onsdag 21 oktober 2015

The long Downton goodbye

"Who has an under-butler these days?"

Oh, I don't know. An earl who wants to win the annual cricket match? An earl with a butler near retirement who will need to be replaced? An earl with a houseful of secrets, whose under-butler is resentful enough to make trouble for someone simply for calling him a "stupid fool", let alone for sacking him? Most important of all, an earl whose daughter's life has actually been saved by said under-butler? I'm not sure even Alan Sugar would recommend firing in such circumstances.

Does it show that I've been thinking about angry comebacks to this line ever since I first heard about it (it was part of an early trailer shown to the press, apparently)? Now when the first episode of Downton Abbey series six has aired in Sweden and I see the line in its context, what strikes me most is the Earl's apparent insouciance. He airily considers if he should reduce staff, not because of some pressing financial need but because he's keen to show he's not "out of step" with the times (since when?). To cap it all, he rounds off his talk with Carson on the matter with a sweeping remark about not being able to "stop history in its tracks". He might easily have added that the best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft agley. At least Burns felt sorry for the mouse.

Don't let this grumble mislead you: I was, on the whole, deeply satisfied with the first Downton episode. Because it's the last series, I feel I've caught the reticence bug and don't want to give too much away. However, I can say that the episode contains truly moving scenes, and that plenty of things happen but without the over-hectic pace of episode one of series five, where you had the feeling that every character had a bit of plot business crammed in so he or she could take a bow for the audience. I don't think I'd be entirely happy either if there was nothing to grumble about (another example: however refreshing it is with a series where bolshie rants aren't considered a good thing, whom Daisy chooses to insult in her spare time is surely her own affair?). I think this series is going to be a corker.

It only made me realise how much I will miss Downton when it ends. I think I've been reasonably sensible about the news that this is the final series, and yes, I still believe this may be the best time to stop. But when will I get this much satisfaction out of a TV series again? Poldark doesn't even begin to compare, in spite of the heartstoppingly lovely George. When all is said and done, the plot-line and characters in Poldark are fairly simple. It's up to sweet Demelza to be the drama's heart, whereas in Downton - with the risk of sounding like Dickens's Mrs Skewton - there's heart everywhere. Fellowes cares about his characters, and it shows.

I will, perhaps, not be able to refrain completely from bellyaching in a faintly spoilerish manner when things go agley later on. But I know that I will not have been the only one who was pleased to see Thomas being nice to the children (George and Marigold: this is important) because 1) see? he's not all bad 2) it makes a redemptive story-arc for him far more likely. When Downton is done, I will most likely never again savour the feeling that my villain-besottedness is shared by thousands. Oh, well, we're not there yet.

onsdag 14 oktober 2015

The modern-day retelling - the hardest classics-poaching genre of them all

As I've already confessed, I have a sneaking fondness for the prequel/sequel/retelling from another angle genres, in short: the "parasite" genres who poach ideas and characters from well-known classical works and put a new spin on them. But they are tricky to get right at the best of times, and lately I've started wondering whether the modern retelling, where a story from a classic novel is transposed to an up-to-date setting, is not the very trickiest. The other alternatives have built-in interest: in a sequel, we get to see familiar characters in new adventures; in a prequel, we get to know more about what makes them tick - plus we get a few new plots; in a retelling from another character's point of view, a new light is shed on the plot of a favourite novel which, at best, opens up a whole new perspective on it (and at worst only makes us angry). But the modern setting - what does it add, exactly? A reminder of the timelessness of the concerns of the original novel, perhaps, but surely something else is needed too: some new insight that highlights something in the original novel that you hadn't thought about before. Alternatively, simple fun can be had with a modern variation on a well-known theme, but it does have to be a variation.

I've come across two modern-day retellings lately on opposite sides of the faithfulness to the original vs free invention spectrum, and both approaches have their drawbacks. "Your rapier is like a bird: if you hold it too tight, it chokes - if you hold it too loosely, it flies." (Was that in Scaramouche? Or just in the Mickey Mouse version?)

To start with the free invention, quite a few nice things can be said about the American series Elementary. It's a good, funny, fairly clever crime series, ideal post-gym watching, and at least one of the protagonists (Watson) is worth rooting for. It is, however, not in any way reminiscent of Arthur Conan Doyle's stories about Sherlock Holmes. As in the English Sherlock, the series features a detective called Sherlock Holmes and a Watson - in the American version, a Joan instead of a John. The makers of Sherlock, however, are great Holmes fans, and it shows. Although the crime capers that their Holmes and Watson get up to are freely invented, there are a lot of affectionate references to the original stories. They get Holmes and Watson and what they're about. In Elementary, you have a feeling that the series creators have been inspired exclusively by Sherlock and not by the original stories at all. Elementary's Holmes is rude and antisocial, like Sherlock's Holmes - but unlike Conan Doyle's Holmes. The original Sherlock was arrogant, yes, but he treated witnesses and the like politely, otherwise they would not have told him their stories, omitting no detail however slight. I accept the "sociopathic" trait of Sherlock's Holmes because the series is so close to the spirit of the original in other ways, but Elementary just isn't. It's a crime series about a Englishman without manners who makes a lot of deductions and his likeable female sidekick - but there is no reason why these characters should be called Holmes and Watson.

As for the faithful retelling, I'm in the middle of Val McDermid's modern take on Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey. It's pleasant enough, but it just doesn't catch fire. Although the action is relocated from Regency Bath to modern-day Edinburgh during the festival, the characters and the situations they find themselves in are essentially the same. Cat Morland, the modern equivalent to Austen's Catherine, is well caught, and still a very nice girl. But I've already lived through her disappointments, humiliations and occasional triumphs in trying to make the acquaintance of Henry Tilney and his family - while being hindered at every turn by the dreadful Thorpeses - when I read Austen's novel. Every situation in the original seems to have its counterpart here, and it feels too much of a retread. Perhaps something new will be added now that Cat is in Northanger Abbey itself, and maybe Val McDermid's novel will start to dare to take some liberties with Austen's plot. If not, I don't really see the point of retelling the same story from the same point of view and with the same characters, only now with mobiles and Facebook.