#polly churchill/sir godfrey

[rhetoricandlogic]

Blackout - Connie Willis

Connie Willis returns to the shelves after eight long years with an absolute monster of an epic, a time-travel saga so rich in scope that it's taking two volumes to tell, yet so intimate in its observation of character that what you take away from it are not thrilling action setpieces but those moments of bonding people share — warm, funny, confused, trivial, angry, heartfelt — that take on a new and infinitely greater meaning in the shadow of death. One theme is driven home throughout: time is the most precious commodity we have.

This is Willis's gift as a storyteller. An obsessive researcher, she cares about the effects of great events on individuals, and views the momentous through the perspective of the mundane. In this story, the setting is London and surrounding areas during the Blitz in the late summer and fall of 1940. As in her earlier novels Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog, time-traveling Oxford historians from the mid-21st century hop into their wayback machine to witness historical events firsthand. Blackout follows three of these travelers as they seek to observe, not the activities of the most renowned heroes and villains of the time (there are actually specific rules that prevent historians from getting too close to, and perhaps altering, the events they're observing), but the everyday heroism of everyday people.

I think Willis is living vicariously, as many authors do, through these characters. And that's all right, because what person captivated by the past would not like to project themselves into it once in a while? Willis knows that doing so wouldn't be nearly as romantic as you might think (especially if you're plunging into the middle of a world war). But why let that stop you?

It bears mentioning at this point that Blackout is not the first novel of a duology, but the first half of a single, two-part novel. Knowing this going in will help to smooth any frustration over the way the book doesn't so much end as stop, without a climax, and with just the barest of cliffhangers to lead you into part two. There are also a couple of unresolved plot threads, one of which provides the story with its rare moments of comic relief, involving two additional time travelers. There will be more to learn about these characters in the second volume.

Polly Churchill is transported to London in the midst of the Blitz. It's her task to observe the lives of shopgirls working in department stores by becoming one herself. Mike Davies intends to pass himself off as an American journalist covering the Dunkirk evacuation efforts. And Eileen O'Reilly lands a job among the servants at a wealthy estate in Warwickshire, in order to observe the hordes of evacuee children being sent from London in droves. Everything seems routine, but from the start we can sense something ominous. Schedules for time travelers are being shifted at the last minute. A young friend of Polly's with a desperate crush on her is deeply worried about something. And once the historians arrive at their various destinations, they notice an unusual degree of "slippage," missing their target dates not by hours (which is normal) but days. It isn't long before something potentially disastrous is made plain.

Amid the growing suspense, Willis builds an engrossing work of humanist fiction that avoids pathos and easy sentiment in depicting the quiet practicality and occasional heroism (and yes, the callousness) of Londoners surviving the Blitz. Memorable characters abound, and Willis's gift for natural dialogue brings scenes to life in a way that makes you feel you're in their presence. And she never pulls the lame stunt of creating a character for you to love just to kill them as an exercise in cheap button mashing. We get to know every one of the people with whom Polly shares a shelter every night, like the blustery, avuncular stage actor Sir Godfrey Kingsman, who quotes the Bard every time he opens his mouth yet whose personality rings true all the same. Eileen finds herself saddled with two of the most ill-behaved children in history, and yet you kind of like them, especially because, as a sort of brother-and-sister demolition duo with an appallingly indifferent and irresponsible mother, you realize they've only ever had each other. I'd think one very real risk a time-traveler would face would be to bond with someone from their distant past. See history unfold amongst the people who lived it, and you no longer have the safe emotional distance of words on a textbook page.

Finally, Mike ends up in an unintended situation that makes him fear he's violated the ultimate taboo and done something to alter the course of history, though he's reassured — not always convincingly — that rules regarding "divergence points" would make that impossible.

At first, the little ironies that frustrate Eileen, Polly, and Mike are funny — it seems they're forever just missing someone or something by minutes — then become more and more unnerving as the bombs keep falling. If I have to complain about something, it's that the final third of Blackout feels overextended, with our principals trying and failing to connect with one another over and over to the point it nearly gets redundant. But there is a much bigger story here, and in a quietly profound way, missed opportunities ("For want of a nail, the kingdom was lost."), and the way minor events can influence and illuminate whole histories, play a main role in it. Times of crisis like the Blitz were times when a person might live another day or die based on whether or not they paused while leaving home to put on their favorite hat. When what little time we have on this earth can be snuffed out so completely in such short notice, then there's no time to do anything but look ahead, and never look back.

[emiline-northeto]

What are some of your favourite otps and why?

I like this question a lot and could go on all day (and definitely got a bit carried away) about favorite otps and why I like them.

So to spare your dashes, I’m going to list the otps that I talk about in the post, and then put the why below the cut.

Ada Cackle/Hecate Hardbroom, The Worst Witch

Gwen Bat/Algernon Rowan-Web, The Worst Witch

Laura Thyme/Rosemary Boxer, Rosemary and Thyme

Polly Churchill/Sir Godfrey, Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis

Clarisse/Joe, The Princess Diaries movies

Ada Cackle/Hecate Hardbroom

This is one of my favorite ships because they are so gentle and loving with each other. They have very different approaches to the world, but they complement each other and they have a deep and abiding connection and they respect each other’s different way of doing things, even if they don’t always agree with each other.

I also read this a very slow burn relationship, where they start out as colleagues and become friends and then become better friends and the relationship just keeps getting deeper and somewhere in there they fall in love with each other and pine after each other for quite a long time. I love the idea of them working together for so long and becoming closer and they’re just so clearly so important to each other. I see them as having an “it came on so gradually I scare know where and when it began” sort of thing, to sort of quote Pride and Prejudice. I also really love them as individual characters – I love exploring their motivations, and I find Hecate in particular easier to tap into as a character for writing fanfic than many characters.

Gwen Bat/Algernon Rowan-Webb

One of my favorite things about this OTP is how like a fairytale it is, but instead of the primary actors in the story being quite young, they’re grandparent-age. I also adore how in love with each other they are. They are absolutely devoted to one another, despite the fact that Algernon was gone for thirty years and Gwen didn’t know where he was and he nearly forgot her. They’re just the sweetest, and no, they don’t always get along but of course they don’t because they’re fully fleshed-out characters and not fairy tale characters but at the end of the day they still love each other so much.

Laura Thyme/Rosemary Boxer

Rosemary and Laura have an absolutely great meeting story, and they’re another OTP that complement each other really well. They have different skill sets that play off each other and fill in the gaps, and they each have things that are less good (Rosemary has an impulsiveness that could have gotten her killed several times over if she didn’t have Laura, for example; and one of the things Rosemary helps Laura with is making sure she doesn’t wallow too long in feelings about her failed marriage) that they are able to help each other with.

I like that they’re both independent, intelligent people, who while having great affection for one another are also perfectly happy spending time going off and each doing her own thing for a while. 

Polly Churchill/Sir Godfrey

THIS SHIP, OH THIS DOOMED SHIP. This is one of my favorites because it is so exquisitely doomed, and you know it and they know it, and yet and yet and yet you can see what it might have been, had they met at the right time. They absolutely meet at the right time for the story, it’s just unfortunately, not the right time for them. She’s a time traveler so she’s literally out of her regular time, and there’s quite an age gap, and it ends up being…flirtation isn’t really quite the right word because it’s more serious than “flirtation” implies but it’s more of a meeting of the minds, an emotional relationship of sorts, and an acknowledgement that if they had met when he was a lot younger things might have been very different indeed.

It’s a ship that’s always “what might have been” and it’s also so close and just *nnnggggh incoherent noises*. It’s right there, just out of reach and you know that it never really has a chance but you just want it so bad and they’re so lovely with each other.

Clarisse/Joe

One of the things that I adore about this ship is that it is a later-in-life love story and a slow burn/pining love story. The chemistry between the actors is also just superb – the dancing scene in PD1 “You’re been wearing black too long” still makes my heart flutter. The way you’re suddenly aware of how alone they are and vividly aware of the space between them, and the tension and I don’t know how they did it exactly but it’s this incredibly charged scene and almost immediately, without having had really any suggestion whatsoever prior in the movie, you suddenly realize “oh, there’s a whole world of a relationship here that I didn’t realize existed and now how could I see anything else.” And that one line that Joe says is the only dialogue in the entire scene. It’s a masterful performance from both of them.

I adore how it is implied that they have had these feelings for each other for quite a long time (possibly even predating the King’s death) and they haven’t acted on them but they know. THEY KNOW. They’ve been doing their best to ignore the feelings, or at least Clarisse has, but THEY KNOW. I love that for her it’s a falling-in-love story – we know that she was not in love with her husband but was fond of him and grew to love him perhaps, although she was never in love with him. And Joe’s been waiting patiently as her bodyguard/confidant/friend for the time to come when they are free to love each other. They’re both very honorable about the whole thing, which is another thing that I love. Even though they have these feelings for each other, they’re able to not act on them, they’re able to remain friend and work together and still have a good relationship even though they can’t be together romantically. They understand why not, and they accept that.

I also love that as things progress once they do start being a little more open with each other about their feelings, Clarisse thinks it’s still a secret but basically the entire country of Genovia knows, has been tastefully not saying anything but secretly cheering for them to have their happy ending. I love how supportive everyone is of this relationship – they just want their Queen/former Queen and Joe to be happy.

And I love that they’re the ones who ultimately do get to have the fairytale ending.