Yuletide story rec
Dec. 31st, 2008 02:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hafitalThis is likely to be the only rec I will make before the reveal. I'm working my way through the archive, but slowly (I'm just to J!), and lack the patience right now to do more than flail slightly in the direction of this story.
As the Starling Said (long version): Jane Austen -- Mansfield Park, Mary Crawford/Maria Betram (Rushworth). This story is set after Maria's fall from grace. I try all the time to defend or illuminate Mary and Maria to people, and never get very far. Most readers of Mansfield Park are determined to hate them. And perhaps rightly so; neither girl is particularly sympathetic, and both end up with the fates they more or less deserve (although, even that, I cannot agree. Life was cruel and unforgiving for women who do not fit into what that society wanted them to be. I, for one, do not condemn them.)
Anyhoo. I loved this. It does not apologize for Mary or Maria's actions or behavior, nor does it smooth over their faults. They are entirely in character, and I loved them a little bit more for it.
There is a gen version of the story here that is considerably shorter, although having read the long version I cannot imagine it any other way. It's quite firmly canon in my head now.
As the Starling Said (long version): Jane Austen -- Mansfield Park, Mary Crawford/Maria Betram (Rushworth). This story is set after Maria's fall from grace. I try all the time to defend or illuminate Mary and Maria to people, and never get very far. Most readers of Mansfield Park are determined to hate them. And perhaps rightly so; neither girl is particularly sympathetic, and both end up with the fates they more or less deserve (although, even that, I cannot agree. Life was cruel and unforgiving for women who do not fit into what that society wanted them to be. I, for one, do not condemn them.)
Anyhoo. I loved this. It does not apologize for Mary or Maria's actions or behavior, nor does it smooth over their faults. They are entirely in character, and I loved them a little bit more for it.
There is a gen version of the story here that is considerably shorter, although having read the long version I cannot imagine it any other way. It's quite firmly canon in my head now.
