Laura Ingalls Wilder: faction

[ancientbuchanan]

Was anyone else as devastated as I was when I learned that a lot of LIW's stuff was made up?

Well, it's not exactly made up, but sanitised. It is a kids' story after all... she omitted stuff like them skipping town to dodge their debts, and her little brother dying IIRC?

What's really interesting is the idea that they were shaped by Laura's daughter Rose, who co-wrote them, as a libertarian fable.

Sorry, meant to link to an interesting article - there's lots more about the Wilders out there.

If you were setting out to write about your life, not as a strict autobiography, but as stories for children (like telling your grandchildren), you would undoubtedly edit them a bit, maybe rearrange the timeline to make it easier to understand, leave out bits you didn't want to talk about or that might embarrass the family. You'd also be trying to remember a lifetime away and put all those snatches of memory into a story which has to flow (and she was trying to earn a living with this writing, not just do it for fun).

I never regarded the books as historical fact, and I still enjoy reading them now

I was quite upset when I discovered that lots of the characters were amalgamations rather than based on actual individuals. I loved the books when I was little and they were just so real in my mind.

But Almanzo never saw a blanket Indian... I think it was that episode in The Long Winter not being true that devastated me most. I could forgive the amalgamation, the omissions, but not the detail.

And yes, on Rose, brilliant editor, poor writer, with the opposite true of Laura.

I like the way it's written as a book to read rather than a history or honest memoir. Merging characters makes sense and the timeline of jack dying makes good sense in the fictional version. Enough of it was true for me to enjoy it. I am and always will be in love with Pa. and almamzo a bit when he collects Laura from work.

No, it didn't bother me too much; I wanted to find out more, and I've quite liked reading about Rocky Ridge and so on.

One day I'd like to see some of the LIW houses.

It doesn't bother me - I was too busy being blown away that any of it was even slightly true.

I want to Tour the houses but Dh will never agree. If I win the lottery I'll fund a coach trip for fans!

It didn't bother me at all. i read them as stories as a child and was delighted to learn that she was a real person. I have read a lot about them since, and it hasn't spoiled the books for me at all.

I don't think they could ever be regarded as historically accurate, could they? They're classics of How the West Was Won (subtext: the white Europeans were perfectly justified in coming in, nicking land, killing the native population and the buffalo, and 'civilising' the country with hoop skirts and Christianity).

The link with a deliberately propagandist message wasn't one I was aware of but the pioneers/the cowboys have always been the symbol of American grit, self-sufficiency and triumph over adversity. I think the books would have been told in a very similar style even if not against the backdrop of the Great Depression.

Yes, I was! They were my favourite books as a child, and in the days before the internet it was very difficult for a youngster to research their authenticity. There is a fascinating aacount in one of her books (can't remember which one, memory like a sieve) which explains how they came into print - her daughter was the driving force behind them really, iirc, and they didn't have the easiest of literary relationships. Even though they were factional, I often wonder what Eliza Jane thought of the less than favourable way she was portrayed - anyone know?

I'm coming with you, Shake.

Actually, I've always admired her for her attitudes: she clearly disapproves of Ma's hatred of the native population, wants a papoose, admires Soldat du Chene, supports Pa when he says he would never have taken the land if it were not legal, understands the attitude of wanting to be free like the native Americans and the wild animals. She also basically points out they would have died without the African American doctor + wife.

It's Ma whose attitudes I find hard. ( I can understand Ma's fears though.)

And the message of self sufficiency washed over me too. Ok Rose expressed it, especially in Let the Hurricane Roar, but much of the LH books is really about how as well as paddling your own canoe you have to be a good neighbour.

And I disagree that the grant point doesn't come across. For me it did, hugely. Free, almost free land. Uncle Sam has promised us a farm. Pa sings it, the land registry episode is a great one.

I fell in love with Mr Edwards and Cap Garland. Almanzo was a bit too stolid. I wanted to be Mr Edwards, I suppose.

Pa is quite like Father in the Kate Seredy books.

Interesting question - quite a lot of speculation on t'internet as you might imagine, that it was because the senior Wilders were bankrupted in their later years by investing in rice farming on the advice of Eliza Jane but weirdly Rose, who supposedly ghost-wrote the books, lived with EJ whilst completing her schooling so Laura and Almanzo must have trusted her to some extent.

I wonder if Rose disliked her for her own reasons (nothing to suggest this is so) or if the fact she was dead made it kind of okay to turn her into a pantomime villain. I seem to recall her as a sort of forerunnner of Dolores Umbridge in Harry Potter.

It's interesting that it's something that is speculated upon but nothing in writing exists to suggest why she was so vilified - they must have been well aware that they were were painting a pretty awful picture of her. Poor lazy, lousy Liza Jane

I don't see EJ in Farmer Boy as a disliked character. Almanzo is clearly closer to Alice, but considering their relative ages that's realistic as they are playmates. EJ was a very believeable bossy older sister. You can imagine Almoanzo feeling frustrated and irritated by her, even when acknowledging she was right.

As the school teacher you could see the same characteristics (bossy, determined they were right and wanting their own way) so I would guess it probably is a realistic portrayal of her.
Simply because I generally find that series of books that have a child growing up to an adult, that often you see little evidence that the child has become the adult, even with good writers. So to manage to do that if the character was made up is obviously quite hard.

Tribpot, I am now fully engrossed in the site you attached, dammit. I can foresee spending my time between MN and it. Thanks v much. Work, sleep, housework are all displaced.

I always liked the bit where Eliza Jane saves Almanzo's bacon by papering over the mark where he threw the blacking brush at her. She admits there that it was her fault too (for being deliberately aggravating), and she really puts in the effort, matching up the pattern and scraping the edges flat, so her parents never knew.

I agree.