Bit of Ivory

In one of my classes the prof decided that rather than have a semester paper we’d do 4 smaller “Oxford style” tutorial papers; thus my verse forms in LotR and Love and Marriage in LotR papers. They’ve been fun and relatively painless; no research is actually required, which I’m not used to doing these days. Kind of nice.

In the other class, though, we’ve got a regular term paper– resarch, lotsa pages, the works. We have to have a proposal ready by Monday, when I have a meeting with the prof. I was having a really hard time coming up with an idea. I haven’t adored any of the books we’ve read so far, and none of the concepts we discussed have really grabbed me either.

Until last week.

We had read a book called Olive– not that great a book, really. It’s out of print and our of canon. But it did have one interesting feature– the protagonist has a disability. Well, they call it a deformity, being Victorians, but there you are. Actually, her– gee, what do you call it? problem?– is not really much of a disability– her back is slightly rounded, her neck slightly short– but she doesn’t even *realize* she has a problem until she’s 16. Anyway, it was very unusual for a heroine to have a disability in Victorian times, and it was especially unusual for a character with a disability to find love and get married, which Olive does. We talked about her journey, how her disability allowed her to do things that a “whole” person wouldn’t have been able to do, how she becomes an artist as a way of proving herself and. . . I had an epiphany.

Olive’s journey is very similar to Miles Vorkosigan’s.

And I discussed my idea with my teacher, and she agreed!

Heh. I’m writing a paper on Bujold!!!