#jellicoe-lodge

[jellicoelodge]

Announcing Fireside Chats

Reading Works of Spiritual Comfort In Community

The Jellicoe Lodge returns! As the cold season descends upon us, Jellicoe Lodge is proud to host a seasonal reading of a spiritual classic meant to bring warmth, comfort, and light to our souls. This year, the Lodge will be posting sections of Julian of Norwich’s shorter showings in the Revelations of Divine Love. It is hoped that this will provide rich spiritual rest and encourage warm community. (Thanks to @iseult-blanchemains for the idea!)

Here’s how it works:

Each week a chapter of the shorter reading will be posted here on the Jellicoe Lodge site. Read along with us and feel free to repost, quote, ponder and discuss as you feel the need to; or simply read!

And always remember: All shall be well, all shall be well, all manner of things shall be well.

[thebirdandhersong]

Talked to a visiting prof today and was like 👀👀 someone I would LOVE to introduce to my book club girls* and .5 seconds later was like. Ah. He's married and has three kids. Nevermind

*I use this term loosely for the circle of female tumblr girlies i talk to on a daily basis because we technically are a sort of book club (Jellicoe Lodge and adjacent! and we are almost always reading the same book, i.e. the Bible) when I'm talking to irl people in canada

[fictionadventurer]

Contenders For the Title of Modern-Day Successors to Penny Dreadfuls:

Police procedurals

Harlequin romances

Hallmark movies

Marvel movies

Those endless chapter-book series for elementary school kids (Puppy Place and Color Fairies or whatever is actually popular with kids these days)

Those endless book series that show up in supermarkets and airports (Danielle Steele, James Patterson, etc.)

[imissthembutitwasntadisaster]

Shout out to my old Hamlet essay that said the world of Hamlet fundamentally did not allow love, so all those who loved were destroyed, except for Horatio who transcended the narrative by in the final scene becoming the narrator and thus taking on the role of playwright rather than character, so escaping the loveless world by becoming bigger than it. Very galaxy brain.

[perhaps-mr-collins-has-a-cousin]

(Guys I’m reading Howl’s Moving Castle for the first time and I just gotta say: ???? ???? I’m about 2/3 of the way through and although I’m absolutely loving the off-the-wall bizarreness of it, I just keep waiting for something to make sense, for something to be explained, and instead weird things just keep on happening and arrgh my questions are piling up!!)

[isfjmel-phleg]

I’m about to give my thoughts on this week’s reading of Howl’s Moving Castle from the standpoint of having read it before many times, so beware of spoilers.

HMC is a book about self-fulfilling prophecies (among many other things, but that’s what I’m going to focus on).

Sophie’s family’s defiance of fairy-tale expectations is demonstrated from the beginning (e.g. Fanny is stated not to be a wicked stepmother and doesn’t play favorites). Sophie is not actually trapped in the conventions of the role she thinks she plays, but she can’t see it.

“He was an utterly cold-blooded and heartless wizard”!!! Well...one out of two?

Sophie attributes Fanny’s plans for the girls to wise choices in light of their fairy-tale expectations--and because she’s so resigned to this fate, she can’t read between the lines for a possible alternate motive.

Sophie’s finding that it’s always too difficult to go and see her sister, even if she wants to--what’s the cause of that? Well... “But when she at last put a gray shawl over her gray dress and went out into the street, Sophie did not feel excited. She felt overwhelmed. There were too many people rushing past, laughing and shouting, far too much noise and jostling. Sophie felt as if the past months of sitting and sewing had turned her into an old women or a semi-invalid.” Sophie’s ability to make what she tells herself happen is at play here. She’s accepted that she’s trapped in a limited role with no chance at life, and it’s as if she’s become the sort of person who fits that role.

“What made me think I wanted life to be interesting? [...] I’d be far too scared. It comes of being the eldest of three.” Ineffective self-talk but A MOOD.

Sophie’s first impression of Howl is that he’s “a dashing specimen.” She can see that his offer to go with her is kindly meant, and she concludes that he’s “a courtly person.” She’s seeing the best in Howl at the start, not knowing who he is or having any preconceptions about him, just as he is seeing the best in the “little gray mouse.”

Sophie is resigned to her eldest-daughter fate, but the younger sisters take matters into their own hands so that they can follow the paths they personally want. There’s also no judgment for what they choose! Martha wants to get married and have ten children, and this is perfectly fine; it suits her and it’s what she wants. Lettie wants to study magic, and that’s also fine; it’s the best use of her talents and ambition. The path one takes in life should be not a rigid, one-size-fits-all role but the one that’s the best job for the individual (as Sayers argues in last week’s reading).

“Mother knows you don’t have to be unkind to someone in order to exploit them. She knows how dutiful you are. She knows you have this thing about failure because you’re only the eldest. She’s managed you perfectly and got you slaving away for her.” Fanny may be not a fairy-tale wicked stepmother, but she does mistreat Sophie in a way that’s all too grounded in real life--taking advantage of eldest-daughter dutifulness.

“And she was within an ace of leaving the house and setting out to seek her fortune, until she remembered she was the eldest and there was no point. She took up the hat again, sighing.” Only convention is holding her back. Being the eldest only gets in her way because she expects it to ensure her failure and thus is too discouraged to even try--so her technically unfounded expectations prove themselves, and the cycle continues.

“The rule was: Lose your temper, lose a customer. She had just proven that rule. It troubled her to realize how very enjoyable it had been.” As resigned and dutiful as Sophie is, she is also fundamentally angry and frustrated and has no outlet for it--until this moment.

When the Witch of the Waste is rejecting Sophie’s hats, she’s actually seeing the magic that Sophie is unwittingly connecting to them.

Nearly the first thing Sophie does when seeing her transformed form is to verbally tell herself that a) she shouldn’t worry, b) she seems healthy, and c) this form suits her better. She’s inadvertently reinforcing the spell.

Sophie to the scarecrow: “Now if I wasn’t doomed to failure because of my position in the family, [...] you could come to life and and offer me help in making my fortune. But I wish you luck anyway.” Even as she dismisses her chances, she is speaking life into the scarecrow and setting an important plot point in motion!

Sophie regarding her fear of dogs: “The way I am now, it’s scarcely worth worrying about.” This summarizes her attitude toward a lot of things post-spell. Being an old woman turns out to be freeing for Sophie. It frees her from certain expectations and roles (no more need to be a dutiful daughter, no need to worry about failing at seeking her fortune at her age), she believes she has nothing more to fear from Howl’s alleged victimization of young women, and she’s finally free to express her pent-up anger now that she’s no longer in a subservient role.

The castle resembles coal because it’s run by Calcifer!

“Don’t you want your heart eaten?” As Howl and the Witch of the Waste have done. Calcifer assumes Sophie is a witch seeking more power.

Calcifer detects two layers of Sophie’s spell: what the Witch of the Waste has done plus the power of Sophie’s reinforcement.

“Howl’s quite heartless, you know.” Calcifer is again assuming that Sophie must be familiar with this process--or clueing her in.

Sophie agrees to help Calcifer because she empathizes with his feeling exploited. She also identifies with his apparent sense of duty. She’s already connecting with the creature who survives through Howl’s heart--and how much of it is like her own?

Calcifer’s saucepan song is real! “Sosban Fach” (Little Saucepan) is a Welsh folk song which has come to have rugby associations. Clearly something Calcifer picked up from Howl! You can hear a recording here.

Sophie’s calmness spell has worn off by the next morning and she is angry!

When Howl reappears, Sophie now perceives him as a child, an “overdressed boy,” and “wicked” now that she knows who he is.

“Who says you are?” “I do.” Sophie speaks her new job into existence.

“I’ve reached that stage in my career when I need to impress everyone with my power and wickedness.” Howl’s not bound to fairy-tale expectations like Sophie is, but he’s all about image management and thus in a way as trapped as she is/was by needing to hide from his true self. Being a decent person is dangerously vulnerable, better to insist that he is wicked when Michael exposes him as not. 

“He hates being pinned down to anything.” The castle is a sort of manifestation of Howl himself--always moving, never settled, grand outside but messy inside, flipping through locations and identities. It’s technically a home but lacks the stability that should come with such a place.

Sophie telling a customer that she’s a witch is actually true, in a way, unbeknownst to her. 

“It was odd. As a girl, Sophie would have shriveled with embarrassment at the way she was behaving. As an old woman, she did not mind what she did or said. She found that a great relief”!

If the castle is a manifestation of Howl, Sophie’s aggressively cleaning it is bothersome to him because she’s metaphorically exposing his flaws and vulnerabilities.

The bathroom is also a manifestation of Howl, specifically his vanity and image management, as evinced by all those mirrors and potions and cosmetics and dyes. It’s inherently a place of privacy that allows him to transform into who he is in public.

“By now it was clear that Calcifer did all the strong magic in the castle and Michael did all the hackwork, while Howl gadded off catching girls and exploiting the other two just as Fanny had exploited her. Sophie had never found Howl particularly frightening. Now she felt nothing but contempt.” Sophie is still frustrated about her own past, and applying her situation to Howl and his associates is perhaps less painful than dealing directly with her anger toward her stepmother.

Sophie’s assumptions about Howl eating hearts color her perception of him past the point of reason--there’s no evidence visible in his room, but it still must be there, just hidden!

“I can’t help what I am,” Sophie tells Howl. “Yes you can,” he insists. Despite the fact that they’re arguing, he’s getting to the root of her issues and assuring her of her own agency.

“I hate quarreling with people.” “I hate getting angry.” Meanwhile, Howl refuses to deal with unpleasantness, and Sophie gets right to the root of his issues of slithering out of everything. Lots of mutual insight going on here.

Howl’s glass-like eyes keep coming up--a sign that something’s a bit off about him.

“How you must love servitude!” In other words, Sophie is so committed to her preconceptions about herself and her (lack of) potential that she can’t perceive her own power to free herself, so it really does look like she enjoys the drudgery she’s trapped in.

[madamescarlette]

something has always been particularly poignant to me that the little mermaid kisses the forehead of both the prince AND the prince’s bride at the end of her tale, and finally weeps tears that mermaids cannot weep because her emotion reaches such depths. 

[apesoformythoughts]

My thoughts on “A Piece of Chalk” are, like the essay itself, a bit meandering. Instead of walking the English countryside, it’s GK’s mind that we get to explore, with a few GK classics: color-inspired digressions (gotta love his praise of brownness), rectifying modern impressions about earlier people/ideas, and showing us familiar ideas in a new light.

That “mistake that people make about the old poets who lived before Wordsworth” struck me as something that merits further reflection. Doesn’t it make sense, though? Precisely as people are drifting further away from nature (in their work, their leisure, their nourishment) , they speak more and more about it and about “connecting” to it; whereas beforehand it just was part of people’s lives, like the background. Reminds me of a friend from college whose family is from Greece. He made it a very conspicuous part of his personality once you got to know him—perhaps a bit too much, if you’d asked some of our friends. Meanwhile, for me, who had actually been born and raised in another country, my “nationality” was such an ingredient part of the background of my life, that I rarely brought it up: it was just there.

The last bit about Southern England being a piece of chalk makes me think of something a mutual once said or quoted: man has never loved anything he couldn’t get his arms around. If Southern England is a piece of chalk, GK can carry it around with him wherever he goes, letting it “explode” all over his brown paper. If I may be so bold, I think this perfectly captures GK’s way of loving: we can only love what’s vast by shrinking it. We can’t quite “love humanity,” we’ve got to love our specific and sometimes-annoying family and neighbors (*ahem*, Mann vs Cooper in Interstellar).

There’s always more that could be said. I hope to reflect more on the meaning and implications of virtue being “a vivid and separate thing, like pain or a particular smell.” Then, of course, there’s GK as forerunner of Lovecraftian horror: “…blind old gods that man worshipped before the dawn of right…”

[francesderwent]

okay I’m sure that Lewis and Tolkien actually had words on this topic, but the dedication kind of makes it sound like Lewis was like “I’m struggling with this theological point, could you explain it to me?” and Tolkien was like “no, I’m gonna write a poem about it instead. it’s gonna rhyme. you’re welcome”

[itspileofgoodthings]

Wait are we reading the light princess???? Please allow me to contribute to the discussion by saying that the prince teaching the princess to walk at the end and her falling down repeatedly and then saying “is this gravity? I don’t like it” and him scooping her up into his arms and kissing her and saying “no no that’s not gravity this is” is, in fact, the height of romance.

[jellicoelodge]

CHAPTER III

"I desired to suffer with Him"

And when I was thirty years old and a half, God sent me a bodily sickness, in which I lay three days and three nights; and on the fourth night I took all my rites of Holy Church, and weened not to have lived till day. And after this I languored forth two days and two nights, and on the third night I weened oftentimes to have passed; and so weened they that were with me.

And being in youth as yet, I thought it great sorrow to die;—but for nothing that was in earth that meliked to live for, nor for no pain that I had fear of: for I trusted in God of His mercy. But it was to have lived that I might have loved God better, and longer time, that I might have the more knowing and loving of God in bliss of Heaven. For methought all the time that I had lived here so little and so short in regard of that endless bliss,—I thought [it was as] nothing. Wherefore I thought: Good Lord, may my living no longer be to Thy worship! And I understood by my reason and by my feeling of my pains that I should die; and I assented fully with all the will of my heart to be at God's will.

Thus I dured till day, and by then my body was dead from the middle downwards, as to my feeling. Then was I minded to be set upright, backward leaning, with help,—for to have more freedom of my heart to be at God's will, and thinking on God while my life would last.

My Curate was sent for to be at my ending, and by that time when he came I had set my eyes, and might not speak. He set the Cross before my face and said: I have brought thee the Image of thy Maker and Saviour: look thereupon and comfort thee therewith.

Methought I was well [as it was], for my eyes were set uprightward unto Heaven, where I trusted to come by the mercy of God; but nevertheless I assented to set my eyes on the face of the Crucifix, if I might; and so I did. For methought I might longer dure to look even-forth than right up.

After this my sight began to fail, and it was all dark about me in the chamber, as if it had been night, save in the Image of the Cross whereon I beheld a common light; and I wist not how. All that was away from the Cross was of horror to me, as if it had been greatly occupied by the fiends.

After this the upper part of my body began to die, so far forth that scarcely I had any feeling;—with shortness of breath. And then I weened in sooth to have passed.

And in this [moment] suddenly all my pain was taken from me, and I was as whole (and specially in the upper part of my body) as ever I was afore.

I marvelled at this sudden change; for methought it was a privy working of God, and not of nature. And yet by the feeling of this ease I trusted never the more to live; nor was the feeling of this ease any full ease unto me: for methought I had liefer have been delivered from this world.

Then came suddenly to my mind that I should desire the second wound of our Lord's gracious gift: that my body might be fulfilled with mind and feeling of His blessed Passion. For I would that His pains were my pains, with compassion and afterward longing to God. But in this I desired never bodily sight nor shewing of God, but compassion such as a kind soul might have with our Lord Jesus, that for love would be a mortal man: and therefore I desired to suffer with Him.

[thebirdandhersong]

💐note from songbird before she disappears briefly

I am doing Christmas cards this year for my dear mutuals...... if you would like one, please message me!!

due to final exam season, I will be off duty* (*duty: being a delight AND an eyesore on this website) until December 19, which is when Smeagol will be free. If I ever show my face here before then, it is because I am procrastinating (Cone of Shame).....

STILL DOWN TO DO THE ROBIN MCKINLEY'S BEAUTY GROUP READ SOMETIME IN DECEMBER IF ANYONE IS INTERESTED TOO!! (is this perhaps a Jellicoe Lodge reunion/revival? 👀👀)

love you and am praying for you :D

[fictionadventurer]

Where does fanfiction sit in relation to this penny dreadful category? It's another category of "lesser" fiction that leads to plenty of rants that attack or defend its literary qualities. It's something that many people admit to reading endlessly when they are unable to read "real" literature. It's seen as something that can corrupt the youth--and it often does contain shocking content that would not have been welcome in your typical penny dreadful.

Like a penny dreadful series, fanfiction is built upon the fact that people have an appetite for endless stories about familiar characters in stock situations. But penny dreadfuls tend to be plot driven--adventurers, detectives, and so on--with stories that begin and end in a single volume. Fanfiction is very character oriented, and its most popular genres--romance, hurt/comfort--can be almost or entirely plotless. A penny dreadful series, even though it might be similar to a million other characters and stories out there, still creates its own characters and world. Fanfiction creates stories that rely upon the familiar characters and world from another work.

Both penny dreadfuls and fanfiction are part of the collective storytelling tradition of humanity. An storyteller told endless tales of Robin Hood in the marketplace. An author wrote an endless series of detective thrillers for the Edwardian public. A fanfiction writer composes endless one-shots about the characters in their favorite television series. The oral storyteller told tales about characters who belonged to no one and everyone, characters who had been built up by centuries of retelling. The penny dreadful author wrote about characters who reminded one of those stock heroes of folktales, but became the property of a particular publishing company. The fanfiction author writes tales about specific characters that do belong to a particular story written by a particular company, but makes them a part of the public imagination. What I'm getting at is that they're not quite the same thing, but they come from the same tradition. "Literature is a luxury. Fiction is a necessity." Whatever their other differences, both types of fiction stem from the human desire to satisfy that need with whatever stories they can find.

[imissthembutitwasntadisaster]

the idea that “woman is a divine creature” is more offensive than “the woman is the weaker creature” is so true and something I’ve literally never seen anyone talk about

[isfjmel-phleg]

And the concluding remarks! Full of spoilers!

There’s no evidence of Howl’s cold during his feats of magic (fighting the witch, working with Calcifer to move the castle), and he goes to bed afterward with “no groans, no shouts, and almost no coughing.” The illness is likely real enough, but its severity is a performance he can apparently abandon when necessary.

Sophie figures out Calcifer’s identity by what he reminds her of!

Howl caught Calcifer five years before, just after setting himself up as a wizard in Ingary, which means he’s been heartless since around age twenty-two. According to Jones, a spell from his studies for the doctoral thesis brought him to Ingary. That would make Howl quite a young doctoral student! Was he some sort of prodigy who breezed through his undergraduate and graduate degrees in no time?

“Howl only offered because he was sorry for me.” Sophie notes that that’s just like Michael--are Michael and Howl more alike than one might suspect? Not temperamentally, of course, but in their capacities for empathy.

“Lily Angorian has a heart like a boiled stone.” Exactly, because it belongs to the Witch of the Waste.

Howl denies accepting his “common” name when he uses it on the flower shop--it’s for disguise only, he still prefers Pendragon. But should we believe him? Although he still hasn’t resigned himself to the worth in things that are “natural” by the end of story, he might have been affected by Sophie’s preference and respect for his plain real name.

The Witch likes to think of herself as “A solitary orchid, blooming in the Waste.” She and Howl share a tendency for dramatic self-aggrandizing and a need to stand out.

“Only people who understood Calcifer were really welcome in Howl’s house.” On a practical level, this is because Calcifer is what keeps the house going. On the other hand, this probably has something to do with Calcifer’s being in possession of Howl’s heart.

“I could take any piece of you I wanted and leave the rest of you alive, if I went about it the right way.” An important ability to set up, although rather vague. What exactly is keeping Howl going physically, if he literally lacks a heart? How does this affect him physically? Is his blood just...aimlessly wandering his body with nowhere to go? Does he even still have blood? Etc.

“Sophie’s too kind herself to see how heartless Howl is!” As if Sophie has not spent the entire book calling Howl heartless, over and over again.

“I came to the conclusion that you liked being in disguise.” Like Howl himself!

“I did my best. Haven’t you noticed that your aches and pains have been better lately? Or do you enjoy having those too?” As we’ve seen early on in their relationship, Howl and Sophie both are keenly perceptive of the truths of each other’s characters, unflattering though it may be. And that’s why they’re perfect for each other. Howl sees Sophie as she is, stubbornly resigned to the self-fulfilling prophecy, and he’s not afraid to call her out on it (as she does with him).

“Howl showed his kindness rather strangely, but, considering all Sophie had done to annoy him, he had been very good to her indeed.” They have a weird relationship, but it is reciprocal, and both have proven in actions that they have each other’s best interests at heart. Just...unorthodox ways of expressing it--with green slime or weed killer.

“She had taken Martha’s view of Fanny, whole and entire, when she should have known Fanny better. She was ashamed.” While there was probably some truth to Martha’s assessment of her mother, it was not the “whole and entire” truth. Like everyone in the book, Fanny does not fit the role of the evil stepmother; although she’s not above being self-serving, whether consciously or not, she genuinely does care about Sophie.

“If this is the Waste, [...] then I feel sorry for the Witch having to live here.” This pity is a step forward for Sophie with her (well-justified) detestation of the Witch--not for the Witch’s benefit but for the sake of Sophie’s own character development.

“Howl had not bothered to shave or tidy his hair. His eyes were still red-rimmed and his black sleeves were torn in several places. There was not much to choose between Howl and the scarecrow. Oh dear! Sophie thought. He must love Miss Angorian very much.” SHE STILL CAN’T SEE IT.

Howl’s being honest about his cowardice is the last part of the curse but not really a curse in terms of character development.

And after Howl opens up about his faults, he dishes Sophie some more blunt truths when she falls back on her old mantra of “I’m the eldest! [...] I’m a failure!” He replies, “Garbage! [...] You just never stop to think!”

The first indication that the curse has broken is when Sophie gives Howl weird CPR to put his heart back and notes in passing that her hair is red again.

After getting his heart back, Howl’s “eyes seemed a deeper color--more like eyes and less like glass marbles.” He’s regained a part of his humanity--a part of his soul?--that he had lost in the deal with Calcifer.

“I’ve never seen why people put such value on things being natural,” Howl claims (he’s still in his dyed blond hair and artificially black suit--but a complete mess after skipping his usual preening), and “Sophie knew then that he was scarcely changed at all.” I think “scarcely” might be the operative word here. He’s still very much himself, but with some more complex views and new priorities.

“Sophie knew that living happily ever after with Howl would be a good deal more eventful than any story made it sound, though she was determined to try.” And that’s the crux of their relationship. They go into it with full awareness of each other’s shortcomings and no romanticized notions, choosing to make it work because they also see the worth in each other.

The book ends with Calcifer voluntarily returning to the castle, because, as he claims, it’s raining. The real reason, of course, being that he’s attached to the residents of the castle and doesn’t want to abandon them even when he has nothing keeping him there anymore. Calcifer, after all, is not a purely exploitative being; he has (forgive the expression) a heart. Although he’s no longer tethered to Howl, their character development parallels.

[madamescarlette]

man, sub-creator, the refracted light / through whom is splintered from a single White / to many hues, and endlessly combined / in living shapes that move from mind to mind. + and renew / from mirrored truth the likeness of the True 

are very important to me because it’s like what Mary Oliver says- the desire to make something beautiful is the piece of God in all of us! it’s part of what being created in the image of the Creator is- we, too, have our own ways of creating, and we so frequently turn that habit to mold towards trying to reflect our internal lights to lead back to the truth. Each of us, trying to make food, laughter, songs, and stories- aren’t they all, each in their own way, a rejoicing of being part of creation, wanting to create something of your own? It’s an incredible joy, to be able to add to the gift of life, because you had the gift given to you in the first place! Given over and over, and to give it back! There’s such a completeness and sweetness to that thought.