strange and random happenstance

Being a fan of Masterpiece Theatre is sometimes hard, especially if you love the earliest seasons from the seventies. If you're extremely lucky they're available to stream. If you're very lucky they are available on DVD, and it still counts if it's an extra on Maggie Smith at the BBC or part of The Henry James Collection. If you're plain lucky the DVD is out of print but you can find a copy at your library or on eBay. If you're somewhat lucky there was a VHS release or you have the original broadcast taped. And yes, specifically for this reason I still have an old VHS player hooked up. And then there's Notorious Woman. Rosemary Harris won an Emmy for playing the formidable George Sand but this series is notorious in more ways than one because it was never reaired. It was shelved, never to be re-released, with no explanation given. And despite the picture above, there is no indication it was ever released by the BBC on DVD in England. If you're lucky you can find a press photo here and there and that's it. Therefore I resigned myself to never seeing this miniseries. And that was the case until I started trawling YouTube. Oh, thank you to whomever uploaded the entire series, all seven episodes as a single six hour movie. Yes, the quality was variable from atrocious to acceptable, and was obviously taken from a bad PAL tape that had somehow survived at the BBC, but however you got it, I salute you. I also like to think you're a vigilante BBC employee helping those who search out lost media to find their holy grails. And sometimes, those grails aren't worth chasing. There's a reason a show has been lost to time. Yes, I'm looking at you Fall of Eagles, you weren't worth hunting down on the secondary market at all. The least you could have done is let me see the Romanovs executed. But Notorious Woman is in a category all it's own. This series is just magnificent with some of the best writing of any show I've watched from Masterpiece Theatre and it deserves a release. Here's to you Harry W. Junkin, your writing is intoxicating. Notorious Woman is just simply wonderful and I don't know why it never has been released, the music is all in the public domain, and the lesbianism is implied, the male clothing was totally acceptable by the seventies, perhaps it's George Sand's radical embracing of feminism and socialism? Can't have people getting ideas after all, because truth is the one good thing in the world and ignorance is the one bad thing Sand quipped to Flaubert paraphrasing Diogenes. And that right there is why I love this show so much, she's facetious with Flaubert, she's bantering with Balzac, she's charming with Chopin. This is a literary lovers dream come true. The life of Aurore Dupin, later George Sand, led an extraordinary life, and here it is brought to us through the formidable talents of Rosemary Harris. If there's one flaw, aside from not being able to find it, it's that it's too short. Once Chopin emerges on the scene as the love of her life it's like he became her life, the most important but still oedipal relationship in her life. Once he's dead it's like her life was over, but she was very much still alive and active. I wanted that comradery of literati to continue. Like Owen Wilson's character in Midnight in Paris, I long for the salons of another era; Fitzgerald and Hemingway, or as here, Paganini, Chopin, Liszt, Sands, Balzac, all commingling in Paris. All lifting each other up and tearing each other down. I don't think since the Beats have we had true literati. Ah, to live in a time where there was this kind of literary and artistic culture. I want to go to there. This miniseries is sadly the closest I'll get and should be the definitive look at Sand, not that movie Impromptu. Hugh Grant as Chopin? Not for me. I want that guy from West Side Story!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Aurore Dupin, Chopin, Emmy, Feminism, Fifty-Five Years a Masterpiece, George Sand, Harry W. Junkin, Impromptu, Literati, Lost Media, Midnight in Paris, Notorious Woman, Owen Wilson, Paris, Rosemary Harris, Socialism, West Side Story

Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche by Nancy Springer
Published by: Wednesday Books
Publication Date: August 31st, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 272 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Now that Enola Holmes is no longer hiding from her famous, much older, brothers, she has the luxury of freedom. No longer constantly looking over her shoulder to see if Mycroft's lurking in a carriage to spirit her off to a dreadful and deadly boarding school. What's more, this means she can actually go and visit her brother Sherlock whenever she wants! Only her current visit to 221 Baker Street is at the insistence of Doctor Watson. Sherlock is suffering from melancholia. After triumphantly solving his last case he won't eat, he won't bath, he won't dress, and it took all of Doctor Watson's vast resources just to get him out of bed. So Enola swoops in. She is determined to get Sherlock off the sofa and back in the game. Thankfully a compelling case arrives on his doorstep. While he languishes on his sofa Miss Letitia Glover spins her story for Enola. Tish's twin sister Felicity has been declared deceased. But Tish just knows it can't be true. She would feel it if Flossie had left this mortal coil. They're twins after all. Therefore Flossie's husband must be lying. Felicity married above her station. While Tish is a humble typist, Flossie is a talented watercolourist and the wife of the Earl of Dunhench, Lord Cadogan Burr Rudcliff II. He wrote to Tish saying that Felicity had contracted a fever and died the same day and was immediately cremated in order to prevent the spread of the disease. Her ashes were included with the letter. Everything about this is too cavalier, too pat. But the case is enough to get Sherlock off the couch. Enola couldn't be happier. She's working a case with her brother! Or at least he'll soon realize they're working the case together once she arrives in Surrey. Of course she didn't intend to actually end up in Caddie's house. But since she's there she might as well investigate what happened to his first wife as well... because Caddie hasn't just tragically lost one wife in similar circumstances, but two. And things aren't adding up. For a family obsessed with death portraiture, neither of his wives have one. Then there's the secret message that Felicity hid in her most recent painting. And if they weren't convinced that Caddie was up to no good, the fact that Doctor Watson's signature was forged on the death certificate would be the nail in the coffin. Which begs the question, can they find Felicity before Caddie does something even more drastic?

Enola Holmes returns to her first home after her triumphant success on the small screen. When I was invited to be a part of the Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche Blog Tour I decided to do an Enola Holmes deep dive. I picked up my Scholastic Book Fair copy of The Case of the Missing Marquess and before I knew it, thanks to my local library, I had devoured Enola's entire back catalog of cases. For as long as I can remember Sherlock Holmes has always been in my life, primarily because of the Jeremy Brett adaptations for PBS which my parents adored. Personally though my Holmes canon revolves around Young Sherlock Holmes, The Great Mouse Detective, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and perhaps the first two seasons of Sherlock. Though the later seasons soured me to the earlier ones. What I'm saying is, despite there being SO MUCH Sherlockian storytelling out there, from irregulars to noncanonical wives, children, and siblings, only a few things have sparked something inside me and made me really connect to the material. This rarefied list now includes Enola Holmes. There is such joy and daring and girl power in this series that I fell instantly in love with it. What's more, Nancy Springer's use of language is a delight to read. To have an author properly use fantods in a text, it almost had me suffering from the vapors while Edward Gorey gleefully rolled over in his grave. This newest adventure, the first published in over a decade, shows a more mature Enola. After the events in The Case of the Gypsy Good-Bye a shift has taken place. Enola is no longer having to divide her efforts between solving her cases and hiding from her famous brothers. Now she can concentrate on her work, or in this case, concentrate on inveigling herself into Sherlock's work. In fact, their one-upmanship brings about the funniest moments as Enola reverts a little to her more childish ways, because who doesn't revert to being a child around their siblings no matter their age? As for the case? Well, we are still dealing with the problems that only women suffer at the hands of Victorian society, but this time it's a little darker and a lot more Gothic, which has me very excited to see where Enola goes in future adventures and I can't wait.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Baker Street, Enola Holmes, Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche, Feminism, Mycroft, Sherlock Holmes, Sherlocked, The Great Mouse Detective, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Victorian, Younger Sherlock Holmes

The Vanishing Box by Elly Griffiths
Published by: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication Date: November 2nd, 2017
Format: Kindle, 368 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Max Mephisto and his daughter Ruby may be top billing at the Brighton Hippodrome for the holiday season but if Max ever wanted a clear sign that variety is on it's way out he need look no further than the rest of the bill. To be on the bill with a tawdry tableau act of "living statues" perfectly posed so as to skirt the nudity laws is lowering to say the least. But the salacious act might have one benefit, in the very attractive Florence Jones. There's no doubt about it, she's turned Max's head with her Cleopatra tableau and her forthright attitude. She's the type of woman who is the total package, a woman who has Max thinking about the future and marriage. He has been comfortably ensconced with Mrs. M since he left the cold attic room of his landlady's house for her bed but Florence is the type of woman whom you have passionate sex with at a hotel under assumed names in the middle of the day while contemplating the future. They might both be entangled with others, Florence being a kept woman to her show's producer, Vic Cutler, and Max with Mrs. M, but their attraction goes beyond what they are both getting out of their current relationships. In other relationship news Edgar is starting to drift from Ruby. They have been engaged for so long now that it seems unlikely they will ever be married. Something Emma wouldn't mind in the least. But affairs of the heart will have to take a backseat to murder. A young florist named Lily has been slain. Two of the girls from the tableau show were sharing digs with her. What the police don't want people to know is that Lily was posed. Like a classical tableau. In fact, she was posed like a famous painting. But she wasn't in show business despite her digs. In fact it was Lily's mother who was in show business and recommended the digs to her daughter. Could Lily's murder have something to do with the show at the Hippodrome? When Vic Cutler turns up dead it seems a foregone conclusion. Which means, who could be next? Are Ruby and Max in danger? Or someone closer to Edgar's heart?

The Vanishing Box is the turning point for this series. What was predominately a male dominated series is shifting to a female dominated series and in order for that transition to be complete the Emma and Ruby problem has to be laid to rest. Which means it's time for a showdown. Ever since she first appeared on the page I've been rooting for Emma, we've all been rooting for Emma. She's the perfect match for Edgar. Ruby is glamorous, standoffish, and keeps Edgar at a remove, never confirming a date for their wedding or even admitting they are engaged because she knows her life goals are so different from his. So obviously they were never going to work and Emma and Edgar are endgame. What I took issue with was here Elly Griffiths backpedals on Edgar and Ruby's true feelings for each other. We're supposed to believe that deep down Edgar has always loved Emma and that Ruby actually deeply cares about Edgar and is sad their relationship has come to an end? I don't know what books the author thought she was writing, but this wasn't what was going on. Yes, humanizing Ruby is necessary. She can't live up on that pedestal forever, but she could have locked down Edgar at any time and she chose not to. That was her choice. Don't rewrite it mawkishly to be some sort of unrequited or doomed love affair because I am not buying it. Especially with the bigger themes at play here. The Emma and Ruby dynamic feeds into how women are viewed by society. With the tableau we are shown a world in which women are nothing more than objects. They are there to be looked at and lusted after. But they don't have any agency. Whereas Emma is a woman with nothing but agency. She has a job and goals and is breaking away for societal expectations. With the humanization of Ruby we see her moving from an ideal, in particular Edgar's ideal, to an actual living and breathing person who is more similar to Emma than Emma would probably like to admit. The Vanishing Box fits perfectly into it's era and women's liberation. Women are no longer just the focus of men's gazes. They are cops and magicians and florists and writers and on and on. Yet the killer views them as the feminine ideal. The male feminine ideal. Which is why I love when the women take over the tableau show. They were exploited by men, but now, in control, they say what is and isn't permissible. Women finally have the power. But does that mean we have to say goodbye to Edgar and Max? Only time will tell.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Brighton, Edgar Stephens, Elly Griffiths, Emma Holmes, Endgame, Feminism, Living Statues, Magic Men, Magician, Max Mephisto, Murder, Murder Most Foul, Mystery, Tableau, The Vanishing Box, Variety, Women's Liberation

The Vanishing Box by Elly Griffiths
Published by: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication Date: November 2nd, 2017
Format: Kindle, 368 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Max Mephisto and his daughter Ruby may be top billing at the Brighton Hippodrome for the holiday season but if Max ever wanted a clear sign that variety is on it's way out he need look no further than the rest of the bill. To be on the bill with a tawdry tableau act of "living statues" perfectly posed so as to skirt the nudity laws is lowering to say the least. But the salacious act might have one benefit, in the very attractive Florence Jones. There's no doubt about it, she's turned Max's head with her Cleopatra tableau and her forthright attitude. She's the type of woman who is the total package, a woman who has Max thinking about the future and marriage. He has been comfortably ensconced with Mrs. M since he left the cold attic room of his landlady's house for her bed but Florence is the type of woman whom you have passionate sex with at a hotel under assumed names in the middle of the day while contemplating the future. They might both be entangled with others, Florence being a kept woman to her show's producer, Vic Cutler, and Max with Mrs. M, but their attraction goes beyond what they are both getting out of their current relationships. In other relationship news Edgar is starting to drift from Ruby. They have been engaged for so long now that it seems unlikely they will ever be married. Something Emma wouldn't mind in the least. But affairs of the heart will have to take a backseat to murder. A young florist named Lily has been slain. Two of the girls from the tableau show were sharing digs with her. What the police don't want people to know is that Lily was posed. Like a classical tableau. In fact, she was posed like a famous painting. But she wasn't in show business despite her digs. In fact it was Lily's mother who was in show business and recommended the digs to her daughter. Could Lily's murder have something to do with the show at the Hippodrome? When Vic Cutler turns up dead it seems a foregone conclusion. Which means, who could be next? Are Ruby and Max in danger? Or someone closer to Edgar's heart?

The Vanishing Box is the turning point for this series. What was predominately a male dominated series is shifting to a female dominated series and in order for that transition to be complete the Emma and Ruby problem has to be laid to rest. Which means it's time for a showdown. Ever since she first appeared on the page I've been rooting for Emma, we've all been rooting for Emma. She's the perfect match for Edgar. Ruby is glamorous, standoffish, and keeps Edgar at a remove, never confirming a date for their wedding or even admitting they are engaged because she knows her life goals are so different from his. So obviously they were never going to work and Emma and Edgar are endgame. What I took issue with was here Elly Griffiths backpedals on Edgar and Ruby's true feelings for each other. We're supposed to believe that deep down Edgar has always loved Emma and that Ruby actually deeply cares about Edgar and is sad their relationship has come to an end? I don't know what books the author thought she was writing, but this wasn't what was going on. Yes, humanizing Ruby is necessary. She can't live up on that pedestal forever, but she could have locked down Edgar at any time and she chose not to. That was her choice. Don't rewrite it mawkishly to be some sort of unrequited or doomed love affair because I am not buying it. Especially with the bigger themes at play here. The Emma and Ruby dynamic feeds into how women are viewed by society. With the tableau we are shown a world in which women are nothing more than objects. They are there to be looked at and lusted after. But they don't have any agency. Whereas Emma is a woman with nothing but agency. She has a job and goals and is breaking away for societal expectations. With the humanization of Ruby we see her moving from an ideal, in particular Edgar's ideal, to an actual living and breathing person who is more similar to Emma than Emma would probably like to admit. The Vanishing Box fits perfectly into it's era and women's liberation. Women are no longer just the focus of men's gazes. They are cops and magicians and florists and writers and on and on. Yet the killer views them as the feminine ideal. The male feminine ideal. Which is why I love when the women take over the tableau show. They were exploited by men, but now, in control, they say what is and isn't permissible. Women finally have the power. But does that mean we have to say goodbye to Edgar and Max? Only time will tell.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Brighton, Edgar Stephens, Elly Griffiths, Emma Holmes, Endgame, Feminism, Living Statues, Magic Men, Magician, Max Mephisto, Murder, Mystery, Tableau, The Vanishing Box, Variety, Women's Liberation

Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche by Nancy Springer
Published by: Wednesday Books
Publication Date: August 31st, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 272 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Now that Enola Holmes is no longer hiding from her famous, much older, brothers, she has the luxury of freedom. No longer constantly looking over her shoulder to see if Mycroft's lurking in a carriage to spirit her off to a dreadful and deadly boarding school. What's more, this means she can actually go and visit her brother Sherlock whenever she wants! Only her current visit to 221 Baker Street is at the insistence of Doctor Watson. Sherlock is suffering from melancholia. After triumphantly solving his last case he won't eat, he won't bath, he won't dress, and it took all of Doctor Watson's vast resources just to get him out of bed. So Enola swoops in. She is determined to get Sherlock off the sofa and back in the game. Thankfully a compelling case arrives on his doorstep. While he languishes on his sofa Miss Letitia Glover spins her story for Enola. Tish's twin sister Felicity has been declared deceased. But Tish just knows it can't be true. She would feel it if Flossie had left this mortal coil. They're twins after all. Therefore Flossie's husband must be lying. Felicity married above her station. While Tish is a humble typist, Flossie is a talented watercolourist and the wife of the Earl of Dunhench, Lord Cadogan Burr Rudcliff II. He wrote to Tish saying that Felicity had contracted a fever and died the same day and was immediately cremated in order to prevent the spread of the disease. Her ashes were included with the letter. Everything about this is too cavalier, too pat. But the case is enough to get Sherlock off the couch. Enola couldn't be happier. She's working a case with her brother! Or at least he'll soon realize they're working the case together once she arrives in Surrey. Of course she didn't intend to actually end up in Caddie's house. But since she's there she might as well investigate what happened to his first wife as well... because Caddie hasn't just tragically lost one wife in similar circumstances, but two. And things aren't adding up. For a family obsessed with death portraiture, neither of his wives have one. Then there's the secret message that Felicity hid in her most recent painting. And if they weren't convinced that Caddie was up to no good, the fact that Doctor Watson's signature was forged on the death certificate would be the nail in the coffin. Which begs the question, can they find Felicity before Caddie does something even more drastic?

Enola Holmes returns to her first home after her triumphant success on the small screen. When I was invited to be a part of the Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche Blog Tour I decided to do an Enola Holmes deep dive. I picked up my Scholastic Book Fair copy of The Case of the Missing Marquess and before I knew it, thanks to my local library, I had devoured Enola's entire back catalog of cases. For as long as I can remember Sherlock Holmes has always been in my life, primarily because of the Jeremy Brett adaptations for PBS which my parents adored. Personally though my Holmes canon revolves around Young Sherlock Holmes, The Great Mouse Detective, The Hounds of the Baskervilles, and perhaps the first two seasons of Sherlock. Though the later seasons soured me to the earlier ones. What I'm saying is, despite there being SO MUCH Sherlockian storytelling out there, from irregulars to noncanonical wives, children, and siblings, only a few things have sparked something inside me and made me really connect to the material. This rarefied list now includes Enola Holmes. There is such joy and daring and girl power in this series that I fell instantly in love with it. What's more, Nancy Springer's use of language is a delight to read. To have an author properly use fantods in a text, it almost had me suffering from the vapors while Edward Gorey gleefully rolled over in his grave. This newest adventure, the first published in over a decade, shows a more mature Enola. After the events in The Case of the Gypsy Good-Bye a shift has taken place. Enola is no longer having to divide her efforts between solving her cases and hiding from her famous brothers. Now she can concentrate on her work, or in this case, concentrate on inveigling herself into Sherlock's work. In fact, their one-upmanship brings about the funniest moments as Enola reverts a little to her more childish ways, because who doesn't revert to being a child around their siblings no matter their age? As for the case? Well, we are still dealing with the problems that only women suffer at the hands of Victorian society, but this time it's a little darker and a lot more Gothic, which has me very excited to see where Enola goes in future adventures and I can't wait.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Baker Street, Blog Tour, Enola Holmes, Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche, Feminism, Mycroft, Sherlock Holmes, The Great Mouse Detective, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Victorian, Younger Sherlock Holmes