Legislative drafting

[raven]

My con law prof, this morning: "You're contradicting yourself. Yesterday I asked you if you thought McKinnon's Indiana anti-pornography ordinance would be upheld by the Supreme Court. You said no. Have you changed your mind?"

"No," I said, "today you asked if I thought the ordinance was constitutional."

"You're a cynic, Ms. [my last name]," he said, thoughtfully. And when I opened my mouth to argue: "I didn't say you're not right."

I heart my con law prof thiiiiiis much.

On the whole, it has been an aggravating day. Apparently I am whatever the opposite of a First-Amendment cheerleader is, for one thing, and after that the Siren and I attempted to go to the pool: she had forgotten shampoo; I had forgotten where my towel was, we couldn't find anywhere to park, couldn't find change, forgot the third person we were supposed to pick up and then it started to snow. Not what one would call an enormous success.

That said I had a very nice dinner and have made a start on some work, so.

My homework for this week: drafing a legislative amendment to a defence appropriations bill authorising funds for dredging a harbour, subject to two points of order: no separate authorisation of funds, and no affirmative substantive legislation. I am having ALL THE FUN IN THE WORLD doing this. I sometimes wonder whether I'm doing the right things with my life. Then I remember I am the only person in the world who actively loves legislative drafting, and then I don't worry so much.

(Okay, but I do love it! I do! It's like some kind of cross between formal logic, writing fanfic and doing cryptic crosswords, and it's a buzz to get it right.)

So, anyway, dredging of harbours. It's fascinating. Oh, and I finished The Merlin Conspiracy. I was sort of disappointed by it, to be honest. It suffers from the handicap of trying to be two books at once: a stand-alone YA novel, and a sequel to Deep Secret. And speaking of Deep Secret, it's completely hilarious how hard the publishers have tried to deny the fact it exists: the blurb doesn't mention it, the inner flap doesn't mention it, the "Also by the author" doesn't mention it! And yet, the plot wouldn't to me make any sense without it: I mean, who the Magids are isn't explained, neither is the fact that Nick is just casually heir to an Empire, and... yeah. I think the book suffers from a whole lot of things happening at once without any real structure, mainly because it doesn't know what it wants to be.

Which isn't to say it's all bad: the world-building's great, the characters are hilarious - I love how this book does confirm that yes, all Magids have completely, completely ridiculous lives; Maxwell Hyde being chased around by salamanders and having to get two-hundred-pounds'-worth of drunk before he can travel between worlds is fabulous - and I do love her refusal to write down to people. But, still.

Oh, and, I knew this, but Diana Wynne Jones is rubbish on race. I've read ten of her books in the last six months, and it annoys me that only one character in all of those is brown. (And Nirupam Singh only appears in the one book!) I know people are going to object and say Tacroy, but, well, Tacroy doesn't come from, say, Asia in our world, or Asia in Chrestomanci's world, or wherever: he comes from the EVIL WORLD OF BROWN PEOPLE. (edit: I forgot Millie, as well - Millie, whose origin story is very indicative of her being brown, to my delight, but then this is never so much as mentioned again.) In Deep Secret, Rupert's list of potential Magids is supposed to cover the whole world - and somehow everyone on it is white. And in The Merlin Conspiracy, Pudmini is quite probably Indian, and she has an Indian name, and she's... an elephant. A talking elephant. But nevertheless. An elephant.

Oh, and Nick (and, presumably, Maree) is dark, but the narrative deals with this by telling us that he keeps being mistaken for Asian, and doesn't like it. And there's this running gag about how some of the other characters talk about his "Oriental mysticism", and I get the spirit of it - it's meant to make fun of the people who do talk about that sort of thing - but at the same time I sort of think, okay, is it that hilarious that the magic-using protagonist of a fantasy novel could be brown?

So much as I have enjoyed her books so far, I think I am setting them down for the moment. I have The Wind's Twelve Quarters from the public library, which is the last Le Guin short-story collection I haven't read. I'm looking forward to that one.

Comments

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

As you know, Bob, I'm the world's biggest Tacroy fan, but I certainly wouldn't object to your v. valid critique on this point - and I don't mean that to sound all I GIVE YOU PERMISSION FROM ON HIGH TO CRITICISE, since, um, that would be as sucky as what you're highlighting in the books. So I'm only commenting to say that you might well expect me to be one of the people who would leap to her defence, but in this? Er, no. Of course you're right, and thanks for mentioning it.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

The thing is, I don't dislike Tacroy as a character - he's about the only uncomplicatedly sympathetic character in the book! - but I think I'd like him better if he weren't brown. Which seems counter-intuitive, but I just, I can't think of a non-skeevy reason why he is. If he were white, well, every other character in the entire Chrestomanci universe other than Nirupam is white, so that's one thing, so why brown? To mark him as alien? To mark him as evil? To mark him as good despite his evil origins? None of them seem like especially appealing reasons.

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

All of these questions, unsurprisingly, interest me. I can't think of a good answer to any of them, that's for sure. Another possible reason: to show that Christopher has at least the 'good quality' of being 'colourblind' in his friendships, even though he is in some ways pretty unlikeable when young?

I'm also intrigued by how this relates to the faux-Victorian/faux-Edwardian setting. Much as I consider her a very clever author in many respects, I don't think she's doing anything clever-in-a-praiseworthy way here about, you know, Empire, power, and so on. But I suspect that that context is inflecting the writing in some fashion, even if I can't unpick it offhand. Is Chrestomanci, as a role, something like being a colonial official, perhaps? Governing the virtual 'province' of magic.

(Not very relatedly: I think I'd read Oneir as non-white until you drew my attention more keenly to the near-total dominance of white characters - but that seems to be me reading him rather than DWJ writing him.)

What do you think of Nirupam? It's ages and ages since I read WW. (Obviously don't answer this if you're out of race-and-lit-crit spoons.)

[minutia-r.livejournal.com]

Well, Christopher does make an off-hand observation at one point about Millie in boy's clothes resembling Oneir, so if you were reading Millie as non-white, maybe that made you read Oneir as non-white as well?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I like Nirupam a lot! He's about the most sensible person in WW, isn't he? He does almost destroy the universe, but he does it sensibly. :P And more seriously, he's rounded and interesting, which is all I ask.

I really like your reading of Chrestomanci as a colonial official! That fits perfectly within the setting - and it would be lovely to know more about how magic works in the universe. Is it a white-people thing? Or do people have all their own different types of it? Does Chrestomanci-in-training have to learn about how Indian people and Chinese people and South African people and people everywhere do magic?

Re: Oneir. The thing that makes me not read him as brown is actually his daughter, who is such a pink 'n' white with pigtails archetype.

[minutia-r.livejournal.com]

This is something that I've been thinking about a lot recently--well, I just wrote a big Mordecai story last week--and while I totally see your point, I think I disagree.

I mean, I totally see your point. When Christopher gives him back his soul, and the thing he says is "Now I really am your man," if that's not Unfortunate Implications, I don't know what is. And yet, I love that line. I'm a sucker for feudal relationships. See also, Vorkosigans.

So yeah, it would be a lot less problematic if Mordecai were white.

And yet. He's brown, and he's awesome. This is a bad thing now? We need fewer awesome brown characters, now? Here is, as you point out, the only brown character in the series (besides Nirupam, who is also awesome and less problematic, but really, two is not too many); it doesn't seem right to me to want to make him white.

As far as brown!Millie goes . . . I think this is a casualty of the out-of-chronological order in which the books were written; I am fairly certain DWJ did not yet know Millie's origins when she wrote Charmed Life. But when Cat first encounters Millie in Charmed Life, he describes her as extremely ordinary-looking, which, given that he seems to live in a world with no brown people, would indicate that she isn't, either. Also Roger and Julia are described as resembling Millie, and they're explicitly described as pale. So, while I like the idea of brown!Millie, I can't quite buy it as canon.

Also, I kind of have to grit my teeth through the bits in Conrad's Fate with the Travellers.

So, yeah. Kind of rubbish on race. What can you do.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

And yet. He's brown, and he's awesome. This is a bad thing now?

Well, of course not. My dispute is over whether Tacroy actually is what we'd understand as brown, and if he is, if he's that awesome given his backstory. I'd rather he were white than brown with implications that being brown is undesirable.

So, while I like the idea of brown!Millie, I can't quite buy it as canon

The place to fix this would be Conrad's Fate, I think. Because, I think, the same problem exists as with Tacroy... if Millie isn't brown, then why give her this origin story that so heavily implies she is? It's at worst appropriative and at best rather odd.

So, yeah. Kind of rubbish on race. What can you do.

At the moment, stopping reading. I'll go back to her, I'm sure, because I really do enjoy her books, but I've had enough for the moment.

[minutia-r.livejournal.com]

My dispute is over whether Tacroy actually is what we'd understand as brown, and if he is, if he's that awesome given his backstory.

Well, he's not white. Not only that, but he's not green with pink polka dots, either--on a purely physical level, he's pretty unambiguously brown.

And while I'm willing to acknowledge that there are problematic aspects to his character, nothing will convince me that he's not awesome. I'm not sure that I'm really up to rational discussion on this point; it's more the way I swoon whenever he comes onto the page.

As far as Millie goes, you're right, of course; DWJ isn't one of those authors who refuses to ever retcon anything. If she had wanted to explicitly retcon Millie's skin color she certainly could have.

At the moment, stopping reading. I'll go back to her, I'm sure, because I really do enjoy her books, but I've had enough for the moment.

Fair enough. I can shut up now, if you'd like.