strange and random happenstance

Great Expectations
Based on the book by Charles Dickens
Release Date: December 27th, 2011
Starring: Ray Winstone, Paul Rhys, Gillian Anderson, Vanessa Kirby, Douglas Booth, David Suchet, Jack Roth, Shaun Dooley, Mark Addy, Claire Rushbrook, Harry Lloyd, Perdita Weeks, Susan Lynch
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Even if you haven't read Great Expectations, I'm sure you know about Miss Havisham. The slightly dotty jilted bride still in her wedding gown years and years later. She's part of the collective subconscious, there is not a time I didn't know who she was. Also, a bit embarrassing to say, but I haven't read Great Expectations. I've read all about Miss Havisham's exploits with Thursday Next does that count? No... I didn't really think it did. So my first big foray into the world of Pip and Miss Havisham was actually during a very devote, slightly stalkeresque phase in my life when I had to watch everything Ioan Gruffudd was in. Yes, this even led to me watching quite a few crappy movies, 102 Dalmatians... Shooters... Very Annie Mary... I could go on, but I won't. Just watch some Forsyte Saga and Hornblower and you'll get your Ioan fix. Anyway, in the days before I had a DVD player, I was able to get an old VHS copy of Great Expectations with Ioan from the library. It felt very flat to me. All the characters, especially Pip, where very unlikable. I found Russell Baker's intros far more interesting, where he discussed the populist uprising of fellow authors which changed the ending, even if the original was more true to the story. So when the BBC announced the new production with Gillian Anderson I was excited. Firstly I was hoping for something that would capture me more and make me interested in the story. Also I was keen to see which ending they chose, even though rumors where that an entirely new ending had been written.

This production kind of let me down on almost every account. Mainly, the ending was the actual ending! Well, the actual Dickens re-written ending that is commonly held as the "true" ending. What the... oh well, at least it's Dickens and not some weird tangental ending that can't be possible with what came before, I'm looking at you Andrew Davies, you and your Wives and Daughters! Pip has humble beginnings and gets ideas above his station when he starts to visit Miss Havisham and her adopted daughter, Estella. Eventually he gets a great bequest of money and he thinks it's Miss Havisham's master plan to bring him and Estella together, only to find out he was totally wrong. Not surprising that this is a short three-parter when looking at the simplicity of plot compared to say Little Dorrit or Bleak House.

Pip is played by an Ambercrombie and Fitch Robert Pattison wannabe whose acting is so bland the only way his ascension from blacksmith to gentleman is able to be measured is by how tall his hat gets. His accent is never modulated from rich to poor and instead relies on brooding looks and high cheekbones. When you have other characters making fun of a non-existent accent it brings the production down, show not say people. Coupled with Estella, they make the blandest of couples who you couldn't really care if they get their happily ever after or not. I was kind of rooting for the bleaker ending from early on, just so that maybe these two could show something other than their remarkable ability to act like statues. As you can see, the main problem was that the two youth leads are dull as ditch water and when surround by a superb cast made up of some of the best British actors today, they don't just look dull, they kind of become a black hole of suckiness.

The wealth of well acted supporting roles is the only thing that makes this dull version worth watching. The cast is peopled with everyone from David Suchet to Ray Winstone, all nailing it. Claire Rushbrook, whom is most known for a guest appearance on Doctor Who and being in Spice World, just brings it as Pip's evil older sister. I never knew she had that much bile in her, seeing as I've seen her in two rather benign and nice roles. Mark Addy as the uncle, Mr Pumblechook, was hilarious, and proves that he should only be allowed to play slightly drunk men who yearn for greatness, ie, his recent turn as Robert Baratheon on Games of Thrones. Notable is one of Addy's Thrones co-stars, Harry Lloyd, as Pocket, who happens to be Dickens' own great-great-great-grandson. He not only embodies an actual Dickensian presence, but he was born to play this role being both funny, lovable and romantic. I just hope he gets more and more great roles in the future. Also, a menacing award has to go out to Jack Roth, who turns out to be the son of Tim Roth, proving the creepy baddie is an inheritable trait.

Let me finally get to the one actor this whole shebang revolves around. Gillian Anderson. Many thought that she was too young and too pretty to play the role, but after watching it, I don't think you're likely to go, "oh, she did look lovely as she burned to death." Gillian Anderson is very odd as Miss Havesham, with a little girl voice and an almost china doll appearance. As other reviewers have said, she gives the appearance that she has never grown up. She is bat-shit-crazy incarnate. If there was an award for best wacko, she'd win. Also, her little touches, like the worrying of the hand with the wound was spot on. Yet, in the end, she was too small a presence. She was like a nervous mouse skittering around. Her and everyone else could just not rise above being hampered with two dull leads. Such a shame...

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Andrew Davies, Charles Dickens, David Suchet, Game of Thrones, Gillian Anderson, Great Expectations, Harry Lloyd, Ioan Gruffudd, Miss Havisham, Russell Baker, Thursday Next

Most people know Dickens before they know Dickens. That sentence does seem like a tongue twister, yet it relates to the basic fact that people know of his stories and his characters long before they ever hear his name. Miss Havisham works as a secondary character in Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next books because people know of the slightly off lady dressed in her wedding gown as if it where widows weeds even if they haven't read Great Expectations. Dickens's stories have a universality to them. You know the stories, and most of us know them through the medium of film.

I was very young when I first discovered Dickens, again, that name meant nothing to me, what meant something to me was Mickey's Christmas Carol. I remember watching it on tv and being enraptured by it. This was so much better than any other Christmas special on tv. Mickey had Snoopy beaten by a mile. Scrooge was mean and sad and so many things, and awesomely a duck! Also, for the first time I can ever think of, Goofy wasn't just totally lame. As Marley's Ghost, he was actually a little scary, in particular with the door knocker scene. This aired long before such a thing as a VCR existed in my family, so it was something I looked forward to every Christmas. I even remember dreaming about it. This was almost as good as Christmas itself.

Dickens got me at that young age. Over the years I have watched many an adaptation of A Christmas Carol, from plays where my 6th grade teacher's brother was in the production, a production I might add that cast everyone by if they could fit the costumes because they didn't have the money to replace any of them, to Muppets to Bill Murray, to bad animation to Captain Picard to Blackadder. I have watched them all hoping to find the same joy. But none have come up to the wide eyed childish joy of Mickey Mouse. I'm sure my father would be appalled that I chose a Duck over George C. Scott, so I should probably mention that at this juncture. Love live the Duck!

While I connected to a cartoon from the 1980s, Dickens's works have been adapted continuously for the screen since the invention of cinema. Many of his works were adopted for the stage during his own lifetime and as early as 1913 the first film version of his work appeared with The Pickwick Papers. Today there are a least two hundred motion pictures and tv adaptations based on his works. So for the bicentenary, the first question on everyone's lips was, what adaptations will be made? Well, besides the dueling Miss Havishams, for my money, I think Gillian Anderson might be able to beat Helena Bonham Carter in a fight, we had an adaptation of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, as well as the biopic staring Ralph Fiennes slated for early 2013, missing the centenary there Ralph. While not as heavy as in past years, Dickens is a major tent pole for the BBC with its previous star studded adaptations, Bleak House being the most raved about.

Yet, as Ralph Fiennes shows, we have even gone beyond just dramatizing Dickens's works, we are now dramatizing the man himself. Simon Callow has gained a bit of notoriety playing Dickens, much like Hal Holbrook and Mark Twain. Callow has not only played Dickens several times on stage and screen, notably on Doctor Who, in my mind, he has also written a book on Dickens, because Dickens transcends all boundaries of media. Dickens will continue to live on through many mediums, besides the written word. Now is the time to gather your family together, sit back and watch a few Dickensian adaptations, to capture that perfect holiday mood. Might I interest you in a Duck as the protagonist?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Blackadder, Dickensian, Doctor Who, Edwin Drood, Gillian Anderson, Great Expectations, Jasper Fforde, Mickey's Christmas Carol, Miss Havisham, Muppets, Simon Callow, Thursday Next

The Well of Lost Plots: Thursday Next Novel the 3rd by Jasper Fforde
Published by: Viking
Publication Date: February 23rd, 2004 US, 2003 UK
Format: Hardcover, 375 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Thursday, finding the real world a bit much at present, what with SpecOps, Aronis Hades and Goliath, has decided to take a bit of a sabbatical thanks to Jurisfiction's generous character exchange program. Thursday's husband Landen my still be missing from the collective conscious, but at least she's got a nice book to live in while she awaits the birth of their child and schemes how to get him re-actualized. Taking over for a character by the name of Mary in the book Caversham Heights, Thursday thinks that it will be a nice relaxing time, occasionally doing her narrative duty with Inspector Jack Spratt while living in a fictionalized version of Reading. Little does she know that things are never as they seem in The Library, especially when you are in the well of lost plots. Besides having two generic characters living with her, they may one day end up being someones, maybe even someones of note in literature, she also has her Gran, who never really explains how she's able to just pop round. Luckily for Thursday she has such a resourceful Gran, because who else will keep reminding her to remember Landen and defeat the mind worm that Aronis has planted in Thursday's brain to destroy Thursday and the love of her life. But worst of all Caversham Heights may be heading for the great text sea... it's time may be at an end, but what will happen to Thursday's new home and all the friends she's met?

But Thursday's living situation, while accomplished by her job in Jurisfiction, doesn't even match her job for all out weirdness. There's a missing Minotaur, which may be responsible for not only the death of a colleague, but also an outbreak of the misspelling virus. There's counseling sessions that need to be held within Wuthering Heights to keep the characters in line. Heathcliff hatred being at an all time high, with danger from within and danger from without, with the Pro Caths. Thursday's ongoing court case for her changing the ending of Jane Eyre. Havisham's need for speed is at an all time high and she's determined to beat Toad, from The Wind in the Willows... no matter what it takes! Also that rogue, Vernham Deane, might be behind the rash of disappearances and murders happening among the ranks of Jursifiction... he is after all missing in action. With the unveiling of the new book operating system, UltraWord, just days away at the annual book awards, things need to be resolved, and resolved fast, so that the new OS can be embraced and a new day will dawn for books the world over. But what's that you said about a thrice read rule?

You can't really sum up a Jasper Fforde book. Jasper himself has never found a satisfactory way to do so. The Nextian logic is so random and nonsensical you just have to read it and enjoy it, while at the same time trying not to over-analyze it. The problem I face at the beginning of each of his books is that with it's fragmented nature it's hard to get into it. You can't quite grasp what's going on for awhile, until suddenly something happens that is so wonderful and so funny you can't help but fall in love with it from that moment on. For me that happened at the Wuthering Heights counseling session. Having Havisham being forced to counsel a group of misfits who are rightfully angry at Heathcliff, who saunters in late all brooding sexiness, until his life is threatened and he is cowering like a dog begging Havisham to save him was too perfect. Plus to have an avowed man hater standing up for Heathcliff and trying to aid in the discussion is just dripping with irony. But aside from that scene, which has to be in my top Fforde scenes, I found this my least favorite of his books.

I took issue with the whole construction of the well of lost plots. It's kind of a weird Dickensian back alley or market place where trading is going on in a distinctly black-market way. I viewed the well more shadowy threats and cold barren hallways, not in your face hawkers and bars with back room dealings. The well, with it's trades and auctions and generics seemed to demystify the writing process and make it more of an industry or business. A stripping away of the mystery of inspiration and making it more slot a into tab b, but with a slutty girl being slot a and tab b being a plot contrivance. I found it a little odd that an author would kind of openly, not slam, but take writers down a peg. It's not that Jasper is saying anyone can do it, more that he's saying that, everything is here and bits and pieces in the right amounts assembled by the right person a novel do make. And I'm not sure I agree, but I am sure that I will read his next book... which happens to be a Next book. On a quick final note, I didn't like what happened to Havisham...

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Book Review, Caversham Heights, Dickensian, Heathcliff, Jack Spratt, Jasper Fforde, Miss Havisham, Nextian, Pro Caths, Spec Ops, The Well of Lost Plots, Thursday Next, UltraWord, Wuthering Heights

Well, I hope all you lovely people won't be seeing shades of red when the winner is announced for Shades of Grey. I hope you'll all join me in wishing the randomly generated individual joy and happiness with their new book. Also... as you well know, there is always a new giveaway right around the corner (that would be tomorrow AND Wednesday, yes, there are two new giveaways on the horizon)! New authors and new places to visit! Books are so wonderful, and with Fforde, you get books within books, for that much more bookishness! So lets go into the world of Jasper Fforde. Thursday Next kind of kicked everyones proverbial asses in the favorite character category. But props have to be given to Jack Spratt and Miss Havisham, with a special plock reserved just for Pickwick, plus, we must not forget the funniest character name ever, Jack Schitt, whose brother is Schitt Haus. Now on to the winner! They might be going to East Carmine and not Swindon, but whichwaydidshego is sure to enjoy the journey! That's right Michelle, you won! I don't think I know a more Ffordian crazy person out there (that's a complement by the way).

Also, I have to say I received a lovely bribe for this competition, resulting in a few extra entries for said person... aren't they adorable! Cure pictures of fluffy kittens are ALWAYS the way to go!

Now this little one, very cute, but I'm sorry, the tuxedo kitty wins for sheer adorableness!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 6 comments  

Labels: East Carmine, Giveaway, Jack Spratt, Jasper Fforde, Miss Havisham, Pickwick, Plock, Shades of Grey, Swindon, Thursday Next, Winner

Lost in a Good Book: Thursday Next Novel the 2nd by Jasper Fforde
Published by: Viking
Publication Date: March 31st, 2003 US, 2002 UK
Format: Hardcover, 399 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

When last we saw Thursday Next she was getting her happily ever after with Landen. Of course she had also saved Jane Eyre, even if she significantly altered the ending, eliminated Hades, imprisoned Jack Schitt, the Warmongering Goliath operative, within the pages of Poe's The Raven, ended the Crimean War and generally saved the day. But saving the day tends to get people looking at you as a hero, and heroes need to do the PR rounds, or so says Cordelia Flakk, Spec Ops one woman PR department, who has been desperate for a face to help Spec Ops gain a more friendly foothold with the public at large. After months of press junkets, Thursday has had enough, and after her "no holds barred interview" with Adrian Lush, which ended up being about her Dodo, Pickwick, she's had enough. It's time for her and Landen to settle down and let life get back to normal. But normal is a relative word for someone like Thursday, seeing as her day starts with hearing voices in her head, finding the lost Shakespeare play, Cardenio, getting on a Neanderthal hijacked skyrail where the first time she's shot and the second time, after her father saves her and tells her the world is to end in a few weeks, she's arrested for assaulting an unarmed Neanderthal and ends with Mycroft's retirement party where all the food is pear based and at the end Mycroft and Polly disappear. But despite all that and the SO-5 operatives that are trailing her in an ever changing rota (they keep dying) as well as the Goliath goons, she and Landen bravely try to carry on with their life together, which will soon include a baby. But a picnic leads to another bizarre occurrence of coincidences, confirmed by the Entroscope Mycroft gave her, and culminating in a Hispano-Suiza falling on their picnic, which just might have killed them.

Thursday has obviously too much to deal with, and after her hearing with SO-1 about the Neanderthal incident, things get even weirder. Laden is gone. He has been completely eradicated. Goliath has decided to prove a point. They want Jack Schitt back or Landen will stay gone, having tragically died when he was two years old. Thursday goes into a tailspin... she is still pregnant, but is the baby even Landen's? Where does she live? What has changed? As it seems, much is still the same, despite the eradication of Landen, time being very flexible. But how can she even get into The Raven to get Jack Schitt? The only person she knew of who could bookjump was the Japanese tourist, Mrs. Nakajima, whom she met at Haworth when she was young and again within the pages of Jane Eyre. To Osaka Thursday must go, on the off chance that she can find a clue.

On the short Gravitube ride to Japan she meets the man who she has been hearing in her head. Turns out he's fictional and is to represent her in her trial. Apparently there's an organization inside books, Jurisfiction, which like SO-27, monitors books, and she must answer for her crimes against Jane Eyre... mainly improving the narrative in an unauthorized manner. After another close call with negative entropy and Goliath, Thursday finds herself in the Great Library where she has been expected for some time. Thursday is destined to be a Jurisfiction PROs agent and they have been waiting for her in the Great Library, THE LIBRARY of all books. She is apprenticed to Miss Havisham from Great Expectations, who turns out to be, as expected, a bit of a man hater, but unexpectedly, a speed freak who loves to drive cars. After an unfortunate incident back in Swindon with Miss Havisham at the wheel, where luckily no one was killed, after Thursday's trial was postponed, Thursday must risk her life at a book sale to get a boxed set of romance novels for Miss Havisham before her nemesis, the Red Queen gets them. With a lot of cunning and a little trickery, Thursday passes her test and it looks like she might be a PROs agent yet! But is it a conflict of interest if she's taking the job just to get Landen back? Also is Poe really off limits to all PROs agents as Miss Havisham warns?

But between her duties at Spec Ops, the mysterious appearance of Cardenio, her new duties to Jurisfiction, her landlord, her pregnancy, her missing husband, the general election, Cordelia Flakk and her contest winners, and the fact that the world just might end in a few days, Thursday's life is more complicated then ever. Also the fact that only an evil genius could be behind the forthcoming apocalypse and her attempted murders by coincidence is unnerving to say the least. Hades is dead. Isn't he? But then who is this person of equal evil with the same initials who keeps offing the SO-5 agents and wants Thursday fitted for a coffin?

This book took a long time for me to get into, but it was totally worth the wait. So much of the beginning is tying up loose ends, to an extent. It's not that they're really loose ends even, more repercussions from what happened in the first novel that feel like loose ends while you're waiting for the novel to really start. Also the Neanderthal's are really kind of stupid, not intellectually mind you. I would say pointless, but I get the point of them, especially if you take into consideration animal testing and then genetic experiments, I see why they are valid, and I do love Granny Next's interaction with them, but overall I feel they detract from the book and the world Fforde has created. So once you get past the Neanderthals and Thursday's blissful honeymoon days of her marriage and Landen gets eradicated, the novel really starts to pick up. But it is not until she actually jumps into the Great Library and meets the Unitary Authority of Warrington Cat (previously the Cheshire Cat till county boundaries were redrawn) that I fell in love with this book.

The world of Jurisfiction is beyond anyone's wildest biblomanical dreams. It's a place where you can go from book to book, from back-stories to footnotes and partake in the book character exchange program. Where bowdlerizers are very dangerous and gammersites, especially adjunctavores that stripe an object of adjectives are a very real threat. The place is like a grown up version of Alice in Wonderland, very fitting seeing as who the librarian is. Then there is Thursday's teacher, Miss Havisham... she is outrageous, a wonderful contradiction! Fforde has taken a very sad, lonely woman and made her almost more alive and over the top than Dickens could have ever done... well he couldn't have really made her love of automotives known given the time period he wrote in. The fact that she wears trainers and carries a gun, to deal with her nemesis and the throngs of book buyers, is beyond hysterical. The scene at the book sale is one of the best in the book. With the injured Miss Havisham spurring Thursday on by telling her if she doesn't succeed against the Red Queen to get the trashy romance novels box set then she doesn't have a hope of becoming a Jurisfiction agent is pitch perfect.

The world within the world of books Fforde has created is what makes this series so wonderful. He has expanded on literature's beloved characters and given them truly paradoxical behaviors, but ones that we've long suspected they might hold. He has shown us something that we've believed in and held true for years but have never been told outright before. The world within books is far greater than we could ever imagine! It is best not to over-think this though... sometimes I'd find myself questioning the logic of his world, and in books it's best not too. Because between the pages and lines anything could conceivably happen so it's best just to enjoy the ride, just not with Miss Havisham driving. Also, I know Mary Anne Dashwood was driving a plane, but could you please get her out of the Victorian dress, thank you very much.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 6 comments  

Labels: Cardenio, Cordelia Flakk, Entropy, Jane Eyre, Jasper Fforde, Jurisfiction, Landen, Lost in a Good Book, Miss Havisham, Neanderthal, Pickwick, Spec Ops, The Raven, The Red Queen, Thursday Next