[LMB] Characters and their acceptability

[Stewart Dean]

>
> Interesting, because I found Fawn's family were within an acceptible range, and I came to
> particularly like her parents by the end of the book.
>
> Dag's family, I disliked and found unredeemable.
One of the truisms of parenting that you don't really 
perceive/appreciate/accept at the deepest level until far into parenting 
is that you can't really mold your children, and that, after all, you 
and your spouse are no great shakes yourselves.  Parenting is not only a 
race you never finish, but it's also one you can't win.  You can only 
hope to osmotically transfuse some heart and decency.  Fawn's parents 
are living in a world beyond their control with the hope that it will 
all work out.  One has to give them that acknowledgment for whatever 
their flaws
Dag's family, OTOH, is trying ferociously to control everything...and 
the Lakewalker's world and world view is similarly crystallized.  
They've got the trees in death grip, but the forest is escaping them.  
They and their mission is, bluntly, doomed.  Yeats' Second Coming: "The 
worst are full of passionate intensity, the best lack all conviction"
And Dag has been ground down/enlightened to a state of surrender and 
opening...he sees and opens to what the world is and can offer.....and needs

-- 
// Stewart Dean == Kingston, NY