strange and random happenstance

With the 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice A and E had a legitimate hit on their hands. This was something new for the cable channel known mostly for their show Biography, an attempt at a "classier" celebrity expose. Therefore when The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling was announced, it wasn't just announced, the red carpet was rolled out, Max Beesley was going to be the next Colin Firth, and if that wasn't enough, look, they have Mr. Bennet playing Squire Allworthy! Yet they forgot the old maxim about catching lightning in a bottle... There was no way that any ad campaign they could come up with would generate the same buzz as Colin Firth in a pond. And not to slight Henry Fielding, but it's not like he has the fan base of Jane Austen. And yes, I bought the official tie-in hardcover edition that Modern Library released and I honestly tried to read it. Honestly I did... But I literally gave up not even a full chapter into the book. There's something about me and Tom Jones that just doesn't connect unlike me and Austen. In fact, and this is slightly embarrassing to admit, I'm not even sure I watched the whole 1997 adaptation, which I might possibly rectify one day soon. I remember the beginning, vaguely, and then there was a happy ending... But don't hold me to anything in-between other than apparently Jackie Tyler from Doctor Who was in it. I did tape it. I just didn't bother to watch it. And after five minutes of this new version I would have been glad to go back and watch the 1997 version instead. The thing about the story of Tom Jones is that it's a romp. It's very farcical, I mean just look at the characters' names! There should be rumpy-pumpy music and, well, rumpy-pumpy. Just think of the version in the sixties with Albert Finney and that's what is expected. This was just joyless. It was a slog to watch and there were only four episodes! What's more, despite having many actors I like and admire I didn't have a single character I was rooting for and I felt embarrassed for Hannah Waddingham. Not to mention the complete lack of chemistry between the leads. The only thing that was positive about this adaptation was Sophia Western being born to Squire Western's son and one of his slaves. They used this as an opportunity to actually talk about slavery and the worth of a human being unlike in Queen Charlotte, where they create a fictional "great experiment" to move society forward into a fictional realm. Here we have a grounding in reality which makes sense historically and might also be why the show doesn't work. But I don't want to be the one saying that slavery is the reason this doesn't work, because every chance you get to decry slavery you should, I'm saying it's endemic of a greater issue, they didn't understand the source material. They could have gone the way of many adaptations of late and done their own thing, and that might have been better, more real, because to attempt to balance the history of the times with the sexual shenanigans of Tom just didn't work. You can't choose the middle ground, it's lazy storytelling, you have to pick a side so pick wisely.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Colin Firth, Fifty-Five Years a Masterpiece, Hannah Waddingham, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, Max Beesley, Mr. Bennet, Pride and Prejudice, Queen Charlotte, Slavery, Solly McLeod, Sophia Western, Sophie Wilde, Tom Jones

I've been a fan of Hayley Atwell's for what seems like forever, but looking at her credits it's been about twenty years starting with the Sally Lockhart films. But it was her portrayal of Agent Carter, giving us a non-superpowered kick-ass female lead in the male dominated Marvel universe that forever made me a fan. That and her hilarious lip-synch videos and self-deprecating social media presence. So I was aware of The Long Song since the day it first started filming back in 2018. And since the day later in 2018 that it aired in England. Nowadays with shows being shown almost simultaneously stateside thanks to premium cable channels and services like BritBox I kept waiting for The Long Song to finally air here. And I waited. And I waited. Seriously, Howards End with Hayley's portrayal of Margaret Schlegel ran on Starz and even re-aired TWICE on PBS and still I waited for The Long Song. Until finally it was announced as part of Masterpiece's 51st season in 2021. I would finally get to see the adaptation of Andrea Levy's book! And ironically, considering how long I waited to see this, I think 2021 was the perfect time for it to air. Right when America finally said enough and embraced Black Lives Matter on a scale it should have always been embraced. Though sadly since that time we've regressed, and it's more important than ever to look back and see the horrors of what we have done in the past and continue to do in the present. To know that this is our history. This happened and if certain people in power have their way it will happen again. To not flinch away from uncomfortable truths. And the truth of the matter is Hayley is nothing more than odious comic relief, as she should be in this setting. As she herself said "I play a heinous, vile old cow [as] Variety reviews my portrayal: 'an actor who typically radiates warmth, does a remarkable job of curdling the atmosphere of every room unlucky enough to have Caroline in it.'" And her partner in crime is Jack Lowden as the ambitious Robert Goodwin. If you've fallen for him as River Cartwright on Slow Horses, well, here you get to see his true acting chops, joining Hayley in camp odious and vile. I wish I could say I knew then that he'd be a star, but I so didn't. Because the real star of The Long Song is Tamara Lawrance as July. A slave who was taken away from her mother to be a plaything for Caroline. Who, despite everything, is a source of joy. Her life keeps beating her down again and again yet she is a "joyous survivor" as one reviewer said. And that's the heart of The Long Song, showing the horrors unflinchingly but celebrating the joy of surviving and creating a better world. Here's hoping we can rebuild and make a better world together.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Agent Carter, Andrea Levy, Black Lives Matter, Fifty-Five Years a Masterpiece, Hayley Atwell, Howards End, Jack Lowden, July, Marvel, Masterpiece, Sally Lockhart, Slavery, Slow Horses, Starz, Survivor, Tamara Lawrance, The Long Song

The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe
Published by: Orb Books
Publication Date: 1972
Format: Paperback, 252 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy

The sister planets of Saint Anne and Saint Croix were founded by French colonists, long since gone, but their influence can still be felt along the streets of Saint Anne. At 666 Saltimbanque Street is a house that the gentlemen of Port-Mimizon are known to frequent. High up in this house lives a young boy and his brother David. Behind the barred windows they can hear the clients down in the garden and up on the rooftop, surrounded by orange trees. Though it is their father and the woman, Madame, they find far more intriguing. One day the boy is brought to his father's study and told he will be called Number Five and visit him nightly to run tests. Previously Number Five and his brother David were taught by Mr. Million, a robot that acted as nanny and tutor, drilling the kids in science and rhetoric and often taking them to the library and slave market. Now that Number Five is older he will also start to pull his weight around the house, they all have their work cut out, his father keeps the girls clean, and now Number Five will be acting as gatekeeper for the brothel. But it's the tests his father puts Number Five through that are destroying him. He suffers immensely and has long blackouts, sometimes lasting months. Number Five finally realizes that he must kill his father, only this has implications for one of their clients. John V. Marsch is an anthropologist who was working on Saint Croix, searching for the lost Annese, the aboriginals of the planet. He came to the house on Saltimbanque Street in search of Dr. Aubrey Veil to ask about Veil's Hypothesis, wherein the doctor posited that the aboriginals could mimic the settlers so completely that they killed them and took their place. Dr. Veil is in fact Number Five's aunt and the Madame of the brothel and this means Marsch often visits resulting in him being arrested for the murder Number Five commits. While stuck in prison Marsch chronicles his imprisonment and his research on Saint Croix. He even assembles a story about the early aboriginals. Yet how could a man born on Earth know so much about a culture that has moved into the back of beyond if it even exists? The answer might lie in Veil's Hyposthesis and the young man, V.R.T., who claimed to be half-aboriginal and whom Marsch hired to take him out into the wilderness for years. In a future world where cloning is possible does it seem that far-fetched that shapeshifters could exist too?

There are books that people go back to and read over and over again because they feel like they keep missing something the last time they read it. They feel that the book hides new discoveries that will be revealed to them one day if they are patient enough and work for it. While I am a proponent of rereading a book on the other hand if the book is elliptical and dense and just too much work to read it the first time I think it is the definition of insanity to attempt to read it again. And that is how I feel about The Fifth Head of Cerberus. It's dreamlike, it's dense, and whatever it was trying to tell me, well, I don't care to find out because reading every single line in this book was painful. I finished it. I did that much at least. But I just don't get it. Because while the structure of the three connecting novellas initially works, what increasingly annoyed me was that this book felt less and less like something written with an audience in mind and more and more like a writing experiment that Gene Wolfe did to entertain himself. I'm all for experimentation in writing, but at the end of the day you still have to be able make it intelligible. The elliptical writing that purposefully omits details, jumping around in the timeline without reason, and then not bothering to write full sentences, and randomly changing the narrative voice, this does not make me a happy camper. And as for the "dreamquest".... If I had wanted to read bad origin myths like I was forced to read as a freshman in high school where a lady was trying to have sex with a worm but it turns out it was a stick, well I would have gone back and read that book again, you know, for nostalgia. I would not have chosen this. In fairness, Gene Wolfe perfectly aped that style of writing so on one level it succeeds, on another it just drove me crazy. Plus there are so many big moral issues handled in such a clumsy manner. We have cloning, slavery, sex work, and all of it is just part of the world and not really a problem. Well, to me it was a problem. When the only woman of power is a famous doctor who ends up working as a madame and all the other women are sex slaves to men we have issues. But issues that I will not delve further into because I will never pick up this book again to peal back the layers of the onion as it were.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Cloning, Dreamlike, Elliptical, Experiments, For the Love of Book Clubs, French, Gene Wolfe, John V. Marsch, Number Five, Sex Workers, Shapeshifter, Slavery, The Fifth Head of Cerberus, V.R.T., Veil's Hypothesis

First impressions are important. Yes, you could get an inaccurate impression but only time will tell. My first impression of The Confessions of Frannie Langton sadly bore out. Because a show that starts with the year in a big large font, 1826 if you were interested, and then follows it up with all the characters wearing Empire waisted dresses, well, that's such a glaring inaccuracy that I just couldn't look beyond it. Every second a character was on screen I was aware that the costuming was entirely wrong. What's more there were flashbacks and they were wearing the same clothes! Fashion changes. You could make the argument that Frannie herself was poor so she would still be in older fashions, that doesn't apply to ANYONE ELSE. The Empire silhouette ended six years before this story starts. SIX YEARS. How can a costume designer get it this wrong? It's like the time I watched a documentary on the Adnrew Davis adaptation of Sense and Sensibility and the costume designer said they purposefully changed the style to add more color. And I'm still pissed about those costumes all these years later. That and David Morrissey's bad wig. But it's not like I'd actually recommend The Confessions of Frannie Langton to anyone so I guess it can go about being historically inaccurate all it wants behind everyone's back, except that there's me here stewing, I will NEVER let this go. I really want to know what was the point of making this other than to make us angry and depressed about the world we live in as well as pissing me off about costume design? We have slavery, we have implied vivisection, we have drug addiction, we have miscarriages, we have incest, we have prostitution, we have murder, and in the end, we bury our gays. Some reviewers have pointed out that the "unapologetic" nature of the love between Frannie and Marguerite somehow makes the story rise above the fact that they both die in the end. Were they watching the same show I was? Because their relationship is toxic, Marguerite turns Frannie into an addict and then cheats on her with her own "son." Oh and I totally forgot, that Marguerite then killed herself. Yeah, I'm spoiling it for you, but as I said, you shouldn't be watching this anyway. This was only four episodes long and that was four too many. There were so many good actors just doing bad material I just couldn't bear it. I was looking back at my notes from when I was watching this and I literally only like the cat. All the other characters were grasping, mean, evil, ruinous sorts. Maybe an author the likes of Dickens could have made these people interesting, but Sara Collins, adapting her own book, couldn't. And you know what, when her book came out I was excited to read it, and then excited that it was being adapted, but a dark tale told by an unreliable narrator done by incompetents wasn't what I was looking for. This was a tale dark in nature and just dark, as in the crew obviously didn't understand that lighting was needed for the viewers to see the characters and it was glaringly obvious they had never lite a dark skinned person in their lives. So all those people out there decrying that a show about lesbians is morally reprehensible, first off, I will never agree with you, but more importantly, if you watched this you'd have legitimate reasons to complain.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: And the Emmy Goes To, Andrew Davies, Charles Dickens, Costumes, Empire Silhouette, Lesbians, Murder, Sara Collins, Sense and Sensibility, Slavery, The Confessions of Frannie Langton, Toxic, Unreliable Narrator

With the 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice A and E had a legitimate hit on their hands. This was something new for the cable channel known mostly for their show Biography, an attempt at a "classier" celebrity expose. Therefore when The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling was announced, it wasn't just announced, the red carpet was rolled out, Max Beesley was going to be the next Colin Firth, and if that wasn't enough, look, they have Mr. Bennet playing Squire Allworthy! Yet they forgot the old maxim about catching lightning in a bottle... There was no way that any ad campaign they could come up with would generate the same buzz as Colin Firth in a pond. And not to slight Henry Fielding, but it's not like he has the fan base of Jane Austen. And yes, I bought the official tie-in hardcover edition that Modern Library released and I honestly tried to read it. Honestly I did... But I literally gave up not even a full chapter into the book. There's something about me and Tom Jones that just doesn't connect unlike me and Austen. In fact, and this is slightly embarrassing to admit, I'm not even sure I watched the whole 1997 adaptation, which I might possibly rectify one day soon. I remember the beginning, vaguely, and then there was a happy ending... But don't hold me to anything in-between other than apparently Jackie Tyler from Doctor Who was in it. I did tape it. I just didn't bother to watch it. And after five minutes of this new version I would have been glad to go back and watch the 1997 version instead. The thing about the story of Tom Jones is that it's a romp. It's very farcicle, I mean just look at the characters names! There should be rumpy-pumpy music and, well, rumpy-pumpy. Just think of the version in the sixties with Albert Finney and that's what is expected. This was just joyless. It was a slog to watch and there were only four episodes! What's more, despite having many actors I like and admire I didn't have a single character I was rooting for and I felt embarrassed for Hannah Waddingham. Not to mention the complete lack of chemistry between the leads. The only thing that was positive about this adaptation was Sophia Western being born to Squire Western's son and one of his slaves. They used this as an opportunity to actually talk about slavery and the worth of a human being unlike in Queen Charlotte, where they create a fictional "great experiment" to move society forward into a fictional realm. Here we have a grounding in reality which makes sense historically and might also be why the show doesn't work. But I don't want to be the one saying that slavery is the reason this doesn't work, because every chance you get to decry slavery you should, I'm saying it's endemic of a greater issue, they didn't understand the source material. They could have gone the way of many adaptations of late and done their own thing, and that might have been better, more real, because to attempt to balance the history of the times with the sexual shenanigans of Tom just didn't work. You can't choose the middle ground, it's lazy storytelling, you have to pick a side so pick wisely.   

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: And the Emmy Goes To, Biography, Colin Firth, Hannah Waddingham, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, Max Beesley, Mr. Bennet, Pride and Prejudice, Queen Charlotte, Slavery, Sopha Western, Squire Allworthy, Tom Jones

A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians by H.G. Parry
Published by: Redhook
Publication Date: June 23rd, 2020
Format: Hardcover, 544 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

France is on the brink of revolution. In a small room in Arras Maximilien Robespierre has a dream. The dream is of the worst night of his life. His mother was taken away by the Knights Templar because she was a necromancer. The truth is more complicated. She might have had the magic in her blood but she actually is taken away to the Bastille to face execution because Robespierre was the one who, in his childish innocence, brought his pet bird back to life, and she is protecting her child. Only this time there's a stranger in his dream. A man who will become his benefactor. He will amplify Robespierre's powers, help Robespierre to mesmerize his audiences with his oratories on how the aristocracy is using their power to destroy their fellow man. How magic, which could save lives, is punished when used. And Robespierre's audience listens. Once he gets to Paris he and his friends, Camille Desmoulins and George Danton, light a fire in the population. They storm the Bastille, they form a new government, they fight for the rights of man and magician. While across the water in England William Pitt the Younger and his dear friend William Wilberforce are also fighting for the rights of man after formative years consisting of drinking cheap wine in a seedy hostelry in France. While Pitt hopes to one day live in a world where those with magic aren't punished, he sees what's happening in France and knows now is not the time. Whereas Wilberforce has more specific rights he wishes to fight. He wants to end the horror that is the slave trade. Magic is used to bind and control slaves. They can't even move a muscle without being told to. They are trapped within their own minds and can't even scream. Wilberforce views the end of slavery as his purpose on this Earth. A noble cause. A noble cause that catches the eye of Robespierre's benefactor. But then, the benefactor is interested in anything to do with France and William Pitt. And Wilberforce's abolitionist ideals could threaten the French colony of Saint-Domingue. A colony that is soon to rise up. And one slave, Fina, will hear the voice across the water and be called. And the voice she hears is Robespierre's benefactor. What could this voice want? From William Pitt's perspective it looks like he wants the world to burn.

Much like the small groups of friends going from their formative years to integral figures in history this book starts as a small ember and bursts into a conflagration. It interweaves real history with magic in a dizzying Dickensian detailed tome. H.G. Parry has not just created a fascinating alternate historical fantasy but a believable magic system. But then she outdoes herself by creating an entirely new mythology for vampires that works within the framework of her magic system due to blood magic. Which means I get to add this book to my vampires shelf. And of course I have a vampires shelf. Though the vampirism is perhaps my main sticking point in A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians. Not it's existence but the way Robespierre's benefactor who is a vampire turns Robespierre into his Renfield. This makes me question again and again if H.G. Parry is somehow trying to redeem Robespierre. Here's the thing, yes, Robespierre in actuality, like in the book, has the best of intentions and believes in rights for all but does that really matter when your actions lead to the death of seventeen thousand people? Sure he might have started out on the right side of history but he ended up firmly on the wrong side of history. Seventeen thousand dead proves my point. Oh, and let's not forget killing his monarchs. Here his benefactor is egging him on. Animate one corpse or I won't help you. Kill the King or I won't help you. Form an army of the dead or I won't help you. And time and time again Robespierre bows down to the demands because he really believes that the ends will justify the means. Here's the thing, they don't. They really don't. Each time he agrees his way to hell is paved a little further. But the problem is his benefactor. By having him push Robespierre it's taking away Robespierre's accountability. The mob hold him accountable but we as readers are meant to feel something else. That perhaps he was just a pawn. Yes, in real life, perhaps the mob mentality pushed him to his evil acts, but here it was a vampire. And I don't know if I'm OK with questioning my feelings towards him. But that's what A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians does time and time again, it makes me question weighty issues from slavery to abolition to accountability to basic human rights. There may be magic but you won't find a more human novel out there.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians, Abolition, French Revolution, H.G. Parry, Necromancer, Regency Magic, Renfield, Robespierre, Slavery, The Shadow Histories, The Terror, Vampire, Wilberforce, William Pitt

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
Published by: Doubleday
Publication Date: 1814
Format: Hardcover, 496 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Fanny Price is a burden to her poor and ever expanding family. Her two maternal aunts decide to help their disadvantageously married sister by taking Fanny in at Mansfield Park, separating the young girl from the only family she has ever known and her beloved brother William. She is to be raised with her four cousins, Tom, Edmund, Maria, and Julia. Given all the advantages they have but never once allowed by her aunt, Mrs. Norris, to ever think herself their equal. She is a part of the family but always apart, not really one of them, but not even fitting in with the servants. She is truly alone. If it wasn't for the kindness of her cousin Edmund to that undersized ten year old, Fanny would have despaired. Instead she has grown up "knowing her place" and hopelessly in love with Edmund. A love she knows her family would never embrace. So she loves him in silence, not wanting to cause trouble. But the eldest, Tom, is causing trouble. He has racked up debts that require his father to sell the living of the local parsonage that was to be Edmund's and the Grants move in. This wouldn't have been a catastrophic event except for what happened next. Fanny's uncle and her cousins' father, Sir Thomas Bertam, was called away to Antigua, taking Tom with him. The power vacuum at Mansfield Park was filled by Mrs. Norris. She sees this time as coming into her own, she finds a wealthy dunderhead of a fiance for Maria, and encourages an intimacy with the parsonage, an intimacy which is far more interesting to the inhabitants of Mansfield Park when Mrs. Grant's two siblings, Henry and Mary Crawford, arrive. Mrs. Norris hopes to marry Henry to Julia and Mary, well Mary initially thinks only of Tom, until she begins to see what Fanny sees in Edmund. But the trouble caused with Henry and his ever roving eye, going from Julia to Maria to Fanny, will change Mansfield Park forever.

When I first read Mansfield Park I took a bizarre pride in being one of the few to actually love it more than Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. I thought anyone who didn't view it as Austen's best work was deluded and therefore not worth my time. I have often felt myself against the Austen mainstream. Bucking treads and going my own way and listening to my heart and not to academic discourse. Because if there's one thing I can be certain of it's that Jane Austen herself would despise many of the people who populate the higher ranks of her so-called "societies." What this book captures, more than any other, is the darker side of familial obligations. Fanny is slighted, imposed upon, nothing more than a tool to be of use to other people. Part of their lives without one of her own. An identity subsumed into theirs, nothing more than a dogsbody. She was basically sold into service. And yes, I will grudgingly admit that with Antigua there is an underscoring of slavery, the real slavery Austen was interested in here is adoption. And while she might have been telling the story about Fanny's adoption into her cousins' family, I think it was actually a thinly veiled reference to her own life. Jane's brother Edward was "presented" to his wealthy relatives Thomas and Catherine Knight, the same relatives who gave Jane's father the living at Steventon, when Edward was twelve and Jane was five. Edward became their legal heir and left Jane's family unit. How might this have effected young Jane? Could she have written Mansfield Park as a way to handle this trauma in her life? I personally think she did. Because while everything turned out alright for Fanny as it did for her brother Edward, one might say that Mansfield Park is about working though her issues. But I hope writing this book was cathartic. I know it was reading it.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Caregivers Syndrome, Edmund Betram, Edward Knight, Family, Fanny Price, Jane Austen, JASNA, Mansfield Park, Mrs. Norris, Pride and Prejudice, Regency Romp, Sense and Sensibility, Slavery, Steventon

I've been a fan of Hayley Atwell's for what seems like forever, but looking at her credits it's been about fifteen years starting with the Sally Lockhart films. But it was her portrayal of Agent Carter, giving us a non-superpowered kick-ass female lead in the male dominated Marvel universe that forever made me a fan. That and her hilarious lip-synch videos and self-deprecating social media presence. So I was aware of The Long Song since the day it first started filming back in 2018. And since the day later in 2018 that it aired in England. Nowadays with shows being shown almost simultaneously stateside thanks to premium cable channels and services like BritBox I kept waiting for The Long Song to finally air here. And I waited. And I waited. Seriously, Howards End with Hayley's portrayal of Margaret Schlegel ran on Starz and even re-aired TWICE on PBS and still I waited for The Long Song. Until finally it was announced as part of Masterpiece's 51st season. I would finally get to see the adaptation of Andrea Levy's book! And ironically, considering how long I waited to see this, I think now was the perfect time for it to air. Right when America finally said enough and embraced Black Lives Matter on a scale it should have always been embraced it's more important than ever to look back and see the horrors of what we have done in the past. To not flinch away from uncomfortable truths. And the truth of the matter is Hayley is nothing more than odious comic relief, as she should be in this setting. As she herself said "I play a heinous, vile old cow [as] Variety reviews my portrayal: 'an actor who typically radiates warmth, does a remarkable job of curdling the atmosphere of every room unlucky enough to have Caroline in it.'" The real star is Tamara Lawrance as July. A slave who was taken away from her mother to be a plaything for Caroline. Who, despite everything, is a source of joy. Her life keeps beating her down again and again yet she is a "joyous survivor" as one reviewer said. And that's the heart of The Long Song, showing the horrors unflinchingly but celebrating the joy of surviving and creating a better world.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Agent Carter, And the Emmy Goes To, Andrea Levy, Black Lives Matter, BritBox, Hayley Atwell, Howards End, July, Marvel, Masterpiece, PBS, Sally Lockhart, Slavery, Starz, Survivor, Tamara Lawrance, The Long Song