strange and random happenstance

Blackadder Goes Forth
Starring: Rowan Atkinson, Tony Robinson, Hugh Laurie, Tim McInnerny, Stephen Fry, Stephen Frost, Gabrielle Glaister, Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmondson, Miranda Richardson, and Geoffrey Palmer
Release Date: September 28th, 1989 - November 2nd, 1989
Rating: ★★★★★
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When Edmund Blackadder decided on a career as a solider it was made when the most dangerous fighting he could expect to see was a native with a sharpened mango. He didn't expect the Germans and their war machine, no one did. He would never have signed up if it meant spending all his time in the mud with two dimwits praying that his baaahing mad General, Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett, KCB, doesn't decide for them to go over the top or pay for the death of his beloved pigeon, Speckled Jim. All Blackadder's time is spent trying to conceive of ways to get as far away from the front and the trenches as possible, though hopefully not by being removed and placed in front of a firing squad as the Flanders Pigeon Murderer. Blackadder is forever hindered by General Melchett's nefarious adjutant Captain Darling. Combine Darling's antipathy with Blackadders two disastrously dysfunctional "friends," Baldrick and Lieutenant George, and if they survive the war it will be a miracle. If only they could put on the best music hall showcase and decamp to London. Or perhaps a stay in hospital is needed. Then there's the flying corps. So many schemes, can one of them save them?

One Christmas my friend Sara gave me the first half of Blackadder the Third on VHS and we promptly sat down and watched all three episodes. I immediately had to have the second half of the season and over the years I have rewatched those tapes so many times that I wore them out. Sara grew up with a love of all things relating to British Comedy thanks to her older brother Paul. Once they became a part of my life my British Comedy horizons expanded. Paul was forever searching for the elusive Blackadder: The Cavalier Years. It just so happens that I was the one who found it on eBay. I remember as we watched the grainy bootleg tape Paul's disbelief that this young girl who was rapidly gaining in British Comedy knowledge had somehow beat him to the punch. It was an odd little tape made up of Comic Relief Sketches and a music video of Cliff Richard singing "Living Doll" with The Young Ones. But it also had one episode of Blackadder on there that I hadn't seen. I was very strapped for cash at the time and most of my money was going towards my Red Dwarf purchases so I hadn't yet gotten Blackadder Goes Forth. Figuring I knew enough about Blackadder I watched "Goodbyeee" and was just floored by the episode.

The episode is so poignant as I watched these characters die. Sure, we'd seen certain characters bite the big one before on previous seasons, but this was just so much more. This was the final goodbye. Blackadder Goes Forth was the final of four series and we had come to know and love these characters over many years and here they were leaving us forever. How could the writers give the perfect send off while also doing right by their creations? At the time when it was revealed that this final season was to be set during World War I it was criticized for being inappropriate. But I defy you to find any show that shows the horrors of the Great War so heartrendingly. When the show fades to black and white and then the field turns into a field of poppies, I dare anyone not to cry. It does justice to the war by showing how these characters we love reacted to it. It makes so much sense to end the show when the world forever changed. Each season was a different epoch, but I don't think anything quite got the point across to me that history was forever changed by the advent of World War I than a single episode of a rather silly British Comedy.

While people were initially concerned that this series would trivialize the war it not only forged a closer connection and understanding to the war with viewers but it continued the honorable tradition of using humor to shine a light on the truth. Yes, who would have thought that a show based on sarcastic put-downs and sex jokes would show the true horrors of the war? It's not like there was precedence? Oh wait says 'Allo 'Allo, Dad's Army, F Troop, Hogan's Heroes, M*A*S*H*, McHale's Navy and others. Comedy is, in my opinion, the best way to understand a situation but also to make it bearable. Humor is healing. Just as I said when I read Nancy Mitford's Nazis satire, Wigs on the Green, by taking something scary and laughing at it we take away it's power. We memorialize while putting the pain in it's place. But Blackadder Goes Forth does so much more. I remember when I first watched this last episode I couldn't believe that a show that had made me laugh so hard could also make me cry so much. Could make me really care about the Great War. For all those history books I read and even for my love of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles for some reason I never got the human element, it was all larger than life. It was the humor that revealed the humans.

But it's the asides, the throwaway jokes that shed a light on what World War I was really like. You might laugh at Baldrick saying he's grateful for the new trench ladders because they had kindling for the first time in months, or how rat is what is on the menu, cooked in a variety of fashions that are all eerily similar, or drinking coffee that is actually just mud, but the truth was the war was full of privations and attrition. We may think of it now as beautiful fields of poppies and heroic men and women who gave their lives, but it was mud and diseases these heroes faced. Plus, the humor used doesn't just aid in understanding the war but in understanding how the soldiers probably survived. If they couldn't think like Blackadder and use a little dark humor now and again how could they survive without all going wooble? Just look at the terrifying thought of the flying squadron? The 'Twenty Minuters.' Called such not because of the length of a mission but because that was the average life expectancy of a new pilot. While this might be stretching the truth a little, it's not by much. Remember, the planes they fought in were mostly made of canvas!

The show also tackles the problem of the "old boys club" that was the military at the time. World War I was the last war where rank was almost solely decided by social ranking. The upper classes taking on the more senior leadership roles, no matter how inept they were. I mean, how messed up was it that you could buy your commission? Pompous, childish, incompetent, and rather dim we see this "club" in the interactions between George and Melchett who speak in their own weird language at the top of the ladder. George is even given a "get out of jail free card" when Melchett offers him the chance to leave the trench before the big push. George though isn't just of the "old boys club" he also embodies the idealistic young men who joined up in a group thinking they'd all be home for Christmas. George is in fact the last one left of the tiddlywinking leapfroggers. When he talks about all the others he joined up with, and their ludicrous nicknames, you see the idealism that was the start of the war. The fact that George has been able to hang onto that throughout is something of a miracle. That he didn't turn into a cynic like Blackadder just goes to show that the war was made up of many good men, of all different kinds, that did what had to be done, even if it seemed contrary to just walk at the guns, they did it for liberty and their loss will be forever felt.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Fall of Poppies, Blackadder, Blackadder Goes Forth, British Comedy, Hugh Laurie, Nancy Mitford, Red Dwarf, Rowan Atkinson, Stephen Fry, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, VHS, Wigs on the Green, WWI

Courtship and Curses (Leland Sisters Book 3) by Marissa Doyle
Published by: Square Fish
Publication Date: August 7th, 2012
Format: Paperback, 368 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
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Sophie spent years dreaming of what it would be like to have her first season in London. Needless to say her daydreams were nothing like the reality her life has become. When the illness came no one could have guessed the toll it would take on the Rosier family. Sophie lost her mother, her sister, and the assurance of two strong limbs holding her up. She is now crippled and must rely on a cane to support her. Therefore spending months in ballrooms unable to dance escorted by her aunts isn't exactly what she hoped for. That doesn't even take the rumors into account. The fact that the ton has somehow gotten it into it's collective consciousness that she is some kind of malformed freak that can't string two words together, let alone form a sentence, is galling. At least if they see her their misconceptions should be fixed, shouldn't they? But for all that Sophie has endured nothing has cut her to the quick more than the loss of her magic. The illness that ravaged her body also took away what was most precious and secret to her. What's worse is that she has no one to turn to. Her mother taught her in secret, and with her mother gone who can she trust?

Soon Sophie's lack of magic is a major worry. Her father, Lord Lansell, is almost the victim of a tragic accident. The almost had nothing to do with Sophie but with the dashing Lord Woodbridge. In fact Sophie only made matters worse. But soon another "accident" leads Sophie to a startling discovery, many members of the War Office have been "attacked" in these seemingly random ways. Could a French Spy be using magic in order to undermine the British war effort against Napoleon? If this is the case Sophie needs her magic back more then ever! But protecting her father isn't the only thing occupying her time. Lord Woodbridge won't leave her alone. Sure she could see herself prior to her deformity falling for such a man, but that was before. What could he see in her now? As for his cousin Parthenope and her parakeet Hester, they have quickly become Sophie's trusted allies. So why can she trust Parthenope but can't trust her feelings for Lord Woodbridge? It is all too confusing and she really needs her mother. But perhaps Sophie will realize that even with a cane she can stand on her own two feet and make a contribution to the world.

This is THE Regency Magic book you've been waiting for in Marissa Doyle's series. While the first two books were lovely, being set during the time of Victoria they weren't so much Regency and therefore had a different, if still magical, writing style. Courtship and Curses though is all Regency all the time! Tangentially relating to the previous Leland sisters book by following Pen and Persy's mother, Parthenope, and her first season, there's a moral formal, more Jane Austen air to the writing that some people might find too stylized but which I reveled in. There's just something magical about books set during the Regency, whether they contain magic or not. Personally I would never want to do "the season" and as for paying house calls everyday? Spare me now. It's a world that I wouldn't ever necessarily want to live in, yet somehow these books about bygone days of balls and manners just draw me in. Now I don't want you thinking I'm not a connoisseur of this style, because I am. It takes a special kind of author and story to whisk me away and Marissa Doyle did an admirable job of providing me with the cheapest kind of time travel around.

Being fully back in the Regency means that we get war and Wellington. I kid you not that Wellington is one of my favorite characters to be portrayed fictionally. He was such a symbol of the time and such a lightning rod for the war with France that I seriously just want him at every ball being boisterous and opinionated. Of course I always picture Wellington as Stephen Fry from Blackadder and that doesn't hurt. But Marissa Doyle doesn't just use Wellington as a signifier for the war with France or even for comedic purposes, she uses him to show the actual danger that the war represents and also as a sort of catalyst for Sophie to embrace herself and her magic. This entire volume actually serves to remind us of the dangers of life during wartime. In the previous volumes everything that occurred was building to one great and dangerous event that would change everything. Here there is constant peril for members of the War Office. Attack after attack after attack. It's not that it just ups the suspense, it's that you feel the danger more. This isn't your typical Jane Austen with balls and courting, with officers only entering to show off their lovely uniforms. I would say that Marissa Doyle captures more of what Thackeray did with Vanity Fair. The harsh reality versus the rose-tinted glasses.

One of the harsh realities of war is prejudice. Of course this is something our heroine Sophie has had to face with her deformity. But during a war prejudice is pretty much universally shifted to the country that you are fighting, in this instance France. There are two prominent French characters in Courtship and Curses, Madame Carswell, the widow of Lord Lansell's oldest and dearest friend, and a confidant to Sophie, and the Comte de Carmouche-Ponthieux, a lost love of Sophie's Aunt Molly. Madame Carswell more than the Comte is the subject of much gossip, not just because she's French, but because she's a threat to those older women who want to get their claws into Lord Lansell. Sophie is wonderful in that she stands by her friends. She has known the evil glares of others and tries to protect those who protect her. Yet what I find most interesting is that in one of these two instances her trust actually isn't justified. Prejudices form for a reason, no matter how stupid, and while we should always fight it, sometimes, just sometimes the reason for them rears it's ugly head. And I like that Marissa Doyle doesn't make it so clear cut, because that isn't the way of the world. Not everyone we prejudge is deserving of exoneration, just as we should try to be less prejudiced. Life is full of these contradictions and to have both innocence and guilt shown goes to the heart of life's messiness. Plus, manipulating our prejudices does keep a story going.

Yet the heart of this book is Sophie. What really struck me about this book is that Sophie is a very different type of heroine. With her deformity she has a very different vantage point from anyone else. It's not just that she's more passive in society being relegated to the sidelines of the ballrooms and therefore sees more, it's that the way people viewed deformities during this time was so different that it would be so easy to think badly of yourself. Because deformities were thought to outwardly show an inner malignancy. That obviously Sophie's foot was because she had something very wrong with her, not that she was the victim of a serious illness she couldn't control, despite being a witch. Now most authors would use this set up to give us a "teaching moment" on what it means to be broken and to willingly accept our limitations, or how to overcome this, but thankfully that isn't what Marissa Doyle does at all. Instead we are shown Sophie's very real struggle and her inner turmoil that asks how can we be strong when we think ourselves crippled in mind or in body? Because it isn't the affliction it's the attitude that is important. So while we are "taught" that a positive attitude can overcome anything, we aren't "taught" it with a stick.

This goes even deeper when you look at the "good" and the "bad" people that surround Sophie. Being brought out in society by her Aunts, Sophie's Aunt Isobel is always telling her how lucky she'll be to get a second son with no prospects because of what she is. It's never about WHO she is, but WHAT. I can't help thinking about the analogy of being overweight. I was told my entire life that I was overweight. Looking back at pictures when I was younger I wasn't overweight in the least, yet I believed it. I believed it so much that I developed the mindset that this was something that would never change and therefore what I ate and how I took care of myself didn't matter and I did become overweight as a result. But I don't think that way anymore, or at least I try not to, and it's because of my friends. It's about surrounding yourself with good people, people who see who you are. People who boost you up and not drag you down. That is what Madame Carswell, Parthenope, and Lord Woodbridge do for Sophie. They make her realize that she is special. That she isn't defined by some outward feature that people can point at and laugh. That is why her magic returns. That and a stern talking to by Wellington. Sophie's magic is basically her self-esteem. She learns to love herself and therefore she is powerful. Now that is something we all need to remember!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Blackadder, Courtship and Curses, Deformity, France, Jane Austen, Leland Sisters, Magic, Marissa Doyle, Napoleon, Napoleonic War, Prejudice, Regency Magic, Self Esteem, Stephen Fry, Thackeray, Vanity Fair

Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
Published by: Back Bay Books
Publication Date: 1930
Format: Paperback, 322 Pages
Rating: ★★
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"If you want to know why the Bright Young Things are remembered, here’s a large part of the answer. For all their essential silliness, they produced two great novelists, Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh, both of whom brilliantly chronicled that fleeting and self-reflective world. In Vile Bodies, we find all the excesses of the Bright Young People writ large.

There’s no better description of the Bright Young milieu than the one Waugh provides in Vile Bodies: “Masked parties, Savage parties, Victorian parties, Greek parties, Wild West parties, Russian parties, Circus parties, parties where one had to dress as somebody else, almost naked parties in St. John’s Wood, parties in flats and houses and shops and hotels and night clubs, in windmills and swimming baths….”

Waugh wrote as one who knew. He was a central member of the set. So, naturally, I couldn’t resist having him put in a cameo appearance in The Other Daughter…." - Lauren Willig

Adam Fenwick-Symes is returning from the continent having written his autobiography and remembering that he has a fiance back home in England, the lovely Nina Blount. On the channel crossing he is surrounded by an odd assortment of passengers, the oddest being the American, Mrs. Melrose Ape, who proselytizes with her "Angels." Sadly Adam's book is seized by customs as being unsavory and he therefore shows up at his publishers empty-handed and owing them a book or a return of his advance. He is able to do neither and re-signs with them under very onerous terms and calls Nina to say that they sadly cannot be married now. Nina insists they will eventually find a way and that that night's party is far more important and pressing at the moment. Adam's future goes from bright to bleak and back again in the blink of an eye. One day Nina's father gives him money to help the young couple, the next Adam realizes he was the butt of Colonel Blount's joke. Then Adam gets a job writing a gossip column with a steady paycheck, only to have Nina lose him the job because of a grave error in her judgement, which is always dictated by her "pains." They live a life that is penurious and luxurious all at once and if only the young couple could get married, but seeing as Nina is now engaged to Ginger Littlejohn, leaving Adam in the lurch, what is a bright young boy to do?

In my family the works of Evelyn Waugh began and ended with Brideshead Revisited. Yes, he obviously wrote other books, but to my family, and in particular my father, it didn't matter. We had copious copies of the book on many shelves. We had the complete miniseries on VHS, and eventually on DVD. We even had Aloysius with a dainty hairbrush in one of the bedrooms. I never really thought much of Evelyn Waugh beyond Brideshead Revisited, and then Stephen Fry came along to correct me. When my friend Huyen moved back to Wisconsin from D.C. and into her own apartment the two of us would quite frequently have movie nights. We'd rent all the girly and period films that our other friends refused to watch during our weekly knitting night. And yes, we had a knitting club, The FEKS, The Fine Eyes Knitting Society; we sneaked in our love of Austen by making it sound like a swear from Father Ted. The two of us would troupe across the street to the Family Video and pick out the movie of the week. We learned valuable lessons from I Capture the Castle, mainly that Henry Thomas grew up attractive and it's really creepy watching Mr. Collins ask anyone to dance even when he isn't Mr. Collins. From De-Lovely we learned that Cole Porter became trapped in a wheelchair because of meeting boys in fields for a little extra-martial fun. Horses are dangerous, yo. And from Bright Young Things we learned that Stephen Fry could make a movie that was not in the least memorable.

Bright Young Things, the adaptation of Vile Bodies, might be one of the least memorable films I have ever watched. Considering that the film is chock-a-block with my most favorite of British actors from Michael "Seriously How Hot Was He in Far From the Madding Crowd" Sheen to David "10th Doctor" Tennant I am shocked I don't remember more. In fact my only lasting impression was that Richard E. Grant was in a single scene. Yep, that is the sum total of my recollections of this film, a lack of Richard E. Grant. Stephen Fry is a gifted writer, so therefore it puzzled me as to why this movie was so forgettable. Now, having read Vile Bodies, I can see the fault was not in the adaptation but in the source material. The main problem is there is no plot to the book. I know many people in my book club would site the same problem in Brideshead Revisited, but there the language and the evocation on memory balance any deficit in plot. Vile Bodies was the second novel Evelyn Waugh had ever written and his lack of experience shows. He wasn't even thirty yet and his experience of the world was closed to this vibrant, but cloistered, society. The book is nothing more then in-jokes, a 20s roman à clef, that leaves you with a feeling that you had to be there to appreciate the joke.

The aspect that most rang true to me and I think explains a lot about this cloistered culture is the appropriateness of the quote at the beginning of the book from Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. When you fall into the world of these Bright Young People you never quite know what's going on, there are parties with no rules, parties with costumes, parties where you come as other people, it's all rushing and talking and drinking, a headlong rush to just keep moving. Because if you don't keep moving you don't just stand still, you fall behind as Carroll logic would have it. So when you first pick up this book it's all unattributed dialogue and just words slamming against you and you're trying to fight it, you're trying to make this book work and fit in a traditional sense. But that's not what the culture was about, it was about being different and going with this new flow. When the characters all get in a car and head off to the races it somehow all clicks. The unattributed dialogue and the confusion works. You, like Alice, have fallen down the rabbit hole, if only you had realized it earlier you could have given up the struggle and just let it wash over you. Vile Bodies isn't written to make sense, it's written to capture this feeling, this moment in time. It's like you're at a party and only catch bits and pieces of conversation, but that's all you ever had the chance of catching. Grab what you can but keep moving forward in a headlong rush because this lost generation is all about the Alice mentality.   

But even in this confusing morass of gibberish that never had a chance in a million years of attaining the studied and superb insanity of Lewis Carroll you catch glimpses of Waugh's genius to come. The newspaper that Adam Fenwick-Symes occasionally works for is one of the successes of the novel. Waugh catches the humor inherent in the hypocrisy of people basically reporting on themselves, which should come as no surprise because it's actually a job Waugh had for a short while. Though he takes it further making it more commentary then the drivel that makes up the rest of the book. By having the columnists not even write on real people he gives us an insight into the shallowness of the times, both of the reading public and the Bright Young People themselves. The fake articles are hilarity and a bright spot in a rather plodding and dull book. Though by far my favorite character was Nina's father, Colonel Blount. With his inability to remember Adam, his love of films, and his gleefully putting out the Vicar he was the embryo of who would become one of Waugh's most memorable characters, Edward "Ned" Ryder, the father of Charles in Brideshead Revisited. Edward Ryder is one of the most well written and comedic of characters ever to be set in print, always bemoaning Cousin Melchior, and brought to amazing life by Sir John Gielgud. So if Vile Bodies had to be written just so we could one day have Brideshead Revisited, I guess it's an acceptable bargain.

Though I have to protest the "Angels!" Good god damn, seriously!?! I really don't quite know what to say about them, other then they really don't fit in this book. Were they there as some latent Waugh religiosity that would take over later in life? Because I don't feel like Waugh would have openly mocked Catholicism, so we're not laughing at them? Or are we? What's going on? Or is it a parody on Americans? Or hypocrites? I mean, the rest of the book all fits together, clashes of the young and the old, parodies of the language and lifestyle of the times and then some random Bible-thumpers. It kind of gives Vile Bodies a creepiness that isn't warranted by anything else in the book, well, maybe excepting the two rather precipitous deaths. And I really think if this had been stressed in the movie I would have remembered it. Yes, Waugh and religion go together, but they go together in his more mature, thoughtful work. This is supposed to be fun, right? So why bring in these weird religious figures? But I think my confusion isn't just me. Waugh, as the book went on, seemed to be unsure if his book was actually light and comedic. In the course of writing it he went through a divorce and the second half is decidedly darker culminating in a world war. Perhaps the angels are an outward manifestation of the crossroads Waugh had reached and where he was going to go. That or I'm just trying to justify a book that doesn't live up to what the author was capable of.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alice in Wonderland, Brideshead Revisited, Bright Young Things, David Tennant, Evelyn Waugh, I Capture the Castle, Jazzy July, Lauren Willig, Michael Sheen, Stephen Fry, The Other Daughter, Vile Bodies

Superfluous Women by Carola Dunn
Published by: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: June 9th, 2015
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"In England in the late 1920s, The Honourable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher, on a convalescent trip to the countryside, goes to visit three old school friends in the area. The three, all unmarried, have recently bought a house together. They are a part of the generation of "superfluous women"--brought up expecting marriage and a family, but left without any prospects after more than 700,000 British men were killed in the Great War.

Daisy and her husband Alec--Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher, of Scotland Yard --go for a Sunday lunch with Daisy's friends, where one of the women mentions a wine cellar below their house, which remains curiously locked, no key to be found. Alec offers to pick the lock, but when he opens the door, what greets them is not a cache of wine, but the stench of a long-dead body.

And with that, what was a pleasant Sunday lunch has taken an unexpected turn. Now Daisy's three friends are the most obvious suspects in a murder and her husband Alec is a witness, so he can't officially take over the investigation. So before the local detective, Superintendent Underwood, can officially bring charges against her friends, Daisy is determined to use all her resources (Alec) and skills to solve the mystery behind this perplexing locked-room crime."

Adore Carola Dunn and Daisy! But damn, look at that awesome cover! The flowing patterns are to die for!

Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella
Published by: Random House Children's Books
Publication Date: June 9th, 2015
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Shopaholic series comes a terrific blend of comedy, romance, and psychological recovery in a contemporary YA novel sure to inspire and entertain.

An anxiety disorder disrupts fourteen-year-old Audrey’s daily life. She has been making slow but steady progress with Dr. Sarah, but when Audrey meets Linus, her brother’s gaming teammate, she is energized. She connects with him. Audrey can talk through her fears with Linus in a way she’s never been able to do with anyone before. As their friendship deepens and her recovery gains momentum, a sweet romantic connection develops, one that helps not just Audrey but also her entire family."

Anyone else look at this cover and think YA Where'd You Go, Bernadette? 

More Fool Me by Stephen Fry
Published by: The Overlook Press
Publication Date: June 9th, 2015
Format: Hardcover, 400 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
" By his early thirties, Stephen Fry—writer, comedian, star of stage and screen—had, as they say, “made it.” Much loved on British television, author of a critically acclaimed and bestselling first novel, with a glamorous and glittering cast of friends, he had more work than was perhaps good for him.

As the ’80s drew to a close, he began to burn the candle at both ends. Writing and recording by day, and haunting a neverending series of celebrity parties, drinking dens, and poker games by night, he was a high functioning addict. He was so busy, so distracted by the high life, that he could hardly see the inevitable, headlong tumble that must surely follow . . .

Filled with raw, electric extracts from his diaries of the time, More Fool Me is a brilliant, eloquent account by a man driven to create and to entertain—revealing a side to him he has long kept hidden."

Adore Stephen Fry! His fiction, not so much, his biographical writing? Hell to the yes!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 2 comments  

Labels: Autobiography, Carola Dunn, Daisy Dalrymple, Finding Audrey, More Fool Me, Sophie Kinsella, Stephen Fry, Superfluous Women, Tuesday Tomorrow, Where'd You Go Bernadette

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

Now, I'm not just talking about a love for books that are Regency romances, that would limit the field of all those yummy books out there that you love to curl up with on a cold winters day as the season of love and hot cocoa descends on us. I'm talking about a love, a romance, with all things Regency. A love of the time period from the end of the 18th century till the beginning of the 19th century, of course embodied by the works of Jane Austen. The Empire waist line on dresses making you giddy. Knowing the differences between a barouche and chaise (four versus two wheels). Understanding the horrors of an entail. Having an unending love of knee breeches. And being giddy when you hear any quote from Blackadder season 3 and ALWAYS picturing Duke Wellington as Stephen Fry. HURRAH FOR THE REGENCY! A mad king and dachshund named Colin.

And of course, a themed month can't be complete without a giveaway!

Prize: A signed arc of Lauren Willig's the new book, The Garden Intrigue (direct from Lauren).

The Rules:1. Open to EVERYONE, just because you haven't been following me all along doesn't mean you don't matter, you just get more entries if you prove you love me by following.
2. Please make sure I have a way to contact you if your name is drawn, either your blogger profile or a link to your website/blog or you could even include your email address with your comment(s).
3. Contest ends Wednesday, February 29th at 11:59PM CST (yes folks, it IS a leap year!)
4. How to enter:

Answer me this: Who is your favorite regency author? Now, they don't have to have been writing during the Regency, but they have to be writing about the Regency.

• +1 for answering the question above
• +2 for becoming a follower
• +10 if you are already a follower
• +10 for each time you advertise this contest - blog post, sidebar, twitter (please @MzLizard), etc. (but you only get credit for the first post, so tweet all you like, and I thank you for it, but you'll only get the +10 once). Also please leave a link!
• +25 if you comment on any of the posts this month (aka February), with something other than "I hope I win" or a variation thereof.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 6 comments  

Labels: Blackadder, Colin Firth, Duke Wellington, Giveaway, Knee Breeches, Lauren Willig, Regency, Regency Romance, Stephen Fry, The Garden Intrique

The Thorn and the Blossom by Theodora Goss
Published by: Quirk
Publication Date: January 17th, 2012
Format: Hardcover Accordian, 82 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"One enchanting romance. Two lovers keeping secrets. And a uniquely crafted book that binds their stories forever.

When Evelyn Morgan walked into the village bookstore, she didn’t know she would meet the love of her life. When Brendan Thorne handed her a medieval romance, he didn’t know it would change the course of his future. It was almost as if they were the cursed lovers in the old book itself . . .

The Thorn and the Blossom is a remarkable literary artifact: You can open the book in either direction to decide whether you’ll first read Brendan’s, or Evelyn’s account of the mysterious love affair. Choose a side, read it like a regular novel—and when you get to the end, you’ll find yourself at a whole new beginning."

A neat little idea for a book, thanks also go to Quirk for sending me a coy! But who could resist that cover? All rich and tapestry-esque.

Gone West by Carola Dunn
Published by: Minotaur
Publication Date: January 17th, 2012
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"In September 1926, the Honourable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher visits Sybil Sutherby, a school friend now living in Derbyshire as the confidential secretary to a novelist. Suspecting that something is seriously amiss, Sybil has asked Daisy to discretely investigate. Upon arrival, Daisy finds a household of relatives and would-be suitors living off the hospitality of Humphrey Birtwhistle, who had been supporting them through his thriceyearly, pseudonymous Westerns. When he took ill, though, Sybil took over writing them while he recovered, only to see the sales ances increase. Now, she fears that someone in the household is poisoning Birtwhistle to keep him ill and Sybil writing the better-paying versions. But before Daisy can even get decently underway, Humphrey Birtwhistle dies under suspicious circumstances and Daisy now faces a death to untangle, a house full of suspects and a Scotland Yard detective husband who is less than pleased at this turn of events."

Yeah, new Daisy Dalrymple! Now, I'm not actually caught up this far in the series... but I LOVE what I've read so far.

An Irish Country Courtship by Patrick Taylor
Published by: Forge
Publication Date: January 17th, 2012
Format: Hardcover, 464 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"After less than a year in Ballybucklebo, Barry Laverty is settling into the village, and with only a few more months to go before he becomes a full partner in Dr. O'Reilly's medical practice, Barry's looking forward to becoming a fixture in the community. But an unexpected romantic reversal gives him second thoughts. As much as Barry enjoys the rough and tumble of life in County Down, is tending to routine coughs and colds in a humble G.P.’s shop all he wants out of life?

Doctor Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly is going through personal upheavals as well. After mourning his deceased wife for decades, he’s finally allowed a new woman into his life. But this budding courtship is not going over well with Kinky Kincaid, the doctors’ housekeeper, who fears having her position usurped by O’Reilly’s new flame.

Meanwhile, life goes on in Ballybucklebo. From a mysterious outbreak at the local school to a complicated swindle involving an unlucky race horse, the two doctors will need all of their combined wit and compassion to put things right again—just in time for their lives to change forever."

So, I still have the first book on my tbr pile, which is almost the size of a library, if I'm honest, but this looks like such a wonderful series, so hopefully it's in your tbr pile as well!

Shadows in Flight by Orson Scott Card
Published by: Tor
Publication Date: January 17th, 2012
Format: Hardcover, 240 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Ender’s Shadow explores the stars in this all-new novel...

At the end of Shadow of the Giant, Bean flees to the stars with three of his children--the three who share the engineered genes that gave him both hyper-intelligence and a short, cruel physical life. The time dilation granted by the speed of their travel gives Earth’s scientists generations to seek a cure, to no avail. In time, they are forgotten--a fading ansible signal speaking of events lost to Earth’s history. But the Delphikis are about to make a discovery that will let them save themselves, and perhaps all of humanity in days to come.

For there in space before them lies a derelict Formic colony ship. Aboard it, they will find both death and wonders--the life support that is failing on their own ship, room to grow, and labs in which to explore their own genetic anomaly and the mysterious disease that killed the ship’s colony."

New Ender's book, I'm down with that.

Amanda/Miranda by Richard Peck
Published by: Speak
Publication Date: January 17th, 2012
Format: Paperback, 176 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Intrigue, romance, and scheming aboard the Titanic

This updated edition of the popular Richard Peck novel, available in time to commemorate the anniversary of the Titanic's fateful voyage in 1912, starts with a chilling prophecy. When Miranda begins her position as maid-servant to the glamorous and selfish Amanda Whitwell, Amanda wastes no time in using Miranda to suit her own cruel purposes. Miranda becomes the lynchpin to a plot that Amanda devises to marry an American who can maintain her lavish lifestyle, but also keeps the rogue she loves close at hand. However, destiny intervenes, and they board the ill-fated Titanic. This story has all of the romance, glamour, intrigue, and tragedy of the Titanic but ends, satisfyingly, with redemption and forgiveness."

Well, with the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, we're going to be getting a lot of new book and a lot of re-releases. Personally, I'm all for it, though I'm most looking forward to the new Julian Fellowes miniseries! It's like Downton Abbey ON A BOAT!

The Fry Chronicle by Stpehen Fry
Published by: Overlook
Publication Date: January 17th, 2012
Format: Hardcover, 448 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Stephen Fry arrived at Cambridge University as a convicted fraudster and thief, an addict, liar, fantasist, and failed suicide, convinced that any moment he would be sent away. Instead, he befriended bright young things like Emma Thompson and Hugh Laurie, and he emerged as one of the most promising comic talents in the world. This is the engrossing, hilarious, and utterly compelling story of how the Stephen the world knows (or thinks it knows) found his way. Tales of champagne, love, and conspicuous consumption jostle with insights into Broadway and TV stardom. A feat of trademark wit and verbal brilliance, this is a book unafraid of confronting the chasm that separates celebrity from a young man's personal reality."

SO excited about this. I've never really been a fan of Fry's fiction (I know, blasphemy) but his first autobiography, Moab is My Washpot was sensational, so big hopes for this one!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Amanda/Miranda, Carola Dunn, Daisy Dalrymple, Ender, Gone West, Irish Country, Orson Scott Card, Patrick Taylor, Richard Peck, Stephen Fry, The Thorn and the Blossom, Theodora Goss

In honor of the newest installment of the Harry Potter franchise gracing the silver screen I thought it would be fun to compile a list of all the things I have done (some be it absurd) in the name of Harry Potter. From lack of sleep to lack of sanity, to forsaking friends just to get through the book, to even making myself a wanted women (see picture), I've done it all.

• I have pretended to work magic spells, in particular "lumos". (In order to re-create this spell yourself, you will need a light and a friend standing next to that light who is willing to turn the light on when you point a wooden stick at it and say "lumos," and not laugh at you.)

• The night before my friends wedding, despite having the stomach flu and needing sleep, I still went to the midnight release of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and was able to read a chapter before passing out from sheer exhaustion.

• One year for Christmas I knit all my friends scarves in their house colors. I soon realized I'd need a lot of blues because I know a surprisingly high number of Ravenclaws, with only a Gryffindor, a Hufflepuff and one Slytherin (you know who you are snake boy!)

• I was the artistic director for the Harry Potter charity event at the Wisconsin Club for two years running, forfeiting sleep and sanity for much of the first year. Though not many people can say they painted a faux engraved stone Hogwarts plaque.

• When Half Blood Prince came out I didn't sleep for well over 24 hours, needing to be in line for my wrist band at 6 am, and then reading the book till 6 am the following day, with a little Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka in between.

• My friend Matt and I for Halloween made ourselves our own school uniforms, cloaks and all. Of course mine was a traditional school uniform and his was a Quidditch Captains uniform in flowing green. Mine was far warmer for October in Wisconsin.

• I have actually had a serious discussion with my friends as to whether I'd bring an owl to school. They all wanted owls because it's basically wizard email, I still went for a cat though.

• I have thought long and hard and decided I would probably be best at potions because I like doing recipes.

• Though I was unable to attend the Harry, Carrie and Garp event in New York City due to my mom having surgery, I now have a signed first edition of Half Blood Prince, which I then had a slipcase made for in a faux leather, chosen because it looked like dragon's hide.

• I made my own wand.

• I have taught others to make their own wands.

• Am I becoming Ollivander? Please don't let me end up in a dungeon....

• I was one of the only people at Barnes and Noble who dressed up for the release of the last book. What's with that really? Wouldn't they all want to be dressed up? Plus there were a lot of angry parents...

• I have read all the books in both American and British versions (and yes they are subtly different!)

• I think that Stephen Fry would kick Jim Dale's ass if they had a book narration competition (sorry Dave). Though for me conveying this honor on him he would never be allowed to do the Nymphadora Tonks voice EVER EVER AGAIN!

• I almost cried when I found that moths had eaten my Gryffindor scarf (made before my full allegiance was pledged to Ravenclaw). I took this as an omen I was never meant to be one of Godric Gryffidor's students.

• No other books are allowed on my Harry Potter shelf in my library, though I'm sadly in need of shelf space.

• I have a time turner, but it doesn't seem to be working...

• I bought the paperback mega box set that came out last week despite already owning all the books in hardcover, paperback, audio, British and French editions.

• I still think of Edward Cullen as Cedric Digory.

• I love that David Tennant (Dr. Who) and Roger Lloyd Pack (Owen Newitt, Vicar of Dibley) play father and son in Goblet of Fire. I also love how Brendan Gleason took on so many of David Tennant's mannerisms that when he became David it was a very quick transition. I also hope other people noticed this besides me...I can't be the only David Tennant freak right?

• For my friends birthdays I gave them Bertie Botts beans, they ate them all, it was disgusting to watch.

• If Hogwarts were a real place I would apply to be the Muggle Studies teacher.

• I have a Sirus Black wanted poster framed.

• While I love Kenneth Branagh as Gilderoy Lockhart, I still think Val Kilmer would have been awesome. Also I think Richard E. Grant should have been Remus Lupin and Diana Rigg as McGonagall.

• Before the movies I kind of pictured Dumbledore as Jim Henson.

• I totally agree with the statement Daniel Radcliffe made that he pictures characters in books kind of like cartoons.

• I have a friend who really likes Daniel Radcliffe and feels that she is going to a "Special Hell."

• My character in Everquest 2 is a Ratunga, aka a giant rat, her name is Pettigrew, I often get complimented by random people who go "Harry Potter Rules!" Pettigrew has three pet cats in her apartment in the Shades, their names are James, Sirus and Remus.

• I've had a goldfish since 1993 and my friends keep telling me that it's really an Animagus.

• I have a Harry Potter ipod, school crest and all engraved on the back.

• And finally, for my final project in Intro to Computer Graphics I created Voldemort's Chocolate Magic Stars Cereal, for Pure-Blood Wizards! Sweetened oat cereal with a sense of entitlement!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 7:33 PM 0 comments  

Labels: David Tennant, Dr. Who, Everquest, Gryffindor, Harry Potter, Hufflepuff, Jim Henson, Johnny Depp, Muggle, Quidditch, Ravenclaw, Slytherin, Special Hell, Stephen Fry, Vicar of Dibley, Voldemort