When you've got almost 5,000 posts on a variety of topics, odd things happen in your archives. I love checking my stats once a month, because there is always something unexpected there.
Someone must have recently linked to my 2007 post Sexism in Narnia, because it got 100 hits in the last two days. The comments section would get you to my son Ben's Books For Boys, Books For Girls in response, and that in turn would lead you to my followup Female Characters In Heroic Fantasy. I'm just making it easier by putting the links here. I recommend comments be made here as well.
It would be interesting to correlate posts with reference sources. If it exists that's probably an extra cost option.
ReplyDeleteMy low numbers overall usually means I can eyeball it in with a few clicks.
ReplyDeleteIt is possible that it is an accident of bots surfing the net, alighting on either the word "sexism" or "Narnia."
My even lower numbers mean info is spread over a long time... Most I understand, but there's an oddball and I'm deeply curious about who was interested.
ReplyDeleteSounds like the beginning of a sci-fi short story...
ReplyDeleteSome things don't make a lot of sense. In the last month 1/7 of the references came from non-english google.X, but all of the search keywords are english. My 4'th highest viewed post is a ramble on the Supreme Court that didn't come to a clear conclusion.
ReplyDeleteAnd, as you found, a huge fraction of the links are robot click bait from bit.ly etc aimed at people who read their blog stats.
They are great posts. I enjoyed them. But can't pass them on to my brats, lest they ferociously track my posts back to me....
ReplyDeleteI greatly enjoyed the Narnia stories (one a year given me by my beloved godfather), as a welcome break from all the Greek and Roman myths, Robin Hood, Rudyard Kipling, Arthurian legends, knights, G.A. Hentie etc. I mostly read to escape my boring life on a Pennsylvania farm as a little girl. Because there were girls in them who did something besides be rescued, sigh and die over the men, etc. However, I didn't like Lucy (prissy, insufferable little twit) or Susan (dreary future homemaker, bossy-boots) at all. Neither were a model of feminity that appealed to me. I loved the character of Aravis and could relate to her, as I often fantasised about running away from home on my Shetland pony (yeah, kids are dumb). I also found the treachery and redemption of Edmund incredibly rich and a good cautionary tale. And I could relate to Eustace as I tended to be an insufferable teacher's pet myself, telling others what to do....and not fitting in with the cooller, beautiful people. I remind myself of the perils to him of greedy thoughts,and dragons hoards daily....whenever focussing to much on stuff I like or want. Jill was okay in "The Silver Chair" too. Wickedly, I rather liked the power and pizzazz of Jadis, but figured out as I grew up that C.S. Lewis had some real issues with powerful, non-domestic women. The whole business of war being a horrible thing when women participate. Tell that to a brave female Israeli soldier! War is a horrible thing when anyone has to resort to it, but gender is not the reason for the horror.
I sorta, kinda liked Hermione but not much real depth to the character. Tho I did like the "we might get killed. Worse, we might get expelled." line in the movie.
My daughters loathed the entire genre of young adult coming of age novels, ESPECIALLY the ones about girls. They used to make barfing noises after returning from our library's "Young Critics" group and tell me "just the usual periods, divorce, abuse and alcoholism around a Mary Sue" when I asked what they had read and discussed. They and my son all avidly read fantasy adventure, played RPGs, and wrote fantasy novels in their teens, play around creating RPGs or tinkering with code on existing ones. The point is, I shriek as (tho I loved Tolkien, Lewis, Herbert, etc.) I was never as immersed in it all as they are.
From AVI's wife - Retriever which fantasy adventures did they like?
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