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Let's pause ruminate over my theory for where the name Wansbarra comes from. As far as I can tell, it's entirely a made-up name for The Blue Castle. While it's possible to play around with etymologies, it's unlikely that LM Montgomery did, and the effort yields nothing fruitful.

So I believe that Wansbarra is a phonetic(ish) rendering of something more like Waynesboro, Wansborough, or Waynesbury. This kind of spelling shift happens when one generation (or more) is illiterate -- or at least blissfully unconcerned with spelling.

In that case, what is Valancy a phonetic(ish) rendering of?

Valencia. It's got to be Valencia. The "blue castle" that exists in her head is thus "a castle in Spain" (a fantasy, per Merriam-Webster) in the additional sense that it exists in the head of someone named after a place in Spain.

The ‘difficult’ people in the Stirling family get catered to; the compliant ones get browbeaten and sat on. As soon as Valancy becomes ‘difficult’ her family start taking her wishes and reactions into consideration, because there’s now a cost to not doing so.

Some of Valancy’s greatest hits:

“Won’t you try to remember you’re a lady?” she pleaded.

“Oh, if there were only any hope of being able to forget it!” said Valancy wearily.

Mrs. Frederick felt that she had not deserved this from Providence.

And:

“Doss,” he chuckled, “what is the difference between a young girl and an old maid?”

“One is happy and careless and the other is cappy and hairless,” said Valancy. “You have asked that riddle at least fifty times in my recollection, Uncle Ben. Why don’t you hunt up some new riddles if riddle you must? It is such a fatal mistake to try to be funny if you don’t succeed.”

Ooh, that’s cutting!

“Aunt Alberta, to save her dinner, plunged into an account of how a dog had bitten her recently. Uncle James, to back her up, asked where the dog had bitten her.

“Just a little below the Catholic church,” said Aunt Alberta.

At that point Valancy laughed. Nobody else laughed. What was there to laugh at?

“Is that a vital part?” asked Valancy.

“What do you mean?” said bewildered Aunt Alberta, and Mrs. Frederick was almost driven to believe that she had served God all her years for naught.”

Innuendo! She’s making innuendo! Pretty tame, but it’s such a change from all the previous chapters!

“Aunt Isabel concluded that it was up to her to suppress Valancy.

“Doss, you are horribly thin,” she said. “You are all corners. Do you ever try to fatten up a little?”

“No.” Valancy was not asking quarter or giving it. “But I can tell you where you’ll find a beauty parlor in Port Lawrence where they can reduce the number of your chins.”

She’s not being any ruder to them than they are to her!

“Oh, but you know we’re all dead,” said Valancy, “the whole Stirling clan. Some of us are buried and some aren’t—yet. That is the only difference.”

Basically laying out the reason behind her behaviour change, though they don’t know it!

“Don’t worry about my stomach, old dear,” said Valancy. “It is all right. I’m going to keep right on eating. It’s so seldom I get the chance of a satisfying meal.”

It was the first time any one had been called “old dear” in Deerwood. The Stirlings thought Valancy had invented the phrase and they were afraid of her from that moment. There was something so uncanny about such an expression. But in poor Mrs. Frederick’s opinion the reference to a satisfying meal was the worst thing Valancy had said yet.

It’s so mean, and her mother deserves it!

“If you mean,” said Valancy passionately, “that Barney Snaith is the father of Cecily Gay’s child, he isn’t. It’s a wicked lie.”

In spite of her indignation Valancy was hugely amused at the expression of the faces around that festal table. She had not seen anything like it since the day, seventeen years ago, when at Cousin Gladys’ thimble party, they discovered that she had got—SOMETHING—in her head at school. Lice in her head! Valancy was done with euphemisms.

Poor Mrs. Frederick was almost in a state of collapse. She had believed—or pretended to believe—that Valancy still supposed that children were found in parsley beds.

“Hush—hush!” implored Cousin Stickles.

“I don’t mean to hush,” said Valancy perversely. “I’ve hush—hushed all my life. I’ll scream if I want to. Don’t make me want to. And stop talking nonsense about Barney Snaith.”

This feels like a turning point – when Valancy’s rebellion turns from anger on her own behalf to anger on someone else’s, and sets up her going to care for Cecily. It starts with her being willing to be frank and unembarassed about the truth.

“When I was a young girl I never thought or spoke about such matters, Doss,” said Aunt Wellington, crushingly.

“But I’m not a young girl,” retorted Valancy, uncrushed. “Aren’t you always rubbing that into me? And you are all evil-minded, senseless gossips. Can’t you leave poor Cissy Gay alone? She’s dying. Whatever she did, God or the Devil has punished her enough for it. You needn’t take a hand, too. ”

The justaposition of “crushingly” and “uncrushed” is so great. Valancy’s realized her family are tedious and loveless and undeserving of her fear, but this is where it turns to a moral opposition and moral condemnation of their cruelty and judgement.

“Doss,” said Uncle James heavily, “the Ten Commandments are fairly up to date still—especially the fifth. Have you forgotten that?”

“No,” said Valancy, “but I thought you had—especially the ninth. Have you ever thought, Uncle James, how dull life would be without the Ten Commandments? It is only when things are forbidden that they become fascinating.”

Also Valancy is down bad for Barney

“One of his eyebrows is an arch and the other is a triangle,” said Valancy. “Is that why you think him so villainous?”

Uncle James lifted his eyebrows. Generally when Uncle James lifted his eyebrows the world came to an end. This time it continued to function.

“How do you know his eyebrows so well, Doss?” asked Olive, a trifle maliciously. Such a remark would have covered Valancy with confusion two weeks ago, and Olive knew it.

“Yes, how?” demanded Aunt Wellington.

“I’ve seen him twice and I looked at him closely,” said Valancy composedly. “I thought his face the most interesting one I ever saw.”

This is such a good point from @warrioreowynofrohan! She has forced them to actually take her feelings into account, because now there is a cost if they don't, because she refuses to be downtrodden anymore.

Uncle James lifted his eyebrows. Generally when Uncle James lifted his eyebrows the world came to an end. This time it continued to function.

To recover, you literally need to manually learn skills that most people learn as a toddler

You need to learn what makes your body uncomfortable, and what to do to fix it

If you are high-masking, that usually means that you have learned to ignore every distress signal your body sends unless it is a distress signal that a neurotypical person would recognize. People have likely been unintentionally gaslighting you about your lived experience your entire life

If you feel bad or panicked for no reason, stop and try to pay attention to your body. Are you tense? You are likely feeling physical pain somewhere. If you've been gaslit about your pain your entire life, you might not be able to identify it.

Go through a sensory checklist.

SIGHT: Try closing and covering your eyes. If this gives you relief, the lights are probably too bright. You may also need differently-colored lights

SOUND: Cover your ears. Does this give you relief? If so, you may need earplugs or noise canceling headphones. You may also benefit from a neutral or pleasant background noise, like soft music or brown noise.

TOUCH: Are your clothes uncomfortable? Your chair? Your body? Do you feel greasy, like you need a shower? Do you need softer, sensory-friendly clothing?

TASTE: Do you need to brush your teeth or tongue? Would chewing on something help?

SMELL: Is there a strong or unpleasant smell in the room? Do you need to clean or empty a trash can? Would an air purifier help? Would a pleasant smell like a candle help?

INTEROCEPTION: Are you hungry? Thirsty? Tired? How is your posture? Are any of your muscles tight or sore? Scan your body slowly from head to feet, tensing and loosening each group of muscles. Going for a walk or doing a series of quick stretches may help a lot.

Learning how to do this stuff is not intuitive, if you've had an entire lifetime of gaslighting telling you that everything hurting you isn't a big deal and you're being dramatic over nothing.

This takes time, it takes work, it's not intuitive, and it's hard. Most people forget how hard it is, because they learned this as toddlers.

Pompadours were an Edwardian style that lingered into the 1910s but had entirely gone out of fashion by the early 1920s. Here's a likely sort of small pompadour from the Dover reprint of the 1915 Gimbel's catalog.

I liked these modest pompadours for Valancy because they don't require much in the way of pads, hairpieces, or styling time. If The Blue Castle is set some time between 1921 and 1925, then 29-year-old Valancy would have started putting her hair up between 1908 and 1912, when pompadours were still "in."

Valancy had hankered to do her hair pulled low on her forehead, with puffs above the ears, as Olive was wearing hers. 

Olive likely isn't wearing the bob that's now popularly associated with the 1920s, as only about 25% of fashionable big-city women had adopted the bob by 1925. There's another popular style that gave the front fluffiness of a bob, with a bun hidden in back. These are from the Dover Everyday Fashions of the Twenties book.

These young women have hair pulled low on their foreheads, puffs over their ears, and hints of a bun in back to take up the excess length. Olive is fashionable, but she's not taking it to the point of being daring.

Valancy took off and hung up in the closet her nightdress of coarse, unbleached cotton, with high neck and long, tight sleeves. She put on undergarments of a similar nature, a dress of brown gingham, thick, black stockings and rubber-heeled boots.

It is highly likely that Valancy's family is keeping her in dresses that are out of style, for their own notions of economy, practicality, and virtue. While the pure brown-gingham ugliness of that dress is clear regardless of context, it probably resembles the third dress from the left (also from the 1915 Gimbel's catalog).

That dress probably seems cuter to us today than it would to someone in roughly 1922. By the early 1920s, that natural waist and flared skirt was severely out of style. Fashionable Olive would have dressed more like the young women at far right in each of these catalog images. Shorter sleeves, lower waists, lighter fabric with more flow, straighter silhouette.

If this were a Louisa May Alcott story, we'd be trudging toward Valancy's learning to accept brown gingham as serviceable and appropriate. But Lucy Maud Montgomery famously let Anne of Green Gables have her puffed sleeves, so I'm hoping Valancy will get something more like these dresses.

“The Girl With Flowers” (1856) by József Borsos

On Wednesday [February 4] I finished a novel, The Blue Castle—a little comedy for adults.

This novel was certainly not written for children. It was even banned from some church libraries. First, it has an unwed mother in it, but, worse, when Roaring Abel skewers religious hypocrisy, he is so funny that readers cannot help laughing. Apparently, no one saw that this novel was close to being Maud’s own spiritual autobiography, a spillover mid-life crisis. It is ironic that at the same time Maud was choosing older heroines and mature themes for her novels, she was being demoted to the children’s shelves of bookstores and libraries by changing literary styles and other forces. This novel was the first to be banned in some libraries.

And that one:

Frustrated by what was happening to her [Maud's] own reputation through the latter 1920s, she began to grumble privately about being demoted to “only a children’s author.” She had written The Blue Castle in 1926, intending it to be a story for adults. Instead, it was often treated as a children’s book and, as a result, its mature content got it banned for children in a number of places. While she was censored for mentioning an unwed mother (who dies, no less), young writers like Callaghan were earning praise for sympathetic treatment of down-and-outers and prostitutes. It did seem unfair. The only consolation was that, despite the fact that it shocked her Sunday School readers, The Blue Castle sold well, and her publishers wanted more of the same.

I had like one, maybe two friends who were all like FUCK YEAH YOU PAINT IT WHATEVER COLOR YOU WANT, PURPLE BEDROOMS ARE AWESOME.

But when they actualy saw the finished bedroom, every single one of them was like, “Oh yeah, that’s really pretty.” (Well, the ones who supported me from the beginning were more like WOOHOO.)

MEAN YOU HAVE TO ABANDON

WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY.

When I bought my house, the kitchen was multiple shades of dingy white. It was dismal, but it was now mine! So went to the hardware store for paint (well, several trips, painted swatches on panel, etc — I’m very picky. But this was the final, ‘real’ trip). It was a busy day in the paint section. There were at least five people behind me in line.

Now, remember, latex paint is slightly lighter and brighter when wet than it is when dry. And I’d decided to paint my kitchen candy-apple red. The hardware store employee took my gallon off the Paint Jiggler and cracked it open to put a dab on the top, revealing the most incredibly deep pink, and behind me I hear the entire line of people say,

“Oh my god.”

…in perfect chorus.

This is the door to my garage. It used to be white. Live your best life.

Mischief the cat says “Who goes there?”

Every visiting friend says “This is so cool.”

my garage. It used to be

white. Live your best life.

not decorating trends; those have always existed. but the idea that color and decoration is inherently childish

this is the dining room at the Eustis Estate in Milton, Massachusetts, from 1878 (where I used to work, briefly). the walls are TEXTURED MICA SHIMMER on a green background. Adult Space For Adults!

A jewelry shop in Paris c. 1901. kids can’t buy jewelry!

who can forget the classic 1950s colorful bathroom? I’m not a huge fan, but still! adult space! bright colors; decorative designs!

So here’s two examples of traditional Norwegian farmhouse interiors. You know. The kinds of places peasants live in.

This type of painting is called “rosemaling” and today you usually find it on, like, carved wooden bowls and such that are only used for decoration. But back two centuries ago, it was very common to find the interiors of homes covered in it, in projects that were painted little by little over the decades. Because it’s beautiful to look at, paint is the cheapest way of decorating your house, and what else are you going to do on the long winter nights when it’s too dark and cold to work outdoors?

But mostly, they did it because it made them happy, and it was beautiful.

He gives his harness bells a shake.

What will survive of him is love

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.

When I was in high school, I was once waiting outside of a grocery store for my friend. My cane at this point had a fun moon-and-star/astrological aesthetic design. And, for no real reason, this older Black man came up to me and asked me where I got it, because he thought it was great. I told him it was just something I got offline. He showed me his cane, which was this beautiful hand-carved wooden staff (I can't remember exactly what it looked like, but it was stunning) and he told me about how he got it custom made from a woodcarver in Africa. I never got his name or saw him again, but he lit up my afternoon.

It was a really touching moment for me. He saw a high schooler with a cane and his first thought wasn't that it must be a fashion statement or that I must be lazy or attention-seeking or that it was generally something strange that needed explanation. During this same timeframe I'd also had adults who I'd never met before who would approach me (again, a child) to, essentially, demand I explain to them my personal health issues for their curiosity and entertainment. So it really meant something to me that this man saw me and thought, "What a delightful cane! I also appreciate a delightful cane! I'm gonna ask that kid where they got theirs and show them mine!" without ever needing to make me justify why I as a young person was using a mobility aid.

You are hereby cordially invited to the second Blue Castle Book Club kicking off Monday, May 18th.

We will be continuing to use the tag #Blue Castle Book Club for all posts so feel free to jump in the conversation there!

Here is the official schedule, one chapter per day with weekend breaks to catch up:

May 18-22: Chapters 1-5

May 25-29: Chapters 6-10

June 1-5: Chapters 11-15

June 8-12: Chapters 16-20

June 15-19: Chapters 21-25

June 22-26: Chapters 26-30

June 29-July 3: Chapters 31-35

July 6-10: Chapters 36-40

July 13-17: Chapters 41-45

You can find the full text of the book here: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/67979/pg67979-images.html

Thank you to @thesweetnessofspring for proposing the initial timeline and to @mollywog for calculating all the dates out, optimizing them for days of the week, and letting me use @dustpileofherown to publicize book club. You all got my executives functioning.

I’m SO EXCITED for this reunion* you all!