Dear Diary

Finished Reading: Last Summer Series, "Something For You".

I've finally made it to the last part of the "Last Summer" series by Richard Lobinske. Oddly enough, this work of fan fiction was completed almost four years ago, but no one can say that I didn't finally get around to reading it.

(* * *)

The story starts with Daria, Jane, Jodie, and Mack finishing their last meaning of the "Lawndale High School Student Leaders Honor Society" -- an organization solely crafted for the purpose of giving Jodie Landon a break from work and errands. Everyone states their plans, with all of them heading off to college and Jane heading off only after the first semester.

Daria also concludes her time reading to Mrs. Blaine. We learn that Mrs. Blaine's "deafness" was caused by waiting for a hearing aid to be repaired; with it she can hear normally. Mrs. Blaine thanks Daria for their time together, and gives her a present -- a fountain pen given to Mrs. Blaine by her mother in 1929. Mrs. Blaine tells Daria that it seems fitting to pass the pen on to a writer.

Daria watches Jane photograph the "padded walls" room at the Morgendorffers. Helen plans on remodeling Daria's room while she's gone and undoubtedly, the padded walls and broken window bars will be removed. Jane can at least provide a visual memento. Daria plans on taking books and other items with her, but is trying to think about how she can have a more concrete memento of her room to take with her to Raft.

Helen and Daria chat as Daria turns in the final assignment of the summer. Quinn arrives with the Three Js and Jamie finally notices the painting of Daria on the wall...and notices Daria for the first time. As Daria and Helen chat about Jamie's odd behavior, Daria is interrupted with a call...Mrs. Blaine has had a stroke and has died.

Daria attends the Blaine funeral. Mrs. Blaine's son thanks Daria for visiting his mother -- Len Blaine lived in Oregon and Mrs. Blaine didn't want to leave Lawndale. A lawyer arrives at Lawndale to give Daria Mrs. Blaine's final bequest -- seventy so years of Mrs. Blaine's diary.

The summer, however, is running out. It's time for Daria to take her leave of Lawndale and head to Boston. Daria finally figures out a way to save a memento of her room...and makes good use of one of Mrs. Blaine's gifts to her....

(* * *)

At first, I thought there were too many extraneous scenes -- scenes which could have been cut out. However, the theme of the story is "wrapping things up" and we get to watch Daria wrap up things with people who have been important in her life.

Many the scenes in "Something for You" bring up the whole question of "fanon vs. canon". Fanon encompasses everything that fans believe to be true about the series; canon encompasses everything that can be verified with an appeal to the sixty five episodes, two movies and two books.

It's always been a part of 'fanon' than Jamie White, out of all of the Three Js, is the one who is most loyal and most devoted to Quinn. There's nothing in the series that states this is the case; all we have is Daria assigning Jamie to Quinn at the end of "Write Where it Hurts". I found Jamie's sudden noticing of Daria through Jane's painting a bit implausible, but that's more a matter of personal taste that it is me trying to build an argument against such a thing happening...even though if Jamie had seen the "Foxy Daria" at the end of "Quinn the Brain" he might have dropped Quinn a few years earlier. (Hmm...Jamie falling in love with Daria...now that would be an Iron Chef!)

Aside from the "fanon vs. canon" argument, I'm never happy with any scene where Daria cries. In my opinion, Daria holds her emotions in. I've always cast a jaundiced eye towards any scene where Daria lets the tears flow; to me it seems as if the writer doesn't know how to write a moving scene and uses Daria's tears as an emotional shorthand. "See, we know X affected Daria deeply...because she's crying!" ("...and crying is something that all females do!") But once again, my interpretation and the interpretations of others may very.

At the end of the story, we get a little too much information regarding what's going on in Jake's mind and Helen's. Once again, "show, don't tell". I'm never a fan of entering the mind of a character and writing out long prose paragraphs...it's an act of didacticism, of saying, "and now, this is what Jake believes, so listen up". All I could think of while reading Jake's thoughts about his daughter leaving was the real lack of closeness between Jake and his daughters. Jake has to realize that he's been an absent figure in his daughters' lives, and I think he'd be feeling a lot more regret than is let on by the author.

The question is also begged: "if Mrs. Blaine can hear just fine, and can write well enough to keep a diary, then why does she need someone to read to her?" It would probably have been better just to have Daria and Mrs. Blaine chat, although I can believe that Daria would make use of Mrs. Blaine as an editor for her stories.

(* * *)

I'll wrap up "The Last Summer" by noting that I liked the use of one of the plot components at the very end of the story. I probably won't be reading "Falling Into College" -- it doesn't seem to be my type of story; nothing wrong with that. I hope, however, that Mr. Lobinske made use of the Blaine diaries at some point in his future work.

I also hope that he addressed that whole Jamie thing. And hey, if Daria's not hanging around Lawndale High anymore, well, there's always Stacy Rowe....