The Terrors of Tarragina (addendum)

[sythyry]

Mirrored from Sythyry.

A copy of The Terrors of Tarragina was duly procured (from Vind — I refuse to allow more teasing of Alzagonde until she does something else horrible). The crudely-imagined and crudely-drawn cover shows a nearly-naked, voluptuous, and quite aroused Herethroy woman, holding a crowbar in a midhand, staring at it as if it were a serpent about to bite her. Beside her are four very full washbasins, one overflowing, and a Cani man with a hammer in one hand and a tremendous erection visible under his skirt.

I, sacrifically, read the cursed thing, since I have plenty of time on my paws when I want it.

Tarragina is the sixth daughter of a countess of Barency. She has a single passion in life: “rejoicining in elegant circumstances”. Through a sequence of misfortunes too implausible to mention, her family loses fortune and title in chapter two. (OK, I’ll mention the guntry race. They’ve got a prize running-guntry that always wins every race. They bet their last village on the guntry in a race against a stranger — who turns out to be a wizard, whose guntry is a transformed air elemental, and wins in a whoosh. Somehow they neglect to mention that this may be considered cheating.)

Anyhow, by chapter 3, Tarragina is condemned to wander the city and country in a life of toil, a thing which she finds utterly abhorrent. She picks up odd jobs here and there — helping a Cani family demolishing a shed in chapter five (hence the crowbar), and washing clothes for some Herethroy farmers in chapter eight (hence the basins). In each case, she attempts the job briefly throws up her hands and hand-feet at how horrid and vulgar it is, and, um, renegotiates the arrangement to be one in which she performs bodily pleasures upon her employers rather than having to do the work. Then, for reasons unspecified, she is off at a different employer the next chapter, evidently the next day.

For a bit of socioprosody of my own: the description of the chapter’s circumstances take 1-3 paragraphs. The attempts at performing the job, and Tarragina’s abhorrence thereof, take another 3-5. The seduction of the employer takes a single paragraph more. The rest of each chapter — five to fifteen pages — is a description of the encounter.

For what it’s worth: About half the time she’s involved with Herethroy, and half with other species. Nobody seems to find this the least bit noteworthy — not that there is much actual conversation involved.

Also, a half-page of action from chapter 5 appears again, word for word, in chapter 21. Perhaps the author did not think anyone would read that far. In any case, it was dull the first time, and extra-dull the second.

I cannot recommend the book, either as literature, pornography, or a source of threats.

Comments

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

So one of Alzagonde's research sources as an example of the evils of transaffection is... a trashy porno? One that doesn't even manage to be good as porn?

Research materials. Riiiiiiight. Pull the other one, crazy Rassy, it's got bells on.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Well, it's one of Mump's sources for transaffection in Barency. His students mostly haven't read it.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Oh, and most of the fiction in Barency that involves transaffection is pornography, from what I hear. That goes for most cities. A couple of my clients have written love stories that stop somewhat short of pornography, but that's Vheshrame.

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

What books DO you recommend as pronography?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

It rather depends on the tastes of the reader. Umbers, for example, gobbles down stories that I find too embarrassing to contemplate. Still, if you happen to visit, we can discuss the matter in comfort and convenience in my library.

[psaakyrn.livejournal.com]

Maybe something from the eighteen-volume collected works of He Who Has Excavated And Flown?

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

The problem with using it as a resource of any kind is that it is, in fact, fiction.

Also, it wouldn't entirely surprise me if the lack of non-explicit traff-positive work elsewhere is in part a vicious circle. Mainstream publishers won't touch it, so the only way traff anything gets published is in those circles that are less picky, so people get the impression that all traff-folk are degenerate and immoral, and around the circle goes.

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

I'm curious as to whether Grinwipey would need to have done in order to come up with what he did, or if one glance at the cover would have told him everything his threats touched on that actually came from the book. In the latter case, his point that if he was a steward, he'd have chanced to see it, certainly holds.

Not really that important, though. (And I'm not trying to suggest that Grinwipey would go out of his way to read traff porn in any case, his opinion on such matters being abundantly - and unusually - clear.)

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Grinwipey did not read the book; he looked at the cover, and, according to him, opened up to the middle and read page one-hundred-and-fifty-fuck.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Mump claims to have scientific ways to extract sociological truth out of a corpus of primary texts: fiction or even poetry. Such sources convey the spirit of a people, he says, thinly disguised under a veneer of fiction.

You're right about the vicious circle.

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

It sounds more Libertine then Transaffectionate, though...

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Well, that distinction is a somewhat artificial -- and somewhat incorrect -- creation of, well, my own theoretical school.

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

I'd say "Right back at him: What does the body of cisaffectionate porn say about that element of society?" except that a rational argument with such people is generally pointless. Whether for moral reasons or otherwise, any researcher who has his conclusions alread framed before he does the research is nigh impossible to dissuade, no matter how flimsy the evidence supporting his position or how compelling that against it.

Changing one's worldview is never an easy thing, of course - I'm sure you, yourself, know about that - but academia ought not to have room for personal crusades.

[rowyn]

That's not nearly as disturbing as the torture porn Grinwipey was implying it was. Then again, Grinwipey.

Which is not to say that it's not bad trashy porn, but it sounds more standard fare instead of horrific. >:)

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

Only somewhat, though. Despite the number of times I've figuratively butted heads on that very point, even I am compelled to note that there was such a tendency among the Vheshrame nobility, at least back when you were describing such matters in detail(I'm not sure how that applies now); it's just that the boundary is fuzzy between how they were behaving, and a more personal transaffection.

At any rate, the book honestly seems more like one about prostitution than actual transaffection. It's just that the prostitute in question is less choosy than some(many? I'm not sure how picky the worst-off prostitutes are, the ones that can barely manage to stay under a roof as it is, or only do so at all by going home with their clients).

[rowyn]

I don't know. The idea that one can only engage in libertine or transaffectionate behavior and one and only one label may be applied to any given individual is certainly erroneous. That doesn't mean that the distinction between lust and love is without all value. :)

[kris-schnee.livejournal.com]

Ah -- I thought it was some sort of kinky serial-killer story involving the use of crowbars and basins. Not quite that bad then.

*gets Sythyry the "Chick Tract" about "Dark Dungeons", the evil conspiracy of roleplaying games*

[brynndragon.livejournal.com]

Erm, maybe if the people in question are the ones writing the fiction/poetry, but how does he presume to know if the author is actually traff themselves? In my world, there is a subgenre of fiction written almost entirely by females about male-male love - the authors are neither male nor interested in lovers of the same gender, nor do they necessarily even know any male same-gender lovers (on our iron ball of a world, same-gender affection is considered much like transaffection on the World Tree). So making conclusions about male-male love from such stories would be poor scholarship; making conclusions about how some non-same-gender-lovers view such pairings is the only possible rigorous examination.

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

The common response of such Moral and Upstanding people is that being subjected to anything outside their accepted norms is torture, though, so perhaps it might as well have been?

[rowyn]

Yeah, I was thinking something on those lines, too, involving torture and rape.

[rowyn]

I suspect even Alzagonde would find traff torture porn more disturbing than traff prostitution. >:)

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

...this too is true. Though I fear that Mump is not much concerned with scholastic rigour so much as with his own viewpoint and agenda.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

The details of Mump's methods are beyond me, so I have asked Vind, who looked somewhat worried at the concern. Vind once asked Mump the same question, and had it answered to Vind's satisfaction at the time, but Vind is unable to recreate the answer.

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

Oh. It's worth noting, though, that women who aren't interested in other women, but are interested in men, can find a good deal to interest themselves in fiction involving male lovers. This is much less the case where cisaffection/transaffection are concerned. Anyone who writes transaffectionate porn - especially if their own species is not involved - can be fairly argued to have at least some traff leanings, in a manner that heterosexuals finding appeal in a one-sex couple of the opposite sex to them cannot.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

The tendency is somewhat muted; we are in a somewhat less recreational era. These things change every decade or two, and Vheshrame is generally one of the most actively libidinous cities around in any case.

I would count the protagonist as a prostitute, and (given her eagerness to toss herself at Cani and Rassimel) a libertine as well. I didn't see any actual love in the book, nor even anything remotely resembling a conversation of more depth than "Oh! Your member is so deep in me!"