Where is your Rachel, you might ask

Hi all!

I was at my work conference this past week and was sooo busy!!!

If you missed it, here I am at Breakpoint talking about how the CBA is "Not Your Grandmother's Christian fiction"

My most recent piece on Novel Crossing is a featured review of In the Field of Grace 

On Saturday, my friend and I went to the Shaw Festival to see Arms and the Man which was more than delightful and totally worth the trip down for.  The last time I saw Shaw Fest perform this brilliant play was in 2006. I hope they keep it in the rotation.

Here's me with George Bernard Shaw

I KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO PETER BURKE

I am a few episodes of White Collar behind but I watched the dinosaur one last night and guys… GUYS! I have figured out what is going on

All season 5 it has been: WTF happened to Peter! It’s like he’s never met Neal before. He’s reverted to season 1 Peter.

There were two rational conclusions for why this has been so weird (it can’t be that they re-jigged the writing staff. I mean, NO!  any writers worth their proverbial salt would be as invested in the dynamic over the first four seasons as the rest of us).

The first: seasons 2-4 were all a dream.  This one holds some clout; but I wanted to dig a little deeper.

The second: okay. do you guys remember in Due South when Benny was hit by a car and got amnesia? Of course you don’t: cause unless you were a Canadian in the 90s you never watched Due South. Okay, I’ll recap:Benny ( the Mountie ) and Ray ( the cop) are bestest friends. Like, totally my first exposure to bromance. Like, the greatest and most devout partnership of all-time. But THEN Benny gets hit by a car while chasing a criminal HE LOSES his memory –for like an ENTIRE HOUR OF AN EPISODE! --- and he cannot remember who Ray is.

And Ray is all: BUT I AM YOUR BESTEST FRIEND OF ALL YOUR FRIENDS

And Benny is all: WHAT? WHO ARE YOU!  I AM NOW CYNICAL AND NOT AN INNOCENT ALTRUISTIC IDEALISTIC MOUNTIE

and RAY is ALL  BUT I CARRIED YOU THROUGH THE CANADIAN FOREST WHEN OUR PLANE CRASHED AND YOU WERE DYING

And it’s super heartbreaking but through the power of human will and Ray’s friendship, BENNY IS CURED

So, that leads us to PETER HAS AMNESIA! He doesn’t remember that Neal is his friend. In fact, HE HAS SELECTIVE AMNESIA which allows him to only remember certain instances when he was chasing Neal as a criminal: not the birthday cards and cookies, just the BAD STUFF. Not the hugs and the prom suits and the dinners, just the CRIMINAL NEAL IS A CRIMINAL WHO IS A CRIMINAL? THAT WOULD BE CRIMINALLY CRIMINAL NEAL WHO I CANNOT TRUST AND I FORGET THAT HE SAVED ME FROM KELLER AND THAT HE IS MY BESTEST FRIEND BECAUSE I HAVE SELECTIVE AMNESIA

Hi! I'm Peter Burke I HAVE SELECTIVE AMNESIA

Whew. Problem solved.

There were some cute moments when Neal and Peter FINALLY find the dinosaur :) the smiles and giggles and Peter gets VIP status to the museum

a Veritable Hodge-Podge of Things

 Guys, I have been off the radar here because I have been out doing lots of stuff.  My friend Sonja was visiting from BC and that was a good time.   I reconnected with a ton of people who got shelved due to  life being busy and the days are getting colder and shorter and the big tree is up at Queen’s Park.
I have been spending a lot of time in the distillery, in old town toronto, at the archives and in Corktown for research for my lovely new book that I am SO enjoying writing.  A lot of writing happens at Artisano and I love the King West staff for their multiple outlets and great wireless internet.

I have had numerous social butterfly shenanigans and have been enjoying my gorgeous city in the fall

I’ve also been writing and at the gym a lot ( the last time I wrote a book I put on 5 lbs. That is not happening this time ) and I have been--- oh yah! --- at my real job.

So blogging has been on the back-burner somewhat and I apologize. BUT WHO AM I TO KEEP SOME OF THE THINGS WORTH NOTING FROM BEING NOTED?

On the theatre front: I saw Les Miserables again ( YAY! )

I also saw Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio as performed by the always-amazing Opera Atelier accompanied by the always-amazing Tafelmusik. I really noticed the clash between the cultured Europeans and the “uncivilized”  Turkish moors this time around: Konstanze is reading complete with specs

from the beginning while Blonde is seen to write.  The primitive moors on the other hand, especially the torturously-minded Osmin are instead perpetuating the stereotypes so rampant in Commedia dell’ Arte of ultra comedic violence and exaggerated movements.

The Seige of Turkey by the Viennese propelled Mozart’s 1782 piece: the opera being the most widely performed of Wolfgang’s in his lifetime.  There is a ton of historical resonance here and puts one in mind of that gorgeous little scene in Amadeus where the Emperor proclaims that there were just “too many notes”

The Royal Agricultural Winter Fair!  Went Friday! Had a blast! Tried some good beer, ate a yummy Italian sandwich, held a three month old Nigerian dwarf goat named Daisy.

Daisy and Rachel

I went to the New Zealand/Canada Rugby game yesterday which probably woulda made a lot more sense if I knew anything about Rugby.  The best part was the Haka: the traditional Maori tribal dance performed by the New Zealand team at every game ever.   Besides that, it’s a lot of huddle-huddle-huddle-fall over- huddle-huddle-huddle-fall-over. Sometimes they pile on top of each other.  I don’t get it . We lost. But the company was good.

Last week’s White Collar  was stupid

Does anyone watch Reign? I am thinking of watching an episode so I can laugh myself silly at its inauthenticity.

Oh! MADE FOR TV MOVIES Time

When Calls the Heart complete with screenplay by Michael Landon Jr. is a sappy, kinda-retelling of the Janette Oke book by the Hallmark channel. This might have been a LOT MORE FUN if it actually stuck to Wynn and Elizabeth’s story. But, guys, it doesn’t: a lot of it is framed by this new girl—Elizabeth’s niece, who tosses her Edwardian curls over her Edwardian gown and holds her chin up defiantly and wants to be an INDEPENDENT WOMAN ( even though she is scared to hysteria by a mouse).  As is,  there’s no Wynn-in-red-serge on the prairies, no Elizabeth and Wynn surviving a fire… basically it coulda been awesome ( as in awesomely cheesy) but it wasn’t. But Wynn and Elizabeth looked the part.

Haka!

Celeste in the City was on ABC Family late one night on the weekend ( but earlier because we set back our clocks ) and it is pure tv movie GOLD! In fact, it is really gearing me up for all the crappy Christmas movies I anticipate watching. So, this girl Celeste who is pretty in a “I am wearing glasses and hiding under baggy sweaters a la She’s All That” kinda way moves to New York to start a job as a writer for some magazine and upon arrival learns that her apartment is a hovel but she has a CUTE neighbor who is played by Ethan Embry, whose dimples and receding hairline should be in everything.  She also has a gay cousin ---Xander from Buffy who helps her find herself in several makeover montages with his ultra stylin New York friends.  Meanwhile, Celeste thinks Ethan Embry is cute but  (I AM SERIOUS ) because he likes champagne and is an interior designer she thinks he is gay ( even though he wears overalls with nothing underneath, sings karaoke badly and rides a skateboard which make her generalizations a little odd to her). Ethan helps her decorate her apartment with leftovers from this studio and it is LE AWESOME.   She repays him by setting him up on a date with Xander.   Ethan Embry is all “WHAT! How can you think I am gay?  I am so into you!”  -àthis is an actual plotline

Anyways, she starts trying to move her way up the corporate writing ladder by fraternizing with this slimy boss while the typical Hallmark keyboard soundtrack clangs mournfully in the background.

I mean Ethan’s cute, Xander’s helpful, CELESTE IS DUMB!

She ends up with the right guy and well….. there it is .

I bought the new Sense and Sensibility by Joanne Trollope and mean to read that soon. Guys, my reading. Holy Cow! So behind.  Umm, I have also been dipping into the Bachelor Girl’s Guide to Everything: which is like an early 20^th Century how-to and is quite delightful. I am also wading through a ton of CBA book reviews I am behind on.

I was on Novel Crossing with 10 Works of Classic Literature Every Christian Should Read 
Wrote about Horatio Lyle for Femnista
Feature Review of Melissa Tagg's Made to Last for Novel Crossing 
Vienna Prelude for Classics of Christian Fiction

I am too lazy to provide links for these things.

Next week I am off to Halifax for a Rachel-cation and cannot wait to be back in my favourite province.

My new book ( the one I am ploughing away on ) is  quite a lot of fun! 

Remember When....

Remember that one time when Mindy kissed Danny on the cheek at that music festival?

Well, then this happened last night

and it was amazing and glorious and means a lot in my world

<3 p="">

Random Things

First, I went to my gorgeous friend’s gorgeous wedding on Vancouver Island which is a gorgeous place and led me to ponder what books I have read set in British Columbia. And with the exception of Susan Juby I think I am blanking.  But, at the very least, the Alice, I Think  series

                                                                * * *

I was greatly saddened to hear about the passing of Elizabeth Peters who has the best quotes in the history of the world ---

“No woman really wants a man to carry her off; she only wants him to want to do it.” 

“I disapprove of matrimony as a matter of principle.... Why should any independent, intelligent female choose to subject herself to the whims and tyrannies of a husband? I assure you, I have yet to meet a man as sensible as myself! "

“When one is striding bravely into the future one cannot watch one's footing. ”

I love Amelia Peabody and I LOVE Elizabeth Peters

                                                                * * *

Secondly, here is an interview with the lovely mystery maven and all-time favourite of mine, Martha Grimes --- a nice prelude to the newJURY NOVEL WE GET NEXT YEAR!

                                                                * * *

Over the weekend, I watched 4.5 seasons of Doc Martin  ( which I discovered care of Tessa Afshar's blog ) which is just delicious and wonderful and tickles my funny bone and makes me ache with its adorably gruff, rough-around-the-edges romance.   To add, the series is set in gorgeous Cornwall with a sea-side view to die for.

I love the slow-burning romance between Doc Martin and Louisa, the local primary school teacher who steals his heart at first sight. Not unlike House ( but with more heart, indubitably), Martin struggles with social proprieties and etiquette. His bedside manner is appalling and his treatment of his neighbours and friends leaves a lot to be desire. But, oh! How he loves Louisa.  If you watch, you will hear that he says her name in a softer cadence than any other name---or line ---for that matter. And his odd, crinkly and harsh physiognomy lightens when she is nearby .

It is really quite endearing and but one circle of many, many outlining rings which take us through perplexity, surges of eccentricity, medical cases and the lovely, lofty little wonders of small village life.

and in real life...

So, yah, I like books. We all know this.

But, I also REALLY like baseball.

Our amazing Toronto Blue Jays just completed the most recent game in an 11- win streak sweeping the Orioles. I was at the ballpark TWICE this weekend catching  the live action ...and enjoying the antics of one of my FAVOURITE of our current line-up, the adorable Munenori Kawasaki.

Our short stop steals EVERYONE'S heart, is a club and fan favourite and I was amazed to watch him hit the first homer of his MLB career on Friday evening....

A little Kawasaki treat for you:


Listen to him singing O Canada as he signs baseballs.  Love this guy

Random Musings on 'Hello, Dolly!'

I love Barbra Streisand in her belle époque ( hello! Funny Girl )

I could seriously watch her forever. She is so strikingly alive. She owns the space she inhabits. She flounces and flairs and flings her arms wide and she invites you in: to every harsh and adorably edged quip laced with her New York vernacular, to everyone wide, dewy-eyed glance and profile shot, to her triumphs, insecurities and sheer, strong femininity.

Hello, Dolly! has some pretty terrible musical numbers; but upon recent re-viewing I didn’t pay attention to that. This, friends, is spectacle. This is the type of musical that was meant for the screen: broad sweeping canvases: from Yonkers to nameless parks and avenue parades in New York city in the late 1800’s. This is the type of musical that is best viewed as a lavish, too-much, too-often, over-hyped, over-sung, over-repetitive sweep of musical goodness. This is “Glee” – on speed…. As directed by Gene Kelly: a veteran of movie-musicals with the same timbre.

'Put On Your Sunday Clothes' goes on illogically forever. Random characters show up and dance across train tracks: it is the epitome of delicious musical frounce and frou-frou. The poorly-lyrical “Dancing” number spills from Irene Molloy’s hatshop ( and the misdaventures therein with Cornelius and Mr. Vandergelder ) and out into the street, magnetically picking up other couples like lint to Velcro. 'Before the Parade Passes By' starts in one of the movie’s soft and wistfully reflective moments: urging us to spare a moment for Dolly the vulnerable widow---not Dolly the control freak. Her lavish exterior winnows away and we are given a glimpse of lost hope and utter humanity; before she is swept into the whirlwind of coloured kaleidoscope noise once more; parading with hat and feathers aplomb, over-taking the streets and forcing the attention on her. Craving from a nameless, faceless crowd what she had just mused on losing beneath a tree but minutes before.



filminc.com

"Hello, Dolly!' itself is a wonderful song. Seriously. Louie Armstrong, people, and good old Satchmo shows up, too! But it goes ON FOREVER and EVER! Two reprises. Bridges galore …. The denouement gets you revved up just as the central chorus whirs in again.

This is movie musical whipped cream. This is the feeling after you eat turkey dinner. This is cake.

What interests me most about this entire mélange of strange and wonderful sparkles and tomfoolery is that it is a marriage bred of Thornton Wilder whose silent escapades epitomized communal American life: Our Town, for example, revels in the quiet, the normal, the quilted pattern of community, home, hearth. 'Hello,Dolly!' , based on his play the Matchmaker marries Yonkers with the big broad city; the small Hayfeed clerk with the brokerage of matrimony in the high town. The high city life spilling back into Yonkers at the end of the film ( with Cornelius and Irene ready to flee away with money from the safe and Dolly willing and ready to be tamed) and the eruption of whirl and business descending upon a rural and very 19th century setting.

'Hello, Dolly!', for all its frills and flounces and terrible lyrics makes a bolder statement, thus, it’s about change, disenchantment and …dare I say it…. urban expansion.

Books in the NEWS!

Hi Friends!


First off, the lovely and talented Sarah Loudin Thomas signed a contract ---a three book contract at that--- with Bethany House and I cannot WAIT to read her work. I am kinda a fan already.  Her synopses read highly symbolic; perhaps with a touch of magic realism and she is certain to prove a fresh voice in the realm of Christian fiction.

Secondly, one of my most anticipated books this year Burning Sky by delightful author Lori Benton is available for a two-chapter sneakpeek through Waterbrook/Multnomah.

So, there you have it. Mondays are not so bad after all.


Oh, and in case you are a rabid Vienna Prelude fan like myself and wanna weigh in on casting/location decisions for the movie all the fans should make (what's that site? the one where they raised money for Veronica Mars) well you are welcome to join the new Pinterest board I created. la la la la la.
Elisa and Murphy. Sigh.

How 'Remember Sunday' should have ended.....

MOLLY:{stares at computer. Reads “Ask Molly to Marry Me”. smiles. Turns back to Gustave}

GUSTAVE: everything okay?

MOLLY: AMAZING IT IS ALL AMAZING ! AND I FEEL LIKE THE SUN IS BURNING THROUGH MY FINGERS AND THE WORLD HAS EXPLODED IN BOUTS OF SKITTLES AND SMARTIES AND RAINBOW FUN

GUSTAVE: [takes Molly in his arms] I feel the same way, Molly.  I only remember this moment. Not tomorrow… not yesterday… just this.

[they kiss]

NEXT DAY: EXTERIOR, JEWELLERY SHOP:

MOLLY [voice over] the day that Gustave asked me to marry him was a sunny, New Orlean’s summer day bloated with heat. My too-short skirt stuck to my thighs and the wisps of my perfectly-imperfect braid licked at the sides of my face.  I went to the jewellery store to see Gustave to tell him that everything would be okay. That we should get married. … that is if he forgets.

INTERIOR,  JEWELLERY SHOP

GUSTAVE: MOLLY! It’s you!

MOLLY: [flabberghasted] you know me? what? Really?

GUSTAVE: you see, my short term memory thing was all a dream! I mean, it was real;  but I was able to switch it off in my mind. In my slumber. It looks like the surgery worked it just took a few years to kick in.

MOLLY: wha…? How??? Whaaa?

GUSTAVE: molly, do you remember this?  [extracts ruby ring from envelope]

MOLLY: my great aunt’s ring that was of no particular plot significance?

GUSTAVE: the very one.  Will you take this ring? Will you marry me in this clichéd jewellery-shop cloister of a proposal scene?

MOLLY: Of course I will; but can't you just come up with your own ring? i mean, you're kinda giving me back my own ring....

GUSTAVE: but it has sentimental value and technically I bought it because I bought it from you

MOLLY: True that.

GUSTAVE: and do you promise to remember….

MOLLY: remember what?

GUSTAVE: Remember Sunday.

MOLLY: why Sunday? You mean that day when we went to LA and saw the space stuff and I ran into your ex-fiancee in a plot that went nowhere?

GUSTAVE: yes. Sunday

MOLLY: I still… I don’t… I mean….

GUSTAVE: Sunday, Molly. Remember Sunday

MOLLY: I will never really remember why we are remembering Sunday; but if it means I get to marry you and get that ring and have you sing the Tangled song to me at our wedding then, sure. Why not.

in Which Rachel Watches some Old Catherine Cookson Miniseries: Vol II

Obviously one Catherine Cookson miniseries is not enough. So, Esther and I decided to set forth and watch another (Esther just kinda hopped on the Cookson train and, the way I see it, the more the merrier. After reading through the synopses of several of the excellent adaptations available on Netflix, we both said (on facebook, not to each other, I don't know where she lives--- somewhere in Tennessee ) " THE CAVE ONE" and, thus, readers.....


The Dwelling Place 

Now, in all honesty when this one started I thought: whew! This isn't so bad! This isn't nearly as melodramatic as Tilly Trotter and Rag Nymph

Ha! was I foiled.  You have a good, solid hour of seeming historical normalcy: a young woman whose parents die in the cholera epidemic who, rather than undergo inevitable separation from her brothers and sisters at the Workhouse, moves them into a cave dwelling and tries to make ends meet. Her little brothers work for an abusive foreman down in the mine and her sister goes into service.
Five mouths to feed isn't an easy task for strong Cissy; but she has the mental and emotional support of Matthew Carpenter ( TITUS PULLO...with hair!) who loves her to distraction and helps her build a roof for her cave and stuff and even promises to marry the miller's daughter so he can provide employment and apprenticeship for her brothers.

Nice, misguided guy with heart of gold----girl overcoming odds to keep her family together with virtue and resolve--- OBVIOUSLY these two will go over and under several plights of hills and rocks and crags but finally find romance and happiness.

Heck, no, people.  This is Catherine Cookson's genius. This isn't a fuzzy Easter bunny story; not before the first hour is up and Cissy has a pail of fresh, white milk swinging at her side then she is RAPED by Lord Fischel's snotty son Clive while HIS SISTER WATCHES for NO REASON except they are kinda mad because her brother was trapping on their land and she protected him and OH NO! the overturned MILK bucket is now a SYMBOL of her lost virginity.

I am sweet and a carpenter and you think I am gonna be all Joe Gargery--but I am ACTUALLY USELESS

Anyways, Lord Fischel is all "you are going to sea for raping a girl, young man" and so Clive goes to sea.  Cissy is pregnant with an illegitimate child and it all goes to Hades in a handbasket.

Matthew is trapped in a horrible marriage and his wedding day is, coincidentally, the same day that Cissy gives birth to a little boy.

Of course, Lord Fischel is all: this is my grandson! I sent my son away! I need an heir!  Bring him to me  and Cissy sacrifices and does and then is really sad.

Matthew is all: I love you!  and Cissy is all: WTF? I can't deal with this! you're married! I lost my baby! I was raped! I LIVE IN A CAVE! your martyrdom it's like.... dude..... this is all lost on me.

Anyways, Clive comes back a changed man and genuinely feels badly about raping Cissy. And Cissy his a voicebox for the Cookson mantra and says something like: "The only reason that you raped me Clive is because you are rich and I am poor and if we all were rich and not hungry and didn't live in caves then there would be no crime"  His father is all "here! your son" and Clive is all " I think I should give him back to his mother!" so he takes the boy to see Cissy and Cissy is all "I AM TURNING INTO A PUDDLE OF LOVE" and Clive is all "I am gonna work it so that he can be with you forever; but you have to move outta the cave and into the house" and Matthew is all "BUT I LOVE HER" and Cissy is all "oh! screw you, Matthew; you are WAY too late to this party" 

c/o radiotimes

And then Clive's conniving sister conspires to take the boy away and hide him and so she goes to Cissy's cave with a gun. And Cissy, over the moon because Clive dropped off her son that morning, is all "YOU WILL NOT TOUCH HIM! DON'T TOUCH MY BOY"  and Clive's conniving sister is all " I AM GONNA KILL YOU" and Clive shoots his sister from afar. With his hunting rifle. Because, that's how things go down.  So, RECAP: first, Clive's sister encourages Clive to rape a fair maiden with a milk bucket then LATER Clive kills said sister with a rifle to save the fair maiden (actually former maiden ) and .....then ....incidentally MATTHEW shows up ( late as per always)

Anyways, it seems to be ironing out with 15 minutes left on the Netflix timer.... but.....

IT GETS ALL STELLA DALLAS because Cissy LISTENS to her toddler when he says "I don't like you" and she is heart-broken and gives him back to his grandfather ( because toddlers, as I understand it, never throw tantrums and of course his dislike is true and inherent and he will never like her again or change his mind.)

And Cissy goes back to her cave and Clive is all "I know I raped you; but I was wondering if you wanna get married and forgive me. But, I kinda think you love Matthew."

Cissy: " Matthew? hruasdfjkasd jfkasd jfkl j! HARUMPH! like, he is EONS too late to this party and already married and stuff...."


Clive: "Cool. So, let's let bygones be bygones and we can hook up?  I mean, without my forcing myself on you in a violent and horrible way?

Cissy: "sure. I mean, what have I got to lose but this cave?"


I just... I can't even.....

In Which Rachel watches some old Catherine Cookson Miniseries Vol I

 Guys. Sheesh.  Once, there was a famous and prolific recipient of the OBE who wrote, like, a gazillion melodramatic books that you are likely to find at your grandmother's or stuffed in the bookshelf at that cottage your family rents.

In the 1990s, they made a bunch of these books into miniseries. I’m talking not-so-great miniseries. I’m talking some of your favourite British actors and actresses before they landed their big time roles.  I’m talking British television on the cusp of the production values we know and love today.

Here, being British, they brought these tales to televised incarnation as reverently close to the melodramatic source as possible.  What we get? Catherine Cookson miniseries. … which are just… I mean…..

(note: I know a lot of people are fond of Cookson, I am too! She wrote some gripping tales of love and struggle, of prostitutes and hunchbacks, of poverty and class-divide; but you gotta admit, there is more than a little soap opera in her milieu ---so please, just enjoy the ridiculousness that is a Catherine Cookson miniseries when you take a step back and look at it logically).

The Rag Nymph:

Once upon a time there was a prostitute’s daughter who was cute and had impeccable manners. Her mother would entertain her “uncles” at night (you know as well as I where THAT euphemism is going)and this was against the law. So, one day, her mother was arrested. A kindly-brash old lady, a “rag” lady, who sold weird used wares in, like, a 19^th Century Goodwill kiosk takes the little girl in and raises her (kinda) alongside her (Mill on the Floss, holla!) hunchbacked companion Ben.

The little girl is pursued by the pimp that once “loved” ( okay, love is a strong word; I’m not sure what this is ) her mother who feasts his eyes upon her nubile eight year old form (eww) and promises that she will be his when the girl grows older (eww again). To keep her from being molested or kidnapped by the bad pimp, the hunchback and the rag lady send the little girl to a convent where she meets a rich family and gets stricken with a ruler and is basically kinda Jane Eyre at Lowood; but with more spirit.

Then the little girl grows up into Samantha Stewart.  The hunchback Ben now loves her and the men of the street are, like, “tasty” and Sam Stewart is all “umm… guys, c’mon!”  and she is eventually invited to a party where she wears a blue silk gown while everyone else wears black. Which is, of course, a bad thing. So, the matron of the house, is all “ boys, you should molest her” ( because someone always needs to be threatened by sexual assault in a Cookson novel ) and they try to but Bingley from Pride and Prejudice shows up and saves her.

Then Sam Stewart’s long-thought-dead father shows up for no reason.

Sam Stewart courts Bingley while Ben the hunchback watches all jealous and stuff because, guys, he totes loves her.  But, turns out Bingley just wants Sam as his mistress because she is of a different social class ( okay, the real Bingley? Yah, he never would’ve done that. Ever! He’s Bingley, for god’s sake). So Sam decides “heck no! my self worth!” and turns him down.   Then, the pimp who followed her when she was, like, 8 kidnaps her and takes her to a brothel and sets someone on her. But, not before Ben the hunchback can save her and murder the assailant (well, murder is a strong word, kinda self-defense ) who was planning on preying on her innocent Sam Stewart flesh).   The police don’t really miss the loser who owned the brothel so Hunchback Ben is off the hook and he marries Sam ( sorry, Andrew Foyle ) and they live happily ever after and open a bakery and eat custard tarts.

Tilly Trotter

Now, those of you who are aware of Cookson know that Tilly Trotter is kinda legendary. It is so epic it is a trilogy where the names of the books give away everything in the plot (Tilly Trotter Widowed, Tilly Trotter Wed ) and it was turned into a magnum opus of a miniseries (though it cut out the Wed and Widowed part ).

Tilly Trotter lives with her grandpa and grandma and chops wood and is beautiful with russet curls and a lovely complexion. Her friend Simon, the farmer, is the true love of her life: what with his broad shoulders and dimples and annoying Yorkshire accent.   Tilly is pursued by a jerk from the local village who wants to claim her. Tilly is, like, heck no!  Jerk from Local Village gets mad. Farmer Simon gets married ( who knows why! He doesn’t like his wife, he likes Tilly, they dance at his wedding. It’s all very odd).  On the way home from Simon’s wedding, Tilly is CAUGHT IN A NET by Jerk from Local Village and his Douchey Friends (a literal net, like a fish! ) and they attempt to rape her. But, don’t worry, the master of a local estate is nearby having an affair with his mistress because his wife has turned into a cold fish and they are there to rescue Tilly.

Tilly goes home and learns that they have all been living off of stolen money ( think this plot point is important? Think again. It matters not, you will never hear of it again. In four hours of this lovely tripe, you never hear of that again) and that jerk from the local village is still after her. Also, when she was practicing reels in the church basement one night with the minister’s wife, it got her branded as a witch (????!!!??? ) So, not only is Tilly pursued by lustful jerks from the pub, she is branded a witch.

Thinking her to be all witchy-like, some guys put her in the old town stocks and throw tomatoes at her; but not before a bunch of people can save her and the minister’s wife can accidentally kill one of the assailants (in another plot point that will never be mentioned again).  Tilly is all Hester Prynned in town and Farmer Simon (who hates his wife, still ) and her grandparents are her only friends.   That is, until granddad dies and the mean guys from the pub burn down her house and kill her grandma while Tilly is running errands.

Not knowing what to do, and convulsing with fake, dry tears, Tilly is spirited off to the grand Sopwith estate to look after  the children.  There’s a couple Maria Von Trapp moments with frogs and stuff; but it all works out and everything is fine until their daft mother, is, all “dude! You’re having an affair!" and takes the children away. Not knowing where to go and still branded a witch (!!!????!)  Tilly sets to working in the mines.

And this is where it turns into…like…the cinematic masterpiece it is. The owner of the mine is Mark Sopwith ( the same guy who is the lord of the manor whose kids Tilly looked after) and one day there is a mine accident and Tilly and Mark are trapped beneath rubble.  As fast as you can say “ROCHESTER THIS! DARNIT!” Mark is injured and loses his leg and makes Tilly his housekeeper.  They grow in friendship and he obviously loves her with every uneven whisker on his awkwardly side-burned face; but Tilly is still pining for Farmer Simon who—it would seem--- kinda loves her, too?  I mean, sure? I mean….

Turns out jerk from the village is still after her for some unknown reason ---SHE MUST BE MINE!---and so he intercepts her path home and tries to rape her ; but she throws him down a cliff and he breaks his back….

Back at home, the Master, Mark Sopwith, is all “ Tilly. Be my mistress. I love you; but I cannot divorce my wife; because this is 19^th Century England even though I know she has a lover and has taken my kids”

And Tilly is all “That wouldn’t be right” *insert momentary Jane Eyre fortitude here*

And Master Sopwith is all “You still love Farmer Simon. Turns out his wife died 6 weeks ago.”

And Tilly is  “WHAT?! He is freee!  Love of my life” and she runs to find her Farmer love who is actually shacking up with a woman in the barn and Tilly sees and her heart is broken.

She goes BACK to the manor and Mark Sopwith is, all “ I love you.”

And Tilly is all “MY --*gulp* *sob* ---my heart! My faith in humanity….” And then Tilly goes to her room and while she is there she realizes that it IS Mark that she loves and that she HAS no self-respect so she GOES back to his room in her nightshirt and climbs into bed with him and lives happily ever after as his mistress having happily tossed her morals and resolve out into the dark moors.

In short, masterpieces, both of them. 

the 10 Best White Collar episodes of ALL time ( all time= four seasons)

dedicated to Jessica Barnes 

1.) the one where Neal gives Peter the oxygen in the Comic Book Vault and Tim Dekay wears a cranberry-coloured sweater

2.) the one where Neal is drugged and sings Love is a Many Splendoured Thing and Peter is there and should arrest him; but instead just puts his hand on Neal's hair for a bit  and Neal tells Peter that he is the only one he trusts

3.) the one where Peter is kidnapped and Neal is like HECK NO, KELLER! that's MY PETER and they hug it out (Neal and Peter; not Keller and Peter. That would be weird)

4.) the one where Neal is on an island with Mozzie and Peter is moping in New York with nothing but Ellen, Elizabeth and his Ford for company and he calls Neal on a secret pager phone and loves hearing his voice and then SHOWS UP ON THE TROPICAL ISLAND and they hug it out 

5.) the one where Neal and Peter switch roles and Peter is Neal Caffrey and wears black and is all sly and cunning and a CON MAN

6.) the one where NEAL TEACHES KIDS CHARLES DICKENS and reads Poetry

c/o USA

7.) the one where Peter Makes Coffee for Neal who is all sulky and a mopey teenager and they go and do these panels for an FBI conference and Neal runs along the top of cars and gets shot and Peter is HEARTBROKEN (for a second ) but NEAL was wearing a bullet-proof vest (whew ) and then Peter brushes him off *brush brush brush*  and then we find out that TREAT WILLIAMS is Neal's Dad !!! WHAAA!

8.) the one where Neal escapes from jail and Peter harbours him and tells the bad FBI guys to just put up wanted ads and road blocks (bwahahah! foiled you! FOILED YOU!)

c/o USA

9.) the one where Peter and Neal are BOTH kidnapped by Vincent Adler and diffuse a bomb in a submarine. while looking for treasure. and a music box. with a code. and the Midas touch. you can't make this stuff up, people.

10.) the one where Neal and Peter go to a dating auction (there's actually a prom photo taken of the guys in their suits. honest to Pete)

Danny/Darcy: the Austen archetype in the 21st Century

You love Mr. Darcy. You may not know you do; but you do. If you watch a romantic comedy or even buy into the long-building romance between two characters on your television screen, you are likely encountering facets of Darcy perhaps even without knowing.


The Darcy archetype has been alive and well and thriving for years. For centuries, to be exact and while many people know of Austen and her seminal work Pride and Prejudice many may not recognize that it has infiltrated so much of our popular culture.


A male friend asked me last year about Darcy and to give an example of a modern Mr. Darcy he might know about in modern culture. Off the top of my head I mentioned Nick Miller from New Girl. Not the best example, granted, but a surly, somewhat misunderstood and aloof character who harbours obvious chemistry and fondness for the heroine even though they meet at a cross-roads now and then. This dynamic has changed greatly in latter episodes; leading me to believe that their bond is one of repressed physical and sexual attraction and somewhat diminishes my initial comparison--but, there you are.

Lately, I have sought and found 21st Century Darcy elsewhere....
I am a huge fan of Mindy Kaling. She unabashedly champions the single every-woman, has a smart and sassy sense of humour, is sharp as a tack and speaks openly about her obsession with romantic comedies. Indeed, her creative brainchild The Mindy Project proudly flounces and brandishes so many lovely cliches of the rom-coms she loves. They are an unofficial guide for her as she navigates modern life and relationships. Unlike so many clumsy and stereotypical rom com heroes, Mindy is a genuine article, a bonafide smarty who has her professional life figured out (for the most part) as a talented OB/GYN; but who lacks the ability to separate romantic ideals from real life in her personal spheres.

Tell me that you don't relate to this, oh bookish, romantic, dreamy reader friend of mine.

Often, she cites how romantic comedies have provided life lessons she lives by---- or strives to live by. The line between fictional Mindy on screen and the Mindy we meet in her hilarious memoir is ironically as blurred as on-screen Mindy's disability to detract from the rom coms of her youth.


Mindy's favourite romantic comedy in the tv series is You've Got Mail --- an archetypal romantic comedy of letters and epistolary flair that, itself, is an homage to a play (Parfumerie), a musical (In the Good Ol' Summertime) and a Lubitsch piece The Shop Around the Corner). It is also a Pride and Prejudice re-telling before the far more obvious Bridget Jones' Diary. So blatant is the comparison, writer Nora Ephron has both of her characters reading and mentioning the piece unaware that their story greatly mirrors the triumphs and challenges of their literary counterparts Lizzie and Darcy.


In the New Yorker last year, Kaling wrote the following: " But what I’d really like to write is a romantic comedy. This is my favourite kind of movie. I feel almost embarrassed revealing this, because the genre has been so degraded in the past twenty years that saying you like romantic comedies is essentially an admission of mild stupidity. But that has not stopped me from enjoying them. I like watching people fall in love onscreen so much that I can suspend my disbelief in the contrived situations that occur only in the heightened world of romantic comedies."

She buys into the pretences, the contrived cliches, and she admits to loving them. In her series The Mindy Project which she developed, created and often scripts, she bombasts her audience with a parade of these lovely tropes and conventions. Never more obvious than in Mindy's on-screen Darcy-esque counterpart, Danny Castillano.


It is easy for people to misread any love/hate relationship as one reflecting the Lizzie and Darcy mould. Yes, theirs has its antagonistic moments; but the greater the depth of the building relationship the greater the intellect behind the creator and the creation. I argue that since Mindy Kaling has self-deprecatingly asserted her love for this archetype that she buys into it in the best, most grounded way possible. Danny is a modern-day Darcy.  One of the best examples, it turns out, to give a friend you're out for beers with who asks "What's a Darcy today? Who is a 21st Century Darcy?"  Hear me out: This will never happen again, I caution you, but I'd like to start with an unlikely source for further evidence. Read how Danny is described in The Mindy Project wiki (I can't believe I am sourcing a wiki): He has a very strong, intense personality capable of running over weaker, less assertive personalities; it is best tempered by someone who has an equally strong, assertive character. He is very vocal in his opinions (especially when it comes to  Mindy) and often comes across as a jerk. Despite this, he cares deeply for the people around him and is very loyal and dependable. His respect is hard-won, but once won, it is also hard to lose.

Correct me if I'm wrong; but the latter part of this contributor's perspective smacks of a chapter 11 conversation between Lizzie and Darcy in which the latter admits that his "good opinion once lost is lost forever." 

I may be pulling at strings; but I do think that there is propensity for modern writers to draw on literary predecessors from the well of perfect heroes. Pride and Prejudice is one of the original romantic comedies, not unlike Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing . Human nature doesn't change, at least in its core, over time and neither does love. Sure, it takes on different forms and freedoms and is not labelled as easily as it once was, but at its centre, the experience of two people meeting and the obstacles they overcome to be together are very much the same.

One of the reasons I am attracted to Danny as the modern-day Darcy archetype (Darchetype? tee hee) is that he really is good-hearted when it counts--- Not unlike Darcy is forced into action to reveal Wickham's wrong-doings and traipse through London trying to recover Lydia before she can make it to Gretna Green. He thinks Mindy is ridiculous (much as Darcy thinks Elizabeth's family is ridiculous); but respects her nonetheless.  He shows up at her Christmas party and acts as saviour when she learns that her current beau is a cheat and a liar and comforts her thereafter. More still, he takes the Christmas speech she has written in her bouncy, loquacious way and reads it himself: completely out of persona. He even brings a Gingerbread House (tell me you didn't just die. you did. you died. he brought a Gingerbread House)

When an old flame from camp shows up in New York on leave from the army, it is Danny who picks up the pieces when Mindy's almost-love must leave for duty. In his gruff, typical way, Danny cajoles Mindy; but stays with her nonetheless.  I couldn't help thinking in this moment of a helpless Darcy encountering Elizabeth who has just learned of Lydia's misfortune. He feels a tad awkward, more than a little helpless, but he stays.  Danny also stays, incidentally, with Mindy when she is in the midst of a crying jag when she breaks up with her boyfriend . He is awkward, yes,  but he is there. 

The qualities that make Darcy....well... Darcy are not the affable ones that we find in a Bingley (a modern counterpart to Bingley might be Jim from the Office, per se, a show that, coincidentally, Mindy Kaling wrote several episodes of); but in the deep-seeded gold and fibre that force him to act in moments of goodwill. Often surly, often misunderstood, he's not at his best with crowds or with people; but the right person and circumstance can draw him out. 

I'm not lining one against the other in comparative certainty, inasmuch as I am proudly adhering to a nod: a slight nod to source material.  Kaling buys into the tropes of romantic comedies and promenades them for the world to see.  In doing so, she essentially tips her cap at a master, at Austen, who created dishy, dark and swoon-worthy heroines, who are at their best when just a little out-of-reach.

The one comparative certainty I can state without hesitation is that in both cases the reader/viewer is more enticed when these two characters are in the room together, their chemistry so palpable you want to shake them and ask them to stay awake and pay attention.  Women revisit 6 hours of the BBC Pride and Prejudice for those lovely, listless, dreamful moments between Lizzie and Darcy: even from their misguided early start). In the same way, I come alive when Mindy and Danny are in the same scene; much like the way the volume on my television somehow gets louder during a commercial.  I am alive for them. I am rooting for them. I want my 21st Century smart and sassy Lizzie to get her surly, "handsome jerk" ( as Mindy  describes Danny) Darcy and I want them to live happily-ever-after ( but off-screen. After the end of the show. The build-up is so much more fun than the resolution ).


Side note: Not unsurprisingly, Chris Messina, the actor who plays our Danny/Darcy, has a few romantic comedies under his belt: two of them Ephron films ( he was a bookseller at Fox Books in You've Got Mail--- how perfect! and he was the modern love-interest in Julie and Julia. More recently, he starred opposite Jenna Fischer in The Giant Mechanical Man: a quirky film that I LOVED)

WHITE COLLLARRRRRR

Guys! did you see the season finale of White Collar. First off, it had a plot-twist.  I have always been able to figure out a White Collar plot-twist; but for the first time they threw me off. I feel so cheated.

at first Neal and his Dad: all fun and games

Secondly, HEART-BREAKING!



Thirdly, my friend Gina and I were sure that Sam/James was going to get killed off. Maybe accidentally shot by Peter ( after we saw last week's preview of the episode )

but I didn't think at all that Sam/James would turn out to be AWFUL and FRAME PETER FOR MURDER!!!!

It had the usual tropes and "stock" moments: cool little caper, June, Mozzie, Mozzie's one-liners, Sarah,  New York moments, the new "Fowler", tracking a valuable possession (box) full of secrets..... but it didn't follow the trajectory I anticipated.

Instead, it flipped the tables. We all kinda wanted James/ Sam to redeem himself, to prove to the Neal who always wondered who he was, that he was decent at core, inherited from his wronged father.

Instead...well... his father kinda isn't decent at all and truly believes that there always needs to be someone to take the fall.

And now... the coolest part.

Last week, Treat Williams followed me on twitter ( i know!!!)  and obviously I took to twitter with my heartbreak and rage and this happened

Treat feels badly. I know he does!


And this little twitter conversation helped numb the pain of PETER ASDFHJASDFJASDKFJASDFKJASDF A!!! being arrested and in handcuffs and Neal watching helplessly and PRISON BREAK! we need a White Collar PRISON BREAK

the good old days 

Literary Scavenger Hunt

There is a mistake in this really fun list.

Can you find it?

hints:

not grammatical or spelling

not a personal preference mistake ( i mean, we'd be at THAT all day: obviously MORTIMER over Eugene Wrayburn)


go forth and find and report said findings

people who SHOULDA made the list--STEPHEN MATURIN! 

Condensed 'White Collar': S 4. Ep. 1: WANTED

Soon, friends, White Collar season four returns. Some of you are all, like; but RACHEL, that aired so long ago (Summer) and I CANNOT REMEMBER what happened! Fear not! I gotz your back, friends. I have recaps of the book-end episodes ( the two best episodes ) to refresh your memory:

I give you: ULTRA-CONDENSED WHITE COLLAR 

 


PREVIOUSLY ON WHITE COLLAR:

PETER: YOU STOLE THE ART! IT WAS YOU! 

NEAL: PROVE IT [but he really actually stole it]

BEAU BRIDGES: I want NEAL to work with me in WASHINGTON! 

PETER: but that would SEVER our bromance. besides, I am the only one who can handle NEAL! I understand him! HE COMPLETES ME! 

MOZZIE: I want to go to an island in the sun

NEAL: *torn* I love you Mozzie, and I want an Island in the sun; but I also love PETER and EL and JUNE and this little family in NEW YORK! plus, my FATHER is dead and ELLEN! ELLEN is back in my life. Kinda.

BEAU BRIDGES: I am ONTO YOU! I am arresting you and taking you to WASHINGTON FOREVER

PETER: *looks at NEAL and shakes his head, which in WHITE COLLAR LAND means: RUN! RUN AWAY!, NEAL! RUN!*

NEAL: *cuts his anklet, leaves New York and looks sullen on an airplane*




ON A BEACH IN ONE OF THOSE HOT PLACES
NEAL: *glistening, walks out of the water a la the same shot they used in Casino Royale when Daniel Craig was sporting his shorty shorts*

MOZZIE: This is the LIFE! 

NEAL: I kinda miss New York sometimes; but look! a disposable love interest...
DISPOSABLE LOVE INTEREST: I disposably love you

MOZZIE: *drinks sangria*

NEAL: *is in cahoots with some Island thief*


MEANWHILE.... back in NEW YORK
BAD FBI AGENT: I WANT CAFFREY and I WANT HIM NOW! 

PETER: put up roadblocks and wanted posters!! 

BAD FBI AGENT: FIND him and bring him to MEEEE!

PETER: *perturbed* this isn't fair! He's my BESTIE! *mopes*


MEANWHILE in a FORD which is the most AWESOME CAR in the world and there is NOTHING like A FORD, EL and PETER are on STAKEOUT [in a FORD]
PETER: *eats devilled ham*

EL: You miss Neal. I can tell because we don't need to speak, our love is so silently strong. Also, this FORD can read my deepest thoughts and desires, so cool it is.

PETER: *off-handedly smirks about NEAL being difficult. But, really he is ACHING inside*

EL: So FBI BAD GUY wants NEAL

PETER: we should find this ELLEN person. I need to get to NEAL and warn him. Let's DRIVE this AMAZING FORD SOMEWHERE AMAZING


AT ELLEN'S:
PETER: i'm a friend of NEAL'S

ELLEN: GO AWAY


AT ELLEN'S:
EL *magically* would you like to come to my house in brooklyn and tell my husband and I where NEAL is?

ELLEN: *shrugs* you're pretty and nice. fine.




MEANWHILE BACK AT THE BEACH IN ONE OF THOSE REALLY HOT PLACES:
NEAL: *cahoots with other beach-y con guy*

DISPOSABLE LOVE INTEREST: serves sangria

MOZZIE: "this is the life, Lolana"* talks to his bobble-head hula girl doll*

NEAL: Look! i'm going to make an elaborately ornamented sandcastle and add Christmas lights.


MEANWHILE BACK AT THE BURKE'S
PETER *torn and saddened* : So you see, ELLEN, if anything happened to NEAL, I would just throw myself off a cliff. It might seem odd my emoting like this about another man in front of my wife, but she feels the same way; because NEAL is our FAMILY. 

SATCHMO: *growls jealously*

ELLEN: here's NEAL'S top secret pager number

PETER: thanks!




LATER THAT NIGHT [still at the BURKE'S]
PETER *pages the TOP SECRET PAGER while making a sandwich, presumedly devilled ham*
Later than THAT:*his cell phone rings*

[brrrrrring.....brrrriiiiinnnnnggg......]
NEAL* from beach house*: ELLEN is that you! 

PETER: no, it's PETER

NEAL: I was kinda sleeping here Peter, let me run out onto the sand while the moon catches my wavy black hair

PETER: *bites sandwich* Sure, I can wait

NEAL* now on the sand as it ripples like a ribbon on the waves and shards of moonlight catch his chiselled face and peppered stubble*: Peter, I am not coming back to New York

PETER: there is a BAD FBI guy after you I NEED TO PROTECT YOU! *emotes*

NEAL: I appreciate you and I miss you; but my life is here on the beach with Mozzie and cavorting with this criminal and drinking sangria with my disposable love interest

PETER: be careful 

PETER:*TRACKS NEAL'S location and DIANA and JONES set up a big operation in the dining room* 

NEAL*: throws cell phone ruefully into the water and ALMOST CRIES*


AT THE FBI:
DISTINGUISHED FBI SENIOR GUY WHO IS IN A FEW EPISODES NOW AND THEN: Do you know where Caffrey is?

PETER: I must go to him

DFSGWIIAFENAT: fine. but let it be on your conscience. this is not bureau business.


MEANWHILE in the ISLAND in the SUN
NEAL:* gets deeper and deeper with this bad guy*

DISPOSABLE LOVE INTEREST :*serves sangria at the bar*

MOZZIE: *talks to Lolana and has a good time with a hawaiian shirt on*


MEANWHILE PETER shows up on THE ISLAND  in a MINT green POLO SHIRT and goes to the nearest hat shop
PETER: have you seen this guy! he wears hats

HAT SHOP GUY: yes!


....THEN PETER GOES TO THE BAR WHERE THE DISPOSABLE LOVE INTEREST WORKS:
PETER: have you seen this guy

DISPOSABLE LOVE INTEREST: *conflicted* umm.... he's kinda hiding around here

BAD FBI GUY: LOOK who SHOWED UP, suckers! *holds up wanted posters* I want THIS guy *points to picture of NEAL'S face with disdain* I WANT HIM DEAD OR ALIVE!  See, Burke, you're not the only person who got here immediately after commercial break. WARP SPEED! have a sangria!

 
GUYS AT THE BAR: we want MONEY! *run out in all directions to find NEAL for cash reward*

PETER: *so angry and traumatized he forgets his wallet on the bar dashes over to BAD FBI GUY* YOU CAN'T HURT MY CI! I will foil your villainous plot and I will save Neal like the wonderfully moral emblem of greatness that I am! 

Little ISLAND URCHIN *steals PETER'S wallet from bar*

BAD FBI GUY: *snortles* Your WALLET was stolen; but you can FIND CAFFREY and bring him to ME and get the billion dollar reward

PETER: *harumphs* YOU SUCK

IN THE STREETS PETER chases the LITTLE ISLAND URCHIN around and then up a steep staircase.
PETER: *hears NEAL'S voice and dies of happiness*

NEAL: hiding behind a door* COME ON IN

PETER: *comes in! *

NEAL:* hands PETER his wallet*

PETER *looking like he just won a million bucks and its his birthday and he is on a treasure hunt with old flags while riding a unicorn, so happy is he, HUGS NEAL for a long time*

NEAL *looks with the I CAN'T BELIEVE I AM LOVED look*

MOZZIE: Suit! 

PETER: that other FBI GUY IS BAAAAAAAAAAAD! he wants your blood! 

MOZZIE: everyone wants our blood because we have a bounty on our heads!

NEAL: *calm and collected* Let's STAGE A PLAN! 

Stay tuned: next time NEAL and PETER find out IMPORTANT PAST THINGS ABOUT NEAL'S PAST with TREAT WILLIAMS and they GO TO A CONVENTION.

Rachel's Favourite Books of the Year

Here we go! My favourite reads of the year. It was a good reading year for me. Well over 100 novels read (I lost count and don't keep track and don't review them all here, as you are aware )

Code Name Verity (Elizabeth Wein)

William Henry is a Fine Name (Cathy Gohlke)

Attachments (Rainbow Rowell

The Curse of the Narrows: The Halifax Explosion, 1917 (Laura M. MacDonald) I read this book specifically for research I am doing on a book I am writing of my own; but it was just so compelling and riddled with first hand accounts that it was enjoyable and disturbing and gripping in its own right.


At Drake's Command (David Wesley Hill) Review forthcoming shortly. This book came out of nowhere when the author contacted me about possibly reviewing. It is, without a doubt, the best piece of nautical fiction I have read since the Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey. Honestly, I have waited for years for a great new nautical series...and this is it! More later....


So LITERARY:
It's been a great year! Full of Charles Dickens and my own personal explorations of Ireland and Scotland during a lovely UK trip!

Outside the Conan Doyle Pub 

The Writer's Museum in Edinburgh

It's been a great year! Full of Charles Dickens and my own personal explorations of Ireland and Scotland during a lovely UK trip!


Also, it saw the release of my favourite novel in exceptional film form......




Happy New Year and Happy Reading!

High Faluting Mumbo-Jumbo: a treatise on Barney Snaith, Morgan Harris and the Montgomery breed of Romantic Idealism

A romantic friend of mine recently got married. She’s a kindred spirit in the truest sense of the word. One of those girls, like most of us, who set up our castles on fluffy clouds and dream, with high standards, of the man we will eventually marry. She, like me… like so many of us, had it all worked out in her head in perfect connect-the-dots fashion since childhood.

The man she married: who swept her off her feet and whom she is ridiculously happy with--- was not that ideal. At all. Rather, he was far more perfect for her than her imaginative trajectory could have foreseen. 

Whenever I talk about ideals, the constructs that shape we imaginative sorts from the rest of normal humanity, I note that I am usually speaking to women who, like me, were very much shaped by the tales of LM Montgomery.  There is nothing LM Montgomery does if not instill in one an absolute early-founded penchant for romance.  It’s unlike any other romance  you will read about or experience in your head, her romance.  It does wonders for your psyche and your imaginative constructs: mostly because these yarns are read in the formative years where it is absolutely essential for you to identify with her spirited heroines.

The women I know who don’t share a passion for Montgomery somehow evaded her in childhood: when the purple prose, the wistful, whimsical lanes that spun to coloured,  christened homesteads, the long glances and the high-spirited “high faluting mumbo jumbo” ( to quote Kevin Sullivan’s Gilbert Blythe) were rampant in our playful imaginations.

oh HIIIIII morgan!!! nice coat-tails

While I wouldn’t trade my long and quite intense relationship with Montgomery…. I admit that my inability to find the same romance and happiness a lot of girls my age have found in real life has something to do with her helping me establish standards.  Not just for men: not just for her heroes and their inherent qualities [or exterior qualities---Barney Snaith’s dimples, for one, Andrew Stuart’s manner of speech, for another]; but mostly for the relationship that the heroes in her novels share with their heroines.  The preternatural kinship that strings two souls together.  It’s quite wonderful to read and re-read and read again the banter between Dean Priest, say ( not condoning him as a perfect hero; but recognizing how attractive he can be when he is at his whimsical and gnome-like best) , when he is at his best with Emily or the playful way that Valancy and Barney can read each other’s thoughts without anything being spoken.

The other night, after a text conversation with the friend listed above, I confronted this age-old idea of ideals.  I fall for them all the time. I create and construct them into something far beyond myself.  I am guilty of it as many of my ilk are.  I settled in with the Sequel to Anne of Green Gables as imagined by Sullivan.

Part of my appreciation for the Sullivan adaptation comes in the composite sketch of Morgan Harris who groups together different characters from the Anne series to create a dashing hero straight from Anne’s imagination and erstwhile conversations with Diana.  She has already explained to Gilbert and Diana what her ideal man is and she is fairly certain she won’t find him in Avonlea.  When she first encounters Morgan, she is writing on the banks of the breezy North Shore near the White Sands hotel.  Her pages flutter away as she loses herself in the language of “dark foreboding tones” and similar vernacular of her Purple Prose and it is Morgan, looking straight as if she were Pygmalion and he was constructed in physical form, who assists her.

[perhaps the only non-Gilbert/Anne video on youtube]:

Her second encounter with Morgan, after the Clam Bake is somewhat more typically Anne.  At this point she has confronted Gilbert for his silly school boy ways and has had to inform him that she will never feel the way about him the way he does her.  Morgan is rambling on the dark road and runs into Anne’s carriage. It is here that he is first treated with typical temperamental Anne aplomb.  He tries to be a gentleman, drips a few sarcastic lines that put one in mind of Andrew Stuart or Barney Snaith, raises a dashing eyebrow and spirits off.

She encounters Morgan again ---and for a far longer period of time – when she accepts the position at Kingsport Ladies College in New Brunswick and tutors his daughter.  Anne is taken with Morgan because he is like one of the heroes from Averil’s Atonement come to life (sans Rolling Reliable Baking Powder ).

When I express my love for Morgan ( noting that he is very much my ideal: an older man with experience, a dark past, a penchant for adventure---he’s a ship’s captain for God’s sake--- and a love of culture ) I am often derided by those who are passionate Gilbert fans.  What they might momentarily fail to remember through the veil of loving All Things Gil is that Morgan was very much Anne’s perfect man, too.

Indeed, I think, and this is speaking to Sullivan’s conception of course, that the Anne of that series might definitely have accepted Morgan’s offer of marriage had she not run into Gilbert in town on a weekend for a medical conference.  It is seeing him again that prompts her to take up her writing about home and experience another spell of homesickness. She drops the “high faluting mumbo jumbo” of her romance stories and, subsequently, is able to turn her back on the pitch-perfect romantic life offered her by her supposed ideal.  Seeing an island boy and connecting him with a sprint of creativity with a nostalgic turn towards Green Gables and days of old severs any chance that Morgan Harris had of winning Anne’s love.

He’s not a dark or sinister hero, he doesn’t hurt her or impose negativity on her; in fact he might be the most important person who comes into her life. It is only when she is confronted with her ideal that she recognizes that it will never bring her happiness.  There is a flesh and blood incarnation of Anne’s lofty man who will read her  “Tennyson by firelight”; but upon his materialization, she is driven home and subsequently to Gilbert.

As much as Montgomery champions lofty ideals and purple prose and romance in all of its fleeting and fluttering forms; so does she inspire thoughtful recognition that the best romances are often found outside of the lines we sketch and trace for ourselves.

In this way, I am put in mind of the ultimate Montgomery dreamer, Valancy Stirling.  The Blue Castle is my favourite Montgomery romance because it is this very idea made manifest.  The very title speaks to Valancy’s eponymous ideal situation: a castle not unlike the Alhambra in Spain with turrets and nooks where heroes wait on her every whim and desire.  The heroes in the Blue Castle, we learn, change as Valancy gets older. At the beginning, on the morning of her 29^th birthday, her hero looks very much like a man she has recently seen around Deerwood: the notorious Barney Snaith.  When circumstances inspire Valancy to propose marriage to Barney, she is made more acutely aware that her initial ideal has melded into something that this man and his life circumstance have provided. Her Blue Castle is now a Muskoka cottage, her ideal prince is now Barney.  On the morning of her hasty wedding , she thinks back to her childhood conception of marriage, of the day of her wedding: of what her dress might be, the cake, what the groom would say and how he would stand.  Instead, she has realized that her perfect happiness transcends the daydreams that so occupied her when she was relegated to a lifeless existence on Elm Street.  Just as the fateful night after she first sees Barney scrambling up from underneath his car melds the previous prince of the Blue Castle into a roguish like creature with dimples and “the look of an amused gnome”, so does Tom MacMurray’s cabin on Barney’s island become more castle than she could ever want. So does this man with a supposed reprobate past and a somewhat unconventional attractiveness become more than she ever wanted.

Montgomery’s heroines teach us to dream, to construct ideals, to build our castles in the sky; but when they are confronted with their happy ending and their perfect pairings it is often beyond their wildest dreams. My recently married friend said that she never dreamt it would feel the way it does. I guess this is what happens when you find your perfect match.  I guess it transcends these ideas and our wildest imaginations. It isn’t perfect or cookie-cutter, it is more the tingling surprise that Valancy experiences when Barney’s car breaks down in the backwoods of Muskoka after a roaring party at Chidley Corners. There, in the barrens of nowhere, with Barney sitting silently beside her, any ideal that took her far from small Ontario and to the greatest spanses of the world with the most deliciously enigmatic hero could never replace the perfect happiness she feels sitting next to that which makes her whole. 

To summarize, I think that Montgomery woman should hold out for ideal because it will occur in whatever shape or way it is meant to.  It will more greatly surprise and bewilder and delight if confronted with a life of refusing to settle for anything less than pure happiness.