Torchwood: The Twilight Streets...

[fajrdrako]

Today I read Torchwood: the Twilight Streets by Gary Russell. A reaction, I suppose, to the end of this series.

I started it a couple of days ago, but I'm having trouble reading. When I start, I fall asleep. For the first while, I could only read a few pages at a time, and then fall asleep. I still fell asleep a lot today, but got through to the end. And enjoyed it.

Didn't enjoy it as much as the other Torchwood books to date, though, of which Another Life by Peter Anghelides was probably the best. This one is in many ways a sequel to "End of Days", set somewhere in the middle of series 2.

The plot-style was more like that of a comic book than a prose novel: there are many wonders and strangenesses, like magic and dream sequences and alternate futures. Which I happen to like: but the book doesn't have the same combinations of outrageousness and seriousness we see in the show. There are lots of strong visual images - for instance, Toshiko in whiteface dressed up in Kabuki costume, her eyes black, using fans as weapons. Or Torchwood creating an empire with Jack's captive undying body as its power-base.

This follows on the story of "End of Days" with the return of Bilis, and something of an explanation as to what Abaddon and Bilis were up to. The explanation is rather like Babylon 5, not a bad thing - i.e., the Light and the Dark are at war. They are... noncorporeal rift-creatures.

Bits I liked most:

1. The first chapter. Images of Jack in the 1930s, loosely attached to Torchwood as a freelancer, in a Torchwood Daimler with a beautiful driver. We get a glimpse of what Torchwood in Cardiff was like at the time, and Jack very much in love with a Torchwood agent named Greg Bishop.
   
   
2. An interesting passage on page 126 about Ianto, which is somewhat unlike the tone of the rest of the book, and fascinating. I've long been saying I'd like to see something on the show about Ianto's feelings regarding sexuality, particularly his own. Here he has a conversation with Gwen:

   Gwen stopped again. 'I dunno which scares me more - that your man worked you out ten years before you did, or that the fourteen-year-old Ianto Jones used the phrase "poptastic danceability" without getting beaten up.'
   
   ...'She didn't work me out, Gwen. No one has. And if I ever do, I'll let you know.'
   
   Gwen smiled, nudged his arm. 'Oh come on, smile. Lisa, Jack... being bisexual is hardly a crime. Best of both worlds, isn't it?'
   
   And Ianto pushed her away. 'No, Gwen. No, really it's bloody not. It's the worst of any world because you don't really belong anywhere, because you are never sure of yourself or those around you. You can't trust in anyone, their motives or their intentions. And because of that, in a world that likes its nice shiny labels, no true identity.'

   Now, as you all know, I tend to think Gwen is right and that being bi is the best of both worlds, but this is an interesting bit of monologue from Ianto. And I'd love to hear it in the context of a conversation with Jack!
   
   Gwen then refers to Ianto as "the least highly strung of the team", which I think is far from the truth. But Gwen might well believe it.
   
   
3. An interesting/fun relationship between Jack and a city official who is immune to Retcon. Jack had snogged him and drugged him and they have an interesting love/hate snappiness going on as Jack still needs to go to him for help and information. And then a jealous Ianto gets in on the game.
   
   
4. We also learn what was going on with Torchwood during the events of "Boomtown".

Comments

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I've been holding this one back as a special prize to read some lazy afternoon, because it seemed to Iantolicious.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Ianto is lovely in it. In the other books (from last year) he was pretty much sidelined because of the Cyberwoman mystery. Now - he's front and centre, and there's his relationship with Jack to take into account. Wonderful!

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

That definitely sounds interesting!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Worth reading, certainly. I thought it was the least well-written of the four books I've read so far, but not by any means to the point of being annoying - just not as well plotted as the other and there was nothing in the style that struck me as particularly good. But definitely a good read and with some interesting bits about the characters.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Ianto's comments ring true from my experience of a GLB group at university in the 1980s. Things were very politicised (a woman to whom I was attracted gave me the brush-off because I wasn't "political enough"). Bisexual women in particular were badly treated by the militant lesbians – at least one of whom I remembered when she had been straight. It was all bound up with a sort of separatist feminism that regarded men as "the enemy". Some of them, I thought, didn't actually like women, but felt they had to identify themselves as lesbians on political grounds, and treated with contempt any woman who wasn't like them. At meetings, there was a boys' end of the room, and a girls' end of the room, and not that much mixing. Being bi was somehow regarded as being a "traitor", a way of keeping a foot in the straight world, not as a valid position in its own right. It wasn't "politicised" enough. Meanwhile, most straights thought of being bi as either cowardly/closeted (not brave enough to be fully gay) or a sign of extreme loucheness (s/he will shag anyone).

Ianto strikes me as someone from a socially conservative background (and remember, there's a strong Nonconformist chapel tradition in Wales). So it will have been difficult for him.

(As for being physically a-… I think that while we are at least now 'out', we are now the ones who are looked on as freaks, because mainstream popular culture is hyper-sexualised (in an artificial, porn-based way), and physical sexual activity seems to be regarded as compulsory. It's as if it's now the ultimate perversion to say, "You do as you wish, as consenting adults, but don't expect me to join in.")

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Ianto's comments ring true from my experience of a GLB group at university in the 1980s.

Yes. I like the way it shows there are different points of view on the matter, and mostly I like the way it focuses on Ianto's character - and it seems very in keeping to me: that he keeps himself to himself and goes his own way, but finds it difficult to be 'part of a whole' and feels the difference.

I have been in bi groups such as you describe, but they were made up of all women - a polarization with men wasn't obvious, and I wonder whether it would have been different (or how much so) if it had been a mixed-gender group. My impression is that the issues are rather different for men than for women. And I wonder whether the decade makes a difference - I was in these groups in the 1990s which is somewhat different from the 1980s, but I'm not sure by how much. I'd like to think things were getting a little less political, but I'm not sure.

Also, my group wasn't associated with the university, though (unsurprisingly) most of the organizers were from the university (want to guess how many were doing 'women's studies'?) and many were of that general age group.

I also in the 1990s was with another social group of bis, a mixed group, some of them married, of various ages and types - they were fascinating. I'd say that what they tended to have in common was (a) high intelligence and (b) messy lives.

And in both groups they ran the spectrum of the attitude from Ianto's to Gwen's. A shocking (to me) common thread was fear of their parents - either not wanting their parents to find out their sexual orientation, or underdoing horrible parental abuse because their parents had found out their sexual orientation and couldn't handle it.

Interestingly, Ianto doesn't seem to specifically have a problem with his parent's attitude, or at least doesn't mention it, even though the context of the conversation was about his mam. I would agree that his background is probably socially conservative - he can do the conservative image so easily, and yet clearly adapts as circumstances dictate to all sorts of styles. I like to think that he is finding his own style by the last half of series 2.

Sometimes when they publish novelizations based on TV shows, I wish they'd cross genres and give us a novel that's the experiences and thoughts of Ianto Jones - !

I think every individual has their own ultimate perversion. (Not sure what mine would be. Hmm.) I don't mind people opting being asexual as long as they don't mind me being sexual - and I would try not to foist anything on them. It all gets back to problems with labels and expectations.

I don't see many easy answers, either.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

The group I was in was called The Gay and Lesbian Awareness Society, and it was a brave soul who admitted to being bi then: it was seen as a failure to commit, rather than being valid in its own right. In the '80s, here, if you weren't straight, you felt under threat, because of Clause 2A/ Section 28, & c, which was seen as part of an effort to roll back the growing acceptance of gay people. Some people were very paranoid.

Also, my group wasn't associated with the university, though (unsurprisingly) most of the organizers were from the university (want to guess how many were doing 'women's studies'?) and many were of that general age group.

Ms Walking Stereotype, who had been straight, and quite feminine-looking, when she was a first year, had gone on a women's studies course to Canada in the summer vacation, and returned a butch stereotype, from cropped hair to Doc Martens! Apparently, she'd been seduced by her tutor on it (I got the impression the woman in question thought it was part of her teaching duties!), which raised serious ethical concerns in my mind. But she had "made a political decision" to be a lesbian. Those of us who simply liked women, and weren't trying to make a political statement, were considered feeble and "romantic". I recall, too, at the women's group lunches, that I complained about the food always being vegetarian or vegan. But there was always this assumption in those days that you had signed up to some kind of ideological package deal: that if you were a feminist and/or lesbian, you must also be a vegetarian, dress in dungarees or shapeless "ethical clothing" & c & c. Some people were actively trying to turn themselves into cardboard caricatures.

A shocking (to me) common thread was fear of their parents - either not wanting their parents to find out their sexual orientation, or underdoing horrible parental abuse because their parents had found out their sexual orientation and couldn't handle it.

I was fine talking to my Dad, but was scared of my Mum, although she was OK eventually when I did tell her I wasn't exactly the marrying kind… From previous comments, she had had the typical respectable working-class attitude that homosexuality was just something that the unrespectable upper-class did because they got sent to same-sex boarding schools… Which is just plain risible. Fortunately, she evolved out of that (I think realising that some nice elderly ladies we knew were probably a couple, and another family member coming out).

I think every individual has their own ultimate perversion.

I meant in terms of the eyes of society. It's as if anything is fine except not taking part.

I don't mind people opting being asexual as long as they don't mind me being sexual - and I would try not to foist anything on them. It all gets back to problems with labels and expectations.

It's an orientation, not an option. This is the issue. If there's a spectrum that runs Gay to Straight, there's also one that runs Highly Sexed to Asexual (and in emotional orientation, you can be Gay, Bi or Straight emotionally, and physically anywhere from A- to Highly Sexed). But socially, we've moved from a more restrained society to one in which you are expected to be sexually active, and are considered to be some kind of freak if you don't wish to be.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Some people were very paranoid.

Easy to understand the paranoia: justifiable for the most part.

had gone on a women's studies course to Canada in the summer vacation, and returned a butch stereotype, from cropped hair to Doc Martens!

LOL! I can just picture it.

"made a political decision" to be a lesbian

Now that, I simply don't understand. I understand being lesbian and becoming political about it. But becoming lesbian in order to be political just makes no sense at all.

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<i>Some people were very paranoid.</i>

Easy to understand the paranoia: justifiable for the most part.

<i>had gone on a women's studies course to Canada in the summer vacation, and returned a butch stereotype, from cropped hair to Doc Martens!</i>

LOL! I can just picture it.

<i>"made a political decision" to be a lesbian</i>

Now that, I simply don't understand. I understand being lesbian and becoming political about it. But becoming lesbian in order to be political just makes no sense at all.

<i.she had had the typical respectable working-class attitude that homosexuality was just something that the unrespectable upper-class did because they got sent to same-sex boarding schools… Which is just plain risible.</i>

My parents simply thought that being gay was a form of insanity. I never argued the point: didn't know how.

<i>It's as if anything is fine except not taking part.</i>

I can see that. It's one of the 'missing categories' in the spectrum, which in the mainstream view likes to make into dualities: gay or straight. But that's the wrong question.

The thing is, people see it as a linear thing - but it isn't. It's multidimensional.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Now that, I simply don't understand. I understand being lesbian and becoming political about it. But becoming lesbian in order to be political just makes no sense at all.

It was very much around in those days: some women who espoused a certain sort of radical feminism decided that sleeping with men was "collaborating with the enemy", even if they were originally straight, and decided to become lesbians as a political statement that was anti-men. I never got the sense that they actually liked women particularly, or that they particularly enjoyed lesbian relationships, but they just thought it was the "ideologically sound" thing to do.

My parents simply thought that being gay was a form of insanity. I never argued the point: didn't know how.

Good grief…
Luckily, my Dad has always been someone I could talk to about anything and everything.

The thing is, people see it as a linear thing - but it isn't. It's multidimensional.

Yup. And they come out with stupid things like, "Are you afraid of sex? Have you been traumatised?" To which the answer is, No, it just a) grosses me out æsthetically, and b) there are other things I find romantically appealing.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

and decided to become lesbians as a political statement that was anti-men.

That sounds to me like a recipe for unhappiness for everyone concerned.

I think the questions like "Are you afraid of sex? Have you been traumatised?" are holdovers from older forms of Freudian thinking which assume pathology where none exists, and which assume that our natures are created by reactions to events (particularly bad events) rather than our intrinsic nature. There are of course elements of both nature and nurture in us all, but to assume that we make our life-choices based only on negative reactions is absurd.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

That sounds to me like a recipe for unhappiness for everyone concerned.

Yup. I never understood that separatist mentality. I grew up regarding myself as the equal of any man, and have never felt intimidated or patronised for being a woman. If anything, I tend to be "one of the boys", as domesticated females' conversation (dating, kids, fitted kitchens, shoes, & c) bores the hell out of me. But I've never regarded men as another species, or 'the enemy'. Straight women, breeders especially, though… I think of them as strange and alien.

I think the questions like "Are you afraid of sex? Have you been traumatised?" are holdovers from older forms of Freudian thinking which assume pathology where none exists, and which assume that our natures are created by reactions to events (particularly bad events) rather than our intrinsic nature. There are of course elements of both nature and nurture in us all, but to assume that we make our life-choices based only on negative reactions is absurd.

Yes. And if people who say things like that knew me better, they would know that's not true at all. I'd say that factors are:

a) I have never liked any physically messy, squishy activity. Even as a small child, I was revolted by other kids making mud pies, and at primary school, I complained when we had to do finger-painting, because I preferred using a brush and hated getting paint on my hands. I loathed the Raisin Monday foam-fight rite of passage at university. Some of the things people do sexually just revolt my sense of fastidiousness. (I was utterly disgusted when I first heard about oral sex.)

b) My rabid æstheticism. I love beauty in both men and women, but if they keep their drawers on. I do not find the primary sexual bits at all æsthetically pleasing; indeed, the opposite.

c) I'm just not particularly a touchy-feely person.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I never understood that separatist mentality. I grew up regarding myself as the equal of any man, and have never felt intimidated or patronised for being a woman.

Neither have I - which is not to say I've never had issues with men, but those issues were personal, not gender-related.

My own bisexual viewpoint is much more along the lines of gender doesn't matter and we all tend to do better if we don't waste time fighting gender wars, but find ways of helping and supporting each other regardless of gender.

Everybody has their own likes and dislikes. Too many people think everyone should feel the same way they do about things, rather than trying to see things from the other person's point of view.

[fruitbat813.livejournal.com]

So what was going on with Torchwood during Boomtown? Spoil me, I want to know. :)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Jack made the Torchwood Team all stay inside the Hub for the duration - didn't want them to run into a duplicate of himself. And didn't want to risk running into himself.