Generally, I find fictional heroines easier to like than heroes. Not surprising, perhaps: as a villain-lover, I will always measure heroes against villains and find them at fault, while heroines have an easier time of it. True, villainesses are often more interesting – Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair being the tried-and-true example of this argument – but I don’t harbour the same devotion for them as I do for the male of the species, which means I don’t necessarily feel the need to slag off their opponents. I see heroines and villainesses alike as potential objects of sympathy and identification and judge them accordingly. They don’t have to be fanciable.
I suspect, though, that quite apart from the villain-loving factor it’s easier to create a likeable heroine than a likeable hero. A bit of warmth, a sense of humour and some witty self-deprecation coupled with a sense of self-worth usually does the trick. I’m currently rereading Jane Eyre, which is very much a case in point. As in, say, Pride and Prejudice, you can see what the hero is up against. He must prove himself worthy of the lovely leading lady and show that he has a core of decency while at same time not appearing prissy or self-righteous. Mr Rochester in Jane Eyre wobbles when it comes to the decency qualification (not that this worries me one bit – the lack of a passable villain in the book, and no, Mr Brocklehurst does not count, works in his favour here) while Mr Darcy is impeccably decent but – sorry girls – considerably behind Rochester, or for that matter his chosen bride, in the warmth and humour stakes.
There are, however, plenty of times where the heroine has left me cold, and this is a graver disadvantage for a book than not caring for the hero (a circumstance which I have somehow factored in). I nearly gave up on Simon Montefiore’s Sashenka because I thought the title character was such a trial. The first part of the book takes place in St Petersburg in 1916, when the heroine is only sixteen years old. In spite of coming from a wealthy and influential family, she is recruited – quite easily – by her uncle for the Bolshevist cause. In no time at all, she is haranguing workers, spreading pamphlets and having the time of her life. The book opens with her arrest, whereupon her doting father – successful industrialist Baron Zeitlin – pulls every string he possibly can to get her out of jail. Meanwhile, Sashenka is naïvely proud of her “rite of passage”. When she’s released, she goes straight back to plotting revolution.
Perhaps you have to have been a sixteen-year-old rebel in order to appreciate one. In any case, I found the young Sashenka extremely tiresome. I would think that joining a political group that sees your parents as scum who had much better be exterminated is taking teenage revolt a little too far. It’s a poor way to repay her father, who had to bribe (and kiss) a cheerfully decadent Prince in order to spare her a sojourn in Siberia. What’s more, Montefiore never manages to make us understand the reason for Sashenka’s political ardour – one suspects, because he has little sympathy for her politics himself.
In Sashenka’s defence, though, her Bolshevism isn’t just some Tsarist-Russia equivalent to annoying her parents by getting her nose pierced. In the novel’s second part, we’re in Moscow in 1939, and Sashenka’s politics are unchanged – she is a loyal Party member, who has apparently done rather well for herself out of the Revolution. I found the more mature Sashenka easier to bear: in her new circumstances, her political beliefs make more sense. You don’t normally bite the hand that feeds you (a typical bourgeois, decadent argument, I suppose). Also, the novel picks up pace and becomes a breathless page turner as Sashenka’s idyllic home life starts to unravel.
Sashenka is still a silly goose (honestly, that affair?), but her mistakes are human enough, and she shows admirable bravery when it comes to protecting her children. I still couldn’t warm to her, though. It only goes to show that it is possible to enjoy a novel where you don’t like the protagonist much – but it makes it harder.
tisdag 14 juli 2015
onsdag 24 juni 2015
Jolly holiday
Ah, the Swedish summer holiday – the best reason not to emigrate. I don’t think many other countries would tolerate four weeks’ holiday in a row, but it’s standard in Sweden, and exactly what’s needed after months of hard labour. In fact, four weeks can seem a bit short, especially when you’re back at work and can’t get hold of anyone because they’re on holiday.
My blogging ambitions during summer times are modest, but in view of the catchy song “Jolly holiday” from the Disney film Mary Poppins, it might be fitting to write about the film Saving Mr Banks which I caught up with on DVD a few weeks back.
My mother read the Mary Poppins books to us when we were children: I don’t remember much about them except the feeling of magic, all the more powerful because it contrasted with the dour personality of Mary Poppins herself. Consequently, I grew up despising the Disney film, which I’ve only seen once and that ages ago, because it showed a young, pretty and accommodating Mary Poppins in the shape of sweet-singing Julie Andrews. Saving Mr Banks has achieved its goal in wanting me to give the Disney version of Mary Poppins another go, but in many other ways it is problematic.
The film claims to tell the story behind Disney’s adaptation of the first Mary Poppins novel, where the novelist P.L. Travers (real name Helen Goff) was given script approval rights. As every review I’ve read of Saving Mr Banks has pointed out, the film isn’t honest: what we see is P.L. Travers slowly coming to terms with and accepting the Disney team’s vision of the film, while in real life she wasn’t pleased at all with the finished product and made sure Disney never had a hand in adapting one of her books again. The film’s story is a much better one: in fact, the real-life scenario would have made an indifferent film. Where’s the development, the story arc? Intransigent author remains intransigent, and as discontented with her deal with Disney as at the beginning? No, I can understand they didn’t make a film like that. What I do wonder, in view of the facts, is why they made a film at all.
The answer is probably because they wanted to go to town on the battle between two formidable personalities: P.L. Travers, not unlike the real Mary Poppins in her vinegary snappiness, and Walt Disney, a man with considerable steel under his genial exterior. Emma Thompson as Travers is the undisputed star of this film, but Tom Hanks does a good job of Disney, too. You can’t expect a Disney film to show Uncle Walt in anything but a kindly light, but you do get a sense of his toughness, in Hanks’s steamrolling manipulativeness as well as in his employees’ attitude towards him. There is terror on their faces when Travers insists on Mr Banks being depicted as clean-shaven: the request that he should have a moustache comes from “Walt himself”. When it comes to intransigence, Travers has clearly met her match. It reminds me about what Carl Barks said about Disney: that he always gave you the last word, and that last word was always “Yes, Walt”.
The premise of the film – that Travers saw her own father in Mr Banks, and that Disney got around her by making sure he had a redemptive ending – is a weak one, as also mentioned in reviews. The author’s father (according to this film at least) was an alcoholic dreamer, which means that the only thing he had in common with Mr Banks was that he worked in a bank. With an author as imaginative as Travers, there is surely no need to look for far-fetched autobiographical echoes. She defended her fictional characters – including Mr Banks –because she created them: there has to be no other explanation. Moreover, the flashbacks to Travers’s/Helen’s childhood weigh down the film, which would have been more enjoyable if it had been shorter. That said, young Helen (or Ginty as her father calls her) is played with pathos by Annie Rose Buckley, and the scene where the Sherman brothers’ “bank song” merges with a speech made by the drunken Mr Goff on Market Day in deepest Australia is very well made.
What’s extraordinary is that even knowing the facts have been tinkered with, and realising that the “saving flawed father” premise is weak, I was still left feeling more lenient towards Disney’s Mary Poppins than I’ve been before. No-one disputes that P.L. Travers did get script approval and was deeply involved with the film in its initial stages – though she had no power over the film editing – which means that, at some point, she must have accepted a young and pretty Mary Poppins. I saw the musical version of Mary Poppins more years ago than I care to remember, and there too we had a good-looking Mary, and many of the film’s seductively hummable songs. IMDB quotes Travers as saying of the film at one point: “It’s glamorous and it’s a good film on its own level, but I don’t think it’s very like my books”. Maybe this is the best way to view Mary Poppins in its Disney version: as a product that is separate from the book’s Mary Poppins, but good “on its own level”.
My blogging ambitions during summer times are modest, but in view of the catchy song “Jolly holiday” from the Disney film Mary Poppins, it might be fitting to write about the film Saving Mr Banks which I caught up with on DVD a few weeks back.
My mother read the Mary Poppins books to us when we were children: I don’t remember much about them except the feeling of magic, all the more powerful because it contrasted with the dour personality of Mary Poppins herself. Consequently, I grew up despising the Disney film, which I’ve only seen once and that ages ago, because it showed a young, pretty and accommodating Mary Poppins in the shape of sweet-singing Julie Andrews. Saving Mr Banks has achieved its goal in wanting me to give the Disney version of Mary Poppins another go, but in many other ways it is problematic.
The film claims to tell the story behind Disney’s adaptation of the first Mary Poppins novel, where the novelist P.L. Travers (real name Helen Goff) was given script approval rights. As every review I’ve read of Saving Mr Banks has pointed out, the film isn’t honest: what we see is P.L. Travers slowly coming to terms with and accepting the Disney team’s vision of the film, while in real life she wasn’t pleased at all with the finished product and made sure Disney never had a hand in adapting one of her books again. The film’s story is a much better one: in fact, the real-life scenario would have made an indifferent film. Where’s the development, the story arc? Intransigent author remains intransigent, and as discontented with her deal with Disney as at the beginning? No, I can understand they didn’t make a film like that. What I do wonder, in view of the facts, is why they made a film at all.
The answer is probably because they wanted to go to town on the battle between two formidable personalities: P.L. Travers, not unlike the real Mary Poppins in her vinegary snappiness, and Walt Disney, a man with considerable steel under his genial exterior. Emma Thompson as Travers is the undisputed star of this film, but Tom Hanks does a good job of Disney, too. You can’t expect a Disney film to show Uncle Walt in anything but a kindly light, but you do get a sense of his toughness, in Hanks’s steamrolling manipulativeness as well as in his employees’ attitude towards him. There is terror on their faces when Travers insists on Mr Banks being depicted as clean-shaven: the request that he should have a moustache comes from “Walt himself”. When it comes to intransigence, Travers has clearly met her match. It reminds me about what Carl Barks said about Disney: that he always gave you the last word, and that last word was always “Yes, Walt”.
The premise of the film – that Travers saw her own father in Mr Banks, and that Disney got around her by making sure he had a redemptive ending – is a weak one, as also mentioned in reviews. The author’s father (according to this film at least) was an alcoholic dreamer, which means that the only thing he had in common with Mr Banks was that he worked in a bank. With an author as imaginative as Travers, there is surely no need to look for far-fetched autobiographical echoes. She defended her fictional characters – including Mr Banks –because she created them: there has to be no other explanation. Moreover, the flashbacks to Travers’s/Helen’s childhood weigh down the film, which would have been more enjoyable if it had been shorter. That said, young Helen (or Ginty as her father calls her) is played with pathos by Annie Rose Buckley, and the scene where the Sherman brothers’ “bank song” merges with a speech made by the drunken Mr Goff on Market Day in deepest Australia is very well made.
What’s extraordinary is that even knowing the facts have been tinkered with, and realising that the “saving flawed father” premise is weak, I was still left feeling more lenient towards Disney’s Mary Poppins than I’ve been before. No-one disputes that P.L. Travers did get script approval and was deeply involved with the film in its initial stages – though she had no power over the film editing – which means that, at some point, she must have accepted a young and pretty Mary Poppins. I saw the musical version of Mary Poppins more years ago than I care to remember, and there too we had a good-looking Mary, and many of the film’s seductively hummable songs. IMDB quotes Travers as saying of the film at one point: “It’s glamorous and it’s a good film on its own level, but I don’t think it’s very like my books”. Maybe this is the best way to view Mary Poppins in its Disney version: as a product that is separate from the book’s Mary Poppins, but good “on its own level”.
tisdag 16 juni 2015
Making magic
As I've mentioned before, many people view Disney with mistrust. And in a way, I can understand how the continued efficiency of the Disney brand can be unnerving. I don't think their "ordinary" motion pictures are always a hit, but their animated films are and remain the heart of the Disney franchise. Despondent and grumpy, as I often am shortly before a holiday begins, I settled down before Big Hero 6 last Sunday, confident that I was in the most capable hands imaginable when it came to improving my mood. I was right. Roughly one and a half hours later, I was sobbing like a child while feeling predictably warm and gooey inside. For me, Disney is the "dream factory" rather than Hollywood, and even their animated duds are a lot better than most popular entertainment on the market. There are times when I've caught myself thinking that I'd actually rather fancy seeing Atlantis or Treasure Planet again, and regretting that they are not for hire. It's eerie, I can see that. Disney, the multi-million dollar company peddling dreams, would certainly be the villain in one of its own films.
Big Hero 6 is far from being a dud, and hits home with admirable precision. I'm not sure whether it kids superhero-crazed children into seeing a moving film about friendship and handling loss, or whether it kids the rest of us into seeing a superhero film. Maybe a bit of both. The superhero parts left me fairly cold, though the playing with the genre clichés was fun, and the members of the nerd gang who try their hand at superheroism are endearing, if lightly sketched. (I'm still not sure whether the name of the obligatory English butler in the obligatory castle where one of the gang lives is a sophisticated in-joke or not. He's called Heathcliff - like one of the fictional characters from the English canon who's least likely to make a success of butlering.) What got me was the development of the relationship between the hero Hiro and Baymax, the healthcare assistant robot his brother has been working on before tragically perishing in a fire (hey, it's as well that you know). While we grown-ups - or as grown-up as a Disney fan ever gets - sniffle over their scenes, the little ones can get on with enjoying the chases and gadgets. Clever. Maybe a bit manipulative, even. But it works.
It has to be said that strictly speaking, I'm more of a Frozen girl. I carol "Let it go, let it gooo" as enthusiastically as any six-year-old, and appreciate Disney films with a fairy-tale touch and some romance (be warned: there is absolutely no romance whatsoever in Big Hero 6). Nevertheless, I'm very satisfied with this year's Disney helping - the Mouse is still on top.
Magic of another kind is to be found in the lunch read I've just finished, The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett. Yes, I thought it was high time to give Pratchett's Discworld novels a go - maybe more than high time, seeing as Death (also a character in the book) recently grabbed hold of the author. The first Discworld novel proved to be the perfect lunch read. It was slim, it was funny, and the characters were unexpectedly likeable. I can certainly see that Pratchett's books must have inspired Jasper Fforde, who works in much the same genre. In fact, though Fforde's Dragonslayer novels have improved a lot from the first rather annoyingly moralistic one - the latest, The Eye of Zoltar, ended with a real cliff-hanger - I'm a bit sorry that he entered the dragons-and-wizards field at all, seeing as humorous but affectionate debunking of pompous fantasy clichés has clearly been done before. But ignore me - if it were up to me, I'd put a spell on Fforde which obliged him to produce nothing but Thursday Next books, and that once a year. There's certainly enough material in the affectionate fantasy-debunking way to be going on with, especially if the author is inventive enough when it comes to shaping his own world.
As for Pratchett, I liked The Colour of Magic, but I'm yet to be as bitten by his fictional universe as I am by Fforde's. For one thing, I'm not certain I'll keep the novel for re-reading. Nevertheless, I'll buy other Discworld novels, and am especially looking forward to the follow-up to The Colour of Magic, The Light Fantastic. I really want to know what happens to Twoflower (naïve, kind-hearted tourist) and Rincewind (his guide, a failed, cowardly wizard with a genius for survival - my favourite) now.
Big Hero 6 is far from being a dud, and hits home with admirable precision. I'm not sure whether it kids superhero-crazed children into seeing a moving film about friendship and handling loss, or whether it kids the rest of us into seeing a superhero film. Maybe a bit of both. The superhero parts left me fairly cold, though the playing with the genre clichés was fun, and the members of the nerd gang who try their hand at superheroism are endearing, if lightly sketched. (I'm still not sure whether the name of the obligatory English butler in the obligatory castle where one of the gang lives is a sophisticated in-joke or not. He's called Heathcliff - like one of the fictional characters from the English canon who's least likely to make a success of butlering.) What got me was the development of the relationship between the hero Hiro and Baymax, the healthcare assistant robot his brother has been working on before tragically perishing in a fire (hey, it's as well that you know). While we grown-ups - or as grown-up as a Disney fan ever gets - sniffle over their scenes, the little ones can get on with enjoying the chases and gadgets. Clever. Maybe a bit manipulative, even. But it works.
It has to be said that strictly speaking, I'm more of a Frozen girl. I carol "Let it go, let it gooo" as enthusiastically as any six-year-old, and appreciate Disney films with a fairy-tale touch and some romance (be warned: there is absolutely no romance whatsoever in Big Hero 6). Nevertheless, I'm very satisfied with this year's Disney helping - the Mouse is still on top.
Magic of another kind is to be found in the lunch read I've just finished, The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett. Yes, I thought it was high time to give Pratchett's Discworld novels a go - maybe more than high time, seeing as Death (also a character in the book) recently grabbed hold of the author. The first Discworld novel proved to be the perfect lunch read. It was slim, it was funny, and the characters were unexpectedly likeable. I can certainly see that Pratchett's books must have inspired Jasper Fforde, who works in much the same genre. In fact, though Fforde's Dragonslayer novels have improved a lot from the first rather annoyingly moralistic one - the latest, The Eye of Zoltar, ended with a real cliff-hanger - I'm a bit sorry that he entered the dragons-and-wizards field at all, seeing as humorous but affectionate debunking of pompous fantasy clichés has clearly been done before. But ignore me - if it were up to me, I'd put a spell on Fforde which obliged him to produce nothing but Thursday Next books, and that once a year. There's certainly enough material in the affectionate fantasy-debunking way to be going on with, especially if the author is inventive enough when it comes to shaping his own world.
As for Pratchett, I liked The Colour of Magic, but I'm yet to be as bitten by his fictional universe as I am by Fforde's. For one thing, I'm not certain I'll keep the novel for re-reading. Nevertheless, I'll buy other Discworld novels, and am especially looking forward to the follow-up to The Colour of Magic, The Light Fantastic. I really want to know what happens to Twoflower (naïve, kind-hearted tourist) and Rincewind (his guide, a failed, cowardly wizard with a genius for survival - my favourite) now.
onsdag 3 juni 2015
Problems with the two-track reading system
I thought I'd hit on a clever reading idea. I have several tomes which I very much want to read, but which are simply to heavy to lug to work each day. So what about reading two books in tandem: a slim one during lunch breaks at work and the odd bus ride, and a hefty one at home during evenings and weekends?
The catch is the same as with every tandem-reading enterprise: what do you do when one of the books proves far more engrossing than the other? I manage to get through the slim ones fast enough, but I'm currently a bit stuck in my hefty-book choice. Cheating by smuggling in a Christie or two among the slim lunch reads doesn't help - they always get read first, while the hefty book languishes.
I didn't really see this coming, as the doorstopper I've currently got going is Karleen Koen's Now Face To Face, the sequel to the readable if corpse-laden Through A Glass Darkly. It promised to be an improvement in some ways, as the tiresome sort-of hero is safely dead, and the often-bereaved heroine Barbara didn't have an awful lot left to lose, so things could only look up. Oh, and apparently Philippe, the tasty villain from Through A Glass Darkly, would appear again (there's a list of Dramatis Personae at the beginning of the book). Maybe a bit of villain sex wouldn't be too much to hope for? Koen does villain sex rather well - in fact, she's one of the few authors I've come across who does villain sex at all.
Sadly Philippe plays a very limited part indeed in this sequel. He has one good scene - a stare-off with the novel's matriarch - but otherwise, the few times he appears, he's little more than an arrogantly French prop. Forget villain sex. This time around, the heroine's sluttish mum's the only one who's properly getting any (at least on-stage, as it were). There's no promising new baddie on the horizon either. I try valiantly to focus on the various plots and love affairs that do go on, lack of villain totty notwithstanding, but I find myself increasingly impatient with Barbara. Finally home after a far too long stay in Virginia where she unsurprisingly ends up freeing slaves, Barbara's next project seems to be to get even with the King's minister Walpole for not reducing her late husband's South Sea Bubble-related fine as he has promised.
Now, I can see that it's a quite an important thing for a heroine to be at least solvent. For this reason, if no other, one would not object to some fine-reducing. But let's review the facts, shall we? Barbara's husband was a director of the South Sea Company. He did speculate. I can't quite see why his widow should look upon it as an unassailable right that his fine be reduced, even if he was pally with Walpole. I suppose it is all an excuse to make her ready to join a Jacobite plot, which will be handy when she comes together with her next love interest, a Jacobite plotter. But in the meantime, I'm getting tired of Barbara stalking around thinking dark thoughts about "Robin" (Walpole) while the men around her sigh and the women - understandably - grow resentful.
Still, there's one consolation - if things don't look up soonish, not least on the Philippe front, I won't have to keep the novel and will free some much-needed bookcase space once I've finished it. I wonder if I'm the only one with limited book space who experiences ambivalent feelings every time I hit upon a novel that turns out to be really, seriously good: I'm thrilled, of course, but it does mean I will probably want to read the novel again, which means no bookcase space is cleared. Plus I will have to find space for the same author's other books. Oddly enough, though, the last part seldom worries me: the excitement of new and fairly safe book acquisitions blocks space worries effectively. That is, until it's time to put the darn things somewhere.
The catch is the same as with every tandem-reading enterprise: what do you do when one of the books proves far more engrossing than the other? I manage to get through the slim ones fast enough, but I'm currently a bit stuck in my hefty-book choice. Cheating by smuggling in a Christie or two among the slim lunch reads doesn't help - they always get read first, while the hefty book languishes.
I didn't really see this coming, as the doorstopper I've currently got going is Karleen Koen's Now Face To Face, the sequel to the readable if corpse-laden Through A Glass Darkly. It promised to be an improvement in some ways, as the tiresome sort-of hero is safely dead, and the often-bereaved heroine Barbara didn't have an awful lot left to lose, so things could only look up. Oh, and apparently Philippe, the tasty villain from Through A Glass Darkly, would appear again (there's a list of Dramatis Personae at the beginning of the book). Maybe a bit of villain sex wouldn't be too much to hope for? Koen does villain sex rather well - in fact, she's one of the few authors I've come across who does villain sex at all.
Sadly Philippe plays a very limited part indeed in this sequel. He has one good scene - a stare-off with the novel's matriarch - but otherwise, the few times he appears, he's little more than an arrogantly French prop. Forget villain sex. This time around, the heroine's sluttish mum's the only one who's properly getting any (at least on-stage, as it were). There's no promising new baddie on the horizon either. I try valiantly to focus on the various plots and love affairs that do go on, lack of villain totty notwithstanding, but I find myself increasingly impatient with Barbara. Finally home after a far too long stay in Virginia where she unsurprisingly ends up freeing slaves, Barbara's next project seems to be to get even with the King's minister Walpole for not reducing her late husband's South Sea Bubble-related fine as he has promised.
Now, I can see that it's a quite an important thing for a heroine to be at least solvent. For this reason, if no other, one would not object to some fine-reducing. But let's review the facts, shall we? Barbara's husband was a director of the South Sea Company. He did speculate. I can't quite see why his widow should look upon it as an unassailable right that his fine be reduced, even if he was pally with Walpole. I suppose it is all an excuse to make her ready to join a Jacobite plot, which will be handy when she comes together with her next love interest, a Jacobite plotter. But in the meantime, I'm getting tired of Barbara stalking around thinking dark thoughts about "Robin" (Walpole) while the men around her sigh and the women - understandably - grow resentful.
Still, there's one consolation - if things don't look up soonish, not least on the Philippe front, I won't have to keep the novel and will free some much-needed bookcase space once I've finished it. I wonder if I'm the only one with limited book space who experiences ambivalent feelings every time I hit upon a novel that turns out to be really, seriously good: I'm thrilled, of course, but it does mean I will probably want to read the novel again, which means no bookcase space is cleared. Plus I will have to find space for the same author's other books. Oddly enough, though, the last part seldom worries me: the excitement of new and fairly safe book acquisitions blocks space worries effectively. That is, until it's time to put the darn things somewhere.
onsdag 27 maj 2015
Reasons to be cheerful
Where did May go? Weather-wise and workload-wise, it has been more like a grey September than the height of spring. Furthermore, my Downton withdrawal symptoms have reached the point where watching old episodes only makes the agony worse. But it's wrong to be glum when there are quite a few things to be happy about.
Firstly, Sweden won Eurovision! I'm extra glad as I have a soft spot for the singer Måns Zelmerlöw, who comes from my neck of the woods (but no, we're not acquainted). He's a great performer and, as various interviews have proved, relentlessly charming under pressure. True, he has sung catchier tunes than "Heroes" - if you ever hear "Cara Mia", you won't be able to get it out of your head for a week - but it's a good, solid song for all that. And girls, just so you know - Måns isn't gay, or wasn't last time I looked in a gossip mag, anyway.
Commiserations to the Brits, but I'm afraid "I'm Still In Love With You" had two flaws that are absolute Eurovision poison - it was arch and contrived. Try sincerity next time. If it's any consolation to the British (and knowing them, it will be) France and Germany did even worse - Germany and the hosting country Austria both got nul points. In Germany's case, the failure was deserved, though I still feel sorry for the German singer who, by virtue of being just the runner-up in the national competition (the winner shamefully dropped out), was put in what Victorian novels would call a "false position". There was nothing wrong with France's power ballad, however, which only proves that yes, Eurovision can be unfair. At least the points are decided by telephone voting and juries now, which should be good news for those quite-nice-but-not-winner-songs.
A second reason for happiness is the rumours about a new costume drama on BBC, featuring Dickens characters - yes, characters from different Dickens novels interacting with each other! Does this mean that there are more people out there who spend their time constructing dream scenarios where, say, Ralph Nickleby and Miss Havisham discuss love and betrayal or Carker, as member of a special Dickensian villain club, tries to chat up Miss Wade while being served drinks by Littimer? OK, so other people's Dickens fantasy scenarios may be a little less villain-populated than that, but it's immensely cheering all the same that I'm not alone harbouring thoughts like these. I'm not certain that this series will have a very large audience, but the audience it does have - including me - is sure to love it. Most of us will feel a pang of envy towards the lucky scriptwriter, though. I've never forgiven the BBC for axing their Dombey and Son adaptation, but if Carker makes an appearance in this series, I will at least consider it.
Meanwhile, I hear ITV will broadcast a series about the early life of Queen Victoria. What with the TV series Victoria and Albert and, later, the film The Young Victoria, this is not untrodden ground in costume-drama land. It sounds promising even so, especially as the scriptwriter is Daisy Goodwin, who wrote the page-turning historical novels My Last Duchess and The Fortune Hunter. It appears there will be life after Downton. Maybe.
Firstly, Sweden won Eurovision! I'm extra glad as I have a soft spot for the singer Måns Zelmerlöw, who comes from my neck of the woods (but no, we're not acquainted). He's a great performer and, as various interviews have proved, relentlessly charming under pressure. True, he has sung catchier tunes than "Heroes" - if you ever hear "Cara Mia", you won't be able to get it out of your head for a week - but it's a good, solid song for all that. And girls, just so you know - Måns isn't gay, or wasn't last time I looked in a gossip mag, anyway.
Commiserations to the Brits, but I'm afraid "I'm Still In Love With You" had two flaws that are absolute Eurovision poison - it was arch and contrived. Try sincerity next time. If it's any consolation to the British (and knowing them, it will be) France and Germany did even worse - Germany and the hosting country Austria both got nul points. In Germany's case, the failure was deserved, though I still feel sorry for the German singer who, by virtue of being just the runner-up in the national competition (the winner shamefully dropped out), was put in what Victorian novels would call a "false position". There was nothing wrong with France's power ballad, however, which only proves that yes, Eurovision can be unfair. At least the points are decided by telephone voting and juries now, which should be good news for those quite-nice-but-not-winner-songs.
A second reason for happiness is the rumours about a new costume drama on BBC, featuring Dickens characters - yes, characters from different Dickens novels interacting with each other! Does this mean that there are more people out there who spend their time constructing dream scenarios where, say, Ralph Nickleby and Miss Havisham discuss love and betrayal or Carker, as member of a special Dickensian villain club, tries to chat up Miss Wade while being served drinks by Littimer? OK, so other people's Dickens fantasy scenarios may be a little less villain-populated than that, but it's immensely cheering all the same that I'm not alone harbouring thoughts like these. I'm not certain that this series will have a very large audience, but the audience it does have - including me - is sure to love it. Most of us will feel a pang of envy towards the lucky scriptwriter, though. I've never forgiven the BBC for axing their Dombey and Son adaptation, but if Carker makes an appearance in this series, I will at least consider it.
Meanwhile, I hear ITV will broadcast a series about the early life of Queen Victoria. What with the TV series Victoria and Albert and, later, the film The Young Victoria, this is not untrodden ground in costume-drama land. It sounds promising even so, especially as the scriptwriter is Daisy Goodwin, who wrote the page-turning historical novels My Last Duchess and The Fortune Hunter. It appears there will be life after Downton. Maybe.
söndag 10 maj 2015
Spring books
Why is spring such a difficult blog-writing month? I've been looking back at previous springs, and I wasn't over-zealous with the blog posts then either. What's strange is that there should be material enough. I've read my fair share of books, for instance. There's just not that much to say about them to fill up a whole blog post - or (more likely) I'm too lazy to think of something. A short summary of the few reflections I did have will have to do, then.
The Fashion in Shrouds by Margery Allingham I read Allingham occasionally, more for the atmosphere than the crime stories. This one was big on atmosphere, set in the world of fashion with a notorious actress thrown in. It was enjoyable, though I'm not sure I'll ever care to reread it. One thing that shocks the modern reader is how Allingham's detective Campion's sister Valentine meekly decides to marry her errant beau after he has recovered from a bout of infatuation for the already mentioned actress. He doesn't apologise. ("I can't honestly say that I regret the experience. That woman has maturing properties.") What's more, his proposal is boorish in the extreme. "Will you marry me and give up to me your independence, the enthusiasm which you give your career, your time and your thought? That's my proposition. It's not a very good one, is it?" No, now you come to mention it, old chap, it isn't. Still Valentine, an intelligent, successful and creative fashion designer, says "Yes".
Now, given that the book was first published in 1938, is it anachronistic to mind this? Of course a woman would normally give up work then, assuming she had any, the moment she got married. Then again, perhaps there were plenty of people around who would have found Valentine's beau's proposal boorish even in 1938. Perhaps it's meant to be boorish. Perhaps Allingham, like a modern author might, is making Valentine's sacrifice so explicit in order to make a point about the nature of love. Old values and prejudices in old novels are always a challenge. One is tempted to be patronising either by handing out a general amnesty against sexism and the like because "people didn't know better then", or on the other hand by tut-tutting and measuring authors and characters from another time with modern yardsticks that would have bewildered them. It's difficult to know what to do. After all, some things are just plain wrong, and you would expect a reasonably intelligent individual from any age to recognise it.
Awful Swedish historical novel which shall be nameless Now and again, I feel guilty about not reading more books in the Swedish language and set out to remedy this, mostly with some extremely light-weight read. I was unlucky the last time I tried. Ironically, the genre and general plot couldn't have been more right for me. It was a bodice-ripper set in late 18th century Stockholm involving Swedish nobility, star-crossed lovers, a forced engagement, balls, opera visits and even an English gentleman fiancé for the troubled heroine, who still loves her Swedish childhood sweetheart. Promising, wouldn't you say? But the plot is full of holes, the characters behave like children, and it is badly written. I always thought I was easy to please when it comes to Swedish prose style, but maybe it's the other way around and I'm actually more sensitive when it comes to clichés and unfortunate phrases in my mother tongue. Would I have reacted to a sentence like "Thank goodness for good friends, he gabbled silently to himself" in English? Well, I did in its Swedish version. What does the author mean by "gabbled"? The character's just making a simple statement of fact. You can't use a verb like "gabble" just to show that you don't like the person speaking, can you?
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman by P.D. James A well-written crime novel with a likeable heroine and set mostly in Cambridge. Could it be any better? We-ell... Funnily enough, I still prefer Christie to all the more recent crime writers I've tried, including P.D. James, and this time around I think I'm close to an answer why. I believe in Christie's murderers. I can see why the murders happen, and why they happen the way they do. James wrote with verve and wisdom, but she is too far distanced from the murderer's mind. We're left on the outside, still bewildered as to why a murder had to happen exactly then and exactly in that manner. And if you don't understand what's in the murderer's mind, then an important point with a crime novel is lost. Still, this is a readable book: Cordelia Gray is a resourceful heroine, and Dalgliesh makes an endearing appearance at the end.
Now, these comparatively slim three novels are not the only thing I've read all spring, but this will have to do for now. I might need the rest for another blog post later on.
The Fashion in Shrouds by Margery Allingham I read Allingham occasionally, more for the atmosphere than the crime stories. This one was big on atmosphere, set in the world of fashion with a notorious actress thrown in. It was enjoyable, though I'm not sure I'll ever care to reread it. One thing that shocks the modern reader is how Allingham's detective Campion's sister Valentine meekly decides to marry her errant beau after he has recovered from a bout of infatuation for the already mentioned actress. He doesn't apologise. ("I can't honestly say that I regret the experience. That woman has maturing properties.") What's more, his proposal is boorish in the extreme. "Will you marry me and give up to me your independence, the enthusiasm which you give your career, your time and your thought? That's my proposition. It's not a very good one, is it?" No, now you come to mention it, old chap, it isn't. Still Valentine, an intelligent, successful and creative fashion designer, says "Yes".
Now, given that the book was first published in 1938, is it anachronistic to mind this? Of course a woman would normally give up work then, assuming she had any, the moment she got married. Then again, perhaps there were plenty of people around who would have found Valentine's beau's proposal boorish even in 1938. Perhaps it's meant to be boorish. Perhaps Allingham, like a modern author might, is making Valentine's sacrifice so explicit in order to make a point about the nature of love. Old values and prejudices in old novels are always a challenge. One is tempted to be patronising either by handing out a general amnesty against sexism and the like because "people didn't know better then", or on the other hand by tut-tutting and measuring authors and characters from another time with modern yardsticks that would have bewildered them. It's difficult to know what to do. After all, some things are just plain wrong, and you would expect a reasonably intelligent individual from any age to recognise it.
Awful Swedish historical novel which shall be nameless Now and again, I feel guilty about not reading more books in the Swedish language and set out to remedy this, mostly with some extremely light-weight read. I was unlucky the last time I tried. Ironically, the genre and general plot couldn't have been more right for me. It was a bodice-ripper set in late 18th century Stockholm involving Swedish nobility, star-crossed lovers, a forced engagement, balls, opera visits and even an English gentleman fiancé for the troubled heroine, who still loves her Swedish childhood sweetheart. Promising, wouldn't you say? But the plot is full of holes, the characters behave like children, and it is badly written. I always thought I was easy to please when it comes to Swedish prose style, but maybe it's the other way around and I'm actually more sensitive when it comes to clichés and unfortunate phrases in my mother tongue. Would I have reacted to a sentence like "Thank goodness for good friends, he gabbled silently to himself" in English? Well, I did in its Swedish version. What does the author mean by "gabbled"? The character's just making a simple statement of fact. You can't use a verb like "gabble" just to show that you don't like the person speaking, can you?
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman by P.D. James A well-written crime novel with a likeable heroine and set mostly in Cambridge. Could it be any better? We-ell... Funnily enough, I still prefer Christie to all the more recent crime writers I've tried, including P.D. James, and this time around I think I'm close to an answer why. I believe in Christie's murderers. I can see why the murders happen, and why they happen the way they do. James wrote with verve and wisdom, but she is too far distanced from the murderer's mind. We're left on the outside, still bewildered as to why a murder had to happen exactly then and exactly in that manner. And if you don't understand what's in the murderer's mind, then an important point with a crime novel is lost. Still, this is a readable book: Cordelia Gray is a resourceful heroine, and Dalgliesh makes an endearing appearance at the end.
Now, these comparatively slim three novels are not the only thing I've read all spring, but this will have to do for now. I might need the rest for another blog post later on.
tisdag 21 april 2015
Mr Selfridge series three and some costume-drama speculation
They sacked Mr Thackeray!
Yes, Mr Selfridge series three has finally reached Sweden. Before long, I will even have the whole series on DVD. The clever, and fairest, thing would be to wait until I've seen all of it before I blog about it, but well... I don't feel up to a serious book blog post, so Mr Selfridge and various costume-drama musings it is.
As yet, Swedish Television has shown three episodes of the new series, and I confess I'm a bit underwhelmed so far. It's not just that Mr Thackeray was sacked, after fearlessly but stupidly attacking his boss (verbally, that is). I had half expected him to be written out even before series three began, but the trailer where a Thackeray scene was included raised false hopes. No, the main fault with the new series is that it's a little on the glum side. We were spared the trenches, for which much thanks, but post-war trauma and dissatisfaction play a large part in the various storylines. This new seriousness shows up the series' weakness: that the characters, though on the whole likeable enough, are not that well developed. As long as Mr Selfridge was an airy soufflé of a show, this didn't matter much. But when someone like Henri Leclair develops a war trauma of king-size proportions - not for him simply the usual flashbacks, nightmares and sensitivity to banging noises, no, he has to see the ghosts of his dead comrades in the cellar - it swamps him and the storyline he's involved in completely, and instead of sympathy you feel a slight irritation (I did, anyway). The series probably aims at gaining in poignancy what it loses in light-hearted escapism, but the calculation doesn't quite add up.
It's still nice viewing, thanks in no small part to Victor - now a hard-bitten nightclub owner - who's by far the most interesting character. Also, the shamelessly melodramatic villain Lord Loxley is good fun. He reappears snarling "I'M BACK" on the telephone to his forgiving old school chum Miles Edgerton (yes, the one he blackmailed in series two, and whose wartime supply committee was cast into disrepute because of Loxley's dealings - still, water under the bridge, old chap), and he carries on in the same style. The scenes where he hoodwinks Selfridge's spendthrift new son-in-law are especially entertaining ("Well, he certainly knows how to hold a grudge", he says deadpan on the subject of Selfridge). But the sad fact remains that, in my case, Mr Selfridge works less well as Downton methadone than it used to, because it's become even clearer how far a cry from Downton it really is.
Which brings me to the question: what's next on the costume drama front? What can we expect after Downton ends this Christmas? Yep, as those who have any interest in this series are no doubt aware, it has now been confirmed that its sixth series will be the last. My head tells me this was a wise decision, and I was much relieved when producer Gareth Neame promised that we would be told where the characters "all end up" - hurrah, no open ending! - but still, my heart is heavy. What can possibly replace Downton?
The good news is that the climate seems to be more costume-drama friendly than in a long time. When I was last in London, three costume dramas - Mr Selfridge, Poldark and Indian Summers - were being aired at the same time, nine o'clock on Sunday evening. BBC has climbed down from its high horses, as witnessed by The Musketeers, where the second series was even more unapologetically unhistoric than the first. With Peter Capaldi busy in Doctor Who, they simply killed off Richelieu, replacing him with dishy Marc Warren as Rochefort (I'm sorry to say he's a bit too deranged even for my villain-loving taste - ooh, did you see that reptilian Spanish ambassador, though?). Any similarities between this fun romp and seventeenth-century France are completely coincidental. And now, they're adapting - re-adapting - some Cornwall-placed bodice ripper with no claims on being a part of the English cultural heritage. I look forward to Poldark, but I suspect the hero will get on my nerves a great deal. He looks like one of those Heathcliffian heart-throbs who trudges through the moors glowering and tossing his black curls while snarling "you shut your mouth, woman!" to some unfortunate female. What's the appeal of rudeness, truly? Sarcasm I like, it requires some wit, but pure loutishness is another story. Still, one should not judge a costume-drama hero by his photo-ops. He may turn out to be the height of sophistication and good manners.
I had hopes for Indian Summers, and plumped for testing it when faced with my London costume-drama choice, but found the episode I watched really, really slow. The villain pin-up (as he is supposed to be, surely?) didn't find his way to doing anything villainous or anything much besides brooding. The characters didn't engage and there wasn't the consolation of Mr Selfridge's pace. After also having watched the adaptation of Jamaica Inn with Jessica Brown Findlay, which was atmospheric but did not move forward particularly fast, I'm getting worried that the lesson we learned from costume dramas in the Noughties - pace it up a bit, as shown in Bleak House and Little Dorrit - is getting unlearned again. But I shouldn't be alarmist. Sooner or later, as long as the costume-drama boom holds, something new and exciting will turn up, even perhaps something with a memorable villain in it. Things aren't looking half as gloomy as they did only a few years ago. But something to rival Downton? Chance would be a fine thing.
Yes, Mr Selfridge series three has finally reached Sweden. Before long, I will even have the whole series on DVD. The clever, and fairest, thing would be to wait until I've seen all of it before I blog about it, but well... I don't feel up to a serious book blog post, so Mr Selfridge and various costume-drama musings it is.
As yet, Swedish Television has shown three episodes of the new series, and I confess I'm a bit underwhelmed so far. It's not just that Mr Thackeray was sacked, after fearlessly but stupidly attacking his boss (verbally, that is). I had half expected him to be written out even before series three began, but the trailer where a Thackeray scene was included raised false hopes. No, the main fault with the new series is that it's a little on the glum side. We were spared the trenches, for which much thanks, but post-war trauma and dissatisfaction play a large part in the various storylines. This new seriousness shows up the series' weakness: that the characters, though on the whole likeable enough, are not that well developed. As long as Mr Selfridge was an airy soufflé of a show, this didn't matter much. But when someone like Henri Leclair develops a war trauma of king-size proportions - not for him simply the usual flashbacks, nightmares and sensitivity to banging noises, no, he has to see the ghosts of his dead comrades in the cellar - it swamps him and the storyline he's involved in completely, and instead of sympathy you feel a slight irritation (I did, anyway). The series probably aims at gaining in poignancy what it loses in light-hearted escapism, but the calculation doesn't quite add up.
It's still nice viewing, thanks in no small part to Victor - now a hard-bitten nightclub owner - who's by far the most interesting character. Also, the shamelessly melodramatic villain Lord Loxley is good fun. He reappears snarling "I'M BACK" on the telephone to his forgiving old school chum Miles Edgerton (yes, the one he blackmailed in series two, and whose wartime supply committee was cast into disrepute because of Loxley's dealings - still, water under the bridge, old chap), and he carries on in the same style. The scenes where he hoodwinks Selfridge's spendthrift new son-in-law are especially entertaining ("Well, he certainly knows how to hold a grudge", he says deadpan on the subject of Selfridge). But the sad fact remains that, in my case, Mr Selfridge works less well as Downton methadone than it used to, because it's become even clearer how far a cry from Downton it really is.
Which brings me to the question: what's next on the costume drama front? What can we expect after Downton ends this Christmas? Yep, as those who have any interest in this series are no doubt aware, it has now been confirmed that its sixth series will be the last. My head tells me this was a wise decision, and I was much relieved when producer Gareth Neame promised that we would be told where the characters "all end up" - hurrah, no open ending! - but still, my heart is heavy. What can possibly replace Downton?
The good news is that the climate seems to be more costume-drama friendly than in a long time. When I was last in London, three costume dramas - Mr Selfridge, Poldark and Indian Summers - were being aired at the same time, nine o'clock on Sunday evening. BBC has climbed down from its high horses, as witnessed by The Musketeers, where the second series was even more unapologetically unhistoric than the first. With Peter Capaldi busy in Doctor Who, they simply killed off Richelieu, replacing him with dishy Marc Warren as Rochefort (I'm sorry to say he's a bit too deranged even for my villain-loving taste - ooh, did you see that reptilian Spanish ambassador, though?). Any similarities between this fun romp and seventeenth-century France are completely coincidental. And now, they're adapting - re-adapting - some Cornwall-placed bodice ripper with no claims on being a part of the English cultural heritage. I look forward to Poldark, but I suspect the hero will get on my nerves a great deal. He looks like one of those Heathcliffian heart-throbs who trudges through the moors glowering and tossing his black curls while snarling "you shut your mouth, woman!" to some unfortunate female. What's the appeal of rudeness, truly? Sarcasm I like, it requires some wit, but pure loutishness is another story. Still, one should not judge a costume-drama hero by his photo-ops. He may turn out to be the height of sophistication and good manners.
I had hopes for Indian Summers, and plumped for testing it when faced with my London costume-drama choice, but found the episode I watched really, really slow. The villain pin-up (as he is supposed to be, surely?) didn't find his way to doing anything villainous or anything much besides brooding. The characters didn't engage and there wasn't the consolation of Mr Selfridge's pace. After also having watched the adaptation of Jamaica Inn with Jessica Brown Findlay, which was atmospheric but did not move forward particularly fast, I'm getting worried that the lesson we learned from costume dramas in the Noughties - pace it up a bit, as shown in Bleak House and Little Dorrit - is getting unlearned again. But I shouldn't be alarmist. Sooner or later, as long as the costume-drama boom holds, something new and exciting will turn up, even perhaps something with a memorable villain in it. Things aren't looking half as gloomy as they did only a few years ago. But something to rival Downton? Chance would be a fine thing.
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