strange and random happenstance

The great age of exploration when men went about the Earth planting flags in the most hostile of climates holds no interest for me. It doesn't just smack of colonialism, but of a severe superiority complex. Britain literally was trying to claim the South Pole to regain their manhood. And that isn't me projecting, they actually say that in The Last Place on Earth which is dark and bleak and boils down to two assholes doing something for no reason. Norway, led by Roald Amundsen, took the Pole because they were better prepared, but Britain, led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott, arriving at the Pole a mere thirty-four days late were the real "winners" because of their heroic deaths on the return trip. By heroic I mean they froze to death in their tent because Scott had no business running an Antarctic expedition. Or at least that's my take after watching this grueling miniseries. Which is why I'm now going to talk about the music. Yes, no Hugh Grant, Bill Nighy, and other famous celebs making some of their earliest film roles for me! For me it's all about Trevor Jones! His name is in the credits! It's really big! It's in the crossed flags that make a cross marking a grave. SO DRAMATIC! So mismatched. At the time Trevor Jones was contracted to do The Last Place on Earth he was smack dab in the middle of his "mystical" phase, having worked on Excalibur and The Dark Crystal with Labyrinth on the horizon. And that is exactly what this music sounds like. Which, given the subject matter, is a major disconnect. Because it sounds like he's written a third unreleased score for Legend to replace Tangerine Dream who replaced Jerry Goldsmith and not music for men toiling in the harshest of climes. I feel like there was an exec somewhere who spun a narrative about the South Pole and it's eternal winter being like a snow globe and Trevor Jones just ran with that concept. The glittering ice hovering in the air, the magical, unearthly environment, the eternal darkness, OK, I'm starting to talk about Legend again. But seriously, has someone edited this score to Legend because I think it would be slamming. Because the truth of the matter is I love this music. I want a soundtrack that I can listen to on a loop. My brother said it reminded him of the best in industrial library music from the seventies and he too thought it was slamming. But was, like me, perplexed by how this in any way connected with an expedition to the South Pole. At least it made the copious deaths and treks and eating of animals almost bearable. It's not an understatement to say it's the incongruous music that got me through this show. That and I really wanted to see Scott die. I particularly loved the Norwegians leaving him a fuck you tent at the pole. That was class. Because, fuck Scott! Long live Trevor Jones!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Bill Nighy, Britain, Captain Robert Falcon Scott, Excalibur, Exploration, Fifty-Five Years a Masterpiece, Hugh Grant, Labyrinth, Legend, Norway, Roald Amundsen, South Pole, The Dark Crystal, The Last Place on Earth, Trevor Jones

Iron and Velvet by Alexis Hall
Published by: Riptide Publishing
Publication Date: December 14th, 2013
Format: Kindle, 254 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Kate Kane stays away from vampires. Sadly they don't stay away from her. After a disastrous teenage romance with the sparkly Patrick she has learned many things. One is Patrick will never understand that she's gay, and he will forever leave creepy drawings on her pillow of her sleeping. Two is that you don't work for vampires. Especially if it's a vampire prince who is sex on legs. Which Julian Saint-Germain, the Prince of Cups, definitely is. But Kate's a P.I. and a P.I. has to pay the bills, especially if your partner up and got killed on you, and the vampires are willing to pay her the "I don't work for vampires" rate. So she agrees to take a look at their problem. Their problem is a dead werewolf in the alley behind one of Julian's clubs, The Velvet. The werewolf in question is Andrew J.H. Vane-Tempest, who happened to be dating the club's drag queen. He's been drained of blood, but not in a vampiric way. Which makes Kate think that this is political. Shit, she really hates politics. But she's willing to play if they're willing to pay and off she goes to track down the local alpha werewolf, Tara Vane-Tempest, who just happens to be a lingerie model in the middle of a shoot. Now this would be one of the "perks" of the job. The downsides being; being in the middle of a war between vampires, werewolves, and mages, having to deal with so many exes it's almost ridiculous, evil ghostly spirits, oh, and the fact that her mother is the immortal embodiment of an abstract concept making Kate an honest-to-God faery princess, running out of booze, not having money to replace the booze, and inevitably dying because of some stupid job she agreed to. But she is a beloved daughter who will be sorely missed. Though as she delves deeper into the mysterious death of Andrew J.H. Vane-Tempest the inevitable happens, the bodies start to pile up. But Julian doesn't seemed concerned, Julian's only concern seems to be getting into Kate's pants. She plies her with pudding and the past. Being eight-hundred years old means that Julian has quite the history, especially as she was a demon-hunting ninja nun for the Order of St. Agrippina before she was turned. Or as Kate calls her, Sister Julian, Pudding Nun. And oddly enough, Kate's growing quite attached to her pudding nun. The problem is, that pudding nun's life is in danger and if they want a future together they are going to have to fight some serious shit. As in a sewer battle.

This is a review I've drafted over and over again in my head in the hopes of getting it right once I wrote it down. One reason is that when I'm not enjoying a book I'm reading I try to pinpoint why, and this inevitably leads to me marshaling my thoughts in a manner that might look like a loose outline for a review with specific phrases that strike me or possibly just random words that after the fact don't even make sense to me. The other reason is that my friend who recommended this series to me recommended it to me with the caveat that it's one of her favorites. And I don't know about you but when I don't like a book that someone I care about loves, it feels like I'm betraying them so I have to be very clear and concise as to why I feel how I feel. Iron and Velvet has an identity crisis. It doesn't know what it wants to be; noir, urban fantasy, romcom, parody, pastiche, mystery, vampire romance, and on and on. Now a master of the craft can weave all these disparate genres into a beautiful patchwork quilt where concepts and characters that shouldn't work together somehow magically do. Alexis Hall is no master. This is their first book and therefore we are left with scraps that switch from genre to genre like a car with a clunky transmission. And yes, I'm mixing metaphors, but if I was going to be tonally inconsistent, well, this is the book review to do it in. Because this identity crisis of what this book is bleeds into every aspect making it ill defined except for the odd specificity when he's lifting from other source material. Alexis Hall is a magpie unable to create a cohesive whole. You wouldn't be wrong to think Kate Kane is quoting Hugh Grant in Notting Hill for no reason I can figure out, and her entire backstory being the plot to Twilight? You're right there as well. And while it's funny to see that the entire plot of Twilight, all those hundreds and hundreds of pages, can be easily reduced to a couple of paragraphs, this cribbing of Kate's backstory from another source is lazy. Why not merge different vampire teen romance tropes into something unique and original? Because until the sparkling happened, the creepy drawings on the pillow could have been from any obsessed vampire. Therefore I was always kept at a distance from Bella, I mean Kate, because at no time did she attempt to become someone new and original. At least we know she was a "Beloved daughter. Sorely missed." Because she kept mentioning it over and over again. Was there no editing on this book? Because an editor would have said this book needed another pass. It needed some originality and some sense of place. It's just so much surface that after awhile you realize if you're trying to find depth, or why the apartment and the office move around in time in space, that you're never going to find it because there isn't any there there. I'm hoping this is all because it was a first book because otherwise I'm out.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 6:44 PM 0 comments  

Labels: Alexis Hall, An Urban Development, Bella Swan, Editor, Faery Princess, Hugh Grant, Identity Crisis, Iron and Velvet, Julian Saint-Germain, Kate Kane, London, Noir, Notting Hill, P.I., Pudding Nun, Tropes, Twilight, Vampires, Werewolves

Iron and Velvet by Alexis Hall
Published by: Riptide Publishing
Publication Date: December 14th, 2013
Format: Kindle, 254 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Kate Kane stays away from vampires. Sadly they don't stay away from her. After a disastrous teenage romance with the sparkly Patrick she has learned many things. One is Patrick will never understand that she's gay and will forever leave creepy drawings on her pillow of her sleeping. Two is that you don't work for vampires. Especially if it's a vampire prince who is sex on legs. Which Julian Saint-Germain, the Prince of Cups, definitely is. But Kate's a P.I. and a P.I. has to pay the bills, especially if your partner up and got killed on you, and the vampires are willing to pay her the "I don't work for vampires" rate. So she agrees to take a look at their problem. Their problem is a dead werewolf in the alley behind one of Julian's clubs, The Velvet. The werewolf in question is Andrew J.H. Vane-Tempest, who happened to be dating the club's drag queen. He's been drained of blood, but not in a vampiric way. Which makes Kate think that this is political. Shit, she really hates politics. But she's willing to play if they're willing to pay and off she goes to track down the local alpha werewolf, Tara Vane-Tempest, who just happens to be a lingerie model in the middle of a shoot. Now this would be one of the "perks" of the job. The downsides being; being in the middle of a war between vampires, werewolves, and mages, having to deal with so many exes it's almost ridiculous, evil ghostly spirits, oh, and the fact that her mother is the immortal embodiment of an abstract concept making Kate an honest-to-God faery princess, running out of booze, not having money to replace the booze, and inevitably dying because of some stupid job she agreed to. But she is a beloved daughter who will be sorely missed. Though as she delves deeper into the mysterious death of Andrew J.H. Vane-Tempest the inevitable happens, the bodies start to pile up. But Julian doesn't seemed concerned, Julian's only concern seems to be getting into Kate's pants. She plies her with pudding and the past. Being eight-hundred years old means that Julian has quite the history, especially as she was a demon-hunting ninja nun for the Order of St. Agrippina before she was turned. Or as Kate calls her, Sister Julian, Pudding Nun. And oddly enough, Kate's growing quite attached to her pudding nun. The problem is, that pudding nun's life is in danger and if they want a future together they are going to have to fight some serious shit. As in sewer battle.

This is a review I've drafted over and over again in my head in the hopes of getting it right once I wrote it down. One reason is that when I'm not enjoying a book I'm reading I try to pinpoint why, and this inevitably leads to me marshaling my thoughts in a manner that might look like a loose outline for a review with specific phrases that strike me or possibly just random words that after the fact don't even make sense to me. The other reason is that my friend who recommended this series to me recommended it to me with the caveat that it's one of her favorites. And I don't know about you but when I don't like a book that someone I care about loves, it feels like I'm betraying them so I have to be very clear and concise as to why I feel how I feel. Iron and Velvet has an identity crisis. It doesn't know what it wants to be; noir, urban fantasy, romcom, parody, pastiche, mystery, vampire romance, and on and on. Now a master of the craft can weave all these disparate genres into a beautiful patchwork quilt where concepts and characters that shouldn't work together somehow magically do. Alexis Hall is no master. This is his first book and therefore we are left with scraps that switch from genre to genre like a car with a clunky transmission. And yes, I'm mixing metaphors, but if I was going to be tonally inconsistent, well, this is the book review to do it in. Because this identity crisis of what this book is bleeds into every aspect making it ill defined except for the odd specificity when he's lifting from other source material. Alexia Hall is a magpie unable to create a cohesive whole. You wouldn't be wrong to think Kate Kane is quoting Hugh Grant in Notting Hill for no reason I can figure out, and her entire backstory being the plot to Twilight? You're right there as well. And while it's funny to see that the entire plot of Twilight, all those hundreds and hundreds of pages, can be easily reduced to a couple of paragraphs, this cribbing of Kate's backstory from another source is lazy. Why not merge different vampire teen romance tropes into something unique and original? Because until the sparkling happened, the creepy drawings on the pillow could have been from any obsessed vampire. Therefore I was always kept at a distance from Bella, I mean Kate, because at no time did she attempt to become someone new and original. At least we know she was a "Beloved daughter. Sorely missed." Because she kept mentioning it over and over again. Was there no editing on this book? Because an editor would have said this book needed another pass. It needed some originality and some sense of place. It's just so much surface that after awhile you realize if you're trying to find depth, or why the apartment and the office move around in time in space, that you're never going to find it because there isn't any there there. I'm hoping this is all because it was a first book because otherwise I'm in for a long slog.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alexis Hall, Bella Swan, Editor, Faery Princess, Hugh Grant, Identity Crisis, Iron and Velvet, Julian Saint-Germain, Kate Kane, London Calling, Noir, Notting Hill, P.I., Pudding Nun, Twilight, Vampires, Werewolves

On one level Daniel Deronda is all about the love triangle where there girl I was rooting for gets the guy despite not having the killer wardrobe the other girl does. I mean it, the clothes are top notch! On another level it's about making fun of Jamie Bamber's facial hair. I mean seriously, I can NOT look at him as Hans and not burst out laughing. I just wonder what would have become of Battlestar Galactica had he taken this look with him to that show later the same year. OK, now I can't stop laughing again. I should also stop googling images of him as Hans because this isn't helping things. At all. OK, it's making me happy, so perhaps I should continue. If you want to have a good laugh google "Daniel Deronda Jamie Bamber" and have yourself a gander and a giggle. Curtailing my mirth, most importantly this miniseries is about the acting range of Hugh Bonneville. His turn as Henleigh Grandcourt is nothing short of pure villainy. The first time I watched it I was enraptured by Hugh Bonneville, and yes, I feel obliged to use his full name in this review to not confuse him with the other Hugh in this adaptation, Hugh Dancy, who is also perfectly cast if you were wondering. Hugh Bonneville in recent years has cemented his teddy bear persona with his portrayal of Robert Crawley on Downton Abbey. He's a bit befuddled, but he gets there in the end and is the best dad a girl could hope for. He doubled down on this by helming the Paddington Bear franchise. Prior to Daniel Deronda he was also the teddy bear, the devoted husband in The Cazalets, the oblivious Mr. Rushworth in the version of Mansfield Park I fail to acknowledge, and of course most notably, Bernie, the bumbling friend of Hugh Grant, dammit another HUGH has snuck into this review, in Notting Hill. So Hugh Bonneville is almost always playing to his strengths here, which makes Daniel Deronda so amazing. He is an out and out brute and you don't for one second deny that this is who he is! He became the character and he is the driving force of this miniseries. This isn't Hugh Bonneville anymore, this is Grandcourt! A villain to watch out for and an actor to admire.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Battlestar Galactica, Daniel Deronda, Downton Abbey, Fifty Years a Masterpiece, Hugh Bonneville, Hugh Dancy, Hugh Grant, Jamie Bamber, Mansfield Park, Notting Hill, Paddington Bear, The Cazalets, Villain

Sense and Sensibility
Based on the book by Jane Austen
Release Date: December 13th, 1995
Starring: Tom Wilkinson, James Fleet, Harriet Walter, Kate Winslet, Emma Thompson, Emilie François, Gemma Jones, Hugh Grant, Robert Hardy, Elizabeth Spriggs, Alan Rickman, Greg Wise, Imelda Staunton, Hugh Laurie, Imogen Stubbs, Allan Mitchell, Richard Lumsden, Lone Vidahl, and Oliver Ford Davies
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

John Dashwood is implored by his father while dying to care for his stepmother and three stepsisters due to inheritance law precluding them from his estate. John is quickly talked out of this necessary kindness by his unscrupulous wife Fanny who quickly descends on the mourning Dashwood women to take claim of her new home and count the silver. Elinor is trying to be practical while her younger sister Marianne is beside herself with grief while their youngest sister Margaret has opted to just hide. Their mother would quickly remove them from this toxic environment if it wasn't for the arrival of Fanny's brother Edward who helps with Margaret and forms an instant attachment to Elinor. Fanny abhors this connection and makes it clear to Mrs. Dashwood that her whole family has specific plans for dear Edward and that an unadvantageous match would lead to his being cut out of any of his prospects. Mrs. Dashwood hastily accepts the kind offer of her cousin, Sir John Middleton, to come and live at a cottage on his estate in Devonshire. There the four women are soon surrounded by a society that is very interested in them, especially a Colonel Brandon who only has eyes for Marianne. Sir John's mother-in-law makes it her sacred duty to tease the young girls and to find them advantageous matches. But both Elinor's and Marianne's hearts are irrevocably gone long before Mrs. Jennings has any say. Elinor still pines for Edward and Marianne, Marianne has met the man of her dreams in Willoughby, a romantic and lover of Shakespearean sonnets like herself. But the course of true love never runs smooth. Willoughby leaves Devonshire for London and Edward is secretly engaged to a young cousin of Mrs. Jennings, Lucy, whom his family will surely object to more than Elinor. Everything comes to a head on a trip to London. Will their hearts ever be mended or are they forever to be bruised and battered and broken?

My mom likes to say that when we went to see Sense and Sensibility in the movie theater there wasn't a dry eye in the house. While I do remember moderate sniffles, it can't compare to the copious crowd weeping of Hamilton which I recently experienced and freely admit I was a large contributor of. Of all Emma Thompson's films for some reason Sense and Sensibility is the one I return to the least, well aside from Love Actually, but we shall not go into my hatred of that film here despite how many cast similarities there are. I've never really wondered about this until I rewatched Sense and Sensibility after rereading the book and I think I've put my finger on it. While there's an intimacy to the books of Austen they are no means small, they encompass the whole of human emotion and what it is to be a woman. Yet with the way this adaptation was filmed the story feels small, almost trifling. The time constrictions coupled with what this necessitates makes the story of Elinor and Marianne somehow less. What struck me is having not seen it in a few years it's weird because despite the cast it feels like a low budget costume drama not a film up for copious academy awards. But then again on the heels of this production the Pride and Prejudice miniseries staring Colin Firth issued in a new era for the costume drama. They have exploded on television in the last twenty plus years and with advancements in cinematography and locations and costumes, this just feels limited and at times claustrophobic. There are too many close-ups and no sweeping vistas that people, like me, who regularly watch shows like Poldark expect. Instead we're just stuck with a lot of sheep.

When I was rereading the book, as I mentioned in that review, I was struck by how Colonel Brandon, while considered old, is actually younger than me. So when approaching the film again after so many years I couldn't help but think, was Emma Thompson perhaps too old to play the role of Elinor being in fact the "old" age of Colonel Brandon in real life? Did she in fact need a flannel waistcoat herself? Or flannel underthings? But the truth is I should never doubt Emma Thompson. NEVER. Having wrote the screenplay she knew exactly what to bring and when and you never once think of her age, which astounded me as she was working against my prejudice. In fact with her performance there are just rankings of what was best. What I most loved wasn't so much in her reserve and in being stalwart, what was amazing is at which points she decided to break that reserve and tap into her reservoir of emotion. Because in the book there are key scenes where Elinor loses her calm and has to regain it, times when I'm not 100% sure work for her character, therefore the changes that Thompson instigated in this instance were perfect. Elinor breaks only twice, once when she's at Marianne's sickbed and once again when she realizes that Edward is free to declare his feelings for her. Two perfect moments, because these are the two people in the world she can't life without. And as for when Edward declares himself? Just watch how Thompson turns her hysterics into tears of joy and you will be in no doubt as to why she was nominated as "Best Actress" in 1996 for this movie. Though I would request she NEVER wears that checked dress again, it looks like the bedsheets from Steve Harrington's bed on Stranger Things.

Though there are still weird omissions and rejiggering that Thompson did in her adaptation that I'm not quite sure of. Yes, there's changes necessitated by time and the narrative being streamlined to fit into a little over two hours of screen time. So therefore I can forgive Lady Middleton being sent swiftly to her grave and Lucy using the kindness of Mrs. Jennings to expedite her own journey to London, though it's entirely straining credulity to believe that Elinor and Lucy would discuss Edward on that carriage ride! Mrs. Jennings has a nose for gossip! Edward not visiting Barton until the end makes a little less since, but still works, but then there's the changes that didn't leave me scratching my head by yelling on the TV that the change made NO SENSE! My biggest problem was of Lucy not having a sister. This is a BIG hurdle. Why? Because Lucy is cunning. The ONLY reason in the book that her secret engagement to Edward is revealed is because her sister, thinking that she's fully one over the whole Ferrars family, blurts out at breakfast that Lucy and Edward are engaged. Both the film's version and the book's version have an equally dramatic reaction on Fanny's part. But there is no way that Lucy would have voluntarily told Fanny, no matter the encouragement, if Lucy wasn't 100% sure of everything. This utterly changes Lucy's character and you can't quite rectify who she is in the movie with the remnants of that cunning bitch from the book. Why would she manipulate Elinor so? Why would she swap Edward for Robert? She's made too nice. The only way she works as a character is by having her sister as the other half, much like Elinor needs Marianne!

Yet I can not be so cruel as to say that all the changes were negative. The way they were able to subtly show the Dashwood's penury through them not being able to purchase new clothes for mourning or always lamenting the lack of sugar and beef perfectly sums up their plight to a modern audience, even if the savvy reader will notice that Thompson actually halved their income. But where Thompson's adaptation soars is in actually giving Margaret purpose. Margaret as the youngest Dashwood is used to affect three times in the novel, once to blurt out to Mrs. Jennings about Elinor's love of Edward, once to seek help when Marianne falls and Willoughby rescues her, and finally to see Willoughby ask for a lock of Marianne's hair. Other than these scenes she is a nonentity, she doesn't matter, and in fact once her elder sisters traipse off to London she is maybe mentioned once or twice more. Whereas Thompson makes her a fully fledged character who loves the idea of travel and pours over an atlas for hours. She is an independent young woman of spirit who wants to be a pirate. She encompasses the future of what women can be within this limited time period. In fact the expansion of Margaret's character has so inspired fans that other writers, like Beth Deitchman in her lovely Regency Magic book Margaret Dashwood and the Enchanted Atlas, has taken Thompson's infusion of Margaret with an actual personality as a jumping off point for her reinterpretation of Austen's world. What's more is that Margaret's character helps to build up the character of Edward, who, let's face it, is a little lacking as Austen wrote him. With Edward taking an interest in Margaret we can see why Elinor falls for him with all his good and laudable qualities.

But the majority of Edward's faults are fixed in the casting of Hugh Grant. In fact, the combined casting of Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman make up for any defects these characters had as they were originally written. Because really, we've forgiven Hugh Grant for far more than lack of character over the years with him just breaking out that trademark sheepish grin while that floppy lock of hair falls over his eyes. The lack of depth, the engagement to Lucy, the reticence, are all washed away because seriously people, that grin, that stammer, it's like this character was written for Hugh to bring to life because he and the character become one. And as for all those fans out there who repeatedly say that yes the Colonel is a good man but how could Marianne ever love again after Willoughby? Firstly, Willoughby is scum, he didn't even take Marianne secretly home in this version! But more that that, who wouldn't melt to have Alan Rickman look at them like that? When he first sees Marianne playing the piano, thankfully sweetly if artlessly actually sung by Kate Winslet, you are just WAITING for the two of them to get together. But the nail in the coffin of Rickman's casting? His melodious voice. Seriously, I don't think there is anyone who has that kind of liquid voice that can be seductive but also menacing when need be. How I wish Thompson had included the duel just to hear him call Willoughby out! But the reason I bring up his voice is that Marianne is very much into the spirit, the animation one brings when reading aloud, and Edward is found very lacking. How could Rickman EVER be found lacking on this score? It was a foregone conclusion, not just that he'd win the girl, but that Thompson would throw in a scene of him reading to his beloved Marianne. So while there are some things I scratch my head about I should just sit back and listen to Alan Rickman's voice.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alan Rickman, Beth Deitchman, Bicentenary Ball, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, Hamilton, Hugh Grant, Jane Austen, Margaret Dashwood and the Enchanted Atlas, Poldark, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility

Margaret Dashwood and the Enchanted Atlas (Regency Magic Book 2) by Beth Deitchman
Published by: Luminous Creatures Press
Publication Date: Ovtober 19th, 2014
Format: Paperback, 302 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Margaret Dashwood hasn't been back to Norland Park since her family was unceremoniously shown the door by her sister-in-law Fanny after their beloved father died. Margaret and her father had a rather large secret that they kept from the rest of the family. They were both magically inclined. Her father secretly taught her spells and when she came of age she discovered that her father had left her a legacy in his study at Norland. Hence the visit. It might be awkward, it might even be painful, seeing her beloved Norland irreparably changed by Fanny's atrocious taste, but it's the only way to secure her legacy, a legacy that is far greater than she ever imagined. The first night she sneaks into her father's study she can't believe all the secret hidey-holes and realizes it will easily take every night of her visit to secure all the hidden treasures. Though one of the treasures is greater than all the rest. She finds an enchanted atlas that her father made for her. He knew how much she loved this book and longed to travel, so he made this very powerful artifact to fulfill his youngest daughters dreams. She is touched beyond measure to learn that she mattered this much to her father. But more importantly, through his correspondence she now has the names of fellow magical practitioners whom she can contact.

Arriving in London Margaret soon receives a response to a letter she sent to one of her father's friends, a Mrs. Bristlethwaite. Though Margaret has longed for magical company, it's her other correspondent who she's more excited about. While at Norland she met a Mr. Ellsworth, an eligible young man who she instantly connected with. He was also heading to London and asked if he could keep up the connection, something Margaret was very much wanting to do. But soon romance takes a back seat to magic when Mrs. Bristlethwaite sees Margaret's atlas and shows her the power it contains and how it can transport them all over the world. The book even contains lists of famous magical artifacts you can visit. Margaret longs to immerse herself in magic, but living with her family who are unaware of her abilities is a bit risky. Luckily a compromise is reached. While Mrs. Dashwood stays in town to look after Marianne during her confinement Margaret will head home to Devonshire with Mrs. Bristlethwaite and be a guest at Barbary Hall. At Barbary Hall Margaret is allowed to revel in her abilities and meet the local coven. But soon the coven is in danger. Magical artifacts are disappearing from all over the world and Margaret and her atlas are uniquely placed to put an end to this dastardly sorcerer who is up to no good. But will a revelation destroy her chances of happiness?

While most people view Pride and Prejudice as the definitive book by Austen, it isn't necessarily mine. Yes, I adore it more than words can say, but to me Austen is Sense and Sensibility. I still remember how it all happened, my introduction to Austen. I had a gaggle of friends senior year in high school obsessed with the Pride and Prejudice miniseries. They would watch the Netherfield Ball scene over and over while giggling. Now I had always viewed these friends as serious scholarly types, we ran a literary magazine and the "free thought" club, yet here was something that made them giddy little schoolgirls. They talked endlessly about spending nights re-reading Pride and Prejudice while taking a bath instead of doing homework. Needless to say, my interest was piqued. After I graduated I bought myself this big omnibus with the tinniest type possible from B. Dalton's with Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Emma promising myself to spend the summer reading all of Austen. I remember sitting on my bed in my room crying over the heartbreaks of Elinor and Marianne's story. My Austen obsession therefore began and ended with one book.

I think it was Oscar Wilde who said that reviews end up being more about the reviewer than what is being reviewed. I try not to do this too much, but this one time you will really have to indulge me. Because the truth of the matter is that reading Margaret Dashwood and the Enchanted Atlas recaptured for me that moment when I first discovered and fell in love with Austen. When Margaret and her mother returned to Norland Park for a visit I felt like I was there once again for the first time. Like getting to experience a first kiss all over again. People talk about books being time machines. And they are. But sometimes it's not just world history but personal history that you discover between the covers. I relived a moment that I have tried to recapture before and have failed to. This second book in Beth Deitchman's series seems to capture more of the spirit of Austen's own writing. While I adored Mary Bennet and the Bloomsbury Coven, there's something about having a gaggle of interesting and unique characters thrown together in the most haphazard of circumstances that screams Austen.

But it isn't the other characters that anchor this book, it's Margaret. If I'm honest with myself Emma Thompson had more to do with my picking up Jane Austen than anyone else. Because when I was in high school I wasn't so much of a book nerd as a movie nerd; and I always have to read the book before watching the adaptation, that is an inviolable law. So yeah, book nerd in the making I guess. As fate would have it that Emma Thompson adaptation of Sense and Sensibility figures quite prominently in Margaret Dashwood and the Enchanted Atlas in an interesting way. The truth is Margaret Dashwood is a very interesting character in that she actually doesn't really have any character. She is a blank. I like how on the Wikipedia page for Sense and Sensibility that they refer to one of John Middleton's sons as just "nameless." She is barely above this, being basically a cypher. To Emma Thompson this wouldn't fly. So she gave Margaret a personality in her adaptation. Margaret has a love of travel and wants to be a pirate and has a great love of a large atlas that Hugh Grant later gifts to her on his visit to Barton Cottage. It's not just in writing this book that Beth Deitchman has inexorably entwined Margaret with this atlas, she is just tapping into what all true fans of Austen know. With just a few lines Emma Thompson was forever to change the image of that little girl that Janeites the world over then embraced.

Emma Thompson gave Margaret a personality trait, imbuing her with something we can relate to and Beth Deitchman has expanded on that framework. Being the youngest of two very different siblings, I was interested to see who she would take after, the romantic Marianne, or the pragmatic Elinor. While Margaret does have the drive and levelheadedness of Elinor when it comes to studying her magic, I would say overall that she takes more after Marianne. It's not JUST the love of poetry and her losing her heart so quickly to Mr. Ellsworth, or even the pining for him hour after hour, it's the way she does her spells. This is a purely brilliant idea on the part of Beth Deitchman. Margaret does all her spells in French. If you remember what was previously said in Mary Bennet and the Bloomsbury Coven, simplicity and intent are the most important aspects of getting a spell to work. Therefore Margaret translating her spells into French, no matter how perfect her pronunciation, is a poetic affectation. She thinks they sound more magical. I literally snorted at this. It's just SUCH a Marianne thing to say! While yes, I can agree with some of Margaret's theories as to magic and poetry, I think her revelation at the end to Mrs. Bristlethwaite is perfect. Oh, and totally Elinor.

A big difference between Mary Bennet and the Bloomsbury Coven and Margaret Dashwood and the Enchanted Atlas is that in the prior we followed a novice, someone just introduced to the world of magic, while in the later we have a heroine who has been practicing magic under the guidance of her father all her life. While both heroines encounter magical communities on their adventures, Mary still stands separate, while Margaret becomes enmeshed in hers. Both are looking for their place in the world, but Margaret very much wants her place to include those like her, those who can help her on her journey. As I mentioned earlier, it's these unique and interesting characters that help make this book more Austen. The Devonshire Coven is just chock-a-block with characters I fell in love with. From the forthright and indomitable Mrs. Bristlethwaite, to the ever hungry Mr. James, to the kind and gentle Mr. Barrington, each one of these characters is so well rounded, so memorable, you can easily see them finding a permanent place in your heart, just like Mrs. Jennings somehow contrived to do. In fact the only real fault in this book is that it has now come to an end. I could literally spend hours just sitting with these characters in Barbary Hall sipping tea and playing cards while a fire glowed in the hearth.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Beth Deitchman, Emma, Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Jane Austen, Margaret Dashwood and the Enchanted Atlas, Mary Bennet and the Bloomsbury Coven, Movie, Pride and Prejudice, Regency Magic, Sense and Sensibility

Margaret Dashwood and the Enchanted Atlas (Regency Magic Book 2) by Beth Deitchman
Published by: Luminous Creatures Press
Publication Date: Ovtober 19th, 2014
Format: Paperback, 302 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Margaret Dashwood hasn't been back to Norland Park since her family was unceremoniously shown the door by her sister-in-law Fanny after their beloved father died. Margaret and her father had a rather large secret that they kept from the rest of the family. They were both magically inclined. Her father secretly taught her spells and when she came of age she discovered that her father had left her a legacy in his study at Norland. Hence the visit. It might be awkward, it might even be painful, seeing her beloved Norland irreparably changed by Fanny's atrocious taste, but it's the only way to secure her legacy, a legacy that is far greater than she ever imagined. The first night she sneaks into her father's study she can't believe all the secret hidey-holes and realizes it will easily take every night of her visit to secure all the hidden treasures. Though one of the treasures is greater than all the rest. She finds an enchanted atlas that her father made for her. He knew how much she loved this book and longed to travel, so he made this very powerful artifact to fulfill his youngest daughters dreams. She is touched beyond measure to learn that she mattered this much to her father. But more importantly, through his correspondence she now has the names of fellow magical practitioners whom she can contact.

Arriving in London Margaret soon receives a response to a letter she sent to one of her father's friends, a Mrs. Bristlethwaite. Though Margaret has longed for magical company, it's her other correspondent who she's more excited about. While at Norland she met a Mr. Ellsworth, an eligible young man who she instantly connected with. He was also heading to London and asked if he could keep up the connection, something Margaret was very much wanting to do. But soon romance takes a back seat to magic when Mrs. Bristlethwaite sees Margaret's atlas and shows her the power it contains and how it can transport them all over the world. The book even contains lists of famous magical artifacts you can visit. Margaret longs to immerse herself in magic, but living with her family who are unaware of her abilities is a bit risky. Luckily a compromise is reached. While Mrs. Dashwood stays in town to look after Marianne during her confinement Margaret will head home to Devonshire with Mrs. Bristlethwaite and be a guest at Barbary Hall. At Barbary Hall Margaret is allowed to revel in her abilities and meet the local coven. But soon the coven is in danger. Magical artifacts are disappearing from all over the world and Margaret and her atlas are uniquely placed to put an end to this dastardly sorcerer who is up to no good. But will a revelation destroy her chances of happiness?

While most people view Pride and Prejudice as the definitive book by Austen, it isn't necessarily mine. Yes, I adore it more than words can say, but to me Austen is Sense and Sensibility. I still remember how it all happened, my introduction to Austen. I had a gaggle of friends senior year in high school obsessed with the Pride and Prejudice miniseries. They would watch the Netherfield Ball scene over and over while giggling. Now I had always viewed these friends as serious scholarly types, we ran a literary magazine and the "free thought" club, yet here was something that made them giddy little schoolgirls. They talked endlessly about spending nights re-reading Pride and Prejudice while taking a bath instead of doing homework. Needless to say, my interest was piqued. After I graduated I bought myself this big omnibus with the tinniest type possible from B. Dalton's with Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Emma promising myself to spend the summer reading all of Austen. I remember sitting on my bed in my room crying over the heartbreaks of Elinor and Marianne's story. My Austen obsession therefore began and ended with one book.

I think it was Oscar Wilde who said that reviews end up being more about the reviewer than what is being reviewed. I try not to do this too much, but this one time you will really have to indulge me. Because the truth of the matter is that reading Margaret Dashwood and the Enchanted Atlas recaptured for me that moment when I first discovered and fell in love with Austen. When Margaret and her mother returned to Norland Park for a visit I felt like I was there once again for the first time. Like getting to experience a first kiss all over again. People talk about books being time machines. And they are. But sometimes it's not just world history but personal history that you discover between the covers. I relived a moment that I have tried to recapture before and have failed to. This second book in Beth Deitchman's series seems to capture more of the spirit of Austen's own writing. While I adored Mary Bennet and the Bloomsbury Coven, there's something about having a gaggle of interesting and unique characters thrown together in the most haphazard of circumstances that screams Austen.

But it isn't the other characters that anchor this book, it's Margaret. If I'm honest with myself Emma Thompson had more to do with my picking up Jane Austen than anyone else. Because when I was in high school I wasn't so much of a book nerd as a movie nerd; and I always have to read the book before watching the adaptation, that is an inviolable law. So yeah, book nerd in the making I guess. As fate would have it that Emma Thompson adaptation of Sense and Sensibility figures quite prominently in Margaret Dashwood and the Enchanted Atlas in an interesting way. The truth is Margaret Dashwood is a very interesting character in that she actually doesn't really have any character. She is a blank. I like how on the Wikipedia page for Sense and Sensibility that they refer to one of John Middleton's sons as just "nameless." She is barely above this, being basically a cypher. To Emma Thompson this wouldn't fly. So she gave Margaret a personality in her adaptation. Margaret has a love of travel and wants to be a pirate and has a great love of a large atlas that Hugh Grant later gifts to her on his visit to Barton Cottage. It's not just in writing this book that Beth Deitchman has inexorably entwined Margaret with this atlas, she is just tapping into what all true fans of Austen know. With just a few lines Emma Thompson was forever to change the image of that little girl that Janeites the world over then embraced.

Emma Thompson gave Margaret a personality trait, imbuing her with something we can relate to and Beth Deitchman has expanded on that framework. Being the youngest of two very different siblings, I was interested to see who she would take after, the romantic Marianne, or the pragmatic Elinor. While Margaret does have the drive and levelheadedness of Elinor when it comes to studying her magic, I would say overall that she takes more after Marianne. It's not JUST the love of poetry and her losing her heart so quickly to Mr. Ellsworth, or even the pining for him hour after hour, it's the way she does her spells. This is a purely brilliant idea on the part of Beth Deitchman. Margaret does all her spells in French. If you remember what was previously said in Mary Bennet and the Bloomsbury Coven, simplicity and intent are the most important aspects of getting a spell to work. Therefore Margaret translating her spells into French, no matter how perfect her pronunciation, is a poetic affectation. She thinks they sound more magical. I literally snorted at this. It's just SUCH a Marianne thing to say! While yes, I can agree with some of Margaret's theories as to magic and poetry, I think her revelation at the end to Mrs. Bristlethwaite is perfect. Oh, and totally Elinor.

A big difference between Mary Bennet and the Bloomsbury Coven and Margaret Dashwood and the Enchanted Atlas is that in the prior we followed a novice, someone just introduced to the world of magic, while in the later we have a heroine who has been practicing magic under the guidance of her father all her life. While both heroines encounter magical communities on their adventures, Mary still stands separate, while Margaret becomes enmeshed in hers. Both are looking for their place in the world, but Margaret very much wants her place to include those like her, those who can help her on her journey. As I mentioned earlier, it's these unique and interesting characters that help make this book more Austen. The Devonshire Coven is just chock-a-block with characters I fell in love with. From the forthright and indomitable Mrs. Bristlethwaite, to the ever hungry Mr. James, to the kind and gentle Mr. Barrington, each one of these characters is so well rounded, so memorable, you can easily see them finding a permanent place in your heart, just like Mrs. Jennings somehow contrived to do. In fact the only real fault in this book is that it has now come to an end. I could literally spend hours just sitting with these characters in Barbary Hall sipping tea and playing cards while a fire glowed in the hearth.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Beth Deitchman, Emma, Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Jane Austen, Margaret Dashwood and the Enchanted Atlas, Mary Bennet and the Bloomsbury Coven, Movie, Pride and Prejudice, Regency Magic, Sense and Sensibility

Maurice
Based on the book by E.M. Forster
Starring: James Wilby, Hugh Grant, Rupert Graves, Denholm Elliott, Simon Callow, Billie Whitelaw, Barry Foster, Judy Parfitt, Phoebe Nicholls, Ben Kingsley, Patrick Godfrey, Mark Tandy, Kitty Aldridge, Helena Michell, Catherine Rabett, and Peter Eyre
Release Date: September 15th, 1987
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Despite a kindly teacher telling Maurice the facts of life before he ventured out into the "real world" he doesn't really believe that he will be like other men with a wife and a home. This thought of his prepubescent self seems to be prophetic as when he's at college at Cambridge he falls in love with his fellow student Clive Durham. They begin an affair of the heart, not of the body. They leave college and continue to be the center of each others lives. This happy situation can not last. A mutual friend, Risley, who has their predilections is caught in a sting operation and arrested and sentenced to six months hard labor for gross indecency. This incident shakes Clive's life to pieces. He and Maurice have been deluding themselves, and from now on they are to be nothing more than friends. Maurice doesn't want to accept this, but quite quickly he sees that Clive is moving on with his life. Clive is soon married and he and his wife Anne are settling into their country estate, Pendersleigh, and having friends round for the weekend and campaigning, living the life of a country squire. They finally convince Maurice to visit, and it will be a fateful one for Maurice. It is during this visit that he meets Alec Scudder, the under-gamekeeper of Pendersleigh. Despite Maurice trying to "cure" himself via hypnosis, Scudder, and his feelings for him, show Maurice that perhaps he doesn't want to change. Perhaps he has found what he had thought he had with Clive? Only this time is it real?

In college my friends and I used to all pile onto one couch in my parent's house and watch movies. They usually would be OK watching whatever film I had planned on viewing, and seeing as this was during the time when I tried to watch an entire actor's oeuvre, they'd sometimes be stuck watching Richard E. Grant for a summer, as we worked our way from Henry and June to Spice World. Ironically, of the two, I would recommend Spice World as the better film, I think Henry and June actually ended up in an impromptu trip to the liquor store in order to finish it. For some arcane and forgotten reason Maurice was watched on one of these nights. I really can not understand what possessed me to suggest it, this was at the height of my James Wilby hatred, seriously, until the Bertie and Elizabeth TV movie I really thought he was a dick cause he could only play them, plus I was also starting a period of hating Rupert Graves which was never fully broken till Sherlock. There are three conceivable reasons as to why we picked Maurice up at Video Station on that summer night, it was either because of Merchant and Ivory, or Hugh Grant, or because I was trying to find a period film that my friend Matt might be willing to watch. I should note that he did not watch it with us. All I remember of the film is that I was shocked we all remained awake through the whole film. Even the most exciting of films, which this is not, often resulted in nap time... hmm, maybe I should have connected letting me choose the film and nap time prior to now.... Needless to say, the film left almost no impression on me, yet I would gladly go back to that night we all watched it just to have one more night with us all piled on that couch never really thinking it would one day end.

If the movie had spent half as much time finding a properly fitting cast as it did fitting every single square inch of frame with Victorian and Edwardian tat then it would have been a flawless film. Instead it suffers from three bad casting decisions, James Wilby as Maurice, Rupert Graves as the laughable lower class Scudder, he can not pull off that accent in the least, and Ben Kingsley as, well, I'm not quite sure what he's supposed to be, maybe Texan? James Wilby is all wrong because he hadn't developed enough as an actor at this point and has no inherent charm like Hugh Grant. Instead we are left with a hero who is basically a cardboard cut out. At times he was so two-dimensional that I actually think having a cardboard cut out deliver the lines would have been more successful. To have the entire film rest on his shoulders is laughable. A strong force is needed for a title role, and by casting Wilby the movie failed before it started. But this was a failure that was forced on them because Julian Sands pulled out at the last minute. Could Julian Sands have made the film work? I can't tell you that... I can say that Wilby has made films I enjoy while Sands hasn't. As for Scudder... well, there it was just the fault of trying to force an accent one someone who was incapable of doing one. I have come to admire Rupert Graves over the years, but he is distinctly working middle class. The lower class accent combined with the bad grammar and language skills didn't work coming out of his mouth. In fact, they were laughable. But nothing will beat the fact that when Ben Kingsley showed up as the hypnotherapist and launched into his indescribable accent, the film, which was at a tipping point from art to farce until that moment, went straight to farce.

The worst part of the entire movie is the confluence of these three in a dream sequence that was obviously ripped off of Vertigo and threw out every bit of style and structure the film had thus far established. Previously the film is unique in that it lacked a score, any music in the film is classical pieces that usually were practical, a pianola, a gramophone, you get the idea. Yet the dream sequence is scored? That's an odd choice. And floridly scored like an untalented Edwardian Bernard Herrmann dropped by. Then the laying of images over each other with color flashes. This is getting more and more like Vertigo by the second. When Ben Kingsley's head started floating in the center of the screen, I was laughing so hard tears were streaming down my face. I just can't rectify this clash, to have a period film that is so distinctly staid and proper to have this stylistic French new wave interpretive dream makes NO SENSE! Much like in Vertigo, the dream is the crisis point of the movie, it's time for the lead to move forward with their life or forfeit it. But just because we have two characters in the grip of a life altering decision as focused through a fever dream doesn't mean that they should be so similar. Fifty years separate these stories, and that is a gulf that can not be breached. Even if Maurice had tried to incorporate the subconscious trying to tell the conscious self it's true desire, even if there had been some psychoanalysis going on, this was with out a doubt the number one way it should not have been handled.

But the film did handle some issues well, and the changes made aided the film and brought more clarity to the story than the book. The biggest change was how Clive's "conversion" was handled. In the book he just realizes as he's nursed back to health that he is no longer attracted to men. This is very flimsy reasoning. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, James Ivory's usual writing partner, had the inspired idea to actually give justification to this conversion through the underused character of Risley. In the book Risley is important for awakening Maurice's interests and inadvertently introducing him to Clive, and later for recommending the hypnotherapist. Instead we are shown a plausible and slightly hinted at story about what really happened to Risley when he was off stage. Risley is caught in a sting operation to entrap homosexuals, and despite being a Viscount, is sentenced to six months hard labor and may never hold a government position due to his proclivities and his arrest. This terrifies Clive into having cold sweats. Clive is also a well respected member of the aristocracy, he hopes to hold a position in government, and he has been living a double life for years. He has a crisis at a dinner at Maurice's house. Not brought on by his recent illness and the fear of telling Maurice they are through, but because he fears exposure and must give up the one thing that matters to him if he isn't to face the same fate as Risley. This, not only makes more sense, but gives Clive more depth. It shows that his sexual orientation isn't just a phase he was going through, but something that would always be a part of him that he pushed aside in order to survive. The last scene of the movie, with Clive and his wife, after Maurice has confronted Clive about being in love with Scudder, it shows a wistfulness, a longing that what Maurice and Scudder have, that is what he wants but is too scared to embrace.

In fact, much of the film is a refocusing of the narrative on Clive. While this honing in does the story the disservice of sidelining Maurice's family, the truth is their hatred of Maurice doesn't serve the narrative if you are actually trying to make him likable. But the fact is if this film had sidelined Maurice just like it did his family, it could have been a better film. By adding more depth to Clive, seeing the whole story through his eyes becomes far more fascinating then just following around the unsympathetic and flat Maurice. One thing I found interesting though is the film really focused in on Clive as being asexual. He loves men, but never physically. He NEVER acts on his impulses. As we see later with his wife, they too have a very chaste relationship, almost like siblings. The book doesn't go to great lengths to stress the fact that Clive and Maurice's love is unconsummated, and in fact, if it wasn't for Forster's insistence that their love had no physical side in the afterward, I would argue that they did have a physical relationship. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Forster added that afterward to try to make the book more palatable by insisting that it was only Scudder and Maurice getting it on, and that Clive was above reproach, aside from that "phase" he went through prior to Greece, but he never acted on his impulses. Again, I think that this gives Clive more depth. You see him not as someone who had two loves in his life and is now content. Instead he is a man always thwarted by his desires he is trying to repress. It makes him a tragic figure. In the book Clive is just the awakening and Scudder is the prize. Clive being perfectly content in his post Maurice life. This little tweak changes that all. It adds more to the story and with Hugh Grant's portrayal of Clive we are given the one and only redeeming facet of the film.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Asexual, Ben Kinsgley, Bernard Herrmann, E.M. Forster, Forster Fall, Henry and June, Homosexuality, Hugh Grant, James Wilby, Maurice, Richard E. Grant, Risley, Rupert Graves, Sherlock Holmes, Spice Girls, Vertigo

Bridget Jones's Diary (Bridget Jones Book 1) by Helen Fielding
Published by: Penguin
Publication Date: 1996
Format: Paperback, 288 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Bridget Jones lives the typical life of a singleton. She drinks too much, eats too much, smokes too much, worries about dying alone, worries about not having a boyfriend, has smug married friends who are no help at all in the self esteem department, and parents that are forever causing issues. If she could just get her act together and find a nice sensible boyfriend. Though that hardly looks to be the case for this year as she has just started seeing her boss, Daniel Cleaver, who is the exact person she meant to stop fantasizing about this year... then there's Mark Darcy, the man her parents wish she would start dating. A man she finds quite odd and off putting, at least at first. With emotional ups and downs like her yo-yoing weight, Bridget has her year cut out for her.

Back in 2001 things for me were rough. They were going to get far worse that summer, but at the time I didn't know that. I really needed an escape and Colin Firth was about to show me the way. The movie Bridget Jones's Diary might not have ever registered on my radar if not for Mr. Darcy. Knowing that it was based on a book, and you all being familiar with my tendencies, I just had to read it and picked up the tie-in. The book sat languishing for a little while. I was in the middle of a theatre production of Endgame that was about to end very dramatically with the Beckett estate shutting it down and confiscating the playbills, photographs, scripts... you see, Beckett has some very sticky rules that you have to abide by his vision, so no cross gender casting, no "interpretations," it's as he wrote it or you'll find yourself never getting to see your name in a playbill as "properties master" for the first time. The weekend that was to be our big opening instead became a bit of a wake and I needed something, anything, to distract me. I picked up Bridget Jones's Diary.

I powered through the first book, ran to Borders, powered through the second book and then took to the internet to learn more about this new genre I had just stumbled on, Chick Lit. It was kind of an avalanche after that, with me ordering Helen Fielding's other books, looking at the Amazon recommendations, finding other authors, you get the picture. Helen Fielding, besides being deemed the progenitor of this literary subgenre by others, was quite literally the starting point for me as well. If you don't view Helen Fielding as the doyenne of Chick Lit, we might just as well stop talking right now. With the newest installment of Bridget's adventures about to hit shelves this past fall I knew that it was time to reacquaint myself with Miss Jones. What's interesting is that, well, I didn't love it as much as I did. Perhaps it's just that others have taken off from where she started and done bigger and better since, so therefore this was a bit flat. Also, is it just me or is Daniel Cleaver a real dick? I wonder if somehow over time Hugh Grant and his ability to be a letch with also still being cute has worked it's way so far into my mind that I forgot the truth of the book. Daniel Cleaver is a dick.

I think in fact that the movie is the more successful of the two incarnations of this story, which is the exact opposite for the second. The movie hammered out issues and some of the unrealistic situations. That is what strikes me most as annoying in the book, things that are unrealistic, but not funnily so. Bridget's mum and her men. Bridget and her unrealistic weight issues. Now here I want to be clear, it's not the struggle with her weight I object to, nor her horrific eating habits, but the fact that using a BMI index, Bridget would have to be shorter then 5'4" (which is oddly how tall Renee Zellweger is) to be fat for the weight listed... do I think she's that short? No. I think that Helen Fielding needed to do her research here a little better. That or she totally has some sort of eating disorder herself and has bizarre expectations, which I think is best summed up when Tom asks Bridget that doesn't she need 2,000 calories a day to live?

Also, the deus ex machina of Bridget and Mark. They barely have contact or talk in the book and at the end he swoops in, fixes everything and they whisk off to a hotel and declare their love for each other. Excuse me? I know this whisking of to a hotel and happily ever after is kind of a trope of the genre, it even happens in the first Shopaholic book by Sophie Kinsella... but there needs to be some development to get to that point. Sure we KNOW they are destined to be together, that doesn't mean that you just put them together at the end because it's the end... sigh. I think I'm going to go watch the movie again instead of thinking about this anymore.

Actually, one more thing... the graphic designer in me CAN NOT be silenced. I bought this lovely Penguin edition, because, I mean, seriously, this is a lovely cover, even if Bridget is a little too svelte in my mind. But there's a big problem with how the front flap's illustration looks when you're reading. A picture is worth a thousand words... so here's a picture...

Here's the cute illustration, love the banner of "No Emotional Fuckwittage."

Now here's what you see when you're reading... yes, it does look like a boob is starring at you. It's very off putting. Now I have nothing wrong with boobs, I have two of them. But do I want one starring at me while I'm trying to read? No thank you. Also, now my mom won't stop laughing after I showed her this as the definition of bad illustration placement...

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 2 comments  

Labels: An Excess of Chicks, BMI, Bridget Jones, Bridget Jones's Diary, Chick Lit, Colin Firth, Daniel Cleaver, Darcy, Endgame, Helen Fielding, Hugh Grant, Illustrators, Penguin, Samuel Beckett, Sophie Kinsella

Fall of 2007 was the year I really started to hit the book signings hard. I was in Milwaukee every other weekend for a signing or an event of some kind. Seeing as I had just started going to school again, this was an eventful but utterly exhausting time. But when one of those events is Nick Hornby, you don't care how tired you are. Harry Schwartz books in Milwaukee had booked a huge hall at Alverno college for this ticketed event. A hall that would not be used. I called the bookstore in advance to see what the signing restrictions where, after that call I had a feeling that the ticketed event wasn't all that in demand when they desperately said, "Bring all your books, everything you have." I personally was excited for this. More books for me, yeah! But also, he was pitching a YA book about teenage pregnancy and you HAD to buy the book to attend. There are a lot of lax people out there who just don't get it should be mandatory that you buy the book, and this just made it the way life should be. So, attendance it would seem would be low. That and the cold and wet night probably didn't help.

My friend and I left Madison way later than intended (he forgot what time it was) and so instead of a luxurious dinner at The Cheesecake Factory, we where eating as fast as we could at a nearby food court, following which we almost missed the turnoff, got partially lost on the Alverno campus and almost hit Nick Hornby in the parking lot while he was out having a smoke. I don't think he noticed the almost vehicular manslaughter... at least he didn't give any indication that he did. So, we get there and are escorted from the huge theatre into this tiny little room, the kind you expect Christmas pageants to be played on, or small town pantos. There couldn't have been more than 30 people in the audience, but I was thrilled. I was in a uncomfortable wooden seat but enthralled by Nick talking about how he thought John Cusack was too pretty for High Fidelity, as was Hugh Grant for About a Boy, because he viewed his characters more like regular people like himself. He also went on to say how he was grieving missing his football games while stateside and had to hunt for pubs that broadcast them. Also, he was saying how much his coolness factor had risen since he knew Nicholas Holt, the "boy" in About a Boy before he became hugely popular in England, even getting him to narrate Slam, which is odd, because when I read the book I could hear the lead as Nicholas... and no, I wasn't listening to the tape and he doesn't reside in my head. Nick also was talking about how heartbreaking teenage pregnancy is in England, where young girls are getting pregnant on purpose because they think it will make life better.

After his talk my friend and I where front and center, head of the queue. I got to talk to Nick a little, oddly enough mainly about his short story collection that he edited, Speaking with the Angel. I had felt an instant connection to the book, one, because his short story is about the mockery of modern art and two, because on the front cover the little dolls they use to represent the people... well I HAD those dolls. I got to talk all about the set and he was interested (or at least very good at feigning interest). I remember that set so well, such detail, down to tiny forks and napkin rings. The set was Swedish and VERY 80s, with a sectional couch and a three story living room with sunroof that sadly got damaged by our air conditioner unit one year. I remember a went through two of the "teenage daughter" who represents Helen Fielding on the dust jacket because her head broke off. After that we used the facilities, very very small bathrooms, and headed back home, lots of great books to read and lots of great memories... even if none of them got to include Cheesecake.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 2 comments  

Labels: About a Boy, High Fidelity, Hugh Grant, John Cusack, Milwaukee, Nicholas Holt, Nick Hornby, Speaking with the Angel, The Cheesecake Factory