such a bleak and tragic view of the world.

In the end I don't think this movie was for me, because by the end I was wondering why they hadn't already eaten the fucking deer, personally I think they tolerated it nearly ruining them for way too long. Just don't make the boy do it himself. Kill it take it to your neighbours and trade the meat with them so you don't kill the animal for nothing and so the boy doesn't have to eat his own pet. Trade the venison for some pork. There were so many common sense ways this could have worked out better that to blame it on life in general, even considering that theirs was a harder life...doesn't make sense.

Overall wasn't terrible C-

[cultivating-wildflowers]

Books of 2023 - November

Still struggling to get through the books I want to read by the end of the year; but, on the plus side, I've marked off a few audiobooks I've had bookmarked on Hoopla!

Total books: 5  |  New reads: 5   |   2023 TBR completed: 0 (0 DNF) / 22/25 total   |   2023 Reading Goal: 85/50

October | December

#1 - The False Prince by Jennifer A. Nielsen - 4/5 stars (audio)

“Hail His Majesty, the scourge of my life."

This was a bit of a surprise! I don't know how this book ended up on my tbr, and I had to force myself to give it 10% before I decided whether or not to dnf it. Fortunately, it became more interesting after a somewhat lackluster opening; and it ended up being a fun story, for all its faults. (And I did NOT like the narrator.)

My biggest complaint had to be the politics. More than once I paused while listening to yell "Really?!?" because so much of that didn't make sense. The nice thing is that the story itself was engaging enough that the fumbled attempts at political intrigue and court customs didn't ruin it, which is kind of miraculous considering it's a story about a treason plot.

I really became engaged once my finely-tuned suspicion was piqued. (Thanks Megan Whalen Turner.) The twists were a little predictable but entirely satisfying. Gonna recommend this one to my sister and brother-in-law.

#2 - To Each This World by Julie E. Czerneda - 4/5 stars (audio)

*content warnings for mild language and sexual content*

This book grabbed me from the first page. The exposition and world-building were well-balanced, especially considering all of the background and technology that needed to be coherently introduced. It may have been easier to physically read this one with all of the unfamiliar terms and name structures (I felt the same way with The Goblin Emperor); and one of the three narrators did a horrible job differentiating between characters when there was heavy dialogue. (The other two narrators were fantastic.) It was an entertaining read with just the right amount of twists to keep me guessing.

Also, I love it when an author's personal interests shine through like they did here (Czerneda is a biologist).

#3 - System Collapse by Martha Wells - 4/5 stars (audio)

Another fun installment! Personally I rank it near Fugitive Telemetry in terms of plot. Felt to me more like a bridge book than its own adventure. Some of that might be on me; I was really struggling to pay attention to this one.

Pros: Tarik! And major character development for Murderbot.

Cons: Not nearly enough of Three.

#4 - The Riverman by Aaron Starmer - 3/5 stars (audio)

Skim the reviews for this book and you’ll notice a theme: “Wait…. What???”

This book started out strong, tripped on its own shoelaces a couple of chapters in, and fell flat on its face. It then spent almost the rest of the story trying to convince you it was the cat’s fault—when there isn’t even a cat.

Why does the 12-year-old protagonist read as 15? Why do all of the reveals come out of left field with as much foreshadowing as a shadow puppet dog? How were there so many characters and yet almost no genuine human interactions between them? How does a person lose an index, middle, and ring finger but NOT the pinky or thumb on the same hand? Why was the story giving off fantasy signals at the start when it apparently meant to be magical realism/horror with way more ambiguity than it had earned? Was it set in the 80’s just to keep the main characters from conveniently googling all of their questions? HOW DOES A PERSON SPEND TWELVE YEARS ALL ALONE IN A MAGICAL WORLD AND STILL NEED ONE CONVERSATION WITH AN EXTREMELY CONFUSED CHILD TO FIGURE OUT THE BIG REVEAL??? Was she sitting on her hands talking to chartreuse giraffes for that entire period?

The most frustrating thing to me was that there was so much potential here, so many angles we could have explored, so many places we could have dropped a few clues; yet the portal fantasy aspect was blander than a cheese sandwich and Alistair’s obtuseness was the only thing keeping the real world story thread tangled long enough to make a book out of it.

#5 - The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings - 4/5 stars (audio)

I was about 80% of the way through this book, really enjoying it because I'd come across the audiobook and the narrator was great and it was a cozy, kind of idyllic, slice-of-life little classic and bam.

Told a friend what I was reading and she responded instantly with "oh I HATE that book".

And I realized I was definitely holding a tragedy in my hands. I'd suspected as much, but I didn't want to believe it. Now the question was how would that last 20% go down.

My friends, it went down like honey with a Worcestershire sauce chaser.

Of all of the ways I might have guessed it would end, I was honestly hoping for something more like Where the Red Fern Grows. And I expected it to happen a little sooner than right at the very end (minus what? a chapter?). Pain upon pain, woe upon woe.

I didn't hate it by any means. 98% of it I loved. It's just not quite what I was expecting and I'm still recovering from that.

DNF

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu (tr. Ken Liu) - Solid writing and an interesting premise, but not my cup of tea.

[radio-therookie-blog]

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

I realize now how very short life is, because I’ve got to be considered to be in the home stretch. But I won’t waste time on recriminations and regrets. And the same goes for my shortcomings and my own failures.

Eldred Gregory Peck (April 5th, 1916 - June 12th, 2003)

[brawley1492]

What were you thinking lovely lady?

During the making of the movie!

"The Yearling" ... Jane Wyman

[youmakemereai]

[starspanner]

20 books that have had an impact on who you are. One book a day for 20 days. No explanations, no reviews, just book covers.

7/20

[radio-therookie-blog]

Oh 😯!!!

Greg your face your FAAAAAAAACE: The Yearling edition