torsdag 28 juni 2012

A novel without a hero

Finally done with Strindberg, I'm now at liberty to wallow in a superior bodice-ripper, Through A Glass Darkly by Karleen Koen. Yep, the one with Dark Angels and the ace poisoner. I admit I purchased Through a Glass Darkly mainly in the hope that it would contain at least one more attractive villain. When an author has proved a flair for villain-creating, there is often more to be had.

And yes, the villain in Through A Glass Darkly isn't bad at all - when he finally shows up. It's a huge door-stopper of a novel, and there's nothing wrong with that. But door-stopper novels must have pace: the format shouldn't be an excuse for long-windedness. We know that the novel's heroine Barbara Alderley will marry Roger Montgeoffrey, Earl of Devane from early on, and it's with this marriage that the plot thickens and Barbara's troubles really begin. There is no excuse to spin out the preliminaries to the match for 280 pages or so. The endless descriptions of rooms, gardens, London streets etc. also tried my patience. I can understand, if you have had to read up a lot on a period (the novel is set in early 18th-century England and France), that you want your readers to share some of the knowledge which you've laboriously acquired. And reading up on a subject is a labour - never trust an author who insists that it's the most fun part of a writing project. Nevertheless, in my view, historical novels should put the "novel" part first and the "historical" second. The historical background should mainly make itself felt when it is instrumental to the plot. The interior of someone's house is only interesting if it sheds light on the character in question. It's impressive that the author knows just which coffee house you went to in 18th-century London to hear political or financial or legal gossip - but I don't necessarily have to know.

I'm aware that other readers have another opinion, though: which is why, when I read enthusiastic reviews of novels when this-and-that period "is brought throbbingly to life", my heart sinks a bit. It usually means lots and lots of period detail, from elegant velvet hangings to smelling sewers. However, there's plenty of intrigue and gossip in Through A Glass Darkly to help the period-perfect medicine go down. And when the villain finally strides in on page 390, the scene is set for an original plot-twist. The plot where the hero and villain both love  (the concept being very loosely defined in the villain's case) the same girl is well-known. This time around, it's the heroine and villain who are both smitten with the hero!

Though I'm not sure it's correct to call Roger a hero. I don't think I overstate the case when I say that it is hard to retain sympathy for a supposed hero who angrily admonishes his wife's brother for having attacked his (the hero's) male lover. We are told time and again about Roger's "fatal charm", but he seems better at seeming urbane and at ease himself than at putting others at their ease. What remains is his good looks, for what they're worth. But is it really worth trying to capture the heart of someone with such eclectic taste as to prefer a big, hulking, scarred ex-soldier in his forties one minute and a slim, golden-haired, fifteen-year-old girl the next? At this point in the novel, I have no idea whether Barbara and Roger will manage to make a go of it in the end or whether I even want them to. But the big surprise is why Philippe the villain feels he has to bother with an indecisive rosbif. He may not be up to Henri Ange standards, but surely he can do better.              

tisdag 19 juni 2012

Eaton Place bested by World War II

I've finally had the opportunity to watch the second - and, as it turns out, last - series of the new Upstairs Downstairs. It was curiously like the the last one: after a wobbly start, I started to enjoy myself and become at least mildly interested in the characters and their fates. But I'm not inconsolable about the fact that they axed the series. The final episode ends just when World War Two is about to begin, and frankly, I don't care if I ever see another WWII-themed show again.


Admittedly, the last English TV series set during WWII - Foyle's War - I did enjoy very much. It managed to find fresh and interesting angles to life at the English home front, and it very seldom preached (except when the script-writers were having a bad day). Instead, the quiet dignity of Foyle as played by Michael Kitchen won you over, and I found myself caring desperately about his son remaining unscathed - that would be his son, the bomber. However, I don't think Upstairs Downstairs would have managed to bring anything new to a territory already explored by series such as We'll Meet Again and A Family at War. Last time around, the macho but not evil chauffeur Spargo's misguided flirtation with Fascism lent some interest, but this time everyone (always excepting unbelievably wicked Lady Persie) acted with perfect political decorum. Sir Hallam, the master of the house and a diplomat, is against any sort of appeasement from the word go. His eccentric aunt and the Indian servant Mr Amanjit - yes, and Lady Agnes too, on occasion - are busy organising the Kindertransport almost single-handedly. When Chamberlain steps out of that aircraft waving the Munich agreement and promising "peace in our time", only two of the servants are allowed to briefly show relief, before taking their cue from them upstairs, who remain stony-faced. They know, see, that this is Just The Beginning.


One interesting thing about historical dramas tends to be that the characters don't know what we know and view events with which we are familiar in a different way, without - as the political phrase goes - the benefit of hindsight. We know that appeasement turned out to be the wrong call, but it wasn't as easy to be sure about that back in the Thirties, with the horrors of World War One still fresh in most people's minds. I'd like to see at least one character in a WWII show fighting poor old Chamberlain's corner. That show was obviously not going to be Upstairs Downstairs, however, and it would have been pretty dull to have to follow this poster family of Churchillian rectitude through the entire war.


It's a pity, because there was much to enjoy in the series. Granted, we knew long before Sir Hallam and Lady Agnes did that their marriage was in trouble - their chemistry is non-existent - and though Ed Stoppard and Keeley Hawes, both fine actors, do their best, it's not easy to care about this over-polished couple. But other characters, such as the caustic cook Mrs Thackeray and the sweet butler Pritchard, livened things up; the eccentric aunt worked too, though she couldn't quite replace Eileen Atkins's eccentric mother. I was also amused by the way they kept shoe-horning the Duke of Kent into the plot. My theory is that Blake Ritson's melancholy-eyed Duke proved such a scene-stealer the first time round the script-writers crammed as much Kent-time they possibly could into the second series. A good idea, as it turns out - though generally benign, the Duke is puckish and not entirely predictable. In view of the unoriginal spin on pre-WWII events, a bit of unpredictability was sorely needed.               

torsdag 7 juni 2012

Oestrogen shock

Strindberg, at one time, praises his young alter ego for his view on women in a play. They are idealised in their “proper” role as mothers – in all other things women are, according to the crotchety author, inferior to men. How he would have loved Call The Midwife.

This TV series, apparently a smash hit in the UK, has now reached Sweden. It may be a little too soon to pour sarcasm over it: after all, only the first episode has been aired so far. But that episode is an irresistibly easy target, and it raises the question of how such a harmless confection can be so annoying.

First, there is the “womanly woman” aspect. All the women in Call the Midwife are either (of course) midwives or mothers battling bravely in the slums of East End. You’d expect at least one of them to chafe a bit at her lot in life, but no. They are all overwhelmed by the wonder of child-bearing. Even the syphilis-ridden slag does not question for a moment that raising kids (badly) is what she’s for. In one scene, the pretty-as-paint heroine has a conversation with another young midwife who is even neater – her chocolate-boxey good looks made me hope that here we would have the Fish Out of Water, or even better the Posh Bird Who Despite Appearances Does A Good Job In An Unconventional Way (remember that fun upper-class nurse Georgina had her training with in the original Upstairs Downstairs?). No such luck, however: the chocolate box midwife is disappointingly mainstream. She earnestly relates that she has come to realise that it is the East End mothers, not she, who are “heroines”. The main character later feeds the heroine line to the syphilis-ridden slag, who feels no end better. Oh yes, as the song has it, she’s a woman – W-O-M-A-N.

Now, of course there’s nothing wrong with maternal or caring impulses – quite the opposite. We’d be in a fine mess if these qualities didn’t exist. I should also be able to take that they are considered “womanly”, even if I am neither caring nor maternal myself (even the thought of doing as much as emptying someone else’s chamber-pot makes me shudder). After all, I would use the adjective “manly” to describe decisive and daring behaviour, without meditating on how frequent these qualities actually are in the male sex. Similarly, if someone speaks of “womanly” concern, it does not follow that he/she sees every woman as either a ministering angel or as a freaky person who has missed her calling. But I admit that the concentration of ministering angels and uncomplainingly child-popping mothers in Call the Midwife put my back up somewhat. Yes, this is a poor area in Fifties England – I shouldn’t be surprised that there aren’t girls dreaming of a college education around every corner. But is there really a need to be so gushing about it? When the voice-over starts philosophising on love as the fountain of life – or words to that effect  – the womb-centred view of womanhood which connects Strindberg (at one phase of his life, anyway) with “biologist” feminism is not far away.

Second, this is feel-good  television at its most lazy. I like feel-good books/films/TV programmes, I really do, but just because I do I don’t want to be treated as if I were stupid. Call the Midwife is slap-bang in the middle of From Lark Rise to Candleford territory. That series did sometimes try to raise its ambitions a little, but often enough, especially towards the end, it slid back to cosy-quirky plot lines that you would have found embarrassing at the age of twelve. Call the Midwife is based on an autobiography by a real East End midwife, so maybe it’s just bad luck that she encountered so many living clichés on her way. But clichés they are. It’s a pity to see character actresses of such calibre as Judy Parfitt, Pam Ferris and Jenny Agutter wasting their talent in parts like the Dotty Nun, the Battleaxe Nun and the Wise Mother Superior (the midwifery is based in a convent, though laywomen such as the heroine and her chocolate box chum are also employed). As you would expect, the Dotty Nun and the Battleaxe Nun are locked in a Comic Feud. As for the patients, however rose-tinted my glasses are, I couldn’t quite go “aaah” at the story of the beautiful Spanish woman who saved the life of her prematurely born twenty-fifth child – I’m not exaggerating here, twenty-fifth. She was brought over at the age of fourteen. Her husband still doesn’t speak Spanish, and she still doesn’t speak English (no wonder they concentrate on child-producing – what else would they do of an evening?). She lives in a slum and has, I’ll say it again, twenty-five children. But what does it matter, eh? Her hubby still looks her lovingly in the eyes, and after all, love is the fountain of all life.

Which brings me to the final annoying characteristic of Call the Midwife - the mixture of slumming and sugariness. If the series hadn’t been such a success, I’d say it was in great danger of falling between two chairs. Feel-good fans like myself are much more comfortable in, say, Downton Abbey than in the East End of the Fifties, whereas those who are seriously interested in the living conditions of the slums sixty years ago will be disgusted by the treacliness of the story-lines. One of my colleagues, who was hoping for something grittier, called the first episode “namby-pamby”. Somehow, slums don’t go well with a spoonful (or, in this case, bucketfuls) of sugar. If you want to draw more than a select crowd of misery tourists, you have to serve up a strong plot and characters one truly cares about as individuals rather than as Victims of Society. This, judging by the first episode, Call the Midwife fails to do. I will give it another try, but if it doesn’t improve I won’t stick with it and give it second chances out of pure laziness as I did with From Lark Rise to Candleford. There are better things you can do with your time.