I must admit I had my doubts about Jasper Fforde's Dragonslayer series. It combines two genres I'm prejudiced against: the "young adult" genre and the magic/fantasy genre. If you are a "young adult", that is a teenager, you are already fully capable of reading and enjoying books written for, well, older adults, such as the classics. So why write books especially for the teenage market? As to magic, ever since Harry Potter - or perhaps even before that - this genre feels overcrowded. Even contrasting the workings of magic with everyday life with comic effect has, surely, been done. However, in spite of my reservations, I had a good time reading Fforde's last Dragonslayer offering, The Song of the Quarkbeast.
The first Dragonslayer book, The Last Dragonslayer, though witty and with a feisty Ffordian heroine in the plucky sixteen-year-old foundling Jennifer Strange, was a bit too preachy and pro-dragon for my taste. I ended up longing for Jennifer to run her sword through the tiresome creature. The Song of the Quarkbeast, however, cuts down on the anti-corporation, give-peace-a-chance homilies to good effect, and there's mercifully no self-important dragon to be seen. Jennifer Strange, with the help of the precocious twelve-year-old fellow foundling "Tiger" Prawns - a likeable sidekick, once again very much in the Ffordian tradition - is running or trying to run a company called Kazam, whose employees are a group of shambolic wizards trying to flog their magic powers for a few quid. Their tasks are most often unglamorous: plumbing, rewiring, delivering pizza by way of flying carpet etc.
At first, I thought the book would be mainly about Kazam trying to fight off a hostile take-over bid from their one competitor iMagic ("putting 'i' in front of anything makes it more hip and current"). The stakes didn't seem that high - after all, Kazam could do with a bit more business acumen, as displayed by iMagic's (of course) goateed head Conrad Blix. And then suddenly, at the big showdown competition between the two companies, the tension rises considerably thanks to a clever plot twist. It is no longer a question of magic morals, or of preserving the eponymous quarkbeasts (Jennifer has a soft spot for them, as one of them saved her life in The Last Dragonslayer, but it is hard to share her enthusiasm completely). It is a matter of saving lives - lots of them.
I'm hard pressed to find much difference between this novel and those for Fforde's adult readership. He certainly doesn't talk down to his young readers - and there is probably no need to either, as British youngsters have been fed such brain-twisters as Doctor Who with their mother's milk. The Song of the Quarkbeast is not exactly nuanced, it's true, but then nuance isn't Fforde's forte in his other books, either. He disarms grumbling about black-and-white characterisation by having fun with typical baddie clichés - and goodie clichés, for that matter. Blix consciously plays up to the Evil Genius image, while Jennifer is more than once criticised - not altogether unjustly - by various villains for her exaggerated self-righteousness.
As usual, Fforde has created a parallel world where, for instance, Britain is divided into small entities (kingdoms, duchys and the like) and is called the unUnited Kingdom. It is a fun place to spend some time in. However, I still prefer the Thursday Next series to everything else Fforde has written. The world of literature is the most grippingly magic place of all.
Wednesday, 11 January 2012
Sunday, 1 January 2012
Satisfying conclusions
Phew - grisly fate averted. I finished Dark Angels (new year, new rules - as I now know how to use italics on titles, I will do it from now on) a little more than a week back, and I'm happy to be able to recommend it without reservations to other villain-lovers. What actually happens to Henri Ange is unclear - that plot line is dropped, rather - but at least he doesn't end his days chained to the walls of a windowless cell.
My unwholesome crush on a poisoner - who prefers men, anyway, not that that is much of a bar fantasy-wise - has had at least one vaguely positive side effect. While watching The Borgias (only the three first episodes so far), I found myself not falling for Cesare Borgia's hired assassin. He would have been right up my alley otherwise; he's efficient, ferrety and gingerish. Right now, though, my standards when it comes to fictional assassins are quite high, and he falls short of them. That's something, surely?
Moving on from nasty characters to one of literature's most famous Mr Nices, I have now also, finally, finished reading Les Misérables, the story of the hardship-laden life of Jean Valjean. I find myself in two minds about whether I can keep recommending it now that I've read it all. There are scenes that are among the most powerful I've ever read, but the digressions do keep coming. Towards the end, Hugo tried my patience sorely by musing on the history and state of the sewers of Paris. Who cares? Valjean is down there, carrying Marius. How about focussing on getting them out? Perhaps the best recommendation I can come up with is to read an abridged version, or to buy the unabridged version and be ruthless enough to skip sections that do not advance the story.
I'm not sorry I've read it all, though, and at least now I have a clear idea about what actually happens in the story and which parts have been made up by various adaptations. For example, in the film with Liam Neeson and Geoffrey Rush, it is hinted that there is some romantic interest between Jean Valjean and Fantine. Not true, and Javert's kindly colleague doesn't exist in the book either. In the French TV series with Gérard Depardieu, Jean Valjean at one point tells Marius that he loves Cosette not as a father but as a man. Not so, mercifully. Hugo specifies that Jean Valjean's love for Cosette is especially intense as she replaces all the female figures he would normally have had in his life - mother, wife and daughter - but there is no erotic component in his love for her, at least no conscious one.
You do get another perspective on some of the book's themes if you trudge through it all. Every adaptation, including the musical, understandably focuses on the relationship between Jean Valjean, the ex-convict who broke parole, committed a minor offence and is therefore still a criminal in the law's eyes, and the duty-ridden policeman Javert. But when you read the novel, you realise that they are not so central to each other's lives as you might have thought. Of course, Javert wants to arrest Jean Valjean, just as he wants every criminal he encounters brought to justice, and of course Jean Valjean isn't keen on the idea. There is personal animosity between them, especially when Javert's unhelpful revelations about Valjean drives the sick and unhappy Fantine to her death. But most of the time, their encounters are pure chance, not part of a concentrated effort of Javert's to hunt Valjean down. He's got other fish to fry, and Valjean is too busy raising Fantine's child Cosette to nourish a hatred of Javert. This explains a great deal: I have always wondered a bit about why Javert should be obsessed with an ex-convict whose crimes are so laughably minor.
Also, I have in the past found Valjean's saving of Javert's life at the barricade a somewhat underhand act, a sort of vengeance through kindness. I was disposed to answer the question put by Javert in the musical - "And does he know/that granting me my life today/this man has killed me evenso" - with a resounding yes. In fact, saving Javert's life at that particular time isn't a big deal for Jean Valjean. He has resolved himself to yet another self-sacrifice: that of saving Marius, who will take Cosette away from him. This is the real wrench for him. Without Cosette, he doesn't really care about what happens to himself, and feels he might as well save as many lives as he can. In the end, it is not Valjean's kindness that derails Javert but his own reaction to it: later, he lets Jean Valjean go, and comes to realise that despite everything he has believed in all his life, this breach of the law for what looks like personal reasons might actually not be a bad thing.
It is a great novel, indisputably. But you can safely skip the parts about convents, sewers and impossibly goody-goody bishops.
My unwholesome crush on a poisoner - who prefers men, anyway, not that that is much of a bar fantasy-wise - has had at least one vaguely positive side effect. While watching The Borgias (only the three first episodes so far), I found myself not falling for Cesare Borgia's hired assassin. He would have been right up my alley otherwise; he's efficient, ferrety and gingerish. Right now, though, my standards when it comes to fictional assassins are quite high, and he falls short of them. That's something, surely?
Moving on from nasty characters to one of literature's most famous Mr Nices, I have now also, finally, finished reading Les Misérables, the story of the hardship-laden life of Jean Valjean. I find myself in two minds about whether I can keep recommending it now that I've read it all. There are scenes that are among the most powerful I've ever read, but the digressions do keep coming. Towards the end, Hugo tried my patience sorely by musing on the history and state of the sewers of Paris. Who cares? Valjean is down there, carrying Marius. How about focussing on getting them out? Perhaps the best recommendation I can come up with is to read an abridged version, or to buy the unabridged version and be ruthless enough to skip sections that do not advance the story.
I'm not sorry I've read it all, though, and at least now I have a clear idea about what actually happens in the story and which parts have been made up by various adaptations. For example, in the film with Liam Neeson and Geoffrey Rush, it is hinted that there is some romantic interest between Jean Valjean and Fantine. Not true, and Javert's kindly colleague doesn't exist in the book either. In the French TV series with Gérard Depardieu, Jean Valjean at one point tells Marius that he loves Cosette not as a father but as a man. Not so, mercifully. Hugo specifies that Jean Valjean's love for Cosette is especially intense as she replaces all the female figures he would normally have had in his life - mother, wife and daughter - but there is no erotic component in his love for her, at least no conscious one.
You do get another perspective on some of the book's themes if you trudge through it all. Every adaptation, including the musical, understandably focuses on the relationship between Jean Valjean, the ex-convict who broke parole, committed a minor offence and is therefore still a criminal in the law's eyes, and the duty-ridden policeman Javert. But when you read the novel, you realise that they are not so central to each other's lives as you might have thought. Of course, Javert wants to arrest Jean Valjean, just as he wants every criminal he encounters brought to justice, and of course Jean Valjean isn't keen on the idea. There is personal animosity between them, especially when Javert's unhelpful revelations about Valjean drives the sick and unhappy Fantine to her death. But most of the time, their encounters are pure chance, not part of a concentrated effort of Javert's to hunt Valjean down. He's got other fish to fry, and Valjean is too busy raising Fantine's child Cosette to nourish a hatred of Javert. This explains a great deal: I have always wondered a bit about why Javert should be obsessed with an ex-convict whose crimes are so laughably minor.
Also, I have in the past found Valjean's saving of Javert's life at the barricade a somewhat underhand act, a sort of vengeance through kindness. I was disposed to answer the question put by Javert in the musical - "And does he know/that granting me my life today/this man has killed me evenso" - with a resounding yes. In fact, saving Javert's life at that particular time isn't a big deal for Jean Valjean. He has resolved himself to yet another self-sacrifice: that of saving Marius, who will take Cosette away from him. This is the real wrench for him. Without Cosette, he doesn't really care about what happens to himself, and feels he might as well save as many lives as he can. In the end, it is not Valjean's kindness that derails Javert but his own reaction to it: later, he lets Jean Valjean go, and comes to realise that despite everything he has believed in all his life, this breach of the law for what looks like personal reasons might actually not be a bad thing.
It is a great novel, indisputably. But you can safely skip the parts about convents, sewers and impossibly goody-goody bishops.
Sunday, 18 December 2011
Spare me cruel and unusual punishments of fictional villains
I've now come to the conclusion that the main characters in Karleen Koen's "Dark Angels" have to be fictional. What convinced me was the too-good-to-be-trueness of its hero. Spotless soldiering record; charming if dilapidated family seat in the country; a talent for leading men and gaining their respect; decency and loyalty in abundance; manly, viking-like good looks which form a contrast with the decadent male beauty on display at the devious French court and in an English Molly house; the kind of social conscience Gladstone would have approved of; a doomed, gallant love for the ninny Louise Renée de Keroualle (who is historical enough: I could have told him from the outset that mooning over her was a bad idea) - yep, this is a hero all right, and if I'm not mistaken an entirely fictional one. That would mean that Alice, her closest circle and, more importantly, the attractive poisoner Henri Ange are made-up as well. I'm relieved as this makes me feel slightly less guilty about finding him seriously hot.
Poor Henri, though - I made the mistake of taking a peek further on in the book in order to determine when he would be making his next appearance, and it seems he is hurtling towards a very grisly fate indeed. Now, I realise he deserves a grisly fate. This is a man who commits heinous crimes in cold blood and without repentance. Still, I had hoped for a clean kill, not prolonged suffering with no end in sight (it could still happen of course: one shouldn't put too much faith in sneak peeks).
Which leads me to a question which has always flummoxed me. Is it true that there really are people out there, maybe even a majority, who experience satisfaction and Schadenfreude when fictional villains are punished? Frankly, it's beyond me. If you are morally elevated enough to root for the hero and heroine, shouldn't you be above sniggering at the discomfiture of their enemies? I never did understand the penchant for fairy-tale-like punishments of wickedness that some authors have. "The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means", the prim governess in Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Ernest" explains (which goes to show that he had some problem with this concept too). I understand the allure of happy endings as much as anyone: I don't mind the good ending happily at all. But must the bad end unhappily? Isn't it enough that the author makes sure, in one way or another, that they never bother the good again?
Oddly, in a fictional universe, I feel capital punishment to be one of the more lenient forms of dealing with your villain. I seldom mind a villain death: it is sad, yes, but much better than some of the alternatives, as it is at least quick. It wasn't Carker's violent death in "Dombey and Son" that depressed me when I read it, it was the humiliation and mental collapse preceding it. I didn't mind Ralph Nickleby committing suicide: but the plot twist leading him to do so was too, too horrible. Yes, we're back to Dickens, who offers some good examples of excessive villain-punishing. Often he is at least canny enough to describe the villain's downfall not with lip-smacking relish but soberly and darkly like the tragedy it is. On the other hand, sometimes he's not. There is a certain pettiness in the punishments inflicted on especially minor villains. Are we really meant to crow over the offal-eating lives of total destitution which the Brasses are condemned to; over the broken legs of Sim Tappertit (who prided himself on them); over the double disappointments of Charity Pecksniff and over Mrs Sparsit ending up "in a mean, airless lodging, a mere closet for one, a mere crib for two" together with the "grudging, smarting, peevish, tormenting" Lady Scadgers? How can one do that and still retain the moral high ground?
There are roughly speaking three villain fates I prefer: 1) death 2) redemption and 3) getting off scot-free. I realise that alternative 3) must be used with caution (though it's the best if you ever think of writing a sequel: redemption ends a villain's career as neatly as death). Justice ought to be done in some way, and the happy ending of the goodies should not seem to be under constant threat. Still, surely alternative 2) could be used a bit more often (though maybe not in the case of conscience-free Henri Ange)?
I try to console myself with the thought that classy villains normally do not indulge in self-pity, whatever fate has in store for them: they realise that he who dishes out meanness must also be able to take it. In the words of Flintheart Glomgold's memorable lament to the Heavens in one of Don Rosa's Scrooge McDuck adventures (translated into Swedish and back, so probably not word perfect): "What have I done to deserve this? On second thoughts, don't answer that."
Poor Henri, though - I made the mistake of taking a peek further on in the book in order to determine when he would be making his next appearance, and it seems he is hurtling towards a very grisly fate indeed. Now, I realise he deserves a grisly fate. This is a man who commits heinous crimes in cold blood and without repentance. Still, I had hoped for a clean kill, not prolonged suffering with no end in sight (it could still happen of course: one shouldn't put too much faith in sneak peeks).
Which leads me to a question which has always flummoxed me. Is it true that there really are people out there, maybe even a majority, who experience satisfaction and Schadenfreude when fictional villains are punished? Frankly, it's beyond me. If you are morally elevated enough to root for the hero and heroine, shouldn't you be above sniggering at the discomfiture of their enemies? I never did understand the penchant for fairy-tale-like punishments of wickedness that some authors have. "The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means", the prim governess in Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Ernest" explains (which goes to show that he had some problem with this concept too). I understand the allure of happy endings as much as anyone: I don't mind the good ending happily at all. But must the bad end unhappily? Isn't it enough that the author makes sure, in one way or another, that they never bother the good again?
Oddly, in a fictional universe, I feel capital punishment to be one of the more lenient forms of dealing with your villain. I seldom mind a villain death: it is sad, yes, but much better than some of the alternatives, as it is at least quick. It wasn't Carker's violent death in "Dombey and Son" that depressed me when I read it, it was the humiliation and mental collapse preceding it. I didn't mind Ralph Nickleby committing suicide: but the plot twist leading him to do so was too, too horrible. Yes, we're back to Dickens, who offers some good examples of excessive villain-punishing. Often he is at least canny enough to describe the villain's downfall not with lip-smacking relish but soberly and darkly like the tragedy it is. On the other hand, sometimes he's not. There is a certain pettiness in the punishments inflicted on especially minor villains. Are we really meant to crow over the offal-eating lives of total destitution which the Brasses are condemned to; over the broken legs of Sim Tappertit (who prided himself on them); over the double disappointments of Charity Pecksniff and over Mrs Sparsit ending up "in a mean, airless lodging, a mere closet for one, a mere crib for two" together with the "grudging, smarting, peevish, tormenting" Lady Scadgers? How can one do that and still retain the moral high ground?
There are roughly speaking three villain fates I prefer: 1) death 2) redemption and 3) getting off scot-free. I realise that alternative 3) must be used with caution (though it's the best if you ever think of writing a sequel: redemption ends a villain's career as neatly as death). Justice ought to be done in some way, and the happy ending of the goodies should not seem to be under constant threat. Still, surely alternative 2) could be used a bit more often (though maybe not in the case of conscience-free Henri Ange)?
I try to console myself with the thought that classy villains normally do not indulge in self-pity, whatever fate has in store for them: they realise that he who dishes out meanness must also be able to take it. In the words of Flintheart Glomgold's memorable lament to the Heavens in one of Don Rosa's Scrooge McDuck adventures (translated into Swedish and back, so probably not word perfect): "What have I done to deserve this? On second thoughts, don't answer that."
Thursday, 8 December 2011
Plot vs Character
One of the most damning things you can say about a novel is "I didn't care about the characters". It must be on the top ten list of phrases an author never wants to hear. And yet, it is possible to enjoy a novel without caring two straws about the main characters. I know, because it's happened to me twice recently. I'm currently reading - in tandem with Les Mis which I keep for my lunch hour - a historical novel set in Restoration England (and a bit in Louis XIV's France) called "Dark Angels". The author, Karleen Koen, certainly knows how to spin a yarn. Intrigues, drama and court gossip abound. I'm engrossed - but do I care about the book's heroine? Not really.
I do know a little about Restoration times, most of it learnt by reading Jude Morgan's "The King's Touch" (still the Restoration novel to beat). But I don't know enough to identify which of the book's protagonists, except from the royal families, assorted mistresses and the odd duke, are real and which are fictional. If the heroine Alice Verney, maid of honour to Queen Catherine and Princess Henriette and daughter of a wily courtier, actually existed she may very well have been an admirable person. The picture Koen paints of her is not very flattering, though: she has her good points, like loyalty to her long-suffering employers, and she doesn't like Castlemaine which is always a plus. But her ruling ambition is to marry an elderly duke just to cheat his nephew, her ex-fiancé, out of his inheritance, and she interferes in her best friend's romance because she thinks her friend could do better (although she is penniless). Spite works well for a villain but less well for a heroine, and as for scheming, it should ideally be done with a bit of panache. Unlike Becky Sharp, the queen of minxes, Alice isn't really enjoying herself. She's only hanging on, trying grimly to survive the (sometimes literally) poisonous court atmosphere.
Funnily enough, though, it doesn't matter that the main protagonist is hard to warm to. She isn't positively dislikeable either, and the plot makes up for her shortcomings. However, I have to admit that the plot isn't the only thing that intrigues me - the book is also livened up by the odd appearance of an ace villain in the pleasant shape of a smooth, friendly poisoner. I know I probably should draw the line at poisoners, but it's been ages since there was any fresh meat on the villain market, and I'm not about to be picky, especially not for moral reasons.
My other example of plot-driven rather than character-driven reading fun is "My Last Duchess" by Daisy Goodwin, the largest part of which I read on the plane to New York without feeling fidgety once. I think I saw an article by Goodwin once, back when the anti-romance debate was in full height, where she defended the romance genre. She needen't have felt nettled by the anti-Mills&Booners for her own sake, though. "My Last Duchess" is set in the High Society of England and America in the 1890s, the sets are sumptuous, and the plot is mainly about love and relationships. But on one level, it is not the least bit escapist. One of the main delights of the novel is that you truly don't know what will happen: whether the heroine Cora Cash's marriage to an English duke will work out fine or prove to be a disaster. No-one can accuse Goodwin of skating over the difficulties Cora faces in the shape of a kittenish but tough mother-in-law, a resentful ex-mistress and her husband's reticence. The very last thing I felt like doing after having finished this novel was to marry into the English nobility.
Yet, again, I didn't really care about Cora much. She is depicted as shallow and spoilt and never really overcomes the brash American heiress stereotype. I didn't like her maid Bertha either, though we are probably supposed to. Her loyalty towards her mistress is mixed with a good dose of resentment and seems to have more to do with habit than any kind of affection. No, the strongest points of "My Last Duchess" are plot-related, not character-related: you simply want to know what happens next. This in spite of the fact that there is no cute villain in sight.
I do know a little about Restoration times, most of it learnt by reading Jude Morgan's "The King's Touch" (still the Restoration novel to beat). But I don't know enough to identify which of the book's protagonists, except from the royal families, assorted mistresses and the odd duke, are real and which are fictional. If the heroine Alice Verney, maid of honour to Queen Catherine and Princess Henriette and daughter of a wily courtier, actually existed she may very well have been an admirable person. The picture Koen paints of her is not very flattering, though: she has her good points, like loyalty to her long-suffering employers, and she doesn't like Castlemaine which is always a plus. But her ruling ambition is to marry an elderly duke just to cheat his nephew, her ex-fiancé, out of his inheritance, and she interferes in her best friend's romance because she thinks her friend could do better (although she is penniless). Spite works well for a villain but less well for a heroine, and as for scheming, it should ideally be done with a bit of panache. Unlike Becky Sharp, the queen of minxes, Alice isn't really enjoying herself. She's only hanging on, trying grimly to survive the (sometimes literally) poisonous court atmosphere.
Funnily enough, though, it doesn't matter that the main protagonist is hard to warm to. She isn't positively dislikeable either, and the plot makes up for her shortcomings. However, I have to admit that the plot isn't the only thing that intrigues me - the book is also livened up by the odd appearance of an ace villain in the pleasant shape of a smooth, friendly poisoner. I know I probably should draw the line at poisoners, but it's been ages since there was any fresh meat on the villain market, and I'm not about to be picky, especially not for moral reasons.
My other example of plot-driven rather than character-driven reading fun is "My Last Duchess" by Daisy Goodwin, the largest part of which I read on the plane to New York without feeling fidgety once. I think I saw an article by Goodwin once, back when the anti-romance debate was in full height, where she defended the romance genre. She needen't have felt nettled by the anti-Mills&Booners for her own sake, though. "My Last Duchess" is set in the High Society of England and America in the 1890s, the sets are sumptuous, and the plot is mainly about love and relationships. But on one level, it is not the least bit escapist. One of the main delights of the novel is that you truly don't know what will happen: whether the heroine Cora Cash's marriage to an English duke will work out fine or prove to be a disaster. No-one can accuse Goodwin of skating over the difficulties Cora faces in the shape of a kittenish but tough mother-in-law, a resentful ex-mistress and her husband's reticence. The very last thing I felt like doing after having finished this novel was to marry into the English nobility.
Yet, again, I didn't really care about Cora much. She is depicted as shallow and spoilt and never really overcomes the brash American heiress stereotype. I didn't like her maid Bertha either, though we are probably supposed to. Her loyalty towards her mistress is mixed with a good dose of resentment and seems to have more to do with habit than any kind of affection. No, the strongest points of "My Last Duchess" are plot-related, not character-related: you simply want to know what happens next. This in spite of the fact that there is no cute villain in sight.
Thursday, 1 December 2011
Long live the tenacity of the Unwelcome Suitor
Just to dwell on "Downton" a bit longer (bear with me - it's been a tiring week), I have now caught up on the second series and watched all of it on DVD (three episodes in one evening). Thank heaven there will be a third series when they simply must tie up all the loose ends. One welcome development is that there's a new villain on the block. Mary's fiancé Sir Richard Carlisle has become increasingly nasty until he is now a full-blown example of that old and extremely useful group of baddies: the Unwelcome Suitor.
Granted, Sir Richard is an unsubtle specimen, but it has to be said for the Unwelcome Suitor - and I've seen dafter ones than Sir Richard - that they add a certain spice to the intrigue. They are so very hard to shake off. It is easy to grow tired of two lovers who constantly misunderstand each other and therefore do not hitch up until the very end. But add an external threat to their happiness, and it all gets more interesting. Few characters can have more of a vested interest in trampling True Love underfoot than the man who intends to pick up the pieces in the shape of a pretty heroine (a girl who wants the hero has an interest too, but often - as in "Downton Abbey" - she makes trouble more or less unwittingly by being too nice to ditch, rather than too nasty).
It is small wonder that the Unwelcome Suitor is such a stock character. The question you need to answer convincingly, though, if you want to include him in your drama is: why on earth does he bother? After all, you mostly find him in stories which take place in olden times when it was much more imperative for a girl to marry, and when the marriage market was very much a buyer's market. As you have to be tolerably rich and/or powerful to pose a threat in the first place, most Unwelcome Suitors are, from a material point of view, eligible bachelors. This means they can have their pick of girls. Why should they go for the surly one who doesn't even pretend to care for them?
The answer mostly given is that the blackguard, villainous that he is, finds the heroine's reluctance a turn-on in itself. There's the thrill of the chase. Thus the old well-worn baddie line: "I like a woman with a temper" (a line I have never, ever heard a man utter in real life). Fair enough, but as the Dowager in "Downton" says in quite another context, "marriage is a long business". How much fun can it be to spend the rest of your life tied to a woman in a grump? The villain who simply wants the heroine's virtue is more easily understandable than the breed who insists on marriage.
It's certainly worth the time of an author or script-writer to try to find plausible answers to the questions raised by the presence of an Unwelcome Suitor, though, as the best of them are such corkers. Just think of Uriah Heep, whose motive besides desiring Agnes - that he has made it his life project to lord it over his erstwhile employers - is perfectly convincing. Of course, he would be utterly tired of Wickfield-tormenting after ten years or so, but being a bitter Dickensian villain he doesn't realise it. Yep, I buy it. Roll on the fun.
As for Sir Richard, he has a long, long way to go before he can even be mentioned on the same day as the best in the Unwelcome Suitor field. At some point in the future, I believe we are owed a full explanation of why he doesn't just forget about Mary. She may not have given him the whole Dickensian heroine brush-off, but she can plainly hardly bear to touch him. Just what kind of team does he expect them to make?
Granted, Sir Richard is an unsubtle specimen, but it has to be said for the Unwelcome Suitor - and I've seen dafter ones than Sir Richard - that they add a certain spice to the intrigue. They are so very hard to shake off. It is easy to grow tired of two lovers who constantly misunderstand each other and therefore do not hitch up until the very end. But add an external threat to their happiness, and it all gets more interesting. Few characters can have more of a vested interest in trampling True Love underfoot than the man who intends to pick up the pieces in the shape of a pretty heroine (a girl who wants the hero has an interest too, but often - as in "Downton Abbey" - she makes trouble more or less unwittingly by being too nice to ditch, rather than too nasty).
It is small wonder that the Unwelcome Suitor is such a stock character. The question you need to answer convincingly, though, if you want to include him in your drama is: why on earth does he bother? After all, you mostly find him in stories which take place in olden times when it was much more imperative for a girl to marry, and when the marriage market was very much a buyer's market. As you have to be tolerably rich and/or powerful to pose a threat in the first place, most Unwelcome Suitors are, from a material point of view, eligible bachelors. This means they can have their pick of girls. Why should they go for the surly one who doesn't even pretend to care for them?
The answer mostly given is that the blackguard, villainous that he is, finds the heroine's reluctance a turn-on in itself. There's the thrill of the chase. Thus the old well-worn baddie line: "I like a woman with a temper" (a line I have never, ever heard a man utter in real life). Fair enough, but as the Dowager in "Downton" says in quite another context, "marriage is a long business". How much fun can it be to spend the rest of your life tied to a woman in a grump? The villain who simply wants the heroine's virtue is more easily understandable than the breed who insists on marriage.
It's certainly worth the time of an author or script-writer to try to find plausible answers to the questions raised by the presence of an Unwelcome Suitor, though, as the best of them are such corkers. Just think of Uriah Heep, whose motive besides desiring Agnes - that he has made it his life project to lord it over his erstwhile employers - is perfectly convincing. Of course, he would be utterly tired of Wickfield-tormenting after ten years or so, but being a bitter Dickensian villain he doesn't realise it. Yep, I buy it. Roll on the fun.
As for Sir Richard, he has a long, long way to go before he can even be mentioned on the same day as the best in the Unwelcome Suitor field. At some point in the future, I believe we are owed a full explanation of why he doesn't just forget about Mary. She may not have given him the whole Dickensian heroine brush-off, but she can plainly hardly bear to touch him. Just what kind of team does he expect them to make?
Tuesday, 22 November 2011
Blame it on the jet-lag
I returned last Saturday from a wonderful week in New York, full of no-holds-barred book shopping at Barnes & Noble, the Strand and then Barnes & Noble again. (There is also a book shop in Greenwich Village dedicated entirely to crime fiction, Partners & Crime, which is highly recommended if you can find it and if you remember that it opens at noon.) So now, what I really should be doing is of course to blog about books. But I don't feel quite up to it, and anyway I haven't read that much of what I've bought yet - buying it is a start. These last days I've postponed everything mildly strenuous by referring to my jet-lag. In fact, having slept all of ten hours and more between Saturday and Sunday, I don't feel much more tired than I usually do at the beginning of a working week, but never mind. Because of my jet-lag, I'm not going to be over-ambitious with my blogging at the moment. I'll blog about something easy, like "Downton Abbey" - again.
In Sweden, we have reached the middle of the second series - episode four has just been aired. The plot is as satisfyingly eventful as ever, and the script has picked up after a somewhat lacklustre start (if you plan to propose to a girl you don't love, could you please not use the phrase "we'd make a great team" - it has been done). As yet, Matthew's new fiancée and Mary's new suitor aren't exactly the most vivid characters - they are quite obviously hurdles for the star-crossed lovers to overcome - but that could well change. I was somewhat disgruntled that the uppity maid Ethel was punished by fate in the guise of Julian Fellowes for her uppitiness. Not that she was very nice, but her downfall seemed all to predictable. Still, quarrelling with the plot-lines in "Downton Abbey" is half the fun (seriously, Bates letting himself be blackmailed by his wife with the old Turkish diplomat affair? What's it to him, and how could he think for a moment that anyone would be interested in Anna's part in it?).
But what can have happened to the icy bitch Mary? She's mellowed to an extent where she's hardly recognisable, and she is completely smitten with Matthew all of a sudden. To top it all, she twice holds back in trying to win him out of consideration for his drippy fiancée. Lady Mary being noble? Is this really her, or has she been replaced by an android?
Not that I'm complaining - I like the new Lady Mary a lot better than the old one. What with Edith softening as well and doing good works for convalescing officers, suddenly all the mean tricks will have to be provided by the baddies downstairs (or, in one case, formerly downstairs), Thomas and Miss O'Brien.
It wouldn't be entirely true to say that Miss O'Brien is my favourite character - I think my favourite is Mrs Hughes, who I very much hope will discover somewhere at the end of series three that she and Carson are made for each other - but she does add a welcome dose of villainy and does it better than Thomas as she is more intelligent. One of the most intriguing things about the series for me is the friendship between its two baddies. O'Brien advances Thomas's cause whenever she can, and he is duly grateful. Theirs is not a partnership founded on attraction, Thomas being on the other bus, and yet they stick together through thick and thin. Believe me, you don't see this kind of loyalty between villainous characters every day - mostly, at some point, they will be double-crossing each other.
Miss O'Brien showing a compassionate interest in the unsuitable-because-shell-shocked-out-of-his-senses valet Lang is another point in her favour. It would have been hard to warm to the always blundering Lang - really, shell shock doesn't excuse everything - if he hadn't been very good-looking in a brainy, tormented way. I wouldn't mind seeing him return to the series, once he's cured of his shell shock and general clumsiness.
In Sweden, we have reached the middle of the second series - episode four has just been aired. The plot is as satisfyingly eventful as ever, and the script has picked up after a somewhat lacklustre start (if you plan to propose to a girl you don't love, could you please not use the phrase "we'd make a great team" - it has been done). As yet, Matthew's new fiancée and Mary's new suitor aren't exactly the most vivid characters - they are quite obviously hurdles for the star-crossed lovers to overcome - but that could well change. I was somewhat disgruntled that the uppity maid Ethel was punished by fate in the guise of Julian Fellowes for her uppitiness. Not that she was very nice, but her downfall seemed all to predictable. Still, quarrelling with the plot-lines in "Downton Abbey" is half the fun (seriously, Bates letting himself be blackmailed by his wife with the old Turkish diplomat affair? What's it to him, and how could he think for a moment that anyone would be interested in Anna's part in it?).
But what can have happened to the icy bitch Mary? She's mellowed to an extent where she's hardly recognisable, and she is completely smitten with Matthew all of a sudden. To top it all, she twice holds back in trying to win him out of consideration for his drippy fiancée. Lady Mary being noble? Is this really her, or has she been replaced by an android?
Not that I'm complaining - I like the new Lady Mary a lot better than the old one. What with Edith softening as well and doing good works for convalescing officers, suddenly all the mean tricks will have to be provided by the baddies downstairs (or, in one case, formerly downstairs), Thomas and Miss O'Brien.
It wouldn't be entirely true to say that Miss O'Brien is my favourite character - I think my favourite is Mrs Hughes, who I very much hope will discover somewhere at the end of series three that she and Carson are made for each other - but she does add a welcome dose of villainy and does it better than Thomas as she is more intelligent. One of the most intriguing things about the series for me is the friendship between its two baddies. O'Brien advances Thomas's cause whenever she can, and he is duly grateful. Theirs is not a partnership founded on attraction, Thomas being on the other bus, and yet they stick together through thick and thin. Believe me, you don't see this kind of loyalty between villainous characters every day - mostly, at some point, they will be double-crossing each other.
Miss O'Brien showing a compassionate interest in the unsuitable-because-shell-shocked-out-of-his-senses valet Lang is another point in her favour. It would have been hard to warm to the always blundering Lang - really, shell shock doesn't excuse everything - if he hadn't been very good-looking in a brainy, tormented way. I wouldn't mind seeing him return to the series, once he's cured of his shell shock and general clumsiness.
Saturday, 5 November 2011
While on the subject of Fanny Price
This is, I suppose, as good a time as any to expand on something I mentioned in my previous blog (and by the way, P.D. James's P & P mystery is already published now! That was quick: in the newspaper piece I read it sounded as if it was only in the pipeline). What I'd like to chew over a bit is the - to me - baffling hostility often shown towards Fanny Price in "Mansfield Park" by various commentators. Shepherd with her parallel universe take of the character was clearly not impressed by the original, and she can join a large and thriving club. Everywhere Fanny is roundly condemned for her "self-righteousness" and "humourlessness". Austen famously said about Emma that in her she would create a heroine "no-one but myself will like". Yet Emma is doing all right, although people tend to share Mr Knightley's censorious view of her behaviour (for my money, Mr Knightley needs to be hit over the head with something hard: talk about humourless and self-righteous). It is Fanny who is the most unloved of the Austen heroines.
Why is this, exactly? And how judgemental is Fanny? You'd think, by the way she's described not least in sequel fiction where she occasionally pops up as a secondary character, that she's some kind of 19th century Oliver Cromwell, calling "Guards!" Horrible-Histories-style every time anyone even mentions something fun. Yet Austen's timid Fanny hardly ever ventures an opinion on anyone or anything. She certainly doesn't set herself up as being morally better than the family at Mansfield: it's Austen who does that. How can this shrinking violet have provoked so much loathing among the Austen-reading public?
The answer is, largely, because she is a shrinking violet. In our day and age, we are more into the feisty kind of heroine (the "f" factor, also mentioned in a previous post) personified by the warm, witty and spirited Elizabeth Bennet. I like a heroine with bite myself: someone who can "answer back", like Elizabeth or Jane Eyre. Perhaps it's understandable that modern readers - and maybe not just modern ones - are bound to compare goody-goody heroines like Fanny unfavourably with the more spunky Elizabeth Bennet kind. Clearly, heroines didn't have to be self-effacing in the 19th century. So why on earth does Fanny choose to be?
Because, now as then, individuals are different, and we can't all be spunky. Fanny's position as a poor relation taken on in sufferance and continously bullied by Mrs Norris does not exactly encourage spunkiness, either. With time, I have become more and more tolerant with the non-spunky heroine type. We should cut them some slack and not assume that just because they are good, they are dreary and two-dimensional. Fanny's unrequited love for Edmund is so feelingly portrayed by Austen that I rather warmed to her. Besides, she is trying to do her best as she is thrown into one impossible situation after the other.
If you ask me, Edmund is the real stinker in "Mansfield Park". Fanny may utter some prissy lines, but you can always trace Edmund's influence in them. He is the one who moralises, while at the same time drooling over the funny but extremely worldly Mary Crawford. His treatment of Fanny is unfeeling even by cousinly standards - depriving her of her horse, a hard-earned privilege, so he can give Mary riding lessons; abandoning her and forgetting her altogether at Rushworth's place so he can stroll around with Mary - and becomes even more heart-breaking when you consider Fanny's love for him, which it would not have been difficult for him to guess at if he had cared more about her. If this is supposed to be Fanny's mainstay and support in the Bertram family, one wonders what the rest of them are like. To add insult to injury, though, or rather injury to insult, the way Edmund tramples on Fanny's feelings is probably another reason for her unpopularity. Why does she put up with this ghastly fellow? readers ask. And some female readers may also add in an undertone: "It's not as if she didn't have options..."
Which leads me to Henry Crawford. Apparently, he has quite a following among female readers: many sequels/retellings on "Mansfield Park" are designed to exonerate him and sometimes to give him another chance with Fanny. Of course, and I know this from experience, when a heroine scorns a man you would very happily have taken on board yourself, especially if you sense that there is some moral reason behind her unwillingness to give him the time of day, you can't help muttering "silly cow!" and "she should be so lucky" at regular intervals. Why Henry should be considered such a catch beats me, though. I never did care for salon-savvy layabouts (Sir John Chester in "Barnaby Rudge" being the great exception). What does Henry ever do except chase skirt? A villain should do something more to show a bit of drive, verve and efficiency - like defrauding his boss, building a fortune on stolen goods or snooping into the private affairs of his clients and using his findings against them. I know my villain taste is somewhat bourgeois, but honestly - I can't see what Henry's got that could make up for the fact that he started the whole Fanny-winning enterprise wanting to make "a small hole in Fanny Price's heart".
Austen, though, seems to have anticipated that some readers could be irritated by Fanny's refusal of Henry Crawford. She makes it clear that he would have stood much more of a chance, in spite of being a seducer and wastrel, if Fanny had not already been in love with Edmund, and she hints that he would have won Fanny with time if Edmund had married Mary. Henry does win some ground when he meets Fanny and her family in Portsmouth, and might have prevailed if he hadn't been just as flighty as Fanny predicted and gone off with Maria Rushworth. I should think it's just as well he did, though. Fanny herself put it best when contemplating a future with him (and I try to think of her perceptive words when I grumble about other heroines wilfully refusing villains): "I am so perfectly convinced that I could never make him happy, and that I should be miserable myself."
So, next time there is an adaptation of "Mansfield Park", it might be a novel idea to have a Fanny Price who actually bears some resemblance to Fanny in the book. (Sylvestra Le Touzel was a wonderful Fanny in the old TV adaptation from -83, but that was a while ago now.) A Fanny who is not a tomboy - as in the ITV adaptation - or a saucy slave-defender - as in the dreadful film: don't get me started! - or has extra feistiness injected in her in some other way. Please?
Why is this, exactly? And how judgemental is Fanny? You'd think, by the way she's described not least in sequel fiction where she occasionally pops up as a secondary character, that she's some kind of 19th century Oliver Cromwell, calling "Guards!" Horrible-Histories-style every time anyone even mentions something fun. Yet Austen's timid Fanny hardly ever ventures an opinion on anyone or anything. She certainly doesn't set herself up as being morally better than the family at Mansfield: it's Austen who does that. How can this shrinking violet have provoked so much loathing among the Austen-reading public?
The answer is, largely, because she is a shrinking violet. In our day and age, we are more into the feisty kind of heroine (the "f" factor, also mentioned in a previous post) personified by the warm, witty and spirited Elizabeth Bennet. I like a heroine with bite myself: someone who can "answer back", like Elizabeth or Jane Eyre. Perhaps it's understandable that modern readers - and maybe not just modern ones - are bound to compare goody-goody heroines like Fanny unfavourably with the more spunky Elizabeth Bennet kind. Clearly, heroines didn't have to be self-effacing in the 19th century. So why on earth does Fanny choose to be?
Because, now as then, individuals are different, and we can't all be spunky. Fanny's position as a poor relation taken on in sufferance and continously bullied by Mrs Norris does not exactly encourage spunkiness, either. With time, I have become more and more tolerant with the non-spunky heroine type. We should cut them some slack and not assume that just because they are good, they are dreary and two-dimensional. Fanny's unrequited love for Edmund is so feelingly portrayed by Austen that I rather warmed to her. Besides, she is trying to do her best as she is thrown into one impossible situation after the other.
If you ask me, Edmund is the real stinker in "Mansfield Park". Fanny may utter some prissy lines, but you can always trace Edmund's influence in them. He is the one who moralises, while at the same time drooling over the funny but extremely worldly Mary Crawford. His treatment of Fanny is unfeeling even by cousinly standards - depriving her of her horse, a hard-earned privilege, so he can give Mary riding lessons; abandoning her and forgetting her altogether at Rushworth's place so he can stroll around with Mary - and becomes even more heart-breaking when you consider Fanny's love for him, which it would not have been difficult for him to guess at if he had cared more about her. If this is supposed to be Fanny's mainstay and support in the Bertram family, one wonders what the rest of them are like. To add insult to injury, though, or rather injury to insult, the way Edmund tramples on Fanny's feelings is probably another reason for her unpopularity. Why does she put up with this ghastly fellow? readers ask. And some female readers may also add in an undertone: "It's not as if she didn't have options..."
Which leads me to Henry Crawford. Apparently, he has quite a following among female readers: many sequels/retellings on "Mansfield Park" are designed to exonerate him and sometimes to give him another chance with Fanny. Of course, and I know this from experience, when a heroine scorns a man you would very happily have taken on board yourself, especially if you sense that there is some moral reason behind her unwillingness to give him the time of day, you can't help muttering "silly cow!" and "she should be so lucky" at regular intervals. Why Henry should be considered such a catch beats me, though. I never did care for salon-savvy layabouts (Sir John Chester in "Barnaby Rudge" being the great exception). What does Henry ever do except chase skirt? A villain should do something more to show a bit of drive, verve and efficiency - like defrauding his boss, building a fortune on stolen goods or snooping into the private affairs of his clients and using his findings against them. I know my villain taste is somewhat bourgeois, but honestly - I can't see what Henry's got that could make up for the fact that he started the whole Fanny-winning enterprise wanting to make "a small hole in Fanny Price's heart".
Austen, though, seems to have anticipated that some readers could be irritated by Fanny's refusal of Henry Crawford. She makes it clear that he would have stood much more of a chance, in spite of being a seducer and wastrel, if Fanny had not already been in love with Edmund, and she hints that he would have won Fanny with time if Edmund had married Mary. Henry does win some ground when he meets Fanny and her family in Portsmouth, and might have prevailed if he hadn't been just as flighty as Fanny predicted and gone off with Maria Rushworth. I should think it's just as well he did, though. Fanny herself put it best when contemplating a future with him (and I try to think of her perceptive words when I grumble about other heroines wilfully refusing villains): "I am so perfectly convinced that I could never make him happy, and that I should be miserable myself."
So, next time there is an adaptation of "Mansfield Park", it might be a novel idea to have a Fanny Price who actually bears some resemblance to Fanny in the book. (Sylvestra Le Touzel was a wonderful Fanny in the old TV adaptation from -83, but that was a while ago now.) A Fanny who is not a tomboy - as in the ITV adaptation - or a saucy slave-defender - as in the dreadful film: don't get me started! - or has extra feistiness injected in her in some other way. Please?
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