Look Through My Eyes

Zine
Title:	Look Through My Eyes
Publisher:
Editor:
Author(s):	Jane Carnall and Nicole Craig
Cover Artist(s):	Cat
Illustrator(s):
Date(s):	1991
Medium:	print
Size:
Genre:
Fandom:	Professionals
Language:	English
External Links:	cover by Cat
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Look Through My Eyes is a slash Bodie/Cowley 65-page novel by Jane Carnall and Nicole Craig.

The zine authors state "This story is copylefted; share as it pleases you."

A sister zine, one of sequels and response fics, is A Simple Game.

Author Comments

Shoshanna says I invented Cowley fandom. All I know is that I got wound up in him, in how this lame, aging, ex-soldier thought and worked and loved, and reached the point when it doesn't matter whether I love or hate, I know the character so thoroughly that judgement becomes irrelevant.

[...]

I wasn't the first person to write B/C.... I think I was the first to assume it would be mutual and that Bodie's love for Cowley would be greater than his feeling for Doyle.

Reactions and Reviews

1993

Thank you, Jane Carnall, for writing LOOK THROUGH MY EYES (so sad-so good). I love your Cowley and Bodie; this tale tore out my heart. Works that have such a profound impact on my emotions are rare and enjoyable - even when I'm moved to tears. I'm what you would call a "Bodie-woman" even though I enjoy Doyle. Cowley has a special place in my heart, so I greatly appreciate fan stories where the Cow is featured strongly.

I was warned. Loyal Pros fen expounded eloquently about how angry this zine made them. I'm not into Pros as TOTF [The One True Fandom], so I thought it would be interesting to read this one as a kind of outsider.

It's barely slash. It's hurt, no comfort. It's not a Wringer, a Blender, or even a Grinder. At the end, there's nothing but ash. It is also a compulsive page turner. Carnall has subtly intertwined the past and the present, letting you step thru one mind, then another. Very effective, on me. Only times I can remember feeling this way after a book were after reading Kozynki's "The Painted Bird" and Haldeman's "All My Sins Remembered."

The story covers, in detail, Cowley's capture and torture, and Bodie's efforts to bring him back to reality. It is firmly rooted in the series (with Carnall's B/C (Bodie/Cowley) twist), and a list of reference episodes is included.

Think what it would take to break a man like Cowley, then cube it. The story is not straight narrative; bits & pieces of the background are tangled with the 'action', little glimpses thru what is left of Cowley's mind and memory contrasted with what Bodie sees now. Bad juju. Slow, excruciating, painful detail and despair, never more than a paragraph or two, always from inside, never the detached observer. If the writing is effective, if it makes you *feel* - does that make it good, even if you are disturbed by the storyline?

I tend to like stories where a main character cannot determine what is real and what is not, but is constantly trying. In fact, the stories I've tried to write all have that as main theme. I think I prefer that character to find out. I'll reread 'The Mind of Man...' (B7, tortured and conditioned Avon trying to reconnect), but I don't think I'll reread 'Look...'

Caveat lector. Read it at your own risk.

I read it without the benefit of the wonderful relationship development in the other stories--my first introduction to the concept that Bodie and Cowley were 'involved' was the hints and misdirections in this story. It hurt! Now that I've read the others, of course, I want to take another look--even though it is emphatically labelled with warnings that it is *not*, repeat *NOT* a sequel to the others... It may be the most agonizing fan story ever written--a truly depressing tour-de-force. It is, of course, extremely well-written...not a benefit, when one is drawn by the writing into reading something so excruciatingly painful...

1994

[from one of the authors]: Your comment (about Heat Trace really being a Doyle story, not a Doyle & Bodie story) touched a nerve; [N] and I have been muttering to each other for a long time about Iocs we get which say, effectively, "It was a nice story but there wasn't enough Doyle." The two stories we've mostly had it about have been "Look Through My Eyes" and "As Games Are Played". And simply answering, as we do, that "But the story isn't about Doyle," doesn't help. The fans who complain don't care who the story is about - they want as much Doyle as they're used to getting. One particular loc I got, from a writer who I will not name because the fault is common, complained that there wasn't enough about Doyle in "As Games Are Played"... which I found especially annoying as I'd gound character In "LTME" but he isn't a plotdevice. Two things strike me about this; first, that slash (fanfic generally, perhaps) is, for some fans at least, just not even considered to be on the same level as other fiction - the fans are not so much looking for a good story as a showcase for their favourite actors, and Professionals fanfic is supposed to be a showcase for Bodie and Doyle. Secondly, and related, I resent it that the same writers who never give Cowley any time or bother to develop him as a character complain about Doyle not being the star of a story.

1996

Guess what I've been reading for the past three days? Right. Look Through My Eyes made me weep inconsolably; thank heavens you included that zine where other, alternative sequels were collected. I think it was only reading those that staved off a bout of depression, to which I may say I am not at all accustomed and with which I've no idea how to deal. I'm entirely serious about this. After assuming at the beginning that I wouldn't be more than mildly interested in Bodie/Cowley slash, I've been proved utterly wrong and am now a full-fledged addict. Without having seen any Professionals episodes I was entranced by your depictions of them; since watching the tapes you so kindly lent me, the stories have leaped into even sharper life. I can hardly bear it. Jane, I haven't been so profoundly afflicted by the fate of two characters for years. Even now, when reading the alternatives has helped me believe that it didn't have to end that way, I can't push from my mind Bodie's unutterable tenderness throughout his awful suffering. Or that Cowley died in terror. Or that Bodie is wholly bereft. I'm helpless in the face of such pain. Even now, when I thought the first, worst impact had faded, it returns to blur my eyes and darken the day.

I don't think I can bear this particular B/C universe. And particularly not now I've seen the songtape. I must have watched that first one - "It Cuts Both Ways" - five times. It's beautiful. That, more than anything else, brought the truth and beauty of B/C home to me (not that I needed any convincing). Who in their right mind would think that B would prefer D to C? (This is beginning to sound V. algebraical.) I'm probably biased here in that I've always preferred older men myself, so naturally I'd think others would too, but triffic as the rapport between Bodie and Doyle is, Bodie so clearly responds to authority that Cowley is the obvious figure for him to depend upon. In the little I've seen of the series, what Bodie particularly counts on in his partner is Doyle's air of being grown- upper than he; frequently, he looks to Doyle for "permission" to do one of his more outrageous stunts. But Doyle is too near his own age for real gravitas; if they were together in anything but occasional bouts of physical high jinks, Bodie would lead him a merry dance.

Talking like this has cheered me up a bit. Remembering the world of The Fox and the Wolf is a great deal easier than dwelling on that of LTME.

1997

Yes, I always did think the funny K/S stories (like the series in Kan't Stop Laughing) were the best of the general run of K/S. But... while these are the best to read, and can be the most lasting in the mind, I've yet to read a high comedy slash story that also passed the wet test, to speak crudely. Some of yours came close, mind - in particular the Murphy/Doyle scene in your sequel to "Look Through My Eyes".

2010

As most of my friends should know... at some point in my Pros reading life I fell in love with an odd and not so popular slash pairing "Bodie/Cowley"... without belittling in any way the majority pairing (thought by many to be the OTP) between the partners "Bodie/Doyle". My conversion was caused by my reading an old story Lest These Dark Days, the first part of a trilogy, The Fox and the Wolf by Jane Carnall and some time later Step We Gaily by M. Fae Glasgow, soon followed by Grey's Minder.

Those stories were on line but not the second and third part of the trilogy, nor most of the other B/C fictions. For years I wanted to make them accessible and I even undertook to type the second part of the trilogy This classical Dilemma. It took me ages. At last, and very fortunately, I got in touch with Caroline, who was trying to gather in a single list all the "Pros" long stories (more than 50K). She very kindly proposed to scan and turn to e-docs the paper zines texts I had collected (thanks to several helpful Pros fans, which names I intend to mention in another post, since I don't know their LJ ID if they have any).

The first fruitful outcome of our common effort was, last year, the publication on line in the Proslib Yahoo group, of the second and third part of the Fox and Wolf trilogy This Classical Dilemma and As Games Are Played). I feel now guilty not to have seized this opportunity to give more publicity to this achievement and to express my gratitude to Caroline and to Frances, the hyper efficient administrator of Proslib, for their wonderful work and dedication to the fandom. I do it now, belatedly, because a new great opportunity has occurred:

Another classic and famous Bodie/Cowley story has just been published in Proslib today: Look Through My Eyes". Haleluyah! I post here the introduction I was invited by Frances to write for this occasion:

Look Through My Eyes by Jane Carnall is a very original, powerful and moving story that stirred a lot of discussion back then in 1991 and generated a whole variety of sequels, some B/D, gathered in a second zine, "A Simple Game". (They will be published later thanks to the wonderful work and dedication to the fandom of Caroline).

It's a story centered on the Bodie/Cowley pairing but it doesn't belong to the "Fox and Wolf" universe. Based on perfectly plausible premises, developed to their extreme consequences, it's darker, harsher, grittier. And yet, there is also love, tenderness and passion, expressed with the dry, understated and effective style that's peculiar to the author, and a deep, haunting sense of tragedy.

I can't honestly say you'll read it with bliss and feel like curling up with it on your couch with a box of chocolates. It's a difficult reading, hardly bearable at times. Even for the author; she said so in the after-words, joking that the first proof-reader gave it up and "ran away, screaming in the night"! LTME is not for the meek and weak of heart....

I sincerely hope I'm not dissuading you from reading this novel! Sure, you won't find heart and flowers in it, but an authentic piece of good literature and keen psychology, well worth the necessary effort. There is a real suspense to the last page. The story's outcome doesn't solve everything but the sequels, including the author's, will answer the still pending questions (though in many different ways ) and in some cases even provide a happy ending.

Why this must be read:

With this novel, I am glad to present a quite famous part of the "Pros" fanfiction heritage, to which access has been for a long time limited to the paper circuit domain and is now available in "Proslib" (the "Pros" library) with an easy to get membership. I think I can't do better than re-post here the introduction I was invited to write for Proslib at the time.

"Look Through My Eyes" by Jane Carnall is a very original, powerful and moving story that stirred a lot of discussion back then in 1991 and generated a whole variety of sequels (some of them Bodie/Doyle) gathered in a second zine, "A Simple Game".

It's a story centered on the Bodie/Cowley pairing but it doesn't belong to the "Fox and Wolf" universe. Based on perfectly plausible premises, developed to their extreme consequences, it's darker, harsher, grittier. And yet, there is also love, tenderness and passion, expressed with the dry, understated and efficient style that's peculiar to the author, and a deep, haunting sense of tragedy.

I can't honestly say you'll read it with bliss and feel like curling up with it on your couch with a box of chocolates. It's a difficult reading, hardly bearable at times. Even for the author; she said so in the afterwords, joking that the first proof-reader gave it up and "ran away, screaming in the night"! LTME is not for the meek and weak of heart....

I sincerely hope I'm not dissuading you from reading this novel! Sure, you won't find heart and flowers in it, but an authentic piece of good literature and keen psychology, well worth the necessary effort. There is a real suspense to the last page. The story's outcome doesn't solve everything but the sequels, including the author's, will answer the still pending questions (though in many different ways ) and in some cases even provide a happy ending.

In order to reassure those who could have been frightened by the warnings above, I must insist on the point that reading the author's sequel, "Turn Around", is necessary to a good understanding of the events exposed in the main text and should bring some, much needed, comfort to the excessive hurt of the first story. This sequel, with two others, is to be found in the same folder you'll have access to through the following link:

While you are at it, don't omit to read Karla Simon's sequel, "Look At Me Now", which - I think - provides the best outcome and the most satisfying explanation of the first story's mysterious ending.