My garden of musings

I was just thinking back to an article I read long ago, from a woman reflecting on the Little House books.

She wrote that she never identified with adventurous, tomboyish Laura, but that as a girly girl, a quiet introvert, and a firstborn sister who always felt pressured to be perfect and set a good example for her siblings, she saw herself in Mary instead. Then she complained about how the books' narrative obviously expects readers to identify with Laura and to dislike Mary, at least until the latter loses her eyesight.

Is it just me, or does anyone else think that's total nonsense?

I went back and skimmed through all of the earlier Little House books just to see if I thought Laura Ingalls Wilder meant for us to dislike Mary. And sure enough, I don't! Yes, she has some scenes of sibling rivalry with Laura and of bossing her around, and we do see Laura's envy of her older sister's "perfection," but that's not the sum total of Mary's character or of their relationship! There are plenty of other scenes where the sisters play or work nicely together and show their closeness.

Besides, Wilder was an elderly woman when she wrote the books, and by the time she wrote them, Mary had died. Do we really think she wanted to slander her late sister's memory to young readers? It seems to me that she was just being honest. Of course both sisters had their flaws, especially as children, and didn't always get along – because they were human. But I've seen plenty of other siblings in other books and media whose relationships are much, much worse, and to think Wilder wanted readers to dislike Mary seems so far-fetched to me!

I don't think we're necessarily "supposed" to identify with Laura either. It's just that Laura was the author of the books. I can't imagine that Wilder thought to herself "Readers will identify with me." She just told the story of her family's past from her own point of view because that's what any author would do.

Thanks to @thehunchcast for the reminder!

He thought they were blasphemy.

He liked plain donuts served with apple cider to drink - when he was a little boy, his dad sometimes took him to an apple orchard in upstate New York in the fall, and they served donuts with apple cider there.

Of course my dad fit that description exactly and she was married to him for 41 years. But before him, she had a boyfriend who was also Russian-Jewish. And she tells me that as a teenager, she had a big crush on Topol as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, even though he was playing a grizzled middle-aged father.

Though admittedly, she hasn't always chosen that type. Her high school boyfriend was the now-famous Egyptologist Mark Lehner, who isn't that type at all. And she's confessed to me that her first childhood crush was on Mary Martin as Peter Pan, so in another life, she could have been a lesbian with a thing for androgynous blondes.

Yes. I think it started from a place of good intent, wanting to defend the three Walt-era Princesses after so many years of people bashing them and calling them anti-feminist. But it’s taken a turn so that a lot of fans just seem to want more heroines like the Walt-era Princesses and enjoy bashing all the heroines who are less sweet, poised, and delicate - or less white, for that matter.