"Pale," by Kathryn Allen

[Scott H. Andrews]

This thread is to discuss "Pale," by Kathryn Allen, which appears in BCS #37 (http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/forums/../toc.php?s=37) from Feb. 25, 2010.

Feel free to post a comment even if you haven't yet registered on the BCS Forums--you can reply to the thread as an unregistered Guest.

[mbrennan]

I *really* enjoyed this. The Woman in Refrigerator trope is one I've criticized before; it was great to see this story handle that head-on, with the girl objecting to being an adjunct to her brother's story. I didn't even see the La Llorona thing coming, even though I'd noted the saloon name with interest -- it reminds me a lot of a game I played in once, with characters who repeated the same tragedy in every lifetime; that was likewise about escaping one story only to fall into another. Very nice twist.

I almost want a followup story, about when he comes back, but in reality I don't think I do; while my investment making me long for that closure, I think leaving it unspoken is by far the more powerful choice. Excellent work!


(Edited to add: okay, what do I have to do to inline a link? "Woman in Refrigerator" was intended to be a link to an essay I wrote on the subject, but all the options I tried for making it understand my HTML produced a mess. And the "insert a link" thing insisted on making the URL its own link, rather than letting me attach it to other text.)

[Scott H. Andrews]

I *really* enjoyed this. The Woman in Refrigerator trope is one I've criticized before; it was great to see this story handle that head-on...
Very glad you enjoyed it! I liked that it was archetypes yet at the same time individual characters.

(Edited to add: okay, what do I have to do to inline a link? "Woman in Refrigerator" was intended to be a link to an essay I wrote on the subject...
I do it by 'painting' with the mouse the text I want to be the text of the link, then hitting the insert link button http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/forums/images/editor/createlink.gif, then pasting the URL into the box that pops up.

Is this your article?

http://www.sfnovelists.com/2009/11/16/a-womans-place-is-not-in-the-refrigerator/
(http://www.sfnovelists.com/2009/11/16/a-womans-place-is-not-in-the-refrigerator/)

[mbrennan]

I do it by 'painting' with the mouse the text I want to be the text of the link, then hitting the insert link button http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/forums/images/editor/createlink.gif, then pasting the URL into the box that pops up.

Is this your article?

http://www.sfnovelists.com/2009/11/16/a-womans-place-is-not-in-the-refrigerator/
(http://www.sfnovelists.com/2009/11/16/a-womans-place-is-not-in-the-refrigerator/)

Aha. Yes, that's the article, and I guess it was the wording of "INSERT link" that misled me. I was thinking of it in HTML terms (insert the necessary code at the cursor) rather than as mapping onto selected text.

[Unregistered]

I *really* enjoyed this. The Woman in Refrigerator trope is one I've criticized before; it was great to see this story handle that head-on, with the girl objecting to being an adjunct to her brother's story.

Thank you.

And your post sums up very neatly my own reactions to the trope in question -- perhaps minus my suspicion that the rest of the film will live down to the same level of story-telling :)

Kathryn Allen