Among Others

hooves,
Both harmony and beat for their duet.
    W EDNESDAY 23 RD J ANUARY 1980
    A tiny sprinkle of snow this morning, not enough to wet a Hobbit’s toes, and melted before breakfast.
    I am back in school, which is noisier than ever, so noisy it echoes.
    The Dream Master turns out to be a novel version of “He Who Shapes,” which is a variation on, or the other way around, Brunner’s Telepathist . I don’t know which was written first, but I read the Brunner first. The very idea of working with dreams is odd. The Dream Master is a good book, but a very unsettling one. You wouldn’t guess it was written by the same person who wrote the Amber books, which are such fun.
    People seem a lot friendlier to me than before. Sharon said hello and welcome back when I went into English after lunch. Daniel insisted on seeing how I was after I woke up, and didn’t drive me back until mid-morning. I’m still the same. The cold made my leg do its rusty weathercock thing, but that’s so much better than it was before the acupuncture that I almost don’t care.
    I haven’t forgiven Sharon for turning her back on me. I’ll be polite and nice, but I won’t go out of my way not to call her Shagger when everyone else does. Deirdre, however, who stuck by me, gets my everlasting loyalty, and the word “Dreary” will never pass my lips. Oddly, though I am limping worse than ever, everyone seems to be calling me Commie today. Maybe going into hospital had given them a new respect for me. Nobody has come around gushing though, thank goodness.
    It’s really nice to see Miss Carroll again. She doesn’t bother me when I’m reading, or writing in here, but she always has a few kind words when I pass her desk. I’d got almost used to this library, all the wood, and the lovely bookshelves, but seeing it now I am struck again with how brill it is. I’d like to have a room like this in my own house, when I have a house one day, when I’m grown up.
    Isle of the Dead is very odd. I love the idea of making worlds, and the alien gods, and the aliens, and the whole setup. I’m just not sure about the actual story.
    T HURSDAY 24 TH J ANUARY 1980
    Tonight we are going to see The Tempest in Theatre Clwyd in Mold. Nobody else seems the faintest bit excited about this, so I act as if I don’t care either. Deirdre says she hates Shakespeare. She has seen The Winter’s Tale and Richard II , when they were set plays, and she hated both of them. This makes me think the company might be awful, because Richard II at least should be terrific acted. “Sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings.”
    The new friendliness seems to be lasting. Did they think I was faking it with the leg before? Or has something else happened? I deal with it in an offhand way, as if it’s normal, but always cool to them, because if I give away anything they could throw it in my face.
    I am reading The Lord of the Rings . I suddenly wanted to. I almost know it by heart, but I can still sink right into it. I know no other book that is so much like going on a journey. When I put it down to write this, I feel as if I am also waiting with Pippin for the echoes of that stone down the well.
    F RIDAY 25 TH J ANUARY 1980
    The first thing that was wrong with the Touring Shakespeare Company’s production of The Tempest was that they cast a woman as Prospero. She was very good, but the play just doesn’t work with a mother. The whole thing is set up with male in opposition to female: Prospero and Sycorax, Caliban and Ariel, Caliban and Miranda, Ferdinand and Miranda. Though I suppose doing it that way made Prospero and Antonio a male/female thing. I suppose the way it really didn’t work was in Prospero and Miranda’s relationship. It didn’t work as mother and daughter to me, at least, not and keep Prospero sympathetic. I read him as a man who is remote, and good to bother with a toddler, but a woman like that would be too unnatural for sympathy. Which isn’t to say I think women should be stuck with childrearing, but—how interesting that what comes out as doing the best he could in a man looks like neglect in a woman.
    Though Prospero was in fact neglectful however you look at it. He must have been the world’s most crap Duke of Milan, and he would be again. I can certainly sympathise with spending your whole time in the library reading your book instead of bothering with what you’re supposed to be doing. But there’s absolutely no indication