Yesterday I finished Sigrid Nunez's The Vulnerables in which after joking about how there are no ugly flower names people can name their kids, the protagonist nicknames a pandemic roommate with whom she is saddled "Vetch" (as in the weed).
Later in the day, trans friends talked another friend out of cosplaying a Harry Potter character. The friend said she wanted to "signal to people that I love the character, but reject JKR." And trans friends online said that every bit of visibility adds to JKR's support and coffers and that anyone engaging with the Harry Potter universe is tone deaf and ignorant at best and violently transphobic at worst. And asked how love of a fictional character could matter more than the real people she loved being harmed by JKR. Fair point. (This in addition to the racism, fatphobia, slavery, and other bigotry rampant in the HP books, of course.)
Because she seemed so crestfallen, I suggested Ursula K. Le Guin... she is genuinely wise, wrote tons, has several universes, is a gender visionary (The Left Hand of Darkness!), and the Earthsea Series is great for young readers. Then I reread the first book in the series--A Wizard of Earthsea--and was amused to be reminded that Ged has a friend called "Vetch."
WHAT are the odds of two Vetches in one day?!
3 comments:
I would not want a child named Phlox or Portulaca; just saying. ; )
It saddens me mightily that, now, everything is political. I do know that this is not all that new, but it seems so much more prevalent since the rat bag came into politics. Everything is a symbol of either support or rejection. It takes away from our Free Will, and it makes people more judgmental. We are all so much more carefully curating our lives, and it's exhausting.
My Maya loved her Catwings books so much (a kind neighbor sewed wings onto a stuffy for her)…she lived in the neighborhood with my dad and stepmom, and they offered to introduce her but she was too shy. Sigh. I haven’t read much Le Guin, but I loved what I read.
I love LeGuin, but her books are so different from JKR's. I don't know that she'd make a good substitute.
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