Instagram

For some reason, I'm thinking about Mary Ingalls.

I saw a Goodreads review talking about how ever since they were a kid, they disliked introverted quiet Mary in favor of bold outgoing Laura.

And that take bothers me because it was actually kind of the opposite of that.

In one of her columns written decades before the Little House books, Laura shares the story of the "Is blonde or brown hair prettier?" fight from Little House in the Big Woods. And she frames it as a story of how Mary was intelligent and good with words, and she could say the most cutting things, but the quiet Laura couldn't find the right words to respond with, so she'd be reduced to lashing out physically and thus getting in trouble for it. One sister liking indoor pursuits doesn't make her an introvert, and the other one liking outdoor pursuits doesn't make her an extrovert.

And that's also got me thinking about Mary's later life. Her blindness kept her inside. Whether she was introverted or extroverted, she was forced into a much more solitary existence than Laura was, who could go to school and make friends and run around town at will. Going to the blind school was her one chance in life to really socialize and make friends on a more even footing.

And anyway, one day I'd like to more properly explore the sisterly relationship as presented in these books. Because they are so deeply centered on Laura and her perspective, Mary barely shows up in the first books except to fight with Laura. And then when Mary goes blind, she becomes someone for Laura to take care of--another responsibility to consider as she takes over the role as eldest sibling. It's only in Little Town on the Prairie where the relationship shifts, and we get to see them interacting as two people. Mary admits that she was an insufferable goody-goody sometimes, but Laura also sees and admires the true virtue that Mary has cultivated, and how her blindness has given her a deep spiritual life unlike anything Laura's seen from anyone else. They've at last matured out of childhood rivalry and developed an adult understanding of each other's weaknesses and strengths.

It's just so much deeper and more nuanced than the common view of "quiet goody-goody Mary" and "bold and relatable Laura" would have you believe, and I think it deserves more appreciation.

House of glasses

Source

house of rocks

Round 2, Poll 5: Little House vs The Immortals Quartet

a home for you Sun, take UvU

The little lost house hanging in the ravine.

Charles Klein

I have a theory. Hear me out.

They're gay.

𝑺𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒑𝒆𝒂𝒄𝒆 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆✨𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒉𝒐𝒑𝒆🫶🏻 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒍𝒅 𝒕𝒐𝒅𝒂𝒚💫

𝗁𝗍𝗍𝗉s://instagram.com/rynfrank

Interior Visions: Great American Designers and the Showcase House (1988)

I think I underestimated how cool it is that Little House books are a "woman remembers her childhood" children's classic by an author from a working-class and rural background. Most working-class books of the genre have urban settings, and most rural girlhood classics come from a family that's in a fairly stable community--maybe not rich, but comfortable enough that they don't have to worry about whether they'll make it through a winter.

Laura Ingalls grew up dirt poor in a family that knew how to grow or build or hunt or make everything that they needed, because they had to. Yet when she grew up, she got into a position where she could publish about it. Which is pretty astounding, because people in her situation are usually too busy doing the farmwork to write about it--they don't have connections to the publishing industry. Yet she did, so we get to hear from someone who knows that farm and small-town setting intimately, and not because she grew up and and ran off to the city as soon as she could escape, but because she still lives it and loves it and advocates for it.

She knows the details of that life and loves it. Like, she genuinely cares about raising the chickens, not as a housewife's hobby, but as an important source of meat, eggs and money for the family. It's grounded, earthy, sensible, but also romantic, because she while she's doing farm work or house work she's noticing the little moments of beauty or thinking about the big issues of life. But it took a long series of coincidences to get this ordinary farm wife into a position of wanting to write, being able to write, and having a national audience for her writing, so I just want to appreciate how amazing it is that it happened.

*my links*

Louise Bourgeois