strange and random happenstance

Last year I decided to watch a whole lot of old BBC miniseries that I had been meaning to get to with the loose theme that they all related to Edward VII. I watched Edward the King, because, Edward obviously! I watched two shows about Edward's mistresses, Lillie and The Duchess of Duke Street. Then I went more generic with The Edwardians and Berkeley Square bringing the viewings to a close. Berkeley Square was the only series I had actually seen before but now I can proudly say I've seen them all! As Patrick Stewart said, "I've seen everything." What's interesting about Lillie is that Francesca Annis played the character of Lillie Langtry in Edward the King and was so popular they made a whole series about the infamous mistress to the king and the famous actress she became from childhood to death, and the death was probably not meant to be hilarious, but she was picking fights in bars where you paid men to dance with you, so, that's on her. If the series had one fault it was that they didn't bring Timothy West back to play Edward, but I forgive them because I got to see a bitty baby Rupert Giles as Lillie's older brother in his second ever role! But while Francesca Annis, in my mind, didn't make that much an impression in Edward the King to warrant her own series there is one actor in her series that deserved their own. Lillie fell into the artistic community of the time where she quickly became it's star. She hung out with the likes of Millais and Whistler, her presence inspiring them. But the one historical figure she formed the strongest relationship with was Oscar Wilde. Now I am a huge fan of Oscar Wilde, I even wrote a lengthy paper on him for a class on writing for the threatre in undergrad, so I take my interpretations of Oscar VERY seriously. Stephen Fry is probably most famous to my generation for portraying the author, but no offense to Stephen, Peter Egan just blew me away. Peter Egan is still a stalwart British actor keeping his hand in the game, he was on this past season of The Spanish Princess AND he was on Downton Abbey. But forever more to me he is the only portrayal of Oscar Wilde I will ever think about. The pathos, the feeling, the tragedy, I don't know if I have ever, in my entire life, seen a better performance in ANYTHING! While I wish he had gotten a series of his own, Oscar's life is fully seen through the lens of Lillie's life. I'm just greedy because I want more.       

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Downton Abbey, Edward VII, Edwardian, Fifty Years a Masterpiece, Francesca Annis, Lillie, Lillie Langtry, Oscar Wilde, Peter Egan, Rupert Giles, Stephen Fry, The Duchess of Duke Street, Timothy West

Dorothy Parker is easily the most quoted American author known for her caustic wit and sharp tongue. An American Oscar Wilde, if you will. She had the brains and the bite. Dorothy Rothschild, not those Rothschilds, was born in New Jersey but quickly whisked back to New York, so as she could be a true New Yorker. Once her mother died her relationship with her father was contentious until his death when she was twenty. A year later she sold her first poem to Vanity Fair, a magazine she would eventually work at after a two year stint at Vogue. In fact she'd bounce around the various New York publications, from The New Yorker to Esquire and all those in between, for many years, though it was her work as the theatre critic for Vanity Fair, where she was filling in for P.G. Wodehouse when he was on vacation, that made her career take off. This time in her life was centered around her lunches at the Algonquin Round Table. She held her own as one of the few women at a table of (almost) equally smart and wisecracking male colleagues.

As a member of the Algonquin Round Table she became famous as much for her biting remarks as for her brilliant writing. A prolific poet and critic, Dorothy published more than 300 poems in the 1920s. The collection of her writing, The Portable Dorothy Parker, has never gone out of print. Her romantic life was a bit of a roller-coaster, marrying Edwin Parker just before he was deployed in the Great War, by the time he was demobbed their marriage was over. Numerous affairs led to a pregnancy, an abortion, and her first suicide attempt in that order. She had slightly better luck with her second husband, Alan Campbell, even if at times it was tempestuous their union brought about two Oscar nominations for Best Writing-Screenplay. The looming second war brought out Dorothy's political side, she took up pet political causes, and numerous pets, and eventually bequeathed her literary estate to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. After his assassination her estate passed to the NAACP. For her tombstone epitaph she suggested “Excuse My Dust.”

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Bright Young Detectives, Dorothy Parker, Esquire, Excuse My Dust, New York, Oscar Wilde, Oscars, Roaring Back to Reading, The Algonquin Round Table, The New Yorker, The Portable Dorothy Parker, Vanity Fair, Vogue

Lucien just might be the easiest character I have ever dream cast from Lauren Willig's oeuvre. The second I heard of this supposed prince of darkness I instantly thought of Reeve Carney who plays the mysterious Dorian Gray on the always fabulous Penny Dreadful. In fact, I'd say Dorian and Lucien might have quite a bit in common, except for the fact that one is evil and the other... well, you'll have to read The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla to know for sure.

Name: Reeve Carney

"Dream" Character Casting for the Lauren Willig Miniseries: Lucien, Duke of Belliston

First Impression: Penny Dreadful all the way. This show is so stylish and is such an interesting combination of literary characters in the demimonde. How could I not love it? Plus, Reeve brings something sexy and enigmatic to the character of Dorian Gray, something that is really lacking from Oscar Wilde's book. Yes, I said it. Dorian Gray as a book isn't very good.

Why they'd be the perfect actor for the Lauren Willig Miniseries: Firstly, just look at him! He's got the overly long hair, the mysterious air, and a smile just quirking the corner of his mouth as if he's trying to hold back from laughing at whatever Sally has just said. Also, at least in Penny Dreadful, he has an interest in botany, much like Lucien's mother. But more importantly, he feels a combination of British and other, probably because he is American, or immortal, and therefore I think an ideal candidate for Lucien; he can't be too British after spending so much time down in New Orleans! Also, the accent is totally working in his favor!

Lasting Impression: Penny Dreadful. Seriously folks, one and done for this actor. Rarely does an actor so capture me the first time I've seen him, but everyone on Penny Dreadful, including those actors, like Reeve, who I'd never seen before, were truly memorable. In other words, WATCH PENNY DREADFUL PEOPLE!

What else you've seen them in: Reeve has been more into music than acting, see the Taylor Swift "I Knew You Were Trouble" music video. Yes, I just said Taylor Swift. But he has had an interestingly varied career from a young turn on Dave's World, you all remember that show based on Dave Barry's life right, to being in Julie Taymor's The Tempest, which I was way too cowardly to watch after the memorable impression that her version of Titus made on me.

Can't believe it's them: And speaking of things that I can't believe and Julie Taymor, Reeve was the star of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark! Seriously, I will never be able to get this hilarious information into a proper place in my brain where it makes sense. He was in the most lampooned Broadway show like ever! And he was the star! Oh, I wonder how many limbs he broke...

Wish they hadn't: Seriously, I'm not getting off this Spider-Man thing ANYTIME SOON! Though it looks like he didn't break any limbs. Still, can't stop laughing.

Bio: Reeve was born in New York and from the beginning performing was in his blood seeing as his great uncle was the wonderful actor Art Carney. His family moved to California where he attended the Academy of Music at Alexander Hamilton High School where he met his future band mates. In fact by the age of fifteen he was playing guitar professionally at B.B. King's night club in L.A. Though he continued his education majoring in college in studio jazz guitar, not forsaking study for fame. His first band opened for such groups as Arcade Fire and U2. While still doing music it's his acting chops on Penny Dreadful that are really getting him noticed. Mmm, Penny Dreadful.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Broadway, Dorian Gray, Dream Casting, Julie Taymor, Lauren Willig, Lucien, Oscar Wilde, Penny Dreadful, Reeve Carney, Spiderman, Taylor Swift, The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla, The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde
Published by: The Franklin Library
Publication Date: 1891
Format: Hardcover, 243 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

The painter Basil Hallward has found his muse in Dorian Gray. Just having the dazzling and innocent youth in his life has made his work reach heights he never thought it would. Basil longs to keep Dorian his secret but his dear friend Lord Harry Wotton is so enthralled by the portrait that Basil is painting of Dorian that he demands to meet the youth whose likeness is sure to be the best painting of Basil's career. But the meeting of Harry and Dorian changes everything. Harry fills the empty vessel of Dorian's mind with vanity for his own beauty and that naivete that Basil so adores quickly starts to slip away from Dorian. Upon gazing at the finished portrait Dorian makes a heartfelt plea that he might remain forever youthful and pure in his looks while his likeness ages and withers before his eyes. Little does Dorian know that sometimes wishes come true. After an ill fated love affair Dorian realizes that sometimes the unexplainable happens and soon he's on the path of vice and immorality while his portraiture suffers, all guided by the steady hand of Harry.

The late nineties was the perfect time to develop an Oscar Wilde obsession. Almost a hundred years after his death the cinema was filled with marvelous new adaptations of his most celebrated plays as well as a biopic starring that celebrity I am most likely to kidnap to read all my books to me, Stephen Fry. Even that one movie I saw more then any movie ever in theaters, Velvet Goldmine, had a little Wilde in it. Birthdays and holidays I was gifted new Wilde books, from The Importance of Being a Wit: The Insults of Oscar Wilde to the Wilde: Screenplay. I even had a postcard from my friend Paul promoting Wilde with Stephen Fry in his dapper photoshop pink suit that I remember holding pride of place on the mirror in my bedroom for many years. In fact, I'm pretty sure given the impetus I could dig it out again. I waited for each adaptation with baited breath and saw them all on opening weekend, even if I had to see Wilde at our rather run down art house cinema where half your attention was on the screen and the other half on the ceiling hoping it wouldn't collapse. Wilde and his wit became a way of life for me. 

When I ended up becoming a theater major through the back door by way of classes cross-listed with my art major I felt like I was becoming more in tune with Wilde's world. I studied the history of the theater and read my fair share of plays from the Greeks right up to Wilde himself. In the fall of 2001 I was taking a class that was meant to expand our critical writing skills of plays, both productions and text being analyzed. I was frustrated with this class in that I had spent my life honing these skills and to be given simple exercises that I could have done in freshman year of high school, well, my mind tended to wander. What my mind wandered to was the one thing I was looking forward to in this class, and that was my semester long project on a play of my choice. It almost goes without mentioning that I chose The Importance of Being Earnest. I dove into the research material and lived there while blocking out the boring class. I learned the finer details of Bunburying and the great value of not misplacing your handbag.

While researching my paper I read a selection of Wilde's non-fiction essays and quickly came to the conclusion that he needed to remain a playwright. Reading his only book, The Picture of Dorian Gray, has not changed my opinion on this, in fact it has reinforced it. Plays and prose are such vastly different creatures. The way Wilde writes, every single sentence or line of dialogue is quotable. This works better in a play, because the way the actors bring the words to life and bounce them off each other the rapid fire wit entrances you. In a book it tends to get bogged down and lost. The back and forth of unassigned dialogue makes you confused and makes it loose it's punch. So many of the lines from The Picture of Dorian Grey are classics of Wilde's wit, but read in context they just loose something ineffable.

The best way I've thought of describing this ineffable issue, which, given it's ineffable is near impossible, is to compare Wilde to Nancy Mitford. Nancy Mitford wrote all her books so that each and every line amused her. Some were inside jokes, others mere wordplay, but each book was crafted to the nth degree sentence by sentence. Now Nancy wrote eight fiction books in her lifetime, only half of those are worth reading. Because of the way Nancy wrote the success of her brand of humor was hit or miss, either wonderful or awful. Given Wilde crafted his sole book in a near identical way he had about a fifty-fifty chance of success, and he did not succeed. Nancy had more time to get it right, and I must say it's a pity that Wilde didn't have that luxury, dying at the age of 46. As a reader I am not someone to necessarily be amused by an author who is amused by their own wit. I don't want to be highlighting every line as a favorite quote. You need the book to ebb and flow with valleys and peaks. Even if I take away the fact that Wilde wants us to stay at the top of this mountain range, when he does deign to descend, he gives us weird ramblings about gems and tapestries that would try the patience of any reader.

I am not the only one to have issues with this book. The Victorian society into which Wilde debuted his novel was scandalized by the hedonism and homosexuality of the book. This is another instance where I agree with someone having a problem with the book, but not for the same reasons. Wilde's themes and how he is laying them bare is what intrigued me while scandalizing those prudish Victorians. The way he wrote it is where my annoyance lay. Yet it wasn't my only issue. The self-impressed characters, especially Lord Harry, are people I would have to murder if I spent more then five minutes with them. Also, while the book's themes were worthy, the way they were handled was not with a deft hand. The hedonism was in some regards too obvious and in others too opaque, giving us a muddled view as to how evil Dorian has really become. If you're going to really show how a man's soul has been corrupted, I don't think you can go by halves here. Wilde's already scandalized the public, why not go all out?

The chilling fact that this all stems from Dorian wanting to remain the societal ideal of beauty is the most intriguing aspect of this book, but again it is badly handled. NO ONE EVER COMMENTS ON DORIAN NOT AGING! I just don't get this. By the end of the book he's what, thirty-eight and looking twenty-one? Someone would say something, wouldn't they? Or were Victorians really that missish to think it rude to ask? So while I applaud Wilde for handling a topic that is still relevant to today's society, IE, worshipping at the Temple of Youth where appearance is everything, he could have done a better job. But seeing as Wilde himself was felled by a twenty one year old, well... getting it wrong in literature is not nearly as bad as getting it wrong in your life.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Classics of Horror and Suspense, Nancy Mitford, Oscar Wilde, Playwright, Stephen Fry, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Theatre, Velvet Goldmine, Victorian, Wilde

I love how Wikipedia states: "For a comparatively small island, Ireland has made a disproportionately large contribution to world literature in all its branches." My way of saying it? Ireland is awesome and that's why it has it's own special place on the calender when everyone who isn't Irish gets to pretend they are because we're so freaking awesome and cool with our disproportionally amazing writing ability. It's the storyteller gene. It's in us, it's a part of us. Time to sing, dance, talk, cry, and please, avoid the green beer.... So who are some of the people I think have given helped give Ireland it's place in the echelon of great literature? Well, for me there's everyone from Jonathan Swift, Oliver Goldsmith, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Bram Stoker to Roddy Doyle, Frank McCourt, Malachy McCourt, Graham Linehan, Pauline McLynn, Ardal O'Hanlon, Dylan Moran, Maeve Binchy, yeah I know some of those are comedians... but that doesn't discount them as writers, seeing as many have actually written books! But, there is one Irish Man who will always be the top, the best, the exemplar... I think you can guess, not that I'll make you. But no one comes close to Oscar Wilde. I'm sorry, don't try, you'll fail and be sad.

A favorite quote: "The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius."

But then best quote about Ireland ever was in The Onion, where they were listing what Northern Ireland wants from the English as reparations, one of them was "Eddie Izzard Back." I was on the floor laughing at that one, because Eddie did live there for some time before moving to England but after he was born in Yemen. So sit back and enjoy some of the best literature on this most holy of days. If you feel more in a passive mood, pop in an episode of Father Ted, watch The Matchmaker, sing along with The Commitments, heck, Eddie's even Irish! Enjoy!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 3 comments  

Labels: Ardal O'Hanlon, Bram Stoker, Dylan Moran, Graham Linehan, Ireland, Maeve Binchy, McCourt, Oliver Goldsmith, Oscar Wilde, Roddy Doyle, Samuel Beckett, St. Patrick's Day, The Commitments, Wikipedia

To Kindle or not to Kindle, that is the question. It could be the end of proper publishing or the beginning of more wide spread dissemination of literature to those less likely to pick up a book and more likely to have an iphone. I will just have to see, I am new to the Kindle (I just got it for my birthday), but I gotta say, everything ever written by Wilkie Collins for $4.79!?! I'm over the freakin' moon!

My Pros:
Coolest packaging ever! The box is matte black but spirally out from the kindle logo, all done in glossy black, are letters and symbols. So freakin' cool.

Classic books that are out of print or hard to find available for next to nothing because they are in the public domain, ie Wilkie Collins, Baroness Orczy, the Brontes, Jane Austen, the list goes on and on.

Light, compact library in your hands, great for travel.

Books that are almost too heavy to hold, like Richardson's Clarissa, one of the longest novels in the English language, now fits in the palm of your hand for only $1.20.

The screen really does read like real paper. I thought that maybe they were exaggerating, but really, it's amazing.

I love that you can order right on the Kindle or on the Amazon website and it goes straight to the device.

Books that are more trashy or guilty pleasures, almost throw away novels, are easier to get and cheaper. I think the Kindle will lead to an increase in romance sales, being able to automatically download what you might be too embarrassed to get at a counter, obviously a plus.

All the shelf space I will save.

The books are generally cheaper than printed books.

When the Kindle goes to sleep after 10 minutes of inactivity you see awesome pictures of authors, so far I have seen Edgar Allen Poe twice, Thomas Moore twice, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Oscar Wilde, some really cool Roman lady, John Milton, Lewis Carroll, The Book of Kells, I think Dante, Emily Dickinson and finally Jane Austen. And yes, I have been letting it go to sleep to see the pictures, of course I also found by flicking the power switch you can see them too.

If I want to read a book before picking up a signed edition at the events I love to frequent, now I can buy the Kindle version and not have to spend so much money twice.

Cons:
I will probably still be buying printed books and now have double the income drain.

I love printed books, the feel and way they look on your shelf. You don't really get the feel or grandeur of a "library" with Kindle's library.

Being battery powered means that the battery could run out and a printed book never runs out of power.

The move to a paperless world. I would be heartbroken if someday, during my lifetime, that books ceased to be printed and became only available digitally. (Of course this could circumvent the horrible incidents with the Vashta Nerada as seen on Dr. Who...in other words, the only advantage to not having paper books exists in a fictional tv show, ie there is no advantage).

Lack of footnotes. The Kindle is notorious for omitting footnotes. With authors like Lisa Lutz, and in particular Terry Pratchett this is horrific! Some of their best material is in the footnotes.

Not having a hardcopy of a book. Having it only exist in digital format makes me worry about what will happen in the future, when this technology is outmoded, which it will be, what will happen to my "books"?

Slow connection to get the books depending on where you are.

To Sum Up:
I am thrilled with it so far. At first it took a little time getting used to the controls, but they aren't overly complicated at all. I also accidentally voided the first purchase I made and then it took me a few hours to get it back. But I have gotten a wicked lot of classic for almost nothing and I look forward to reading them all. So, I'll have to get back to you all on final thoughts once I play with it and read on it some more, but I would love to hear what you think about this newest form of technology that is sweeping the globe.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 2:53 PM 0 comments  

Labels: Amazon, Baroness Orczy, Bronte, Clarissa, Dr. Who, Emily Dickinson, iphone, Jane Austen, Kindle, Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Richardson, Wilkie Collins