I'm fairly lucky with my "alternative to Strindberg" reading at the moment. The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz, a sequel to the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson that has the stamp of approval of the Arthur Conan Doyle estate, started a bit slow but soon picked up and proved to be an enjoyable read. The author is faithful to the personalities of the dynamic duo, and Lestrade gets an unusually good press, which is nice. Clearly I'm not the only one with a soft spot for this put-upon policeman (that he was played by weaselly-in-a-cute-way Colin Jeavons in the classic Jeremy Brett TV series helps). The other characters are sharply portrayed as well; the sinister Inspector Harriman, for instance, makes an excellent baddie. I was too worried about the fix Holmes had got himself into to be able to enjoy Harriman's baddiedom completely, however - which is a compliment coming from me, easily distracted as I am whenever there's an accomplished villain on the scene. Speaking of villains, Moriarty makes a guest appearance and is satisfactorily professorial. Holmes and Watson hurtle from one colourful venue to the next in the quest for the truth - an elegant town-house, a children's charity, an opium den, Holloway Prison, an exotic fair... Most things you expect from a crime caper set in Victorian times you will find in The House of Silk.
And this is, in one way, also the main fault of the novel. It surprised me that one of its Big Reveals has in fact been mentioned often in articles published in connection with the book's publication. Horowitz himself has made no secret of it. Why? Maybe it's because the activities of the "House of Silk" don't come as much of a surprise anyway to someone familiar with the Victorian Crime genre. If, by chance, you reach the dénouement without warning of what it will be about, your reaction is more likely to be a jaded "what, again?" rather than a shocked "no, really?". As I mentioned when I grumbled over Mr Timothy, I grow weary of all the "oooh, aren't those Victorians horrid?" hand-wringing of modern novels set in Victorian London. Yes, horrible things happened in Victorian days - as they do in our modern days, let's not forget, though often so far away from our everyday lives that we feel comfortable with pointing a finger at the long-dead instead - but not everywhere, all the time. Also, it seems unlikely that just about every establishment figure, especially if he has a title or is part of the government, should be knee-deep in filthy secrets. Could we maybe give the Victorian Establishment a break, once in a while? There were quite a lot of decent Victorians about who were genuinely concerned about combatting social ills and not the least bit twisted. And I'm guessing a fair proportion of them were Lords and Sirs.
If my criticism sounds a bit woolly, it's because I don't want to give too much away. I liked Horowitz's novel and would recommend it to fans of Holmes and Victorian Crime generally - and if you're not wise to what "The House of Silk" is when you read it, so much the better. Those in the know need not be put off, though - there are more surprises in store when Holmes winds up the case.
Wednesday, 30 May 2012
Thursday, 24 May 2012
Half-way through...
It feels like a bit of a come-down, this - to go from writing about Donna Tartt to making the obvious point that we risk being beaten in the Eurovision Song Contest by a gang of babuschkas. But what can I do? The week hasn't exactly been full of cultural highlights. And the things I have read/watched, I'm still in the middle of. Some bitty thoughts, then, on the week's events:
Less than half-way through the Eurovision Song Contest: Of course, there is a lot you can be sneering about in connection with this contest: most of all its package which always appears to be the same, irrespective of host country. There seems to be no way around the moment when two or three presenters holler "Hello Europe!" and then engage in leaden banter in more or less accented English. I always thought the script-writers were the ones at fault, but the blame must be shared by the presenters themselves who, as often as not, read their lines rather than say them and have no sense of timing whatsoever. I could see one of the first jokes in the first semi-final coming from miles off, but I was prepared to chuckle good-naturedly over it. But the exaggerated pause before the punch line and unenthusiastic delivery prevented me from doing even that. "You can see we're in for an evening of hilarity", the Swedish commentator quipped drily. While on the subject of timing, the vote-gathering - which mercifully we only get in the final - tends to be the very worst part of the show. We're in for thirty-six variations of the following dialogue:
HOST: Hello Moscow/Paris/Stockholm/wherever!
COUNTRY PRESENTER [Gushingly, after a pause]: Hello X! Thank you for an amazing show! You guys are marvellous!
HOST [Smiling rigidly]: Thank you. [Somewhat sharply, after another pause] May we have your votes, please?
COUNTRY PRESENTER [A bit put out, because he/she had the votes ready all the time, but was waiting for some kind of cue]: Of course. Here are the results of the Y vote...
I know it must be difficult to keep the voting going smoothly - but surely, after all these years, there must be some kind of trick? And then, these latest years, the contest has started to adopt bewildering "mottos". Last year in Germany it was something about heartbeats. This year it's "Light your fire". Er... wait, you mean we should light our own fires? In front of the telly?
One should go easy on the sneering, though. The songs are often not half-bad, and most importantly, sneerers never prosper in Eurovision. It's one thing I love about this contest. It stands up for what it is, and if you don't like it you don't have to watch, or participate. If you do participate, don't expect people to find an arrogant approach hip and admirable. Almost each year, the Brits complain bitterly about not getting more votes. Well, what do they expect? The British comments on Eurovision I've read tend to be a mixture of vitriol and patronising head-patting, as if they were witnessing a distant tribe's picturesque but faintly disturbing sacrificial rites. My guess is that this has caused them no end of damage over the years - that and the admittedly unfairly high expectations we have of British pop groups. Each year, we hope for the new Beatles to turn up.
The reason I think the Russian little old ladies will beat us, in spite of the song not being great and the ladies not being the world's best singers, is the Granny Factor - it's hard not to go "awww" when one beaming babuschka wields a baking-plate of cookies (or maybe wholesome Russian bread). Importantly, though, the number also has a ring of sincerity. Kooky numbers which are engineered to make fun of the whole show are soon weeded out, but if you are sincere, a certain amount of kookiness goes down well with European voters.
I still hope a really good singer will win, though - we're not picking Europe's cuddliest grannies, after all. What about our Loreen and her soaring refrain, now wouldn't she be a worthy winner? Oh, did I mention that Swedes take Eurovision very, very seriously?
Half-way through The Mystery of Edwin Drood (the TV adaptation): Very promising, this, and much closer to its source than the Great Expectations adaptation was. The worst parts of Rosa's pert speeches have been wisely cut, and Tamzin Merchant who plays her makes her as charming as she can. Not quite charming enough for one to understand the amount of male interest she receives, though, but this is Dickens's fault. It would be more understandable if everyone went off the deep end about Edwin. The arrogant youth is played by Freddie Fox, who is strikingly good-looking. Are luminously pretty Dickens heroes becoming a trend? Pip (Douglas Booth) in Great Expectations was such a looker that some reviewers ungallantly complained he unbalanced the narrative by outshining Estella. I'm not sure I should approve of this trend, villain-lover that I am, but I'm prepared to be magnanimous. After all, a Dickens hero is unlikely ever to be the brainiest person in the book, so maybe some kind of compensation is due.
To return to the Mystery, Matthew Rhys is a convincingly torn Jasper, sometimes reeling around tormentedly, sometimes spinning plots with a hard little smile. I was pleased to see he was quite a match for the feral child Deputy (a bit softened in the adaptation, but still a stranger to Dogderish charm). The series is excellently cast all the way: I was particularly impressed by Rory Kinnear as a Reverend Crisparkle whose ears you really didn't feel any urge to box.
More (hooray!) than half-way through The Son of a Servant: Did you ever feel bereft because you are not the trusted friend of a genius? Read Strindberg and you'll feel better. Continuously borrowing money while bombarding his pals with callow salon-radical "sceptical" ideas, he must have been a trying man to spend much time with. When a friend complains of the peasant girls at a country gathering and hankers after the fine ladies in the city, Strindberg's alter ego finds him appallingly snobbish. When the alter ego himself feels ashamed for having briefly loved a simple country girl, he invents a whole questionable evolutionary theory to prove to himself that his shame is quite natural - he compares himself with a thoroughbred stallion who won't mate with a farm mare. Say what? You can never be sure, of course, when Strindberg's tongue is in his cheek as regards the musings of his younger self, but one thing is clear: it's not often enough. Only 130 pages to go.
Less than half-way through the Eurovision Song Contest: Of course, there is a lot you can be sneering about in connection with this contest: most of all its package which always appears to be the same, irrespective of host country. There seems to be no way around the moment when two or three presenters holler "Hello Europe!" and then engage in leaden banter in more or less accented English. I always thought the script-writers were the ones at fault, but the blame must be shared by the presenters themselves who, as often as not, read their lines rather than say them and have no sense of timing whatsoever. I could see one of the first jokes in the first semi-final coming from miles off, but I was prepared to chuckle good-naturedly over it. But the exaggerated pause before the punch line and unenthusiastic delivery prevented me from doing even that. "You can see we're in for an evening of hilarity", the Swedish commentator quipped drily. While on the subject of timing, the vote-gathering - which mercifully we only get in the final - tends to be the very worst part of the show. We're in for thirty-six variations of the following dialogue:
HOST: Hello Moscow/Paris/Stockholm/wherever!
COUNTRY PRESENTER [Gushingly, after a pause]: Hello X! Thank you for an amazing show! You guys are marvellous!
HOST [Smiling rigidly]: Thank you. [Somewhat sharply, after another pause] May we have your votes, please?
COUNTRY PRESENTER [A bit put out, because he/she had the votes ready all the time, but was waiting for some kind of cue]: Of course. Here are the results of the Y vote...
I know it must be difficult to keep the voting going smoothly - but surely, after all these years, there must be some kind of trick? And then, these latest years, the contest has started to adopt bewildering "mottos". Last year in Germany it was something about heartbeats. This year it's "Light your fire". Er... wait, you mean we should light our own fires? In front of the telly?
One should go easy on the sneering, though. The songs are often not half-bad, and most importantly, sneerers never prosper in Eurovision. It's one thing I love about this contest. It stands up for what it is, and if you don't like it you don't have to watch, or participate. If you do participate, don't expect people to find an arrogant approach hip and admirable. Almost each year, the Brits complain bitterly about not getting more votes. Well, what do they expect? The British comments on Eurovision I've read tend to be a mixture of vitriol and patronising head-patting, as if they were witnessing a distant tribe's picturesque but faintly disturbing sacrificial rites. My guess is that this has caused them no end of damage over the years - that and the admittedly unfairly high expectations we have of British pop groups. Each year, we hope for the new Beatles to turn up.
The reason I think the Russian little old ladies will beat us, in spite of the song not being great and the ladies not being the world's best singers, is the Granny Factor - it's hard not to go "awww" when one beaming babuschka wields a baking-plate of cookies (or maybe wholesome Russian bread). Importantly, though, the number also has a ring of sincerity. Kooky numbers which are engineered to make fun of the whole show are soon weeded out, but if you are sincere, a certain amount of kookiness goes down well with European voters.
I still hope a really good singer will win, though - we're not picking Europe's cuddliest grannies, after all. What about our Loreen and her soaring refrain, now wouldn't she be a worthy winner? Oh, did I mention that Swedes take Eurovision very, very seriously?
Half-way through The Mystery of Edwin Drood (the TV adaptation): Very promising, this, and much closer to its source than the Great Expectations adaptation was. The worst parts of Rosa's pert speeches have been wisely cut, and Tamzin Merchant who plays her makes her as charming as she can. Not quite charming enough for one to understand the amount of male interest she receives, though, but this is Dickens's fault. It would be more understandable if everyone went off the deep end about Edwin. The arrogant youth is played by Freddie Fox, who is strikingly good-looking. Are luminously pretty Dickens heroes becoming a trend? Pip (Douglas Booth) in Great Expectations was such a looker that some reviewers ungallantly complained he unbalanced the narrative by outshining Estella. I'm not sure I should approve of this trend, villain-lover that I am, but I'm prepared to be magnanimous. After all, a Dickens hero is unlikely ever to be the brainiest person in the book, so maybe some kind of compensation is due.
To return to the Mystery, Matthew Rhys is a convincingly torn Jasper, sometimes reeling around tormentedly, sometimes spinning plots with a hard little smile. I was pleased to see he was quite a match for the feral child Deputy (a bit softened in the adaptation, but still a stranger to Dogderish charm). The series is excellently cast all the way: I was particularly impressed by Rory Kinnear as a Reverend Crisparkle whose ears you really didn't feel any urge to box.
More (hooray!) than half-way through The Son of a Servant: Did you ever feel bereft because you are not the trusted friend of a genius? Read Strindberg and you'll feel better. Continuously borrowing money while bombarding his pals with callow salon-radical "sceptical" ideas, he must have been a trying man to spend much time with. When a friend complains of the peasant girls at a country gathering and hankers after the fine ladies in the city, Strindberg's alter ego finds him appallingly snobbish. When the alter ego himself feels ashamed for having briefly loved a simple country girl, he invents a whole questionable evolutionary theory to prove to himself that his shame is quite natural - he compares himself with a thoroughbred stallion who won't mate with a farm mare. Say what? You can never be sure, of course, when Strindberg's tongue is in his cheek as regards the musings of his younger self, but one thing is clear: it's not often enough. Only 130 pages to go.
Thursday, 17 May 2012
Greek tragedy (in Vermont)
When I started Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, I was afraid I’d caught the over-analysing bug. This was clearly the kind of book you should lose yourself into, yet instead of simply accepting the emotions triggered by reading it, I kept marvelling at how skilfully Tartt manipulates the readers to react in a certain way. The opening of the book makes clear what will happen at the climax: a student will be killed, and his closest group of friends, the narrator among them, will be responsible. “Right”, I thought before I had come far, “I can see where this is leading. Poor boy, desperate to hang with the cool kids, plays along when they gang up on the runt of the litter, who is less fascinating, less old-world-charming (a mere banker’s boy) and less academic than the rest of his set. And that’s reason enough to kill him, I suppose. Huh.” I’m afraid school has left me suspicious of hangers-on who want to belong at any price, and the book’s hero (or anti-hero) Richard Papen falls neatly into this category.
It turns out, thankfully, not to be as simple as I thought, but still my inner book-reviewer noted with admiration how Tartt led me down a path I had initially been very reluctant to go. Whenever Richard is not with his charmed circle of friends, his life is suitably dismal: his childhood and early youth are dull and grisly, and a freezing winter spent in Vermont without friends or a bean is memorably appalling. In contrast, when Richard is accepted into the select group of students studying Greek at the university of Hampden in Vermont, the reader feels almost as relieved as he is. Idyllic autumn days lie ahead, complete with a ramshackle, atmospheric country house where the Greek set repair to at weekends. Richard is saved from his winter ordeal by the group’s ring-leader, who interestingly enough is neither the dandy nor the frat boy (the future victim) but a serious-minded swot, which gives his actions – which he persuades his friends to join in – a false air of sanity and reasonableness. Add to this the eminent murderability of the frat boy, Bunny, whose reaction when his pals get into a fix is to become increasingly unpredictable and annoying in an almost Raffles-like manner. And yet Richard insists that Bunny’s friends kept a lingering affection for him until the end, and we’re not allowed to hate him completely. Yes, my inner reviewer conceded, very cleverly done.
By the end, though, I finally abandoned the over-analysing in favour of a stricken “Gosh, this is just so sad”, and the final scene, which didn’t even concern my own favourite mis-behaving Greek student, almost made me cry. In a way, I regretted that I hadn’t been able to lose myself in the idyllic pre-murder scenes more, but if I had I would probably have been even more shaken by the end, and a few days of working and light-hearted Regency Romance-reading wouldn’t have been enough to restore my spirits.
What did I expect? What book ever contains the message “we killed this guy and then we lived happily ever after”? Even the most hard-bitten author – Zola, say – will generally not let anyone get away with murder. If the cops don’t get you, the Furies certainly will (and Richard & Co. are studying Greek, after all). Things might have turned out even worse for the young killers, I suppose – but still, it’s really, really sad.
One prerequisite for understanding Richard and caring about what happens in The Secret History has to be that you find at least one of his friends as fascinating as he does. Though I can certainly see the point of the swot, Henry, and to a lesser degree of the aloof twins, my favourite was surprisingly enough the dandified Francis. Then again, maybe that’s not very surprising. I may not care for dandies usually, but otherwise Francis ticks a great number of my boxes – he’s pale, thin, red-headed, enjoyably waspish and unashamedly self-centred. Gay, though, so presumably not sensitive to female admiration. After making his acquaintance soonish after the smooth poisoner in Dark Angels, I begin to understand the single girl’s lament: “It’s always the cute ones”.
Tuesday, 8 May 2012
Measuring up to Downton
Looks like the BBC and I've made the same mistake - that is to expect that a series which should rightly be judged on its own merits could in some way compare with Downton Abbey. In the Beeb's case, they axed the new series of Upstairs Downstairs, allegedly because its ratings were less than half of those for Downton Abbey. I'm yet to find out if they did the right thing as I haven't watched the latest Upstairs Downstairs episodes - and admittedly, I have grave doubts that it will work without Eileen Atkins's eccentric upper-class bohemian. Here's the rub, though. Those "poor ratings" amounted to 4.45 million viewers. That's half the population of Sweden! I know there are tons more people living in Great Britain, but still - we're talking millions here. Just because Downton Abbey drew 10.5 million viewers, does that necessarily make 4.45 million bad? "Only" 400.000 watched The Killing (no, I haven't seen it, and yes, the sweater looks kinda nice on pictures - shame it obviously doesn't machine-wash), but no-one is calling that a flop.
I can see the problem, though. Upstairs Downstairs was meant to cater to exactly the same crowd as Downton, and yet not even half of them tuned in, even when there's ages to go to the next Downton series. Let's face it, though, the Thirties and the Second World War are not the ideal setting for a comfy costume drama in the family saga vein (you could argue the First World War isn't either, but we didn't see that much of it in Downton anyway). In view of that, 4.45 million is a pretty good showing.
My own "looking for the new Downton" mistake lay in hoping that a drama about the Titanic would somehow not be depressing and involve a lot of deaths just because Julian Fellowes scripted it. After all, he managed to keep First World War casualties at an acceptable level in Downton Abbey. But then that series wasn't called, say, World War One. In the case of the Titanic, depicting the horror and heartache of a famous shipwreck comes first, and keeping the costume drama punters happy comes a very poor second. True, the first three episodes featured as many romances as any schmaltzy love-on-a-cruiser film, but what's the point when it all ends in death and destruction? As so often with disaster scenarios, there are a lot of scenes where you find yourself groaning "just get in the boat, you fool". Frankly, it's hard to care about characters who whine "I'm not leaving without you", and treat a sinking ship as if it were a train station platform where you have all the time in the world to look lovingly into each other's eyes, while there are other luckless passengers who don't even get within waving distance of a lifeboat. Not leaving? Fine. Get out of the way and drown.
The series is the bleaker for not having an epilogue telling us something about what happened to the surviving characters afterwards. There's a good Swedish word for the kind of winding-down scenes at the end that almost every drama benefits from having - eftersnack, meaning approximately "after-the-event-natter". Here, there is no after-the-event-nattering at all, one of the consequences being that I'm still not one hundred percent certain about who lived and who died. It's clear enough in most cases, I suppose - but did the stoker make it, for instance?
In spite of smuggling in a sort-of-decent-toff (who's no patch on the Earl of Grantham if you ask me), it's clear Fellowes wanted to make something completely different than Downton Abbey. If you're fascinated with the Titatic disaster, this is the series for you (you'll also get your prejudices pandered to in some cases - I absolutely refuse to believe the "it will upset the ladies" line got a second airing after the too-few-lifeboats-blunder, especially in connection with locking Italian waiters in and leaving them to drown). If you're a Downton Abbey fan - give it a miss and keep waiting.
I can see the problem, though. Upstairs Downstairs was meant to cater to exactly the same crowd as Downton, and yet not even half of them tuned in, even when there's ages to go to the next Downton series. Let's face it, though, the Thirties and the Second World War are not the ideal setting for a comfy costume drama in the family saga vein (you could argue the First World War isn't either, but we didn't see that much of it in Downton anyway). In view of that, 4.45 million is a pretty good showing.
My own "looking for the new Downton" mistake lay in hoping that a drama about the Titanic would somehow not be depressing and involve a lot of deaths just because Julian Fellowes scripted it. After all, he managed to keep First World War casualties at an acceptable level in Downton Abbey. But then that series wasn't called, say, World War One. In the case of the Titanic, depicting the horror and heartache of a famous shipwreck comes first, and keeping the costume drama punters happy comes a very poor second. True, the first three episodes featured as many romances as any schmaltzy love-on-a-cruiser film, but what's the point when it all ends in death and destruction? As so often with disaster scenarios, there are a lot of scenes where you find yourself groaning "just get in the boat, you fool". Frankly, it's hard to care about characters who whine "I'm not leaving without you", and treat a sinking ship as if it were a train station platform where you have all the time in the world to look lovingly into each other's eyes, while there are other luckless passengers who don't even get within waving distance of a lifeboat. Not leaving? Fine. Get out of the way and drown.
The series is the bleaker for not having an epilogue telling us something about what happened to the surviving characters afterwards. There's a good Swedish word for the kind of winding-down scenes at the end that almost every drama benefits from having - eftersnack, meaning approximately "after-the-event-natter". Here, there is no after-the-event-nattering at all, one of the consequences being that I'm still not one hundred percent certain about who lived and who died. It's clear enough in most cases, I suppose - but did the stoker make it, for instance?
In spite of smuggling in a sort-of-decent-toff (who's no patch on the Earl of Grantham if you ask me), it's clear Fellowes wanted to make something completely different than Downton Abbey. If you're fascinated with the Titatic disaster, this is the series for you (you'll also get your prejudices pandered to in some cases - I absolutely refuse to believe the "it will upset the ladies" line got a second airing after the too-few-lifeboats-blunder, especially in connection with locking Italian waiters in and leaving them to drown). If you're a Downton Abbey fan - give it a miss and keep waiting.
Wednesday, 25 April 2012
Giving up on and sticking to books
It's only the last five years or so that I've discovered the advantages of reading more than one book at a time. When I was younger, I used to be more disciplined and doggedly stuck to one book until I'd finished it. (How I survived while plowing through Herman Hesse's The Glass Bead Game I still don't know.) I also rarely gave up on books. Even with ones I didn't like, I "wanted to know how it ended". I still remember the exhilarating feeling when for the first time in my life I - gasp - checked the solution at the end of a crime story so I wouldn't have to read it through. I was seriously out of sympathy with the author's moralising tone, and laying the book aside felt liberating. I've not looked back since. It's still a wrench to give up a book altogether, but when it happens, in most cases, the feeling of relief will tell you you've made the right choice. In order not to give up to easily on tough reads which you suspect will be worth it in the end - Les Mis, say, or Strindberg's The Son of a Servant which I'm trying to get through at the moment - parallel reading of something more lightweight is invaluable.
Parallel reading has its flaws, though. You can have the bad luck to get stuck in both books at roughly the same time. This is what happened to me, which is an explanation why so few blog entries lately have been book-related: besides Strindberg, I decided to read yet another Tudor novel, this time about Lady Jane Grey. However, the book proved plodding and exposition-heavy, so in my spare time I was faced with the alternatives 1) reading Strindberg 2) reading a plodding novel on Lady Jane Grey 3) finding other forms of reading matter or doing something else entirely. Needless to say, I returned again and again to alternative number 3). Finally, last night, after some sneak peeks to make sure it wouldn't suddenly take off and get dramatically better, I took a deep breath and laid the Lady Jane Grey novel aside. Free at last! Now I'll start on the novel several Swedish book bloggers seem most obsessed about instead - Donna Tartt's The Secret History. I bet that whatever it is, it isn't plodding.
But I will get through Strindberg as well. It's not as if he wasn't good. He writes with great verve and deserves his status as a classic author. But - and this is about as original as saying that Thomas Hardy is depressing - he can be very tiresome. It's strange to think that his contemporaries found him tiresome as well, though probably for somewhat different reasons. Strindberg would perhaps have been saddened to know that his ideas, which he himself quite clearly thought of as cutting edge, still have a tendency to provoke - or at least make you roll your eyes - a hundred years after his death. Or else he would have been absolutely thrilled.
The Son of a Servant nearly lost me at the beginning - the first chapter is entitled, in true misery-memoir style, Hungry and Afraid. As Strindberg's alter ego's family get wealthier and the hero himself grows up, however, Strindberg lightens up. What may surprise people who mostly associate him with doom-laden plays about toxic relationships is that he has a sense of humour, and sometimes even enough self-irony to make fun of the grand designs of his alter ego Johan. Though mostly Johan gets off lightly. Quarrels with his family, fallings-out with his friends, academic failures, career changes as frequent as Richard Carstone's: they never seem to be his fault. Other scapegoats are found - mostly good old society, once more taking the rap for a young man's disappointments.
Strindberg has great powers of observation - it's when he starts to analyse his observations and make them into Grand Ideas that the trouble starts. There are enough memorable scenes along the way to make persevering worthwhile (quite apart from the fact that giving up on Strindberg would be a far graver thing than giving up on a historical novel or crime story). Still, I wish I'd picked something a little shorter by Strindberg to read - something about 200 pages long, say. This, unsurprisingly, is how far I've got with The Son of a Servant.
Parallel reading has its flaws, though. You can have the bad luck to get stuck in both books at roughly the same time. This is what happened to me, which is an explanation why so few blog entries lately have been book-related: besides Strindberg, I decided to read yet another Tudor novel, this time about Lady Jane Grey. However, the book proved plodding and exposition-heavy, so in my spare time I was faced with the alternatives 1) reading Strindberg 2) reading a plodding novel on Lady Jane Grey 3) finding other forms of reading matter or doing something else entirely. Needless to say, I returned again and again to alternative number 3). Finally, last night, after some sneak peeks to make sure it wouldn't suddenly take off and get dramatically better, I took a deep breath and laid the Lady Jane Grey novel aside. Free at last! Now I'll start on the novel several Swedish book bloggers seem most obsessed about instead - Donna Tartt's The Secret History. I bet that whatever it is, it isn't plodding.
But I will get through Strindberg as well. It's not as if he wasn't good. He writes with great verve and deserves his status as a classic author. But - and this is about as original as saying that Thomas Hardy is depressing - he can be very tiresome. It's strange to think that his contemporaries found him tiresome as well, though probably for somewhat different reasons. Strindberg would perhaps have been saddened to know that his ideas, which he himself quite clearly thought of as cutting edge, still have a tendency to provoke - or at least make you roll your eyes - a hundred years after his death. Or else he would have been absolutely thrilled.
The Son of a Servant nearly lost me at the beginning - the first chapter is entitled, in true misery-memoir style, Hungry and Afraid. As Strindberg's alter ego's family get wealthier and the hero himself grows up, however, Strindberg lightens up. What may surprise people who mostly associate him with doom-laden plays about toxic relationships is that he has a sense of humour, and sometimes even enough self-irony to make fun of the grand designs of his alter ego Johan. Though mostly Johan gets off lightly. Quarrels with his family, fallings-out with his friends, academic failures, career changes as frequent as Richard Carstone's: they never seem to be his fault. Other scapegoats are found - mostly good old society, once more taking the rap for a young man's disappointments.
Strindberg has great powers of observation - it's when he starts to analyse his observations and make them into Grand Ideas that the trouble starts. There are enough memorable scenes along the way to make persevering worthwhile (quite apart from the fact that giving up on Strindberg would be a far graver thing than giving up on a historical novel or crime story). Still, I wish I'd picked something a little shorter by Strindberg to read - something about 200 pages long, say. This, unsurprisingly, is how far I've got with The Son of a Servant.
Wednesday, 18 April 2012
Sink or swim?
Have I commented on the dearth of costume dramas lately? I have, haven't I? But I shouldn't complain too much - the Beeb did make a second series of the new Upstairs, Downstairs, in spite of the dire predictions of just about everyone (including me), and once it's out on DVD, that will make a few evenings' viewing (and probably a blog post) at least. As for ITV, it has dished up another Julian Fellowes-scripted drama, which Swedish TV has kindly imported: the Titanic.
The problem is, in costume drama terms, I don't think the 20th century quite counts. I never cared much for 20th-century history, and as for epic novels that make good TV series, they were out of fashion by then. Still, I suppose the years before the First World War (before it started to become depressing) just about pass muster. The story about the Titanic is depressing enough, though, and I can't quite see why people are so obsessed with it.
Yes, there is something of a Greek Tragedy feel about a ship which is touted as unsinkable and which then sinks. Yes, it was vast and the tragedy the greater for it. Yes, there were some celebrities on board and doubtless there are many human interest angles. For example, I caught a snippet of a documentary which revealed that one of the main reasons the ship line's owner Ismay was so vilified was that the newspaper mogul Randolph Hearst couldn't stand him. That did fascinate me, and I am now hoping Fellowes will furnish poor Ismay with a perfectly reasonable excuse for the lifeboat seat incident. And one wonders, like Rose in the original Upstairs Downstairs how a "big ship could go down like that... just by hitting a little iceberg" (admittedly, no iceberg is ever "little").
And yet, I don't understand how one can become nerdy about the Titanic. The interest in the minutiae of the ship's construction, the voyage and the disaster itself; the crude class analyses; the polemic, moralising tone and the hunt for scapegoats... these things are so often part and parcel of the Titanic lore, and it's frankly off-putting. A ship sank and people died: this is the simple truth. If people hadn't died, naturally, no-one would be interested. There is a great deal of ghoulishness connected with our obsession with certain historical events (I'm no innocent myself in this regard: of course The Reign of Terror is the most exciting part of The French Revolution). Fine, but please don't let us be sanctimonious ghouls. We weren't there. Human nature is never perfect, especially not in a crisis like a shipwreck, and of course there will be mistakes and undignified scrambles for survival at whatever cost. I know I would behave appallingly and not care a whit about what Hearst or anyone else had to say about it afterwards.
In the end, stories focusing on the Titanic risk becoming little else than disaster movies in fancy dress where we are supposed to be kept guessing who will sink and who will swim. But costume drama beggars can't be choosers, and Fellowes is a reliable yarn-spinner, so I will watch the Titanic TV series in spite of my misgivings. The first episode seemed sketchy, but judging from reviews the series gets better as the bigger picture is filled in later on. The aristocratic family who were the centre of episode one didn't exactly float my boat (sorry), but the tenacious rich youngster from Philadelphia who wooed the daughter seemed a nice chap, and I wonder what will happen to the valet who clumsily tried to catch the attention of a lady's maid and made a mess of it. Guggenheim's stoic waiting for death in the bar was memorable, and so was the other bar guest: Mr Andrews, one of the builders of the ship, who didn't say a word and made no attempt to save himself. You understood exactly why.
The problem is, in costume drama terms, I don't think the 20th century quite counts. I never cared much for 20th-century history, and as for epic novels that make good TV series, they were out of fashion by then. Still, I suppose the years before the First World War (before it started to become depressing) just about pass muster. The story about the Titanic is depressing enough, though, and I can't quite see why people are so obsessed with it.
Yes, there is something of a Greek Tragedy feel about a ship which is touted as unsinkable and which then sinks. Yes, it was vast and the tragedy the greater for it. Yes, there were some celebrities on board and doubtless there are many human interest angles. For example, I caught a snippet of a documentary which revealed that one of the main reasons the ship line's owner Ismay was so vilified was that the newspaper mogul Randolph Hearst couldn't stand him. That did fascinate me, and I am now hoping Fellowes will furnish poor Ismay with a perfectly reasonable excuse for the lifeboat seat incident. And one wonders, like Rose in the original Upstairs Downstairs how a "big ship could go down like that... just by hitting a little iceberg" (admittedly, no iceberg is ever "little").
And yet, I don't understand how one can become nerdy about the Titanic. The interest in the minutiae of the ship's construction, the voyage and the disaster itself; the crude class analyses; the polemic, moralising tone and the hunt for scapegoats... these things are so often part and parcel of the Titanic lore, and it's frankly off-putting. A ship sank and people died: this is the simple truth. If people hadn't died, naturally, no-one would be interested. There is a great deal of ghoulishness connected with our obsession with certain historical events (I'm no innocent myself in this regard: of course The Reign of Terror is the most exciting part of The French Revolution). Fine, but please don't let us be sanctimonious ghouls. We weren't there. Human nature is never perfect, especially not in a crisis like a shipwreck, and of course there will be mistakes and undignified scrambles for survival at whatever cost. I know I would behave appallingly and not care a whit about what Hearst or anyone else had to say about it afterwards.
In the end, stories focusing on the Titanic risk becoming little else than disaster movies in fancy dress where we are supposed to be kept guessing who will sink and who will swim. But costume drama beggars can't be choosers, and Fellowes is a reliable yarn-spinner, so I will watch the Titanic TV series in spite of my misgivings. The first episode seemed sketchy, but judging from reviews the series gets better as the bigger picture is filled in later on. The aristocratic family who were the centre of episode one didn't exactly float my boat (sorry), but the tenacious rich youngster from Philadelphia who wooed the daughter seemed a nice chap, and I wonder what will happen to the valet who clumsily tried to catch the attention of a lady's maid and made a mess of it. Guggenheim's stoic waiting for death in the bar was memorable, and so was the other bar guest: Mr Andrews, one of the builders of the ship, who didn't say a word and made no attempt to save himself. You understood exactly why.
Tuesday, 10 April 2012
Beards galore
In desperate search of something costume drama-ish to watch, I finally tried an old film called Nicholas and Alexandra which I'd bought on video way back. I bought it because Eric Porter was in it, according to the credits: I'm not sure whether it was Soames- Moriarty- or Fagin-related, but I was in an intense Porter phase right then. True enough, he's in it - for about seven minutes (on the plus side, he spends two of them in a 1910-style bathing suit) before he gets shot. Luckily, the rest of the film proved watchable too.
This is the kind of history film they don't make anymore, and I'm not sure I can blame the film execs for that. If I had had to watch this feature all in one go, I'd probably have been bored, but treating it more as a TV series and watching parts of it from time to time worked rather well. It's similar to historical TV dramas of the same time: rather like a play, with dramatic monologues where the different historical players eloquently get to state their case. You sense that the accuracy is pretty high - especially compared to what passes as historical drama nowadays. (There should be a prize for most dementedly history-falsifying film of the year named after Braveheart, and my guess - though I haven't seen it yet - is that Anonymous would win it hands down this year.) Wasn't "amuse and instruct" an old watchword for TV programmes at the some point at the dawn of time? Nicholas and Alexandra is made very much in that kind of vein.
The Nicholas and Alexandra concerned are the last tsar Nicholas II and his wife. Of course, as you would expect from a film named after them, they are sympathetically portrayed (at least he is: she's a bit on the neurotic side, but at least she's loyal). However, thanks to those dramatic monologues, the story is told in an even-handed manner, and it's made plain that Nicholas - though a lovely father and husband and all that - was no great hit as a ruler. There are plenty of poignant what-if moments of the kind appreciated by people like me, who believe individuals rather than "structures" shape history. The biggest what-if is undoubtedly "What if Tsar Nicholas had decided not to mobilise his troops, thus giving his erratic cousin Willy a perfect excuse to declare war?" However, I'm in some doubt about if the tsar could have stopped World War I single-handed, what with so many countries spoiling for a fight. On a far smaller scale, I was shocked to realise that at least a handful of lives - those of the tsar and his family - could have been saved if even one of Russia's allies would have accepted to receive them while there was still time. The Liberals who brought about the first Russian revolution were practically begging among others England to take them on - but no country would, for PR reasons.
I'm afraid, though, I learned few actual names of important Russian politicians while watching the film. It was easier to remember them as the Irascible but Sound Beard, the More or Less Sensible Beard, the Pragmatic Career-Minded Beard (who claimed that "there will always be room for another bureaucrat" or words to that effect - let's hope so, dear) and Eric Porter (with a beard). There are so many beards on display you almost wonder if the few clean-shaven men belong to a secret club where clean-shavenness has a special significance, but it seems unlikely as they have little else in common. The high-minded Liberal (in the classic sense of the word) politician Kerensky is probably clean-shaven in order to signal his enthusiasm for western values. Prince Pretty Boy and his giggling pal are clean-shaven because it's cuter. The colonel in Siberia is quite possibly clean-shaven because he's played by John Wood, and anything else would be a tragic waste of handsomely forbidding countenance. Why the token factory worker is clean-shaven is anyone's guess.
This is the kind of history film they don't make anymore, and I'm not sure I can blame the film execs for that. If I had had to watch this feature all in one go, I'd probably have been bored, but treating it more as a TV series and watching parts of it from time to time worked rather well. It's similar to historical TV dramas of the same time: rather like a play, with dramatic monologues where the different historical players eloquently get to state their case. You sense that the accuracy is pretty high - especially compared to what passes as historical drama nowadays. (There should be a prize for most dementedly history-falsifying film of the year named after Braveheart, and my guess - though I haven't seen it yet - is that Anonymous would win it hands down this year.) Wasn't "amuse and instruct" an old watchword for TV programmes at the some point at the dawn of time? Nicholas and Alexandra is made very much in that kind of vein.
The Nicholas and Alexandra concerned are the last tsar Nicholas II and his wife. Of course, as you would expect from a film named after them, they are sympathetically portrayed (at least he is: she's a bit on the neurotic side, but at least she's loyal). However, thanks to those dramatic monologues, the story is told in an even-handed manner, and it's made plain that Nicholas - though a lovely father and husband and all that - was no great hit as a ruler. There are plenty of poignant what-if moments of the kind appreciated by people like me, who believe individuals rather than "structures" shape history. The biggest what-if is undoubtedly "What if Tsar Nicholas had decided not to mobilise his troops, thus giving his erratic cousin Willy a perfect excuse to declare war?" However, I'm in some doubt about if the tsar could have stopped World War I single-handed, what with so many countries spoiling for a fight. On a far smaller scale, I was shocked to realise that at least a handful of lives - those of the tsar and his family - could have been saved if even one of Russia's allies would have accepted to receive them while there was still time. The Liberals who brought about the first Russian revolution were practically begging among others England to take them on - but no country would, for PR reasons.
I'm afraid, though, I learned few actual names of important Russian politicians while watching the film. It was easier to remember them as the Irascible but Sound Beard, the More or Less Sensible Beard, the Pragmatic Career-Minded Beard (who claimed that "there will always be room for another bureaucrat" or words to that effect - let's hope so, dear) and Eric Porter (with a beard). There are so many beards on display you almost wonder if the few clean-shaven men belong to a secret club where clean-shavenness has a special significance, but it seems unlikely as they have little else in common. The high-minded Liberal (in the classic sense of the word) politician Kerensky is probably clean-shaven in order to signal his enthusiasm for western values. Prince Pretty Boy and his giggling pal are clean-shaven because it's cuter. The colonel in Siberia is quite possibly clean-shaven because he's played by John Wood, and anything else would be a tragic waste of handsomely forbidding countenance. Why the token factory worker is clean-shaven is anyone's guess.
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