“Rwandan genocide chemically modified the DNA of victims and victims’ offspring“
My only quibble is that it’s a really tiny sample size.
Tag: abuse
Quotes from a Book I Binged
The book is Before the Ruins, 2020, by Victoria Gosling.
It’s been a while since I binged a book, but I finished this one in just a few days. It is so well-written that it’s almost like unrhymed poetry. Almost every page has something quotable, even when the quotes are ones I disagree with, like the following …
I remember Peter’s father in the church telling the story of Jesus and Pilate, and jesting Pilate asking Jesus what the truth was but then not staying for an answer, and so we never got to find out, not any of us, not ever. I was so disappointed and on our way back to the vicarage, hell-bent on my share of the roast dinner — chicken, chicken, let it be chicken! — I pestered the vicar, “But why didn’t the disciples ask him instead? There he was on the cross, it’s not like he was going anywhere. Why didn’t they ask him?” With his hand on the gate, he turned. A watery smile. “Sometimes, Andy, I think you are the only one who is listening.” Which, of course, was no answer at all.
Nor was there anything in the Gospels that shed light on what Jesus would have said about [my abuser]. I don’t remember anywhere in the Bible Jesus meeting a truly wicked man.
Before the Ruins, p. 114
*pinches brow*
No, Jesus never met a truly wicked man … except the ones who hunted, slandered, gaslit, and betrayed Him. And then tortured Him to death. Except the majority of people he met. Except those.
He never said anything about child abusers … though there were certain passages about the sea and millstones and whitewashed graves and the fires of hell.
His disciples never asked Him “What is truth?” … except all those times they did, and He said “I am the truth,” and the time Philip said to Him, “Show us the Father,” and Jesus said, “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been with you for such a long time? Anyone who has seen me, has seen the Father.”
It’s interesting, because a big theme of Before the Ruins is how difficult it is to really know people, even people you love very much. And how difficult it is to let people know you, even if you really want to.
When not on the subject of the Gospels, the book has a lot of insight and achingly evocative passages about childhood and growing up. Passages like that will break your heart. Passages like this one:
It made me aware of how dormant I was most of the time. How my life — my job, my screens — made it easy to be occupied every waking moment, hurrying, distracted, and equally, on some level almost entirely asleep, comforted by dreams of effortless transformation.
But I was not Cinderella. Instead, there was another story Peter and I had often found in the books of our childhood. It came in different disguises. It was the one about the traveler who arrives at an island, or a castle, or a secret door into the side of a mountain. There, welcomed, the traveler stays, perhaps against their instincts. Often they eat or drink — strange fruit, or wine from a goblet. There is always something they should be doing, an important task for them to fulfill, but they forget it, they are waylaid, and if they ever remember, their companions, if there are any, distract them with promises, or songs, or riddles to ponder.
Often the traveler sleeps, sometimes they dream, always they are nagged by the sense that there is something they are forgetting, something they must do. Their true love is waiting, or their aged parents. There is a sick child they must bring herbs to, a kingdom for them to inherit. But they do nothing; they are paralyzed. And when they wake, if they ever get away, once back in the world they find that centuries have passed, that they are too late, too late for everything, and that all that they loved, everything that truly mattered, is lost forever.
To sleep on? Or to wake? This was the question facing me. To sleep, or to wake and face the reckoning, to find out what had been lost.
Before the Ruins, p. 181
The “Never Have I Ever” Tag for Writers
How appropriate that just as I am starting to do a bunch of posts about publishing, the orangutan librarian should tag me with this bunch of questions about the writing process! The original idea was created by the Long Voyage- so definitely check out the original here!
This tag asks writers about whether they have ever engaged in a number of (mostly disreputable) behaviors. The headings will say the behavior, and then I’ll comment about whether it applies to me.
“Never Have I Ever …“
. . . started a novel that I did not finish.
I have started, and not finished, a number of novels. You know that whole idea that an artist can create a complete work in his or her head and then it’s irrelevant whether they ever put it on paper or canvas or whatever? That’s baloney. The actual process of enfleshing the work forces you to include so much more detail than you do in your head when you see the end from the beginning.
. . . written a story completely by hand.
(gets dreamy look)
As teenagers, my BFF and I used to write stories together. We would pass a notebook back and forth. Each of us controlled certain characters. We would write notes to each other and argue with each other in the margins.
My parts of those particular stories were the worst tripe ever written. We all have to write our awful tripe on the way to becoming writers.
. . . changed tenses midway through a story.
What?
. . . not researched anything before starting a story.
It’s never possible to do enough research.
But the experts don’t agree.
Also, if you research too long, you can end up talking yourself out of the premise for your story, at which point you’ve ripped out its heart.
So far, my stories have been inspired by cool theories (“research”) about the ancient world. So, I take the premise from the research. (See the ‘ancient world’ tag on my blog for all the stuff that interests me.) I have, so far, avoided setting my stories in really well-documented periods of ancient history (such as Rome) because of the sheer amount of research that would be required so as not to make glaring errors about the details of daily life.
Anyway, see the Bibliography page of this blog for a constantly slightly outdated, constantly growing tally of my sources.
. . . changed my protagonist’s name halfway through a draft.
I like stories that feature someone assimilating to a foreign culture. A total or partial name change is often part of this. So my protagonist Nimri starts out being called Nimri, which is basically Sumerian, but as they get to know him, the people around him eventually start calling him Nirri and that’s how he finishes the story. This is kind of an inconvenient feature, actually, because it makes it difficult to refer to him in summaries.
As for changing a name completely, just for the heck of it, I haven’t done so yet. But Find & Replace will make it easy to do if someone ever comes to me and says, “This name means [dirty word] in [major world language].”
. . . written a story in a month or less.
Short stories, yes.
. . . fallen asleep while writing.
What?
. . . corrected someone’s grammar irl / online.
Scene: Husband and I have been married less than a year, visiting a friend of his.
Friend: I need to go get some groceries. [Names several cleaning supplies, none of which are edible]
Me: Those things are not normally included in the core definition of ‘groceries.’
Friend: Well, excuuuuse me!
Me: (laughing) You are talking to a linguist.
Friend: That’s not the word that I thought of.
. . . yelled in all caps at myself in the middle of a novel.
No.
. . . used “I’m writing” as an excuse.
More like finding other tasks as an excuse not to write.
. . . killed a character who was based on someone I know in real life.
Mmm sooo …. I used to create characters based on my crushes and then kill them off. Yes, I was a sick puppy. Putting the best possible construction on it, I had figured out that killing off a character was the most poignant thing you can do in a story and I was overusing that tool sort of like a kid constantly dropping a new vocabulary word.
. . . used pop culture references in a story.
I avoid these because I am certain to use them clumsily, plus they will soon become dated. It’s part of the reason that my novels are set in the distant past, and that I may never try a “contemporary” novel.
. . . written between the hours of 1am and 6am.
Only at university, when finishing a paper due the next day. (Fun fact: if I stay up all night, I throw up!)
. . . drank an entire pot of coffee while writing.
While writing papers in college, yes, remembering that my “pot” only made two or three cups at a time. Also, vending machine brownies. Good times!
. . . written down dreams to use in potential novels.
Only once, age eleven.
. . . published an unedited story on the internet / Wattpad / blog.
No, but I have turned in a crummy first draft of a devotional essay to a church magazine. I believe the editor used his discretion and didn’t run it.
. . . procrastinated homework because I wanted to write.
Well, this gets into the whole topic of my work habits, which I’d rather not discuss …
. . . typed so long that my wrists hurt.
Not that I recall. I tend to take pauses for thinking.
. . . spilled a drink on my laptop while writing.
No, but that’s probably just dumb luck. I don’t take care of my equipment nearly as well as I should.
. . . forgotten to save my work / draft.
No, and I have even been known to send copies of Word documents to relatives so that copies exist out there in case my house burns down.
. . . finished a novel.
Two and counting.
. . . laughed like an evil villain while writing a scene.
… Um … I don’t think so? Not aware of the sounds I make while writing. Possibly grunts.
. . . cried while writing a scene.
Even in real life I am more likely to cry when angry, frustrated, or humiliated, rather than when sad. I’m not sure what that says about me. Nothing good, probably.
But I have certainly given myself the sads with my writing.
. . . created maps of my fictional worlds.
. . . researched something shady for a novel.
Giants and chimeras in history
horrible pagan practices of the ancient world
abusive husbands
what happens when a person falls into a super-hot sulpherous pool, as at Yellowstone National Park
All equally terrifying.
Now, Your Turn
In the comments section, tell me all your writerly habits! Or, judge mine!
An Insoluble Puzzle
Sad topic today.
An abusive marriage is a major part of the plot in my second novel, The Strange Land.
I first introduced this problem with a very minor mention in The Long Guest. Wife abuse of some kind (not always the violent physical kind) could occur in a quarter to a half of all relationships, depending on the culture. In The Long Guest I portray a small founding group of not quite 100 people, which means fifteen or twenty families. Given that human nature has not changed throughout the ages, to have a group of this size with no abusive families in it would have been grossly unrealistic.
The Limits of the Options
Abuse within a family is always very difficult to respond to. This is true in every age, but in our modern age there are at least a few options that those who care about the victim can offer. As a last resort, breaking up the family in order to stop the abuse might not be ideal, but it’s at least possible. It is possible for a single mom in our society to survive economically. As for the abuser, it is possible to put him in jail, or failing that to put hundreds of miles between him and his victims.
There are fewer options available to a community when it’s tiny, isolated out in the wilderness, and consisting basically of one big extended family. In this situation, there is no jail, there is no other place to live and it’s much less possible for a woman, especially if she has young children, to physically survive without a man.
So, how can the community handle this? A case of abuse is essentially a case of a stubborn, very hard heart. Rebukes don’t work on such a heart. Threats or pressure might work for a while, but ultimately tend to make the abuse worse. In a small, isolated community with no police force and nowhere else to go, the community has very few options unless they are willing to kill the abuser. They are unlikely to be willing to do this, especially if he is related to them by blood. If they do choose to put him to death, in the best case they must now support his widow and children. In the worst case, it could tear the community apart, resulting in anything from more deaths to the complete end of the tribe.
When I included an abusive marriage purely for realism, I had little idea that I would be handing my community of characters a truly insoluble puzzle.
The Limits of the Law
These very questions, and others like them, are explored in the video below by the always articulate Alistair Roberts. Roberts is answering a question from a viewer about why consent (in cases of arranged marriage, concubinage, etc.) does not seem to feature as a concept in Old Testament law. How can we square this with the idea that the Law is in any sense good?
Roberts talks about the limits of any law to change the society it governs, and about the extremely limited reach of national-level laws to govern what goes on within a household. He mentions cases like that of Hagar, Abraham and Sarah’s Egyptian slave woman, whom Sarah “gives” to Abraham so that Hagar can have a son who will be considered his heir. The way the founding couple treated Hagar was normal in their society at the time, but was certainly exploitative and was arguably rape. Though Hagar’s case was not covered by the law, it is obvious from the story that God noticed the injustice and avenged it. I never noticed that God avenged what happened to Hagar and her son Ishmael until I heard Roberts point it out in other videos, and then it became blindingly obvious. He recaps that here, as well as giving proof that God took seriously King David’s treatment not only of Uriah, but of Bath-Sheba as well (another case that today would be considered at least sexual harassment and probably rape).
The bottom line is that we do what we can to right wrongs, but our varying circumstances constrain what are able to do. These topics, sadly, are relevant to everyone. If you spend long enough in a community of any kind (church, school, team, family) you will eventually be forced to deal with the question of how to confront abuse. This video isn’t going to to give you all the answers (because they don’t exist), but it could help clarify your thinking. If you have time, give it a listen.
Another excellent resource on this topic is the book Why Does He DO That? by Lundy Bancroft.
Out of Babel 