söndag 18 december 2011

Spare me cruel and unusual punishments of fictional villains

I've now come to the conclusion that the main characters in Karleen Koen's "Dark Angels" have to be fictional. What convinced me was the too-good-to-be-trueness of its hero. Spotless soldiering record; charming if dilapidated family seat in the country; a talent for leading men and gaining their respect; decency and loyalty in abundance; manly, viking-like good looks which form a contrast with the decadent male beauty on display at the devious French court and in an English Molly house; the kind of social conscience Gladstone would have approved of; a doomed, gallant love for the ninny Louise Renée de Keroualle (who is historical enough: I could have told him from the outset that mooning over her was a bad idea) - yep, this is a hero all right, and if I'm not mistaken an entirely fictional one. That would mean that Alice, her closest circle and, more importantly, the attractive poisoner Henri Ange are made-up as well. I'm relieved as this makes me feel slightly less guilty about finding him seriously hot.

Poor Henri, though - I made the mistake of taking a peek further on in the book in order to determine when he would be making his next appearance, and it seems he is hurtling towards a very grisly fate indeed. Now, I realise he deserves a grisly fate. This is a man who commits heinous crimes in cold blood and without repentance. Still, I had hoped for a clean kill, not prolonged suffering with no end in sight (it could still happen of course: one shouldn't put too much faith in sneak peeks).

Which leads me to a question which has always flummoxed me. Is it true that there really are people out there, maybe even a majority, who experience satisfaction and Schadenfreude when fictional villains are punished? Frankly, it's beyond me. If you are morally elevated enough to root for the hero and heroine, shouldn't you be above sniggering at the discomfiture of their enemies? I never did understand the penchant for fairy-tale-like punishments of wickedness that some authors have. "The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means", the prim governess in Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Ernest" explains (which goes to show that he had some problem with this concept too). I understand the allure of happy endings as much as anyone: I don't mind the good ending happily at all. But must the bad end unhappily? Isn't it enough that the author makes sure, in one way or another, that they never bother the good again?

Oddly, in a fictional universe, I feel capital punishment to be one of the more lenient forms of dealing with your villain. I seldom mind a villain death: it is sad, yes, but much better than some of the alternatives, as it is at least quick. It wasn't Carker's violent death in "Dombey and Son" that depressed me when I read it, it was the humiliation and mental collapse preceding it. I didn't mind Ralph Nickleby committing suicide: but the plot twist leading him to do so was too, too horrible. Yes, we're back to Dickens, who offers some good examples of excessive villain-punishing. Often he is at least canny enough to describe the villain's downfall not with lip-smacking relish but soberly and darkly like the tragedy it is. On the other hand, sometimes he's not. There is a certain pettiness in the punishments inflicted on especially minor villains. Are we really meant to crow over the offal-eating lives of total destitution which the Brasses are condemned to; over the broken legs of Sim Tappertit (who prided himself on them); over the double disappointments of Charity Pecksniff and over Mrs Sparsit ending up "in a mean, airless lodging, a mere closet for one, a mere crib for two" together with the "grudging, smarting, peevish, tormenting" Lady Scadgers? How can one do that and still retain the moral high ground?

There are roughly speaking three villain fates I prefer: 1) death 2) redemption and 3) getting off scot-free. I realise that alternative 3) must be used with caution (though it's the best if you ever think of writing a sequel: redemption ends a villain's career as neatly as death). Justice ought to be done in some way, and the happy ending of the goodies should not seem to be under constant threat. Still, surely alternative 2) could be used a bit more often (though maybe not in the case of conscience-free Henri Ange)?

I try to console myself with the thought that classy villains normally do not indulge in self-pity, whatever fate has in store for them: they realise that he who dishes out meanness must also be able to take it. In the words of Flintheart Glomgold's memorable lament to the Heavens in one of Don Rosa's Scrooge McDuck adventures (translated into Swedish and back, so probably not word perfect): "What have I done to deserve this? On second thoughts, don't answer that."

torsdag 8 december 2011

Plot vs Character

One of the most damning things you can say about a novel is "I didn't care about the characters". It must be on the top ten list of phrases an author never wants to hear. And yet, it is possible to enjoy a novel without caring two straws about the main characters. I know, because it's happened to me twice recently. I'm currently reading - in tandem with Les Mis which I keep for my lunch hour - a historical novel set in Restoration England (and a bit in Louis XIV's France) called "Dark Angels". The author, Karleen Koen, certainly knows how to spin a yarn. Intrigues, drama and court gossip abound. I'm engrossed - but do I care about the book's heroine? Not really.

I do know a little about Restoration times, most of it learnt by reading Jude Morgan's "The King's Touch" (still the Restoration novel to beat). But I don't know enough to identify which of the book's protagonists, except from the royal families, assorted mistresses and the odd duke, are real and which are fictional. If the heroine Alice Verney, maid of honour to Queen Catherine and Princess Henriette and daughter of a wily courtier, actually existed she may very well have been an admirable person. The picture Koen paints of her is not very flattering, though: she has her good points, like loyalty to her long-suffering employers, and she doesn't like Castlemaine which is always a plus. But her ruling ambition is to marry an elderly duke just to cheat his nephew, her ex-fiancé, out of his inheritance, and she interferes in her best friend's romance because she thinks her friend could do better (although she is penniless). Spite works well for a villain but less well for a heroine, and as for scheming, it should ideally be done with a bit of panache. Unlike Becky Sharp, the queen of minxes, Alice isn't really enjoying herself. She's only hanging on, trying grimly to survive the (sometimes literally) poisonous court atmosphere.

Funnily enough, though, it doesn't matter that the main protagonist is hard to warm to. She isn't positively dislikeable either, and the plot makes up for her shortcomings. However, I have to admit that the plot isn't the only thing that intrigues me - the book is also livened up by the odd appearance of an ace villain in the pleasant shape of a smooth, friendly poisoner. I know I probably should draw the line at poisoners, but it's been ages since there was any fresh meat on the villain market, and I'm not about to be picky, especially not for moral reasons.

My other example of plot-driven rather than character-driven reading fun is "My Last Duchess" by Daisy Goodwin, the largest part of which I read on the plane to New York without feeling fidgety once. I think I saw an article by Goodwin once, back when the anti-romance debate was in full height, where she defended the romance genre. She needen't have felt nettled by the anti-Mills&Booners for her own sake, though. "My Last Duchess" is set in the High Society of England and America in the 1890s, the sets are sumptuous, and the plot is mainly about love and relationships. But on one level, it is not the least bit escapist. One of the main delights of the novel is that you truly don't know what will happen: whether the heroine Cora Cash's marriage to an English duke will work out fine or prove to be a disaster. No-one can accuse Goodwin of skating over the difficulties Cora faces in the shape of a kittenish but tough mother-in-law, a resentful ex-mistress and her husband's reticence. The very last thing I felt like doing after having finished this novel was to marry into the English nobility.

Yet, again, I didn't really care about Cora much. She is depicted as shallow and spoilt and never really overcomes the brash American heiress stereotype. I didn't like her maid Bertha either, though we are probably supposed to. Her loyalty towards her mistress is mixed with a good dose of resentment and seems to have more to do with habit than any kind of affection. No, the strongest points of "My Last Duchess" are plot-related, not character-related: you simply want to know what happens next. This in spite of the fact that there is no cute villain in sight.

torsdag 1 december 2011

Long live the tenacity of the Unwelcome Suitor

Just to dwell on "Downton" a bit longer (bear with me - it's been a tiring week), I have now caught up on the second series and watched all of it on DVD (three episodes in one evening). Thank heaven there will be a third series when they simply must tie up all the loose ends. One welcome development is that there's a new villain on the block. Mary's fiancé Sir Richard Carlisle has become increasingly nasty until he is now a full-blown example of that old and extremely useful group of baddies: the Unwelcome Suitor.

Granted, Sir Richard is an unsubtle specimen, but it has to be said for the Unwelcome Suitor - and I've seen dafter ones than Sir Richard - that they add a certain spice to the intrigue. They are so very hard to shake off. It is easy to grow tired of two lovers who constantly misunderstand each other and therefore do not hitch up until the very end. But add an external threat to their happiness, and it all gets more interesting. Few characters can have more of a vested interest in trampling True Love underfoot than the man who intends to pick up the pieces in the shape of a pretty heroine (a girl who wants the hero has an interest too, but often - as in "Downton Abbey" - she makes trouble more or less unwittingly by being too nice to ditch, rather than too nasty).

It is small wonder that the Unwelcome Suitor is such a stock character. The question you need to answer convincingly, though, if you want to include him in your drama is: why on earth does he bother? After all, you mostly find him in stories which take place in olden times when it was much more imperative for a girl to marry, and when the marriage market was very much a buyer's market. As you have to be tolerably rich and/or powerful to pose a threat in the first place, most Unwelcome Suitors are, from a material point of view, eligible bachelors. This means they can have their pick of girls. Why should they go for the surly one who doesn't even pretend to care for them?

The answer mostly given is that the blackguard, villainous that he is, finds the heroine's reluctance a turn-on in itself. There's the thrill of the chase. Thus the old well-worn baddie line: "I like a woman with a temper" (a line I have never, ever heard a man utter in real life). Fair enough, but as the Dowager in "Downton" says in quite another context, "marriage is a long business". How much fun can it be to spend the rest of your life tied to a woman in a grump? The villain who simply wants the heroine's virtue is more easily understandable than the breed who insists on marriage.

It's certainly worth the time of an author or script-writer to try to find plausible answers to the questions raised by the presence of an Unwelcome Suitor, though, as the best of them are such corkers. Just think of Uriah Heep, whose motive besides desiring Agnes - that he has made it his life project to lord it over his erstwhile employers - is perfectly convincing. Of course, he would be utterly tired of Wickfield-tormenting after ten years or so, but being a bitter Dickensian villain he doesn't realise it. Yep, I buy it. Roll on the fun.

As for Sir Richard, he has a long, long way to go before he can even be mentioned on the same day as the best in the Unwelcome Suitor field. At some point in the future, I believe we are owed a full explanation of why he doesn't just forget about Mary. She may not have given him the whole Dickensian heroine brush-off, but she can plainly hardly bear to touch him. Just what kind of team does he expect them to make?

tisdag 22 november 2011

Blame it on the jet-lag

I returned last Saturday from a wonderful week in New York, full of no-holds-barred book shopping at Barnes & Noble, the Strand and then Barnes & Noble again. (There is also a book shop in Greenwich Village dedicated entirely to crime fiction, Partners & Crime, which is highly recommended if you can find it and if you remember that it opens at noon.) So now, what I really should be doing is of course to blog about books. But I don't feel quite up to it, and anyway I haven't read that much of what I've bought yet - buying it is a start. These last days I've postponed everything mildly strenuous by referring to my jet-lag. In fact, having slept all of ten hours and more between Saturday and Sunday, I don't feel much more tired than I usually do at the beginning of a working week, but never mind. Because of my jet-lag, I'm not going to be over-ambitious with my blogging at the moment. I'll blog about something easy, like "Downton Abbey" - again.

In Sweden, we have reached the middle of the second series - episode four has just been aired. The plot is as satisfyingly eventful as ever, and the script has picked up after a somewhat lacklustre start (if you plan to propose to a girl you don't love, could you please not use the phrase "we'd make a great team" - it has been done). As yet, Matthew's new fiancée and Mary's new suitor aren't exactly the most vivid characters - they are quite obviously hurdles for the star-crossed lovers to overcome - but that could well change. I was somewhat disgruntled that the uppity maid Ethel was punished by fate in the guise of Julian Fellowes for her uppitiness. Not that she was very nice, but her downfall seemed all to predictable. Still, quarrelling with the plot-lines in "Downton Abbey" is half the fun (seriously, Bates letting himself be blackmailed by his wife with the old Turkish diplomat affair? What's it to him, and how could he think for a moment that anyone would be interested in Anna's part in it?).

But what can have happened to the icy bitch Mary? She's mellowed to an extent where she's hardly recognisable, and she is completely smitten with Matthew all of a sudden. To top it all, she twice holds back in trying to win him out of consideration for his drippy fiancée. Lady Mary being noble? Is this really her, or has she been replaced by an android?

Not that I'm complaining - I like the new Lady Mary a lot better than the old one. What with Edith softening as well and doing good works for convalescing officers, suddenly all the mean tricks will have to be provided by the baddies downstairs (or, in one case, formerly downstairs), Thomas and Miss O'Brien.

It wouldn't be entirely true to say that Miss O'Brien is my favourite character - I think my favourite is Mrs Hughes, who I very much hope will discover somewhere at the end of series three that she and Carson are made for each other - but she does add a welcome dose of villainy and does it better than Thomas as she is more intelligent. One of the most intriguing things about the series for me is the friendship between its two baddies. O'Brien advances Thomas's cause whenever she can, and he is duly grateful. Theirs is not a partnership founded on attraction, Thomas being on the other bus, and yet they stick together through thick and thin. Believe me, you don't see this kind of loyalty between villainous characters every day - mostly, at some point, they will be double-crossing each other.

Miss O'Brien showing a compassionate interest in the unsuitable-because-shell-shocked-out-of-his-senses valet Lang is another point in her favour. It would have been hard to warm to the always blundering Lang - really, shell shock doesn't excuse everything - if he hadn't been very good-looking in a brainy, tormented way. I wouldn't mind seeing him return to the series, once he's cured of his shell shock and general clumsiness.

lördag 5 november 2011

While on the subject of Fanny Price

This is, I suppose, as good a time as any to expand on something I mentioned in my previous blog (and by the way, P.D. James's P & P mystery is already published now! That was quick: in the newspaper piece I read it sounded as if it was only in the pipeline). What I'd like to chew over a bit is the - to me - baffling hostility often shown towards Fanny Price in "Mansfield Park" by various commentators. Shepherd with her parallel universe take of the character was clearly not impressed by the original, and she can join a large and thriving club. Everywhere Fanny is roundly condemned for her "self-righteousness" and "humourlessness". Austen famously said about Emma that in her she would create a heroine "no-one but myself will like". Yet Emma is doing all right, although people tend to share Mr Knightley's censorious view of her behaviour (for my money, Mr Knightley needs to be hit over the head with something hard: talk about humourless and self-righteous). It is Fanny who is the most unloved of the Austen heroines.

Why is this, exactly? And how judgemental is Fanny? You'd think, by the way she's described not least in sequel fiction where she occasionally pops up as a secondary character, that she's some kind of 19th century Oliver Cromwell, calling "Guards!" Horrible-Histories-style every time anyone even mentions something fun. Yet Austen's timid Fanny hardly ever ventures an opinion on anyone or anything. She certainly doesn't set herself up as being morally better than the family at Mansfield: it's Austen who does that. How can this shrinking violet have provoked so much loathing among the Austen-reading public?

The answer is, largely, because she is a shrinking violet. In our day and age, we are more into the feisty kind of heroine (the "f" factor, also mentioned in a previous post) personified by the warm, witty and spirited Elizabeth Bennet. I like a heroine with bite myself: someone who can "answer back", like Elizabeth or Jane Eyre. Perhaps it's understandable that modern readers - and maybe not just modern ones - are bound to compare goody-goody heroines like Fanny unfavourably with the more spunky Elizabeth Bennet kind. Clearly, heroines didn't have to be self-effacing in the 19th century. So why on earth does Fanny choose to be?

Because, now as then, individuals are different, and we can't all be spunky. Fanny's position as a poor relation taken on in sufferance and continously bullied by Mrs Norris does not exactly encourage spunkiness, either. With time, I have become more and more tolerant with the non-spunky heroine type. We should cut them some slack and not assume that just because they are good, they are dreary and two-dimensional. Fanny's unrequited love for Edmund is so feelingly portrayed by Austen that I rather warmed to her. Besides, she is trying to do her best as she is thrown into one impossible situation after the other.

If you ask me, Edmund is the real stinker in "Mansfield Park". Fanny may utter some prissy lines, but you can always trace Edmund's influence in them. He is the one who moralises, while at the same time drooling over the funny but extremely worldly Mary Crawford. His treatment of Fanny is unfeeling even by cousinly standards - depriving her of her horse, a hard-earned privilege, so he can give Mary riding lessons; abandoning her and forgetting her altogether at Rushworth's place so he can stroll around with Mary - and becomes even more heart-breaking when you consider Fanny's love for him, which it would not have been difficult for him to guess at if he had cared more about her. If this is supposed to be Fanny's mainstay and support in the Bertram family, one wonders what the rest of them are like. To add insult to injury, though, or rather injury to insult, the way Edmund tramples on Fanny's feelings is probably another reason for her unpopularity. Why does she put up with this ghastly fellow? readers ask. And some female readers may also add in an undertone: "It's not as if she didn't have options..."

Which leads me to Henry Crawford. Apparently, he has quite a following among female readers: many sequels/retellings on "Mansfield Park" are designed to exonerate him and sometimes to give him another chance with Fanny. Of course, and I know this from experience, when a heroine scorns a man you would very happily have taken on board yourself, especially if you sense that there is some moral reason behind her unwillingness to give him the time of day, you can't help muttering "silly cow!" and "she should be so lucky" at regular intervals. Why Henry should be considered such a catch beats me, though. I never did care for salon-savvy layabouts (Sir John Chester in "Barnaby Rudge" being the great exception). What does Henry ever do except chase skirt? A villain should do something more to show a bit of drive, verve and efficiency - like defrauding his boss, building a fortune on stolen goods or snooping into the private affairs of his clients and using his findings against them. I know my villain taste is somewhat bourgeois, but honestly - I can't see what Henry's got that could make up for the fact that he started the whole Fanny-winning enterprise wanting to make "a small hole in Fanny Price's heart".

Austen, though, seems to have anticipated that some readers could be irritated by Fanny's refusal of Henry Crawford. She makes it clear that he would have stood much more of a chance, in spite of being a seducer and wastrel, if Fanny had not already been in love with Edmund, and she hints that he would have won Fanny with time if Edmund had married Mary. Henry does win some ground when he meets Fanny and her family in Portsmouth, and might have prevailed if he hadn't been just as flighty as Fanny predicted and gone off with Maria Rushworth. I should think it's just as well he did, though. Fanny herself put it best when contemplating a future with him (and I try to think of her perceptive words when I grumble about other heroines wilfully refusing villains): "I am so perfectly convinced that I could never make him happy, and that I should be miserable myself."

So, next time there is an adaptation of "Mansfield Park", it might be a novel idea to have a Fanny Price who actually bears some resemblance to Fanny in the book. (Sylvestra Le Touzel was a wonderful Fanny in the old TV adaptation from -83, but that was a while ago now.) A Fanny who is not a tomboy - as in the ITV adaptation - or a saucy slave-defender - as in the dreadful film: don't get me started! - or has extra feistiness injected in her in some other way. Please?

torsdag 27 oktober 2011

Sequel AND crime story: the ultimate guilty pleasure

Heard the news? P.D. James is writing a sequel to Pride and Prejudice! A sequel and a crime story to boot. What's extraordinary about that is not the idea itself - it has been done before - but that such a prestigious writer (yes, a crime writer, but very highly regarded one) should try her hand at a genre combination with such a poor standing in literary circles. Crime may be the genre that has come in from the cold (every second author seems to dabble in murder these days) but the sequel/prequel/retelling genre is still viewed with a great deal of suspicion by the culture vultures. And as for a crime and sequel combo - well, it's hardly going to get reviews in any upmarket newspapers, unless a reviewer wants to make a point about leaving dead authors' deathless creations alone. To those of us who can't help enjoying sequels and other riffs on the classics, it's very good news indeed that we have a heavyweight like P.D. James on our side.

A sequel/crime story take on Austen is, as I mentioned, not a new thing in itself. Here are some examples of the sequel/crime story genre (and by sequel I include prequels, retellings from another point of view, resettings of the story in modern times etc.):

The Mr and Mrs Darcy Mysteries by Carrie Bebris: When I bought the first of these novels, I expected it to be quite trashy. I mean, Elizabeth and Darcy as mystery solvers? Come on. Unexpectedly, though, the books in this series turn out to be some of the best in the Austen sequel genre. Bebris captures the personalities of Austen's characters well, and the relationship between the Darcys is sweet without being cloying. The two first mysteries contain supernatural elements, but this feature is hardly in evidence in book three, "North by Northanger", and not at all in subsequent books. That may be a relief to some, but I didn't mind the supernatural factor. In fact, I think my favourite of the mysteries is book number two, "Suspense and Sensibility". As the title suggests, characters from "Sense and Sensibility" make an appearance, and thanks to a magic mirror a rake from the Hellfire Club days is let loose in Regency London, in the guise of Kitty Bennet's fiancé Harry Dashwood. When the bewildered Kitty takes her suddenly errant fiancé to task and asks him if he has a lover, he answers calmly: "Yes. Do you?"

Murder at Mansfield Park by Lynn Shepherd: I read this novel partly during a train journey, and it passed the long train journey test with flying colours. I didn't fidget, I just read on. It's an enjoyable Austenesque romp and a good old-fashioned whodunnit rolled into one, with a bright-eyed sleuth in the Bucket/Cuff mould. Be warned, though: this is not Mansfield Park as we know it. This is a kind of parallel universe where things are slightly different: for instance, Fanny Price is not a poor relation but a spoiled heiress; the Crawfords are in straitened circumstances; and Edmund is Mrs Norris's stepson rather than the younger son of the Bertram family. Geek as I am, I'm familiar with and enjoy a parallel universe story. It did annoy me, though, that some of the characters, notably Fanny, were so unlike their "real" counterparts, and that the dissimilarity could not be put down to altered circumstances alone. You have to be a hardened anti-Pricean (though there are many of them out there) to think that Fanny would be a conceited monster in any universe. I look forward to reading Shepherd's next book, inspired by "Bleak House", but I wonder what she will make of Esther.

Shakespearean Whodunnits, Shakespearean Detectives and The Mammoth Book of Dickensian Whodunnits, edited by Mike Ashley: It was the collections of Shakespearean murder mysteries that made me change my mind about the sequel genre. Before that, I was just as sniffy about it as many others. It's years since I read them now, but I remember the high quality of many of the stories, and one of them lingers particularly in the mind: "The House of Rimmon" by Cherith Baldry, a mystery featuring the characters from "The Merchant of Venice" which treats not only Shylock but also Antonio with sympathy. Then fairly recently, the collection of Dickensian whodunnits came out. Yay! Ashley must be a good editor, because again there were many strong stories, though I didn't care for the "Dombey and Son" one. (In fairness, it would take much to make me relish a story where the suggestion is that darling Jem Carker's death wasn't an accident.) The "David Copperfield" short stories were among the best - no Uriah in sight, though.

Death by Dickens and Much Ado About Murder edited by Anne Perry: More uneven collections, these, but worth getting hold of for all that, especially the Dickens-themed one. The "Christmas Carol" story by Lillian Stewart Carl is particularly charming, and I enjoyed Perry's own "Tale of Two Cities" story set in revolutionary France and featuring some figures from Robespierre's closest circle.

The Ladislaw Case by Imke Thormählen: Yes, all right, I must admit a personal bias in favour of this novel. Let's just say Sweden's a small country, population-wise. I think I can safely say, however, that those who love Victorian novels and classic whodunnits will enjoy it hugely. It gives "Middlemarch" the sequel/crime story treatment, but there are also references to Dickens: in the end, it is Inspector Bucket who solves the murder of Will Ladislaw's political rival, for which Will is the prime suspect. Though the book is set in London in the 1840s rather than in Middlemarch, past events and long-dead Middlemarchians still influence the protagonists' lives: Bulstrode has also copped it by now, but in a way his soul goes marching on. Will hasn't forgotten Casaubon either, however much he would wish to.

To sum up, if you think P.D. James's P&P murder mystery sounds intriguing, there's a lot more reading to be had along the same lines. That doesn't make James's forthcoming book any less welcome, however. Who murdered Wickham? My money is on Mrs Bennet - or Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

onsdag 19 oktober 2011

Factor "v" for villain

I still wonder why the Andrew Davies TV adaptation of "Little Dorrit" was not such a smash hit with the public as his earlier adaptation of "Bleak House". All right, so "Little Dorrit" didn't exactly flop: I bet more people watched it than that arty, dark, filthy-clothes-and-yellow-teeth Civil War drama which the BBC bragged so much about a few years back and which I still haven't been able to bring myself to have a look at. And I understand that the novelty of having a Dickens novel as a high-class soap opera had worn off. Lastly, "Bleak House" is a better novel than "Little Dorrit" (though "Little Dorrit" is brilliant too - well, it is by Dickens), so it's hardly surprising if the "Bleak House" adaptation is more popular. And yet... When you think of all the good things which made "Bleak House" compelling viewing, and which are there in "Little Dorrit" as well, I can't but feel that the latter has been undervalued. Great storytelling? Yep. Zippy pace? You got it. Engaging characters? Present. First-class acting? And how!

I'm rewatching "Bleak House" at the moment, which has brought these thoughts on, and an old pet theory of mine about one reason why it proved so popular. There is one thing "Bleak House" has which "Little Dorrit" doesn't: the villain factor.

Years ago, I read an article about costume dramas and how producers were always looking for the "f" factor which would make the drama catch on - "f" standing for a feisty female lead. Even then, I was thinking: hang on, what about the "v" factor? Yes, a spunky female to admire and identify with is good, but a nice, juicy villain is better. Well, naturally as a villain-lover I was bound to think that, but I've come to think there is a lot more villain-loving going on among the general public that one imagines. Perhaps it's not a new phenomenon either: "Dombey and Son" outsold "Vanity Fair", in spite of the latter having the "f" factor (in the shape of Becky Sharp) in spades. When it comes to the "v" factor, though, few books can beat "Dombey and Son".

In the "Little Dorrit" adaptation, everyone did what they could with the villains assigned to them, but the fact remains that Merdle is a nobody, and knows it; Henry Gowan is vicious, which is excusable, and a lazy Steerforthian, which is not; Mr Flintwinch is a sidekick (if a self-willed one); Mr Casby is an interesting idea - how much meanness can a man get away with as long as he looks and seems benign? - more than a character and Rigaud is plain annoying. In the book, it is the villainesses - Mrs Clennam and Miss Wade - who really possess the field. It is because of Mrs Clennam's pain that even a hardened villain-lover like myself cannot approve of Rigaud, just as Mr Bulstrode's similar agonies in "Middlemarch" turn one against the awful Raffles. Now villainesses are all very well, but who's there for a straight, female villain-lover like me to sigh over? Also, if the "Little Dorrit" adaptation has a fault, it is that it could have done more with these two female characters (and with Flora, actually - but she's not part of this argument). Judy Parfitt was a perfect Mrs Clennam, but the character's back-story was changed and compressed in a way that didn't really do her justice, and Miss Wade was reduced from being the very personification of self-devouring Dickensian bitterness to a lesbian predator. What remains? Nothing to rival Charles Dance's Mr Tulkinghorn or Phil Davis's Smallweed (Smallweed is rather small beer villain-wise in the book - hence the name - but Davis is so good I almost suspect Andrew Davies and Co. to have enlarged the part for his benefit.)

I realise my theory has holes. Austen costume dramas, for instance, are the most popular of all, and their "v" factor is practically zilch - General Tilney is as close as you come. All the same, I think a fascinating villain helps to promote a drama not only in my eyes, but generally. I'm sure the "Dombey and Son" adaptation that never was would have caught on famously. Try telling that to the Beeb, though.

torsdag 13 oktober 2011

Forget Bond - Timothy Dalton is the ultimate Mr Rochester

The new "Jane Eyre" film with Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender does most things right. It doesn't mess around with the story and tells it effectively. It is well acted and beautifully shot. It certainly beats the feature film with Charlotte Gainsbourg and William Hurt hands down (though she was good). And yet, it can't really replace the TV adaptation from the 1980s with Zelah Clarke and Timothy Dalton in my affections.

One problem is the film format, of course. Films should not drag on forever, so there's limited time to tell the story in. It is easy to get restless in a cinema, where you are a more or less captive audience with limited access to loos. A TV series, on the other hand, can go on for as long as the producer's on board, so there's more time to let the action unfold. Apart from that, though, it's just difficult for any production - on film or on TV - to beat the pairing of Clarke and Dalton.

It's strange that Mr Rochester should be so hard to get right. In the many "Jane Eyre" adaptations I've seen, Jane has mostly been convincing, though it's hard to match Clarke's fairy looks and fiery temperament. But Rochester is trickier. As I've already mentioned somewhere long ago, he is one of the few heroes I really have time for. Ironically, though, his status as "the thinking woman's crumpet" may be part of the problem. William Hurt, Toby Stephens and the latest Rochester Michael Fassbender are all good-looking in a typically brainy way. I'd happily drool over at least the latter two in any role you care to mention, but I must admit they may not be quite saturnine enough for Mr Rochester. I did not care for Ciarán Hinds's Rochester at all, but like it or not, looks-wise he comes a great deal closer to what Charlotte Brontë had in mind than slim and polished Stephens.

Then there's Rochester's manner. Though he should be brainy, he should also be Byronic. Hurt is wet, Stephens is very likeable but not overly passionate, and Fassbender also seems to hold back. They all appear slightly embarrassed by Rochester's Byronic side and tend to downplay his more volcanic outbursts.

Now Dalton, on the other hand, gives them everything he's got. He is not ashamed of his lines and sees no reason to appear apologetic when he talks about cords snapping and inward bleeding. A man who can carry off the gypsy scene doesn't have to be afraid of anything. He also has a good deal of warmth and humour. The disgust with which he pronounces St John's name in his jealous fit at the end - "that man Rivers! SIN-John Rivers" - is unforgettable. Finally, he has the advantage of looking properly dark and wild. He's too handsome for Rochester, of course, but then so is nearly everyone who's played him. Jane's "No sir", as answer to the question whether she finds Mr Rochester handsome, seldom rings quite true (well, maybe with Orson Welles).

There is a lot of carping about Timothy Dalton's take on Bond, and I admit he's not quite my idea of 007, though that is not necessarily a bad thing. (Also, Dalton was hardly to blame for the ghastly "Licence to Kill" which wasn't Bond-like in the least - exploding petrol tanks and drug-dealing instead of cats and eccentric sidekicks? Horror!) But who cares if he nailed Bond? He did one better - he nailed Mr Rochester.

tisdag 4 oktober 2011

The cake wasn't the problem with Marie Antoinette

I've finally got round to watching Sofia Coppola's film about Marie Antoinette, and I must admit I quite enjoyed it. I had no high hopes as I'm not a fan of the lady (Marie Antoinette, that is - I have no views on Coppola) and I gloomily foresaw a whitewash. It's true the film is more for than against the sorely tried - and trying - queen, but it's not too overdone, and what's more, it wisely ends in 1789, when the king and queen are forced by an angry mob to move from Versailles to Paris. In other words, long before the revolution got in full swing and heads started to roll.

When the film was released many reviews complained about it ending where it did, and at the time I sympathised with them. A film about Marie Antoinette without a guillotine in it? Come on! Now, though, I can see the advantage of stopping short in 1789. True, you lose the scenes where the ex-queen is separated from her son in prison, where sick-making allegations are made about her in court and where she is driven proudly to her death. All touching stuff. On the other hand, you don't have to explain the fact that she handed over France's military secrets to Austria.

Anyone who tries to defend Marie Antoinette starts out by pointing out that she never said "let them eat cake". Which is true, she didn't. Then, they continue, she had absolutely no part in "the affair of the necklace" which made her so unpopular in her own time. Nope, she did not. I've read two accounts of "the affair of the necklace", both too tangled to be any fun, but one person who was not mixed up in it was Marie Antoinette. I believe I've also heard it said that she did not play at being shepherdess at Petit Trianon. I'm a little less inclined to take this as read, but let's face it, even if she did it's hardly a great crime - shepherdesses of the Bo Peep variety were "in" at the time and no-one thought for a moment they had anything in common with real herders of cattle. In the end, though, Marie Antoinette wasn't executed for a silly quote, or for a diamond necklace, or for playing shepherdess. She was executed for treason, and she committed it.

By dwelling on Marie Antoinette's pre-revolutionary life, Coppola's film can concentrate on the allegations made against her at that time - i.e. that she was very extravagant. The film doesn't deny this: many scenes are taken up with the princess's and later the queen's spending sprees. It does list a number of extenuating circumstances, though, like her youth (her eighteenth birthday party takes place about halfway into the film) and her troubles with her husband who at first didn't know how to go about making her pregnant. I read Stefan Zweig's biography of Marie Antoinette once upon a time, and he really went to town on the sufferings of the poor girl who had to endure Louis "tiring himself out on her young body" to no avail night after night. The initial marital problems are a little less graphically depicted here, but the film makes a point which the gallant Zweig missed: the way the court blamed Marie Antoinette for not trying harder to get Louis off the mark, and the strain that must have been for a teenager had no way of knowing anything about seduction techniques. Also, we are duly informed that the real drain on the nation's finances was not the queen's hats and shoes but backing the Americans against the English in the War of Independence.

It's not an action-packed film, more of a mood piece in very pretty surroundings. The clothes and the food look exquisite - the cakes especially, ironically enough. The stifling court atmosphere is well captured: in one scene, the queen fantasises girlishly about her lover von Fersen amid disjointed court gossip which you really couldn't make head or tail of if you tried. The queen's best friends, the sweet princess de Lamballe and the sluttish but fun duchess de Polignac, are nicely individualised. All the same, if I hadn't had any interest in the revolutionary period and in seeing how the royal family got along before they ran into worse trouble than back-stabbing each other, I would probably have been bored - the film is pretty slow.

Kirsten Dunst is charming as ever in the lead role, but I couldn't help thinking that the "poor giddy little thing who doesn't know what she's doing" card was overplayed. By 1789, Marie Antoinette was thirty-four, and unfortunately she no longer took a back seat in political matters. The film shows her proclaiming gravely, when she is advised to take shelter abroad: "My place is at the king's side." Honey, it would have been better for the king if your place had been anywhere but at his side.

söndag 25 september 2011

Tudor times again

You'd think, wouldn't you, that sooner or later a girl would tire of Tudor era gossip? And yet, recently, I spent my leisure hours during a conference trip devouring "The Queen's Governess" by Karen Harper and starting on "The Virgin's Lover" by Philippa Gregory (well honestly - I couldn't weigh down my luggage with Les Mis, now could I?). Earlier this year I read "The Final Act of Mr Shakespeare" (though strictly speaking that was set in Jacobean times), and last week I watched a second adaptation of "The Other Boleyn Girl", having of course already seen the film - twice. Wanting to see different adaptations of, say, "Oliver Twist" is not very strange, but "The Other Boleyn Girl"? What is all this?

I'm not the only one, it seems, who is hooked on Tudor gossip, seeing as Philippa Gregory's novels have clearly started a trend. "The Queen's Governess" has quite shamelessly been fashioned by Karen Harper's publishers to look as much like a Gregory novel as possible. (I wouldn't be surprised if they suggested the title, too.) It must be a little galling for her as her interest in Tudor times is obviously genuine and un-Gregory-related, but at least the sales tactic is a sound one - the standard woman-in-a-brocaded-dress-cover certainly drew me.

The question remains, though, why? We all know pretty much what happens by now. Henry's six wives - "divorced, beheaded and died, divorced, beheaded, survived" as "Horrible Histories" succintly puts it. (If Harper is to be believed, this is a variation of a real Tudor witticism.) Edward VI dying young. Lady Jane Grey being beheaded. Mary Tudor burning Protestants and pining for the cold-hearted Philip of Spain. And then, finally, Elizabeth, who provides a Golden Age but who never marries: not Dudley, not the eligible Frenchman, certainly not Philip (well, what did he expect?), not our own fine-looking Swedish king Erik XIV (all right, he was a bit erratic, but still - wouldn't it have been wonderful?), no one. And as a consequence, the Tudor line becoming extinct and the Stuarts - the tiresome Mary Queen of Scots' heirs - taking over.

I suppose the answer is right there. It's all the incident that attracts us. You can say what you like about the Tudors, who had little business being on England's throne at all, but things are seldom dull when they're around, executing enemies, friends, wives and erstwhile favourites left and right. What was it like? To be king or queen of the room one minute, and to face the chopping block the next? Or to be someone close to all these notable casualties, or their royal executioners? There's enough human drama there to fill a number of woman-in-brocade-dress-books.

There is one thing the Tudor era lacks, though, which most successful stories tend to have: likeable characters. As I've already mentioned, Cardinal Wolsey, especially as described in Hilary Mantel's "Wolf Hall", charmed me, but otherwise, what is there? Henry VIII is more or less a monster. Cromwell is clever enough but not exactly sparkling: there's no denying the French do the shady-politician-sidekick-of-famous-monarch-thing rather better. Various earls and dukes are in it for what they can get, which is no bad thing in itself, but they are annoyingly hamfisted about it. The excellent TV series "Elizabeth R" depicted Bloody Mary's unrequited love for Philip of Spain so harrowingly (and besides he was played by Peter Jeffrey: girlfriend, I get you!) I tend to cut her more slack than she deserves, but the fact remains that, apart from being devoid of GSOH, she did burn those Protestants. Not even Elizabeth - much the best of the Tudor monarchs - comes out of the court intrigues altogether well. "The Queen's Governess" was about her governess, Kat Ashley, and is very much pro-Elizabeth, but Ashley's "dear girl" did seem on the calculating side, and with an eye on the throne pretty much all the time. When Mary finally cops it and Elizabeth becomes queen, there is a jubilant, "ding-dong the witch is dead" feeling in the air. Yup, girl, you're queen all right, but only because first your brother and then your sister died prematurely. How about a minute of silence or something?

Things look up a bit likeable-character-wise once Elizabeth is queen: there is the intelligent and loyal (rare combination, that) Cecil for one, and unsurprisingly I have a fondness for spy master Walsingham. But Dudley? Not even Robert Hardy in "Elizabeth R" (those were the days when Tudor crumpet was played by the finest of English character-actordom) could make me understand what she saw in this preening peacock. I doubt Gregory's "The Queen's Lover" will make me see things differently. It's still fun to read, though.

söndag 11 september 2011

Please Hugo, cut to the chase (one with Javert in it)

I realise that my blog entries about books have been thin on the ground lately. The reason is my current Ambitious Book Project, which leaves little room for other reading except for the odd crime novel or romance. I'm trudging through an unabridged English translation of Victor Hugo's "Les Misérables" of roughly 1200 pages, and it's taking some time.

I've already read an abridged Swedish translation of the novel and, being young and naïve and not realising the version I'd been reading was shortened, I happily recommended the novel to acquaintances. As it happens, there are no recent Swedish translations of the whole thing, but since I realised the novel's real size I've felt a bit bad about my (albeit unwitting) intellectual window-dressing. I bought a three-volume French paperback edition of the novel years ago, but let's face it: I was never, ever going to read a 1200-page novel in French. Finally, I decided to do the next best thing and read it in translation, even if the language it is translated into happens to be that of the duke of Wellington (who cuts absolutely no ice with Hugo).

In principle, I'm very much against shortening books. Even when an author seems to stray from the point a bit, there is often a reason for it, and you risk losing no end of nuances with a version that has been pared down to contain only what is necessary for the plot. As an example, I seem to remember an abridged Swedish translation of "David Copperfield" which did not contain, for instance, the sub-plot about Doctor Strong's marriage. This sub-plot is not essential to the main plots, and has accordingly been lifted out of each and every TV adaptation, but it is interesting in its own right and it reinforces the impression we have of some of the main characters. Oh, and did I mention it includes some lovely Uriah scenes? In short, in their zeal to find the essential core of a book, abridgers might really cheat you of something. Besides, you can't really brag about having read an abridged novel, can you?

In the case of "Les Misérables", though, I must say the Swedish abridger did a jolly good job. He or she kept all the juicy dramatic bits - such as the conflict between the harassed ex-con Jean Valjean and the policeman Javert who always ends up crossing his path - while radically shortening digressions. I've reached page 500 or thereabouts in the unabridged version now, and so far no hidden gems like "lost" Javert scenes have come to light. What was cut from the Swedish version was cut for a reason.

It is a pity that a great author like Hugo, who can write vivid dramatic scenes that glue you to the page, felt the need to intersperse them with lengthy digressions which really have no bearing on the story whatsoever. The novel starts, disastrously, with a fifty-page ode to the goodness of the bishop of Digne, the man who with his kindness saves Jean Valjean from a life of darkness and crime. All we need to know about the bishop is there in his humane treatment of Jean Valjean. We don't need to hear about his good works in detail, especially as his sacrifices don't always impress quite in the way Hugo doubtless intended. Not only the bishop but also his sister, who lives with him, are kept in poverty because he gives the lion share of his earnings to the poor. At one time, it is mentioned that the sister would dearly like to buy a lounge for her room, but is never able to save enough money for it. Apparently, it hasn't occurred to her brother to buy it for her and shorten his lavish alms to the poor just for once. We are also given to understand that the bishop, when he anonymously receives some church finery stolen from a Cathedral by a penitent thief, converts it into money for a hospital. But this was the Cathedral's property, surely, and not the bishop's to sell or donate.

Further down the line, there is an account (also about fifty pages) of the battle of Waterloo and of Hugo's thoughts on it. The only thing it explains plot-wise is why Marius Pontmercy's officer father is lying in a ditch, where he is later rescued by the crook Thénardier (who in effect only wanted to pick his pockets). We also get approximately forty-five pages on the rules and life in a convent where Jean Valjean seeks shelter, and on what Hugo thinks about convents generally. Please - enough already! Lately I've come through a description (only seventeen pages this time, though) of the phenomenon of the Paris gamin, with some additional commentary from Hugo about how Paris resembles ancient Rome. There is a gamin in "Les Misérables", the famous Gavroche (who I trust will not be such a trial as he is in the musical, though he does give Javert away on the barricade), but that does not mean we need a lengthy definition of the term.

Jean Valjean is an interesting portrait of a man who continously struggles to be good. Javert is a wonderful villain, rare because he doesn't see himself as a villain at all (I may blog more about him when I've finally finished the book). The Thénardiers - not the vulgar comic-relief characters of the musical at all but nasty and cunning pieces of work - also make for good drama. But for my own philistine part, I would not have minded if Hugo had gathered all his high-flown thoughts on life, battles, capitals and convents in some separate volume of essays and not burdened the great story that is "Les Misérables" with them.

måndag 29 augusti 2011

Go on, Eden - give "The Hour" what for

Now, don't get me wrong. I always enjoy ogling Julian Rhind-Tutt, and even when he's saddled with oversized Fifties glasses and a script full of cheap put-downs he's still very cute. I'm starting to wonder, though, if even Julian is reason enough to go on watching "The Hour".

I feel a little bad about panning "The Hour", as obviously a lot of effort has gone into it. The production values are lavish and it has a dream cast - Anton Lesser in one of his clever-and-vaguely-sinister roles, Burn Gorman who was such a brilliant Guppy in "Bleak House" excuding menace as a spy-cum-hit man (be warned, though, he's killed off in episode three), Anna Chancellor having little to do but bang on about Suez but doing it with bags of style as always, and Romola Garai in one of the leads. But after having seen episode two and three (I missed the first one, though I don't feel as sorry about that as when I first discovered it) I'm unimpressed and a bit mystified by the polite but lukewarm reviews, where the reviewers don't seem to know why they haven't warmed to the series as much as they had expected. Well, here's a thought: could it be because the characterisation is clichéd, the dialogue clunks, and the dramatic set-ups don't ring true?

In episode three Bel (Romola), the glamorous producer and Freddie, the intrepid journalist, are invited to a house party by Marnie, the vapid society wife of Hector, the decent but dim news anchorman. (See what I mean about the clichés?) Which of the following things do you think happen?

1. Intrepid journalist and glamorous producer make fun of the hostess and the rooms' décor.

2. Overbearing politician (that's Julian) turns out to be a bad shot.

3. Intrepid journalist turns out to be able to handle a gun, which prompts the comment from the overbearing politician that his father must have been a poacher. (Oh, did I mention that Freddie is of humble origin and chippy about it?)

4. Intrepid journalist poses some "provoking" questions about Suez to the overbearing politician over dinner, to which the overbearing politician has no answer whatsoever, although they're on school magazine level. Whereupon the host and hostess try to change the subject while the glamorous producer backs up the journalist, urging the politician to convey the journalist's words of wisdom to Eden before he loses the country's support.

5. Glamorous producer feels grateful that the hostess has thoughtfully arranged for her guests to play Sardines, as it's a great way of breaking the ice and a darned sight more fun than to stand around making small talk.

The answer is: all of the things above happen. Except the last one, obviously. The producer practically rolls her eyes over having to play Sardines, and the smitten anchorman - the host, remember, husband of vapid hostess - backs her up in her complaints. Oh, how shallow and pointless these upper-class house parties are, to be sure. Nothing for serious people with blinding insights about what canal-pinchers might find insulting or about how public morale may be affected by seeing a "frail" PM on the telly.

As a bon bourgeois - or bonne bourgeoise, to be precise - I can well imagine posh house parties as being awful, especially for the uninitiated. But I expect a drama for grown-ups to offer more subtle satire than the juvenile stuff that was served up here. Digs at toffs who play Sardines - I mean, really?

I don't think the Suez crisis context is doing the series any favours either. We're supposed to side with Bel's truth-loving journalist crew, headed by Freddie, against the Big Bad Government who wants them to toe the line. Except criticising the government over Suez doesn't seem that heart-stoppingly courageous to me, more like kicking a man when he's down. I'm no Eden expert, but I wouldn't have thought he'd be Scary Tyrant material somehow. Let's hope I'm wrong, and that he bursts on the scene - preferably cackling decrepitely like the Emperor in Star Wars and flanked by Angus McCain (aka overbearing politician aka Julian) in a Darth Vader cloak - and closes the "The Hour" down.

söndag 21 augusti 2011

Reality bites - that's one of the reasons we need fiction

Reading a more-than-usual trashy Regency Romance and watching "Consuming Passion" - a drama about the founding the publishing company Mills and Boon and how its output affects the lives of two women, in the seventies and the noughties respectively - reminded me about the debate that raged this summer about the potential harmfulness of romantic fiction. Some responsible body or other had primly pointed out that the couples in Mills and Boon novels rarely use condoms, and their passion-ridden romances gave the reader the notion that there is no need to "work at" a relationship. This led to 1) unwanted pregnancies 2) women giving up on relationships far too early. Fiction - that is popular, wish-fulfilment fiction - is bad for you.

Yes, really. Again. This kind of argument has gone on at least since "Don Quijote", and I don't believe the wake-up-and-smell-the-coffee-lobby has gained an inch of ground in all that time. Some readers and writers rise to the bait - as they did this time - and defend the novels under attack with a great deal of indignation. Others just ignore the furore and get along with reading exactly what they like, not caring what anyone thinks. And so wish-fulfilment fiction survives quite comfortably.

It's interesting that it is mostly "trashy" fiction that is targeted whenever the "books aren't like real life" debate gets going. It's not as if classic quality fiction is always that big on hard-headed reality. If anyone's fiction has given me unrealistic expectations of life, it's that of Dickens rather than Regency Romance authors (whose heroes I can do without - honestly, what's with the growling?). Which brings me to one of the reasons for the defensive stance of those (like me) who get upset every time someone trots out the old "fiction is bad for you because it distorts your view on reality" line. It's because, in a way, it's perfectly true. I have yet to meet a Dickensian lawyer, but to say I'd given up hope of ever encountering one would be telling a lie. Of course I'm not going to be pleased when someone says: "You're never ever going to meet the kind of man you think you fancy because he only exists in books. In fact, nice but boring chaps are the real princes, so stop being such a goose and grab one, if you can."

Feeling stung is not the only reason to resist the killjoys, though. I believe that they have honestly mixed up cause and effect. Wish-fulfilment wouldn't stop if all fiction except the most dreary were banned. Whoppingly high expectations are part of life in any case. People buy lottery tickets although they are unlikely to win; they book seaside holidays although it's unlikely to be warm and sunny; they send their manuscripts to publishers although they're unlikely to be read; they embark on a career of acting although they're unlikely to make any money worth speaking of, let alone make Hollywood or the Royal Shakespeare Company. Fiction may encourage rose-tinted daydreams, and make them feel more real, but it is not the root cause of them. Human nature is.

And isn't this just as well? One question the critics of wish-fulfilment fantasies don't seem to have thought much about is: and the alternative would be...? "Consuming passion" was nicely even-handed about the effect of high-blown romance on everyday life. In one plot strand, we see how a poor woman makes a fool of herself because she can't separate her fantasies about a dishy but, as it turns out, thoroughly boorish doctor from the real thing. She does become a succesful author for Mills and Boon, though. In another plot strand, a sophicticated Eng.Lit. lecturer giving a course at a university initially resists her attraction for one of her students because it too Mills-and-Boony for words - only to give in eventually because, what the heck, this is what she wants, Mills-and-Boony or not. The scenes between the Eng.Lit. lecturer and her toxically boring partner were almost scary. Whether her romance with the student had a future or not, surely she was right to ditch this plonker? If getting carried away by your dreams can be a recipe for unhappiness, I'd say "making do" with something or someone you don't really want is even more so.

lördag 13 augusti 2011

Harry Potter and chessboard psychology

So, why does anyone become a death eater? Is it because they feel excluded from the "we" that is society? Are they smarting under a perceived sense of injustice? Are they laid low by the inhuman lack of subsidies for funny haircuts? Or could it be that they are simply total bastards?

There are times – like when you have overdosed on the local paper’s milksoppy explanations of the world’s ills (forget personal responsibility; it’s all society’s fault apparently) – when watching a fantasy film like the last Harry Potter gives you a certain satisfaction. The world is neatly divided into good guys and bad guys. The Evil Figurehead is plain vile and would have been a problem even if the government had banned snake-keeping, running around noseless, mentioning offensive words like "mudblood" in public and other Evil Figurehead practises. And as for his Cackling Hordes, they are… well… Cackling Hordes. End of story.

In the long run, though, I’m not that fond of the fantasy universe with its Dark Side and Good Side. Partly, it’s the cod mythology dimension I don’t like. What was C.S. Lewis thinking? Aslan’s a lion, that’s the cool thing about him (the only cool thing, in fact – he’s rather pompous). He’s not the Messiah, just as little as the Doctor is, not to mention Harry. We’ve already got one of those. The main drawback from a villain-lover’s perspective, however, is that great villains are not pure evil. And the Evil Figurehead has to be just that, which precludes him from any sympathy we might feel. As for his minions, they are tainted by the fact that they work for him. What kind of schmuck would actually want to promote a Reign of Darkness and Horror? Give over.

But this is a genre failing, and not something to criticise the Harry Potter films specifically for. Actually, there is some nuancing in the shape of double-agent Snape who’s not wild about Harry, but who is still prepared to Do The Right Thing when required. As for the Malfoys, they just clear out before the final showdown, clearly thinking that discretion is the finer part of valour. Ironically, the only one with any gumption seems to be the mum, and she’s not going to let her scrumptious boys lose their necks for Voldemort.

I must say, by the way, that Ralph Fiennes does a fine job as Voldemort. His tone of pained regret – as if he were saying "sorry chaps, but this being evil business is what I do" – is oddly convincing. It is a mystery why Fiennes is apparently best not only in villain roles, but in villain roles where there is not a hope that anyone will root for him. He sleepwalked through "Maid in Manhattan", and I have it on hearsay that he was not that electrifying in "The English Patient" either. But give him a monster, as in "Schindler’s List" or the Harry Potter films, and he leaves you shivering in your seat. Why is that nose missing, though? Voldemort looked quite fetching when he was young, judging by the films’ flashbacks: obviously this splitting your soul lark does nothing for your looks. No doubt it is fully explained in the novels.

torsdag 4 augusti 2011

An old sci-fi chestnut one can do without

I've now watched the seven first episodes of the latest "Doctor Who" series, and while it's still very good indeed, some of the magic was missing this time around. Especially the first two-parter was a let-down: there's tricksiness that makes the viewer feel clever, and then there's tricksiness that just makes the viewer feel bewildered. A few loose ends to tie up later in the series are fine, but by now we've got a whole forest of them. I can't shake the impression that Steven Moffat and his crew are hoping that the unanswered questions, like The Silence (an impressive new alien enemy, granted), will be wiped from our memory the moment we stop watching.

I wasn't thrilled about the other two-parter either, and it's about the kind of adventure it represents that I'm going to have a grumble. The Doctor and Co. land in a factory where they are pumping out acid and where humans employ clones made of a gloopy matter they call "The Flesh" to do the dangerous work. These clones have no consciousness of their own, the gutsy female foreman insists, and have to be directed by their real counterparts. Meanwhile a massive solar storm is coming nearer.

Are the gloopy matter and the clones made from it sentient after all? Yes they are. Are the clones, thanks to the solar storm, suddenly able to act of their own accord? Yes they are. Do they rebel against their human counterparts? Yes they do. Is the opportunity to reach an agreement between clones ("gangers") and humans ruined because of one trigger-happy human? Yes it is. And when one of the Doctor's companions is confronted with a heap of half-decomposed gangers in a corridor who have been scrapped but are still alive, does the girl who is with him say: "who are the monsters here?" Yes, she does.

To paraphrase "Spamalot", once (at least!) in every sci-fi film/TV series, there's a story that goes like this. Sci-fi tends to be very preoccupied with the human condition, which is good in a way, but it does mean that some themes are often repeated. The "what's the difference between a highly intelligent robot and a human?" theme. The "don't mess with artifical intelligence because sooner or later it's going to get bolshie" theme. (Fair enough, though it does mean I'm never going to get my Blade Runner-style "pleasure replicant" made in the mould of James Carker.) And then there's this one: the endlessly tiresome "who are the monsters here?" theme, where we oh-so-selfish humans tyrannise some other intelligent life form (aliens, androids, artificial life - take your pick) and get our come-uppance as a result. Variations of this old tale have been used in several Doctor Who episodes, and they are never among my favourites.

What bugs me is that the point of these sci-fi stories seems to be to upbraid us for being human. Why? Last time I looked, sci-fi adventures were written by humans, paid for by humans, directed by humans, acted out by humans, filmed by humans, watched by humans... They are, in fact, an all-human affair. You don't get many dolphins or foxes relaxing in front of the telly and going: "Yep, you're right, those arrogant human bastards deserve a good kicking." I feel the same kind of grumpiness when it comes to the patronising stance towards "muggles" shown in the Harry Potter films (as I've mentioned, I've not read the books). Back here in the real world, we're all "muggles". There's something disagreeable about slagging off your own kind, as if they were nothing to do with you.

The fact that the "who are the monsters?" story is often meant to be seen metaphorically, as a warning against what one could call "inter-species" prejudice, only makes it more irritating. After all, our shared humanity is the strongest argument there is against prejudice. Whenever we take a dislike to some luckless group of people, it is bound to consist of human individuals, not scary clones made of sentient gloop, or ghastly spaghetti-faced Ood, or robots, or apes, or Neanderthals, or anthropomorphized bears (the latter two examples are from Jasper Fforde, who is unfortunately rather big on the whole oppressing-other-species-as-metaphor-for-prejudice-thing). What these "moral" sci-fi (and in Fforde's case, fantasy) stories do is to throw out the concept of the common ground we share as humans: instead, they actually make what fancy theorists call "the Other" into something decidedly Other. How clever is that, really? I mean, doesn't it seem sensible to be a bit wary of, say, giant prawns from outer space?

As for the horribleness of humans: well, yes, when push comes to shove, we put our own species first. Much like any other creature on the planet, then. Obviously I'm not in favour of leaving half-melted, still-living clones on the floor or treating other life forms meanly just because we can. But all philosophical grandstanding aside, the day we lose our basic instinct to protect and further humanity, I'd say we're toast.

torsdag 28 juli 2011

Good musical but less good sequel

When last in London, I saw the musical "Love Never Dies" and was surprised at just how enjoyable it was. The score was tuneful - the title number was a bit like a damp firework, true, but there were plenty of other cracking numbers, and the incidental music worked well, too, though I thought I could detect a strain of melody or two borrowed from "The Woman in White". The performances were first class. The set was impressive, though I wouldn't have minded a little less projections and a little more hands-on Coney Island props - come on, a real roundabout and ferris wheel would have killed you? I've seen the lyrics criticised, but I didn't think them that bad, really: compared with the ones in "The Woman in White", they're razor-sharp. The pace is good: forget the quip "paint never dries", the action never flags (maybe because of a reworking of the musical some months back). As for the story, it works as a melodrama in its own right.

Yep, there's a "but" coming on. Here it is. BUT what "Love Never Dies" doesn't manage is to work as a credible sequel to "The Phantom of the Opera". There are too many things that just don't fit, and this is presumably what's enraged "phans" the world over and made them hate the show, great tunes notwithstanding. This is a bit hard on Lloyd Webber, as "Phantom" was his baby, and you'd have thought if anyone had deserved to come up with a sequel to it without being punished by fans of the original show it would be him. However, always bearing in mind that there are probably those that would have hated any sequel to "Phantom", however brilliant, Lloyd Webber does commit a few howlers story-wise which even non-phanatics have a hard time to accept.

Rule number one when creating a sequel is, surely, to respect the original. It doesn't mean that the characters must be preserved as if in pickle jars and not develop the slightest little bit in the sequel: I've seen some gruesome examples of "character congealitis" in for instance Pride and Prejudice sequels, where Mrs Bennet is relentlessly silly, Mr Bennet relentlessly sarcastic, Mary always bookish, Kitty always skittish etc. until you're heartily tired of all of them. On the basis of avoiding scenarios like these, I suppose it's defendable to imagine the sweet, sensible, non-envious Meg Giry as having turned into a hard-bitten, slightly unbalanced showgirl who is rather less keen to cede the limelight to Christine than she used to be. After all, it's been ten years! But respect for the original does mean getting the events and the relationships on which the sequel is based right. Where a sequel goes is its own affair (almost - I'll come back to that), but it shouldn't cheat when it comes to the starting point of the story.

This is what "Love Never Dies" manages to do. The problem starts with the obviously mendacious title (I'm a romantic, but really - it's hardly unheard of for love to die, and with a vengeance too). What "love" are we talking about here? Apparently the love between the singer Christine and the Phantom. We're meant to take on board not only that Christine's marriage to the dashing viscount Raoul has failed, but that she has been pining for the Phantom all along, and that she actually spent a night of passion with him - the day before her wedding, no less. Now, ten years later, she has a son, Gustave, who she is convinced is the Phantom's. (How can she know, though? Night before her wedding, remember? So the kid is musical and likes weird things - well, he is the son of a singer, and he's a ten-year-old boy!) It hasn't stopped her from passing Gustave off as the viscount's son and heir, naturally. And so, we are supposed to wait in suspense and hope that Christine will be reunited with her "real" love and Gustave with his "real" father.

Hang on, though. This is how I remember Christine's and the Phantom's story from the original. He comes into her life as her mentor and tutor, passing himself off as "the angel of music" whom her dying father promised would always be with her. This relationship is not romantic, not in Christine's eyes at least. Then Raoul appears and the Phantom gets increasingly possessive and nasty - hence the chandelier incident, by which time Christine has twigged that her tutor's not very angelic at all. The drama winds up with the Phantom taking Raoul hostage and threatening to string him up (he's already casually murdered an opera employee this way) if Christine doesn't agree to spend her life with him. Christine agrees and kisses him. I can't quite recall what happens next, whether the Phantom gives up Christine voluntarily or is forced to, but I believe the former. Anyway he vanishes and Christine is free to marry Raoul.

Very handsome I'm sure to decide not to blackmail a girl into becoming your singing puppet for the rest of her life after all. Still, it's hardly Romeo and Juliet. What the Phantom feels for Christine is an unhealthy obsession, specifically concentrated on her voice. What Christine feels for the Phantom is a mixture of pity, fascination and blank terror. Yet in "Love Never Dies", the premise is that all that kept them apart in the first place was his disfigurement. Well, no, it wasn't quite that easy, was it?

The second thing a sequel should avoid is to mess up a happy ending. This doesn't mean being so slavish towards the original that the sequel becomes nothing more than a drawn-out extension of the happy ending we've already been served. (Again, many P&P sequels are guilty as charged.) There have to be new crises and new dramas, but they should be resolved in a way that is in keeping with the original's intent. Obviously Christine and Raoul were well suited and were heading for a happily ever after - that's what the sugary duet "All I Ask of You" was all about. Why ruin it?

Still, if you don't care that much about "Love Never Dies" making sense as a sequel, I'd recommend you to see it if you're in London before it closes at the end of August. But be warned, there is hardly a character in it at the end that wasn't better off at the end of "Phantom" - and that includes the Phantom himself.

fredag 15 juli 2011

A delicate balance

A few weeks back, the author and critic Philip Hensher wrote a very readable article on villains, regretting the fact that the age of the charismatic villain in the mould of Shakespeare’s Richard III (have I mentioned that he has nothing to do with the historical Richard? I have? Let’s move on then) seems to be past. They just don’t make’em like that any more. Hensher, who has read a great deal more modern fiction than I am ever likely to, has a theory about why authors of today seldom deliver on the villain front. They are simply too fond of seeing everything from everybody’s point of view: instead of condemning a potetial villain’s behaviour, they want to understand him. “What is needed in imaginative writing, perhaps, is a little less sympathy and a little more judgement” is Hensher’s conclusion.

It is always cheering to read the reflections of another villain lover – and a Dickens fan, too – and in my view, Hensher’s on to something. The “bad guy” in a novel often thrives on the appalled reactions of other characters, and occasionally of the narrator (though I find wry distance more fitting in the latter case). Needless to say, for a baddie, being called “villain” or ”scoundrel” is only gratifying, as are comparisons with predatory or otherwise sinister animals such as wolves, tigers, vultures and sharks. Accusations of coldness, heartlessness and ruthlessness also look good on a dastardly CV. Talleyrand is supposed to have said about his political rival Fouché that he had “a heart of diamond, a stomach of iron and an eye without tears”. This is the kind of glowing review that a villain – and his groupies – would appreciate. Conversely, it is possible to hug a villain to death by showing too much sympathy for him (or her – I’m not denying the existence of wonderful villainesses, though I confess I’m more interested in the male of the species). If a baddie is too obviously endorsed by the author, you get at best a high-prestige villain, like Count Fosco and Long John Silver , whom many people will like but who do not create the same illicit thrill as Shakespeare’s Richard III. At worst, you end up with a failure, albeit often an interesting one: either the author can’t bear to let his/her darling go through with the wicked deeds required for the plot, so the potential baddie turns out to be a bit of a wet, or he goes through with his plans, in which case the author’s soppiness unsettles us – is he/she saying that murder, theft, horrible vengeance etc. are OK now?

On the other hand, you can overdo the ostracising of a baddie. I do think a good villain deserves his/her day in court. That’s why Dickensian villains are of such superior quality (mostly): you see where they come from, while realising that through their own bitterness and wrong-headedness they have ended up in the wrong place. And there is one drawback of heaping abuse on your villain: if he turns out to be a cracker, those doing the heaping will look a bit stupid. How popular will a hero or heroine be who is continually sniffy about a character that many readers see as the most interesting in the whole book?

A balance is needed, I think, between sympathy and judgement. A villain should ideally have a case (though admittedly there are those charistmatic enough to do without one) but not one good enough to excuse his actions. As for the scarcity of great modern villains, could the decline of epic narratives such as the Victorian novel have something to do with it? A villain thrives on drama: slightly dreary descriptions of the small disappointments of everyday life, which seem to be popular among modern authors, aren’t really a good setting for colourful characters, wicked or not.

måndag 27 juni 2011

Stolen Thunder

I didn’t expect to approve of the sequel of “Upstairs Downstairs” much, but surprisingly, it wasn’t bad at all. I say surprisingly because the reception of the show when it was aired seems to have been lukewarm – the reviews weren’t very complimentary, and there never was a series made after the “Christmas specials”. It turns out, though, that this drama had potential.

Of course, it wasn’t perfect, and it took a while before you became involved with the characters, but the same thing could be said for the original series. The first episode of the original “Upstairs Downstairs”, “On Trial”, was in fact pretty hard on the characters, especially the downstairs ones: Mrs Bridges and Mr Hudson were at their autocratic worst, and even Rose was spiteful and envious towards the new maid Sarah. Lady Marjorie didn’t come out of it all that well either: in fact, we never learn what Sarah’s real name is. Sarah is a name Lady Marjorie dreams up because she finds the (admittedly fake) French name the new maid goes under too fanciful for a servant. The problem with the sequel, on the other hand, was less that the initial characterisation had to be softened and nuanced than that the new arrivals seemed a little drab compared to the original crew. There was a definite turning-point, though, when the always excellent Eileen Atkins sailed in as the eccentric Lady Holland. Downstairs, the butler Pritchard – mindful of downstairs etiquette in spite of having worked his whole life on cruisers and much more sweet-natured than Hudson – was a welcome addition.

So why were the Christmas special episodes the last we saw of the new “Upstairs Downstairs”? The Thirties setting is a bit uncongenial for this kind of domestic drama, as its harsh political realities can have a tendency to invade the story too much. As it happens, I think “Upstairs Downstairs” handled the balance between the personal and the political pretty well. The storyline involving Jewish refugee Rachel, who becomes a maid at Eaton Place, is a tad Winds-of-War-ish, but it was pretty plucky to include a chauffeur who was a convinced Fascist – not because he was some poison-drooling, two-headed monster but because he was suckered into it by Mosley’s flowery rhetoric (not that different in substance from the kind of guff that would appeal to the Cosy Red Chauffeur in “Downton Abbey”). The depiction of von Ribbentrop, not as a shambolic “Pimpernel Smith” kind of Nazi but as a plausible, urbane ladykiller, also gave one a sense of the dangers that the civilised world was really up against.

What really killed “Upstairs Downstairs” make two is quite simply the existence of “Downton Abbey”. The “Abbey” has the advantage of more upstairs characters, and though the second season will probably have its fair share of what’s-it-all-in-aid-of-scenes in the trenches of WWI, it can stear well clear of the earnest predictability of the typical WWII drama. However, quality-wise, “Downton Abbey” is not that superior to “Upstairs Downstairs”. It’s just that the town ain’t big enough for two dramas with such a similar set-up (in spite of being set at different times and in the country and London respectively), and “Downton Abbey” got there first.

lördag 18 juni 2011

Past the point of no return

The problem with giving a book a good try before shelving it is you might come so far you don’t feel there’s any point in giving it up, even though you’re not convinced by it. I’ve reached this stage with "Labyrinth", which I will keep on reading until the end, grumbling all the way. It’s a bit unfair that the novel should put me in such a grumpy mood. It’s got some things going for it, like the pace, the plotting and… well, that’s it, really. It is action-packed, which means reading it is not great a hardship. But I find no joy in the characterisation, the descriptive passages (to be fair, few authors have the knack of making those gripping) or the language.

A common complaint when it comes to characters in novels is that they are depicted in black and white, but I’ve realised there are different ways of doing black-and-white-characterisation. An author who doesn’t bother with nuances can never hope to be the new Dostoyevsky, but all-good characters can still be engaging, and all-bad characters can still be fun. In "Labyrinth", though, the goodies are colourless – the medieval version of the heroine, Alaïs, is especially annoying – and the baddies are not so much stock characters as a set of traits generally associated with a particular stock character: they fill their function in the plot, but with little relish. The Bitch – both in the medieval and the modern part of the tale – has a little more going for her, as this is a stock character which it is hard to ruin completely. But just look at the Outwardly Civilised Brute. He has a record of sexual assault and domestic violence which has been hushed up as he’s from an influential family; his interrogation methods are unsophisticated to say the least; and in his office he has a photograph of himself shaking hands with Jean-Marie Le Pen, the erstwhile leader of the Front National. Oh, and he gives generous donations to the Jesuits. Boo. Hiss.

The Jesuit detail illustrates another problem I have with the book. I understand that the author wants us to side with the religious movement who called themselves Bon Chrétiens, and who are referred to in modern days as Cathars. But maybe she’s trying to hard – anyway, I in my contrary mood failed to warm to them. Yes, it seems harsh that they should be branded as "heretics", and yes, it’s nice that they embrace the notion that we will all be saved and go to Heaven eventually. But their beliefs as described in "Labyrinth" are so well attuned to modern sensibilities they set my teeth on edge. They are perfectly pally with Jews and Saracens, for instance, but openly scornful of Catholics. I’m not above a little papist-bashing myself sometimes, but don’t they deserve some credit for recognising the same Redeemer? Why shut them out of the cosy ecumenical fellowship? At one point, Alaïs sulks because she has to attend a service at – oh horror – a proper Cathedral, with a crucifix in it to which she takes exception. Can one blame the Pope for being a teensy bit peeved with these people?

Anyway, enough praise for our friends in Rome: I can see they blotted their copybook rather in medieval times with all their crusading. It might be consistent to persecute Cathars and Jews and Saracens, but it’s not particularly admirable. Let’s not forget, though, that the Catholics of the thirteenth century did not believe in universal salvation. It is easier to be tolerant when you are not convinced that those of a different religious persuasion are damning themselves in their own fashion.

onsdag 8 juni 2011

The good old days of historical drama

It's strange, when it comes to period dramas from the Seventies and Eighties, that dramas based on historical lives age better than literary adaptations. It's not that the dialogue flows more easily. It often sounds a little stilted - especially when an attempt has been made to capture the language of the age - and exposition-heavy. There are no pace-making cuts or original camera angles: like the literary adaptations of the time, the historical dramas have a certain whiff of filmed theatre. But as filmed theatre, it somehow works better. The exchanges may not be realistic by any standards, but someone has put some thought into them, and they have been conceived as a TV play from the start. When you have a wonderful novel as a source, it is perhaps easier to think that its words will do all the work for you. It doesn't work that way: I've become more and more aware that a good deal of work needs to be done for a great novel to become good TV. Novels and drama are different genres, and filming even the best actors parroting as many of the novel's words as you can cram in is not the way to do it justice.

Examples of surprisingly good older historical dramas are the excellent "Elizabeth R", which in my view knocks spots off the more recent Elizabethan biodramas I've seen (the one with Helen Mirren and the first Cate Blanchett film); a sweetly partisan TV series about Disraeli; "Edward VII" (which made me feel sorry for the Kaiser - I'm not sure that was intentional) and "Will Shakespeare", a series from as early as 1978 which I have recently watched.

"Will Shakespeare" is very much a case in point here. You could never guess the scriptwriter was John Mortimer of Rumpole fame. The only resemblance I could find with the Rumpole stories is a certain bitter-sweetness: like the crusty barrister, Shakespeare does not have a very easy life, and yet you are somehow not too depressed by his setbacks. Language-wise, though, this is cod-Shakespearean throughout, but thought-provoking enough to get away with it. It's nice to see Tim Curry in a serious part. No flashing of the famous wolfish grin here: poor Will didn't have much to smile about. Nicholas Clay as the dashing Earl of Southampton steals the show rather, though. It was quite hard to imagine him as the golden young man of Shakespeare's sonnets. Unlike poor Marlowe's potentially murderous squeeze in the first episode - continuing the poisonous-youth trend quite nicely - there was nothing even faintly androgynous about Southampton. Nature clearly meant him to be a man from the start.

I was going on to making a point about authors' lives rarely being as thrilling as their work, and dramas about them having to make the best of what they got in different ways. That is why a biodrama of Shakespeare must needs have a golden young man and Dark Lady in it, though there may not have been any such persons outside Shakespeare's imagination at all. I think I'll leave that argument for another day, though, and wrap up instead with another strange thing. How come, when recent literary adaptations are mostly - though not always - more sure-footed that the old ones, that recent historical drama is often so underwhelming? Think of "The Tudors", or (if it qualifies as historical at all, which is doubtful) "Desperate Romantics". Sorry, but a lot of bed-hopping does not a thrilling drama make. You have to invest something in the characterisation. As with Cromwell in "The Tudors", Ruskin in "Desperate Romantics" is saved by a sterling acting performance. Tom Hollander's Ruskin may not know much about what he likes, but he knows about Art - this is definitely the man you would hire to buy an art collection for you. More's the pity that actors playing interesting historical characters don't get more to work with: instead they have to make do with quite clumsy scripts, which will as likely as not shove their guy/woman aside contemptously because he/she won't bed-hop. Some things really were better in the old days.

måndag 30 maj 2011

Deadly serious No. 1 bestsellers? I don't know...

Is this how the rot sets in? Is this how one becomes a book snob? When I started to feel critical after only a few pages of "Labyrinth", the "No. 1 bestseller", I had to face up to the fact that my demands on a self-indulgence book are far, far higher than on an Ambitious Book Project. I don't expect an ABP to grip me from page one, or at least page twenty. I'll give the characters in an ABP time to grow on me. This is because I know that, even if in the end I don't like the book, the time will not have been completely wasted. I can always boast afterwards about having read a classic, or a book by a prestigious modern author. And if it bored me, I can be even more insufferably culture-vultureish by adding: "...and it was rubbish". Because of my tolerant mood when reading them, however, and because books that are highly spoken of are often highly spoken of for a reason, I seldom do find ABPs to be rubbish, quite the contrary.

Now self-indulgence books are quite different. I know no-one will pat me on the back for reading them. And so I become a more difficult audience than the most arrogant princeling in history. I want to be entertained, or else what's the whole exercise worth? "Labyrinth" bravely flings at me age-old bodies in a cave, a mysterious ring with a mysterious pattern, an initiation ritual to a strange sect that goes off in an unexpected direction, another body, fresh this time, missing a thumb, that lies in the water... And all this before you have reached page 50. It goes on in the same action-packed way, even fitting in a steamy love scene. And still I'm hard to please.

One of my problems with the novel so far, I think, is the solemn tone. It seems we are meant to take the adventures of the heroines - or heroine, as they appear to be different re-incarnations of the same girl - very seriously. I'm not sure I see the point of the grim, stone-faced action yarn. I prefer my popular authors with a dash of wit: Christie, say, for all her intricate plotting, didn't stint on the bantering dialogue or wry observations. Come to think of it, most "serious" authors benefit by some humour, too. I chuckled more than once while reading "To Kill A Mockingbird", which is more than you can say for "Labyrinth". But it may yet lighten up and make me care for the heroine/s (I don't, yet). I do hope the dignitaries of the Catholic Church don't turn out to be the big baddies, though. For my own part I wouldn't mind much if they do nab the True Grail - they're Christians, aren't they? It's not like they wouldn't appreciate it - and I'm a Protestant.

måndag 23 maj 2011

"Hard Times" as retold by Neil Kinnock

There's a "Not the Nine O'Clock News" sketch where the host of a TV programme aimed at young people - who wants to be hip, but ends up sounding like an unusually despotic teacher - sternly asks a hapless young man just what is wrong with his life at present. The youth is stumped, but a helpful friend stage-whispers to him: "The Tories..."

I was reminded of this sketch when I saw the "Hard Times" TV adaptation by Peter Barnes. The Tory party - which is confidently identified as Gradgrind's party - seems to crop up time and again in conversation as a symbol of both Gradgrind's and Bounderby's hard-hearted opinions. Now, I would have thought that a Benthamite who calls one of his children Adam Smith would be a Liberal, but what do I know? The boundaries between the main parties in Victorian England seem to have been a lot fuzzier than between the clear-cut ideologies we were taught at school, and the Tory label does explain how the high-born Harthouse fits in. Moving on, Stephen channels Jean-Paul Marat in one scene, scowling and snarling at his Capitalist Oppressor - small wonder he gets the sack. Slackbridge is in the cast list, so he must have made an appearance, but I wonder who he was supposed to be: surely not the sturdy salt-of-the-earth man who tried to persuade Stephen in a reasonable sort of way to join the Union and called him "lad"? After Stephen (not quite in Marat mode yet) has had his chat with Bounderby about his hopeless marital affairs and wanders home disconsolately, there are huge posters proclaiming "Vote for Gradgrind" all along the way. Having trouble with your Missus? Who's to blame? THE TORIES.

Though the ideological content of the book has been tweaked to fit the adapter's views, I wasn't that fussed. In a way, Dickens deserves it, as his social criticism is such a mess it's hard to make anything of it. Especially, though, there was hardly time to mind, as the adaptation moved along at a fair lick. It is interesting that, although it offers him an excuse for a bit of bourgeois-bashing, Barnes doesn't dwell in the world of Coketown longer than he has to. You'd almost believe that he's not that much fonder of the book than I am. As an overview of "Hard Times" the adaptation works well and painlessly enough: it's not deep or complex, but then that is not altogether the fault of the adapter.

The actors do their best. Pity poor Alan Bates who starts off boisterously enough as Bounderby, but then loses heart somewhere along the way, as he realises there is really nothing more to this character than bone-headed tirades. Bob Peck as Gradgrind does better, but then he's got a - comparatively - meatier part to work with. The big "making a silk purse out of a sow's ear" prize goes to Harriet Walter for injecting a bit of life into the hopeless part of Rachel. I was disappointed at first by Alex Jennings's Bitzer, having optimistically hoped for very fair (maybe albino?), very young (Sissy's age at a guess - nineteen tops), forehead-knuckling villain totty. Jennings is not fair, not nineteen, not forehead-knuckling, and does his prissy darnedest not to be totty. But he has a persuasive take on the character and won me over in the end. The venom with which he flings out "I paid for it [Gradgrind's schooling]" and the satisfied power-vacuum-here-I-come-smirk when Bounderby croaks in front of him are nice touches.

Has anyone but me noticed, incidentally, that Tom deserves to get caught? He committed a theft in cold blood; he deliberately pinned the crime on a completely innocent, if annoying, man; he is not in the least bit sorry; he has kept the spoils and has thus profited by his crime; and it is quite likely he will steal again. He is a walking catalogue of reasons why you should lock a criminal up. This isn't necessarily a flaw, though. It says something about Sleary and the circus people that they gladly help someone who is not deserving in order to do Gradgrind a favour: it doesn't diminish their kindness, but makes it more of a personal gesture than if Tom had been blameless. It says something about the supposedly rational Gradgrind that he is blind enough to ask Bitzer "What motive [...] can you have for preventing the escape of this miserable youth" when there are dozens. And it says something about Bitzer that he has no interest in occupying the moral high ground, but ignores the more worthy motives for capturing Tom in favour of his own selfish ones. Yes, I admit it, even "Hard Times" is not without interest: no book by Dickens could be.

tisdag 17 maj 2011

One little white lie? Forget it - you're in high school

Well, that didn't go so badly. Like most Swedes, I'm pretty chuffed our song made it to third place in the Eurovision Song Contest. Gone are the days when we would sulk every time we didn't win. Now we're happy to make the final in the first place, and as for becoming one of the top five - marvellous.

Mind you, I was a bit worried. The song is catchy, but the charming Finn in Swedish Television's Eurovision panel gave a word of warning. He doubted that the lyrics - about a boy who dreams of being popular so he can win the prettiest girl in school - would appeal much to the over-thirties. And he has a point, not because we don't remember what it was like in school, but because we do. Not that many people were popular in school. And while non-cool kids like me took a dim view of the popular crowd, the wannabes weren't that much better. They knew, and we knew, the surest route to popularity: picking on those lower down in the pecking order, i.e. us.

Still, who's to say: maybe dancing and breaking the odd glass wall might do the trick as well. I was prepared to think so, and so, it appears, was Europe.

In one respect, I was lucky in school experiences, at least I get that impression when I see American high school comedies. Secondary school (junior high school in America) may have been Alcatraz, but senior high school was actually all right. It was a far cry from the world of petty feuding and one-upmanship shown in the films. It varies, of course, and some Swedish high schools are rumoured to be cliquey and hard to navigate, but on balance I'd say that if you've survived Swedish secondary school, you're over the worst. Whereas, it appears, for the poor yanks, your problems are only just about to start. I remember a character in the film version of "The Jane Austen Book Club" (I don't think it was in the book) stating very emphatically, after having run into an old enemy from her school days, "High school is never over".

Boy, it's fun to watch, though, as long as you haven't lived through it yourself. High school comedies are an extremely guilty pleasure: compared to them, a Disney cartoon is an art movie. The formula, and the variations on it, are part of the fun. Of course there has to be a bitch. Of course she has to have well-groomed sidekicks. Of course the film's heroine - after really trying to keep out of trouble - will have her patience tried to such an extent by the bitch's plotting that she retaliates, quite justifiably. Cue the most enjoyable part of the film where the heroine stoops to mean tricks and we are still allowed to root for her. But then, invariably, she goes too far, becomes a bitch herself, and risks losing her Real Friends who are always profoundly uncool. Then there is a Disaster and she ends up hated by the whole school, only to make a triumphant comeback after having patched things up with her uncool pals. The bitch is defeated, and then they all go to college and live happily ever after. Sometimes it's a boy who makes this journey of discovery, as in the teen movie classic "Can't Buy Me Love", which unfortunately means less backstabbing.

What is rather tough in these films - and this is a thing they have in common with Disney cartoons - is that no deception, however minor or excusable, is tolerated in the long run. If you have any secret at all it will be all out in the open at the film's climax, and the one person you wanted to keep it from will know all about it. I'm all for the message Be Yourself and To Thine Own Self Be True, but films aimed at youngsters seem to be obsessed about it. To name but two examples, Mulan must be unmasked as a woman and the "warrior" insects in "A Bug's Life" must be revealed to be failed circus artists, because only by being themselves can they triumph - in the films, that is. Being Yourself in the real world isn't always that rewarding, especially not for a kid or a teenager. Still, there's self-respect to consider, so in the long run the moral message is the correct one, if only it weren't hammered in quite so incessantly. Once in a while, I would like to see a hero or heroine of a high school comedy - or a Disney film - get away with a lie.

One shouldn't get too sniffy about the To Thine Own Self Be True story arc, though. Dickens used it brilliantly in "Great Expectations". Maybe it's his turn to get the high school comedy treatment after Shakespeare ("10 Things I Hate About You" etc.) and Austen ("Clueless")? Estella would make a first-class high school bitch.