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2004 Announcing 
New Original Sime~Gen Novels 
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
Jean Lorrah

From
Meisha Merlin Publishing Inc. 

Sime~Gen Inc. Presents

ReReadable Books

August 2005

"The Prayer For Peace"

By

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

 

 

 To send books for review in this column email Jacqueline Lichtenberg, jl@simegen.com for snailing instructions or send an attached RTF file.  
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The Visitor by Barbara Ruffin, Awe-Struck E-books, Aug. 2005

Embracing Darkness by Margaret Carter, Silhouette Intimate Moments, March 2005

Finders Keepers by Linnea Sinclair, Bantam Spectra, April 2005

Last month we looked closely at "love" as a possible replacement for the Hero Myth. And we found in the novel The Visitor by Barbara Ruffin, an alien on a mission to save his whole people who declared, "The needs of the many supersede the needs of the few."

This is a theme or philosophy that expresses one of the conflicts inherent in all our lives, the 7th House vs. the 1st House. Self vs. Other.

The astrological natal chart depicts this self/other dichotomy as inherently "square" or at right angles to, or thwarting the home/career dichotomy of 4th House vs. 10th .

You can create a "natal chart" for nations, too. And nations, too have this same 4-point dynamic tension.

If astrology accurately depicts the way each person and nation fits into the time-governed universe, then these conflicts are inherent and cannot be resolved.

If it is true that such basic conflicts are inherent in existence, then there is no such thing as "peace" – unless you define peace as the perfect balance among these forces.

In the fields of commercial, spiritual, and recreational storytelling, it is well known that a narrative devoid of conflict will not be interesting. It’s no "fun" to go on a journey where nothing happens.

The Romance novel usually ends where the Relationship is established and defined (marriage, living-with, dating, etc.). The assumption is that once the conflict is resolved and the couple "get together" then they live "happily ever after" and nothing further happens. It’s no longer interesting because they are "at peace."

Thus we feel where there are no imbalances, problems, threats, enemies, adversaries, or giant projects, purposes and goals, life is dull and uninteresting.

Yet, when we pray for peace – isn’t that what we’re praying for? Isn’t the prayer that the fighting (terrorist explosions, mass troop invasions, or just the back-stabbing at the PTA meetings,) would stop?

Yet the moment it stops, we get busy and create more fighting over something else – because "peace" is boring.

Sometimes when we pray for "peace" we are invoking for a condition where our own will and values reign unchallenged. "Peace" often means "we win; you lose, so shut up already."

Sometimes, when we pray for "peace" what we are really invoking for is dominance. And the result of achieving dominance is a dynamic rebound into a condition of being dominated.

Do we want "world peace" so badly we’re willing to live in a world governed totally by the oldest interpretations of the Koran? If we aren’t willing to do that, what are we really invoking when we hold ceremonies for peace?

What is "peace?"

"Peace" seems as hard to define as "love."

Lets look at the Devil Card. There are more interpretations of The Devil Card than there are of the concepts Love and Peace. Try this one: The Devil card represents your deepest repressed conflicts or "issues." Usually that’s parental issues, or fears and terrors inculcated by experiences before the age of three. These are the subconscious "scripts" which govern our lives until we dig them out and confront them.

To an adult, a tabby cat with bottlebrushed tail spitting ferociously is a little problem to be solved. To an infant, it’s a threat beyond all comprehension. Retrieve the memory of being terrified by the housecat attacking your father and scratching his face, and you as an adult will no longer be terrified of small animals.

That cat-phobia of an adult is represented by The Devil Card. Such a Devil Card phobia can also be a fear of intimate relationships 1st / 7th , or a flinching cringe before a raging boss at work 4th / 10th , a flinch that denies you a solid marriage or a good promotion forever.

In The Visitor, Raffin shows us the pivotal moment when Rebecca, the female lead of this story, has found in new widowhood the knowledge that she was destroying her marriage by her inability to be satisfied with a reasonable amount of attention from her husband. She had become a smothering, clinging vine to him.

In another part of the story, we learn that Rebecca believes she was not accepted in her husband’s "high society" circle because she was raised in many foster homes.

But Rebecca herself doesn’t connect these two facts properly. She doesn’t realize that the reason she has a huge, neurotic black hole in her heart is that she didn’t have parents to pour that affection into her in infancy. So today, she continues to battle to drag affection out of others. And without that conscious identification of the source of her behavior, she will never be able to cease clinging.

We don’t follow Rebecca offstage for two years of growth, so we don’t know if she does this Devil Card initiation before she returns and establishes her new Relationship. But we do know that she can not have peace in her marriage until she does make it through the Devil Card initiation.

Rebecca is one very common type of Romance Novel heroine, one who is caught up in the deep need for what she believes is "love" but is really just the need for affection left over from infancy. She wants her husband to "love" her as if she were his child.

Such a person can find no stable inner peace and therefore will generate chaos and strife around them. She prays for love but what she really wants is peace, so no amount of love makes her feel "right."

Remember when we first met Rebecca, she was in the depths of depression following the loss of her husband. She was in a moment of paralysis in her life.

In Embracing Darkness, Margaret Carter brings us into Linnet Carroll’s life at the moment when her niece has died mysteriously and the police don’t seem to be helping. She is staking out the house of her own prime murder suspect which is also under surveillance by a vampire who introduces himself. He wants to find out what she’s up to with those binoculars. The vampire, Maxwell Tremayne is after the killer of his younger brother who was dating Linnet’s niece. The owner of that house is the murderer.

Linnet has focus, purpose and a goal before Max meets her. He is thinking only that her actions will get in his way. Her aggressive determination to catch this killer attracts him, but he stays because of her indomitable spirit and teaches her what, exactly, she’s up against.

In Finders Keepers, Linnea Sinclair spins an interstellar tale of a woman very much like Raffin’s Rebecca, Trilby Elliot, an orphan who survived being a street waif to own a tramp cargo hauler doing short interplanetary runs.

While holed up on a remote planet to fix her ship without paying port fees, she sees a small ship crash and rescues the single, injured pilot.

As with Rebecca, Trilby’s alien turns out to be a human of high station in his society, someone she doesn’t think can have any regard for a dock-waif like her. He betrays her by hijacking her ship to get home fast with the intel he’s picked up from the non-humans who are enemies of both her government and his.

After they risk their lives together to save both human governments, Trilby decides that she found him, so she has the right to keep him. He thinks that’s a fine idea.

Both Linnet and Trilby are embroiled in external conflicts when men charge into their lives like the Knight of Swords. They have goals that do not include praying for peace, nor yearning desperately to be loved. They fall in love with men who adopt their goals and love them for their choice of goal, and for their accomplishments.

They do not want to be loved as if they were children. For them, love means alliance, help against opposing forces, magnificent, strong and admirable help, help that adores them for their admirable traits.

These are swashbuckling romances where the women both swash and buckle, and never let themselves be dominated even when totally defeated. These novels leave you not at peace but anticipating a sequel with more side-by-side fighting in a tight, committed, loyal and trusting alliance against enemies. They leave you with a ferocious grin on your face, not a tear in your eye.

Is that peace? Having a staunch, strong ally you can count on to fight your battles with you? Is that what love is? Or is that just a necessary pre-condition for love? Or do we prefer this kind of novel because there’s no threat of a boring peace taking hold.

What is love? How is it related to peace? And what has dominance to do with any of that?

To send books for review in this column email Jacqueline Lichtenberg, jl@simegen.com for snailing instructions or send an attached RTF file.  

 

 

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