tisdag 31 december 2013

Is it really sisterly to defend Rebecca de Winter?

On my latest trip to London, I fell for the temptation of buying Sally Beauman’s Rebecca’s Tale in a second-hand bookshop, though I had doubts about the supposed purpose of the novel as I’ll later explain. It’s a combined sequel/prequel of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. Most of it takes place long after du Maurier’s novel, where the protagonists – who are either new characters or played a secondary part in the original novel  – try to piece together what really happened to Maxim de Winter’s first wife, the glamorous Rebecca, whose body was found in a sabotaged sailing-boat twenty years previously. Did she commit suicide or was she murdered? More importantly, they try to find out who Rebecca really was. Was she a slut or a victim, or a bit of both?

For those who have read du Maurier’s novel  (and be warned if you haven’t, because I’m going to give most of the original plot away) there are few surprises as to how Rebecca died. What’s more interesting is the back story that Beauman has invented for the first Mrs de Winter, who finally – through an old notebook – gets to tell a chunk of her own tale. The book is a gripping read: du Maurier’s plot was good drama to begin with, and Beauman spins it out in an intriguing way, taking good care of the original characters (except the second Mrs de Winter, who makes a cameo appearance: Beauman’s description of her is ungenerous and unbelievable considering the development of her character in Rebecca). The new ones past muster too: the historian Grey, who narrates part of the book, is quietly likeable.  But in one way, my initial doubts remained, which were: do we really want to hear Rebecca’s side of the story?

The main twist in the original novel is that the famous Rebecca – so beautiful, so admired, who did everything well from entertaining to gardening to interior decorating  –  was really a piece of work who made her husband, moody aristo Maxim de Winter, miserable. And a very satisfying twist it is. The novel  is narrated by Maxim’s second wife, whom he marries shortly after Rebecca’s death. She is taken to Manderley, his country seat, and is there confronted with Rebecca’s ghost at every turn. Everyone more or less tactfully makes clear to the poor girl that she is very much second best and that they can’t really see what Maxim sees in her. He must have married her in haste, on the rebound, and is probably already regretting his choice. The housekeeper Mrs Danvers – devoted to the late Rebecca – is a particular thorn in the heroine’s flesh. Then the truth is revealed: when Rebecca’s body is discovered, Maxim confesses to his wife that he killed her – after extreme provocation – and that far from being fathoms deep in love, he hated his cheating, taunting wife. Mrs de Winter’s reaction is triumph. “Rebecca had not won. Rebecca had lost.” She helps with trying to cover up her husband’s crime. They succeed, but at a price.

It’s been a while since I read du Maurier’s novel, but I remember feeling so deeply for the poor heroine that I, like her, was relieved instead of shocked when it was revealed that Maxim was a killer. What du Maurier so skilfully does in Rebecca is to paint a picture of the nightmare ex-wife – from a woman’s point of view. Rebecca is most things you would not want your loved one’s ex to be. Her beauty and accomplishments are just of the kind that fuels one’s own insecurities. And, to top it all, she’s cruel, teasing and a thoroughly bad lot. Do I feel any sisterly need to rescue her from Maxim’s patriarchal narrative? I do not. 

I don’t really understand the fascination some women seem to have with characters that are especially designed not to appeal to other women. The wish to redress Rebecca’s reputation resembles the ongoing obsession with the first Mrs Rochester. In both cases, I suspect that the husband’s role plays a part: we hear most of the story of the first wife through the husband, who is of course deeply partisan. What’s more, both Maxim de Winter and Mr Rochester are somewhat problematic heroes to begin with (though Rochester is vastly preferable in my opinion, and no murderer). They have not treated their new love very well: should we really trust them?

However, in both cases, what the husband claims is backed up by the facts and by other witnesses. The first Mrs Rochester first tries to set fire to Rochester’s bedroom, then she attacks her brother and sucks his blood, then she sets fire to the whole building. What else does she have to do to convince readers she’s off her trolley? As for Rebecca, the glimpses we get of her character from others than her husband – including people who loved and admired her – are also sinister. Beauman manages to cast doubt on some of the things said, especially by Rebecca’s no-good cousin Favell, and I admit that her scepticism against Maxim – long dead in Rebecca’s Tale – is understandable. Whatever the provocation, shooting a woman you believe is pregnant is not what the Germans would call “the fine English way”. But her Rebecca failed to raise my sympathy. I’m still on the second Mrs de Winter’s team – Rebecca is, and remains, a piece of work. 

torsdag 19 december 2013

2013 in retrospect: little new, but more of the same

When looking back at the wish list I made at about this time last year, I must confess that few of the wishes have come true, at least not completely. Still, I'm not that disappointed. 2013 proved to be the year when there weren't many brand new delights forthcoming within my sphere of interest: there were few new costume dramas; no new TV adaptations of Dickens, though there was one film (I'm afraid I haven't watched it yet - what, Great Expectations again!?); and not a whisker of a new villain. However, the old favourites kept delivering.

Who needs new costume dramas - or for that matter a new villain - as long as I have Downton, which triumphantly survived Dan Stevens's defection and will be back (hooray!) with a fifth series in 2014? I'll Downton-obsess more next year (ideally, I'll be able to hold off until the US has had a chance to view series four) with a follow-up of my predictions for the series and some new speculations. Suffice to say, for now, that the demise of the heir did not, as I had feared, lead to any loss of focus for the series or turn it into a spin-off of itself. In fact, the estate's future was more in the forefront than ever, and I for my part thought that Miss O'Brien's disappearance left more of a void in the story than Matthew's death. But then I would.

Downton hasn't started a trend for similar costume dramas as I hoped - Mr Selfridge was the drama that came closest to using the same winning formula - but it does illustrate how costume dramas are taking a leaf out of the book of other series. Instead of mini-series adaptations of classic works, we get long-running affairs, where the story is based on an original script and is made up as the series goes along (yes, The Paradise and Call The Midwife are nominally based on books, but I suspect not that strictly, or surely they would have run out of material by now). I suppose this is partly what people mean when they talk about the TV series as "the new novel" and draw parallels to the serial publication of the old Victorian three-deckers. As long as a TV series is running, there is hope that the plot will turn out the way we wish, and that the script-writer/s will hear our pleas for our favourite characters. After all, Dickens was sometimes influenced by the reactions of his readers. Whereas if there was finally a new TV adaptation of Dombey and Son, no amount of Facebook likes would save Carker from the chop, and there would never be a series two were he returns to wreak havoc once again on the lives of Mr. Dombey and Co.

On the other hand, gripping new stories which can be spun out for a number of seasons aren't as easy to come up with as all that. The big advantage with an adaptation of a classic is you've already got a winning story. When it's over, it's over, but while it's running it will deliver. I wasn't too impressed by The Paradise, and am well able to wait until Swedish Television chooses to air the next series. As for The Village, I will keep avoiding it as long as possible. I'm not even sure how long Mr Selfridge will last - it all depends on series two. It's time for the characters to stop being enigmatic and start engaging out attention and sympathy in earnest. Now Dombey, if it were ever made, would only last for one series, but for that one, if handled with Davies-like efficiency, it could become a real hit. And Carker - good-looking in his feline way - fits into the current conventionally-handsome-villain trend (did you see Morse's envious rival in Endeavour? Phwoar!) admirably.

Ah well, let's leave the depressing subject of The Costume Drama Adaptation That Never Was. When it comes to the year's novels, I really was disappointed. Nothing new from Jasper Fforde - not even a Dragonslayer book, let alone a new Thursday Next - nor from Jude Morgan. Joanne Harris let me down with her take on the weren't-the-Victorians-awful genre, and even Wilkie Collins's Hide and Seek failed to thrill. I had to go out and hunt for new authors who could deliver yarns, and sometimes I got lucky. Sadie Jones's The Uninvited Guests, Sarah Waters's Fingersmith and Jane Harris's The Observations, all of which I discovered this year (though only The Uninvited Guests is reasonably new - the others are fairly recently reissued reader favourites), were great reads. But there were many misses to: Park Lane and The Chatelaine, for instance, both of which looked so promising and Downton-y, were novels I failed to warm to. I hope 2014 has better things in store.                            

tisdag 3 december 2013

Flashman: A guy thing?

It is always irritating when you live up to a female stereotype. I'm an enemy to theories about Typically Female Behaviour, mostly because they mention so many characteristics that don't fit me at all (caring, maternal, home-building etc.). But in one respect, I have come to realise that I'm girly in the most maddening, cliché-ridden way. It's sad, but I have to face it: in the same way that I don't fancy war documentaries, or programmes about fast cars, or sports - my tepid and ignorant football interest whenever there's a World or European Championship going on is almost worse than nothing to the real football fan - I really am not that into derring-do.

It was the first volume in George MacDonald Fraser's acclaimed Flashman series, called simply Flashman, that made me realise this sad fact. It was impossible to fault in any other way. It was pacy, well-written, and often funny. I liked the dastardly protagonist, who rises to fame in the army in spite of being a blackguard and a a coward (in fact, mostly because of it). This was more than I expected, as cads aren't really my kind of thing villain-wise, and Flashman certainly belongs to that category. True, he's far from being in danger of becoming my New Crush, but I approved of his common sense and his way of admitting his ignoble deeds without bragging about them. Add to this the fact that the book was obviously well researched but wore its learning lightly - the English troops' misfortunes in Afghanistan in the 1840s is deftly woven into the plot, so it doesn't feel too much like empty exposition. Nevertheless, there is derring-do, and there's military history, and it's just not my kind of thing.

Even if Flashman subverts the premises of the typical Boys' Own Adventure, the market is still the same as for the more po-faced, straightforward books about granite-jawed, highly-principled men who love honour and their country. Flashman is the opposite of all that, but he gets up to much the same things: fighting and sleeping with beautiful women (I don't mean he fights the beautiful women: well, not always). He reaps the rewards of an adventurous life, without actually having to display any bothersome virtues. I can see how that must seem vastly appealing to day-dreaming male reader, and I would heartily recommend the Flashman books to derring-do lovers: the way downright silly "honourable behaviour" is lampooned is rather healthy. But, still. If fights and beautiful women are not something you day-dream about, then where are you?

In my predictably womanly way, I like relationships - or, to put it bluntly, gossip - and so the tales of Flashman's conquests were for the most part amusing reading (he's pretty nonchalant about them, though: don't expect any carefully constructed Regency Romance-style sex scenes designed to make you hot under the collar). What I remember best from the Afghanistan disaster is the scene where an up till then irrepressively dignified English bigwig desperately tries to save his younger brother's skin: "Run, baby, please! Run!" become his last words before he's hacked to pieces. The brother didn't make it either.

That will stay with me long after I've forgotten the name of the Afghan pretender who was trying to seize the throne from the English puppet monarch (wait, it was Something Khan. Akbar?). Women, eh?