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FINAL Current Developments at the Intersection of British Children ONLINE VERSION
Valley of Secrets
89 or McCaughrean’s The Stones are Hatching. 90 In her novel, Hussey invents a secluded, enchanted place in a rural Cornish valley. Well shielded from the public eye, it has become the safe haven for a variety of exotic flora and fauna from the Amazon. The contrast between the present situation of the animals and plants in the valley and the situation of the native Indians in Brazil in the past could not be more extreme. Whereas the valley has become a paradisiacal refuge for the rescued animals in the present, flashbacks into the past denounce terrible human offences towards the natives in Brazil. Old diaries reveal atrocities by degrees, reporting the abrupt destruction of the former idyll of the South- American jungle by the arrival of “civilised” white people and their criminal machinations. In the wake of the slave trade, expulsion, flight, capture and mass murder befall the natives, destroying their home. Since these conditions are disclosed gradually in the diaries – extracts of which are embedded within the story - their impact is cushioned by some temporal as well as geographical distance. Through this reduced immediacy of violence the main focus shifts from the emotionality of the eye witness report towards a more rational, distanced and objective view. Whereas the modern practices of the production of Brazilian corned beef and the ensuing destruction of the primeval forest are denounced, 91 the focus lies on the past atrocities in connection with the slave trade. The previous harmony contrasts sharply with the 86 Pratchett, Terry. The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. London: Corgi, 2002 [2001]. 87 Ibd., p. 154. 88 Ibd., p. 218. 89 Charmian Hussey. The Valley of Secrets. London: Hodder Children’s Books, 2005. [2003] 90 Geraldine McCaughrean. The Stones are Hatching. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. 91 Cf. Hussey, Valley of Secrets, p. 284. 115 death and destruction 92 brought to the natives via the hypocritical missionaries. Not only are they shown to force their belief on to the Indians, 93 but, apparently men of God, they also play unscrupulously into the traders’ hands. Whereas Hussey’s publication is ecocritical, 94 McCaughrean’s episodic novel The Stones are Hatching cannot be placed easily. Loosely strung together around its main thread of the search for and elimination of an ancient dragon, this quest radiates a sense of strangeness. Embedded in a sombre general tenor and dream-like structures, the plot of McCaughrean’s The Stones are Hatching unhinges the traditional concepts of straightness, logical consequences and inferences in British fantasy literature for children and shows what is possible outside of them. Explanations are withheld, expectations run into empty space and acts either don’t entail immediate consequences or, if they do, not necessarily logical ones. Within this postmodern framework, McCaughrean’s concept of violence blends in with the surreal events. In the novel, therefore, violence does not necessarily correlate with actions or aggressive behaviour. On the contrary, it can occur out of its own accord; seemingly for no apparent reason. Alien in an even more alien world, violence in McCaughrean’s novel elucidates its perverseness and innate hollowness. On account of its incoherence, aloof violence in her novel can strike in a much more direct way than if it was integrated in a more structured story based on a principle of unambiguous cause and effect. On a similar level with the novels mentioned above range Kerr’s novels about The Download 1.22 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
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