strange and random happenstance

The Cavendon Luck by Barbara Taylor Bradford
ARC Provided by the Publisher
Published by: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: June 7th, 2016
Format: Hardcover, 512 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy

The Cavendons and the Swanns have weathered tragedy and loss but have always had luck and the wherewithal to marshal their resources and come out on top. They will need that luck more than ever as the clouds of war start to mass over Europe. They see hard times coming and retrenchment will happen, but as long as they can stand as a united front they are undefeatable. The eldest "D" Dierdre is more aware of the dire situation they all face than the rest of the family. After the sudden death of her husband she returned to her covert work with the government. Burying her sorrows in work with a purpose. Now her work has a purpose much closer to home. Her sister-in-law Cecily has a devoted employee whose family is still in Berlin. To make matters worse they are Jewish intellectuals. Dierdre will use her connection at the war off as well as an old friend to attempt to save one family of the millions that will die. But this is just one part of the larger war machine that is starting up. On the homefront there is preparations to be made, jams to be canned, inappropriate alliances to be quashed. While once war breaks out there are children fighting in the fields to worry about, danger from the skies, and worry every single day. Not all the Cavendons will live to see the end of the war. But life during wartime the cruelest of sacrifices are to be dreaded, though sadly expected.

For some reason I feel duty bound to have liked this book or to find something positive to say about it but the only thing I can think of to say is that it was insipid. And that's being kind. Each volume in this trilogy, please say it's only a trilogy, has been declining in quality and the rapid descent from The Cavendon Women to The Cavendon Luck has made me question the need to keep the first two volumes on my bookshelves. Each book has had less and less to make it work to the point where I was severely struggling to even finish The Cavendon Luck. It is not a joke to say that when I hit the half-way point in this book I had to put it down for almost a month to steel myself to push on through to the end. Now I'm not saying this was as heroic as those brave fishermen Bradford incongruously writes about evacuating troops from the shores of Normandy... but I did feel like I was at war with this book just to get through the next page let alone the next chapter with waves of repetitive and self-congratulatory writing buffeting me about. The entire book was a stagnate quagmire with no forward momentum. There's no desire to read on to see the characters develop and grow, which they of course don't. In fact Bradford is continually stating the characters ages in an apparent need to remind us that time is indeed moving, because the sad fact is, Cecily at fifty-something is the exact same as she was as a teenager. And Taylor reminding us? Well, that just shows she knew the flaws existed and didn't bother to fix them.

But what is remarkable about The Cavendon Luck is that this must be the most asinine handling of WWII I have ever read. This can be broken down into the covert antics pre-war and the stock vignettes during the war. And seriously, I'm not sure which is worse, you'll have to decide. And yes, you can make your decision from my review, I'd never force anyone to read this book. As it was stated earlier, the oldest "D" aka Dierdre, is in "intelligence." A well-known secret in the family that NO ONE talks about or has actually bothered substantiating with Dierdre. So Dierdre takes up much of the narrative with attempting to get the family of Cecily's worker out of Germany. My problem with this is that firstly, Cecily's assistant is a new character, so why should we care about the plight of people who we aren't emotionally invested in? Yes, this might sound callous because all human life is important, but narratively speaking it was Bradford's job to make us care. And she doesn't! But most importantly it's the ludicrous codes and pet names that Dierdre uses in her daily work calling her contacts that makes this plot line unbearable. If this had been done tongue-in-cheek, like say The Avengers, it could have worked. But every time Dierdre was referred to as Daffy Dilly or the weather was mentioned as to gauge how things were in Germany, gag me now. Please. It took something that should be fascinating and made it cartoonish. Just no. And as for that family needing evacuation? Oh, they'll be evacuated and then their plot line will be left dangling with a quick sentence later on thrown to us as a bone.

Yet little did I know that "Daffy Dilly" would be sophisticated to what came later. I groan just even remembering it. For some reason Bradford decided to handle the war itself in the swiftest and most oblique way possible. Little vignettes with people we may or may not know in different defining moments of the war, from the London Blitz to Dunkirk, all book-ended by long quotes from Churchill. And oh gee, wasn't Churchill just the best! It just seems such a weird way to handle the war. A book that's been all about the personal connection to these two entwined families becomes something akin to a WWII special shown for Veterans Day on PBS. A highlights reel of what the brave British endured. But of course we can't have the war overshadow our story, it's only about a fifth of the book. So why even have the war in the book then? I just don't get the handling of time in this series. To luxuriate and draw out say a three week period where the family goes to Europe and have the same page count for the entirety of the war makes no sense. Time stops and starts, juddering about, stagnating and then whooshing by at the speed of light taking many family members in it's wake. But this writing style has been problematic from the beginning it's just in the final volume that I have to say enough is enough. No more of this doggerel.

Sticking with the war, I really want to know how the Cavendons and the Swanns were so omniscient. The ENTIRE book leading up to the war was them discussing the fact war was coming. Yes, war was looming ever since the strictures forced on Germany at the end of WWI, but to have everyone talk about it so blithely and confidentially seemed wrong. There's preparedness and then there's omniscience that comes from a modern writer wanting to make her characters seem smarter and more prescient. Yes, it's great that the WI played such a key roll and actually their jam making and preserves might be one of the only interesting parts of this book, and makes me want to learn more about that, but then there's the flip side. I'm not talking about the whole Churchill is the future and will save us, which is a whole other kettle of fish, I'm talking about Cecily, in particular, being confident in the coming war and not just being a savvy business woman with scaling back her fashion empire, but strategically buying warehouses that the army would need which she would then lease to them. There's a word for that. War profiteering. So not only did I become sick of the love-in between the Cavendons and the Swanns, but I grew to despise them because they come above all else and they will stoop to anything when it comes to preserving the family home. Even profiting from death!

Going beyond the war, looming or otherwise, the basic framework of the D's has always been very much influenced by the Mitford sisters. In this installment it got absurdly so. In fact so much of the D's and in particular their trip to Germany was ripped right from the life of the Mitfords that I felt it was veering on plagiarism. Bradford even compounded this problem by mentioning the Mitfords at one point. If you've read any of the biographies written on or by the Mitfords the whole feel of Berlin was lifted almost verbatim from their pages. Yes, this series originally intrigued me because it was like a mirrored Mitford life, but once it left homage and veered into stealing outright, this has become the darkest timeline. Just don't read this series anymore. From the beginning of the book I was thinking that this series would continue on because poor DeLacey has never been showcased. Turns out DeLacey is the Pamela or Unity Mitford of our tale, first relegated to the sidelines and them unceremoniously killed in an air raid. And, as someone who felt sorry for her, I came to the conclusion that her death was the best for all of us. Hopefully it means no more books about the Cavendons. Seriously. This is my biggest wish for the future.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Backlog Bonanza, Barbara Taylor Bradford, Berlin, British, Germany, Mitfords, Pamela Mitford, PBS, Swanns, The Avengers, The Cavendon Luck, The Cavendon Women, Unity Mitford, Veterans Day, Winston Churchill, WWII

Ravenscliffe by Jane Sanderson
Published by: Sphere
Publication Date: September 30th, 2012
Format: Paperback, 534 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition then one reviewed)

Eve Williams can hardly credit that she is living the life she is. Mere months before she was on her way to destitution as a widow with three children, but now she's engaged to be married to Daniel MacLeod, the head gardener at Netherwood, has a thriving business, and is moving into the substantially larger Ravenscliffe house on Netherwood Common. Much of these successes are thanks to the indomitable Anna, her best friend and co-conspirator. Though not every life is perfect. Eve's son Seth is rebelling against all the changes that he feels are disrespecting the memory of his father. To Eve's horror, after his twelfth birthday Seth signs on at the colliery that his father Arthur loved, but which killed him nonetheless. She wants Seth to realize that their new station in life has opened up vast opportunities for him as well. He doesn't have to live the life his father lived. Arthur would want a better life for his son, but Anna counsels Eve that Seth has to learn this for himself.

Though the biggest change in Eve's life is the return of her little brother Silas. She hasn't seen him since her wedding to Arthur when he was a scraggly youth and left saying that one day he would send Eve bananas. One day the bananas arrive and a few days later so does Silas. Silas has made an astounding success of his life as a shipping magnate specializing in the importing of bananas to England. He plans on expanding his shipping line out of Bristol and is working on making a luxury hotel in Kingston, Jamaica, and is looking to acquire a coal mine near Netherwood. Silas, unaware of the upheaval in Eve's life, is overly zealous at the success she too has made of her life and starts to encourage her to think bigger, to expand, to grab at every opportunity she is given. Much of these opportunities are connected with the family at Netherwood. After she helps them out of a tight spot when the King comes to visit, Lord Netherwood, following a reassessment of his life, is inclined to give Eve her company outright as a wedding present, relinquishing his share. Yet Lord Netherwood dies before he can commit this to paper. Silas's desire to force the Hoylands hand and get Eve what she deserves creates conflict in Netherwood, with Silas on one side, Anna and Amos on the other, and Eve stuck in the middle. Eve's life might be better, but it is far from perfect.

When the first book in a series is wonderful and perfect I can only imagine the pressure this puts on the author. Jane Sanderson had less time and more expectations with her followup to Netherwood. Thankfully Ravenscliffe exceeded all my expectations. With the expanding of this little microcosm of Edwardian England with new characters and new situations, Jane was able to stay true to the gritty and glamorous world of her first novel, yet infuse it with even more humor and humanity. Throwing us headlong into the upheaval at the great hall with the remodelling and redecorating for the King's arrival made me fall right into this book and not want to leave. The cook dropping dead hours before the first big dinner and having Eve step in was a situation of such absurdity combined with the feeling of her walking a tightrope, led to such suspense I didn't want to go to sleep. In that moment I had such a connection with Eve, I had so much invested, I felt that I was there with her. Jane just has this knack of creating characters that you connect with on so many levels, that you become invested in their lives and just need to know what happens next. Yet, Ravenscliffe isn't just a character piece with historical figures popping up, there are real and relevant issue that ring true to this day, giving the book a depth that most literature today lacks.

In the first book, Netherwood, we see Eve make a huge success out of the ruin of her life. Eve's restaurant becomes not only a place that locals visit, but a destination in Yorkshire for a day out. Her pies are even a hit with the King, who loves food reminiscent of his days in the nursery. Well maybe we should just say he loves food period, and he really loves Eve's puddings and pies. Yet with the arrival of Silas we see someone who has made a real success of his life. He is quite literally a millionaire. Eve and him had the same life, the same start in the world. On that day she married Arthur, Silas set out to make something of himself, and boy did he ever. When compared side by side, Eve's "huge" success in the first book is a pittance when compared to what her brother has achieved. This is the crux of what is a politically charged issue. The situation here is an interesting take on the dynamic of a woman's place in society. The little success Eve has carved out for herself is lauded because she is a woman and any success is amazing in this male dominated society. Yet what could Eve have done if she was male? Would Eve have been as or even more successful then her brother? I think she would have!

Lady Henrietta is the more vocal proponent of women's equality and suffrage in Ravenscliffe. Not only does she run the estate after her father's passing, but she institutes reforms in the collieries that will save lives, as well as becoming political and taking up the banner with the likes of Mrs. Pankhurst! The book shows quite clearly the injustices, but then it shows us that forward thinking women can help effect change. They are just as, if not more capable then the men in their lives, this is especially true of Henry and her inept brother Tobias. This time in history was the true beginning of women demanding the equality they deserved. While it would be another fourteen years from the events of this book till some women got the vote and a further ten years till it was more universal, it was a time of change and this book shows us, more then a dry history textbook, why it was needed and how the change was effected. Is equality for women such a hard concept to grasp even in this day and age? It is a basic human right.

Having the characters that we have known and loved as our friends incorporated into real history and real struggles makes not just their own stories come alive, but makes history come alive. Also, what did I say about historical figures popping up? Well, of course they do, but they aren't what the book is about, they are woven into the plot making it relevant to the story, not just a cameo. The introduction of Mrs. Pankhurst, Churchill, Keir Hardie, and the King, forward the story but also place it in the bigger picture. Jane Sanderson's story coupled with living breathing history makes her plea of suffrage and women's rights more urgent, more real. The only thing I would ask is that she drop the cliche of suffragists all having lesbian leanings... it's ok if it's character driven, just not ok if it's politically driven. Suffragists are all spectrums of women, don't pigeon hole them after writing a book that embraces the trail blazers and the pioneers of equality.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Downton Denial, Downtonesque, Equality, Eve Williams, Jamaica, Jane Sanderson, King Edward, Meat Pies, Mining, Mrs. Pankhurst, Netherwood, Pudding, Ravenscliffe, Suffrage, Suffragettes, Winston Churchill, Yorkshire

Players by Terrance Dicks
Published by: BBC Books
Publication Date: April 26th, 1999
Format: Paperback, 306 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

While trying to show Peri a glamorous time after a particularly sewer based adventure, the TARDIS gets the right when not the right where and they end up smack in the middle of the Boer War. Not only in the middle of the strife in South Africa, but in the middle of an assassination attempt against a young Winston Churchill. Winston pooh-poohs the idea that the assassin was after him, but the Doctor knows how integral Churchill is to the coming century so he can't discount this theory. By eliminating Churchill the entire course of future history will be changed. What's more disconcerting is that this has happened before, in The Doctor's second incarnation, almost twenty years in Churchill's future, there was an odd assassination attempt during WWI that The Doctor thwarted. Could there be someone, or a group of someones, so invested in the death of Churchill that they would be willing to wait decades till the perfect opportunity to strike presented itself again?

The Doctor is disturbed by these events and decides to set himself and Peri up in London society in the 1930s. They're bound to run into Churchill, Peri will get her luxury and glamour, and The Doctor will get his answers. Not long after they arrive there is an attempt on their lives quickly followed by one on Churchill. The Doctor doesn't take any risks and hires some Pinkerton agents to see to their safety. But whomever their opponents and would-be killers are, determined and ruthless is how they operate. In the midst of the abdication crisis, could these mysterious assassins be playing some sort of game with The Doctor as their pawn and Churchill's death as a significant move?

One of the fun aspects of Doctor Who is that because he can go anywhen, well, we have the chance to run into some rather august personages, even previous versions of himself. So far in this series of books he hasn't run into anyone of note, but then again, he hasn't really been hanging around earth that much...  in the television series he has met everyone from Dickens to Da Vinci, here we have someone who has even shown up on the show, Winston Churchill. I like that this gives a little bit of context and background to The Doctor's relationship with Churchill, because when the 11th Doctor gets that phone call at the end of "The Beast Below" there is obviously a prior and congenial relationship between the two. I like to think that this book is where it all started.

Yet at the same time I couldn't help be reminded of the first Thursday Next novel by Jasper Fforde, The Eyre Affair. While I know that this book came out after Players, the fact remains that it is more well known, and I can't help but keep thinking about Thursday's father showing up again and again and asking if she knew who Churchill was. Because, quite literally, if there's one person who was a force for good in the last century, it was Churchill.

And because we are dealing with Churchill, well, we are dealing with some of my favorite time periods. Africa, England, pulling together for the empire in times of crisis... ah, this book had me hooked from page one... but then it lost me. I wanted to love it, it was a fast read in a time period I love, but it just flat lined. The problem I had was with the anachronisms. In any historical fiction, and in particular in a story dealing with time travel and the ability to accidentally change the past, butterfly wings and all that, there are acceptable anachronisms and unacceptable anachronisms. There can be things played for laughs, like in Blackadder: Back and Forth when Edmund messes up the time lines and Shakespeare ends up being known as the inventor of the ballpoint pen. And there can be serious changes, like here if Winston Churchill were eliminated before England's hour of need.

But then there are things that just get under my skin and piss me off, aka, the unacceptable anachronisms. In this book there where two that just drove me crazy. One was the fact that while playing out the abdication crisis with Wallis Simpson and Edward VIII that Wallis was going to be there for his abdication broadcast. Now the clever and acceptable anachronisms is what was going to happen because of the Players... what annoyed me was Wallis's presence. She had fled the country at this point! You can mess with history, you just can't mess with it this much. It's keeping the details intact that make a story like this work. As for the Pinkerton Dekker, who is a little too much Harrison Ford in Bladerunner, well, he was too much of an earlier era. His tommy gun wielding prohi just felt so out of place, it's like Terrance Dicks was taking Boardwalk Empire and trying to force it to breed with the new Upstairs, Downstairs. It was so wrong, not all period dramas mesh, and it didn't surprise me in the least when I learned that Dekker was in a previous Terrance Dicks novel... sometimes you just need to let your characters go. And don't get me started with the Rebbecca joke or the fact Dicks then pulled a Dashiell Hammett and decided to bring in the Continental Op... sigh, sometimes less is more and it's best to separate styles.

As for our big bad? I really loved the Players and their nebulous unexplained nature. In the previous book with the 5th Doctor, Fear of the Dark, I felt that one of the failings was taking a mysterious entity and making it have too too solid flesh. By instead having this race of immortals from who knows where or when and them just playing a game with our history just for fun... well, I like it. I also like that they will obviously return. But what I loved is that at the end they let The Doctor live, not because he wasn't a threat to them, but because they saw his potential as either a player or a very powerful pawn.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Blackadder, Bladerunner, Boardwalk Empire, Boer War, Doctor Who, Jasper Fforde, Peri, Players, Terrance Dicks, The 6th Doctor, The Eyre Affair, Upstairs Downstairs, Wallis and Edward, Winston Churchill, WWI, WWII

Jessica Mitford is known as the most politically active of the Mitford sisters who didn't align themselves with the Third Reich, gaining herself the nickname the "red sheep" because of her Communist affiliations. Jessica eloped with her cousin Esmond Romilly at the age of nineteen. They ran away to Spain where Esmond covered the war there as a reporter. At one point their family sent a British destroyer to retrieve them home, because when you marry Churchill's nephew, well, the House of Lords might just send the might of the British Navy after you. This over the top gesture did nothing to dissuade them and eventually they immigrated to the United States. At the outset of WWII Esmond enlisted and died a short time later in a bombing raid. 

Jessica remained in the United States, concentrating on her political activism and social justice. She eventually became quite a journalist and muckraker, with her book, The American Way of Death, becoming a classic in it's own right for exposing the funeral industry in America. Jessica is perhaps my favorite of the Mitford sisters because with her book Hons and Rebels, she doesn't hide behind satire and the illusion of "fiction" to make fun of her family. But you don't have to take my word for it, how about the opinion of JK Rowling?

"My most influential writer, without a doubt, is Jessica Mitford. When my great-aunt gave me Hons and Rebels when I was 14, she instantly became my heroine. She ran away from home to fight in the Spanish Civil War, taking with her a camera that she had charged to her father's account. I wished I'd had the nerve to do something like that. I love the way she never outgrew some of her adolescent traits, remaining true to her politics – she was a self-taught socialist – throughout her life."

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Hons and Rebels, J.K. Rowling, Jessica Mitford, Mitford March, Nancy Mitford, The American Way of Death, Winston Churchill, WWII

A Red Herring Without Mustard (Flavia de Luce Book 3) by Alan Bradley
Published by: Delecort Press
Publication Date: February 8th, 2011
Format: Hardcover, 416 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Award-winning author Alan Bradley returns with another beguiling novel starring the insidiously clever and unflappable eleven-year-old sleuth Flavia de Luce. The precocious chemist with a passion for poisons uncovers a fresh slew of misdeeds in the hamlet of Bishop’s Lacey—mysteries involving a missing tot, a fortune-teller, and a corpse in Flavia’s own backyard.

Flavia had asked the old Gypsy woman to tell her fortune, but never expected to stumble across the poor soul, bludgeoned in the wee hours in her own caravan. Was this an act of retribution by those convinced that the soothsayer had abducted a local child years ago? Certainly Flavia understands the bliss of settling scores; revenge is a delightful pastime when one has two odious older sisters. But how could this crime be connected to the missing baby? Had it something to do with the weird sect who met at the river to practice their secret rites? While still pondering the possibilities, Flavia stumbles upon another corpse—that of a notorious layabout who had been caught prowling about the de Luce’s drawing room.

Pedaling Gladys, her faithful bicycle, across the countryside in search of clues to both crimes, Flavia uncovers some odd new twists. Most intriguing is her introduction to an elegant artist with a very special object in her possession—a portrait that sheds light on the biggest mystery of all: Who is Flavia?

As the red herrings pile up, Flavia must sort through clues fishy and foul to untangle dark deeds and dangerous secrets. "

Flavia de Luce returns! My heart sings like Gladys' tires on a back country lane!

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
Published by: Viking Adult
Publication Date: February 8th, 2011
Format: Hardcover, 592 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"In Harkness's lively debut, witches, vampires, and demons outnumber humans at Oxford's Bodleian Library, where witch and Yale historian Diana Bishop discovers an enchanted manuscript, attracting the attention of 1,500-year-old vampire Matthew Clairmont. The orphaned daughter of two powerful witches, Bishop prefers intellect, but relies on magic when her discovery of a palimpsest documenting the origin of supernatural species releases an assortment of undead who threaten, stalk, and harass her. Against all occult social propriety, Bishop turns for protection to tall, dark, bloodsucking man-about-town Clairmont. Their research raises questions of evolution and extinction among the living dead, and their romance awakens centuries-old enmities. Harkness imagines a crowded universe where normal and paranormal creatures observe a tenuous peace. "Magic is desire made real," Bishop says after both her desire and magical prowess exceed her expectations. Harkness brings this world to vibrant life and makes the most of the growing popularity of gothic adventure with an ending that keeps the Old Lodge door wide open."

Being hailed as an adult version of Harry Potter I'm in. See, I'm just to easy a sell. But then again, they sold Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell as Harry Potter for adults, and it's one of my most favorite books ever.

Mr. Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt
Published by: The Dial Press
Publication Date: February 8th, 2011
Format: Hardcover, 256 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"In her sad, hopeful and very original debut, Hunt examines two battles with depression, one that has already been lost and one where there is still a possibility of winning. The story follows the parallel lives of a lonely young London librarian, Esther Hammerhans, and the celebrated statesman, Winston Churchill, during the days before he retires in July of 1964. Esther, whose husband committed suicide two years earlier, is renting out the spare room in her home, but when she opens the door to her new tenant, Mr. Chartwell, she finds herself face to face with a huge talking, upright walking, black dog. Esther soon learns that when Chartwell (aka Black Pat) leaves the house, it is to pay regular visits to Churchill and psychologically torture him, which he has been doing for years. Chartwell is no mere talking dog; he is a dark, lingering presence that has come to try to torment Esther into depression, much like he did her late husband. Taking a hard look at the demons that haunt people, Hunt's story is an clever illumination of the suffering of so many, their status on the social scale offering no protection."

Librarians? Winston Churchill? I'm in. Plus, just look at that beautiful cover.

So Shelly by Ty Roth
Published by: Delacorte
Publication Date: February 8th, 2011
Format: Hardcover, 336 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Until now, high school junior, John Keats, has only tiptoed near the edges of the vortex that is schoolmate and literary prodigy, Gordon Byron. That is, until their mutual friend, Shelly, drowns in a sailing accident.

After stealing Shelly's ashes from her wake at Trinity Catholic High School, the boys set a course for the small Lake Erie island where Shelly's body had washed ashore and to where she wished to be returned. It would be one last "so Shelly" romantic quest. At least that's what they think. As they navigate around the obstacles and resist temptations during their odyssey, Keats and Gordon glue together the shattered pieces of Shelly's and their own pasts while attempting to make sense of her tragic and premature end. "

A young adult novel with inspiration from the Romantics. Sounds like it could be interesting.

The Iron Witch by Karen Mahoney
Published by: Flux
Publication Date: February 8th, 2011
Format: Paperback, 312 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"When she was seven, a horrific fey attack killed Donna Underwood’s father and drove her mother mad. Her own nearly fatal injuries were fixed by alchemy—the iron tattoos branding her hands and arms. Now seventeen, Donna feels like a freak, doomed by the magical heritage that destroyed her parents and any chance she had for a normal life. Only her relationship with her best friend, Navin, is keeping her sane.

But when vicious wood elves abduct Navin, Donna is forced to accept her role in the centuries-old war between human alchemists and these darkest outcasts of Faerie. Assisted by Xan, a gorgeous guy with faery blood running through his veins and secrets of his own, Donna races to save Navin—even if it means betraying everything her parents fought to the death to protect."

I have a weakness of faries.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Discovery of Witches, A Red Herring Without Mustard, Alan Bradley, Deborah Harkness, Harry Potter, Karen Mahoney, Mr. Chartwell, Rebecca Hunt, So Shelly, The Iron Witch, Ty Roth, Winston Churchill

Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford
Published by: NYRB Classics
Publication Date: 1960
Format: Paperback, 320 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
Recommended for: Anglophiles, Biography Buffs, Mitford Maniacs, Journalists and History Buffs
To Buy
Jessica Mitford was the "Ballroom Communist" of the engagingly eccentric Mitford Family. The second youngest daughter of the 2nd Baron Redesdalee, she had an unconventional upbringing where education was the bare minimum to make a good wife. Always wishing for an escape from her family, be it through schooling or politics or moving to another continent, she suffered through being a deb and presentation before the queen and watching her family come apart at the seems due to a divergence in beliefs. But at her first chance she ran off with her cousin, Esmond Rommilly, the nephew of Winston Churchill, to fight Franco in Spain. What with all of England trying to force her home, sending really big ships no less, even the courts of Chancery, it's surprising that she actually was able to succeed in her convictions and in marrying Esmond. The madcap and eccentric life that followed from Rotherhithe to the United States with Esmond equals that of her earlier life, but with herself being the master of her fate.

I rarely read biographies. I have to say, if more biographies were as fun and enjoyable as Jessica Mitford's I would read nothing but. The Mitford family has always been fascinating to me, what with the sisters paths being so divergent. Nancy was one of the "Bright Young Things" and a literary darling, with Love in a Cold Climate, which basically skewered her own family for her amusement. Pamela was horse obsessed and kind of out of the limelight. Diana married the heir to the Guinness fortune then divorced him to have an affair with the head of the British Facist party. When they eventually married, Hitler was at their wedding, which was held at the Goebbels' house. She also spent time in prison. Unity was Hitler's biggest fan and when war broke out between England and Germany she failed at committing suicide only to die of meningitis. And Debo... well she married the Duke of Devonshire and lives at Chatsworth, writes books about chickens and is the last remaining Mitford daughter. You could not make this stuff up! From her earliest days with family to her later life with Esmond, Jessica captures the love she had for these people while at the same time the exasperation of her situation. From hoarding money so she could run away, to the ultimate subterfuge that resulted in her being victorious, even if she had to chase the Spanish Consulate representative all over England and France. To the years scarping by in the States doing anything and everything to stay there, from selling stockings door to door to being a bouncer at a bar. That's right, Jessica, not her husband, was the bouncer.

Given the extreme fame of her family and the career Jessica later established as a journalist in her own right, if a muckracker at that, it's beyond enjoyable to see where it all began. The fact that a high born Hon would eschew her family and their beliefs to set out on her own crusade for right, for the poor and disadvantaged, is a noble crusade indeed. But what you also see is that with Esmond, this is a love story. From her first hearing mention of him, she was in love. From their similar backgrounds of trying to shed off what was their families hereditary hangups, she envied him for his actual escape and later he aided her escape as well. Whether he felt the same inevitability as her that they were meant to be is hinted at. But what is certain is that they were perfectly matched. It makes sense that the book ends with the outbreak of World War II. It's the event that, more than anything, shaped that generation, but more personally than that, embodied the division of this family. It was also the event that would claim Esmond's life. But at least in this book, we can see the love still remains.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Ballroom Communist, Bright Young Things, Chatsworth, Duchess of Devonshire, Esmond Rommilly, Franco, Hitler, Hons and Rebels, Jessica Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate, Nancy Mitford, Winston Churchill

Fuck the Daleks! I'm so damn sick of them, sure this time Mark Gatiss got to write about them, and sure, we've got Winston Churchill and the war, but, not another freakin' Dalek episode! Plus, did anyone else keep thinking that they basically just wanted to do a World War II version of Star Wars while watching this? I love Mark Gatiss' enthusiasm, but still, this is the first meh episode for me, in fact Mark Gatiss and Confidential were far better than the episode itself. Bill Paterson and his amazing acting saved this for me, but that's about it. So of course, it makes sense to have the Daleks show up in World War II, they have so much in common with the Nazis that the Nazis were probably their inspiration. And Mark Gatiss has an amazing grasp at capturing other time periods, even if the "wishes were kisses" line was a little too hackneyed for me. I liked that the Doctor is called in by Winston, who is not only an old friend, but openly covets the TARDIS and will do anything to win the war, anything... even if it's the new "ironsides" aka, Daleks in disguise to trick the Doctor into helping them re-jump start the new Dalek evolution. Servile Daleks are funny, but then we're all back to colored Daleks and they escape, I'm sure to return again and again and again and again... at least Mark Gatiss didn't give me any false hope that they were gone forever... so that's one plus. But overall this episode felt too contained, too small in scope. Here we have the greatest war the world has ever faced combined with the Daleks and the Doctor who together had the greatest war time has ever faced and we get these small, confined sets that were claustrophobic and lacking in the scope of these great historical events. I did like the rage the Doctor displayed and the way Amy totally embodies all that is good in humanity. But could we do all this with a new villain? Or a less used old villain? All I kept thinking was, damn, they should just go get Captain Jack and end this in five minutes. One sweet twist, Amy's never seen the Daleks... which is impossible right? And the crack... is time fracturing? Is the Doctor in the correct timeline? Very interesting! Personally I can't wait for next week though... River Song AND the Weeping Angels! Heaven! Or hell... if you think about the nightmares it will probably induce...

Also I bet you can guess my opinion of the game trailer they showed seeing as I've made my opinion of the Daleks so well known. Looks clunky, looks like way too many Daleks, looks like a pass. And I'm usually the one defending my movies and tv shows being turned into video games! Shocker!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 2 comments  

Labels: Amy Pond, Bill Paterson, Captain Jack, Daleks, Doctor Who, Ironsides, Mark Gatiss, Nazis, River Song, TARDIS, The 11th Doctor, The Weeping Angels, Video Game, Winston Churchill, World War II