Hope House Farm

I'm gonna break the cycle and talk about the almost unmentionable, the man of nightmares, most of which he plants knowingly in his victims heads, we all have to survive somehow. If the Jackson Moore’s are a myth making machine, Ian's the one silently greasing the wheels. When you read articles written by the fans of DANNY I always love the way the writer mirrors the characters, even down to the phasing they use in the books, I find myself doing it, using the same words and phases synonymous with the characters. DANNY's reads like such a personal book that you pick up the way they speak, just as you do when you’re around someone for a long time, you pick up some of the ways they talk and act. The way in which Ian is mentioned in DANNY discussions is a perfect example of this. The characters hardly ever discuss Ian, they brush over him and talk around him even when he can’t hurt them any more, and when fans discuss DANNY they exhibit the same things. When discussing the characters I talk for hours to people about John and Danny and to a lesser extent Rab, Steven, etc but you never get passed a few sentences or paragraphs about Ian. I think it comes down to how complicated a character Ian is, and in DANNY that is fucking saying something. In a book where the characters are so realistic and complicated, where there are so many lies and myths to dodge round making the characters contradictions in human form, Ian is the mystery beyond the book that defines mystery.

People never want to talk about Ian for too long as if he is not as important as Danny or John, but he is probably more important than the two of them put together. All three main characters display the fact that they are products of their past, that the way they behave is they only way they could find to survive, and the fact that Ian is the harshest and most psychotic of all the characters shows that his past was the harshest to survive. As John and Danny became what they were to survive the things they had no control over, so did Ian. Although Danny had to live through years of indescribable sexual and violent atrocities to create the most sexually destructive character in the book, he always got what he needed. Even if he despised how he got it and hated and discarded it when he'd received all he wanted. Danny got admiration, worship, adoration, and even love of the twisted variety, and even though he hated the characters for giving it to him he would have died if he could no longer create it. Plus he had John, someone he really loved, who he knew deep down, with all the defences gone, really loved him more than anyone in existence.

Ian got the sharp end of the stick in every aspect, he was the singularly unattractive member of the most attractive family around, the man he loved couldn't stand him and was entirely in love with someone else, would in fact rather he didn't exist. The people he tried to enslave and keep for his own he knew would never truly be his, and he had to fight tooth and nail (mentally) for every crumb of feeling he ever got. Although Ian did despicably sick and twisted things, it was more or less what every other member of their family did, the only difference being that he didn't have the Jackson Moore charisma to carry it off. Ian didn't have the beauty or the brawn to get what he wanted so he used his brains to trick it out of the others, and although John and Danny used their god given talents to get what they wanted, whenever Ian used his they were looked on much more harshly because to look at him was a much harsher experience. And to trick someone psychologically always seems a much dirtier trick, but it is a trick like all the rest.

The thing I like about Ian is the same character trait all the family display, their complete un-acceptance to be a victim, Ian was dealt the emotional and physical victim card in life and he turned it into the trump card. He didn't wallow in what he was and cry about the unfairness of it all, he realised he would never be able to have everything he wanted so he made sure no one else would get it either, and even though that sounds like the definition of selfishness and should be despised, I find it hilarious (in an inescapable hysterical way).

But most of all I love Ian's honesty, I know for a character who has spun an entire world out of a fabric of lies it sounds a little strange, but like I said living contradictions. Ian may not be honest with any character ever but he is entirely honest with himself, he doesn't delude himself that he is anything more than he is. He doesn't get offended if someone calls him something that if they called anyone else would create holy hell, if it’s true he accepts it. Ian does the most deplorable things a person could do, things that you would expect a person to deny and rage against until the end of time, even if they knew deep down it was true. Ian just says 'Yeah that’s me, if you haven't got anything new to tell me fuck off, there's a good lad.'

More than any of the other characters in the book and therefore in any book (as you don't get more extreme than DANNY) Ian is entirely unapologetic of who he is, to a psychotic degree. He follows the maxim if that’s what you are you may as well admit it other than be a wanker and hind from yourself. From acceptable things like being accused of being gay, while other characters, Rab for example, try everything they can to hide it Ian just admits it without a worry. To the much more murky waters of paedophilia where any aspect can't be acceptable, he at least doesn't pretend it never happened. An area that doesn’t have a get out clause but he at least doesn't make the child into a delusional psycho. Ian accepts the responsibility but gives you no where to take it, a glaringly honesty comment of the dead end aspect of sexual abuse, without a time machine there's no way out and Ian's admission demonstrates that. Ian admits it so there is emotionally no where left for Danny to go, Ian keeps him in the sex abuse cul-de-sac, there’s no police station here, not with an open cell waiting for each of them behind countless doors.

Ian symbolises the part of DANNY that forces such a strong reaction in its readers, the positive reactions and especially the negative reactions. As I have said before when someone decides the book is not for them, they don't respond in the same way as they would to a book they simply didn't enjoy, the reaction is always stronger. Not only do they not want to read the book they want it away from them, and they don't want anyone else to read it either, some even spend time campaigning against it. This reaction is clear to anyone with a little knowledge of behaviour, that it is not one of dislike for the book but for the things that DANNY makes them think, their reactions is a reflection on themselves. DANNY is too honest a picture of taboo subjects, it doesn't sugar cote the touchy subject matter. It cuts away all the accepted explanations and behaviour of characters in these situations and shows you the real, raw feelings beneath. DANNY doesn't display the emotions that derive from a hellish past through a foggy glass covering, allowing the reader to remain safely detached on the other side, it smashes it and forces you to experience them in all their discomfort. DANNY doesn't just show you how red the blood is, it makes you swallow it till you can't breath, it doesn't just tell you how brittle the bone is, it makes you break it. DANNY is tangible, honest reality of which you can't escape and Ian is its guard at the gate. SPOILERS FOLLOW (if anyone thinks there are spoilers higher up tell me and I'll cut it sooner).( Read more )

Ian plays a major part in the books biggest characters, its secrets and its past, those are the things that move into the readers head and rearrange the furniture, that’s what makes the book indispensible and works as a literary psychologist. As the characters unlock the past it unlocks you with it and its a lot cheaper and less time consuming than a hundred sessions on a couch. People who haven't read DANNY look at it from entirely the wrong perspective, they shouldn't think 'Oh its such a long book, it would take me forever to read it.' DANNY is worth forever. Even the fact that it never takes as long as anyone thinks it will because its so easy to get into, that’s not the point either because you'll want it to take longer than it does so it never ends. You'll wish you hadn't read it just so you can read for the first time again. Also I think new readers think that the book is a little more expensive than other books because of delivery and so on, but everyone I know never thought about the price again once they'd bought it, most people bought another one to have spare. If you were digging up your garden and came across a lump of pure gold don't worry over the price of cleaning and how heavy it will be to carry to the bank, just thank yourself lucky that you came across it at all.

This is my official book 2 post as the rest have been short and didn’t go into it in too much detail, where the fuck to start, I’m gonna go through it character by character as that what I find most interesting. DO NOT READ ON IF YOU HAVE NOT READ DANNY ONE OR DANNY 2 THERE ARE SPOILERS ON BOTH BOOKS.( Read more )

Hello just to remind people, especially the person who has posted on the link below (as I know you have not read book 2), after I have finished with unimportant university work I will be getting back to the important job of Danny commenting. I will be commenting on Danny volume two and including it in the comments of the post below, there will be huge spoilers in it, so if you have NOT read DANNY 2 please DON'T click on the comments because it will ruin it.

If anyone wants to comment on a new thread but have not read the new book, they can comment on this one. I have literally got about 5 minutes spare each day at the moment because left assignments way too late, but when I finish in a few days I will look up how to lj cut things and will cut any spoilers for each book to make sure there are no more problems, just wanted to make sure nothing new was revealed in the meantime.

Thanks

SPOILER!!! SPOILER!!! SPOILER!!!
SPOILER!!! SPOILER!!! SPOILER!!!

If you have not read Danny volume 2 (and Danny volume 1) do not read the comments of this post. Nothing is being said on this first post to save ruining a new fantastic book for new readers. So if you haven't read the second installment of Danny DO NOT READ THE COMMENTS as you will really spoil it for yourself. Right gone on enough now, consider yourself fully warned.

For the people who have read book two I'm guessing your fit to burst so click on comments and let yourself go.( Read more )

Hello not written on here in ages because haven't had internet but all sorted now so thought I'd write down some of my favourite quotes from the first Danny book, before I get a whole host of new favourites from the next one. Anyone who agrees or disagrees please comment, or add your own, I am including quotes I find funny and quotes I just love.

Favourite Danny quotes

For John and Danny. Who loves you baby? (This has to be first because when I first read it I read the quotes on that page and didn't notice this one, I only noticed it after I had finished the entire book, and it made me cry, I'm still not entirely sure why but I love it).

‘You think I enjoy it, don’t you?’
Danny was securing a towel around his waist, back still turned stiffly against him. John could see tiny spots of blood soaking through it. ‘Yes.’
‘You think I do it because it excites me, just like you think I cut you because it excites me.’
‘Yes.’
‘You think all my talk about crime and punishment is just an excuse to hurt and humiliate you.’
Danny turned to him finally, face set and white. ‘Yes John, I do.’
John smiled as if it was the most exquisite joke he’d ever heard. He smiled at him forever, eyes lingering over his mouth. ‘Too fucking right it is Danny-boy.’
And he got up and pulled off Danny’s towel.
(This is one of my favourite interactions between John and Danny, because for the whole book each of them is trying to get the other to admit to things, although even when they do it’s not for straight forward reasons and it doesn’t really make any difference, Danny thinks he’s standing up to John and getting him to finally admit to hurting him for pleasure. But John turns the tables on him once again and admits it in a way where Danny gets nothing from it. I love how you can tell the real conversations, when what they are talking about is serious and others when you know what their saying has about another thousand things being silently said. When John comes by just hitting Danny the same conversations and admissions take on a completely different light, because they both know they can’t escape the reality of what’s happened and hide behind anything. They are having the same conversation but it’s the reactions that make one more real than the other. You can read into the conversations like real life conversations and you get about as far inside the characters as you do real people.)


‘At least I don’t have to threaten him.’
‘And I never have to seduce him.’
(I like that they both know each other and what they do with other people, and they also know that each one hates that they have to use this, or at least the pretence of it, to get people to have sex with them.)

Henderson’s face flushed. ‘You’re in big trouble Moore.’
‘Really?’ There was no anger in John’s voice – yet.
Henderson went up closer. ‘He isn’t going with you. He’s staying with me. You’re in for the biggest surprise of your life.’
John’s mouth worked. He was biting the inside of his cheek. ‘What? You going to show me your cunt?’
Henderson said nothing, flushing a little darker.
‘Go steal someone else’s brother Henderson. You’re not having mine.’
(Easily the funniest line, I nearly pissed myself when I first read this and I love the last line and how you can tell John said that completely different to the previous lines without needing to be told.)

‘Go on.’ They weren’t moving fast enough for Henderson. ‘Get out.’
Danny looked startled. ‘John…?’
But John didn’t turn.
‘John…’ he said again more desperately.
Rab watched John’s expression as he moved in front of him, saw it sitting hard in his throat, like something he couldn’t swallow. He stopped suddenly. ‘You were right Danny. I should have killed him sooner.’
(I can’t express how much I love this part, I think it says so much about John and Danny’s unspoken relationship that I don’t even want to get started. I just love that Danny starts to get frantic that John might actually leave him, it’s one of the only times you truly see how vulnerable Danny is when it comes to John, and John turns round because as if he’d ever let that happen.)

‘Three men and a corpse off to mow a meadow.’
And
‘In the outhouse fucking snowmen.’
(Funny)

Also (can’t find this one at the moment) when John says Ian told him something to do with Conley and Danny slides down the wall with his hands over his eyes and says ‘Ian.’ As if just the name exhausts him and he just wants to lie down and go to sleep at the mention of him.

‘But take it easy, we’re planting Daddy tomorrow, all hands on deck.’
(Funny)

‘Me? I’m not doing a thing. Just lying here, minding my own business, going slowly blonde.’


However my favourite thing about Danny is that you can’t single out one part of the book without the others, every word in Danny is important, everything that gets said means something to the characters as a whole all the reader needs to do is work it out.

Trying to explaining Danny is like when you are trying to explain a person, it’s impossible because to really understand it you would need to know everything that had ever happened to them and how they felt about it, change or remove one part of a persons life and they wouldn’t be that person any more, they wouldn’t be perfectly original. Even if you knew it all there would be a million other reason you couldn’t explain it to someone else, Danny’s inexplicable, unchallengeable, and irreplaceable.

Change or remove one part of Danny and it wouldn’t be the same, because as a whole it is perfectly original, Danny makes me want to read it all at once, to know it by heart (which I should with how many times I’ve read it), so that when I don’t have it I can think and it’s there. Just like one of my other favourite quotes, Danny held his fingers up barley a millimetre apart ‘Because even this distance is still way too far away.’

I am going to stop now because I am going to go on forever and I want to post this, I am going to keep adding to this, if anyone wants to add their favourites please feel free.

Hello, here are some of my thoughts on Danny and the reactions to it hat I have witnessed.

I do not think the level of sex/violence is unrealistic I think some relationships differ from what is socially acceptable and considered healthy, it is the fact that these relationships can exist that make some readers uncomfortable. If the interactions in Danny had no basis in real life it would not create such strong reactions from its readers. The fact that the emotions in Danny are very raw, they are stripped of social boundaries and rely on the characters own belief system of right and wrong in stead of what is accepted by people as a whole, is what scares some readers.

Clearly they are not your typical family and it is not expected that the themes in Danny play out in everyone’s living room but for the situation the characters are in the occurrences seem to have followed a course I would have expected. If you look at the way they were brought up, the sexual abuse, the violence, the jealousy and competition for affections, that alone would create pretty fucked up individuals (although this background is not a staple for most families I do know from friends experiences of working in social services and other experiences it is not as rare as people would rather believe). I think the most important part, the part that creates realism in the actions of the adult characters, is that they never grow apart, non of the four main characters have moved on or even moved out, or interacted with other people without any of the others being involved, this I think in realistic terms completely justifies the characters actions.

Even if you take away the sex abuse and violence from adult members of the family (the thing which will have created the actions within the four as children) the four characters have a sexual history together as children (which is again not as rare as people want to think) they then, instead of separating and blocking out their past, become stuck in one house with everything reminding them of what has passed between them. I think in this situation after years of it being on the back of everyone’s mind it is definitely believable that something would kick start those deep feeling, emotions and memories and it would all happen again but worse as they are now grown.

To me if these characters existed there actions would be understandable, the sexual relationships would be intense, there would be an overabundance of violence between them, there would be huge amounts of jealousy and confusion and hurt therefore all the actions, however debauched, are necessary because if they were real they would not have simple relationships, the most important aspects of the relationships would derive from their most intense actions. To omit these acts would be omitting the whole point of the relationships, if the sex and violence was not explicit and only happened occasionally and mildly we would not have a clue who these people were, we would not be able to read what they are actually about, that to me would be what was confusing.

The fact that some readers refer to the books edgy and uncomfortable content as bland or tedious is to me a defence against the books emotional reality, because I think if they could truly put themselves in the position of the characters they might react in some of the same ways, I think this makes people uncomfortable with themselves. I know some people I have given the book to cannot read it and make up excuses like the ones I have heard on line, like repetitive, dull and the like, but it is clear in the persons actions, when they recount the points of the book that made them say this, that bored is the last thing Danny made them feel. All you can see is the uncomfortableness (not a word) they felt with the book and they want to get it as far away from them as possible, as soon as possible, if they simply found the book dull the reaction would not be as dramatic.

I have read many dull books and have not once reacted so strongly, I would either attempt to finish it or just stop reading it if it bored me, the readers who react in this way to Danny are in denial of what the book truly made them feel. The fact that most feelings can be brought back to sex and violence is an opinion that has always been rallied against but one I have always agreed with, that deep down they are the two main reasons for people’s actions and this is what Danny brings to light. The characters either react because of anger or because of the need for pleasure (or reassurance, affection and love, which are included in sex). The way Danny locks into this deep psychological set up of people when they are put in dramatic situations is the reason people feel uncomfortable with it and feel the need to deny its obvious truth. The readers that say Danny is unrealistic and too devoid from real life are trying to distance themselves from the reality that it could be some peoples real life and as this is a scary notion to them they would rather deny it

I do however have the uncomfortable reaction readers have to Danny to child abuse so I recognise it is as such, but it is intrinsic to some books and films narrative and I absorb it as I do the rest of material to fully understand the story and the characters, as without it they would make less sense and there would be nothing to challenge you in the story as I think there should always be. Sex, violence and child abuse are all intrinsic to understanding Danny so no matter which part of it make the reader uncomfortable without it the book would be less effective and denying the importance of a book that highlights these issues is merely an attempt to hide from them in reality. Sometimes feeling uncomfortable is the most important part of an art form as it is supposed to highlight aspects of life others may not be used to, and is important in developing a persons understanding and opinions of a subject that other less daring writer would not draw attention to.

An example of a part of Danny that made me uncomfortable is when John Jackson Moore Senior is allowed by John to do something sexual with Danny, this made me uncomfortable as it upset me that John would stand by and watch this happen, but I saw the scenes significance and the need for it to happen. For John to attempt to glimpse the truth of Danny and his fathers relationship and to (in my opinion) give John a reason to kill him and for John to attempt to redeem himself for leaving Danny at his mercy as a child by avenging him in the present.

I do not think anything in Danny could be seen as slight, not the characters or emotions or actions or anything, Slight seems to suggest that parts of it don’t matter, and every word written in Danny matters to the whole of the story. Danny is a deep book in every sense and to only feel slight emotion for the characters doesn’t make sense to me as I think you feel so many emotions for all the main characters. The way the emotions you feel contradict themselves as the characters do makes you feel and understand the characters instead of feeling like you’re being told about them, I can’t understand how this writing could create slight emotions for the characters.

If anyone agrees or disagrees with these comments feel free to reply.

Where there any scenes in Danny that you found uncomfortable?

After reading Chancery Stones new blog entry I am now utterly terrified of book two and convinced that this one is going to finish me off. The end of book one,( Read more )

Before I read Danny I read a review that described all the different types of people and what they would take from the book, it described cynics, the socially concerned, deviants and the romantics whose hearts would break at the tortured love of Danny and John (it wasn’t anything like that but I can’t find the quote and that’s kind of the gist). I remember thinking I recon this ones gonna hurt a bit, because I knew which camp I always fall into. Then for a while before I purchased Danny, because I couldn’t afford it (can’t believe there was a time I didn’t have this book) I used to look at the comments and excerpts on Amazon and anything else I could find almost everyday, for some reason before I read the book I was obsessed by it. Then I read it and it killed me, it just killed me dead, and as I said it was not just because one of the lovers was gone it was because he didn’t need to be.

I think John and Danny’s relationship was built on revenge, jealousy, anger, one-upmanship, stubbornness and the inescapable need to be the victor of the other. They made each others lives miserable when they clearly didn’t have to, they both had the power to make each other happy, but the want to, had rotted away under all the other shit that got piled on them. And I have had this conversation on this site before about the ability of people to change, and yes people can change the way they act but its hard if your not really sure why you do it.

Like if you’re the type of person that when someone gives you a compliment, you bite their head off, you know their being nice and you always plan on saying thank you, but maybe something taught you not to trust compliments and that’s your natural reaction, its hard to change that. Or if as in Danny, you have a relationship where you can’t say how you feel first for fear of rejection or that they don’t really mean what they say, so even if one person does say something the other rejects it. Danny and John are too angry and there’s too much background for them ever to work but the worst thing is that the reader can see that they should just stop doing what they do and to just forget all the rest, but sometimes people are never going to let that happen.

The fact that John and Danny ( Read more )

For God sake I am not Chancery Stone, my sister is not Chancery Stone, Jen is not Chancery Stone, Chancery Stone is Chancery Stone and seen as I have been a participant in the fan world of the book since long before all the wankers turned up (I even posted on the first website poison pixie had for Danny) I can say with complete confidence that Chancery Stone has never been anyone but herself.

No matter where the blind sighted gullible idiots on this board or on blogspirit got their information from, IT IS WRONG. I saw the first website and the first forum, and I saw it's demise because of the arrogance and accusation they would not drop, I saw the those people disband because they were up to no good. I then saw them disguise themselves on other sites, inform other website communities to come over and badmouth everything about the book and its author without reading a page.

I have had them on this site from the very inception, leaving insults and stupid nonsense to try and put us off and make us lose interest so there would be no forum in which the book could be discussed. Those people have attempted to demolish Danny and Chancery Stone and anyone that liked the book, the are complete and utter worthless, unskilled, unintelligent, untalented, useless cunts and I truly hope that if they ever try to create something it is trampled on and badmouthed and slagged off to the degree they have done to Danny, because anything not of Danny's caliber would have died by now and anything anyone of them created would just have to be stupid, indulgent and boring.

Danny has survived and still has very ardent fans, so their plan has not worked, Chancery Stone certainly has not blown her chances and one day soon everyone who has given so much of their time to spreading the word about the evil Danny and its evil author will be shown up to be the fools they are. Hopefully the naming and shaming on blogspirit will force them to fuck right off, but somehow I think they will always be lurking around Danny somewhere in the shadows. But for fuck sake anyone who is genuinely a newcomer to the book please just read everything that has been said before believing the rumors, because its all there in black and white for anyone open minded enough to search for it and not just believe the first thing they are told. From my experience Chancery is trustworthy and if you look you will see for yourself that the others are not.

For the people who have tried to demolish this site stop anyone new joining in for fear of insult, it has not worked, I am still here and so is my sister and Jen, and anyone is still welcome to post here. They have changed nothing except to make themselves look more and more stupid and the people that follow them more and more gullible, this site is the same as it always was, open, non discriminating and passionate about the book, and it will remain so no matter who or what is posted in it.

Hello

Thought I'd start a new thread as the other was getting quite crowded, as there are new names popping up in the Danny world I thought I give a blank space for any new commenter's wanting to speak their mind.

Any opinion welcome, good, bad, ugly, whatever. Feel free to post on anything Danny or Chancery Stone related.

Look forward to hearing something new.

Jodie

Still not sure if anyone frequents these pages but I thought if I had a question about Danny it makes sense to ask it in a forum meant for Danny. It doesn't seem to work as well if I just shout my questions at random people on the street and then curse them for not knowing the book, that can appear psychotic. Anyway here's the question.

There is a story mentioned in Danny by John about something that Ian had once told him (I know that’s a confusing sentence). The story is about a broken mirror and a piece of the mirror getting stuck in a boys heart when it smashes. Is this the story of the snow queen? Also does Ian tell the story in the book at any point, because no matter how many times I read the book when I get to the part John mentions the story I can't remember whether I have read the story in the book or if I'm just remembering the actual story.

It's been really annoying me for ages now because when I ask people I know who have read the book they don't seem to know what I'm talking about. That may be because they haven't heard it and I only remember it because I liked the story so much when I was younger. If anyone knows/thinks that this is the story the book is referring to and if the actually story is told in Danny please put me out of my misery and give me an answer. Thanks

While eagerly anticipating the release of book two (part 1?) I am attempting to decipher the true meanings of the book and the characters actions, I have been looking even closer into the meaning behind the (what I believe to be) significant sequences in the book. Now and again I can be a ‘scary judge of character’, I can also miss the point completely but however this is what I think.

I think Ian is the character in the book I would like to question the most about John, Danny and the occurrences of the past, because although I think John knows the most (maybe) I think Ian would be the most eager to tell and therefore the most truthful. I think Ian drops his truths on people and revels in the fall out of them, because although the others know deep down what has happened, Ian knows that it is hearing it verbalised that really shakes them. As their attentions are only drawn to him through desperation or anger (the reactions differ but he doesn’t care, at least he is achieving a reaction), when he is too impatient to wait for desperation he reverts to the only way to evoke a reaction, to terrify them in to listening to him. In a ‘If you don’t listen to me imagine what else I could confirm for you.’ way, and they’re emotions and relationships are too fragile to be able to take hearing the things Ian could say.

I think Ian is the real dangerous member of the family, not in a psychical way but in an emotional way, I think accepts everything that he has done or seen and if he need to he will use what he knows, I also think the rest of them realise this and that’s why they allow Ian to get away with more. Although the others can rock the boat in other ways, John with his fists and Danny with his sleeping around, it is Ian weapon that would damage them the most.

John is the sex in the book for me, not because of the things he does (not all of them anyway) but because he does what he wants. He has the guts to not give a shit what anyone else thinks, to do things people would disagree with, that they would outright condemn. But it is the fact that he does these things with the only thought in his head being do I think this is ok to do, that make him appealing, along with the same attitude towards things done to him. He truly doesn’t care what other think, and John never needs to say this because the reader can feel it, when it is said its not so he appears confident in front of others it is just a fact about his personality.

It is this that leads to my interpretation of one aspect of Johns character, the fact that he does things other people beat them selves up for even thinking of doing, or he allows things to be done to him that others would overreact strongly to. (I am measuring this in Johns terms by the way so him not really reacting is punching someone out and his over reaction is him almost killing someone, killing someone or subjecting them to what he believes as psychological torture or becoming truly heartbroken). But then in some parts of the book he overreacts strongly to things that outsiders see as not that bad, especially compared to the other things, he overreacts to a comment or a name that wouldn’t provoke a reactions from some people.

These are Johns true hang ups, for example the idea that Danny may love someone else, this is such a huge true fear for John that he punishes him the most for this, because Danny is drawing on Johns real insecurities the things he actually believes. The biggest one I think being that Danny never wanted John and that John forced Danny to do all he does (this also applies to Danny as his overreactions are caused when John comments that Danny forced him into this relationship by badgering John until he had no choice)
These comments may or may not be true from either party but are almost always said in the heat of the moment as deep down each knows it will hurt the other the most (most of the other hurtful comments and actions are actually just them playing with each other attempting to receive the reaction they desire) and are always met with the strongest responses. As is the belief that one doesn’t truly love the other, hence the over reaction to sex with women as each believe this is what will truly tear them apart. Even though these reactions don’t make sense to outsiders they are the characters true hang ups the ones they want no one to find out about (so they can’t use them against them) so to them they make complete sense.

I can only understand these reactions when I put them in a different context within my own opinions. Whenever I am asked the question, what I would do for a billion pounds I always say, anything but beg for it, anything includes all manner of degrading things (while begging includes all my connotations of the act of begging that people may not see) which other people would put a lot lower down the list than begging for it but this is one of my personal hang ups and creates a much bigger reaction than other things would, just as Danny and Johns do. I believe that the key to a person’s character is in their reactions to seemingly normal things, and as John and Danny are written like real people with true real life character’s I think their reactions are the key to them.

Danny is unable to truly accept what has happened to him, he won’t admit to himself the identity of his true oppressors, although John is one of them and has had a hand in creating the Danny he now is, I think he hides behind John because it is easier to think that it was all because of John and that the others were just quick meaningless irritations to him that didn’t really effect him Danny wants to believe that he is too strong for to let them get to him. The only reason he can admit to John is because John allows him and wants him to blame him, because by blaming John Danny is able to block out all manner of nasty things that he would have to dwell on if he didn’t have a scapegoat, also John wants to be blamed as he believes he should have been brave enough to protect Danny more than he has.

Its obvious that along with Danny’s looks it is his ability to know how to seduce someone that he always gets his man//woman this is because Danny has always been told he was a whore. When Danny was younger and obviously didn’t act like a whore his abusers made him think he was one to take away their guilt. Danny’s abusers should not have been affected by the things he did, because Danny will not have know what he was doing, or even if he was doing things for a reaction he did not want a strong reaction, probably just a little attention. But the people in his life would have used this act as a get out clause for their actions in a ‘He knew what he was doing, he wanted me to do what I did.’ way.
Afterwards I think this lead to the abusers treating him badly saying it was his fault and that he was bad and what did he expect when he was ‘flaunting himself in front of them’, leading them to steer clear of him, but although Danny did not want these kinds of reactions as he was a child he will have still want this persons love, as these are members of Danny’s family and a child loves their family unconditionally as it has no knowledge or frame of reference yet, So when his abuser would only want him to abuse him as their shame kept them away the rest of the time, Danny will have learnt how to get the only attention he can now receive from this loved one. Teaching him as a child how to get this kind of attention from others, so that now he is older he is an expert in seduction.

I think that for some time in Danny’s teens to the time he is twenty (when John starts it all up again at the start of the book, when Danny starts to seduce others to revenge John for leaving him to the others mercy) Danny will have hated the fact that he knew how to do this, he will have never used the techniques that he knew would work to get what he wanted as they will have made him remember where and how he had to learnt them. And that even now he hates what he does because he knows where it comes from, creating a self-loathing and an inability to feel at ease with the type of person he is. I think this is the reason why he can never feel secure and happy with another person because his past makes him hate who he has turned out to be, so when he gets what he wants he has to destroy it because it is tainted by the way he attained it and a reminder of the effect others have had on his life and continue to have.

That is a one hundredth of my opinions of those 3 characters but will have to do for now as I could write a dissertation on each of them and I just don’t have the time or talent.

Anyone else got any opinions on the characters or on my interpretations.
Even if you think I’m talking shit (I do tend to ramble like a mad woman when I get started), I’m eagerly awaiting response.

Hi, general message to anyone and everyone, mainly due to the fact that I am sick of looking at the same posts on here.

This is my promotion post, just realised I haven’t actually advised any one who stumbles onto here to read Danny. Anyone who has not read Danny yet (I say yet as at some point it will become famous and everyone will read it) I urge you to do so, it is such an enjoyable book, one that gets right under your skin and won’t let you forget it. I have such a fondness for this book that I want everyone to experience it, so please new readers ask any questions you like about its content, subject matter, etc. But even if you don’t want to chat about it, read the book I promise you wont regret it. Also here are some sites devoted to the book, www.poisonpixie.com, danny.blogspirit.com and www.chanceryfans.co.uk if you would rather check it out for yourself. You will find links to these pages along with sites where the book is for sale under the links section on this page.

What better use of an Easter holiday than to retreat to our own private Golgotha to discuss Danny.

Where to begin? Why discuss the book at all? Because Danny is the future of the modern novel. Why else would it have such a love / hate readership? Danny cuts away the bullshit of conventional 'literary' novels. It's a story for people who like movies. It reads like a movie, as if it doesn't know that it's supposed to be anything else. Danny has cut its own groove. Its prose has been stripped bare, it doesn't indulge in the luxury of showing off its word play, there are no pretty metaphors or complex references to show you how clever or how well-read the author is.

It's like a speed reading course of the whole of English literature. We have Seneca, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Kidd, Ford, Webster, Middleton, Bronte, Radcliffe, Huxley, Lee and Updike all rolled into one. All the key elements of tragedy are here, as are doomed loved and obsession, greed, jealousy and anger.

It's like junk food. You want to cram it all in. It revolts you. It turns you on. It turns you on when you know it should revolt you. And it just keeps on going. There is no respite. It's like reading a book about an alcoholic and drinlking four bottles of meths while you read it.

Val

Hi, Starting over a new leaf in this thread, (once again).

Anyone who wants to chat about Danny, (the book and its content), feel free to reply to this post.

As we have been told we can't join in the discussion about the novel Danny, since that is the only discussion board on this topic we have decided we will start our own. Anyone who is new to the book or has been too intimidated to write on the already estabished discussion board due to all the conflict and the implications that anyone who wants to write on it is suspect, (believed to be Chancery Stone or one of her publishers) are welcome to discuss Danny here.

Anyone who wishes to reply will be responded to, and all comments will be open for everyone to view, as this is the internet, something that supposedly is a world wide resource.

Chancery Stone, your comments are welcome too (good or bad), we can take it.