A Proper Pursuit by Lynn Austin for 1.99

Okay, I love Lynn Austin.
< really not a newsflash>

We all know this.  Anyways, one of my ALL TIME favourite Lynn Austin books A Proper Pursuit is 1.99 right now ....

so, umm... BUY IT

not convinced? read my review here   If you only buy one Christian novel on the Chicago World's Fair (it seems there's a ton nowadays) make it this one.  Silas McClure is one of my favourite heroes of ALL time.

It is available for a myriad of different readers  at this special price 

Yesterday, Lynn Austin was featured in an interview with Novel Crossing about how characters bring her books to life. READ IT 

I am currently savouring All Things New and adoring every moment.  I like to ration out Austin's books because I know it will be a year before another one.... expect a review shortly.

happy Lynn Austin-ing! ( I mean 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.

Call the Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy and Hard Times by Jennifer Worth

If you’re like me, you have been immensely enjoying the Call the Midwife series on PBS. You have especially been enjoying the fact that it makes you cry every week and that Chummy is awesome.

Because I was enjoying the series so much, I decided to read the book of the same name by Jennifer Worth.

This is an exceptionally readable book and the pages do fly.  It paints and evocative and painful glimpse into post-war London in the East End where Nonnatus House nuns and midwives reside: at the ready with their surgical kits and bicycles to ride through the slums and provide medical care to women. Often, they are called for other nursing duties which show the bleakest and most dire circumstance.

Certainly the war has ended; but East End London by the docks is in shambles. People are poor, unemployment rates are high and living conditions put one in mind of the Tenement Housing of early 20^th C New York City (as one example).  In this case, many buildings are almost uninhabitable due to bomb-wreckage; but the population and the poverty means that residents will take whatever they can get for a roof over their head and a chance to raise their families.

Families were large. This was, literally, a baby boom.  Husbands were back from the war, times were high ( as were spirits) and there was no birth control available.  Not until the 1960s would family sizes drastically change. 8-10 children was not remarkable or unusual in this day and one anecdotal family boasts 25 children: all living under the same roof, all born to a gorgeous Spanish woman who does not share the English language of her husband.

The book works well because rather than following a traditional narrative, it offers exposing snapshots of a time at once nostalgic and horrifying.  Amidst the chaos  is the sentimental overload of new life; amidst the destruction and the bomb-ravaged docks is the hope for a future of peace.  Vignettes featuring memorable characters  knit together Worth’s patchwork quilt.  The characters are colourful, often funny, sometimes heartbreaking.  This is truly a book where you will laugh and cry at the same time.  Viewers of the series will not that in many cases they condense threads of multiple narratives into a few composite characters. Here, the circumstances are fleshed out in a much more haunting and disturbing fashion.

Perhaps the most vivid and emotionally gut-wrenching story belongs to widowed Mrs. Jenkins: a toothless old woman who roams the streets: a harbinger of the births and deaths to come.  No one seems to know her story, why she tramps through the streets with a limp, using the gutters as a latrine, her boots scraping the cobblestones, her toothless gums snapping at the passersby. In a thousand years I couldn’t have fathomed the horrific circumstances which wrought her present state. It will crush you.   Not unlike the horrible story of young Irish Kathleen: a girl at the wrong place at the wrong time, it will leave you slack-jawed at human atrocity occurring in our parent’s and grandparent’s lifetimes.  You would think, that with the war would come harmony and brighter, bluer skies.  But, human depravity knows no change and spans through decades, it would seem.

I quite enjoyed Worth’s easy writing style, her observational humour and her almost-Dickensian flair for painting the most bizarre and eccentric characters with a flash of compassionate light.

I highly recommend this book; but advise most that it is medically graphic, contains language questionable for a book set in a nunnery and is crass with sexual content.

I quite loved it, however, and regard it as one of my favourite books this year.

HAPPY HALLOWE'EN: an ode to 'The Hound of the Baskervilles'

Sidney Paget

First Off: a little review and then Hound rambles forevermore......

The Hound of the Baskervilles, 1959 

Our Holmes: Peter Cushing

Our Watson: Andre Morrell

Our Henry Baskerville: Lord Sauron

Our Hound: Marmaduke

This is not the worst Hound of the Baskervilles out there (Hello Matt Frewer and Kenneth Walsh); but it’s certainly not great either.  While it is atmospheric (in a technicolour-same-sets-and-costumes-as-Bonanza kind of way), it fails to emote any sheer terror. I am all for campy and I think that is where this best fits in.  Hammer productions was renowned for providing cinema adaptations of some of the greatest horror and thriller stories of all time ( often starring Cushing and Christopher Lee) and I think this is just one more case where they tried to evoke an atmosphere and slightly failed.  This Hound is not scary. Now, let’s face it, with the exception of the psychological terror we experience thanks to fog machines and good lighting and a modern premise in the BBC adaptation, few have actually seen a scary version of Hound.  The Richard Roxburgh “Hound” won’t keep you up at night.  The Jeremy Brett? Well, egads. Enough about that. The Basil Rathbone? Okay, dude, the Rathbone enterprise drives me bonkers. WHY? Because the Watson is useless. Nigel Bruce, you suck.

It is not particularly creepy; but it tries. It’s also not bad on the faithfulness front.

I don’t fault this version for its lack of provoked eeriness.  It does throw an “Elementary, My dear Watson” in and mentions Holmes’ “two pipe” (instead of notorious “three pipe” ) problem. There is little to no chemistry between  Watson and Holmes but that is part and parcel of extracting one view from the Canon. Those, indeed, are faults that a purist notes. They also played a lot with Miss Stapleton’s role and strayed far from canon.  The idea of spousal abuse might not have been as easy to film in the 1950s, perhaps.  The best part of this adaptation ( and why it is heralded as a pivotal adaptation) is in its conceptualization of Watson. No longer is he seen as the bumbling Watson of yore ( think Nigel Bruce, think Howard Marion Crawford in the 1954 TV series starring Ronald Howard); but rather as a deductive and intelligent individual in his own right. In short, as Watson is in the book.  

Prior to this, Hollywood and Television belief was that in order to draw in an audience, you needed to provide as many ingredients of a fascinating and entertaining tale as possible. Sherlock could provide the smarts and the wits and the super-brain, the tales themselves could provide the thrills and the Watson could provide the comic buffoonery.  This is before, I believe, they realized that the quiet balance between the two minds was indeed enough to draw in a thinking audience.  One need not sacrifice Watson for the ill-founded belief that a guy with his figurative foot-in-the-bucket is what is needed to generate appeal.  If this was so, why did thousands of people flock to the newsstands to buy the Strand upon its publication?

I think part of the beauty of  The Hound of the Baskervilles and the testament to its long-lasting appeal is that it is shaped around an oral narration.  The curse of the Baskervilles and the legend of the Hound has been passed down from generation to generation in the kind of story that flickers candles on a stormy eve and makes things go “bump” in the night.  You, of course, are deliciously scared when this occultish tale is spun by Dr. Mortimer at the beginning of the novella and  yet, on screen?  It’s hard to get to that deliciously creepy feeling as it tickles up your arms and causes you to look  behind your shoulder.

Sir Benedict as Sherlock on the moors in BBC "Hounds"

The brilliance of Hound is that it separates Holmes and Watson.  Watson, now more than ever, is our intrepid and trusty guide. It is Watson who , with service revolver ready, follows Sir Henry to Baskerville Hall and hellish Dartmoor.  It is Watson who encounters and theorizes the extent of the villainy of Stapleton and the outlaw-on –the-moors Selden.  Holmes works behind the scenes waiting, instead, for a self-proclaimed unneeded and grand entrance.  Often, film-makers find this a bit of a Catch-22.  While they are eager to adapt and visualize the most famous tale of the Canon; they are confronted with the very real fact that condensing this piece means sacrificing what little time the hero of the tale actually has in the story.  People want to see Sherlock Holmes deduce things and yet the story is very much an exploration of Watson’s endeavours to utilize Holmes’ methods when left on his own.

The novel is also brilliant in its mesmerizing marriage of detective thriller and horror story.  Those with a devoted interest to Conan Doyle know that he was absolutely obsessed with the Occult and the Supernatural.  He researched and practiced the New Age, believed in fairies (!!) and séances and was quite into all of this dreaded and spiritual stuff. As such, he is able to infuse his story with elements quite unexplainable to the untrained and naked eye.  To further this, he is able to clash his own beliefs in the extraordinary with his creation’s absolute certainty that nothing beyond the possible can exist.  Everything must have data, be circumscriptive to logistics and rationality.  Coupling his passion for the occult with his sleuth’s obvious disdain for anything that cannot be reasoned away provides added delight for the reader.

Perhaps the most pervading delight for the 1902 reader was the return of Sherlock Holmes.  The last they had seen him he had been thrown off the Reichenbach Falls by his nemesis Moriarty and eulogized in a postscript by Watson.  Modern Holmesians recognize that these intermittent years just make up the Great Hiatus; but readers of the long-awaited return believed this to be yet another memoir of a time set before Holmes’ death.  For many, who had worn black arm bands (across continents) and wrote threatening letters to Doyle, this was a much-needed glimpse back into a world they were starving for.

Sidney Paget

To show amends perhaps, and fair justice to his North American fans ( who were quite vocal and passionate), Doyle did well in including a North American in his tale: the Canadian Henry Baskerville who is much the same level of hero in the tale as Watson or Holmes.  Doyle is (perhaps) showing an olive branch for murdering the dear literary love of many; but also recognizing his success rested largely on other continents than his own.

 This Hallowe’en ---in the midst of the Frankenstorm that is shaking our tree limbs to tap on window panes, the lights to flicker and the rain to fall on the pavement illuminated by sleek streetlamps, it is the ideal time to light a few candles and curl up with this amazing story.  You can search to the ends of the earth to find a televised or film version  of it that will evoke the same giddy delights awaiting those who turn its creepy pages for the first time: you will come up with naught.  This is the story of the Canon because it is a marriage of all that is wonderful about the Holmes stories ,yes, but also contains the elements of the genres that keep us craving more narrative similarities: thriller, mystery, psychological horror. 

From "The Hound of the Baskervilles" graphic novel

[also see The Hound of the Baskervilles, BBC]

At Home in Drayton Valley by Kim Vogel Sawyer

Hello fair readers,

The end of October crept up on me quite quickly ( and in quite the blustery fashion) and I realized I had not had a chance to finish the new Kim Vogel Sawyer before the end of the month. 
For shame! 

But, you can't all wait for me to finish in order to learn about it....that's not fair.... not to you! 

From the Publisher:
Fed up with the poor quality of life in 1880 New York, Tarsie Raines encourages her friends Joss and Mary Brubacher to move with their two children to Drayton Valley, Kansas, a booming town hailed in the guidebook as the land of opportunity. She offers to help with expenses and to care for Mary and the children as they travel west by wagon train. But when tragedy strikes on the trip across the prairie, Tarsie is thrown into an arrangement with Joss that leaves both of them questioning God and their dreams for the future.


Readers of Christian Fiction are quite  familiar with Kim Vogel Sawyer's excessively readable narrative style and keen eye for the places and personages in a myriad of historical settings. 
I am sure a lot of readers are experiencing the same gusty, windy, rainy, wet, horrible weather that we are in Toronto at the moment.  Power-permitting, take a moment to plant this puppy on your kindle. Then, go and put the kettle on.



I received this book for review from Graf-Martin Communications on behalf of Bethany House. There is NO reason I have not completed it other than the fact that I have been reading up a superstorm (too soon?) of other books and the end of the month came very quickly.

Visit Kim Vogel Sawyer on the web

Book Giveaway: "Sacred Treason" by James Forrester

From the Publisher: The romance and intrigue of Tudor England didn’t end with Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Elizabeth I was constantly wary of plots against her reign, especially from Catholic followers of her sister, Mary. But how far would she go to secure her place on the throne?

 Inspired by real documents discovered in the British National Archives, the book was published in the U.K. to wide acclaim. Philippa Gregory, author of The Other Boleyn Girl, said, “I like this novel intensely. … James Forrester captures the sights, smells and dangers of Tudor England and tells a gripping story.” Sourcebooks is excited to be releasing Sacred Treason for the first time in the U.S. and Canada.

It’s 1563, and rumors against the young Queen Elizabeth have plunged the country in a state of fear and suspicion. Despite being descended from treasonous Catholic lineage, William Harley has managed to earn the high-ranking position in the queen’s court, until a late-night knock on the door changes his life.

A friend visits William, begging him to hide a puzzling manuscript. It seems harmless, but as William begins to unravel the clues inside, he realizes that he’s been entrusted with a dangerous secret about the queen’s mother, Anne Boleyn – one that could tear his family, and the country, apart.

James Forrester (pen name of prominent British historian Ian Mortimer) evokes all of the passion and intrigue of a consistently spell-binding era pairing fiction with deft historical aptitude. While I haven't quite finished this novel (I'm a tad behind on my reading), what I have read has been exceptionally compelling.  I very much enjoy fiction set in this time period and anyone who is a fan of Philippa Gregory and Hilary Mantel will not be disappointed.  I am pleased to offer a COPY of SACRED TREASON to one reader in Canada or the US.  Simply tell me why you love Tudor History in the comments section below and I will randomly draw a name.

Please visit the other tour stops:

10/10: Passages to the Past

10/11: Turning the Pages

10/12: Laura’s Reviews

10/14: The Girdle of Melian

10/15: Maiden’s Court

10/16: Book Journey

10/17: My Reading Room

10/18: Psychotic State Book Reviews

10/19: Book Lovers Inc

10/21: Hodge Podge Spy

10/22: Broken Teepee

10/23: Books by the Willow Tree

10/24: Radiant Light

10/25: Historical Boys

10/26: A Fair Substitute for Heaven

10/28: Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell

10/29: Enchanted by Josephine

10/30: Celtic Lady’s Ramblings

10/31: Devourer of Books

visit James Forrester on the web

"Bending the Willow: Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes" by David Stuart Davies

You guys. This book.

 You think it is about the making of the Granada SherlockHolmes. More still, the making of Jeremy Brett as the definitive Sherlock Holmes (many Holmesians believe this, including myself, though he is now closely rivaled by Benedict Cumberbatch). What it truly is, at its center, is an exposition of Jeremy’s strong battle with manic depression and his bravery and courage in trying to eradicate the stigma involved as a sort of involuntary advocate. Because the book is largely couched in incidents involving the Granada series: its conception and its development and subsequent airing, it is not a biography of Jeremy Brett the actor; rather an exploration of how Jeremy Brett the manic-depressive actor was able to use the slight eccentricities synonymous with his illness to craft a brilliant Sherlock Holmes.

For those fans of the Granada series, like myself, who have sat with the Canon open on your lap while you compare it to the action on the screen, the “behind the scenes” information given here is delightful.  One of my favourite parts of this facet of the book was the exploration of the relationship between Jeremy Brett and his first “Watson”, David Burke, then, secondly his second “Watson”, Edward Hardwicke.  The latter became more Watson-like than ever in his support of his ill friend who, often under the influence of drugs (lithium to quell the manic-depression) was in ill-health and high and low spirits.  

The author, whose own work was optioned for presentation by Granada when the Conan Doyle stories were wearing thin and they were exploring the realm of pastiche, has a remarkable passion for the material ( both the source material and its adaptation) and a wealth of conversational transcripts from all involved in the making of the series: including Jeremy Brett, David Burke and Edward Hardwicke.   I especially enjoyed the moments surrounding a play mounted starring Brett and Hardwicke which strained their relationship and Brett’s health while he tried to dig deeper still into the canyons of his fictional obsession.

You cannot really call this book a biography because it does not give a thorough account of Jeremy’s life and, though it is centered on his years as Holmes, speaks more to his portrayal and how is illness influenced this portrayal for better or worse.  It’s more an homage to a great idea excavated and enacted by a  brilliant man who was at times tortured by the creation he assimilated to and at other times soared on the wings of the narcissistic and manic creativity of Conan Doyle’s icon. 

Sherlockians will love the information provided on the careful re-tellings of the works by Granada and its producers.  For example, Brett and his colleagues worked painstakingly to create a sort of “bible” of canonical references: everything that Sherlock and Watson were referenced to be eating, wearing, thinking and doing within the 56 short stories and 4 novels.  This, and other careful attentions to historical detail, are largely why the series is so highly regarded by Sherlockians and academics alike. 

What struck me most about this story, however, was ( as mentioned) the true nature of manic depression and the absolutely horrific symptoms torturing its sufferers.  Many are well aware of how Jeremy Brett experienced hefty weight gain during the filming of some of the Sherlock installments.  This was a result of the lithium side-effect of water retention and often he (this is sounding crass) had to be drained of the excess fluid while still not getting down to his normal size.  For a vain actor playing a sinewy and lanky icon, this was more than disparaging. At points in the series, Brett’s heart had swelled to twice its size, again a ramification of the medication he was on. He was so unwell that he had to sit in a wheelchair between scenes.  But, more severe than the physical symptoms was the mental repression and depression.  Davies recounts numerous conversations where Jeremy was obviously experiencing an episode of illness and how is acute mental faculties (not unlike those of the character he famously played) were plagued and distilled and frenzied by his mental incapacities.   Further still, that it so wholly tortured a man who was but 61 upon his death.

 Mental illness is a trying and horrible and isolating thing.  It is made more so here as it ravages the talent of someone so well-suited to play an iconic literary hero. It saddens me that someone who, to my knowledge, understood Sherlock Holmes in a way few of us do was so wrought with tragedy during his portrayal of him.   To say Jeremy Brett is a brilliant actor is an understatement when you, like me, grew up seeing him absolutely embody the role and encompass all that made Holmes so unique.  What is interesting further and what Davies explores in a winning and intellectual (and often funny and touching way) is how Jeremy Brett’s illness provided an almost ironic edge to his ability to play Sherlock Holmes.  Holmes, to many, is one who suffers from some kind of illness: Cumberbatch’s Holmes is mentioned as being a “high-functioning sociopath” where other critics have mentioned Asperger’s when studying him, to say nothing of the universal belief that he was plagued with some sort of social compulsion or disorder. Having a mentally-tortured soul whose illness caused him to see-saw from great moods of high-energy and mental exultation to low, lethargic moments of depression and drug-abuse ( in Brett’s case, the abuse was prescribed by medical professionals and caused numerous allergic reactions) play a character who exemplifies the same mental traits is a good, if sorrowful match.  Those who have immersed themselves in the canon for lengths of time know how difficult it is to be engulfed by Holmes and his remarkable mood swings.  He will be high and happy and floating on air, his brain capacity filled with deductive reasoning and logic; only to be brought down, inflated, to the ground: surrounded by pillows, drawing long breaths on his pipe, the cocaine syringe not far from his reach: ostracizing Watson and the world around him.

There is a true marriage of geniuses here plagued by mental instability. 

As a sufferer of mental illness ( I speak to my anxiety disorder and OCD on the blog here sometimes), I am always moved and challenged by the plights of fellow sufferers who, though not perhaps diagnosed with same illness, are plagued by some of the over-arching and over-lapping symptoms and consequences.   I was loaned a book called A First-Rate Madness which delves into the links between mental illness, leadership and art.  Indeed, artists and leaders and gloriously eccentric personages are more likely to be sufferers (diagnosed or not) of some facet of mental illness.  I think we can safely assume that Holmes was one of these sufferers, if fictional, whereas Jeremy Brett certainly was.

Later, when I can handle revisiting this book, which moved me far more than expected and cast a bit of a shadow over the past few days: so distressed was I at reading of such suffering on a fellow human (egads! Jeremy Brett or not, this is to try the water works, friends!), I will have a post just involving my favourite quotes of the book.  There are great conversations and quotes herein and wonderful anecdotes.  I found myself highlighting something every few pages!  While the general populous will be bored out of their tree, my fellow Sherlockians will clap and gasp and “ooo!” and “ahhh!”

For a long while, Bending the Willow was incredibly hard to find and the Amazon used marketplace sellers listed it at over 1000.00.  Now, it is available on kindle. 

"The Giant Mechanical Man"

Dear Rachel,

You have to stop watching the film The Giant Mechanical Man which you rented from itunes on Ruth’s suggestion.  You saw it once.  It was great and quirky and whimsical and it redeemed Chris Messina (much as the Mindy Project is doing) from being nothing other than the Guy Who Never Closes His Mouth When He Chews in Julie and Julia (that time when your Mom turned to you ---when you were at home on Christmas holidays and had rented it with the folks---to describe as “cute; but what a pig!”) and Jenna Fischer is as per the norm adorable and it is refreshingly romantic in a thoughtful and real way; but you must stop watching it. 

Like, seriously.  You aren’t just going back to scan over your favourite scenes; you’re going back to the beginning and watching all 1 hour and 39 minutes of it. Again. You’ve watched it four times since Sunday.  Now, you DO live on your own so having the television for company while eating dinner is usual for you; but this has to stop.  You need to go and explore other films of the same ilk.

What? You say you want to keep living in its world: a world of polar bears at the zoo while Jenna F. eats baby carrots out of a Ziploc and Chris Messina (being ever.so.adorable)  approaches her ever so gently and falls deeper into crush-dom?  You say you want to live in that moment where the two of them share an ENTIRE pie at 12:20 at a diner ( you checked the diner clock ) after a party where they fell a little more in love while trying on a random pair of sunglasses?  What, you want a guy who will sit and WATCH A SILENT FILM FESTIVAL with you? 

Okay, so maybe it’s the quiet romance between the quirky, geeky and eccentric artist-man and the shy and soft-spoken woman who no longer WANTS TO SELL GORILLA GRAPE JUICE NEAR THE MONKEY CAGE AT THE ZOO that sets your heart racing.

But you have to stop watching it.  Like, now.  Despite its sarcastic and sardonic take on the world as a mechanical motion wherein we are clogs and toggles and widgets forced to meander along ---only saved by the hope of someone completing our vacant thoughts—Despite its co-starring of Topher Grace as an idiotically wonderful author of vapid Conversation books who propels his ego forward with knit cable turtleneck sweaters and a bad haircut--- Despite its resurgence of a heroine who is finally able to stand up for herself.

Desist, damn you, desist and go and read or write something and STOP counting the hours at work so you can make a quick duck to the gym before making dinner to watch it again.

You can’t keep renting it on itunes. Your VISA card is not forgiving.

Just buy the stupid thing and get it over with, perhaps.  Then, if you really need to, you can watch it every night.

dammit! the cuteness is killing me

Poll: The Most Boring Sherlock Holmes Adventure

When I was in high school, I read the Sherlock Holmes stories to friggin' bare threads ( as most of you readers know).  At this point, I didn't own them, so I would sign out every edition from my school and public library (props, little Orillia, props!) and then return them and sign out ANOTHER edition. Because I was a badass at that.

Anyway, I would start at the beginning ( and by the beginning I mean A Scandal in Bohemia, because, face it, after Watson and Holmes move in together, the rest of A Study in Scarlet is rather boring and Sign of Four just means Watson moves away---albeit to marry Mary Morstan -- -but still kinda sad) and read through. I didn't every really separate one of the collections (such as The Adventures from another such as The Return. They all bled into each other and I knew, I always knew, I had 56 short stories and four novels to play with. One night I remember sitting at my parent's kitchen table with carnation hot chocolate, eating english muffins with jam and just indulging. A little Sherlock feast.  I had had a long day of rehearsals (I did a lot of performance and community theatre then) and just needed some time at Baker Street.   I remember then thinking, This is AWESOME! and I made a list of some of my favourites:

1.) A Scandal in Bohemia [obvy!]
2.) The Three Garridebs [because Holmes has to tell Watson he loves him]
3.) Speckled Band  [holla!]
4.) Hound of the Baskervilles
5.) Dying Detective [because Watson almost touches that little box with the sharp syringe and ALMOST DIESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS and because I learned what belladonna is --- I had to look it up --- and because they get to go to dinner at the end]
6.) Charles Augustus Milverton [because after a cold supper: which, in my mind, was always bread and cheese and lamb and sherry ---- I was a kid, remember, I thought sherry was just THE drink, y'all], they cut out silk masks and go a-burglaring
7.) Resident Patient
8.) Solitary Cyclist
9.)Priory School  [he MADE you drop the oranges in that carafe, Watson, that was TOTES not your fault]
10.) The Veiled Lodger [Sherlock has a heart!  Her life is not her own to take! It almost sounds Christian!]
11.) The Blue Carbuncle [goose]
12.) the Empty House [ oh Holmes! you and your books about druids! also, you're a jerk face for leaving Watson out to dry after Reichenbach]
13.) Six Napoleons [guys! YOU GUYS!!! awesome Gregson and Lestrade stuff!!]

and so on and so forth .... lots of awesome and lovely stories.


Then there were the ones I liked to skip....

In his introduction to the Bantam double-set complete paperback edition, Loren D. Estleman ( the intro is called 'On the Significance of Boswells', or something of the sort, FYI, which proves he is awesome because anything Watson-esque is fine by me), he mentions that the Sherlock-centric ones --- the reminiscences and the ones devoid of Watson-ness--- are rather dull because Sherlock is just too big and broad and vain NOT to be countered by an every-man such as Watson.  One of the reasons I don't like some of the following is just that.  I need my balance. I love my Holmes; but I NEED my Watson:

1.)Musgrave Ritual [this is worth it for the Paget illustrations; but little else indeed]
2.) The Final Problem [my heart can't handle it.  Your fault, ACD, I know that you tried to kill him. Worse still, you let Watson believe he was dead.  Worse still, Sherlock went to Mycroft instead of Watson and we all know this is gonna happen in the BBC version and I will not be HAPPY! ]
3.)Bruce-Partington Plans
4.)Black Peter
5.) The Mazarin Stone [which incidentally is the worst of the Granada lot, too]
6.) Valley of Fear [this is personal opinion, kids, I know people love it]
7.) Blanched Soldier
8.) Lion's Mane

The latter two are listed ( as is the first) for precisely the reason Estleman mentions:  the Sherlock-driven stories with lack of Watson ---or, indeed, narrated by Sherlock --- are just not up to snuff when it comes to the fare I want to accompany my carnation-hot-chocolate-drinking-muffin-eating-post-high-school-community-theatre-reclusiveness-with-an-edition-or-12-from-the-library.

Anyhow, this all started because I am currently reading Bending the Willow which recounts Jeremy Brett's portrayal of Holmes in the awesome Granada series and the writer recounts how no one knew how to film The Engineer's Thumb so they never did.  While they were thinking of the mechanics of bringing this creepy story to life, I was thinking: meh!

You guys?  Weigh in, my dears.

Theatre Review: "La Cage aux Folles"

Last night I went to see “La Cage aux Folles” at the Royal Alexandra Theatre here in Toronto: arguably one of our city’s most important historical spaces.

I love the experience of being in this theatre as much as I love the shows when they begin.  You wind the red-carpeted stairs of the beguiling, century-old place and are greeted by headshots of all of the glittering and dazzling stars who have played there throughout the years.

It is, in this sense, the perfect vaudevillian and cabaret-like joint in which to set ‘La Cage’: a raunchy, raucous and surprisingly timely piece about untraditional family, owning your own person, your own space, and love in its myriad of forms.

Georges ( played here by George Hamilton ) owns a club called “ La Cage aux Folles” in St. Tropez where glittered and spangled transvestites (La Cagelles) perform nightly. Georges’ life-partner and likewise his head-liner, Albin (the awesome Christopher Sieber), is the more effeminate of the two and his glitzy lifestyle and stage presence and pizzazz of the show.

A heterosexual union resulted in Georges’ son, Jean-Michel, whose mother, showgirl Sybil, has been out of the picture for years. Thus, Georges and Albin have raised Jean-Michel lovingly (if unconventionally) and have provided him with everything he has ever wanted--- until now.  Jean-Michel has become engaged to a charming girl named Anne whose father is the head of the Morality, Family and Tradition Party (or some such): an ultra-conservative, right-wing who believes that St. Tropez should be rid of all of the transvestite houses ( La Cage notwithstanding). Jean-Michel begs his father to hide Albin for a night, repress his lifestyle to impress his fiancé, and pretend for 24 hours to be a straight man in love with his wife of 20 some years.

Georges, out of love for his son, agrees. Albin, upon learning that he must be out of the picture despite the time and effort and heart he has invested in his adopted son’s raising, is rightfully crushed.

The play, then, switches between glitz and humour and laugh-out-loud antics to downright heart-wrenching.  The price of admission is worth it for Sieber singing the show’s show-stopping number “I Am What I Am” : which is an anthem of sorts for individuality and self- love. Here, also, for self-preservation.  Here, a member of a family is being forced on the outskirts to uphold societal tradition. Here, years of love and devotion are being traded for what is “seen” as appropriate behavior in a nuclear unit.  You can take this part of the show’s experience out of context--- gay, straight, regardless of race or preference, and imagine those moments when you, too, have felt that you must stand up for your originality, your uniqueness, your viewpoint, your world.

I find this piece remarkably moving and Christopher Sieber brought the house down with it.

The second act becomes a bit of a farce with an almost Neil Simon realization of vibrant people with complicated circumstances in a forced and cajoled environment.  The musical numbers are slightly more rare and the dancing antics of the Cagelles are fenced while the deeper emotional center of the story is explored.   Jean-Michel realizes his mistake in trading deep and real love for superfluous superficiality and all’s well that ends well.

Christopher Sieber, man! Christopher Sieber! He is a multiple Tony-award nominee (Spamalot, Shrek, etc.,) and he is a tour-de-force. 

Here's the Mooney on Theatre review: it's better than mine

Author Spotlight: Ali McNamara, author of "From Notting Hill with Love...Actually"

When Sourcebooks approached me about featuring Ali McNamara on my blog, I knew EXACTLY what I wanted to ask her. Her charming story From Notting Hill with Love...Actually is a perky and excessively readable homage to Romantic Comedies.  It became quite obvious that I should ask Ali McNamara what she, as an expert, felt that the three essential facets of a good romantic comedy were.

And now, I turn it over to Ali:

ALI McNAMARA'S THREE ESSENTIAL FACETS OF ROMANTIC COMEDY:

Humour and romance (obviously!)

Good characters

The Feel-good factor

Humour & Romance:

Obviously it’s got to be funny! If it doesn’t make you laugh it’s not rom-com its just rom, and then I’m already bored if it’s all hearts, flowers and mush. But the laughs have to come from believable situations, not clowns throwing custard pies!

Romance: Same as before, if there not any rom then it’s a dull film. Even the top action movies these days always have a little romance in them to soften the main characters and add interest to the storylines.

Good characters:

Characters you care about, but something a bit different too with the odd quirk! And it must have a bit of ‘will they/won’t they’ also, to keep you guessing for a while!

Feel-good factor: That lovely warm snuggly feeling you get at the end of a movie, or a book when everything has worked out well for the characters and you can return to your own life happy that they will be!

A great example of this is Pretty Woman with Richard Gere and Julia Roberts.

Unusual quirky characters - a businessman and a prostitute. Lots of rom - the dresses, the jewellery, and Richard serenading her at the end of the movie. Much com – who could forget the ‘slippery little sucker’ as her snail went flying across the restaurant. And the feel good factor as Vivienne made good, became a lady and the couple were reunited at the end of the movie on the balcony of her apartment.

Have I managed to get all these facets into From Notting Hill with Love…Actually? I’ll let you be the judge of that… ;-)

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A friend of mine loaned me a copy of the book when it was first released in its UK publication and I guarantee it is the PERFECT chicklit to turn to with a cozy blanket and a glass of chianti! Happy Reading.

My thanks to Sourcebooks for the opportunity to feature Ali McNamara on the blog

Find Ali on the web:

Ali McNamara

www.alimcnamara.co.uk

Twitter @AliMcNamara