söndag 24 februari 2013

Battle of the department stores

Well, what do you know. There isn't only one costume drama out there set in a department store with a bearded and supposedly charismatic store owner as main male protagonist. There are two of them. BBC got in first with The Paradise, which should normally have meant that they won the battle, because, come on, how much department-store costume drama can people take? Against the odds, though, I'm starting to think that ITV's Mr Selfridge has the edge, after all. A second series is commissioned for both dramas, so viewer-wise it seems to be a draw. But Auntie had better look out - they can't really afford to lose any more costume drama face-offs to ITV.

I've watched the whole first series of The Paradise now, and it did get better after a doubtful beginning. But it's still far from being costume drama heaven. It reminds me of From Lark Rise to Candleford with added suspicious deaths. Its protagonists live through a series of little dramas, and sometimes surprising facts emerge about the characters. Miss Audrey - not a dragon after all but more of a fussy spinster in the Misses Pratt mould - freely confesses her admiration for the heroine's salesmanship and her professional jealousy in one and the same scene. The envious shop-girl rival turns out to have an illegitimate daughter in an orphanage to whom she sends money: hence the venom displayed towards a more successful colleague. The conniving heiress, Miss Glendenning, is actually genuinely in love with the hopeless hero Mr Moray. The sinister employee Jonas, whose loyalty to the store is limitless, has a back story to die for (yes, but to kill for?). Here's the rum thing, though - these attempts to give the characters added depth don't quite work. I wish I knew the magic formula which can make a back story stick and become part how one views a character, but sometimes they just seem to get away like Peter Pan's shadow. The characters in The Paradise, like the ones in Lark Rise, are nice enough, but they remain stubbornly shallow. The heroine Denise is a plus, though. That Denise, who is so good at her job, should succeed and advance professionally becomes much more important than if she bags Moray or not. This is the first drama, as far as I remember, where I have witnessed a love scene between the hero and heroine and wished that they would not get together - for their own sakes, not because there is a sexy villain waiting in the wings (there isn't). "Are you crazy, girl?" I was thinking. "Are you going to risk your whole career for that? And as for you, Moray, how can you even think of ditching the heiress when her daddy's got you and your store in his pocket? Get a grip!"

The Paradise is supposedly based on a novel by Emile Zola. I doubt Zola would own it, though (not necessarily a bad thing). I'd guess it is as much based on Zola as Mr Selfridge is based on a true story. The difference between the dramas can be illustrated by the accompanying music - good in both cases. The Paradise's elegant signature tune wouldn't sound out of place in a regency ball-room. Mr Selfridge's signature tune is swirling and excitable, promising high drama to come. It reminded me of the brass band hired by Selfridge to kick up a show when his store was no more than a hole in the ground. The problem is, there's a limit to how long you can simply make promises. Sooner or later you have to deliver.

Maybe it's because my expectations were so very low regarding Mr Selfridge that I am, after all, pleasantly surprised by it. And perhaps it is a bit unfair to rate it above The Paradise. But apparently Swedish Television did the same thing: Mr Selfridge is showing now, whereas The Paradise wasn't shown at all (I had to buy the DVD). I have just seen the fourth episode of Mr Selfridge, and yes, it does seem like it's going places.

Granted, Mr Selfridge is as problematic a hero as Mr Moray. I see little point in both of them. What do women see in them? Why are their staff so convinced about their genius? Search me. And granted, there are stock characters in Mr Selfridge - the pouting variety-girl mistress, the constantly worried accountant etc. - but there are other characters about whom you're not sure at first, and it makes something of a refreshing change not to have them labelled like jam jars from the word go. Is the shop girl Agnes Towler really a "fresh and natural" heroine or a bit of a minx, forced to be tough because of her troubled family background? Is Victor the waiter good news for her, or a chancer? Maybe it's the handsome store decorator Henri Leclair who is her true match, or is his interest in her purely professional? Are head of personnel Mr Grove and his secret mistress Miss Mardle store tyrants or decent sorts? And what will Lady Mae, former chorus girl and now a society dame who refuses herself nothing, ask as return favour from Mr Selfridge for having found a him a financer and saved his bacon?

Mr Selfridge takes its time answering these questions, and sometimes I wonder whether the price for not pigeon-holing the characters is that they become a bit colourless. But I live in hope - plot strands left vague at first are beginning to pay off. I can see myself warming to this show rather more than to The Paradise. More v for villain factor is needed, though. Mr Perez, Victor's shady boss, should start taking a larger part in proceedings. The lad's not putting out for the company's good - it's high time, surely, to add a bit of pressure?                                  

tisdag 12 februari 2013

Tried and tested book plots - lords and students

All right, enough with the livery-ogling already. It's high time for some book blogging. The trouble is, I have yet to come across this year's first great read. I've devoted much of my reading time on two huge books which are entertaining enough, but which have proved strangely blog-resistant.

The problem with the first, Tana French's The Likeness, may be the genre itself, the psychological thriller. I still can't make up my mind whether this genre is something for me or not, but I'm starting to suspect not. I like being thrilled and I like characters being given the psychological treatment (as long as it's not too Freudian). I'm also sadist enough to mildly enjoy watching characters falling apart and cracks beginning to show in relationships - which is much of what the psychological thriller is all about. But only up to a point. At the end of the day, I crave the tidy resolution and the happy or at least acceptable ending of the conventional whodunnit. In a psychological thriller, there are no guarantees that the story will end happily, even for the main protagonist. In fact, it's more probable that he/she will end up emotionally scarred for life, or at least for the best part of several thrillers to come. I have to face it: I'm probably just too wet for psychological thrillers. Few DVDs have made it to the second-hand shop faster than the chilling Secret Smile - even though it ended sort of all right.

I read The Likeness because I'd seen it mentioned by Swedish book bloggers as a sort of The Secret History light. Which is exactly what it is. The book's cop heroine goes undercover in order to find out who killed one of a group of close-knit student friends. The murdered girl happens to be her double, so she pretends to be the victim and to have survived the attack with a few broken ribs and selective amnesia. The unlikeliness of the premise is not really irksome: on the contrary, I almost wished for the characters themselves to accept it sooner. Girl, the victim looks like you. You'd love to hang out with her cool Eng.Lit.Phd-writing friends. What are you waiting for, just do it! Does it really have to take 160 pages to plant the heroine in the students' idyllic lair, an old Georgian house inherited by their ring-leader (the off-shoot of an old Anglo-Irish family: the story is set in Ireland)?

So, glamorous student friends forming an alliance against - or at least excluding - the rest of the world: check. Educated, show-offy banter: check. Home-made food, plenty of drink, intense studying and enjoyment of picturesque surroundings, all with your pals close by: check. Smitten protagonist who thinks it's all lovely and really, really wants to belong: check. Add to this that the student ring-leader, Daniel, clearly seems to think he is Henry the swot from The Secret History, though without being quite up to his standard, I'd say. You accepted - just - that Henry the swot was a genius, whereas Daniel is more pretentious, in a believably student-like way. On the plus side, there is nothing so gruelling as the funeral scenes in The Secret History, where the guilty group had to live through the funeral celebrations for their victim while living in the same house as his grieving family. The intrusion of the "real world", as good-looking Rafe's mean old dad tends to call it (er... that's because it is) and the falling apart of the group's academic Neverland is less brutal, too. Nevertheless, The Likeness can still be pretty bleak. In sum, if you loved The Secret History, chances are you'll like this quite a lot, but maybe find it a bit ersatz. If you thought The Secret History was OK, you'll probably find this OK as well, and perhaps even be a little relieved at the ersatz feel. But, well, P.G. Wodehouse it ain't. Plus there's no Foxy Francis.

I have no problems whatsoever with the genre of huge book number two, Claire Lorrimer's The Chatelaine. It's a lush family saga of the well-known, American-heiress-marries-uptight-English-Lord variety. There are younger sons, balls, family secrets and unfortunate love affairs galore. But somehow, it doesn't engage. It's not as well written as My Last Duchess, Daisy Goodwin's novel on the same theme, and the references to real historical personages seem forced. Nevertheless, I'm not looking a gift family saga in the mouth: there are surprisingly few of them about. It's not as easy as it seems, thinking up a suitably large family and putting epic adventure their way. Though it shouldn't be that much more difficult than shattering peoples' lives in a hundred different ways in grim thrillers.