Two links

[rymenhild]

yuki_onna has written eloquently on why she does not intend to see Narnia.

You see, no child of this generation will ever misunderstand Turkish Delight. They will never know in their hearts that it is dark and sinister and chocolatey and cinnamon-studded and caramel-crusted and smelling slightly of smoke and myrrh, that it absolutely melts on your tongue and shivers down your throat, no matter how the candy shop insists that the lump of powdered rosewater gelatin is the real thing. That, my friends, is tragic. I have the right to misunderstand it, like every other American child of my age, and to laugh at myself for my clinging to such a ridiculous misreading.

That, I understand.

Meanwhile, Slate informs us that Turkish Delight really tastes vile, after all.

***

Yes, I know that I owe some of you happy words. In fact, those of you whom I owe happy words are among my closest friends and deserve lots of happy words. They will come; don't worry.

Comments

[mmymoon.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I must agree with the Slate author -- my ignorance of the true treat is exactly what keeps it magical. Perhaps the generational and cultural ignorance of real Turkish Delight will let it become this fantastic treat: gingerbread-spiced for me, chocolate-cream for another, perhaps lemony for a third... your darkest candy desires made flesh, at least in the imagination. For even if it were a real chocolate candy, that couldn't be universally delicious, either. I love mint, lots of my friends loathe it... and then you've got the issues of nuts, and peanut butter, and caramel, and even little fruit pieces... even after learning of the real Turkish Delight, I still have to envision it as something shifting to each person's tastes, like Mary Poppin's medicines.

Imaginary candy worked quite well for Wonka, after all. (You cannot convince me those sad little grocery store jawbreakers are intended to be real everlasting gobstoppers.)

[mmymoon.livejournal.com]

Mmm, and upon reading the full article, Miss Valente's, too. "I want the wrong Turkish Delight" could be a motto...

I think movies bother me less than some bookish grown-children because I don't "see" books. I don't "hear" them either... it's sort of a dreamy concept-soup. It's honestly only now in my old age that I'll even pause to read out a certain pretty turn of phrase, to savour it. Some friends have said I must have a horrible perception, but I certainly don't love reading books any less for it. But I certainly don't see them, or hear them -- my White Witch has no real face. (I had a blurry picture of Gollum as a sort of small dark furred creature, and his CGI self hasn't changed that in re-readings of the Hobbit.)

Cover-art is almost as suspect.

But I heartily agree that movies are not the ultimate expressions of books. And claim that the original animated "The Last Unicorn" is perhaps the best fantasy adaptation to date. I've never heard squabbling over that one! I'm also eager to see Miyazaki's Earthsea... it's got to be a mite better than the mini-series version.

[ayelle.livejournal.com]

I've had Turkish Delight brought to me from Turkey, and yes, it's rather gross, utterly spoiling the marvelous mystery of the candy of the book. IMHO the rose-flavored kind is the only kind that's not spit-back-in-your-hand nasty.

[muchabstracted.livejournal.com]

Well, I liked both Turkish and UK versions of Turkish Delight. But I tend to like anything that has chocolate, no matter how low quality. I found almost everyone else disagreed with me about it.

And yes, I rather think that seminar papers take precedence over a meme. I doubt anyone has been offended.

[cataptromancer.livejournal.com]

I've never understood the principle of not wanting to see book-movies because of fear of imaginative colonization. As a kid, I remember accepting lynch's "dune" as an interpretation, but keeping all of my own ideas and mental pictures, and the same goes for the jackson LOTR.

As for turkish delight -- oh, I love it. I was in england as a kid and actually had tasted turkish delight before I read the narnia books. There was one brand of turkish delight (if my internet research is right, it was "fry's") that was chocolate covered and fruit flavored, and very good. I imagine the turkish delight edmund has is more like that, more westernized, than the traditional lokum one gets in turkey, although that is very good, too.

[thoroughbass.livejournal.com]

Indeed, I like both kinds, too, but particularly the Turkish kind with pistachios. Fry's is part of the Evil Quaker Chocolate Conspiracy that blights the history of ninetteenth- and twentieth-century British confectionary. Pacifism, good labor relations, and tooth decay!

[thoroughbass.livejournal.com]

A gentleman of my acquaintance told me a joke this week-end. It goes, "What do you call a Muppet who only appears once?"

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

I don't know. What do you call a Muppet who only appears once?

[thoroughbass.livejournal.com]

Ἁπαξ μεναμενὰ.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

Alas, all I have of Greek is the ability to sound out the alphabet most of the time, but I'm sure that's groanworthy. :)

[thoroughbass.livejournal.com]

Hapax mahnahmanah.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

Ow. *grin*

[muchabstracted.livejournal.com]

Ooooh.

[cataptromancer.livejournal.com]

Oh my god.

[gramarye1971]

*pops in while checking e-mail to reply*

Some very good points in that post...though I have to say, I tried Turkish delight when I was in my mid-teens, almost a decade after I'd read LWW for the first time. And the repulsively sweet taste nearly killed me then, so I could completely see how the Witch's Turkish delight would have been enchanted to make the taster want to eat more and more of it until it killed him...it was insidious, in a way.

And by that time, I was also old enough to know about the Blitz, and the sugar rationing, and I could realise that sugar was so precious back then that any boy of Edmund's age would have done anything for a taste of something so sweet and decadent, something so unashamedly sugary and so contrary to all of the hardships he'd gone through in the war. It's pure greed, really. And it made the Chronicles all that much more real to me -- it added a resonance to the knowledge that our secret desires are not always so pleasant when they are made manifest.

I'm just sad that the children of today aren't really going to realise and appreciate that fact in the way that the children who first read the Chronicles back in the 1950s might've been able to appreciated it. I had to learn about it second-hand, and I feel as if something's been lost along the way.