Mr. Darcy, Vampyre

Hmmmm...

I'm not sure what to think about this novel by Amanda Grange. In general, continuation of Jane Austen's novels leaves me cold - no one can write like Jane. The best of the lot is a pallid imitation of Jane's work. This is no exception. Lots of folks are mad for this book and I fail to see why. Maybe because I didn't finish it. I don't know. The novel begins on the wedding day of Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy, plus Lizzie's sister Jane and Mr. Bingley. Something is amiss. On the night of their wedding Darcy decides they should go to Europe for their honeymoon rather than go to the Lake District. There they meet Darcy's "other" family, who live in Germany - and what a family it is. They even meet up with Lady Catherine who has been pursuing them since the wedding. The "mystery" is why Darcy hasn't consummated his marriage to Lizzie. She's confused and frustrated, and rightly so. And then the novel gets mysteriouser and mysteriouser.

I get what Grange wants to do. She's placed this story in line with the Gothic romance novels of the period (Ann Radcliffe mainly) and that Jane made fun of in Northanger Abbey. It's a bodice-ripper - literally (got to get to those throats somehow!).

My problem is that these characterizations are nothing like Jane's characterizations. Elizabeth, so lively with fine eyes, is depressed, unhappy, and about as fascinating as a turnip. At one point Grange has Lizzie faint! Lizzie?! Darcy seems closer to the original in that he is aloof, morose, and mysterious. But other characterizations are pretty much over the top - especially Lady Catherine who was someone Jane satirized and made fun of. Here she is frightening and evil - she's out to get Elizabeth and no mistake.

Grange is doing - or trying to do - to P&P what Jane did to thrillers and those who read them in Northanger Abbey. In my view, she didn't succeed. Perhaps if the writing was better or tighter - it seemed to drag on and on - I would have "got" it. But I didn't.

However, I'm in favor of anything that gets people to read Jane - even if vampires are involved (don't get me wrong - I LOVE vampire novels). And if this and other new pastiches on the best seller lists - Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters - can create more fans, then okay. I wish it were a better read.

Hmmm...

The Bedside, Bathtub, & Armchair Companion to Shakespeare

I picked this up at the library after a fruitless attempt to find the Bedside, Bathtub, and Armchair Companion to Jane Austen. The Bedside... books are in a series of companion books on such authors/literary figures as Agatha Christie, Lewis Carroll, and Sherlock Holmes. Since I've attended several performances of Shakespeare's plays at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival I thought this book would be fun. It is. Talk about informative. Dick Riley and Pam McAllister give a sort of Cliff Notes version of the Cliff Notes on several plays and poems. But what's the most fun are (is?) the sidebar tidbits at the end of the description of each play. These include likely sources of the plots, notable features (where it was first performed, etc.), notable productions and performances, and other uses of the basic plots (operas, musical pieces, movies, and so on). Plus there are essays peppered throughout the book on various aspects of Shakespeare's life, Elizabethan culture and current political events, etc., such as "What if Shakespeare had been Born a Girl? Women in the Queen's England." A really fun chapter is "Thou Knave! Thou Plague-sore! Shakespearean Insults." All of these stories, sidebars, etc., are quite entertaining. The book is written much like the Dummies... series, but it doesn't insult the reader. I recommend it.

Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution

I am reading Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution by 18th century specialist Caroline Weber. I haven't finished it - it's pretty hefty at nearly 500 pages. However, I plan to complete it because I'm enjoying it.

Marie Antoinette is a controversial figure - as a representative of excess, an ignorant heartless snob ("Let them eat cake"), a victim of Madame le Guillotine, a naive girl in over her head, and so on. Weber proposes another take on this Austrian girl by analyzing the clothing she wore. It's a fascinating analysis, though I don't ascribe to all of her premise.

Weber shows how Marie Antoinette developed her reputation for fashionable excess, and explains the political controversies that her clothing caused. She surveys Marie Antoinette's "Revolution in Dress," analyzing each phase of her life, beginning with the Austrian Archduchess trying to survive the rather bizarre restrictions of Versailles's traditions of royal glamour. As queen, Marie Antoinette used spectacular clothing to project her image as that of a powerful entity. However, she began to lose her hold on the French when she started to adopt "unqueenly," i.e., more simplified, clothing that, ironically, would be adopted by the revolutionaries who executed her. The paradox of her story, according to Weber, is that fashion - the method used to secure her position as the Queen of France - was also her undoing.

While this take on Marie Antoinette is unique, it's premise is a bit, well, too specific for me. Just examining her costuming, mile-high hair ensembles, and fabulous jewelry as a method to obtain power and then lose that power is limiting. This poor girl was the shuttlecock being batted back and forth between the Austrian empire and the French royal court - the political ambitions of her mother, Empress Maria Therese, versus the machinations of the French court and it's factions (including the various mistresses of the old king, Louis XV). Marie Antoinette was ill-suited to her role in France, and was too trusting, too young, and too clueless. Versailles was a brutal place, no place for such a child (she was 14 when she arrived). To propose that this girl "fought" back by what she wore is a bit of a stretch.

However, I am reminded of Princess Diana who faced a similar situation with the rituals and restrictions in the house of Windsor. She used clothing and her glamour, among other things, to obtain and keep power.

The book is well written and entertaining. I would recommend it - especially to fashionistas, who will swoon over the descriptions (and costs!) of her apparel and jewels.

A side note: it's obvious to me that Sophia Coppola read this book before she created her movie - the film is all about the Queen's fashion and her vapidness in the court of Versailles. If you've seen the movie, then it will help you visualize the clothing in the book. However, if you haven't seen the movie, I wouldn't recommend it. I would advise to stick to the book - it's much better.

The Private Patient

The Baroness James of Holland Park, i.e., P.D. James, has pushed her beloved Adam Dalgliesh out into the publishing world once again. The Private Patient is latest of the Dalgliesh mystery novels. Despite Baroness James' age (88) she has lost none of her acuity, subtlety, and inventiveness.

The "private patient" is Rhoda Gradwyn, a well-known scandal reporter in the British tabloid tradition. She digs up the dirt no matter where it is or who it destroys. She has asked a cosmetic surgeon to remove a prominent and ugly facial scar that her father had inflicted on her during a drunken violent spree when she was a child. But why - the first mystery - had she waited so long to get rid of the disfigurement? “Because I no longer have need of it” is all she would say.

Her murder takes place in a gloomy historic manor house in Dorset, which the surgeon has converted into an expensive private clinic where his clients can be operated on and recover. Dr. Chandler-Powell, the surgeon, was successful in reducing the scar on Rhoda Gradwyn's face. It was unfortunate - and bad for business - that she was strangled in her bed that very night. Sounds like a case for the local constabulary. You would think. But no. The Prime Minister gets involved and wants Dalgliesh to investigate.

As is usually the case in a P.D. James novel, the threads of the murder start in the past. And there is a lot of not-so-pleasant history with several members of the clinic and household. It's the typical Jamesian multiple red herrings to throw you off the scent. It's not all that surprising about who did it, really. But the way James gets to the solution is the joy in the book.

You have to read P.D. James the way she writes - it's never hurried, action packed, or even bodice-ripping thrilling. It's more psychological, introspective, and more subtle. It's a leisurely read; no frantic turning of the pages to get to the solution.

There is also a side story of Dalgliesh's love life with Emma Lavenham, the professor he met several novels back. They're planning their wedding when the murder occurs and poor Adam has to leave his lady love in the lurch to deal with florists, caterers, etc., plus a family crisis that he can't help her with. So, of course, he's torn about his duty to his job and his duty to his fiance. A side note: there is a tie-in with Jane Austen in this story. Initially, Emma's best friend Clara despised Dalgliesh. But they warm to each other, sort of. James describes the home of Clara and her partner Annie "where no one entered without - in Jane Austen's words - the sanguine expectation of happiness." And at the end after the wedding, Clara and Annie make note of the end of Emma and Mrs. Elton's comment, "Very little white satin, very few lace veils; a most pitiful business." Sounds like a pretty snarky thing to say about one's best friend, but they then remember how the novel ends. "But, in spite of these deficiencies, the wishes, the hopes, the confidence, the predictions of the small band of true friends who witnessed the ceremony, were fully answered in the perfect happiness of the union." At least Dalgliesh didn't have to make Mr. Knightley's sacrifice and move in with her father!

In the purview of P.D. James' work this is not one of the superior novels. However, an average James is better than many other mystery writers' best work. Check it out.

A Flaw in the Blood

Stephanie Barron's first departure from the Jane Austen mystery novels takes place during the Victorian era. It involves Queen Victoria and begins with the death of Prince Albert in 1861. Albert has a secret and numerous good guys and bad guys want that secret so badly that they are willing to kill for it (and they do so with relish). This reads like a gothic romance—unrequited love, a murderous stormy night, guilty secrets, hopes dashed, revenge plotted, etc. In fact it is major melodrama with purple prose and lots of exclamation points. I love Barron's Jane Austen mysteries - in those she really knows her Jane and the Regency period. But unfortunately this departure isn't up to her usual stellar mystery treatment. It starts very slowly and I found it difficult to get into. Reviews say that it's a fast pace potboiler. I could see the potboiler aspect, but fast paced? Maybe for the horse and buggy period but not in this novel. I couldn't finish it. The prose was too purple for my tastes - definitely in the "it was a dark and storm night" tradition - and the plot didn't seem to pull together before I gave up. The characters aren't all that well drawn and I really didn't care for any of them - especially Victoria. I really wanted to like this book, but I couldn't. I hope she returns to Jane's mysteries as they are the best of her work.

Frankly, My Dear: Gone with the Wind Revisited

What else can scholars say about Gone with the Wind? Biographies of all the stars, David O. Selznick, Margaret Mitchell, made-for-TV movies, etc., have mined the depths of the novel and the resultant film. What can Molly Haskell say that's new? Not much. However, the way she pulls together the strands of the story - both the novel and the making of the movie - makes old ground entertaining. The book is part biography, part history, and part feminist analysis. The author of From Reverance to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies and part-time film commentator on Turner Classic Movies stitches together disparate stories from how long it took Mitchell to write the book, why she was reluctant to have it made into a movie, Selznick's persuasiveness, and every other tidbit that seems trivial to produce a "big picture" view of the entire enterprise. She also analyzes characters and their impact on a Depression-era public using her feminist viewpoint to understand why the novel and the movie were unbelievably popular. This year is the 70th anniversary of the release of the movie and this book does a good job to make it relevant to readers now.

Twilight

I'm reading Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, the super sensational vampire romance novel for teens. I can understand why girls would love this book - a mysterious gorgeous boy for whom all the girls are beside themselves and a shy girl who's different, how and why the two connect, and the undercurrent of sexual tension between them. I realize that it's written for the young adult audience and not for a middle aged adult like me, therefore, I shouldn't judge too harshly. The writing is okay but there's not much there to keep me interested. It's too slow (like the movie, which is, uh, deliberately paced) and wordy. It takes a lot of patience to stick with it.

I do like the atmosphere Meyer creates - she knows how to write about the Pacific Northwest and its gothic elements (dark clouds, rain, fog, deep dark forests, a chill - i.e., creepy. Throw in a remote Italian castle and Ann Radcliffe would feel at home). I also like the lead characters, Bella and Edward. Particularly Bella - Meyer really understands her and her "otherness," and treats her sympathetically. She kept my interest throughout. Edward, the man/boy of mystery, is more difficult. He's uber-complex and introspective. Bella has a hard time figuring out what makes him tick - me, too. Sometimes he is too deep, especially for a teenage girl to comprehend. And that is the big problem for me. Edward is "17 years old"; however, he's existed 100 years. He may look like a teenager, but he's not - he has decades of world experience. Bella is mature and very smart but she is only 17 with a certain degree of innocence. He has all the experience that comes with age and using it on Bella. Plus he displays a lot of traits of a stalker - watches her while she sleeps, etc. Creeped me out a bit.

I wanted to like it because of my interest in vampire literature and film and that the story is based, sort of, on Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. But Meyer is no Austen and the novel is too long.