Story 111: "Melancholia" by Jeylan

[wendelah1]

"Melancholia" is one of the most unabashedly Romantic stories ever written in this fandom. It seems like it shouldn't work: an old, abandoned house, a graveyard in the rain, Mulder reading Marvell and Shelly and weaving a wreath of flowers for Scully's hair. Her Mulder is mercurial and Byronic, her Scully more earthbound. It's a love story for the ages.

Or is it?

Suggested by estella_c, seconded by me.

By all means, send the author feedback, and then let us know what you think. Suggestions for next time can be made at our nomination post. There is still plenty of time to read and comment on last week's Gutless", too.

"Melancholia"

Comments

[estella-c.livejournal.com]

Did I rec this? That was me? Okay.

There are things I like about Melancholia and things I don't. I'm concerned about explaining the latter without being called out for getting extra-textual and irrelevant.

This fic is a real change of pace, first, lushly romantic in a deliberately old-fashioned way, and that is--in leucocrystal's word--endearing. Multiple spring flowers, an abandoned book and graveyard evoking the past, two soon-to-be-lovers hanging out and eying each other. Mulder seems to be in a down mood about ever, ever making love to Scully, but that passes when he finally makes his desperate move. The sex is both soulful and erotic and actually just edgy enough to hold your attention firmly and leave you...unsettled.

Incidentally, Jeylan can write. No question about it. The woman has talent. Talent is the base line and then there's, well, agenda.

When I first read this I did feel an oddness in the characterization, though not enough to bother me. The oddness becomes focused, now that I (and most others) have heard about Jeylan's negative attitude toward Scully. Jeylan was more than a Mulderist; she was an anti-Scullyist. And I doubt that she would argue with that description.

As I've so often heard other's say about other fics, I just didn't recognize this Scully. Meaninglessly argumentative to begin with, then distracted by her imaginary residence-rehab, she doesn't seem at all the empathetic and bright person Gillian Anderson played. Mulder talks a lot about Scully's "typical" attitudes and behavior without convincing me that he really understands her at all. He's in love with her, all right, and he sure thinks she's pretty with the sun on her hair and all, and he solves his melancholy problem by jumping her bones. (The first thing he does is thrust his hand between her legs. That's pretty exciting. He does it several times--three?--and that was at least once too often.)

What is Scully doing all this time. What is she thinking? We don't actually know. She's enigmatically watching and waiting and straightening her poppy wreath and just generally, according to our restless narrator, giving off please-conform-and-be-sensible vibrations. Scully was, of course, the conforming and sensible memeber of the partnership. But I think Jeylan has pushed her into a passive parody of herself.

This makes Mulder's rough and determined approach to making love--to *force* Scully to react--a little squicky. It appears that she enjoys herself, she says so before she goes off to neaten up, but I get the feeling that we are meant to sympathize with Mulder's frustration, even at the very end, in having fallen in love with such a blank and self-absorbed individual.

Nope, Jeylan doesn't like Scully and finally did dispose of her fictionally and introduce Mulder to gay culture. ("The woman turned him gay.") So we part ways. Because I like Scully.

One last ironic point. We've talked a bit about poetic prose here, pro and con, without ever defining it. This story is *really* poetic, with whole passages from PB Shelley and others. That I liked. (Though not for every day.)

[wendelah1]

Yes, you wanted to discuss this and I have the email to prove it.

I think this is a very fair review. I agree with everything you said about the story and Jeylan's antagonistic attitude toward Scully (and toward Gillian Anderson, too, apparently). I really admire her writing, but her characterization of Scully is beyond off.

The sex scenes are problematic. Aren't they always in Jeylan's MSR fic? You get carried away by her passionate, lyrical writing, but the truth is, if someone actually grabbed my crotch during a first kiss, he'd get told to stop it, if he didn't get slapped. I don't think that's a real smooth move, and I don't see Mulder doing it or Scully putting up with it if he did.

I think Jeylan sees this love affair as an unequal yoking, to use some old-fashioned language. If only she could have seen and written Scully as clearly and with as much insight as she does Mulder, she would have been one of the greats.

Here's a crazy idea: someone needs to remix this and tell it from Scully's point of view. Any takers?

[hlbr.livejournal.com]

I love love love this fic's prose.

That said, I think you nailed it with the squicky thing--I can't like Mulder like this. There are many many moments were he sounds true to me, but I end up liking Scully, as unsympathetically and un-Scully as she's drawn (and that makes me sad--and makes me think there are tons of stuff going inside her that we're not getting that actually explain her behaviour), because I just can't help thinking he's being asshole-ish and that I don't get at all why he's in love with her. Is it because she's beautiful? He's always sad when describing one of what he says are her typical attitudes...

This fic makes me think that you will always be alone because people cannot understand each-other at all, and only connect but fleetingly. I wonder when it was posted--canon timing wise, and if it fits with their relationship at the time?

[wendelah1]

I love this story's prose, too. I'm seduced by it. I end up liking Scully, too, despite how unsympathetically she's been written (take that, Jeylan!).

I also got very plugged into the last lines where Mulder is feeling alone, because even the person he loves and who loves him back doesn't understand him. I felt that way, all the time when I was growing up, so that sense of alienation feels familiar, and she writes that beautifully. What I think Jeylan has missed the boat on to some extent, in her portrayal of Special Snowflake Mulder, is that the alienation is not anyone's fault and that the distancing is to a great extent, self-protective. She is a much better stylist than she is a student of human nature.

[hlbr.livejournal.com]

I like both poetic and more simple prose, but poetic prose done well is just so gorgeous. I mean, I should be really annoyed with this fic, because character bashing in general gets my hackles up like nothing else, but I'm all O_O oh pretty.

That last feeling really got me*, too, because it resonated a lot with me and what I usually feel about the people around me. All the same, that's not how I see them usually (they have their moments, of course), which is why I can't help wondering if it's just a consequence of her really hating Scully, or if it was written at a particularly place in canon when it was a common interpretation of the true nature of their relationship.

*Particularly, because I can only rarely verbalize a general feeling a story gave me, and that last part made it clear consciously for me that it was about alienation.

[leucocrystal]

Yeah... pretty much this. I'd add more, but I really do think you and amyhit covered it all.

The most I remember about the first time I read this fic was how odd the whole thing felt to me, and how I thought I might like it (and I did take the necessary moment to bookmark it), but wasn't completely sure (hence my tagging it with "cracked" when I did so). It does have beautiful language, but there was something about it that just seemed so bizarre to me now. Now that I'm reading others' thoughts, it seems much clearer to me why that was.