strange and random happenstance

Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne by Katherine Rundell
Published by: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication Date: September 6th, 2022
Format: Kindle, 348 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

John Donne was born a Catholic at a time when it was very dangerous to be a Catholic. Queen Elizabeth I was on the throne, but Mary's reign left a bitter aftertaste in everyone's mouth, resulting in Catholics being in danger primarily because the crown was living in constant fear of a Catholic conspiracy. This was brought home to Donne, not just by family tales of the death of his great-great-uncle Thomas More, but by constantly being punished for his religion. He was unable to take his degree at Oxford because he was unwilling to take the Oath of Supremacy. But the bitterest pill to swallow was when he and his younger brother returned to London where they were both accepted into the Inns of Court. His brother was caught harboring a Catholic priest, a foolish act, that resulted in him going to Newgate Prison where he died of the plague. Donne abandoned his career and perhaps started to abandon his faith. He left the life he knew at Lincoln's Inn where he was the wit forever writing poetry to amuse his friends and took to the high seas. He became a pirate. Though technically he was a privateer, because that's what you call a pirate in the pay of the crown. He served under both Sir Waler Raleigh and the Earl of Essex, two of Queen Elizabeth's favorites. Though she wasn't best pleased about what happened at Cadiz. When Donne returned to London he was well placed to start a diplomatic career and twice in his life he'd serve in Parliament, but it was his work for Sir Thomas Egerton that would change his life. Egerton was the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal and while living at York House Donne would be present for many an historical occasion, including the house arrest of the Earl of Essex. But it was also where he met his wife, Anne. They corresponded and then wed in secret. When it was discovered Donne was arrested and his career was destroyed. Once his father-in-law accepted that the were legally married they were still shunned by society and took up residence with one of Anne's cousins, who was an inveterate gambler. Many, many children followed. Many, many children died. The Queen died, James I ascended the throne. The king though didn't wish Donne's return to court, he wished him to take holy orders. An order that would prove historic and lucrative. Donne was a born preacher as well as a poet. He died during the reign of Charles I, beloved by the public, he would be remembered, forever.

There's a theatricality about Elizabethan England. One could say it's because of Shakespeare, but that would be presumptive and looking back on that time with our modern lens. But it can't be denied that everyone was performative and strived to be larger than life, which is why I am fascinated with the era. Just look to the events surrounding the Earl of Essex which are presented in this book. The Earl of Essex was the stepson of the Queen's supposed "one true love" Robert Dudley, who became her favorite over his stepfather and repaid the Queen by being a petulant shit and staging an insurrection resulting in him being executed for treason, which is something I fully support. The execution, not the treason. This is the world to which John Donne aspired to be a part of. And he was. He served under the Earl of Essex and later was in the household that was responsible for keeping the Earl under house arrest. It's actually quite astonishing that someone remembered for his poetry was a seminal figure of his day. Of course, there are poets that through their lives have became cultural icons, just look to Byron and Shelley. Sure Shelley ran off with his bride, but did it land him in prison? Well, it might have had he come back to England and not died. Were any of them pirates? Or priests? Did a single one of them annoy a king so much that their life might have been in the balance? And that is just a small fraction of Donne's life. It is mind-blowing just how often this man reinvented himself. His life, completely omitting his output as a writer, is worthy of a lavish period drama. Obviously a miniseries which each episode capturing a different side of him. Add in that he is one of the most famous poets ever, in fact Jane Austen's favorite, and his life is kind of inconceivable. And I do know what that word means. As one of my friends pointed out, he's kind of the Lando Calrissian of his day and I can not find fault with this argument. Especially once he brings in the capes. But what makes this book on Donne truly memorable is Katherine Rundell's own wit. She has a snarky way of writing and doesn't hesitate to call Donne out on his bullshit. She makes you feel the astonishment that all this happened in the span of one man's lifetime. A lifetime that didn't even last sixty years. Though what makes her an epic writer is leaving his most famous quote until the very end. You've read about Donne, you know he's famous, but did you know he's "no man is an island" famous?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Byron, Catholic, Earl of Essex, For the Love of Book Clubs, Jane Austen, John Donne, Katherine Rundell, Lando Calrissian, Pirates, Poet, Priests, Queen Elizabeth, Shakespeare, Shelley, Super-Infinite, Thomas More

Amongst Our Weapons by Ben Aaronovitch
Published by: DAW
Publication Date: April 12th, 2022
Format: Paperback, 304 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

In one of the most secure places in London a man loses his heart by an invisible assailant. The London Silver Vaults rarely has anyone stupid enough to attempt a robbery, and yet that's just what David Moore more tried to do, and failed, when a giant hole appeared where his heart should have been. This case has Falcon written all over it, those "special" cases that the Folly comes in to handle. The victim was looking for a ring that his ex-wife supposedly sold. A ring that he desperately wanted back. A ring that his ex-wife was still in possession of. When Peter Grant and Danni Wickford, who's on the Basic Falcon Management Course, show up at her house to say Althea Moore is channeling Gollum would be an understatement. The ring is unique, it can expand to form an armillary sphere and has writing inside from more languages than they can recognize. Soon though that ring is stolen. When they stumble on another dead body with the same cause of death as David Moore, they start to form a picture of what's going on. Years ago up in Manchester, a man named Preston Carmichael, AKA the second body, ran a prayer group that David Moore was a part of. There were seven members of the group in total, seven rings for the dwarf-lords in their halls of stone. And these rings were magical. They were also misfiled at a local library instead of with the Sons of Weyland, the magical blacksmiths whom Nightingale learned from. Which is how they got into the hands of the public. Obviously something magical happened at one of these meetings and since then the bearers of the rings have become overly attached to them. It is when they are questioning one of the other members of the group that Peter has to fight off what he is quite sure is the Angel of Death. Now is not the time for him to die, Bev is about to give birth to twins any day now and he's not going to leave his daughters fatherless. Plus the Folly hasn't really ever come across "angels." And anyhow what would an angel want with rings? Whatever it is there are obvious religious connotations, it's just figuring them out before another person dies, another person that hopefully isn't Peter, that is going to be tricky.

There are very few authors whose sense of humor is perfectly aligned with mine. Ben Aaronovitch happens to be one such author. I honed my humor at the feet of Monty Python. I watched the entire series and then rewatched it while bootlegging it. I know bits off completely by heart, enough to retroactively know that my friends in eighth grade really biffed up the "Dead Parrot" sketch for our talent show that year. Needless to say I, like many, especially the writers of the film Sliding Doors, have a strong reverence for "The Spanish Inquisition" sketches. So when I saw that the title of the next Rivers of London book was Amongst Our Weapons I instantly hoped beyond hope that it was in reference to said sketch. Needless to say, it was. Aaronovitch hasn't let me down yet. But what's more it's used as a structure for the book as well, creating a flow not seen since Whispers Under Ground. Plus, it's not just a a humorous veneer, though I did snort laugh when DCI Seawoll uttered a certain profanity before declaring he "wasn't expecting them," Aaronovitch has worked the Spanish Inquisition into the plot of the book making the reference so important and tying it into the ever expanding magical world. One of the reasons that "The Spanish Inquisition" sketches resonate with me is because I had eight years of Catholic school. Needless to say eight years made me pretty convinced that there isn't a God and there had to be something else that people got out of going to church. Whether it was a sense of community or safety or patronage, I felt that there was something other than God that had to be why thinking people kept going back. I am not alone in thinking this way, and one person who has spent quite a considerable about of time on it is Professor Harold Postmartin D.Phil, F.R.S. As the Folly's literary liaison he is convinced that mass is actually magic. A form of magic that allows one practitioner, the preacher, to use the gathering of the congregants to work a spell. Thus giving Postmartin some tangible reason as to why the congregants would believe, because they got something out of it despite having no magical ability themselves. And I buy this theory, but the more I learn about this world Aaronovitch has created the more I need to know. The Catholic Church might have their own version of the Folly!?! And there are just so many different magical traditions all over not just Britain, but the world. This series could be hundreds of books and it would never be enough. More!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Amongst Our Weapons, Ben Aaronovitch, Beverly Brook, Catholic, London Calling, Magic, Monty Python, Peter Grant, Professor Postmartin, Religion, Rivers of London, The Spanish Inquisition, Whispers Under Ground

The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager
Published by: Dutton
Publication Date: July 3rd, 2018
Format: Hardcover, 370 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Emma finally got the chance to go to the rich bitch summer camp. Yes, her summer plans were upended, but her friends would be so jealous when she returned after six weeks in the wild. Of course her parents forgot to tell her she was going until an hour before they had to leave and they arrive at Camp Nightingale late. All the other cabins with girls her age are full so Emma is put in Dogwood with three older girls, Vivian, Natalie, and Allison. It will always be those three girls, Vivian, Natalie, and Allison, in that order. Because something happened during the two weeks Emma was there that would change her future and the future of the camp. After a roaring bonfire on the forth of July Vivian, Natalie, and Allison leave Dogwood and are never seen again. Fifteen years later Emma is having her first solo art exhibition. She paints large canvases where the forest seems palpably real. Vines and leaves and branches twist and turn in sinuous ways. Though only one other person knows the secret hidden in her paintings. Each and every painting has Vivian, Natalie, and Allison in them. They are forever lost in the forest primeval in perfect white dresses. At the opening a figure from Emma's past buys one of her paintings. Francesca Harris-White, but please call her Franny, is older, but Emma instantly recognizes the founder of Camp Nightingale. The camp has remained closed all these years but she intends to reopen it and wants Emma to teach painting to the girls. They will no longer be the rich bitch camp but campers chosen on merit to enjoy the luxury that generations of girls got to enjoy before that fateful summer. Emma is at first shocked by the proposition. She never thought she'd return to Camp Nightingale and Dogwood, but Franny has assembled an interesting collection of people who were there the year the camp closed. So while Emma might be courting insanity in returning, this is also her one chance to actually find out what happened to her three friends. Her one chance to find closure. Even if it kills her.

I have always had a bit of an obsession with summer camps because I never went to one. OK, I lied, I went to a Jewish summer day camp for two weeks in a park near my house that is now known for gay cruising. Also I was raised Catholic. So there's that conundrum. But I was obsessed for those two weeks with the crafts side of camp, the tie-dying, the candle making, the colored sand in jars, the friendship bracelets, I adored all of it. The closest I ever got to going to a real camp was an overnight Girl Scouts trip to what had to have been a summer camp at some time in it's past. There were long wooden bunk houses, bug invested latrines, and an open air dining hall, all laid out in an oval and very down-at-heel. The best part was when we got to explore. At the back of camp in the woods there were these amazing rocks and we just sat on them and looked out over the lowland. Sadly we never got to go back to the rocks and the trip ended how most of my encounters with nature end, covered in bug bites, overheated, sunburnt, and totally sleep deprived. I almost passed out in church too, remember Catholic, because I had lost a lot of blood due to my constantly having nose bleeds and our troop leader thinking it would be a good idea to eat breakfast after mass. Needless to say, how I was as a child meant that summer camp, a real summer camp, was never going to be an option for me. Which is how I became obsessed with them. It's not that I even wanted to go, it's just the whole mystique, the whole microcosm created at the camps that made me want to live vicariously through other experiences. Which is why I'm drawn to ghost stories and horrific tales set at camps. They combine my darkest thoughts about them with my need to be a part of them. Because of this The Last Time I Lied was my jam. Not only do we get the teen experience of camp but also the experience of returning as an adult. It's everything I could have wanted and more, because oh, when I started picking up on Picnic at Hanging Rock vibes, well, at first I was wondering if I was imagining it, then I didn't care because it was too awesome, but then I was validated in the end. A satisfying feeling just enveloped me when I finished the book. It's a rare feeling to be sure.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Camp Nightingale, Catholic, Crafts, Disappearance, Dogwood, Girl Scouts, Gothic, Jewish, Missing Girls, Painter, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Riley Sager, Summer Camp, The Last Time I Lied

The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager
Published by: Dutton
Publication Date: July 3rd, 2018
Format: Hardcover, 370 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Emma finally got the chance to go to the rich bitch summer camp. Yes, her summer plans were upended, but her friends would be so jealous when she returned after six weeks in the wild. Of course her parents forgot to tell her she was going until an hour before they had to leave and they arrive at Camp Nightingale late. All the other cabins with girls her age are full so Emma is put in Dogwood with three older girls, Vivian, Natalie, and Allison. It will always be those three girls, Vivian, Natalie, and Allison, in that order. Because something happened during the two weeks Emma was there that would change her future and the future of the camp. After a roaring bonfire on the forth of July Vivian, Natalie, and Allison leave Dogwood and are never seen again. Fifteen years later Emma is having her first solo art exhibition. She paints large canvases where the forest seems palpably real. Vines and leaves and branches twist and turn in sinuous ways. Though only one other person knows the secret hidden in her paintings. Each and every painting has Vivian, Natalie, and Allison in them. They are forever lost in the forest primeval in perfect white dresses. At the opening a figure from Emma's past buys one of her paintings. Francesca Harris-White, but please call her Franny, is older, but Emma instantly recognizes the founder of Camp Nightingale. The camp has remained closed all these years but she intends to reopen it and wants Emma to teach painting to the girls. They will no longer be the rich bitch camp but campers chosen on merit to enjoy the luxury that generations of girls got to enjoy before that fateful summer. Emma is at first shocked by the proposition. She never thought she'd return to Camp Nightingale and Dogwood, but Franny has assembled an interesting collection of people who were there the year the camp closed. So while Emma might be courting insanity in returning, this is also her one chance to actually find out what happened to her three friends. Her one chance to find closure. Even if it kills her.

I have always had a bit of an obsession with summer camps because I never went to one. OK, I lied, I went to a Jewish summer day camp for two weeks in a park near my house that is now known for gay cruising. Also I was raised Catholic. So there's that conundrum. But I was obsessed for those two weeks with the crafts side of camp, the tie-dying, the candle making, the colored sand in jars, the friendship bracelets, I adored all of it. The closest I ever got to going to a real camp was an overnight Girl Scouts trip to what had to have been a summer camp at some time in it's past. There were long wooden bunk houses, bug invested latrines, and an open air dining hall, all laid out in an oval and very down-at-heel. The best part was when we got to explore. At the back of camp in the woods there were these amazing rocks and we just sat on them and looked out over the lowland. Sadly we never got to go back to the rocks and the trip ended how most of my encounters with nature end, covered in bug bites, overheated, sunburnt, and totally sleep deprived. I almost passed out in church too, remember Catholic, because I had lost a lot of blood due to my constantly having nose bleeds and our troop leader thinking it would be a good idea to eat breakfast after mass. Needless to say, how I was as a child meant that summer camp, a real summer camp, was never going to be an option for me. Which is how I became obsessed with them. It's not that I even wanted to go, it's just the whole mystique, the whole microcosm created at the camps that made me want to live vicariously through other experiences. Which is why I'm drawn to ghost stories and horrific tales set at camps. They combine my darkest thoughts about them with my need to be a part of them. Because of this The Last Time I Lied was my jam. Not only do we get the teen experience of camp but also the experience of returning as an adult. It's everything I could have wanted and more, because oh, when I started picking up on Picnic at Hanging Rock vibes, well, at first I was wondering if I was imagining it, then I didn't care because it was too awesome, but then I was validated in the end. A satisfying feeling just enveloped me when I finished the book. It's a rare feeling to be sure.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Camp Nightingale, Catholic, Crafts, Disappearance, Dogwood, Girl Scouts, Going Gothic, Jewish, Missing Girls, Painter, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Riley Sager, Summer Camp, The Last Time I Lied

Where Angels Fear to Tread by E.M. Forster
Published by: Book-of-the-Month Club
Publication Date: 1905
Format: Hardcover, 208 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Lilia has spent the last few years since her husband died being under the thumb of his family. They don't want to be separated from Lilia's daughter Irma, but something must be done about Lilia. She is scandalous; riding bicycles through the quiet suburban streets of Sawston, forming inappropriate relationships with men, and worst of all, encouraging them! Her mother-in-law, Mrs. Herriton, thinks it's a wonderful idea that Lilia go off to Italy for a year, supposedly as the companion of their homely neighbor Charlotte Abbot, when in fact Charlotte will be watching over Lilia. Lilia's brother-in-law Philip has always painted a magical image of Italy, and they hopes that this will be the case. Philip also urges them to stop at Monteriano. Little did they all know that this suggestion would be their downfall. The letters from Lilia indicate that the two women are spending a considerable amount of time in Monteriano. The family back in England take little notice of it till they learn that Lilia has formed an attachment with a man there and they intend to marry! This is unacceptable to the Herritons and Philip rushes off to stop the misalliance, but he is too late. They are already married and Charlotte feels despondent. But there is nothing to be done. Later in the year they hear that Lilia has died in childbirth. They think the matter is at an end. But soon Lilia's husband Gino starts reaching out to Irma, the sister of his son. In order to appease Irma the family decides on a misguided attempt to rescue the baby boy from his heathen father and bring him back to England. The tragedy of Lilia's death will not be avenged, it will be increased tenfold.

The problem with Forster is that there almost always comes a point where the book goes off the rails and you are left with this feeling of it being a close call. It was almost genius, but not quite. If it hadn't been for that last chapter, if the character didn't forget itself... it could have been a masterpiece. It's frustrating to read a book that could have been so much more. If only. I liken it to the first time you read Northanger Abbey, the beginning set up in Bath is perfection and then it devolves into Gothic parody. Of course as you develop your sensibilities you realize that what you thought was a misstep for Austen was in fact perfectly calculated and the book rises in your estimations to be your favorite of her works. Despite being an Edwardian Austen, I don't think Forster's missteps were cunningly crafted. I think the story, for the most part, got away from him. But Forster was a man who also learned from his mistakes and each book improved by the lessons previously learned. The problem therefore with Where Angels Fear to Tread is that this was his first book published when he was only twenty-six years old. There was no previous to learn from and so it is rough. Very rough. It's not quite there yet and is more than a bit schitzo, but you can see how his writing will develop and how the tragic accident at the denouement will focus the narrative in future books. Also, now knowing how the narrative flows, on future readings I won't be lulled into believing the book is something that it's not. So like Northanger Abbey, I hope my opinion of this work will only improve.

What I find interesting is that all the characters are living these proscribed little lives, trapped by convention and circumstance. While they don't all immediately rail against their situations, their reactions speak for themselves. With their first taste of freedom they almost quite literally go crazy. Lilia marries almost the first man she sees who she has no common language with. Caroline goes along with this crazy scheme and even falls for the same man. Lilia's sister-in-law Harriet takes the law into her own hands and loses her mind. As for Philip, he just loses all sense and logic and loves everything. All these people just throw off the chains of the life they had been living and do something they never would have expected themselves capable of. What I wonder is would the tragedy of the book, with Lilia's marriage and subsequent death, even have happened if she hadn't been so smothered by her life? If she hadn't been kept in this cage of conventionality that is suburban Sawston? I think that that is the key of the book. It shines a light on the strictures of society and the cages we are put in or put ourselves in and shows us that there is another way. Of course the result her is in the dramatic extreme, but it shows that by crushing someone for long enough their reaction might be equally strong in the other direction. Therefore a balance has to be reached somehow. But I don't necessarily think that Forster is advocating this balance. I think he is advocating the need to feel something, anything, in a society that is repressive.

This need to feel something, even an extreme, is where I think the book goes from social commentary to unintentional satire. Yes, you would expect that losing the chains that had forever trapped you might make you overzealous to embrace this new freedom, but the way in which all the characters react seems so far out of character that it is almost unbelievable. People are by nature contradictory creatures, but are they really this contradictory? If a book loses it's grounding in reality, it loses something of the point it is trying to make. While Lilia getting re-married is a believable catalyst, the way it is handled lends itself more to French Farce. The book takes it's title from the famous Alexander Pope quote "fools rush in where angels fear to thread." But I don't think that the rushing in should be like the Keystone Cops, bumbling and falling over each other. Everyone gets to Italy and they act like they are on drugs, ecstasies of experience and throwing off the shackles of their bourgeois life. While if Forster had toned this down, he could have had an amazing social commentary on the respectability and "superiority" of suburban life, instead it feels like a fever dream where one minute our enemy is our enemy, the next they are our savior or our bosom companion. Nothing that happens in Monteriano actually makes the least bit of sense and yet we are to believe it is some kind of transformative experience? Again, cue the Keystone Cops.

But there is something that can't be denied and that is the English obsession with Italy. And I want to know why? Writers from Waugh to Forster, they had this near religious ecstasy about Italy. To me, Italy is just a country that I hope to one day visit. The English obsession for specific generations though is beyond "The Grand Tour" it's like Italy is the only place where one can be and feel and see, where there is actually culture. Firstly, I think this is a disservice to their own country, but more then that, being someone not raised in this culture to revere Italy it's off putting. It creates a chasm between the writer and the reader. Someone mentioning Italy doesn't transport me like Philip into a haze of reminiscences that are the only worthwhile memories of my life. I just want some explanation as to why this is the case. Is it because of the public school system and the ingraining of Latin so that Italy is the cradle of civilization? With Waugh I get the religious connotations, but seeing as England is mainly not Catholic, it couldn't be this religious aspect. Yes, the art is something to be admired, but... just what is it? Why was Italy the be all end all. Having spent so much of this past July reading about the generation of the Bright Young People, they all had this feeling about Italy. Never once was it explained, it was just accepted. I'm sorry, but reading this book over a hundred years after it was written, I would request some explanation of the English Italy alliance please.

Because this love of the country spills out into the most problematic part of the book. Gino. Lilia's husband is Italian and, not too put too fine a point on it, a brute. Yet he is almost quite literally forgiven everything because he is representative of this country that they love and he has all these people in his thrall. His exuberance, his lust for life, they are able to cover up his darker sins of adultery and abuse. While you could say he's a modern day version of the rough and unlikable man as hero, a la Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, I still don't think that that excuses anything. Being able to have emotions doesn't mean that all the emotions are acceptable. Because you love doesn't mean you should cheat on your wife! This isn't an either or situation. Life needs compromise, but it also needs some restraint. It's not all or nothing. If Forster had actually bothered to create a true character, a complex man with faults then perhaps I could have liked the book more, but to have a man be totem for his country, to have all the good and the bad of an entire people? It just doesn't work. Gino as Avatar is laughable. Could a man really forgive the death of his son in such a manner? Could he shrug off basically all the cares of life? I don't think so. Maybe the English love Italy because they believe it is this magical land where everything works out and nothing much matters, never realizing that it's this imaginary dream that doesn't exist. If it's unbelievable in fiction, well then, there's no chance it's real life now is it?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 2 comments  

Labels: Alexander Pope, Catholic, E.M. Forster, Evelyn Waugh, Forster Fall, Heathcliff, Italy, Jane Austen, Keystone Cops, Monteriano, Northanger Abbey, The Grand Tour, Where Angels Fear to Tread, Wuthering Heights

The Betrayal of the Blood Lily was the very first ARC I was approved for once I started my blog, back in the days before NetGalley it wasn't as easy as hitting a button on your computer screen "requesting" a title. My dream of Lauren Willig ARCs had come to fruition. Interestingly, me and The Betrayal of the Blood Lily had a little bit of a history, mainly I entered the competition on Lauren's website to name the book with ferocious zeal. While I will discuss my titular dreams at another time, I stumbled upon my list of title suggestions recently, and well, they are too hilarious not to share, and so not Penelope it's shame-making. I remember I actually researched plants native to India and harassed my friend Matt who knows a lot about flowers, and well, I have to say it, I'm glad none of my titles were ever considered and that book six will forever be The Betrayal of the Blood Lily, and not, say, The Shame of Sweet Orange.

And now I present my titles, with a precise of what this version of Pen's tale might have been:

The Proud Mantle of a Crown of Thorns: Wherein the culture clash of moving to India and a Hindu country leads Penelope to become a religious zealot and convert to Catholicism, martyring herself for her sins and letting Freddy do as he pleases while castigating herself for her feelings for Alex. There is a dramatic scene wherein Penelope applies a cilice to her body for the first time and she cries out in pain and religious ecstasy. She will eventually retire to a nunnery once Freddy dies.

The Sweat-Damped Indian Caper: A jewel heist involving the Jewels of Berar reminiscent of the "Pink Panther" movies, though far more moist as it's during the rainy season. It's zany, it's fun, and Peter Sellers plays the role of Penelope. This is not to be missed.

The Heralding of the Trumpet Vine: Penelope goes on raucous hunts and is the "easy" wife everyone assumes her to be, sinking further into degradation and depravity, but with a rictus grin playing on her lips. The title refers to the fact that she rides astride elephants while blowing a trumpet to announce her arrival, which makes her flamboyant personality well known to all in India, and the center of all gossip in the English set.

The Shame of Sweet Orange: Penelope is so chastened by her hasty marriage to Freddy and the sad divide between her and her dearest friends, Charlotte and Henrietta, that Penelope slowly becomes more and more demure, eventually disappearing to nothing more then a ghost in the house. She dies within the year, just wasting away to nothing. Charlotte and her Duke arrive to find a drunk and debauched Freddy laughing over the whole affair while Alex leads them to Penelope's final resting place, where sweet orange proliferates.

The Brazening Bindweed or the Bindweed Brazens it Out: Penelope realizes that what's good for the goose is good for the gander. She is brazen in a string of love affairs taking most of her husband's friends and colleagues to her bed, sometimes even their wives. She longs for a simpler life and she falls for Alex, but she will never stoop to being the chattel of one man ever again and continues her licentious life, leaving Alex as a sweet memory she could never have had.

The Ruin of Cupid’s Bower: Disillusioned by her marriage to Freddy, Penelope starts to become the sort of romantic that her friend Charlotte is, reading tomes of doomed love. When she discovers that Freddy is cheating on her she kills herself knowing that she was never worthy of love, especially that budding in the heart of Alex. In fact, her death might just have been a courageous act to save Alex.

The Forbearance of the English Daisy: Penelope arrives off the boat in India determined to make the best of a bad situation. She will put up with anything just to keep up appearances, even brushing Freddy's affairs under the rug. She's the perfect wife, throwing the best parties, having the strongest tea, and always having a shoulder to cry on for anyone in need of helpful advice. She eventually has a psychotic break in later years from all the strain of carrying on and not shattering the fragile illusion she has created of her life.

The Atonement of the Adder Mouthed Orchid: Penelope knows that she has to make up for the shame and disgrace that she has brought to her and Freddy's reputations. She tries her best to be the perfect wife but when a snake is found in her room she allows the snake to strike and the venom to work it's way into her body, knowing that this is the only true way she can atone for her sins.

As you can see, a different title totally conjures up a different story in my mind. Also, what was with all the religious imagery with thorns and atonement and shame? Seriously!?! I swear that this has nothing to do with those eight years of a Catholic education. I hope that this has at least entertained you as much as it did me writing it.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alex Reid, An August Adieu, ARCs, Catholic, India, Jewel Heist, Lauren Willig, Penelope, The Betrayal of the Blood Lily

The Terminal Man by Michael Crichton
Based on the book by Michael Crichton
Starring: George Segal, Joan Hackett, Richard Dysart, Donald Moffat, Michael C. Gwynne, William Hansen, Matt Clark, Jim Antonio, and Jill Clayburgh
Release Date: June 19th, 1974
Rating: ★
To Buy

Harry Benson is having an experimental surgery to stop his epileptic seizures that cause violent blackouts after he was in a car accident. Harry's entire life changed, from a loving family man he has become a violent criminal. The hope is that he can gain some semblance of his old life back. His psychiatrist, Doctor Janet Ross, thinks that implanting electrodes in his brain isn't the wisest idea, which is proven correct when his brain starts to trigger more and more mini seizures to get the euphoric jolt from the electrodes. The problem is, once the jolts become continuous, he will have a major blackout and will be the most dangerous he's ever been. This wouldn't be that big a problem except that Harry has escaped his police guard and left the hospital. He could be anyway and anything could happen. The first tipping point will be some minutes after three in the morning, and that's when Harry first kills. As his electric jolts become more and more constant he will have more major blackouts and more people could die, even the doctors who are trying to help him, because he knows where they all live.

If you want a pompous pretentious movie that is so full of itself that you will be laughing till you are crying, then I heartily recommend you watch The Terminal Man! This adaptation might be the most amusing of all the Crichton adaptations I have ever seen. Either the adaptation is true to the book and with Crichton's involvement we get to watch a solid movie, or the adaptation is all levels of tacky throwing in bad robotic apes with sign language gloves that disappoint while the viewer is able to still find some humor in their situation. But The Terminal Man leaves all others in the dust when it comes to overreaching. Cinema in the late sixties and early seventies was revitalized by more artistic movies that weren't meant to be mainstream. From Bonnie and Clyde to The Graduate, 2001 to A Clockwork Orange, movies were breaking with conventions and what would have previously been art house fare was now de rigueur. The Terminal Man obviously had dreams of being the next big thing with it's limited dialogue and score set in a very colorless world but instead the movie comes off as trying too hard. It wants to be chic so badly that it oversteps and we are left with a laughable mess.

The biggest hint that they are trying to make a medical thriller into an artsy film is in the sets and costumes. The sets have no color. No color at all. And literally everyone is only ever seen in white, black, or grey. There are no other colors in this world, except that hint of red. Both blood and flowers are allowed red, but nothing else. It's obviously aiming for the impact of the girl with the red coat in Schindler's List and instead it's just weird. The appearance of the red when Harry starts to kill isn't jarring, like a horrific murder should be, it was just laughable. I'm not sure if this colorless world was supposed to be a commentary on the antiseptic lifestyle that surrounds a hospital or some weird futuristic concept where colors are tacky in the future, because they did noticeably remove any reference to the year the movie was set in. The height of the fashion faux pas is the nurses uniforms, which are so impractical and their headdresses are half medieval peasant half nun that one wonders what the hell world this movie was really thinking it lived in. You can actually feel the filmmakers striving for greatness, you can hear the gears in their head moving and thinking, yes, this will be a classic for the ages like Kubrick. If Kubrick did Lifetime TV movies, then maybe the analogy would be right.

The Terminal Man just wanted to be profound, it wanted to be something more. The sparseness is also seen in the paring down of the story. There is almost no dialogue and what plot existed in the book has been almost completely gutted. Instead the film is populated with long silences and static images that in the hands of someone talented, aka Kubrick, it could have worked, but here it draws out the movie so that a film that is under two hours feels about six. The problem that arises from parring down everything is the story is lost in translation. You don't realize that Harry Benson is supposed to be a genius with a fear of machines that indicates his psychosis, instead we have a violent man who has a surgery that goes wrong and kills some people. Where is the motivation? Where is the reasoning? In the book there is a connection between Benson and Doctor Ross where they have a true friendship, where their conversations delve into deep concepts. Here their doctor patient relationship is almost nonexistent and Doctor Ross is relegated to sexist jokes and wailing while trying to futilely save her patient.

The major divergence from the book, wherein they make Harry a Roman Catholic, exemplifies how the filmmakers were striving for some inner meaning. Something lofty and enigmatic and shocking. Instead of just sticking to the solid story that existed, here Harry isn't contemplating machines taking over the world, but instead trying to come to terms with being a violent man. What? I mean, he doesn't remember these attacks and often puts himself purposefully in these situations, ie, going to bars and strip clubs, yet somehow he has remorse? Since when? His going to church to confess made me role my eyes. The film seriously thought that by adding this layer of spiritualism that they would somehow redeem it? Make it something worthy of discussion? Instead the killing of the priest with his rosary during Harry's confession comes off as laughable and oh so predictable. It isn't helped by the fact that George Segal, while a good actor in his own way, was unable to carry this production. His "seizures" are worthy of a Razzie.

But the saddest fact of this whole film is that it wants to have been a Stanley Kubrick film. With the minimal score, only Bach's Goldberg Variation No. 25 played by Glenn Gould is ever heard, the colorless sets, the framing of each scene, the doctors in evening wear, the weird eye through the door watching over us, all of it cries out as a poor Kubrick imitation. Personally, I have never been the biggest Kubrick fan, but watching someone trying to emulate him so hard it is painful to watch you realize how great Kubrick is. This, this was like the bad Lifetime tv movie that was made as a Kubrick film. Much like the true stories of Saved by the Bell and Full House, The Terminal Man comes off as cut rate, cliched, badly cast, lacking vision, and unable to grasp even the basics of what they are trying to do. By the end of the film when George Segal is having a seizure in a cemetery plot, well, you're just praying for that bullet to end it all. It was amusing to watch the film once because of how bad it is, but a second viewing would be masochistic. Go watch something by Kubrick instead, it's the real deal, not a pale over ambitious imitation.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 2001, A Clockwork Orange, Adaptation, Bonnie and Clyde, Catholic, Crichton Celebration, George Segal, Lifetime, Michael Crichton, Schindler's List, Stanley Kubrick, The Graduate, The Terminal Man, TV Movie

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