Friday, June 01, 2012

faith, god, doubt and asking the hard questions in catherine marshall's Christy

What ho, fair readers of ye olde bloggie!

Today I AM FAMOUS ELSEWHERE

I have once more contributed to Femnista at Charity's Place  and you can find me on p.24-25 of the May/June Issue: HERE

Did I write about Christy? yes.  Do you want a gratuitous Christy and Neil MacNeill picture from the cheesy tv adaptation? Okay. Well.....


7 comments:

Unknown said...

Loved your article, wonderful piece Rachel!!!

Charity said...

You wrote an incredible article. I loved it. Thanks so much for contributing!

Confessin: I love Neil in the book. But in the series, I never liked him as much as I liked David. =/

Rachel said...

thanks! but Charity I HATE david so much that even in the series I prefer Neil; because at least he has fire and passion and DOES something--- David just makes Christy a wooden plank with a scripture verse on it.

have you seen the other Christy adaptation---- same Neil---different Christy; shorter so a better reflection of the novel.

the Christy series is a completely separate entity for me from the books... because it's another world altogether :)

can't wait til next femnista!

Rachel said...

haha. David Grantland is MY LEAST favourite character in all of literature.

I ship Christy/Neil something FIERCE

so much so that if I do watch the series, I throw rolled up socks at poor David's nose.

grrrr DAVID! ;)

Charity said...

David in the book is dreadful. They made him a lot nicer in the series. As a little girl, I liked him because he was a Christian (Neil wasn't, and never did become one in the series) and he never picked fights with Christy. He was stable, reliable, and good-looking. I like Neil better now as an adult, but as a practical, logical little girl, it was David all the way. (Probably still would be, actually. What can I say? As you said, the book and series are different, so I am allowed to like David in one, right?)

But feel free to disagree with me. Most people do. =P

Yes, I saw the Hallmark movies. They should have recast the entire cast if they were just going to recycle some of the plots from the series; it felt redundant and not well fleshed out, and I disliked the "new" Miss Alice. I watched them once, but never again.

Rachel said...

you're right that neil doesn't become a christian in the series; but i think that's because the ending was so ambiguous they never got around to it ( where i find it quite blatant in the book). i always was attracted to neil because of the way he challenged her and brought out her fire ( the same way i was attracted to paul emmanuel in 'villette' and dean priest in the emily trilogy. i read christy long before i saw the series (for the first time, i am ALWAYS reading 'christy' ) and so i guess allowed myself to be attracted to neil because i knew his agnostic ways would change. i always found neil far better looking, too. in my mind's eye. as for the actor, he has a scottish accent ( my favourite in the world ) and i wasn't really attracted to david at all. i have a theory about the ending of 'book' christy: i was really peeved when i learned that leonora whitaker wood married the "david" character --- the preacher. as a minister's kid i was, like, "eww. who wants to marry a preacher'; but then i read more about scotch preacher peter marshall and realized that as much as marshall infused her mother's story and life into the tale; so did marshall insert her own life and path. while david might represent her father and her mother's husband, neil was a nice little replica of some of the fiery, challenging, intelligent aspects of peter marshall on page :) ha ha ! the christy love triangle. i would MUCH rather talk about it than stupid edward and bella or peeta and gale :)

Charity said...

I have a running theory -- further emboldened by your comment -- that preachers' daughters NEVER like David in the series. The most adament David-haters I have met are all minister's daughters!

I, on the other hand, always wanted to marry a minister. I was always ATTRACTED to ministers in television shows. David is one example. Colin, in "Snowy River," is another. Who cared about Rob McGregor? I loved his brother! I guess I found their spiritual depth attractive, much in the same way as a child I thought being a nun would be terribly romantic.

The show started when I was too young to read Christy, so I was surprised to read the book a couple of years later and discover the characters were so different. We almost never watched TV, so have that air on CBS (I had them taped off on VHS for YEARS, until the DVD set finally came out) was a big deal for a little girl.

Neil in the series... so not my type. He seemed too old to be Neil, and... redhead. Not a fan of redheads. I've always liked guys with dark hair -- tall guys. (You see why I liked David? ;)

As for the rest of the love triangles out there -- Bella should be with Jacob, because he'd make a better husband, and I don't think Katniss should be with Peeta OR Gale, since I can't see much emotional attachment in her to either one of them. Plus, Gale just up and left her. She never really CHOSE Peeta. COP OUT.