Recollections of a Reluctant Gelder
Posted: Sat Dec 12, 2015 3:15 pm
Some stories deserve much more than clicking on a star rating and adding a few words of comment at the end (though both of those actions are very important). The new series by "Anonymous," Recollections of a Reluctant Gelder, while only two chapters into what promises to be a lengthy tale, is one such.
My favorite fiction is mostly alternative histories (where one critical event is changed and the story explores logical consequences of that change) and alternative universes, which are set only slightly akilter from our own. The setting of this story is a well-formed such alternative universe. It is set somewhere during the Persian Empire. If I had to assign a place from the few clues, I would probably pick Anatolia, but it could be elsewhere within the empire.
There are, of course, some interesting alterations from the reality of that time, but they are important parts of the story line. There are both more and fewer castrations and eunuchs in the story than would have been true of the time and place. The intact army general who is mentioned in chapter two would more likely have been a eunuch at that time and place, though an entirely castrated slave labor force on the estate would have been very unlikely. The overseer would likely have been a eunuch as in the story, but manual labor done by both castrated and uncastrated slaves. That the stable boys were all eunuchs certainly does, though, fit with the time and place. That noble families would castrate younger sons so that they might rise in military or government ranks is also accurate for the time, as is the castration of peasant boys by their families for the same purpose.
Few females have shown up in the story so far, though they will probably figure in later episodes. That the grandmother of our young narrator (who is still unnamed) directs so much hatred toward Bertrand may be a hint of one plot element that might yet be explored. The narrator thinks of Bertrand as his "brother," though he is but a slave of the same age with whom he has grown up. Will we discover that Bertrand is his half-brother by the narrator's father and one of the slave house-servants? It would fit the time and place.
A wealthy landowner would have had one wife and as many additional women as he wanted and could acquire and support. The children of slave women would remain slaves as, of course, was true in the American South before the Civil War. (An 1863 exhibit of photographs of slave children in New Orleans showed ones who were blonde and had "fair complexion and light and silky hair." The description of the photograph of an 11 year-old slave girl notes that, "to all appearance she is perfectly white. Her complexion, hair, and features show not the slightest trace of negro blood.")
If the female house-slaves are producing slave children, who are the fathers? Since the narrator and his father are the only intact males on the estate and our narrator is only 8 years old at the beginning of the tale....
Lots of plot elements and potential story lines yet to be explored. This looks to be a great read for some time to come.
(Thank you, Paolo, for sending me a link to the first chapter, thinking I might enjoy it, while I was just beginning a book chapter on the early history of human castration. I'm not up to the Persian Empire yet, but will be soon as I do a bit more research.)
My favorite fiction is mostly alternative histories (where one critical event is changed and the story explores logical consequences of that change) and alternative universes, which are set only slightly akilter from our own. The setting of this story is a well-formed such alternative universe. It is set somewhere during the Persian Empire. If I had to assign a place from the few clues, I would probably pick Anatolia, but it could be elsewhere within the empire.
There are, of course, some interesting alterations from the reality of that time, but they are important parts of the story line. There are both more and fewer castrations and eunuchs in the story than would have been true of the time and place. The intact army general who is mentioned in chapter two would more likely have been a eunuch at that time and place, though an entirely castrated slave labor force on the estate would have been very unlikely. The overseer would likely have been a eunuch as in the story, but manual labor done by both castrated and uncastrated slaves. That the stable boys were all eunuchs certainly does, though, fit with the time and place. That noble families would castrate younger sons so that they might rise in military or government ranks is also accurate for the time, as is the castration of peasant boys by their families for the same purpose.
Few females have shown up in the story so far, though they will probably figure in later episodes. That the grandmother of our young narrator (who is still unnamed) directs so much hatred toward Bertrand may be a hint of one plot element that might yet be explored. The narrator thinks of Bertrand as his "brother," though he is but a slave of the same age with whom he has grown up. Will we discover that Bertrand is his half-brother by the narrator's father and one of the slave house-servants? It would fit the time and place.
A wealthy landowner would have had one wife and as many additional women as he wanted and could acquire and support. The children of slave women would remain slaves as, of course, was true in the American South before the Civil War. (An 1863 exhibit of photographs of slave children in New Orleans showed ones who were blonde and had "fair complexion and light and silky hair." The description of the photograph of an 11 year-old slave girl notes that, "to all appearance she is perfectly white. Her complexion, hair, and features show not the slightest trace of negro blood.")
If the female house-slaves are producing slave children, who are the fathers? Since the narrator and his father are the only intact males on the estate and our narrator is only 8 years old at the beginning of the tale....
Lots of plot elements and potential story lines yet to be explored. This looks to be a great read for some time to come.
(Thank you, Paolo, for sending me a link to the first chapter, thinking I might enjoy it, while I was just beginning a book chapter on the early history of human castration. I'm not up to the Persian Empire yet, but will be soon as I do a bit more research.)
(Wasn't my idea!)