Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts

I first read this book in my last year of high school and I strongly remember selecting a passage to read aloud to my writer’s craft class when our teacher prompted us to pick an example of good descriptive writing.

 

I loved Letts’ descriptive flounce and flourish. Even as a teenager who liked to write, I thought hers was a style to emulate. Her characterization, my favourite part of a novel, was also rather remarkable in its execution. I loved the way this mismatched community found a bit of a makeshift family and saw each other in themselves: a rag tag crew of heftily believable characters like something out of a witty John Irving novel.   I loved the love story: not just between Novalee and her eventual ( and highly engaging ) suitor; but with her new home, her new family, her new friends, her young daughter, her life as she picks up and starts anew and wields talent and grace she never knew she possessed. An undervalued woman finds great worth through a maze of others. An outcast finds solace in a community where each feels detached and through detachment and fervor melds a sort of innocent family with high regard and rippling trouble, with solace and strength and perseverance.

The story is very familiar ( largely because they turned it into a film ): 17 year old Novalee Nation is deserted at a Wal-Mart by her jackass boyfriend. She’s 7 months pregnant, she has nowhere to go.  She lives at the Wal-Mart and even has her baby there, innocently writing down in an account ledger all that she owes the large chain store: from stolen canned goods to medicine…. A hiding place of survival.

The residents of Sequoyah, Oklahoma are quick to welcome her and are colourfully coated with Dickensian aplomb: from the hearty Moses Whitecotton, who takes photographs of babies for laced and ribboned keepsake books and challenges Novalee to choose a name to mean something for her baby to Sister Husband: a delightfully batty Christian woman who attends AA meetings and fornicates with her gentleman caller Mr. Sprock ( don’t worry, she always asks for forgiveness after), to Lexie Coop: a rotund and delightful incarnation of the plight of women in the lower economic scale: feisty and colourful and attempting to raise a large brood on her own ( all children named after delicious candy)  to Forney Hull: the librarian who gave up a college education to nurse his alcoholic and now mentally diminished older sister.  Novalee learns about love and the meaning of home in a patchwork quilt of heart-warming circumstances and relationships forged between society’s obsolete and over-looked.

I started reading this book again because, well, it had been about a dozen years and because I was speaking to my friend about James Frain ( who plays Forney in the movie).  I  remembered what a lovely, lovely book character Forney is and how he is frustrated, baffled and then completely smitten with Novalee. His reverence for her as a diamond in the rough, his seeing her true kaleidoscope beauty when she has just been cast off, pregnant and alone, by her nomad boyfriend is the very heart of the novel.  It gives light to circumstance, it gives grace to bleak and gritty undermining of humanity, cruel acts, desertion and despair.

It’s my favourite kind of love story: one built entirely on a burgeoning friendship and one where the unrequited pulse beats supreme until resolution.  Forney PINES ( I used this word quite a bit when describing the character to my friend ) for Novalee and feels her worth all that is good and right and wonderful in the world.  While she doesn’t initially believe it and has trouble viewing her own worth or believing that she is good enough for the educated pseudo-librarian, we believe it from the moment we encounter her: all spirited and elastic and willing to make love out of hatred and something colourful and warm out of sandy nothingness.

There are so many incidents of despair and desertion and abuse.  There are so many tales of economic woes and substandard living.  There is so much that we look down on, perhaps unintentionally…. People we scorn and judge and spurn.  Not unlike Dickens, Billie Letts excavates these voices and paints them in vibrant, relatable colour.  It’s a story of love wrapped in the purest of humanity.

It’s all effervescence and joy and I loved my re-read.

Les Miserables trailer

that is all.

Theatre Review: West Side Story

{pictures used are from our touring cast}

A girl friend and I traipsed out to the Toronto Centre for the Arts the other night to see the new Broadway production of West Side Story: by all accounts one of the most memorable and difficult musical undertakings in the history of theatre.

We are all familiar with this story: many from the popular 1960s film and many from recognizing the many, many famous tunes ripped from Leonard Bernstein's score ( as lyricized by Stephen Sondheim).  In short, the story tells the tale of two star-crossed lovers: the young and beautiful Puerto Rican girl Maria and the dashing former-gang member Tony amidst the gang violence of warring West Side Jets and Sharks and the juvenile turbulence stemmed from racism, hormones, lust, delinquency and passion.

This is very much, like its source material, Romeo and Juliet  an exploration in teen angst.  We find it hard to believe that Maria and Tony could look at each other at a colourfully confetti-lit school dance and fall immediately in eternal love; but we do DO believe that they could fall into teenage lust and so, their tragedy, is acting on their hormones.

As with the Jerome Robbins' choreography ( famous for its ballet-infused fight sequences, incessant snapping and moments of sheer, lucid dream-like fanaticism), the play itself moves liquid and fluid through a timeless world of heart-palpitating action and stern moments of sheer, stolen bliss.  The score is, indeed, another character in the triad of Tony and Maria's renowned tragedy as it propels all action with minor chords, odd-incidentals, clashing score and melancholia.  It is, I believe, one of the most operatic score treatments in musical theatre and, as a vocalist who sings Maria's part along to CD recording for warm-ups often, is cringe-worthy in the sheer magnitude of its forced effort.   To do West Side Story justice, you need, need, NEED to have a flawlessly talented vocal cast. Fortunately, this is where the production excelled. 

There are some noted changes to this most recent adaptation which gained a lot of buzz during Tony's season a few years ago when this production was re-mounted: most popularly the fact that many of the Sharks songs and dialogue is performed in Spanish rather than English. I thought this was brilliantly effectual and allowed the audience to greater sense the divide and the misplaced diaspora plaguing the young Puerto Rican teenagers who idealized America clashed so greatly from the harsh reality they are daily confronted with.  This is not a land of dreams but of ignorance and misunderstanding.

This tension, and the conflicts erupting continuously between the feuding gangs was well-placed against the brash diagonals of the set design and the odd, melodious lighting which painted dream worlds and dirty street-corners.

The performers were pitch-perfect, the singing was as ethereal as the playful and complex score and the choreography harkened back to that we know from Robbins' original conception.   My one complaint was the odd way in which the song Somewhere was realized: here, with Tony and Maria sharing the stage with the young, androgynous Anybodys: the feisty tomboy who yearns to be a Jet rather than a girl.  While they muse on what could be the rival gangs are seen dancing liquidly against a backdrop which recalls a fantasy island.  I found it odd and disconcerting: especially for one of the landmark numbers in the show.

All-in-all a GREAT production and it is touring everywhere: so, for my Toronto readers, catch it here; for those elsewhere, look for it nearby

Film Review: Hysteria

Hysteria is a tongue-in-cheek, heftily innuendoed Victorian sex comedy loosely based on the events leading up to the invention of the vibrator.

It extols great efforts to place a succinct and believable world wherein women were treated with misunderstanding and true bafflement by posh British physicians who labelled anything from anxiety to loss of appetite as hysterical and, thus, a feminine problem mostly diagnosed in housewives that need to be cured by massage, oils and, in extreme cases, sanitariums and hysterectomies.  

Mortimer Granville (the dashing young Hugh Dancy) is a handsome and well-read young physician who is seen flitting from one job to another when his backward employers still find solace in primitive medical efforts including leeches and bleeding. Granville believes in the recent scientific theories surrounding germs and sanitation and is seen as heretic by many more prominent doctors with more experience.  He mopes to his long suffering friend Edmund St. John Smythe ( the equally dashing Rupert Everett) about his convictions to his Hippocratic oath and how he largely wants to do good in the world and live up to his passion and education.   He finally lands at the door of women's physician Dalrymple (Jonathan Pryce) who spends his days providing comfort for his upper middle class house wife patients by "curing" them of their hysteria. Once a week he provides comforting massages barricaded from view by a sumptuous red curtain and the women are momentarily relaxed from his useless diagnosis and medical treatment.  Believing he will do good and impressed by the dutiful beauty of Dalrymple's gorgeous daughter Emily ( Felicity Jones ), Granville becomes a live-in resident.

His handsome stature and apparent skill with massage make him very popular and the practice is booming.  So much so that the young doctor develops carpal tunnel syndrome ( as of then undiagnosed).  His routine only slightly varied by the willful and excessively volatile nature of Dalrymple's oldest daughter, vocal suffragette Charlotte (Maggie Gyllenhall).  Perplexed by Charlotte's conviction to the unfortunate and her squandering her lady like duty of finding a husband in exchange for long hours working at a sort of community centre which houses meek and lowly women and provides health and education to young unfortunate children, Granville sees in this spirited fire-cracker the innate passion he knows he should have and a purely charitable core.

When Smythe unintentionally invents a vibrating feather duster that saves time and energy in curing women of their hysterical ails, unprecedented fame comes to Dr. Dalrymple and Granville and Granville finds his heart wandering from the perfect angel of hearth and domesticity, Emily, to her brasher and more interesting sister.

This film was mostly interesting for its inclusion of a baffling history wherein the medical practice seemed to completely misunderstand female health and, more devastatingly, did seeming nothing to ensure they were making advances.  Sanitariums and hysterectomies seemed an all-encompassing cure for the plagues of female illness and, according to the film and the limitation of women's rights and voices, a way to silence women who may only have been speaking out of dissatisfaction and or normal anxious states.

At this point in history, women were not known to derive any pleasure from sexual acts; nor were they supposed to so the paroxysms (or modern orgasms, as we know them ) when experienced were very incidental and by-the-way.  Contrast this methodology and medical discovery with the raging voice of women like Charlotte: a sort of proto-suffragette and emblem of skepticism and disbelief at the lack of control and choice she had over her body and you have an interesting paradox of good intentions versus severe male-dominated ignorance.

At one pivotal point in Granville and Charlotte's well-meted and perfectly executed relationship, Granville mentions that Charlotte is at time's complimentary and at others disagreeable and hostile and Charlotte laughs and proudly pronounces that she is a woman: inclined to remain an enigma to the male sphere.  Rather than shy from the winning puzzle, we see Granville slowly become attracted to an idea of an equal partnership and not the patriarchal role so carefully patented with a winsome, docile female and a standard private practice.


I encourage women to read more about the ways in which our medical rights were skewed by male research and experimentation for centuries--- and up to at least the 1950s (when the last medical diagnosis of hysteria was made) .   We have come a long way and we cannot be ignorant of the many women who suffered due to ignorance and misunderstanding.  Women are multi-faceted and beguiling and, it seems, as in several cases like this particular historical moment that rather than attempt to unravel the mystery and service the rights of women it was far more common and a lot easier to lump sum all of the dichotomous and multi-faceted moments, passions and emotions with a single word, a single case, a single (and misguided) cure.

Author Interview: Victoria Connelly

I am so thrilled that Victoria Connelly, author of Mr. Darcy Forever took the time to answer a few questions for me :)




Rachel:

First off, this is a statement rather than a question; but I LOVE this quote: “Why is life a constant disappointment?”

“Because we read fiction.” Mia said

V.C.

- Glad you like it – it reflects how I feel sometimes!

 Rachel:

Q.)I was really impressed with the narrative structure of the novel and how it seamlessly transitioned between three years back and forth: what inspired this creative direction and how did it influence your writing process?

V.C.

- I think writers should always push themselves to try different things.  I’ve always wanted to write a dual narrative and this seemed like the book to try it with.  I knew that something had come between these two sisters and that they would meet in Bath at the Jane Austen festival and I wanted to ‘drip feed’ their back story using flashbacks.  I actually wrote it pretty much as it appears in the book and I found that the dual narrative really added pace to the story.  It was challenging but really enjoyable.

 Rachel:

Q.)Mia loves jogging and the fresh outdoors: Marianne Dashwood and Elizabeth Bennett also enjoyed exercise: do you think that this says something about their disregard of social precaution and a certain deviance to societal norms of their era?

V.C.

- I do.  These were women who knew what they liked and weren’t afraid to be themselves.  I really admire them for that.  They are strong and independent and didn’t have time for people who hid behind social conventions.

 Rachel:

Q.)There is obviously a plethora of Jane Austen references in the novel and throughout the Festival our heroines attend in Bath. Which is your personal favourite of Austen’s work?

V.C.

- It’s got to be Pride and Prejudice for its warmth, its wit and its love story.  Not only does it have the best hero and heroine ever but there’s a cast of fantastic ‘love to hate’ characters too.  Mr Collins and Lady Catherine have got to be two of literature’s greatest creations!

 Rachel:

Q.)This is the second Jane Austen novel I have read this year dealing with mental disorder and Austen (the first being Compulsively Mr. Darcy). Sarah, who suffers from OCD, becomes somewhat of an Elinor counterpart: do you think Elinor showed some of these tendencies in Sense and Sensibility  thus informing your decision?

V.C.

- I do.  Elinor Dashwood was very in control of herself, her family and her environment and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if she was a list maker.  I kept wondering what a modern-day Elinor would be like and I thought she might well suffer from OCD.  I played around with the idea for a while and really thought it fitted her character.

 Rachel

Q.) Mia and Sarah and Shelley love watching Jane Austen adaptations. Which is your personal favourite?

V.C.

- I think it has to be the 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice because Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle give such wonderful performances as Mr Darcy and Elizabeth and there are some magical moments like Mr Darcy watching Elizabeth when she is at the piano; the moment he helps her into the carriage and their hands touch; and Elizabeth’s mortification when she bumps into him at Pemberley when she thought he was away from home.

Rachel

Q.) Mia and Shelley both confess to liking the “bad boy” Willoughby despite the heartbreak he brings Marianne.  Why do you think women keep falling for these charming rascals…. Even in Jane Austen where gentlemanly conduct and honour reigns supreme?

V.C.

- I think women will always be drawn to the bad boy – it’s that element of danger that’s so attractive.  I also think that women believe that they’ll be the ones to tame them.

Rachel:

Q.)This is not your first Jane Austen-inspired tale and you are obviously very comfortable in jubilantly painting women and men inspired by Austen in the contemporary world. Is there another author you are equally as passionate about?

V.C. 

HE Bates is my favourite author of all time.  I adore The Darling Buds of May quintet and happily quote him in my everyday life.  He creates characters that are so real and his style of writing is warm and funny.  I’ve just named three hens after his characters: Mariette, Primrose and Florence!

You can find Mr. Darcy Forever and other Austen-esque yarns by Victoria Connelly on amazon

Visit Victoria Connelly on the web to read her blog and learn about her other novels 

My thanks to Sourcebooks for the review copy and to Victoria Connelly for stopping by the blog 

I have nothing to say....

dear blog,

i have been busy with work and my personal life and have been travelling a lot for work and for pleasure and i have not devoted the time i should to you.

more still, i have read books; but been too lazy after a day of work to do anything but get my pilates on before slinking into my arm chair with a glass of pinot and blandly watching 'smash' before reading a chapter and falling asleep.

but, blog, i love you. you're pretty. so i am going to commit to you again.  my busy season is winding down ---and though my personal life and travel plans are not,  i want to devote more time to you.

i apologize for my silence blog, and to compensate, provide you with this awesome picture of Jude Law and Keira Knightley in the new adaptation of Anna Karenina

Alpha who?: musing thoughts on selected gender roles of page and screen

 “'No woman really wants a man to carry her off; she only wants him to want to do it.' ---Elizabeth Peters

Women want to be strong and self-serving; but they also want stories of initiative, of passion, of strength, of the man who will sweep them away. They work all day to make equal salary, to prove that what their foresisters fought for has come to light; but they curl up in the evening with their Jane Austen dvds or the latest chicklit or, egads, a Harlequin on their e-reader.

In many of these cases, women retreat into stories where gender roles are clearly defined:  the man is the 'alpha' in presence, physicality, initiative (he takes the lead in pressing the romance forward) and the ultra-protector.  The woman is offered solace, financial and familial stability. She may "tame the rogue", yes; but the rogue will still provide. 

The Alpha male drives women to read and recollect and sink into fictionland again and again....

But....

Do we need the alpha male for romance to be realized?

I read this article on Castle ( which I have watched intermittently; but confess to not having followed with any dedication) by Christian romance writer Jenny B. Jones who argues that every romance needs an alpha…. An alpha male at that and that her viewing of Castle was  conflicted by Kate Beckett, the heroine, and her having usurped the “male” role. I am not agreeing or disagreeing with Jones in this musing and this is certainly not a counter to her words ( as mentioned, I don’t follow Castle); but it turned my brain on and inspired me to share and muse and hopefully kick-start dialogue.

Fifty Shades of Grey, the erotic bestseller borne of Twilight fan fiction, inevitably paints a heroine who is very much the submissive: in every crass sense of the word when paired with the ultra-masculine dominant Christian.  Part of the sexual contract explored in the book requires Anastasia ( ironically surnamed Steele; because she is any matter but)  to completely resign her independent life, her will and her routine to her new counterpart.  One would hardly argue this is romance ---- rather than erotic exploration---but still--- it climbs the charts.  My hypothesis is this: partly for the shock content; partly for the alpha male.

What used to be characterized mostly as brute strength ( watch Victor Mature in, say, anything ) has redefined itself to strength of heart, character, wit and grace.  As easy as it is for women to want, umm, Thor, so are they attracted to the softer, more adorkable geeky heroes that are prominent in our world.  We want Superman, yes; but we really want Clark Kent, too. Question this? Look at the show Grimm -- Monroe, the geeky watchmaker who plays the cello, likes fine wine and has difficulty mustering the courage to finalize his crush on the spice shop lady it the fan favourite and not the dashing police detective with the dimple in his chin: the snuggly, be-spectacled vegan with the quick intellect, plaid, penchant for Christmas decorations and inescapable curiousity.

books. he likes books. score for Monroe

We want, ostensibly, to know that Clark Kent can be Superman. An alpha male who can hide the alpha or in whom the alpha is so carefully embedded--- and most of all, who can forge equilibrium with us. 

If we’re in it together --- then who cares who has the upper hand?  And, in a world where gender roles have changed, what does alpha really mean? Who defines strength and who can turn the roles over like a salt shaker and go to town?

The Hunger Games poses an interesting reflection of this.  Unlike Twilight where two brute alpha males are paired with ostensibly the weakest heroine in the history of the world, Collins gives us Peeta the ultimate literal breadwinner, Gale the Hunter and Gatherer and a woman who is just as strong and sufficient as either of her male counterparts.  While Peeta is not outwardly as “strong” ( I delineated quotations for emphasis) as Gale, he harbours an amazing sense of cunning reserve.  I recently re-watched the film and was, as at first viewing, immediately beguiled when lovely, quiet and stern Peeta plays to the crowd by turning and waving to the audience to win admirers lining the streets of the Capitol.  If, as I believe Collins means us to, we survey every one of Peeta’s steps as a plot in which to secure Katniss’ safety and his actions : whether meted out blatantly or seen in somewhat minimalized retrospect, to ensure that she is the winner of the Hunger Games, then strength, Peeta-fied, comes from creative intelligence, ingenious intuition;rather than the ability to snare a deer in the forest.  Strength deepened further by his long time affection for the girl who didn’t notice him.

I'll eat the berries if you do

When you pair a heroine who is as equally as “strong” to watch as the two prospective suitors rounding the triangle at what point do you establish the need for alpha in romance?  Is equilibrium enough?

My favourite romance of all time is the Blue Castle. Herein, Barney and Valancy meet as friends, they have an easy companionship, are kindred spirits, can laugh and can see that their camaraderie is laying a solid foundation for a life-long romance.

There is no love at first sight. Valancy notices Barney physically; but it is his elusively winsome manner that attracts her more and more…. She has to like HIM as a person ---with his freedom and nonchalant aura before she notices more definitive aspects of his physiognomy: that his eyebrows are mis-matched, the colour of his eyes, the thin dimples in his cheeks… his lackadaisical grace.  She falls in love with the person before he has a chance to exhibit the alpha.  She is more inclined to desire his freedom on an island and what that could serve her as a repressed woman than she is the prospect of him rescuing her.  While she dreams of princes who will ride from the walls of the Blue Castle and secure her favour, she acts in real life--- deciding to throw her affection on a man she views as a preternatural equal.

Barney, the automatic alpha, doesn’t necessarily need to save Valancy who, at the point in the novel when their relationship is developing has already made galloping strides toward self-sustenance; but CAN and shows he will…. Not in the fairytale way; but in Montgomery’s meta-fairytale way--- spiriting her away from unwanted suitors at the dance at Chidley Corner’s, rescuing her from Roaring Abel’s drunken debauchery when he sets off with her in their tin lizzie to Port Lawrence to see a film.

Sure, Valancy is alpha when she proposes --- but Barney immediately turns and gains upper alpha hand when he kisses her. That’s right.  Physical initiative is on his end, not hers.  She may have initiated the “let’s be friends for all time and live on your island… and by all time I mean the year I have left to live “ ; but Barney sealed it.

Both Barney and Valancy have alpha moments. Both are strong and willed and wise and winsome and funny and lovely and THAT is why they work: two halves to a whole.  Their passion develops and foremost in words and kinship before in physical consommation…..

When I speak of romance I speak of it as a genre: a genre which calls to mind knights in armour and ladies willing to be rescued. But I also call to mind the connection that most of us want to find in life with a significant other --- If we are what we read, watch, see, listen to--- then we must recognize that we are informed by the stories that shape us.  We become invested in the pairings that most closely match what we would like in our real life. Love triangles work so well because you can Choose Your Own Adventure:  Katniss and Peeta, Katniss and Gale, Bella and Edward (god help you) and match your personal preference to the movie playing in your mind. 

If, like me, you want equilibrium of smarts and chats and laughter where you allow that gender roles can be rooted in natural biological make-up; but there is room for personal growth and the colouring of personality and individuality, then you recognize that many guys have the desire to be the alpha : whether the alpha means smashing down things with a hammer or strongly staring resolvedly at a woman they have quietly loved for years. In the same way that females want to be seen as equal; but still get jelly in the knees when thinking that some man would protect, provide…

We don’t have to be one or the other and our romance does not have to define one or the other.  We should look at romance as a reflection of the best parts of human companionship: as a rainbow-flavoured, sunshine-y ideal, as the mecca, the i-ching, the best of ourselves.  Your self can ride a white horse or fall for a guy who has one; or be the guy who waits in the wings while another presses his suit.

It’s not clear cut, it’s not black and white because we are not cookie-cutter humans and we are melded with different shapes, attractions, desires….

Formulaic romance would like us to subscribe to one thing; personal preference re-imagines those scenarios: the best laid example of what we hope our lives to be in a fictional light.

I’ll take Barney, you take Thor….

There are many different kinds of love in the world --- and many different kinds of strength.

Film Review: The Raven

If you are looking for an Academy-award winning calibre piece of cinema, then this is not the place to find it. However, if you want some interestingly gothic-and-gore-infused representation of fan fiction in movie form, then you have come to the right place. With the insurgence in fiction of everyone from Alcott to Austen to Bronte to Twain solving crime, why should not the inventor of the macabre be given a turn?

Hi! I'm John Cusack and way hotter than the original.

Atmospheric, dreary, dark, claustrophobic, police-procedural, inventive, gory, blood-spurted and melancholy The Raven pits the world's greatest horror writer against a serial killer inspired to copycat his most famous works: The Pit and the Pendulum, The Mask of the Red Death, The Cask of Amantillado: if you have a weak stomach or thought that life-sized representations of the stories that kept you up at night would send you over the brink, then this is not the tale for you.  However, if you are fascinated to follow the breadcrumb trail of links and clues that lead you to search the recesses of your mind to excavate what you remember from the Poe canon, then hurrah!...  this is JUST like that episode of Castle where a criminal is inspired by Richard Castle's most famous novels and crimes ....except here.... the stalwart Inspector Fields of the Baltimore PD goes straight to POE --- the greatest horror writer and the greatest inventor of melancholia.

For those of us who know about Poe's life: his mysterious disappearance, his struggle to reconcile himself with his stand-up West Point career and this wife's death with the raging blood-red circumference of his imagination, his odd eccentricities, his alcoholism and his utter despair are couched here in the capable underplay of John Cusack.  There is enough fact blended in this utter fan fiction to give it some historical weight.   Not unlike the Guy Ritchie retellings of Sherlock Holmes, 1849 Baltimore, here, is a grey and bleak world of stolen shadows across cobblestones, sleek rain-slated windows and carriages groaning under devious weight.  And, speaking of Sherlock, we remember Watson mentioning Dupin don't we? In Study in Scarlet ? Yes. Yes we do!

I am over-acting in this scene, as I do all; but look! my coat! it doth swing! 

This is very much a police procedural and the smell of ink and death and the painful re-creation of horrendous Poe inspirations are all in front of you: so, if you have a weak stomach, this is not your film.  The horror, I must say, had a more grotesque "cartoony" feel which very much left it in the realm of popular imagination.  I enjoyed how Poe was regaled and horrified by seeing his work in actual light... how he struggled with the fact that his brilliant mind was responsible for inhuman horror.  Also, the story meandered into the realm (if weakly) of what is fact and fiction and at one point do authors become characters in their own stories: borne of the weaknesses subjected by the wrong interpretation of their work.

[---Also, Edgar Allen Poe has a pet raccoon.....  and he quoths the Raven at a pub where Higgins from N and S/ Bates from Downton is the barkeep.... true story]

An entirely amusing 2 hours at the movies and the perfect ending to a road-trip weekend I took through Kingston and Prince Edward County with two girlfriends.  We chuckled a lot at some of the reprehensibly cheesy lines and at Luke Evans attempt to chew the scenery, swallow it, spit it out and chew it again (he really was terrible in this film: interesting to note that Jeremy Renner was a first choice).

So, there it is: fan fiction on screen.....

Ode to My Book

hi book, i am jubilant.... i want to write your name with pink pen in my binder and draw hearts all around it, i want to say your name over and over again in dulcimer tones, i want to look up dulcimer to see if i used it correctly in a sentence, i want to imagine our white picket fence, i want to swing with you in a hammock. by a lake. with a picnic nearby. book, there is something about you that skips my heart beat, pounds a little delightful hammer in my stomach, that makes my breath go "oop!" and catch somewhere in my throat. i equate you with sunshine and lollipops, you're a rainbow-studded,gold-embossed,skittle-taste of adoration. book, you and i were meant to be. in that epic 'casablanca' type of way. compatible? damn right we are. book, sweep me up and hot air balloon me away.

Great Adaptations IV: 2011 BBC

It’s been awhile since Great Adaptations last showed up on le blog.  However, that was because even though I watched the 2011 BBC version at Christmas, I wanted to ensure that all North American friends had the chance to view it on Masterpiece Theatre.  Since my DVD arrived last week, I have spent many an hour carefully perusing it and experiencing each minute detail which has more sternly formulated my opinion that it is the best film adaptation to date. That’s not to say that it isn’t without flaws or that it doesn’t distance itself from the text; but its choices make a lot of sense and it “feels” like Great Expectations: from the murky marshes to the clouded, cloistered cobblestones of Pip’s London, through the satined lace of young women lined like a garland at a party as Pip takes Estella’s ivory hand to the decrepitly ravished wedding feast of the irreplaceable Miss Havisham.

The characterization is deft and taut and each of these well-known personages, who could easily become caricatures so inferenced are they in our cultural psyche, are instead the embodiment of pathos and light, of humour and heartbreak: of proof that, above all, Great Expectations is a narrative borne of extraordinary acts of unwarranted kindness.

It is no surprise that I am completely befuddled and bewildered by the continual influence this particular tale has on me: how it exposes my vulnerability, my strengths, and the darker tenets of human expectation: the trajectory, and further tragedy, begotten of our wanting something more…. But this particular series drew from creaked corner into luminous light the characters I have often felt between the pages of my well-worn novel.  During the Bicentenary Celebrations earlier this year, one statistic ( which I cannot cite, unfortunately) listed both Miss Havisham and Joe Gargery as two of the 10 best-known Dickensian characters.  Great Expectations---whether having been forced on readers in high school---or having been re-visited with stylistic enterprise in the 90s or whether (fortunately) given weight  in two current adaptations ( this miniseries and the upcoming Hollywood) film or even as a funky premise for a South Park episode--- is an inescapable portion of the Western canon.   Perhaps because we can see so much of ourselves in Pip, we can see so much of what we would like to be in the actions of Joe and Herbert and Magwitch, we enjoy the Soap Operatic twists and turns linking Estella, her bat-crazy adoptive mother and the sinister Jaggers and his erstwhile maid Molly---- it’s human relations: sex, power, money, loss of money, disillusionment, odd reconciliation at its best.

There’s crime, almost murder, escaped convicts,  boat chases, whirls of balls and abusive husbands…. Who wouldn’t want this? 

As ultimately complex as the tale is and as many characters as it introduces ( some completely left out of this particular imagining: most noticeably Biddy) it is, at its core, a sleek bildungsroman pitting a young and good-hearted orphan against the sudden Cinderella-like fate that follows him to his apprenticeship years as a blacksmith in the Kent Marshes.

This adaptation has received numerous BAFTA nominations for its craft and presentation and it is quite easy to see why:  it is a tangible and delectable world that you can smell and see and touch: it is gritty and horrible, it is crusted with the mould of Satis House and encrypted in the smoke billowing from the forge and as Pip sheds his cocoon to dress in the gentleman’s clothes that propel him out into society with his lovely pal Herbert, we see the finest threads carefully woven to speak their intricate tailorship: a perfect recognition of the period and the Era’s finery.

 

It also includes some of my favourite performances of some of the best-loved Dickensian characters.  For my part, I feel  that this adaptation’s Herbert Pocket, Magwitch, Joe Gargery, Pip and Miss Havisham are the best I have seen.

I encourage you to spend some time in this world. I have revisited it quite a bit.  This past week, I was traveling for work and ended up steeping some tea in my hotel room and catching it again on iTunes:  obsessed? Perhaps a little; but more enamored and bewitched that a dazzling presentation has wrought from my mind’s eye to camera’s lens a kaleidoscopic Victorian world I crave to seep into time and again.

Pearl in the Sand by Tessa Afshar

Pearl in the Sand is an exceptionally readable retelling of the Rahab story from the Book of Joshua in the Bible.

Rahab is sold into prostitution in the booming and lawless metropolis of Jericho at the tender age of 15 when her farming family becomes destitute.  There, she works her way up to become the key innkeeper in the city,  having earned enough money to build her own inn within the bordering infamous walls of the great city centre.  The more Rahab hears about the one true God of the Hebrews, the more curious she becomes.  Having always been conflicted by her forced profession, she wonders if there is a God of compassion to withstand the pagan gods of the temples peppering her town. When two Hebrew spies arrive at her inn, Rahab is met with a choice: act in a great and dangerous leap of faith, or ensure her comfort and safety and wealth are retained.

Unlike most fictionalized accounts of Rahab’s famous Old Testament story, the famous portion of Rahab and the spies takes only the first third of the book.  From there, we are walked through Rahab’s joining of the Israelites, immersing herself in their faith, eyeing from distance the great battles fought between Hebrews and foes and her growing attraction with great military leader, Salmone.

Both Rahab and Salmone are the crux of the story and are both equally well-developed: their lives and budding relationship interspersed with the great canvas which highlights the many famous acts and stories surrounding Joshua: from the tumbling of the walls by trumpeting fervor, through Aichan’s sin and some of the great battles fought, to the day the sun stood still.  Joshua, a well-rounded peripheral character and sage voice offers many intriguing moments of illicit faith.  I applaud  Tessa Afshar for colouring the story in such a unique light and focusing on tenets of the book usually left un-realized in other fictionalized versions of the tale.   Afshar is very confident in how her painting and portrayal of a troubled relationship will offer a great light when mended and string a strong lineage (from Rahab and Salmone’s son Boaz onward ) to the coming of Christ in the New Testament.   Afshar’s research is evident and I was captivated by the tent rituals of the Hebrew women, the focus on hospitalization and medicine after the gory battles of the field and the day-to-day life of a burgeoning nation as it struggled to find its own place ----away from the long provided-manna and leadership of Moses, leaving the wilderness years long behind.   I must also commend Afshar’s battle sequences. They were wonderfully rendered and were very realistic.  I felt my heart pulsing as she cited almost immeasurable odds.

Great Biblical fiction can do well at extrapolating an imagined (and believable ) backstory to a few verses blatantly transcribed.  I felt deeply for Rahab and her insecurities about her impurity and her past and her desire to become worthy of the God who will save her and the new husband who obviously loves her, no matter his initial reticence to wholly embrace her past. This was a strong theme painted and very encouraging to those of us who doubt how an unconditional love could reach us.   Stronger in thematic depth and precision,  I preferred the backlight to this story to the famous (overhyped?) Redeeming Love: a grandiose re-setting of a popular tale.

The book, however, is not completely without fault.  Afshar errs at breaking tone and timbre by inserting decidedly distracting modern humour and sarcasm.  Characters are said to “roll their eyes” and some of their familiar interactions complete detract from the verisimilitude surging through so much of the book.  Indeed, I ended up rolling my eyes. Afshar was forced in these moments trying so hard to mete her characters with human warmth and frailty: but rather than eliciting a smile, they just made me cringe in awkwardness.   That being said, 75% percent of the novel was expertly penned, the dialogue ( when not straining to match the perceived need for audience humour )_ was acute and the historical detail was fascinating.

Looks like Afshar has a new release out and I look forward to seeing how she colours in the lines of another strong Biblical woman!

Interview: Sara Humphreys author of 'Untouched'

Hello !  This is not a genre I usually read or review so I was excited to try a taste of Paranormal Romance.  I am so excited that Sara Humphreys was kind enough to answer a few questions about her new novel, Untouched . Please read the interview below.  I have TWO copies of Untouched available to American and Canadian readers so please leave a comment below and I will draw two names :)

1.     The Amoveo have surprising gifts—if you could have just one gift what would it be?
  SH:That’s a tough one but I’d probably go with telepathy. I think it would so cool to be able to have secret, intimate conversations with a lover in the middle of a crowded room.

2.     You are also a seasoned actress; did your tenure in television inform the way you write fast-paced scenes? Are the two mediums very dissimilar when approached from a creative standpoint?
SH: I haven’t worked as an actress in many years but there are certain similarities from a character development stand point. I got back into writing because I craved a creative outlet. Building worlds and developing characters is something you do as an actor as well. When diving into the mind of a character, it’s important to understand where that person came from because that drives where they’re going.

3.     If you were to write in a genre other than paranormal romance, what would you like to try your hand at?
SH: I’d probably go for contemporary romantic suspense or delve into the YA pool. You never know….

4.     Ok, can I just say how much I loved a "big-boned", normal looking heroine who attracted a sexy fox (literally)! Can you speak to this empowering choice?
SH: Easily. I am a “big-boned” gal. I was at my heaviest in my early teen years—I tipped the scales at about 230 pounds but by the end of high school, I’d lost quite a bit of weight. I’ve struggled with my weight for my entire life and I’m sure I always will but I never let it stop me from going after what I wanted. I enjoy writing imperfect heroines and heroes…who the hell wants to read about someone who’s perfect?

5.     What is currently on your night-table (or e-reader?)
SH: Enraptured by Elisabeth Naughton.

6.     I loved the New Orleans portion of the setting as I recently took a vacation there and think it works well for supernatural stories laden with portentous clouds. Can you speak to how the city inspired you creatively?
SH: My husband and I have visited New Orleans several times and stayed at the Hotel Monteleone in the French Quarter.  We love it there and I feel like no matter how many times we go, we always find something new to see. It’s a city rich with history, mystery and color. In fact, we’re going back next week for a signing at the Carousel Bar in the Hotel Monteleone. I can’t wait!

7.      Finally. Casting call! Who would you cast in the film version of 'Untouched'?
SH: Plus size model Crystal Renn would be perfect as Kerry and Joe Manganiello, the hot werewolf on True Blood, would be a dynamite Dante. *sigh* A girl can dream….

My thanks to Sara for writing a spicy novel and for SourceBooks for providing a review copy.

UNTOUCHED BY SARA HUMPHREYS – IN STORES APRIL 2012

She should be seen, but never touched…

Kerry Smithson's modeling career ensures that she will be admired from afar, which is essential since mere human touch sparks blinding pain and terrifying visions.

Every good model needs a heavenly bodyguard…

Dante Coltari is hired to protect Kerry from those who know who she is—or more importantly what she is—and want her dead because of it. Nothing could have prepared him for the challenge of keeping her safe. But, strangely, his lightest touch brings her exquisite pleasure rather than pain, and Dante and Kerry have an otherwordly connection that might just pull them through.

“Red-hot love scenes punctuate a well-plotted suspense story that will keep readers turning pages as fast as they can.”

—Publishers Weekly Starred Review

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sara Humphreys has been attracted to the fantasies of science fiction, paranormal, and romance since her adolescence when she had a mad crush on Captain Kirk. An actress and public speaker, Sara lives with her husband--who is very considerate of her double life--and four amazing boys, in Bronxville, New York. For more information, please visit http://sarahumphreys.com, Like her on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/Amoveo and follow her on Twitter 

A Reluctant Queen: The Love Story of Esther by Joan Wolf

Hello friends! Happy Easter Monday! 

I read this book over the weekend and I found it ridiculously empowering---with the same empowerment I am always surged with when I retreat into one of the tales of the many, many amazingly strong women of the Old Testament.

The story of Esther and her marriage to King Ahasuerus is a popular and well-loved tale from the pages of Scripture: the love story of a beguilingly beautiful Jewish woman who hides her heritage in order to win the King's hand and his ear as she attempts to quell the plots of the King's grand vizier, Haman, who wants to initiate one of history's first genocides.  

From the beginning pages when we read of Esther's quiet life with her kind and wise kinsmen Mordecai to her unwilling renouncement of her Jewish faith in order to live by the King's Persian rules in hopes of being chosen as queen from his large Harem, this ancient world is filled with rich-tapered threads and the palpable scent of spices and mysticism.   Biblical fiction when done poorly can be ripe with redundancy; but Joan Wolf has a talented knack for creating a world and fleshing out characters often marginalized by the confines of their ancient text.  I was riveted from the moment Esther hears of Queen Vashti's untimely fate and through her first meeting with the King ( with whom she develops a completely unexpected rapport).  

Like the Book of Ruth, Esther is one of the Bible's Cinderella stories: it rewards a strong and innovative and resourceful woman and commends her for the risks she takes to save her people.  The King she is initially warned about melts into a kindly figure who shows unanticipated compassion; the villain is given just reward, and Esther and her Uncle are given the satisfaction of knowing that their Jewish relatives are saved from an awful fate.

One of the most interesting aspects of the Bible is how God used unexpected people: beautiful women, prostitutes, Moabite strangers, warriors and Queens to solidify his master plan. Esther is a strong and good-natured woman with a succinct devotion and unwavering loyalty to the right.  She deserves the sweet and slow romance which blossoms between her and the King.  She deserves the happy end to a troubled fate. 

I have already pre-ordered Wolf's retelling of the Rahab story and cannot wait to sink my teeth into more of her well-researched description.

For those who are not convicted by a religious sense, you can easily seep into this story regarding it as a powerful and well-penned chapter of political history. Wolf paints well Esther and Ahasurerus; but also Haman, the court Eunichs and servants who serve the Queen and the financially-sound Mordecai whose conviction propels Esther into the fate which secures her people and inspirationally launches the well-loved and still-practiced celebration of Purim.

Read this book!  Romantic! Historical! Colourful!  and a serene portrait of one of history's most memorable royals!

Good Friday

‎" He had the honesty and the courage to take His own medicine. Whatever game He is playing with His creation, He has kept His own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that He has not exacted from Himself. He has Himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life to and the cramping restrictions of hard word and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death. When He was a man, He played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace, and thought it was worthwhile.”---Dorothy L. Sayers

'War Horse'

Last night I saw the National Theatre’s Production of War Horse at the Princess of Wales here in Toronto.  Based on the best-selling novel by Michael Morpurgo and inspiration for the recent film (my review here), War Horse is a steady and episodic tale of the love between a horse and his boy amidst the turmoil of the Great War.

Raised from a foal by Devon farmboy Albert, Joey grows spirited and special: a plough horse even though a natural, thorough-bred hunter, and a constant companion to his adoring master.   Albert’s oft-drunk father Ted breaks a promise to his son and sells Joey to Major Nicholls when the bells toll and the outbreak of England’s war against Germany commences.  Joey finds himself on both sides of the lines in France and Albert, underage, runs to join the conflict in hopes to find his Devon Yeomanry and bring his horse back with him. A powerful and resonating tale as old as time: of an animal/human bond forged greater still by absence, War Horse is a touching story.

The play itself is magnificent, ultimately because the staging is so unique and the horse puppetry (propelled by humans at first visible through the skeletal structure of the horses until they blend behind the camouflage  of imagination) is so excellent.  The sets are simplistically haunting with a scrap of paper: as if torn from a novel or a page of Major Nicholl’s sketchbook spans the back of the proscenium arch matching the action of the players with sketches evoking Devon’s spires and farm fields and, later, the tyranny of the Somme and the action in No Man’s Land.  The action of the story is often interrupted by a wandering minstrel who sings old  Northern tunes while playing a fiddle.  While this was effective when backed with the harmonized chorus of the cast, it was sometimes off-setting and distracting: as you would settled into the quiet action and disturbance of a scene only to be drawn out by a repeated ditty.  The “canned” music which offers soundtracked canvas to the story can also seem a little melodramatic: sometimes silence is indeed better.

The play develops Joey and the physically grander Topthorn as living, breathing characters whose interactions with humans form the crux of the story. Indeed, it is through the eyes of the horses forced into War that humanity is exposed: from both sides uniting to untie Joey from barb-wire to the young French girl Emilie and the conflicted Calvary-officer Friedrich Mueller bonding over their common interest in the horses.  

Why War Horse works so well as a story is that it takes a bird’s eye (or horse’s eye) view of the War while evoking all sides of the War in an unbiased and gentle way: there are characters from torn France, Germany and England all moved by their exasperated situations and extracting the emotional investment of the audience.  Often, the horses are the common denominator in this bleak world of bloodshed and horror.

As mentioned, the staging is really quite remarkable: some scenes, including the trek of the soldiers and the horses bobbing along with a multitude of ships from Dover to Calais across the channel is artistically rendered and quite breathtaking.  The pulsing nearness of a life-sized tank and the ricocheting sounds of artillery and machine guns are also present and alive.  The audience is more drawn in by the usage of the entire theatre as a space for action: the horses and players widely use the aisles to run back and forth spreading the canvas of the stage to the entire theatre. I sat orchestra just right of center and had a beautiful view aligning the action; but still far enough back to not see every wire and detail. 

The story itself is  an exercise in simple magnificence: farm boy far from home trying to reconnect a severed bond between himself and his spunky horse.  The end of the story will move anyone to tears and the well-familiar lump in your throat will recur throughout the action.

This is a wonderful piece of theatre, expertly staged.  Further, it is a lovely homage to a hard-to-tell novel by one of the strongest writers in contemporary children’s literature.

The Messenger by Siri Mitchell

Siri Mitchell’s work is often featured here because I think (nay… I KNOW) she is one of the strongest historical voices in the CBA.  One such reason for commending her is her wide range. Unlike many authors of her ilk, she stretches boundaries by playing with narrative voice and writing well-researched books about a variety of time periods.  She is clever, intelligent, writes inspiring heroines dealt interesting hands in a myriad of historical eras and fills her prose with acute verisimilitude which reads in a flawless, effortless manner.

Here, Mitchell’s canvas is the conflicts embedded in the Revolutionary War.  Philadelphia: from its higher society to its low tavern world is peppered with spy rings, mystery, heart-pulsing tension, and cloaked faith even while humanity pits against each other.  The Messenger is divided between the voices and perspectives of young Quaker woman Hannah Sunderland and Colonial spy Jeremiah Jones. Hannah, desperate to aid her rebel twin brother during imprisonment is forced to live outside of her usually rigid and conservative realm.  Jeremiah, knows he needs the guise of Hannah’s innocence to help permeate the prison walls; but is initially unsure if this strict young woman is up to task.  Both Hannah and Jeremiah will have to test their own wills, trust in each other and step outside of their comfort zones to achieve their mutual purpose.

There is a love story in the novel; but it takes back-burner to the well-wrought tension at the forefront. Indeed, Mitchell  does well at plotting and propelling action forward simultaneously developing her characters and their growing attachment in stride.  There is a palpable sense of dramatic irony felt from the first few pages for the anticipating reader; but Hannah and Jeremiah remain realistic unsure of their growing dependence on each other.  Thus, their relationship is meted out slowly and in a believable manner.

I read somewhere ( perhaps on the thread Siri Mitchell contributed to on the Bethany House facebook page) that Revolutionary History was is not deemed overly popular in the CBA: I, however, was fascinated by this unique setting and immediately want more.  It made me want to revisit the beautiful HBO John Adams film and re-read more about our American neighbours and their hard-fought forge toward independence.  I  appreciated Mitchell’s inherent grasp of Quaker traditions: including the “thees” and “thous” implanted in dialect.  This put me in mind of Alice Henderson in Catherine Marshall’s Christy and allowed me to readily establish a narrative constant in my head when reading Hannah’s version of the story.

I also very much enjoyed the unbreakable bond between Hannah and her twin brother. I had often heard that twins can experience the misfortune of one another and that indelible invisible thread that forces Hannah to risk all to save her beloved brother was quite moving.

There is an adamant and abundant theme of grace and trusting; yet, none of the characters are “sickeningly” Christian.  In fact, Mitchell excels at penning heroes and heroines tested by faith and plagued by the doubts that withstand any time period.  None of her heroines are perfect; yet all strive to live up to the metrics of their conscience: which is all that one can ask given the frustratingly blurred line between dark and light so apparent during this time in history.

A few Siri Mitchell review from the backlogs:

Chateau of Echoes

A Heart Most Worthy

Visit Siri Mitchell on the web

I received this review copy from Graf Martin Communications on behalf of Baker Publishing Group.