It is too early to cheer, but maybe, just maybe, we are nearing the end of the "new grit" trend in English costume drama. The high and mighty BBC, no less, are currently airing a new series based on The Three Musketeers, which they have cheekily scheduled to run at the same time as Mr Selfridge series 2 on ITV. I've not watched it - it's not airing in Sweden, and the DVD will be a while - but judging by the reviews, the series is nothing more nor less than a light-hearted romp.
All right, so the Beeb is clearly still eschewing "bonnet dramas". But nor is this a drama about "ordinary people". Leather-clad (yes, it's true - I've seen the pictures) posh young men swashbuckling their way through 17th Century France - is it possible to think of a concept more unlike that of The Village? It does look a lot like Auntie has finally realised that people must be amused. But who knows - this may just be this year's White Queen, a single sop to costume drama viewers who only want to have a good time before the network starts again with the earnest, muddy, social-history approach.
I may be wrong, but again judging from the reviews, the series looks likely to be something along the line of the Scarlet Pimpernel TV series starring Richard E. Grant, Elizabeth McGovern and last but not least Martin Shaw. This series not only played fast and loose with the original Scarlet Pimpernel books, but also with history. The approach of Musketeers sounds similar: the historical background becomes a sort of cloud-cuckooland where every adventure is possible. Richelieu having his unfaithful mistress shot in a wood is surely a parallel to Robespierre wearing buttons featuring the guillotine: not even the book version went that far, and as for the real historic personages, they wouldn't have dreamt of doing any such thing (it is to be doubted that Richelieu even had a mistress). I enjoyed what I saw of the Pimpernel TV series, much thanks to Martin Shaw's manly Chauvelin - much as I dote on Orczy's Chauvelin, I never imagined him looking anything like Martin Shaw, but hey, who's complaining? The actor saddled with playing the Alice-in-Wonderland version of Robespierre was also very good, in spite of his caricature of a part. I'm sure I will enjoy Musketeers in much the same way. Nevertheless, you do wonder: what is it with the Musketeer story that makes adapters take a cavalier approach both to Dumas and the history books?
A confession is in order here: I haven't read The Three Musketeers. My knowledge of what takes place in it is based on somewhat foggy memories of the Illustrated Classic and the film starring Michael York as d'Artagnan (which seems to have been faithful to the book if you go by the Illustrated Classic test). Even with this limited knowledge, though, I sensed that things were decicedly off-kilter in the 90s film version (starring Charlie Sheen as Aramis and a wolf-grinning Tim Curry as a libidinous Richelieu - I forget the rest). The trippy 2011 film (full of villain totty - I like it) was more honest in a way: it was clear by out-there set pieces such as the infamous airships that this film bore no resemblance to any known version of 17th Century France whatsoever, whether written by Dumas or otherwise. Both the new films had you scratching your head if you'd grown up with the Michael York version of events. As for history, you're more amazed when a film gets it (almost) right than otherwise. Buckingham in the 2011 film refers repeatedly to "King James", and what do you know, James I's Buckingham is the same as the skirt-chaser in Musketeers. Granted, in reality he wasn't quite stupid enough to carry on a flirt with France's queen while his patron was still alive - his "diplomatic" mission to France came later, much to the then English king Charles I's chagrin (Charles was Louis XIII's brother-in-law) - but all the same, that was darn close.
I don't think it's a coincidence that it's The Scarlet Pimpernel and The Three Musketeers which have been victims of cheerfully-off-the-rails adaptations. Simply put: if the history in a historical novel is already wonky, the temptation must be all the stronger to crack it up another notch. If the French Revolution is depicted as nothing more than a bloodthirsty rabble's revenge on mostly cuddly noblemen, why not go the whole hog and let Robespierre wear guillotine buttons? If you have to make Cardinal Richelieu, an able and loyal minister who was a blessing to his country, into the villain of the piece, then both history and the original story might need further tweaking, especially if you want viewers to sympathise with a undertaking aimed to cover up the French Queen's adultery with an English duke. Tellingly, Queen Anne in the 90s and 2011 films is innocent of any Buckingham hanky-panky, and part of the musketeers' mission is to heal the breach between her and the King so two vulnerable young hearts can beat as one (both films are set at the start of Louis XIII's reign, when Richelieu really shouldn't be around at all). There was no such sentimental nonsense in the Michael York version. The King and Queen were no longer naïve newlyweds, and obviously not the lovers of the century. The Queen did have an affair with Buckingham, but had to be shielded because... because... well, because she was against the Cardinal who did all sorts of wicked stuff. Like... banning duels.
Whether it's because of modern values or insufficient Frenchness, there are points of the original story that viewers like me have problems with when it comes to The Three Musketeers. This has been used before as an excuse for adapters to go wild, and I strongly suspect that the same is true of the BBC series. It'll be intriguing to find out whether Queen Anne is blameless in this version or not.
Wednesday, 12 February 2014
Thursday, 30 January 2014
Milverton vs Magnussen
Hats off to Steven Moffat. For a second time in a short while, he has come up with a villain who makes my flesh creep - and not in a good way. While watching the last episode of the (excellent) series 3 of Sherlock, I was disturbed to find that my reaction to the modern-day equivalent of Conan Doyle's Master Blackmailer - called Charles Augustus Magnussen instead of Milverton (he's a Dane) - was a deeply conventional "yuck!".
Yet I had no such problems with the original. Charles Augustus Milverton - the villain in the Sherlock Holmes adventure of the same name - undoubtedly comes high up on the list of fictional characters you wouldn't want to meet in real life. A blackmailer who can hold on to a secret until just the moment when it can do most damage; who charges so much there's no comfortable way of paying him off; and who, if he doesn't get the loot, will make a show of your misery, so as to encourage other victims to pay up - one shudders to think. You do not need to have lived a very blameworthy life in order to become trapped by a man like that. At the same time, while I understood Holmes's revulsion, I didn't feel it myself. My view of the smiling, deceptively Pickwickian-seeming Milverton was not "yuck" but "mmm, different". He's not one of those baddies I've developed a serious crush on; I do not fool myself into believing that he has a wounded soul or could be redeemed by love. But he is interesting, and I did raise my eyebrows a bit when Holmes decided to let one of his victims murder him and get away with it.
The Charles Augustus Milverton story has another point of interest, apart from its title character, and that's the dodgy way everyone, even Holmes - especially Holmes - behaves in it. The society beauty Holmes and Watson are representing may be a poor innocent, if her "sprightly" letters to an "impecunious young squire" were written long before she met her noble, eligible fiancé. But were they? Milverton's murderer is an adulteress who claims that Milverton's revelations about her affair killed her husband. One cannot help feeling, though, that if her husband's "gallant heart" was broken because his wife betrayed him, it was not entirely the fault of the blackmailer who told him. As for Holmes, he masquerades as a plumber and gets engaged to Milverton's housemaid, merely in order to get information on how to burgle the house. The fact that he has a rival who will take care of the girl once her plumber vanishes into thin air doesn't really make up for the heartlessness of Holmes's plan - besides being exactly the kind of gambit a Fagin associate would have used. It's as if Milverton corrupts even his enemies: no fight with him, if it can have a hope of being successful, can be fair.
So much for Milverton. What then of Magnussen, and why doesn't he earn the Georgiana seal of villain approval? Just look at him. Shark-like - check. "Dead eyes" - check. Power-hungry - check. Extremely clever - check. Able to annihilate opponents in word skirmishes - check. What's more, he's played mesmerisingly by the Danish actor Lars Mikkelsen. And yet, unlike with his namesake, I sat there willing someone to kill him, and fast, before he caused any more damage.
Magnussen's M.O. is similar to Milverton's. In fact, of all the Sherlock episodes, this one was the one which most resembled an actual Sherlock Holmes story - until it went off on an enjoyable tangent of its own. Magnussen is a newspaper proprietor with an encyclopediac memory who can dig up some dirt on just about everyone - or someone they hold dear - and threaten to publish it in his rags. (Query: are newspaper proprietors the new villain black in English Drama? And is it entirely fair given that few of them, I imagine, are that involved in the scandalous stories their newspapers print? We don't see many wicked newspaper editors gambolling about: on the contrary, they heroically beat up brown-shirts in Munich.) This means he holds world governments in his hands. What he wants to do with all this power is unclear: what's all too clear is that he enjoys having it. Much more than the business-minded Milverton - who, unlike many blackmailers, fulfils his side of the bargain and hands over the guilty secret once it's been paid for - Magnussen is a power junkie.
But I'm usually partial to power junkies. So why not Magnussen? As so often, it's the details that do it. I've said it before and I'll say it again: it's not what a villain does that's important, it's how he does it. It's useless to say "I would never ever fall for a blackmailer" - well, it is if you're a villain-lover anyway - but blackmail remains one of the trickier things for a baddie to pull off. And Magnussen isn't in the business of making things easy for potential backers. In one of the first scenes, his mental notes of a hostile committee member contain the chilling words "Pressure point: Disabled daughter". Whoah. In most blackmail affairs there's some collateral damage but - hold on. A little later, he demonstrates the power he has over another, in herself incorruptible, committee member ("Pressure point: Husband") by licking her face. Urinating in Sherlock's fireplace doesn't win one any prizes in charm school either, but this was the detail that really gave Magnussen the "yuck" factor.
So, business man vs unreliable power tripper. Targeting people's own guilty secrets vs targeting their nearest and dearest. Somewhat dodgy victims and adversaries of the husband-cheating, possibly gold-digging, housemaid-heartbreaking kind vs effortlessly engaging enemies/victims (though to be fair, the modern Sherlock doesn't come out of it all smelling of roses either: there's even a version of the maid story included). Laughing in your prey's face vs literally licking it. On balance, I'd say that of the two Charles Augustuses, Magnussen is the one who most deserves being called "the worst man in London". Either that or I'm going soft.
Yet I had no such problems with the original. Charles Augustus Milverton - the villain in the Sherlock Holmes adventure of the same name - undoubtedly comes high up on the list of fictional characters you wouldn't want to meet in real life. A blackmailer who can hold on to a secret until just the moment when it can do most damage; who charges so much there's no comfortable way of paying him off; and who, if he doesn't get the loot, will make a show of your misery, so as to encourage other victims to pay up - one shudders to think. You do not need to have lived a very blameworthy life in order to become trapped by a man like that. At the same time, while I understood Holmes's revulsion, I didn't feel it myself. My view of the smiling, deceptively Pickwickian-seeming Milverton was not "yuck" but "mmm, different". He's not one of those baddies I've developed a serious crush on; I do not fool myself into believing that he has a wounded soul or could be redeemed by love. But he is interesting, and I did raise my eyebrows a bit when Holmes decided to let one of his victims murder him and get away with it.
The Charles Augustus Milverton story has another point of interest, apart from its title character, and that's the dodgy way everyone, even Holmes - especially Holmes - behaves in it. The society beauty Holmes and Watson are representing may be a poor innocent, if her "sprightly" letters to an "impecunious young squire" were written long before she met her noble, eligible fiancé. But were they? Milverton's murderer is an adulteress who claims that Milverton's revelations about her affair killed her husband. One cannot help feeling, though, that if her husband's "gallant heart" was broken because his wife betrayed him, it was not entirely the fault of the blackmailer who told him. As for Holmes, he masquerades as a plumber and gets engaged to Milverton's housemaid, merely in order to get information on how to burgle the house. The fact that he has a rival who will take care of the girl once her plumber vanishes into thin air doesn't really make up for the heartlessness of Holmes's plan - besides being exactly the kind of gambit a Fagin associate would have used. It's as if Milverton corrupts even his enemies: no fight with him, if it can have a hope of being successful, can be fair.
So much for Milverton. What then of Magnussen, and why doesn't he earn the Georgiana seal of villain approval? Just look at him. Shark-like - check. "Dead eyes" - check. Power-hungry - check. Extremely clever - check. Able to annihilate opponents in word skirmishes - check. What's more, he's played mesmerisingly by the Danish actor Lars Mikkelsen. And yet, unlike with his namesake, I sat there willing someone to kill him, and fast, before he caused any more damage.
Magnussen's M.O. is similar to Milverton's. In fact, of all the Sherlock episodes, this one was the one which most resembled an actual Sherlock Holmes story - until it went off on an enjoyable tangent of its own. Magnussen is a newspaper proprietor with an encyclopediac memory who can dig up some dirt on just about everyone - or someone they hold dear - and threaten to publish it in his rags. (Query: are newspaper proprietors the new villain black in English Drama? And is it entirely fair given that few of them, I imagine, are that involved in the scandalous stories their newspapers print? We don't see many wicked newspaper editors gambolling about: on the contrary, they heroically beat up brown-shirts in Munich.) This means he holds world governments in his hands. What he wants to do with all this power is unclear: what's all too clear is that he enjoys having it. Much more than the business-minded Milverton - who, unlike many blackmailers, fulfils his side of the bargain and hands over the guilty secret once it's been paid for - Magnussen is a power junkie.
But I'm usually partial to power junkies. So why not Magnussen? As so often, it's the details that do it. I've said it before and I'll say it again: it's not what a villain does that's important, it's how he does it. It's useless to say "I would never ever fall for a blackmailer" - well, it is if you're a villain-lover anyway - but blackmail remains one of the trickier things for a baddie to pull off. And Magnussen isn't in the business of making things easy for potential backers. In one of the first scenes, his mental notes of a hostile committee member contain the chilling words "Pressure point: Disabled daughter". Whoah. In most blackmail affairs there's some collateral damage but - hold on. A little later, he demonstrates the power he has over another, in herself incorruptible, committee member ("Pressure point: Husband") by licking her face. Urinating in Sherlock's fireplace doesn't win one any prizes in charm school either, but this was the detail that really gave Magnussen the "yuck" factor.
So, business man vs unreliable power tripper. Targeting people's own guilty secrets vs targeting their nearest and dearest. Somewhat dodgy victims and adversaries of the husband-cheating, possibly gold-digging, housemaid-heartbreaking kind vs effortlessly engaging enemies/victims (though to be fair, the modern Sherlock doesn't come out of it all smelling of roses either: there's even a version of the maid story included). Laughing in your prey's face vs literally licking it. On balance, I'd say that of the two Charles Augustuses, Magnussen is the one who most deserves being called "the worst man in London". Either that or I'm going soft.
Wednesday, 22 January 2014
There's really nothing wrong with Tara King
While waiting for the Doctor Who Christmas special and Sherlock series 3, I'm indulging in some vintage geek viewing: I'm watching The Avengers. No, not the superheroes - the old cult series featuring John Steed, the British special agent who belongs to a very quirky secret service department indeed, and his various sidekicks. More specifically, I'm watching the Tara King episodes. I've already seen the Emma Peel episodes - I bought that whole part of the series a few years back. Some of the Tara episodes I've seen before, but now I have all her episodes too. And I must say they're not half bad.
The consensus among the hard-line fans of The Avengers seems to be that compared to ultra-cool, leather-clad, upper-crust Emma Peel as played by Diana Rigg, Tara King is a bit of a poor fish. She is introduced as a new recruit of The Department who promptly falls in love with the much older Steed, and I agree that's not a great beginning. But for the life of me, I cannot see any marked deterioration between her episodes and the ones featuring Emma. She can fight like a whole man - in one episode, she defeats a karate champion, in another, she has already taken care of the bad guys by the time Steed rushes to her rescue - she's sassy, and were I a man (of the kind that's into chicks) I'd have no complaints on the looks front either. She may have to be rescued by Steed once or twice, but for the most part, she can hold her own with no problem whatsoever. Anyway, isn't there a single episode where Emma has to be rescued by Steed? There is, surely. Steed's magnificence is a given in this series, and if you've reached the point when you think "hold on, he's not that great", then you know it's time to take a break from it for a while. On the whole, Tara is one plucky agent and does not deserve the Damsel in Distress label given her by fans online (like here, on the Avengers Forever web site - a perfect gold mine if, like me, you have a yen for many of the sterling British character actors who appeared in the series).
So why does Tara get so much bad press? All right, it might be because real fans, as opposed to ignorant day trippers like myself, are more discerning and can appreciate all the small nuances of difference between RSC-trained Diana Rigg and relative newcomer Linda Thorson. But I think that at least partly Tara is the victim of Charismatic Character Successor Syndrome. When a popular character is written out - and Emma Peel was very popular indeed - the one who takes his or her place in the story has a tough time of it. This can lead to the new character being replaced with yet another one pretty soon, and this second replacement will ironically find things easier, as he/she is compared not with the inimitable original but with the undervalued replacement number one.
We find an example of this in Midsomer Murders. The first Inspector Barnaby's first sergeant, Troy (Sergeant Troy! Get the Hardy reference), was a great sidekick - bumbling, tactless, but loveable with it, and as crime sidekicks tend to be a good deal more intelligent than his superior gave him credit for. (The Troy of the books isn't like this at all - in the novel I've read he was sharp, vain and a somewhat nasty. A bit my type, actually.) He was replaced by Sergeant Scott, an over-confident ladies' man from The Big Smoke who was very surprised at the non-boringness of policing Midsomer. Scott was also a good sidekick. His arrogant attitude, which had to be tempered as his collaboration with Barnaby continued, provided a pleasing dramatic tension between him and his inspector, and the way witnesses responded to him was interesting: for instance, his confrontation with one possible suspect - another man's man - led first to glowering hostility, then to bonding during one of those fatal folksy celebrations found only in Midsomer. Nevertheless, he was soon replaced. Why? I'd say CCS Syndrome. He was in his turn followed by Constable - later Sergeant - Jones, an amiable sort, but a little personality-less. He's made it all the way into the new Barnaby era. I wonder if he'd stood a chance, though, if he'd followed directly after Sergeant Troy.
One argument in favour of my CCS Syndrome theory is that sometimes series makers consciously create a "rebound" character who temporarily fills in between a Charismatic Character and his/her real successor. This rebound character can be anything from a real dud to someone quite nice but not really up to scratch. Of course, it is not always easy to see which characters were meant to stay but were then written out because they did not catch on, and which characters were only meant to stay for a bit anyway. But surely the blighted Caan in Grey's Anatomy was never meant to become a fixture. (I know I go on about her ghastliness a little, but that's what you get when you deny Christina surgery.) By the time "Desert Storm Barbie" appeared, I for one didn't care that she wasn't Burke: I was just glad she wasn't Caan. A series dear to my heart appears set to use the rebound character gambit twice, once successfully, once less so - but more about that another time.
Tara's problem is not that she's too green, or too weak, or too gooey towards Steed. Her problem is that she's not Emma Peel.
The consensus among the hard-line fans of The Avengers seems to be that compared to ultra-cool, leather-clad, upper-crust Emma Peel as played by Diana Rigg, Tara King is a bit of a poor fish. She is introduced as a new recruit of The Department who promptly falls in love with the much older Steed, and I agree that's not a great beginning. But for the life of me, I cannot see any marked deterioration between her episodes and the ones featuring Emma. She can fight like a whole man - in one episode, she defeats a karate champion, in another, she has already taken care of the bad guys by the time Steed rushes to her rescue - she's sassy, and were I a man (of the kind that's into chicks) I'd have no complaints on the looks front either. She may have to be rescued by Steed once or twice, but for the most part, she can hold her own with no problem whatsoever. Anyway, isn't there a single episode where Emma has to be rescued by Steed? There is, surely. Steed's magnificence is a given in this series, and if you've reached the point when you think "hold on, he's not that great", then you know it's time to take a break from it for a while. On the whole, Tara is one plucky agent and does not deserve the Damsel in Distress label given her by fans online (like here, on the Avengers Forever web site - a perfect gold mine if, like me, you have a yen for many of the sterling British character actors who appeared in the series).
So why does Tara get so much bad press? All right, it might be because real fans, as opposed to ignorant day trippers like myself, are more discerning and can appreciate all the small nuances of difference between RSC-trained Diana Rigg and relative newcomer Linda Thorson. But I think that at least partly Tara is the victim of Charismatic Character Successor Syndrome. When a popular character is written out - and Emma Peel was very popular indeed - the one who takes his or her place in the story has a tough time of it. This can lead to the new character being replaced with yet another one pretty soon, and this second replacement will ironically find things easier, as he/she is compared not with the inimitable original but with the undervalued replacement number one.
We find an example of this in Midsomer Murders. The first Inspector Barnaby's first sergeant, Troy (Sergeant Troy! Get the Hardy reference), was a great sidekick - bumbling, tactless, but loveable with it, and as crime sidekicks tend to be a good deal more intelligent than his superior gave him credit for. (The Troy of the books isn't like this at all - in the novel I've read he was sharp, vain and a somewhat nasty. A bit my type, actually.) He was replaced by Sergeant Scott, an over-confident ladies' man from The Big Smoke who was very surprised at the non-boringness of policing Midsomer. Scott was also a good sidekick. His arrogant attitude, which had to be tempered as his collaboration with Barnaby continued, provided a pleasing dramatic tension between him and his inspector, and the way witnesses responded to him was interesting: for instance, his confrontation with one possible suspect - another man's man - led first to glowering hostility, then to bonding during one of those fatal folksy celebrations found only in Midsomer. Nevertheless, he was soon replaced. Why? I'd say CCS Syndrome. He was in his turn followed by Constable - later Sergeant - Jones, an amiable sort, but a little personality-less. He's made it all the way into the new Barnaby era. I wonder if he'd stood a chance, though, if he'd followed directly after Sergeant Troy.
One argument in favour of my CCS Syndrome theory is that sometimes series makers consciously create a "rebound" character who temporarily fills in between a Charismatic Character and his/her real successor. This rebound character can be anything from a real dud to someone quite nice but not really up to scratch. Of course, it is not always easy to see which characters were meant to stay but were then written out because they did not catch on, and which characters were only meant to stay for a bit anyway. But surely the blighted Caan in Grey's Anatomy was never meant to become a fixture. (I know I go on about her ghastliness a little, but that's what you get when you deny Christina surgery.) By the time "Desert Storm Barbie" appeared, I for one didn't care that she wasn't Burke: I was just glad she wasn't Caan. A series dear to my heart appears set to use the rebound character gambit twice, once successfully, once less so - but more about that another time.
Tara's problem is not that she's too green, or too weak, or too gooey towards Steed. Her problem is that she's not Emma Peel.
Tuesday, 14 January 2014
Beating the January blues
It's strange - just before the new year, I tend to feel very purposeful and optimistic. I'm convinced that I will have the energy to get up to all sorts of things in the year to come and not get stuck in a rut like during a goodish part of the year that was. And then January comes along, and most of the energy vanishes, just like that. Typical.
This time last year, I was going through a real low patch, and I'm determined I won't let it happen again. But the January blues can very easily descend on you if you don't find a convenient cultural pick-me-up to get you through it. Last year they were worsened by post-Downtonian withdrawal syndrome, which I'm suffering from this year as well, albeit not to the same degree. An engrossing book or TV series would be just what I need - easier said than done, though.
Book-wise, I've already had my first disappointment when starting on Affinity by Sarah Waters, which I thought was a sure thing, bearing in mind what a page turner Fingersmith was. Frustratingly, it started out with pages and pages of scene-setting in a Victorian women's prison. What I appreciated with Fingersmith was its ability to get on with the story and not get bogged down with too much "look, I really know this period, me" local colour. I'm sure Affinity improves, but I have no patience for it right now, when I'm in need of a quicker reading fix.
Next out was Death at Wentwater Court, a light-hearted country-house mystery by Carola Dunn set in the Twenties. For a book in this genre, however, there turned out to be precious few twists, both mystery-wise and character-wise. The damsel in distress is revealed to be just that - a damsel in distress, and spineless with it, not a scheming minx as I was half hoping. Agatha Christie it ain't: the cynicism in her characterisation can annoy me sometimes, but I longed for a dose of it here. Still, it was a sweet tale, and at least I managed to finish it.
Right now I'm reading a gentle romance, The Memory Garden by Rachel Hore. And yes, it's pleasant - I've waded through many a worse book. I wish it could be a bit more engaging, though. It used to annoy me when, say, film reviewers complained about a rom com's "predictability". Well, duh, I thought, you don't watch a rom com for its original storylines - just tell us if it was heart-warming and witty, because that's what we really want to know. However, I must reluctantly admit that I'm starting to see the reviewers' point. When romantic pairings are all too obvious from the word go, then the obstacles thrown in the lovers' way can seem rather contrived.
The novel's heroine is a little drippy for my taste, too, though I tell myself I should give the poor woman a break after all that she's been through. She seems to take offence at the slightest thing that her likely new love interest does or does not do, and then she mopes around and feels "lonely" in her Cornwall cottage. She has months off work, she's got a contract for writing a book about something she's interested in, she's rented a cottage in Cornwall, she can sleep in mornings - honestly, is a spot of loneliness really something to worry about in the circumstances? I'm reminded, though, about how ubiquitous the Feisty Heroine is getting, when my reaction to a somewhat messed-up heroine is one of irritation. Isn't it only human to be over-wary before starting a new relationship and a bit pathetic at the same time? All heroines can't be of the fearless huntress variety. Still, remembering all the complications one is used to encounter in a love story, I can't help thinking: you're single, he's single, just do it, will you?
This time last year, I was going through a real low patch, and I'm determined I won't let it happen again. But the January blues can very easily descend on you if you don't find a convenient cultural pick-me-up to get you through it. Last year they were worsened by post-Downtonian withdrawal syndrome, which I'm suffering from this year as well, albeit not to the same degree. An engrossing book or TV series would be just what I need - easier said than done, though.
Book-wise, I've already had my first disappointment when starting on Affinity by Sarah Waters, which I thought was a sure thing, bearing in mind what a page turner Fingersmith was. Frustratingly, it started out with pages and pages of scene-setting in a Victorian women's prison. What I appreciated with Fingersmith was its ability to get on with the story and not get bogged down with too much "look, I really know this period, me" local colour. I'm sure Affinity improves, but I have no patience for it right now, when I'm in need of a quicker reading fix.
Next out was Death at Wentwater Court, a light-hearted country-house mystery by Carola Dunn set in the Twenties. For a book in this genre, however, there turned out to be precious few twists, both mystery-wise and character-wise. The damsel in distress is revealed to be just that - a damsel in distress, and spineless with it, not a scheming minx as I was half hoping. Agatha Christie it ain't: the cynicism in her characterisation can annoy me sometimes, but I longed for a dose of it here. Still, it was a sweet tale, and at least I managed to finish it.
Right now I'm reading a gentle romance, The Memory Garden by Rachel Hore. And yes, it's pleasant - I've waded through many a worse book. I wish it could be a bit more engaging, though. It used to annoy me when, say, film reviewers complained about a rom com's "predictability". Well, duh, I thought, you don't watch a rom com for its original storylines - just tell us if it was heart-warming and witty, because that's what we really want to know. However, I must reluctantly admit that I'm starting to see the reviewers' point. When romantic pairings are all too obvious from the word go, then the obstacles thrown in the lovers' way can seem rather contrived.
The novel's heroine is a little drippy for my taste, too, though I tell myself I should give the poor woman a break after all that she's been through. She seems to take offence at the slightest thing that her likely new love interest does or does not do, and then she mopes around and feels "lonely" in her Cornwall cottage. She has months off work, she's got a contract for writing a book about something she's interested in, she's rented a cottage in Cornwall, she can sleep in mornings - honestly, is a spot of loneliness really something to worry about in the circumstances? I'm reminded, though, about how ubiquitous the Feisty Heroine is getting, when my reaction to a somewhat messed-up heroine is one of irritation. Isn't it only human to be over-wary before starting a new relationship and a bit pathetic at the same time? All heroines can't be of the fearless huntress variety. Still, remembering all the complications one is used to encounter in a love story, I can't help thinking: you're single, he's single, just do it, will you?
Tuesday, 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.
Thursday, 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.
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.
Tuesday, 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?
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?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
