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.