Venetia by Georgette Heyer

Venetia is a lovely story and it just smacks of LM Montgomery.  So many times I think that Maud would’ve loved Heyer should she have lived to experience the author at the height of her Regency-writing powers.

The opening scene in Venetia is memorable to fans of romance: an ultimate “meet cute.” Venetia, having strayed from her languid, opulent property to search for berries at the deserted property adjacent (its owner known to spend little time at the estate) runs into a rakish rogue who, seeing her bonnet askew, her cheeks rosy, her figure a pinnacle health, plants his eager lips on her unexpected ones.

From this chance encounter springs one of the freshest connections of intellectual equals in all of historical fiction.  Jasper, Lord Damerel, has been thwarted in love and while maintains a large fortune, languishes his time beguiled by the “orgies” of the ton.  Enamoured by nothing and no one, his is a second-hand, vapid existence until the entrance of Venetia and her sickly, scholarly brother, Aubrey.

Venetia is sequestered in her family homestead having been given no introduction to society. At over five and twenty, she is very much a green girl: shelved in a rambling mansion, caring solely for her brother without the slightest prospects of travel, culture or true romance.  Two local men fight for her affections; but neither is up to her speed.  With great solitude, we learn, Venetia has garnered a great capacity for the written word.  Paired with her swift mind and biting tongue, Venetia is very much the thinking girl’s heroine.

Venetia is well-met with Jasper Damerel and beguiled by his worldly adventures.   A happenstance wherein her beloved brother his laid up at Damerel’s estate requires Venetia to often be by Damerel’s side. He is immediately smitten with her beauty, erudite nature and her rapid-like brain and to see true devotion and love blossom between two “kindred spirits”, best friends, is a mature and favourite type of romantic story.

Damerel’s past, however, and is now acute adoration of Venetia dictates that he spends hours worrying about how his reputation might sully hers.  Thus, Heyer winds us on a bramble and briar path of mis-encounters, family secrets and words unspoken. Readers, it is HEART BREAKING when Damerel sacrifices for Venetia’s best interest.  He cannot bear to live without her, he loves her to “the end of madness”; but he worships her so much he cannot bear to think that he would mar her reputation and her chance at a wonderfully wholesome future.

The repartee between Venetia and Jasper just heightens the reader’s pleasure in excavating a perfectly adult love affair. The end scene is TO DIE FOR and Jasper and Venetia’s final 

( expected ) declarations are some of the best Heyer ever wrote.

This is very Jane Austen with a dash of roguishness and a love so intense it recalls the preternatural cry across the moors when Rochester, in despair, hankers for Jane. If you have even the slightest romantic bone in your body and the slightest respect for a woman who certainly knew how to spin a Regency yarn then do yourself the pleasure of dipping into my favourite Heyer novel so far. There are some moments when I prefer Heyer to Jane Austen. Dictated by her time and sensibility, Austen’s romances could be rather reserved in exposition where as the gap of a century or so renders Heyer’s more modern infusion of romance into Regency fare is welcome, impassioned and sparkly.

Courtney liked it, too!

Wuthering Heights: 2011 dir. Andrea Arnold

From the Toronto International Film Festival Programmer's Notes:No starched lace, no panoramic views, no sweeping score — Andrea Arnold has reinvented Wuthering Heights.  

director Andrea Arnold

This Bronte Aficionado has been fortunate this year: first, I had the privilege of attending an advanced screening of Jane Eyre  (my review here) and tonight I had the opportunity to attend the North American premiere of Andrea Arnold’s bold new Wuthering Heights at the Toronto International Film Festival. According to the director’s preluding talk, this film was only finished last Thursday and I am one of the first appreciative handfuls to have witness it on screen.

Before I speak to the visionary adaptation, I feel led to couch my opinions within a broader framework. First, I think when speaking to Wuthering Heights, we should reserve the term Romance to infer its original, philosophical connotation and not its inclusion in modern sensibility (namely, flowers, kissing, sweeping violin music). Secondly, I must confess to coming to this story through a lens of someone who appreciates the source material; but has been more befuddled than fond of  it. Truthfully, I have not read Wuthering Heights since high school. I referenced it in undergrad; but never a full-on re-visitation. However, to speak to the novel’s stoic implantation on my formative psyche, tonight proved that reams of its prose are still firmly housed---verbatim--- in my memory….Why?....

"Heathcliff" and "Catherine" at a screening at the Venice Film Festival

...Because Wuthering Heights acts as empathy to our darker, stormier sensibilities and Arnold’s vision encapsulates this vapid and bleak spot. This is not your Grandmother’s Wuthering Heights with flowerily cravat-ed Laurence Olivier, nor is it your Masterpiece Theatre Wuthering Heights. This adaptation strips the novel to its barest infrastructure. It reads between Emily Bronte’s lines and excavates what is implied; yet previously unsurfaced in film. In a line of adaptations which blot out sensual realism with swelling music and refined, passionate poses, this adaptation dares to go where we don’t want Wuthering Heights to go: beyond the seeming endless romance to the sinister world of abuse and alienation.

As does the novel, the film begins with Heathcliff book-ending his relationship with the now deceased Catherine Linton, nee Earnshaw. His dirty fingers greedily trace their imprinted names on crude cement (writings on the wall are a major motif in the film), his forehead bears the marks of self-inflicted despair and the window above him is victim to the portentous scraping of branches against grimy glass.  From here, we begin Heathcliff’s journey as residual outcast on the humble farm, Wuthering Heights.

While I took notes throughout the film, my perception of the film will be at times infused with Arnold’s speaking to it in the  Q and A following. Relevant here is passion for location.  She wandered Emily Bronte country and found that unlike the grand estates our mind’s eye might paint when we hear the names Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, her encounters were with humble hill farms, bleak solitude, and couplings of houses that never once stretch to becoming a full village or hamlet.  Into this solitude wanders Heathcliff, a tow-along by the proprietor of Wuthering Heights, the violent Mr. Earnshaw.  Bronte describes Heathcliff as having the physiognomy of a “dark skinned gypsy” and here, reasonably (and cited at least 6 times in the novel, according to Arnold’s research), played by a black actor. 

From Heathcliff and Cathy’s first encounter they are tied by a virile passion which very much pits them (and pairs them ) against the stormy land which they love.  As much as Heathcliff is abused by Cathy’s older, envious brother Hindley, so Heathcliff and Cathy abuse each other: wrestling often physically for an odd equality.

Their developing relationship is told almost wordlessly and entirely through Heathcliff’s perspective, as the whole of the film is.  Through chinks in broken glass, the sliver of light through a crude door, always barred and alienated, we see the workings of this dirty farmhouse through Heathcliff who desperately wants to find belonging in a home without homeliness. He is given half a perspective, often, as he is given half of a thriving life.

His is a cold world and the elements match his rather stormy and ardently violent make-up.  A sensuous film, the cinematography sweeps through the Moors: gutting the murky under-earth of torrid soil, catching a small bird or bug mid-flight, the bloodletting of a sheep, a rabbit caught in a trap.  Heathcliff is paired with animal characteristics: he is the trapped rabbit, the hounded dog, the butting horse.  It is an elemental and earthy film which sets the landscape up as the character it plays in the novel.  Don’t expect a soundtrack to lead your emotional experience as the noise bleating from the screen reflects the bold nature therein: the breathy grunts of a horse, the panting of a man out of breath, the sound of a whip against Heathcliff’s punished flesh.  Arnold spoke to how she wanted you to feel greatly while watching the film and throughout I noted how sensuous it was: from Heathcliff running his hands over a wool carpet, or touching Catherine’s hair, to the scrape of firewood, to frozen breath escaping in the bleak midwinter, Arnold uses her canvas well.

What is not spoken is surmised and what is spoken is done so when only in Heathcliff’s hearing. This is his story so the famous scene wherein Catherine reveals she means to marry Edgar Linton, while still loving Heathcliff, is truncated by Heathcliff’s abrupt leaving.

As Victorian psychology played with the idea of “good blood” and “bad blood”, original sin and inherent evil, so this exploration of cruelty speaks to how one’s circumstance, experiences in compassion (and likewise droughts without) inform one’s later years.  In a strangely sad cycle, the film which begins with Heathcliff tormented as an outsider, ends with Hareton showing the same sadistic tendencies: trapped at Wuthering Heights, treating harmless animals the same way he feels treated.

Human nature is starkly observed here.  This is not Romance in the traditional sense.  This is not a warm story and certainly not one I would recommend to those who love period dramas as played by the BBC.  However, for Bronte purists, this adaptation is a must.  While you will rail against seeing this resounding classic stroked with grey, you will admit this visceral and vapid incarnation speaks to the level of Bronte’s dimensional psyche. 

Arnold spoke of being confounded by the book, found it a work that she feels is unable to be translated into another medium. She had never seen previous adaptations and so took her vision directly from the novel.  She hit on points we rose-gloss over in our need to derive some proper sense of sentimentality and sensuality   Wuthering Heights is a novel based so much on undying love as undying lust, of strange, sadistic passion, obsession and the need to cling to the one human who acknowledges you with even the slightest bit of companionship. When we see Heathcliff desperately clinging to Cathy’s dead form we know that he is trying to extract any bit of warmth that might still hold him to earth.

 Arnold joked in both pre and post talk of how everyone will need a really stiff drink or two after the viewing and how sweet dreams will come only with valium.  She was right: this is an utterly disturbing and horrifying film. But, at its basest, so is the novel.  We can wrap it in a neat package and serve it to high school students: tapping into the innate anger they experience with their growing pains and capitalizing on raging hormones that echo the teenage virility of Catherine, Heathcliff and their surrounding moors... but this is a dark and hopeless exploration of the darkest recesses of human spirit. Heathcliff is not a loveable roguish bad boy. Instead, he is a sadistic abuser: to Catherine, to Hindley and Hareton, to animals, to his wife, Isabella, and mostly to himself.

As there is no redemption in the novel and as Cathy’s ghost, still bleeding formlessly out on the moors, never quite materializes in the way Heathcliff curses it to, we are left feeling empty, horrified, beguiled---  Moreso by the fact that a parson’s daughter with little social connection in the wide spaces of Ha’worth could construct such a confounding plot than by the “timeless” and “epic” romance enduring between two of the most problematic and unlikeable characters in the Western Canon.

[Thanks, Kat, for making this happen!]

Note: this film is disturbing with scenes of animal cruelty, violent abuse and realistic sexuality. This is not, as mentioned, your typical Masterpiece adaptation of a classic and before you hunt it out on screen, you should go in expecting to be shocked by its mature content.

The Foundling by Georgette Heyer

I give you, The Foundling: a Regency Romance with kidnapping, illicit letters, coddling of sickly dukes and fantastic names ---like Liversedge and Adolphus Gillespie Vernon Ware, the Duke of Sale.  

Adolphus Gillespie Vernon Ware (Gilly to us) and his elder cousin Gideon are at the center of this adventurous drama which features a foundling named Belinda, mistaken identities, arranged marriages and a bromance to write home about.Gilly has been coddled since sickly birth by his adoring, if overbearing, uncle who believes that his sickly disposition will be the death of his favourite pet. Raised alongside his much stronger, sterner and stalwart cousin, Gideon ( the prototype of the usual Heyer hero), Gilly reaches his 25th birthday before ever really stepping into his own.

Standing to inherit a large fortune  and primed to an arranged marriage to a beautiful and respectable longtime friend, Gilly decides to go in for one bout of adventure helping his blackmailed cousin Matthew along the way.

Here, he becomes entangled in an affair of the heart that has little to do with him and, alongside two unlikely companions, becomes mixed up in villainous devices.

Oh this is just.so.wonderful. Gilly has such a big heart and his intentions are always wonderful and his disposition is so accepting!  You will LOVE HIM! ( you will love him more when you imagine him as played by Billy Boyd)

Gilly’s uncle protects him mercilessly; but refuses any other to speak against his beloved nephew; Gideon would take a bullet for Gilly but applauds Gilly’s resolution to set out on his own and the female companions that off-set the major masculine center of the tale are just as spirited and beguiling as expected.

And Gideon--- oh my god.  You guys--- Gideon!  He is okay at taking a second standing to his more diminutive cousin. He knows that Gilly is a favourite of his father’s ---but cares not; he knows that Gilly stands to inherit a more prestigious position; but happily relinquishes responsibility to the cousin who was raised alongside him as a brother.  And if you get in Gilly’s way---beyond the measures he hopes his cousin will strive in the guise of suited independence, Gideon will lose all control.

When a villain threatens his cousin, Gideon strides in full force.  His reaction to seeing proof of life when Gilly is kidnapped will stop your heart (much as it seemingly has stopped  Gideon’s).

It’s just all so cozily and sparkly and delightful. Seriously, go read this now, please.

It’s licking cake batter from a spoon. I don’t want to deprive you of this --- I can’t --- it would be inhumane. You deserve this happiness, reader, so here is where you can fit yourself with this material tout de suite!:

@SourceBooks

@amazon.com

Blogging through Foyle's War with Rachel and Jess: Eagle Day

So, Foyle's War isn't really a book ---- but who cares because it is written by Anthony Horowitz who is brilliant AND it gives you the same experience as reading a really thoughtful and complex novel because it is a fabulous and engaging character piece. Perhaps, I would say, some of the best writing in television. EVER.So, Jess and Jen I are coupling our insane infatuation with the show from a.) a fangirly, giddy standpoint b.) a reverence for wonderful writing, characters and mood and pulling them together in one conversation.We are both simultaneously watching from the beginning of the series and chatting afterward ( note: Jess lives in China and I live in Toronto )


Episode 4: Eagle Day

Jess: A very exciting episode! Andrew gets to fly a spitfire and generally be awesome, an accidental murder is followed by a purposeful one, Milner solves an art heist with the help of Sam's dad, Andrew gets arrested for treason, Foyle cracks some heads (metaphorically - and very politely) until he gets him out again. There's some running, stuff explodes, secrets are covered up for the good of the war effort (a common occurence on Foyle's War, but Foyle always finds them out anyway), and Sam traumatizes her father by assuring him she won't get "PWP" - pregnant without permission.

Rachel: “Eagle Day” is the greatest thing ever. Really. When you think about it. Really. With no hyperbole.

Jess: This episode belongs to Foyle and Andrew. As you pointed out in a different discussion, I love how terribly "Foyle"  it is when he waits until Andrew's left the room to say "Take care." I also enjoy how desperate (or as desperate as Foyle gets) he is when Andrew's top secret girlfriend comes to the house but won't tell Foyle anything about where Andrew's being held. He's all, "Just give me something! Please!" except solely with his eyes. HE'S SO AMAZING.

Rachel: Michael Kitchen could probably do the entire show without actually saying anything, which makes me quite happy.   I also love how angry Foyle gets when the bad guy pinches Sam and he immediately wants to blow their “cover” and march into that pub and punch him out (or “have a word with him”, as Foyle says).

Jess: Yes! I love that he immediately intended to defend her honor.

Absolute favorite moment of the episode: After Foyle springs Andrew from top secret prison.

Andrew: You're brilliant, Dad, you know that?

Foyle: Yep.

Rachel: I really enjoy the little light moments Foyle allows himself to have with Andrew.  At this point in the series, he hasn’t really become “light” with Sam or Milner (a smile here and there, perhaps; I think he is still “testing” them out), but he is exceptionally comfortable with Andrew.  This makes me happy. Because Foyle is not always comfortable--- so reserved--- and he keeps so much inside. As you say, it is all in the eyes.

Jess: Back to the end of "Eagle Day": Foyle and Andrew have to run from the German planes! And Andrew's all worried and "Come on, Dad!" And Foyle runs! And then he's endearingly exasperated that Andrew takes them to the aviation fuel storage to hide! And teases Andrew in front of Sam and Milner!

Rachel: I like how the “cavalry!” arrives. You’ll notice that the finale of each season tends to bring the four of them together in some way, shape, or form.

Also, how AWESOME is it that Milner is immediately so concerned when Andrew arrives all flustered at the station and Milner is aching to help him.

Jess: Oh, that's a nice scene. How upset (and hilariously melodramatic - "Someone tried to kill me!") Andrew is, and how the first thing he does is go find his dad. Aw.

Other marvelous Foyle/Andrew moments: how Foyle kind of rolls his eyes every time the phrase, "Well, there is/was this girl..." leaves Andrew's mouth. Which is a lot. Hee.

Rachel: Andrew really matures over the series.   He turns into this somewhat serious pilot who is quite mellowed and sobered by the atrocities of war and his horrific involvement in it . What starts as a bit of a hot shot game sort of steadies out with his friends dying, a few harrowing accidents, and his realization that he is one of the only pilots left.   His combat fatigue doesn’t help.

I really think there was some casting genius in Foyle because I see a similarity between Andrew and Foyle: physically --- not so much in looks as in some mannerisms.

Blogging Through Foyle's War with Rachel and Jess RETURNS

Readers,

Last night I discovered a word document containing all as-of-yet unpublished "Blogging Through Foyle's War with Rachel and Jess" entries.  I thought it would be great to get them up on the web, as well as edit those that went before in the series.




You can find these episodes listed in my "Series and Features" tab on the blog; but also, click the links here.

I hope you enjoy!  Join in the conversation on what is undoubtedly one of the most stunning experiences ever televised.  A very literary sensibility awaits you as you settle into this thought-provoking, immaculately-researched character piece by famed author Anthony Horowitz.

Episode 1: The German Woman
Episode 2: The White Feather
Episode 3: A Lesson in Murder
Episode 4: Eagle Day

I will add to the links as I post:

Episode 5: Fifty Ships
Episode 6: Among the Few
Episode 7: War Games
Episode 8:the Funk Hole

Joining us occasionally is our mutual friend, Jen.

note: Jessica is from Colorado ( she now teaches and lives in China) and I, of course, am in Toronto.  We communicate across countries ( and now continents).
I adore all Andrew-centric episodes and Jess is very much attached to Milner.

have fun!

BOOKS in the NEWS!

They're making Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town into a film starring Gordon Pinsent and Eric Peterson.  Sunshine Sketches is inspired by my hometown, Orillia, by Orillia's favourite son, Stephen Leacock. This book is very close to my heart due to its Orillia connections!

The World Fantasy Convention will be here in Toronto in 2012 and you can see Scott Lynch!  (and maybe friggin' Republic of Thieves will have been released by then; but I doubt it)

Adorable girl strives to make Horatio Lyle popular internationally on youtube 

Torontonians: 'tis fall -- and you know what that means! IFOA! 

At IFOA this Fall Rachel Recommends:

IAN RANKIN!!!!!

Ian Rankin’s first Rebus novel was published in 1987, and the Rebus series is now translated into 22 languages and are bestsellers on several continents. He is the recipient of four Crime Writers' Association Dagger Awards, winner of the Edgar Award for Resurrection Men and recently received the Order of the British Empire for services to literature. Rankin presents The Impossible Dead, the second novel in the Malcolm Fox series, in which a major inquiry into a neighboring police force leaves Fox and his colleagues unsure of territory, protocol or who they can trust.

...and I guess other people, like:

Will Ferguson

Published in 33 countries and 26 languages, Will Ferguson’s debut novel, Happiness, won the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour and the Canadian Authors Association Award for Fiction. He also co-wrote the humour book How to Be a Canadian, which won the CBA Libris Award for Non-Fiction Book of the Year. In Canadian Pie, Ferguson shares stories from his travels to Yukon in search of gold, gives lessons of a mini-bar ninja and discusses his misadventures working on the Vancouver Olympics Closing Ceremonies.

Charles Foran

Charles Foran is the author of eight books, including four novels and the essay collectionJoin the Revolution, Comrade. He also writes regularly for magazines and newspapers in Canada and abroad, and is a contributing reviewer for theGlobe and Mail. Foran presents his Charles Taylor Prize-winning work, Mordecai: The Life, a biography of one of Canada's most beloved and successful writers, Mordecai Richler.

Frances Itani

Frances Itani is the author of 14 books, includingDeafening, which won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book (Caribbean and Canada) and Remembering the Bones, which was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. She has taught creative writing for many years and her reviews, stories and articles have been widely published. She is also a Member of the Order of Canada. Itani’s Requiem tells the story of a recently widowed man who embarks on an unforgettable journey that encompasses art and music, love and hope

Wayne Johnston

Wayne Johnston was born and raised in Newfoundland. Once a reporter for the St. John's Daily News, Johnston eventually earned an MA in Creative Writing. His bestselling novels include The Custodian of Paradise, The Navigator of New York and The Colony of Unrequited Dreams. He is also the author of the bestselling memoir, Baltimore's Mansion, winner of the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction. Taking place in St. John’s, Princeton and North Carolina at the end of the 19th century, Johnston’s A World Elsewhere, is a sweeping tale that questions the loyalties of friends, family and the heart.

Jane Urquhart

Jane Urquhart is the internationally acclaimed author of six previous novels, a collection of short fiction, three books of poetry and a short biography of Lucy Maud Montgomery. She has received the Marian Engel Award and the Harbourfront Festival Prize, and is a Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France and an Officer of the Order of Canada. Urquhart presents Sanctuary Line, which weaves elements from 19th century Ireland and Ontario to create a gradually unfolding story of events that come to irrevocably alter the future of one family.

Great Adaptations III: 1998 Contemporary version, dir. Alfonso Cuaron

Here it is, kids, our modernized Great Expectations and the third instalment in Great Adaptations.
For this, we're all going to have to go back to the 1990s. If you, like me, were in high school, then this was very much like the Baz L. Romeo and Juliet: wherein it took a classic story you were studying and modernized it:





What the film is, at heart, is an exercise in obsession. What Cuaron takes from the novel is a strand that is prominent in all adaptations; but flashed viscerally to light here--- that of a young man fixed on an idea. Much as Magwitch ( here called Lustig) has set his sights in captivity to the realization of Pip (here called Finn) as a gentleman; so Finn is obsessed with his muse, the ice queen Estella.

Estella, in Cuaron's vision, is Finn's creative muse. She reaches him on more than one platitude and forces him to shave the past in hopes that his talent (more seen when he recreates the light she shines on him) will win him the success and fortune that will turn her head.


What the film fails at is reaching the heart of Dickens' powerful recalling of grace and redemption. No one here is redeemed, per se, rather their stories are tied with neat little bows.
"Like all happy endings, it was a tragedy.", Finn's narrative voice -over (near consistent in the tale ) informs us and we believe it to be: much so because there is only the hinting of a lesson learned. The sternest takeaway for Finn, for Estella and for the other peripheral characters caught in the web of their sensuous hold over each other, is that disillusionment is costly.


Visually, and as in Cuaron's other literary adaptations (namely Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and A Little Princess, both worthy films with heartbreakingly lovely style), the use of colour infuses passion and stillness. It dissolutes the greying mansion belonging to the pathetically over-drawn Nora Dinsmore (this Miss Havisham; whose usage of lined makeup refers to Finn's over-exaggerated art form), and lightens the sea where Finn, in the opening sequence, putters along in a battered old boat. Not a blacksmith's apprentice, rather a fisherman, Finn and his Uncle Joe are reduced to finding odd jobs when times get tough. One of these odd jobs takes him to the over-grown garden of "Paradiso Perduto": Nora Dinsmore's decaying lair of lost paradise: Estella ushering us through stylistic snapshots of the Alhambra, of India, of riches gone to waste.

Here, the puppetry to which Estella and Finn fall victim at the playful cloys of Miss Havisham/Nora Dinsmore is more crassly apparent. Likewise, the basest dregs of Lustig's humanity play an interesting counter when Finn's expectations as a great New York artist are finally realized.


Thematically, as inferred earlier, this is a tale that sits well in a 20th Century context. Not century agnostic, the master brushstrokes of obvious obsession and lust and disillusionment are widely spread on Cuaron's canvas. Unfortunately, it is the slight idiosyncrasies that dust Dickens most powerful work. It is easy to look at Great Expectations through the lens of a tortured romance--- but it is so much more than the whole of its surface.


Lustig tells Finn that the hands are "the windows to the soul" and Finn's artistic endeavours certainly live true that statement; but the soul is much more than a fleeting kiss at a fountain or naked rendezvous with a girl unabashedly flinging her shirt to pose for a portrait.


This film has a lot of potential and, at its core, the prospect of a lot of heart. Finn wisely refers to an instance by comparing it to the most complicated of emotions: "Like love," he tells us, "it's completely undeserved." That statement is the truest to Dickens' intention. Yet, the love in Great Expectations modernized is a love borne of idea, fixation and obsession. This is true of the old novel; but the threads that sew the more problematic over-arching themes soften their blow to the reader.


Technically, the production does well at realizing a tale in a modern form. Finn's story as burgeoning artist, his awkwardly heartbreaking dismissal of his past, and of his Uncle Joe (as horrifying to behold against the New York backdrop here as it is in the London backdrop of the novel ), his crude awakening when Lustig appears at his door like a ghastly apparition and his horror at the instance he recognizes that Nora Dinsmore was not using him as a pawn to become equal to her cold ward, all play well here and all offer a deep comparative introspection when held up against their source material.

previously in "Great Adaptations": the more traditional re-telling in the 1999 BBC version

Unlikely Literary Confessions: the Alcott Edition

I mean to end this for once and for all….
I LIKE PROF. BHAER!
I know it is unpopular and I know that there are more Laurie/Jo shippers in the world than anything --- and I also know that Laurie and Amy make exactly as wretched a couple as you are imagining Laurie and Amy are making; but I always loved Prof. Bhaer for Jo.

From the first time I read Little Women.

I think it’s partly because I have always had a penchant for the older, professor type in literature and partly because he was German and bought the little Meg March/John Brooke babies fruits and nuts and daisies --- he has such a big heart; but mostly because he represents the greater world of culture and philosophy that Jo had always dreamed of.

Much like Alec in Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom, Prof. Bhaer emblemizes a Transcendalist philosophy that Alcott’s father subscribed to. That sturdy undercurrent of morality, of finding the good in the world, of equality and purpose for women is very much sought out by Prof. Bhaer and his ilk. Moreover, his championing of Jo’s new prospect of opening a school for boys at Plumfield speaks wordlessly to his internal cause.

Prof. Bhaer encourages Jo in her writing. Many think that his directing of her focus from magazine serials to serious (albeit sentimentalized) fiction in the re-telling of her familial story sets her a boundary; but I think it liberates her. Prof. Bhaer forces Jo to face that which she has always known: that her talent as a writer lay in her knack for triviality, the familiar, the romance and adventure of the domestic hearth. After all, Jo’s conceptualization of the macabre and the sensational is deep rooted in the play-acting she undertook with her sisters and, to lesser degree, the journey fiction realized through their gripping encounters with John Bunyan. This is not unlike Gilbert Blythe holding the truth to Anne’s success: that Anne needs to revisit the life she has known and loved in Avonlea on the page…

Laurie is a suitable childhood friend and he does supply the witty repartee; likewise life-long love for the spirited, uncouth Jo in the tradition of boy/girl romances we pine for. But, Jo is mature beyond her years and Jo needs a man.

Romantics need look no further than the “Under the Umbrella” scene which concludes the Prof. Bhaer/ Jo story to realize its true romanticism. It makes falling in love in the rain, under the umbrella, clasping squelching damp hands together a realization of the most potent kind of love story.



Jo and Laurie would fight; they would never quite shirk the playful passion that encompasses their developmental years; but with Friedrich Bhaer, Jo has the chance of ultimate creative support and ambition as well as a solid foundation.

Think of all the things he can teach her: the languages, the scope of philosophy. In turn, think of how she thrives utmost when circumstances demand a tightening of the belt loop.

It’s a great, smart, “adult” romance and I have long known that the opinion I have harboured for, oh, almost two decades is an unpopular one; but for me there was never any alternative
(although I do love the scene when Laurie bids Jo to “fly at him again”)

This blogger likes him, too.

Out-of-Nowhere Aubrey/Maturin moment

The Peter Weir film (a.k.a. Rachel's favourite literary adaptation of all time ), does not just draw (as presumed) on the first book in the Patrick O'Brian canon (Master and Commander) and the tenth book (The Far Side of the World); but also on the third book, H.M.S. Surprise.

Remember when Stephen operates on himself on the Galapagos islands after Jack has turned from his pursuit of the Acheron to save his friend?  In H.M.S. Surprise (one of my favourites in the 20+ volume series), Stephen operates on himself after fighting a duel with his true love, Diana Villiers' (bitch. she is such a bitch, she treats Stephen mercilessly. For 20 books. bah) lover.

Remember when Stephen and Jack are walking on the Galapagos near the harboured Surprise and Stephen mentions he will name a great tortoise after Jack? Testudo Aubreii?

Yah. Also from H.M.S. Surprise.

Don't worry. This is fun and we can talk more about what Aubrey/Maturin moments are inspired and from where later on....

I am visiting my parents for the long weekend and at some point they bought me two beautiful hardcover Patrick O'Brian books to add to all the doubles (nay, triples) I have in my extensive collection. One was Surprise, so I was flipping through it last night.

Great Adaptations Vol II: 1999 BBC Adaptation

For the next instalment of Great Adaptations, I am happy to present the most recent BBC adaptation, starring Ioan Gruffudd, Charlotte Rampling and Justine Waddell (w. Bernard Hill as Magwitch and Clive Russell as Joe).

[warning, these are a tad spoilery for those unfamiliar with the novel. So, read the novel. now. Okay?]

Unlike the 1981 adaptation we discussed the other day, this is a technically beautiful and visionary realization directed by Julian Jarrold.  It is very true to the story and fulfills most of the periphery storylines in the narrative.  Moreover, it is dark and gothic and the materialization of the troubled Miss Havisham amidst a dusty conglomeration of stopped clocks and murky mirrors to a bewildered young Pip is the stuff that slow-ticking horror films are made of.

Pip's first encounter with Magwitch is shown in rough, hand-held vision in the first few moments of the film with the rest of that fateful meeting unspilled in a dream-like flashback when Pip, previously on the marshes and near the cemetery, is back home.

Both Mrs. Joe and Joe Gargery are respectively well-played.  Clive Russell's Joe has a heart as big as his physical stature and it seems almost often near-to-burst; mostly with pride for Pip ( the scene where Pip and Joe are sitting by the hearth; Pip showing Joe a badly misspelled missive he has written him on a small slate recalls one of the most tender moments of the novel).

                                                              
The younger versions of Pip, Estella and Herbert Pocket are physically well-paired with their older incarnations.  Likewise, the transition of the story from younger Pip's life to the passing of age which ushers in older Pip is done with extreme subtlety: young Pip is hammering away at the forge in the first moments of his apprenticeship and slowly, the scene cuts to a larger hammer and a stronger arm.

                                                            
I really, really liked the Herbert Pocket in this adaptation: affable, open and generously-hearted he, like Biddy, Joe, and some extents, Wemmick and Magwitch, round out the only redeemable purveyors of kindness and grace in an otherwise depraved puppetry of tricks, money and greed.

                                                    
                                                  

Things the Adaptation Does Well:

->slight, small recurrences from the novel: like Jaggers continually washing his hands and Wemmick caring for "the aged"

->Plays well the idea that had Pip not been introduced to Miss Havisham and Estella, he never would have found anything lacking in his eventual apprenticeship to Joe ( or would he have? his yearning for education seems to suggest that he might have stumbled upon this past anyways)

->My mom mentioned ( and quite rightly ) that Pip is quite lost.  Reminiscent of Eliza Doolittle (My Fair Lady) after the ball and as she leaves Henry Higgins' to wander the streets and rediscover her flower girl days in Covent Garden, she recognizes she is not really fit for her new life or her old. Likewise, Pip is lost from the moment he enters Miss Havisham's through his fragmented apprenticeship to his realization of his expectations in London.  He doesn't really belong at the forge; he's unsuited for marsh life and yet his life in the city is built on a sandy, unsturdy foundation.

                                                        

(Mom also mentioned ( she was very helpful at weighing in on this ) that Miss Havisham seemed a tad young in her estimation; but that the costumes were spot-on ...moms are very fun to watch BBC miniseries with, FYI)

->I quite enjoyed Magwitch and how beguiled he was with his new "creation": the fixed idea that Herbert speaks of when he recounts what Pip has been to Magwitch in his Australian solitude. Magwitch's features soften when Pip speaks so politely with him that first day on the marshes and he admits to loving Pip as more than a son when the ungrateful Pip shies away from his patronage.  To watch him carefully tuck a shivering Pip under a blanket, to watch his eyes sparkle as he sees the result of the education Pip has had on his account (Pip reciting the Odyssey in Greek, as one example), is very, very moving.

However strongly Magwitch presupposes Pip's loyalty and affection, however, Pip's true father figure remains in the presence of Joe.   Joe, here, is just as heart-breaking as he always is: merely standing there as Pip completely forgets their connection.   In the interest of time, they slightly alter Pip and Joe's end reconciliation and have Joe find Pip in debtor's prison, delightedly moved to see him and having paid all of his debts.

->Biddy is also sweet and wonderful in this adaptation: watching Pip with the unrequited devotion and estimation true to her character as they grow up together and then transposing her love on the certainly worthy Joe at the end.

->The ending to Estella and Pip's "love" story ( as in the 1981 adaptation) is also well done here.

<> 

->Excellent production values; glorious sets and lighting; flashes of colour against the bleak, cobblestoned backdrop of London; Dickensian parallels shooting from the Butcher's shop to a line of soon-to-be-hanged convicts at Newgate, this is top-notch.

However, even as it remains one of the strongest adaptations I have seen to date, it is not perfect. It does not fare as well as the excellent, near-unmatched adaptations of Bleak House, say, or Little Dorrit.

Perhaps there is something about Great Expectations that just evades the screen. While there are so many marks in its favour, there is something about the tangible, strong and at times heartbreakingly redemptive spirit of the tale that seems best captured in words and pages. Which is why, as aforementioned, we so eagerly await the upcoming 2012 adaptations. I  want to see Great Expectations done perfectly right. For the time being, this is a worthy offering.

And Ioan Gruffudd is in it.  Right? Right.

                                                          

Alias Barney Snaith: In Which Rachel Utilizes her Magnificent Powers of Internet Deduction

A few nights ago, I got an amazon recommendation for a book called The God of Relationships by Barney Snaith.

Yes, that’s right: Barney Snaith*. I thought this was just the most ironic thing. There was an actual Barney Snaith in the world… and he was a Christian relationships writer?  Something seemed too good to be true, here. I mean, seemingly, any living Christian with the actual name Barney Snaith needs to be a closer acquaintance of mine, n'est pas?

* Barney Snaith is the hero of L.M. Montgomery's 1926 novel, The Blue Castle. 

After snickering with my friends: “Barney Snaith? Christian? Writer? What?” , google- searching, and with the solid assurance that this Barney Snaith (like his literary counterpart) must be using the handle as a nom-de-plume, I remained puzzled.  Who would possibly pick that pseudonym? I didn’t think there was a gentleman on earth who knew who Mr. Snaith was (face it Blue Castle? Not "guy" book. At all).

At one point, for an infinitesimal moment, I even entertained the idea that it could all be a lovely, impractical practical joke.

A little bit about “Barney Snaith’s” book: it was published in June 2011 by  Createspace. It has one rather highly starred amazon.com review by a reviewer who keeps referring to the author as a John Di Marco.  I searched John Di Marco and discovered that he published a book with the same title for the same e-publishing company the year before; even boasting the exact same amazon.com review---except this time, the copyright was under the name Barney Snaith. I searched through the book and stumbled upon erudite paragraphs extolling valid ideas about Christ-centered relationships and the pursuit for a life-partner while simultaneously striving to maintain a Christ-centric ideal.

Yet, Barney Snaith, readers, was an alias.

Not satisfied, I needed to find out more about John Di Marco (who has a blog) this sounds stalkerish; but it was really just internet Sherlock Holmes ---you can’t just use the name Barney Snaith and expect to get away with it? Can you? Seriously. It’s bound to resonate…) and found out that a John DiMarco (the same one, perchance?) writes graphic art and design books for Wiley and seems very educated, assistant professor at a prestigious institute, and what not.  I flipped through his amazon books ( same title; under both Di Marco and Snaith) and from what I read he seems like a relatively relevant and intellectual chap.  So, if you are so inclined please explore. Perhaps, inadvertently, this blog post will direct interested parties to an author they may never have otherwise stumbled upon. And, "Barney Snaith", will google search to find an entry which refers to his book and not, possibly for the first time ever, eighteen thousand searches pertaining to that other Barney Snaith. Ahh… the power of the internet.

The story goes slightly deeper. I decided to look up the amazon profile of Di Marco/Snaith’s enthusiastic four- star reviewer and discovered this guy --- who also seems like a decent, intelligent human being ---Joni Erickson Tada gave one of his books a shout-out. That’s clout in Christian circles, friends.

[He notes a very interesting interest (for our intents and purposes in his bio]

So, Andrew Case and John Di Marco (whomever you are)--- live long, prosper and write well and often--- this is posted with the most good-natured of intentions ---

Your pseudonym, Mr. Di Marco, sparked very fun and distracting intervals of sleuthdom for this rabid Montgomery fan and I wish you well in your future endeavours. A Christian writer named Barney Snaith dapples in life-long-dream territory for many bibliophilic, albeit, Christ-following gals.

 I think we all learned something here --- Using an alias from a lesser-known; but well-beloved L.M. Montgomery hero will garner you some attention….

Mea Culpa John DiMarco and Andrew Case--- best wishes. If you are back-tracking to see where you  have left indelible thumbprints on the internet, please feel free to let us know what inspired Barney Snaith as a pseudonym. If you have read (and enjoyed) the Blue Castle, I would really like to know…. ‘cause guys don’t DO Montgomery ( at least that was my previous impression)