strange and random happenstance

Maurice by E.M. Forster
Published by: Book-of-the-Month Club
Publication Date: 1971
Format: Hardcover, 319 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Maurice Hall leads an unexceptional life. He is neither brilliant nor dense. He is comfortably middle of the road. But ever since his teacher took him aside one day to tell him about the facts of life due to Maurice's father being dead, Maurice has known he was different. He spent years lost in the fog of puberty and adolescence to one day find a hand reaching out of the mist to him making everything clear. That hand belonged to Clive Durham, and Maurice thought that Clive would be the love of his life. Because that is how Maurice is different, he has always been attracted to men, but never known the truth of himself till Clive. Clive and Maurice spend several happy years together until one day Clive says that after his recent illness he is no longer attracted to men and now wants to marry and settle down with the woman of his dreams. Maurice doesn't know how to handle this new information. He is at sea and can only see two ways out, he shall either kill himself or cure himself. Yet little does he realize that perhaps Clive wasn't the love of his life. Biting the bullet and visiting Clive and his new wife at the ancestral pile, Penge, Maurice meets an insolent young under-gamekeeper, Alec Scudder, who answers Maurice's cry of need in the night. But does Alec spell ruin or redemption for Maurice? Either way, it spells the end of the comfortable suburban life he has been living till now.

Maurice was written right before the outbreak of WWI yet was never published during Forster's lifetime. A select group of friends read it and passed it around between them but Forster didn't seem to think that it was worth it to publish the book during his lifetime. This is of course due to the public perception of homosexuality combined with his book having a happy ending. It would have been obscene libel and might have gone the way of Lady Chatterley's Lover. But there's a part of me that really wishes he had published it. To have an established author release a book that was a homosexual love story might have shaken up the society of the time and deservedly so. Think of the ruckus that Alec Waugh created when he published The Loom of Youth in 1917? Though the homosexual relationships in that book were very understated, it still had a major impact, and not just on his little brother Evelyn. With Maurice nothing is very understated, but nothing is lewd either. It shows two different, yet loving, homosexual relationships between consenting adults. But sadly, in this day and age, to some people this is still unacceptable. Sure there has been progress, even in Forster's lifetime the Sexual Offences Act of 1967 decriminalised homosexual acts in private between consenting adults, yet still there is not universal acceptance. I can't help but wonder if Maurice was published earlier, if more authors were to show that this is just human nature, that maybe, just maybe, acceptance would be more prolific.

The publication of Maurice being delayed made it an odd duck. It felt like it's time had already been and gone, missing the boat completely. Their are strong similarities to Brideshead Revisited and one wonders if it was all just a matter of timing that Brideshead Revisited is such a classic while Maurice is left to languish in LGBT centers in College Unions across the world. Brideshead Revisited captured the nostalgic zeitgeist of the time when it came out at the end of WWII. It looked back to the same world that Maurice did. A time when university was a golden haven and the world was still unsullied by strife. If Maurice had been published on the eve of WWI, perhaps it would have been the boon that Bridehead Revisited was to the next generation during the next war? But of course we will never know. And there is one crucial difference. The relationship between Sebastian and Charles, while believed to be homosexual in nature, was never boldly stated as such. Once again, despite both books being touchstones in gay literature, it is the ambiguous, the less bold, that is the most lauded and famous. Much like Dumbledore being gay. It's there for you to see, but if you choose not to, you can close your eyes to the truth. Because if there's one thing that people don't like, which is proven time and time again, it's the inconvenience of truth.

While the book in theory has so much going for it with being progressive and inclusive, in actuality it needed to be better written. It lacks a vital spark that some of Forster's books are lucky enough to capture, and I have to wonder if it wasn't the topic but the execution that made Forster hesitant to publish during his lifetime. In the afterward, or as Forster pretentiously labels it, "The Terminal Note," he says that in creating Maurice Hall he purposefully set out to make a character the exact opposite of himself. And I might add that he failed miserably at it. Authors put themselves into their books, this brings the characters to life. But if they have no touchstone, no common ground with their character, well how can they relate? How can they breath life into someone whom they know nothing about? Whom they share no life experiences with? This results in Maurice being a caricature. He's all bluster and panic and rage, yet never sympathetically. If Forster had included some of his own weaknesses, then he could relate, create some starting off point for the reader to connect with Maurice, instead we are always outsiders, and we don't like what we see one bit. There's a reason his family hates him, pompous, pretending, controlling, ass. In fact, I totally side with his family, I hate him too! Rarely am I ever rooting for a character to commit suicide, but every time Maurice contemplated this, well, I was there encouraging him to pick up the gun and end it all.

What initially drew me into the book was that it was so refreshing to find characters who just accepted who they were. Clive Durham never denied that he preferred men. Never. From his youngest yearnings he was honest with himself and his honesty let Maurice realize his own truth, that he too had always been only attracted to men. Of course it isn't dramatic if people don't have internal struggle and strife. So the book slowly went downhill from the radical notion of acceptance to the time honored tradition of "it was just a phase." Yes, perhaps it's just a phase that Clive went through, but Forster doesn't successfully convey this. It comes across as a lie that Clive's homosexuality was just something that everyone does at university. This amazingly insightful and thoughtful youth ends up towing the party line so that he becomes the honorable he was always meant to be. Ugh. While Maurice himself decides to go in another ludicrous direction, by trying to cure himself. Why do people feel a need to lie to themselves and try to fix things that don't need fixing? Yes, society was problematic, they were breaking the law of that time, but by believing what they were told they don't realize that it's society that is wrong, not them. To seriously consider hypnotism over true love with a member of the same sex? Now that is crazy.

But was Forster really advocating true love over conformity? While Maurice never "cures" himself what he does doesn't seem to me logical. Maurice tells Alec that two against the world can do anything. Well, to me, that means to live in defiance of society, to take on the world. To Maurice it means to retire from society and hide in the greenwood like actual fairies. WHAT!?! I thought two against the world can do anything? Apparently that only means to successfully hide from the world so no one knows what they are. So true love is acceptable only by complete removal from the society that is trying to conform them? The choice offered here isn't really a choice. You can make yourself an outcast, and let society win, or conform with society and let society win. So in other words, society will always win and how you lose is your only real choice. What bullshit is this really? Plus why not just go to a country, like France, where they didn't have to hide like the hypnotherapist suggested? I just don't get it. This book is so revolutionary in so many ways but slowly starts to take back every victory one by one till all we are left with is exile. Grumble grumble. Plus, all that is only touched on and never fully addressed, this idea of what it means to be homosexual depending on your class, to look outside Maurice's insular world, all left behind to run off into the woods. I feel the need to yell out my window, but not Maurice's enigmatic beckoning, more bemoaning in this case.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alec Waugh, Brideshead Revisited, Charles Ryder, Conformity, E.M. Forster, Evelyn Waugh, Exile, Forster Fall, Homosexuality, Lady Chatterley's Lover, Maurice, Sebastian Flyte, The Loom of Youth, WWI, WWII

I have never attempted to cast Jane till now. Much like her nom du guerre, she has been a mystery, though a mystery who might have been played by Paloma Baeza. Always there, always watching, waiting, the perfect society beauty that could kill you if you only knew. Therefore I wanted an actress that could be that society beauty but could totally kick ass, and that's why only Agent Carter herself could play Jane.

Name: Hayley Atwell

"Dream" Character Casting for the Lauren Willig Miniseries: Jane Wooliston

First Impression: The first time I saw Hayley Atwell was as the fabulous JJ Feild's sister Rosa in The Ruby in the Smoke. What struck me about her was not only her assurance as an actress, but that the character wasn't pretentious and let her heart, not society, lead her choices. Plus she got a kick ass wedding in the follow up, The Shadow in the North. I mean look at that wedding dress!

Why they'd be the perfect actor for the Lauren Willig Miniseries: Demure bride by day, kick ass action hero redefining gender stereotypes by night... who else could play Jane? She has the acting skills to bring off that demure society beauty while the physical skills to beat you down. If you really want to see Hayley at her best, watch the thirteen minute mini pilot that was made for Agent Carter. I actually like it more than the series, despite my love of Jarvis. The reason being she is a lone agent, a rogue who can do anything. Which is what Jane has become.

Lasting Impression: Captain America. As you know I totally saw Captain America for one JJ Feild, but his co-star Hayley really stole the show. She went her own way, put up with no nonsense, and seriously is awesome. She went on to form S.H.I.E.L.D. after all! A strong female lead in a male dominated Marvel franchise is sure to make us women viewers sit up and take notice. We're finally not the damsel in distress, we're saving the day!

What else you've seen them in: The Prisoner, Mansfield Park, Brideshead Revisited (and doing a better job than Diana Quick EVER did), The Pillars of the Earth, and The Duchess. Until her stint in Captain America, Hayley really was the go-to actress for period films, no matter the period. In fact I would very much argue that the reason I love Captain America so much is that it's a period piece that just happens to be part of the Marvel universe. Since Captain America Hayley has been in quite literally almost all Marvel films, which makes me actually watch the others occasionally. And let us not forget she is the first female Marvel character to have her own TV show! How freakin' awesome is that?

Can't believe it's them: Cinderella. And yes, I did for some reason go to this overly Technicolor live action reinterpretation of the cartoon which couldn't figure out which time period it was meant to be in. Seriously, what is with Cate Blanchett? She's dressed for the golden age of Hollywood in rural France! What was so odd though was Hayley playing the bucolic and dying mother of Cinderella who looked like she had stepped out of a painting by Rossetti. Also, seriously, what's up with the blond hair? That is SO obviously a wig!

Wish they hadn't: Any Human Heart. Seriously, DO NOT WATCH this piece of shit show. It is depressing and just weird. I mean Matthew Macfadyen, whom I love and adore, plays such a scumbag, he sleeps with his dead son's girlfriend if I recall correctly. The only reason to watch this would be to see the brilliance of a young Sam Claflin, but as soon as he turns into Matthew Macfadyen, yes they play the same character, just stop. It's not worth it waiting for Hayley to show up, she dies in a bombing raid. Oops, did I spoil it? Good. Now you won't watch it.

Bio: Hayley was born to two motivational speakers in London who soon divorced and she spent her childhood divided between the school year in England and the summer in the US in Missouri, being a dual citizen. But having two such outspoken parents led to some interesting experiences, such as walking on hot coals at the age of nine and going on anti-vivisection rallies as a teenager. Her mother believed that theater was an important communal experience and Hayley was taken to productions at an early age, once at the age of eleven seeing her future co-star Ralph Fiennes as Hamlet. She studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, graduating in 2005 and getting her first role in a TV movie about Charles and Camilla starring Laurence Fox as Prince Charles. But it was her role the following year in Andrew Davies's The Line of Beauty that really brought her into prominence, getting a role in a Woody Allen film the following year. Though film and television aren't her only outlets, she is also an accomplished stage actress earning a Laurence Olivier Award nomination for the 2009 revival of A View from the Bridge. Most people site 2011, the year Captain America came out, as her big breakthrough, but I think she's been brilliant from day one, seriously, just watch Mansfield Park. Her rise to fame was just inevitable. Plus she has some wicked Dubsmash skills.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Agent Carter, Brideshead Revisited, Captain America, Cinderella, Hayley Atwell, J.J. Feild, Jane Wolliston, Lauren Willig, Mansfield Park, Pink Carnation, The Secret History of the Pink Carnation

I never really talk about why I started my blog sincerely. I will almost always give the true, though somewhat flippant answer, that it was to get free books, and in particular Lauren Willig's ARCs. So perhaps it's time to tell this story? After my semester from hell, which ended with me getting pneumonia, I was at loose ends. I was supposed to go to Canada for the New Year but was too sick, so I started playing around with the idea of a blog. I thought it would be really cool to have a blog titled "Crazy Random Happenstance" because of the line from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, though my blog would be entirely free of singing. Per dictates in place banning my vocalizations. Though I couldn't quite remember the quote "Crazy Random Happenstance" and instead used "Strange and Random Happenstance" which, if I'm honest, I like far more because crazy, well, I don't like all the connotations and I'm not pigeonholed as a Whedonverse blog then, despite the first post. I love you Joss, but seriously, not liking your recent work. So I made a blog and then school started and I forgot all about it. Then the semester ended and life was still stressful, just minus school. My cat was really sick, and well, really old if truth be told. I was in denial that he might not be around much longer and I needed a distraction. A blog was the answer. On May 19th one of my friends who had just started doing a knitting blog asked if I had thought of doing my own blog. I immediately wrote back: "sweet, I have blog I set up, just haven't started yet (with hopes of free books!) mine is called strange and random happenstance." Within the hour I had written my first post. By 10PM the next day my cat would be dead.

I remember every single moment of that last week with my cat, from watching the newest Brideshead Revisited adaptation to him on his death bed beating me up for water, he had an Evian obsession, and finally, starting my blog. I'm not trying to write the most depressing blog post ever here, what I'm trying to say is that my blog was fortuitously timed. Writing took my mind off losing Spot and also made me part of a community. Some of my best friends I have found through this online gathering of book addicts. The friendships I have forged with readers, writers, and reviewers filled a gaping wound in me. I also succeeded in getting free books. But just because that was my motive back in January when I haphazardly named a blog and parked it, doesn't mean that that is solely what I got out of it. Yes, I got free books, so my minor goal was accomplished. But I got so much more, I forged relationships with authors. I view Lauren Willig, George Mann, and Paul Magrs as dear friends. I know when I drop a line to them I'll get a response back. I also know that if I cold contact an author I admire that they'll be in touch, because I have the "power of the blog" backing me up. In this day and age when publishing is constantly in flux, when the continuation of the written word is in doubt, it's people like us bloggers working with authors to get the word out that makes publishing still a viable enterprise. Readers, reviewers, and authors have a symbiotic relationship, we all need each other more then ever to succeed in these uncertain times. My doing theme months and reviews of books from authors I love is the least I can do because of the hours of entertainment they gave me reading their works. It's been six years since my first post and I am sure that someday their might come a time when I write that "Omega" post, but until that day I'm going to be the best cheerleader there is for books, and especially for Lauren.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alpha and Omega, An August Adieu, ARCs, Blog, Bloggers, Brideshead Revisited, Cats, Dr. Horrible, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, George Mann, Knitting, Lauren Willig, Paul Magrs, Spot

Mad World by Paula Byrne
Published by: Harper
Publication Date: 2009
Format: Paperback, 384 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy

"Does anyone else have the Tears for Fears song stuck in her head?

Whether or not the Lygons and their home, Madresfield Court, truly served as Waugh’s model for Brideshead Revisited, this book is a lucid and highly entertaining window into the same small segment of society I needed to understand in order to write The Other Daughter.

Since novelists are inveterate borrowers, it seemed only right to borrow elements of Madresfield (“Madders”) for Rachel’s father’s estate, Carrisford (“Caffers”). Any similarities are more than coincidental." - Lauren Willig

Evelyn Waugh was one of the writers who immortalized the 20s generation of "Bright Young People" through his books. But his book, Brideshead Revisited, more then any of his other work, was a touchstone for a generation and one of the greatest books of the 20th century. Yet the story didn't emerge fully formed from his conscious, it was inspired by his relationship with the Lygon family. They lived in a great old pile, Madresfield, where the three sons and four daughters grew up in bucolic bliss till their family was rocked by scandal. The Lygon patriarch, Lord Beauchamp, was exiled from England upon divorce proceedings initiated by his wife for his homosexual tendencies. The children blamed their mother for this rend in the family and started to live a life devoid of parental control. Into this world Evelyn Waugh appeared. Bringing his signature wit and style he befriended the family and came to fall in love with them all, rumors had it that back at Oxford he was more then a little in love with the second son, Hugh. Hugh would become the basis for Sebastian Flyte, and the entire Lygon family and their life was to be immortalized in Waugh's magnum opus. But did they have any say in the matter?

If you want to keep your well held belief that Evelyn Waugh is a genius and Brideshead Revisited is one of the most original masterpieces of the last century, I urge you not to read this book. If, on the other hand, you always suspected that Waugh wasn't that nice or that Brideshead Revisited was a boring plotless book, well, you probably won't read Mad World, but know that your opinion is validated a thousand fold. While I always suspected that Evelyn Waugh wasn't that nice, never did I think that he would so carelessly use his friends and family as fodder for his books. Yes, I did know that he satirized those around him, much as Nancy Mitford did, but this book brought it home as something more. Waugh was a user. He lived an itinerant life travelling from one friend's home to another and then using what he saw there to create his books. He lambasted friends who couldn't use the world around them as fodder for their books and needed to do research, yet he used the lives him around in a cruel and flippant ways in his work. He was a leech, and not a very likable one. The thing that mystifies me is that Byrne claims that Waugh's friends didn't blame him for capitalizing on their pain, that mockery was part and parcel or being Waugh's friend and that he was easy to forgive. Yet Byrne says this, she doesn't show this. How am I to believe this? Because it sounds like Waugh hurt a lot of people to get to where he got in the literary world and that the wounds struck his friends deep but they just put on a brave face for him.

Mad World boils down all Waugh's books, his entire literary cannon, to thinly disguised roman à clefs. Byrne, while obviously a fan of Waugh, did a disservice to him in writing this book because it takes away the magic of that lost generation captured in Brideshead Revisited. Why is the magic gone? Because Waugh just used the Lygon family and transferred their lives into another medium. While the book still captures this lost generation of halcyon Oxford days, it narrows down the universality of the book. It makes it one family's history, not an archetypal history. It also shows that Waugh, while able to spin a wonderful phrase, didn't have an original bone in his body. He was more historian than writer. All his books, not just Brideshead Revisited, are rooted in reality, almost painfully so. Each character has a real life counterpart, each adventure is centered on a story in his life. While writers do take inspiration from the world around them, it feels like Waugh was a hack. He could ONLY write the world around him transmuted into a book. And while Brideshead Revisited was a loving portrayal of the Lygons, unlike some of his vicious parodies hidden in such characters as Anthony Blanche, did Waugh's friendship with them give him carte blanche to write this story? No it didn't. He used them and moved on.

But what disturbed me most about this book was that while the book was cleverly supposed to be a dual history of Waugh and the Lygons, which is why I was interested in this book, it became more and more a single-sided story where we were just given Waugh's POV. We read his copious letters to the Lygon sisters, and how they were transmuted into the Flytes, down to even phrases excised from Waugh's letters to them and then used in the book, but we never hear their voices. We never get a feeling as to who these sisters were. Was their relationship reciprocal? Did they actually write to Evelyn as much as he wrote to them? Why don't we have any of their letters? Was Waugh perhaps a venal man who carried on single-sided correspondence with the great and the good making more out of a friendship then it really was? I'd say this is quite possible and without any evidence or letters to the contrary, this is the only conclusion I can reach. The Lygon sisters where barely more than props to Evelyn who used his connection to them to puff up his ego and used his experiences with them to make a name for himself with his writing. And while Byrne states that after the sisters left Madresfield forever Waugh kept up a correspondence with them that lasted the rest of his life, but that isn't what it looks like. It looks like he wrote Brideshead Revisited, made a true masterpiece and dropped them. He'd occasionally look in but he had no use for them and his old itinerant lifestyle so, much like the props they appear to be, they were placed in storage only to be occasionally let out into the light.

The subject matter and how it's handled wasn't the biggest downfall of the book. The biggest downfall was the haphazard way that Byrne decided to keep some facts and omit others. By redacting parts of Evelyn's life, how can I actually believe anything this authors says in her stilted and amateurish writing style? She skips over things that I think are rather important, like Evelyn working as a gossip columnist. Not only did this feed into his writing style but it was a common experience with his friends and contemporaries. Why omit this? Because if it was to show him as a superior writer, well, everything about this book portrays him as a hack, so why not a hack journalist? Then Byrne's lack of adherence to naming conventions drove me batty. In a time when everyone had three nicknames, just choose one please? I seriously don't know which is which Lygon sister due to Byrne randomly choosing a different nickname or occasionally their real name. Just stop. But worst of all was the repetitive nature of the book, the reliance on only a handful of quotes used over and over again. Did Byrne have any editor at all? My guess is no as in the way she's string quotes from different sources with clunky "and this" "and then" "and now." This kind of sloppy writing was beaten out of me in high school and here is a published author trying to write a discourse on Brideshead Revisited that wouldn't pass muster with the most generous of teachers.

As for the most disgusting aspect of this book? The general acceptance of pederast culture. Wherein any pretty young man was viewed as fair game, even if they were underage. Teacher's quite literally using their students, in particular a nasty story about one of Evelyn's friends having a student sodomize him with his foot, and Lord Beauchamp using every able bodied and attractive male as a possible sexual conquest. I'm not saying this shouldn't be addressed or omitted. This happened and a discourse needs to be had. What I am saying is that it shouldn't be treated with such a laissez-faire attitude. Using a position of power for sex is something that should NEVER be acceptable. Yes it happens, but it's this acceptance by people like Byrne that allow it to continue. That this happened should incite a revolt! It shouldn't be a joke in one of Waugh's letters. Some talk about the culture of the time would have been considerate. But making a point that this is unacceptable needed to be said, and Byrne didn't. She even seemed to find it all a little piquant, especially when discussing Beauchamp and his servants. It's not piquant, it's repulsive.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Brideshead Revisited, Bright Young People, Evelyn Waugh, Hack, Jazzy July, Lauren Willig, Leech, Lygons, Mad World, Madresfield, Nancy Mitford, Paula Byrne, Roman A Clef, The Other Daughter

Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
Published by: Back Bay Books
Publication Date: 1930
Format: Paperback, 322 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

"If you want to know why the Bright Young Things are remembered, here’s a large part of the answer. For all their essential silliness, they produced two great novelists, Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh, both of whom brilliantly chronicled that fleeting and self-reflective world. In Vile Bodies, we find all the excesses of the Bright Young People writ large.

There’s no better description of the Bright Young milieu than the one Waugh provides in Vile Bodies: “Masked parties, Savage parties, Victorian parties, Greek parties, Wild West parties, Russian parties, Circus parties, parties where one had to dress as somebody else, almost naked parties in St. John’s Wood, parties in flats and houses and shops and hotels and night clubs, in windmills and swimming baths….”

Waugh wrote as one who knew. He was a central member of the set. So, naturally, I couldn’t resist having him put in a cameo appearance in The Other Daughter…." - Lauren Willig

Adam Fenwick-Symes is returning from the continent having written his autobiography and remembering that he has a fiance back home in England, the lovely Nina Blount. On the channel crossing he is surrounded by an odd assortment of passengers, the oddest being the American, Mrs. Melrose Ape, who proselytizes with her "Angels." Sadly Adam's book is seized by customs as being unsavory and he therefore shows up at his publishers empty-handed and owing them a book or a return of his advance. He is able to do neither and re-signs with them under very onerous terms and calls Nina to say that they sadly cannot be married now. Nina insists they will eventually find a way and that that night's party is far more important and pressing at the moment. Adam's future goes from bright to bleak and back again in the blink of an eye. One day Nina's father gives him money to help the young couple, the next Adam realizes he was the butt of Colonel Blount's joke. Then Adam gets a job writing a gossip column with a steady paycheck, only to have Nina lose him the job because of a grave error in her judgement, which is always dictated by her "pains." They live a life that is penurious and luxurious all at once and if only the young couple could get married, but seeing as Nina is now engaged to Ginger Littlejohn, leaving Adam in the lurch, what is a bright young boy to do?

In my family the works of Evelyn Waugh began and ended with Brideshead Revisited. Yes, he obviously wrote other books, but to my family, and in particular my father, it didn't matter. We had copious copies of the book on many shelves. We had the complete miniseries on VHS, and eventually on DVD. We even had Aloysius with a dainty hairbrush in one of the bedrooms. I never really thought much of Evelyn Waugh beyond Brideshead Revisited, and then Stephen Fry came along to correct me. When my friend Huyen moved back to Wisconsin from D.C. and into her own apartment the two of us would quite frequently have movie nights. We'd rent all the girly and period films that our other friends refused to watch during our weekly knitting night. And yes, we had a knitting club, The FEKS, The Fine Eyes Knitting Society; we sneaked in our love of Austen by making it sound like a swear from Father Ted. The two of us would troupe across the street to the Family Video and pick out the movie of the week. We learned valuable lessons from I Capture the Castle, mainly that Henry Thomas grew up attractive and it's really creepy watching Mr. Collins ask anyone to dance even when he isn't Mr. Collins. From De-Lovely we learned that Cole Porter became trapped in a wheelchair because of meeting boys in fields for a little extra-martial fun. Horses are dangerous, yo. And from Bright Young Things we learned that Stephen Fry could make a movie that was not in the least memorable.

Bright Young Things, the adaptation of Vile Bodies, might be one of the least memorable films I have ever watched. Considering that the film is chock-a-block with my most favorite of British actors from Michael "Seriously How Hot Was He in Far From the Madding Crowd" Sheen to David "10th Doctor" Tennant I am shocked I don't remember more. In fact my only lasting impression was that Richard E. Grant was in a single scene. Yep, that is the sum total of my recollections of this film, a lack of Richard E. Grant. Stephen Fry is a gifted writer, so therefore it puzzled me as to why this movie was so forgettable. Now, having read Vile Bodies, I can see the fault was not in the adaptation but in the source material. The main problem is there is no plot to the book. I know many people in my book club would site the same problem in Brideshead Revisited, but there the language and the evocation on memory balance any deficit in plot. Vile Bodies was the second novel Evelyn Waugh had ever written and his lack of experience shows. He wasn't even thirty yet and his experience of the world was closed to this vibrant, but cloistered, society. The book is nothing more then in-jokes, a 20s roman à clef, that leaves you with a feeling that you had to be there to appreciate the joke.

The aspect that most rang true to me and I think explains a lot about this cloistered culture is the appropriateness of the quote at the beginning of the book from Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. When you fall into the world of these Bright Young People you never quite know what's going on, there are parties with no rules, parties with costumes, parties where you come as other people, it's all rushing and talking and drinking, a headlong rush to just keep moving. Because if you don't keep moving you don't just stand still, you fall behind as Carroll logic would have it. So when you first pick up this book it's all unattributed dialogue and just words slamming against you and you're trying to fight it, you're trying to make this book work and fit in a traditional sense. But that's not what the culture was about, it was about being different and going with this new flow. When the characters all get in a car and head off to the races it somehow all clicks. The unattributed dialogue and the confusion works. You, like Alice, have fallen down the rabbit hole, if only you had realized it earlier you could have given up the struggle and just let it wash over you. Vile Bodies isn't written to make sense, it's written to capture this feeling, this moment in time. It's like you're at a party and only catch bits and pieces of conversation, but that's all you ever had the chance of catching. Grab what you can but keep moving forward in a headlong rush because this lost generation is all about the Alice mentality.   

But even in this confusing morass of gibberish that never had a chance in a million years of attaining the studied and superb insanity of Lewis Carroll you catch glimpses of Waugh's genius to come. The newspaper that Adam Fenwick-Symes occasionally works for is one of the successes of the novel. Waugh catches the humor inherent in the hypocrisy of people basically reporting on themselves, which should come as no surprise because it's actually a job Waugh had for a short while. Though he takes it further making it more commentary then the drivel that makes up the rest of the book. By having the columnists not even write on real people he gives us an insight into the shallowness of the times, both of the reading public and the Bright Young People themselves. The fake articles are hilarity and a bright spot in a rather plodding and dull book. Though by far my favorite character was Nina's father, Colonel Blount. With his inability to remember Adam, his love of films, and his gleefully putting out the Vicar he was the embryo of who would become one of Waugh's most memorable characters, Edward "Ned" Ryder, the father of Charles in Brideshead Revisited. Edward Ryder is one of the most well written and comedic of characters ever to be set in print, always bemoaning Cousin Melchior, and brought to amazing life by Sir John Gielgud. So if Vile Bodies had to be written just so we could one day have Brideshead Revisited, I guess it's an acceptable bargain.

Though I have to protest the "Angels!" Good god damn, seriously!?! I really don't quite know what to say about them, other then they really don't fit in this book. Were they there as some latent Waugh religiosity that would take over later in life? Because I don't feel like Waugh would have openly mocked Catholicism, so we're not laughing at them? Or are we? What's going on? Or is it a parody on Americans? Or hypocrites? I mean, the rest of the book all fits together, clashes of the young and the old, parodies of the language and lifestyle of the times and then some random Bible-thumpers. It kind of gives Vile Bodies a creepiness that isn't warranted by anything else in the book, well, maybe excepting the two rather precipitous deaths. And I really think if this had been stressed in the movie I would have remembered it. Yes, Waugh and religion go together, but they go together in his more mature, thoughtful work. This is supposed to be fun, right? So why bring in these weird religious figures? But I think my confusion isn't just me. Waugh, as the book went on, seemed to be unsure if his book was actually light and comedic. In the course of writing it he went through a divorce and the second half is decidedly darker culminating in a world war. Perhaps the angels are an outward manifestation of the crossroads Waugh had reached and where he was going to go. That or I'm just trying to justify a book that doesn't live up to what the author was capable of.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alice in Wonderland, Brideshead Revisited, Bright Young Things, David Tennant, Evelyn Waugh, I Capture the Castle, Jazzy July, Lauren Willig, Michael Sheen, Stephen Fry, The Other Daughter, Vile Bodies

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Published by: Back Bay Books
Publication Date: 1945
Format: Paperback, 351 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

"If it could only be like this always – always summer, always alone, the fruit always ripe and Aloysius in a good temper." 

Vomiting through a window doesn't seem like the most promising start to a friendship, yet that is how Charles Ryder first meets a rather inebriated Sebastian Flyte. Charles is swept up in Sebastian's wake of luxury, decadence, eccentricities, and alcohol vapors. Throwing off his rather mundane life, Charles is wooed by the world of privilege that Sebastian belongs to. Charles falls not just for this sot with a teddy bear, but for his whole life; the family, the house, everything. Looking back on those halcyon days while mired in the WW II, Charles lovingly thinks of the world that has been lost forever. Yet Charles lost entre into that world earlier then the announcement on the wireless that England is at war. His love affair with the Flytes had soured over the years, moving from Sebastian to his sister Julia, Charles took whatever he could of this family, but it the end, it was something deep in the family that made certain he was never one of them, and never could be.

Before I became an avid reader Brideshead Revisited was one of those books that my father kept saying I had to read. I won't say that it's his favorite book, because the author is Evelyn Waugh and not Sherwood Anderson and the book's title isn't Winesburg Ohio, but Brideshead Revisited is firmly in place as one of his favorite books. Much like this little old lady I met at a Rembrandt show in New York who was insistent on how memorable his work would be when seen in it's original setting (ie Amsterdam), my Dad has the same tenacity and insistence of how the language of Brideshead Revisited would capture me and not let me go. Many conversations with him start "I remember how the language captured me the fist time I read..." insert any of his favorite classic books here, usually Jude the Obscure, but for this instance, Brideshead Revisited. Though, for Brideshead Revisited the refrain is more "when Lord Marchmain comes home to die..." or anything to do with Edward Ryder, Charles's father. Still, despite the copious copies of the book laying about the house, I just didn't pick it up.

When I started to hone myself into the Anglophile that I am today I watched as many miniseries as I could lay my hands to, and Brideshead Revisited finally entered into my life officially in at least one form. At this point my father had already worn out his old VHS copy and for his birthday I had upgraded him to the DVD set which I now watched. Brideshead Revisited is literally THE definition of a miniseries, and it set the standard for what we expect in our miniseries today. Mainly it was the first to be shot entirely on location. I loved all the houses and scenery, and Anthony Andrews, such a perfect actor, as are every other actor save one, I didn't love Jeremy Irons. There's something about Jeremy Irons that bothers me. He has a wonderful voice, but I think his voice has led people to ignore the fact that he seriously can't act. I am 100% anti-Jeremy Irons. So watching the miniseries all I could think was, ok, I've had enough of this for quite awhile now (except the John Gielgud lunch scene, that can NEVER be watched enough), I don't think I'll read the book right now... and so, until this month, I had never realized how right my father was in this instance.

Evelyn Waugh's writing is like a palate cleanser, everything that you read before was lugubrious and everything that you read after is sub par. Brideshead Revisited shows how fast a book that is well written goes. Time disappears, the words just flow, except for the occasional drunken tumble over a word or phrase that is now out of it's time. The lunch between Anthony Blanche and Charles, where Anthony dominates the conversation, felt just as if you were sitting opposite him in that restaurant and were being overwhelmed by his torrent of words and your inability to get a word in edgewise, a sensation that I am sure we have all experienced with certain of our own friends and were vividly reliving while reading this passage. And even while I didn't necessarily like or relate to any of the characters, the language usage is so lush that you can't help but agree with the little quote on the cover that calls the book "[h]eartbreakingly beautiful... The 20th century's finest English novel." To write a story that is so of it's time and so unrelatable to a certain extent, yet to have it forge a connection with me, well that is wondrous writing.

Even if the world of the novel is unrelatable to a certain extent, except in our daydreams, it's the themes of the book we relate to. Waugh wrote this book looking back on a golden age that was gone, destroyed by war and an ever changing world. The Flytes embody this full stop. They lived at the height of decadence but look what happens to them. Their world ends and they are literally a dead end gene pool. Look to the four Flyte children, Brideshead has married a woman too old to bear children, Julia is living apart from her husband and due to her previous miscarriage on top of the fact a reconciliation is unlikely she will never have a child, Cordelia lives as a nun, and well, Sebastian, even if he wasn't homosexual, he's basically living a monastic life now. They are the world that has come to an end, so it is only right that they too have come to an end. This mourning for what is lost and can not be had again, their youth, this golden age, this innocence... the light snuffed out on the bright young things is the spine of this book. The world keeps turning, and while the story of the Flytes is a bit fatalist, we can relate to the loss, because as we age and move on we lose all the time.

Now I do have to address one thing. The Catholic question. Does it really matter? Yes and no. While I do find it ironic that a catholic wrote what might be the most anti-catholic book out there, the religion aspect is more a signifier then an actual physical thing. We are like Charles Ryder, we are on the outside looking in at this world of popery that we don't quite understand, even if some of us were even raised Catholics. But I really think that it's not a question of religion, but more a symbol of something in your life that you don't necessarily want but still you need it and it is all consuming to your detriment. So am I basically saying that Catholicism is a form of addiction like Sebastian's drinking? Now that I think on it, yes I am... Now I'm not saying that it is like this for anyone other then the Flyte's, but their relationship with God is unhealthy and not only brings down their lives but takes away their happiness and fills it with guilt and remorse. It's this dogged insistence that they stick to the old ways that links back into the fact that their time on earth is done. We must adapt in order to survive. At least Waugh was able to give us this loving eulogy to a world now lost.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alcohol, Aloysius, Anglophile, Anthony Blanche, Brideshead, Brideshead Revisited, Catholic, Downton Denial, Downtonesque, Evelyn Waugh, Jude the Obscure, Oxford, Sebastian Flyte, Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg Ohio

Wigs on the Green by Nancy Mitford
Published by: Vintage
Publication Date: August 10th, 2010
Format: Paperback, 192 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

"I discovered Nancy Mitford as a teenager and haven’t looked back since. She even supplanted Evelyn Waugh in my affections—which, considering Brideshead and the glorious inanities of Decline and Fall, took some doing. When I was writing The Ashford Affair, I used Nancy Mitford’s works as an idiomatic style guide; if someone in The Pursuit of Love said it, there were good odds my aristocratic characters might as well. 

Of course, all this Mitford immersion did have some unintended side effects. I spent several months running around referring to everything as “too too utterly!” or “too too shame-making!” (Note: it does wear off after a few weeks or with serious application of Elizabeth Peters novels.)" - Lauren Willig

Noel Foster has come into some money. So, he decides to get his money to work for him. He will set himself up as a rich bachelor in order to entice an heiress his way. Therefore, the money just needs to hold out until his hoped for nuptials. Unfortunately, he has asked for the help of his friend Jasper Aspect, who is quite good at parting Noel from his money and making it disappear at a prodigious rate. So they remove themselves from London to Chalford, where the heiress Eugenia Malmain lives. Of course, she's a bit odd... in that she is a fanatic fascist and will convert anyone to the cause. Noel and Jasper quickly sign up in the hopes that it will bring them closer to the goal of Noel marrying Eugenia, his targeted heiress. Though soon the town has a rather wealthy lady on the run from her wedding day along with her best friend Poppy, who rather thinks Jasper is nicer then her own husband, as well as a few Private Eyes. If only Noel could fall for Eugenia and tie everything up, but sadly, he falls for the local beauty who is under the mistaken assumption that Noel is deposed royalty. In true British fashion, everything goes haywire and then ends with a fete. Yet, what are the fates of those involved?

When perusing Lauren Willig's list of books that inspired The Ashford Affair, I saw this little, long out of print book by Nancy Mitford among the other tomes. I turned around and looked at the little volume sitting on my shelf and it spoke to me. In fact, all the Nancy Mitford books got so chatty that I ended up doing my long thought of "Mitford March" because of their insistence. Also, as Lauren and Nancy have said, if I hadn't I would have probably been "too too shame-making" and my Mitford books would have run away. Oddly enough the book that inspired this idea ended up being the last read on my Mitford binge. Wigs on the Green is an interesting book, not just for the humor and the sly pokes at Nancy's family, but because of the controversy surrounding it. Because it deals with Fascism (in a humorous way) and pokes fun not only at Nancy's sister Unity, but also her sister Diana, and Diana's husband to be, Walter Mosley, the three darlings of Hitler. The book understandably infuriated quite a few members of her family and resulted in some long and awkward silences. Therefore, when her publisher requested the rights to reprint, Nancy denied them. Whether this was for her families sensibilities and a desire to restore the calm, or whether it was because she truly believed that Hitler's atrocities were so serious and horrid, that it was no longer a laughing matter, we will not know.

Thankfully when Nancy's back catalog was being re-released, Wigs on the Green was among those selected. I personally believe that it must have been family pressure that resulted in this books long absence, because I don't think that her excuse of not laughing at Hitler is valid. Yes, he was pure evil, yes, it wasn't a laughing matter... but the way to take away someone's power is to laugh at them, and Nancy loved to tease and everything was a laughing matter to her. Look to Harry Potter, and yes, it's an odd digression I admit. In Prisoner of Azkaban, Professor Lupin has the students face a boggart, which is a shape-shifter that takes the form of your worst nightmare. The spell that destroys the boggart, Riddikulus, forces the nightmare to take on a humorous form and is then destroyed by laughter. Proving, in the most simplest of terms, that by laughing at something or someone, you take away their power. This book should have been widely distributed to soldiers everywhere, so, her publisher was right on that count. Everyone needs a laugh, and a laugh at the enemies expense is all the better.

As for the laughing. This book was seriously funny, especially if you know a little British history. The send up of the Blackshirts with the Union Jackshirts with their absurd outfits and laughable fervor. I think that Eugenia is probably the only earnest believer in Fascism, while all the rest are just joining the bandwagon, and the fact that Eugenia has been so sheltered, her fervent belief is to be laughed at like that one friend you had in high school who spent all their time lecturing you on why Pepsi was evil because of various civil rights infringements that they could never explain properly to you, but insisted you join their boycott. And that is where the humor really lies, in the personality types Nancy is teasing. We have all known the oddly fervent and political, likewise, the ones who pretend to be to get in with them, those who would do anything for money, even marrying odd heiresses, those who revel in making merry hell for their friends, those who get the wrong end of the stick, and those who are totally potty... though perhaps not to the extent of living up a tree... Sure she was making fun of her family, but it wasn't just them, it's the personality they typified. We are all amusing, Nancy just had a way of making it apparent.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 4 comments  

Labels: Ashford April, Blackshirts, Brideshead Revisited, Diana Mitford, Elizabeth Peters, Harry Potter, Lauren Willig, Mitford March, Nancy Mitford, Oswald Mosley, The Ashford Affair, Unity Mitford, Wigs on the Green

The Secret History by Donna Tratt
Published by: Vintatge
Publication Date: 1992
Format: Paperback, 559 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy
Richard arrives at Hampen College in New England because it's the only school that will take him in and give him some money. It's an eccentric little school and Richard doesn't quite know what he will study. Having studied Greek back in California, he is drawn to this elite circle that has formed around Julian, a professor who holds his classes in his office as a kind of salon, wherein he shall be your sole educator, in the vein of true classicism. Once Richard finally finagles his way in, he becomes a part of this eccentric circle consisting of Henry, the nominal leader, Francis, the literary closet gay, Bunny, the rather dimwitted leach, and Charles and Camilla, the down at heels twins. They are his life entire. Every moment is spent with them or thinking of them. Yet there are secrets. One secret will tear them apart from within. Because, what if, in the pursuit of knowledge, to experience all the Greeks did, a ceremony was performed. A ceremony that had unintended consequences. A ceremony that will fracture the group. A ceremony that was evil and will leave evil in it's wake.

This book reaches the lofty position of one of the worst books I've read in a long time, not just because of the glacial pacing and the unlikable characters, but because of two majorly flaws. There is a disconnect in the book between what it is and what it wants to be. This dislocation gives the book a jarring feeling, like trying to force a square peg in a round hole. The book felt so not of it's time. There is a timelessness to it that feels routed in the early half of the 20th century. You feel like you could be at a small sequestered college surrounded by autumnal foliage and the cast of Brideshead Revisited would wander around the corner. But a coke addict with a boom box is what you usually get. This book is shockingly in the 80s. It doesn't feel like the 80s. The little quiet and queer Greek scholars feel of another time. Which I guess might have been Donna Tartt's purpose... but if it was, it failed. Every time something "80s" happened it felt like an anachronism. A splash of cold water in the face that made me think for the 100th time, why am I still reading this book.

The disconnect isn't just a temporal one, but one of character. Bunny has purposely conflicting descriptions. He is young, very clothes conscious, is a skinflint, so your mind starts to build this very wane, dapper man, who might be slightly effeminate. A Sebastian Flyte of the 80s if you would. For chapters you have this image, and it builds, and gains force, this is who Bunny is. With a name like Bunny, how could you not get this image. Yet then Tartt contradicts this all with, no, he's a good old boy who's a homophobe that is very muscularly built with a fondness for sports. Say what!?! The name Bunny was ironic? You let me believe this image for hundreds of pages to then throw in a curve and make this character no longer work for me. People are built of contradictions, this is true. Yet why go out of the way to obviously create all these Brideshead references, with Venice and Bunny and what have you, only to go, fooled you. Rule one of writing, you don't alienate your reader. They'll get snarky, they'll write crap reviews, and they will never buy your books again, and what will you do without an income?

The second problem I had was with the issue they had of what to do with Bunny. Kill him, move on, the end, I just cut your book by 400 pages Donna. Because that is the evil that comes of their ceremony, Bunny becomes a blackmailer. These people don't have morals, we've already seen that. Incest, it's ok, in fact, it's kind of sexy. Being bisexual with friends occasionally, that's fine too. Heavy drug use, alcohol abuse, Bacchanalia's, murder, they've done it all. Yet they hesitate to kill the one person who they loath, who is blackmailing them, and who was never much of a friend. Uh... where did the sudden morals come from? Perhaps because Donna Tartt was being paid by the word and the longer she could stretch out this anguish, this pointless debate about the inevitable, the more healthy her check at the end.

I didn't know what to expect going into this book. I had heard so many things about it. I had some sort of vague idea that this was going to be an intriguing mystery about some horrific crime, something "beyond the boundaries of normal morality". Instead I got 500 plus pages of whiny eccentric Greek scholars dithering about the inevitable and revelling in debauchery in such a boring way, it didn't feel debauched. The only mystery this book offered was of it's laudatory nature. Please, why? I agree with another review I read, I resent the time I spent on this book. Next please?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Brideshead Revisited, Bunny, Donna Tartt, Greek, Sebastian Flyte, The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, Venice

In celebration of the newest upcoming book by Lauren Willig I thought I'd share with you what goes on in my head. I know, I know, a terrifying thought at any time, but at least this might amuse. I admit, whenever I read books I kind of dream cast them in my head if it were to become a movie or a miniseries... so obviously I've cast all Lauren Willig's books. Therefore combining my new little known BBC actor spotlight series with the Pink Carnation books seemed the next logical step. Plus if I see them in something Regency... Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell... it's very easy to picture them in the books, and no fair saying I'm typecasting! Cause, so what? It's my imagination. I plan on unveiling my star couples every weekend leading up to the release of The Betrayal of the Blood Lily (which incidentally you could win on my blog right now!) Therefore, without further ado... I bring to you the heroine of The Secret History of the Pink Carnation...

Name: Felicity Jones

Dream Character Casting for the Lauren Willig Miniseries: Amy Balcourt

First Impression:As Catherine Morland in Andrew Davies' Northanger Abbey

Why they'd be the perfect actor for the Lauren Willig Miniseries: Her portral made me instantly think she would be perfect for Amy, with that little winsome smile, but don't forget her overactive imagination would be perfect for a girl capable of creating a famous spy moniker.

Lasting Impression: Doctor Who... not so much for the role she played (though being a jewel thief is awesome), but just the fact she was on Doctor Who, how cool is that really!?!

What else you've seen them in: Besides being the best Catherine Morland ever, as well as being in the Agatha Christie episode of Doctor Who, "The Unicorn and the Wasp", she was the unicorn, she's also making a foray away from the small screen to the big one at a theater near you. She portrayed the youngest Flyte in the newest Brideshead, starred alongside Michelle Pfeiffer in Chéri and will soon be in the highly anticipated first movie of the genius team behind The Office and Extras, Ricky Gervais' and Stephen Merchant's Cemetery Junction.

Can't believe it's them: The Worst Witch, the tv series. Which I have to admit, I haven't watched much of, due to the fact I worship the original movie and don't really want to taint my feelings for it. But I'm sure Felicity does a great job as Ethel Hallow.

Wish they hadn't: We'll have to see about this one, but Julie Taymor is doing The Tempset... I still can't quite look at Laura Fraser without seeing her sans hands and tongue... who knows what she'll do to Felicity. Shudder to think.

Bio: Has rapidly gone from relatively unknown theater and miniseries actress to being hotly in demand. I'd put money on her making it bigtime.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:10 AM 5 comments  

Labels: Amy Balcourt, Andrew Davies, Brideshead Revisited, Doctor Who, Felecity Jones, Northanger Abbey, Pink Carnation Spotlight, Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, The Office, The Worst Witch

Happy Halloween Everyone!!! So, I think I should add, for the sake of honesty, that I actually own a lot more costumes then the ones shown. I just thought, to not disrespect that most frightful of holidays I would only include ACTUAL Halloween costumes...not say, my Lord of the Rings costumes with full elf ears, or my Firefly get up, I have the complete Kaylee outfit...so only Halloween, because otherwise this would be a long post indeed!

80s punk, and the return of part of my Pippy gear! Also I cut my hair, MYSELF, about 10 minutes prior to this...so that would be how I ended up with such funky hair for my passport 6 months later...

BEST HALLOWEEN EVER, it was Absolutely Fabulous (haha)! You can't believe how nice people are to you when you're Edie and Patsy! The free booze and cigarettes. I could not even guess how many people we posed for pictures with. That's Hunter S. Thompson, apparently he had a thing for Patsy...

My last year of college totally sucked and I needed a quick yet evil costume, my friends were throwing a theme party, the orcs had taken over Rivendell (literally, their co op was called Rivendell and we had orcs) and I wanted to vent my rage. I went as a Vengeance Demon. Lots of fun and scary too. Note the all out vein action.

So obviously everyone should have a Harry Potter costume. Really they should, you don't realize how useful they are! Plus, aside from the cloak, the individual parts can be worn at any other time without looking like a schoolgirl. This is me with my cat, who would so go to Hogwarts with me...TAKE THAT all my friends who say they're take owls cause it's like email.

Better shot of the costume taken this summer...yes I do occasionally wear it...so?

The year of, wear whatever you find at the thrift store in Ohio. Totally fun, and I took to wearing the wig wherever. Also a kid at the door when I was handing out candy said I looked like his teacher...hmm...what school does he go to?

Back in Ohio a year later I was able to convince my friends (Sarah and Matt) for a group costume...aka Team Zissou. Easy, fun, cool pics, and best of all, we went to an aquarium for cool photoage. As to me pointing to England...I think we were playing the where would you rather be, and I was watching Brideshead Revisited and I am pretty sure I'm pointing at the precise location of Castle Howard, I did study the map for awhile to be sure...

Team Zissou takes the riverboat down the Amazon...no that is not a person you see to the right...and it doesn't look like we are below water level....

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:05 AM 3 comments  

Labels: Ab Fab, Brideshead Revisited, Buffy, Castle Howard, Edie, Halloween, Harry Potter, Hogwarts, Hunter S. Thompson, La Croix, Ohio, Patsy, Pippy Longstocking, Rivendell, Team Zissou, Vengeance Demon