Fairy Tales: V is for Villains

Fairy tales are not fairy tales without villains!

Fairy tales do not require complex villains but often, they get them. The stepmother's villainy in Cinderella, as acted by Cate Blanchett in Branagh's version, is rooted in historical reality. In a world of scarce resources (or even perceived scarce resources), the second family's needs will take priority.
 
Such villainy also lends itself to complexity--as in Angelina Jolie's version of Sleeping Beauty's witch. Granted, she comes across as every "woman scorned" hoping to get even, but her motivations are also grounded and plausible for the context. The king's guilt is additionally well-coneyed.
 
The father in this tale is evil.
Both are interesting variations on the evil stepmother and witch who populate fairy tales.
 
Evil fathers do make an appearance, from incestuous to manipulative and politically stupid. Historically speaking, medieval kings shared a terrible penchant with ancient Roman emperors: a tendency to favor crazy sons when designating heirs.
 
It may seem, however, that women are villains more than men, and some analysts will argue that female villains are the result of misogynism. The problem with that argument is that such tales also tend to favor female heroines. Across the board, female heroines are the ones that set off on quests and rescue people. Granted, young sons sometimes join the party, but the young sons are often helped by animals, princesses, and female fairies. Puss in Boots' peasant-to-prince is amazingly helpless, embracing a kind of passive "I can't resist or stop or plan or be responsible for whatever happens next" attitude.
 
The emphasis on female heroines and helpers supports the idea that mostly women told the tales--to each other and to children and to family members. And analysts can't claim both: the tales were told by women in support of women; the tales are misogynistic. (Actually, one can claim both--many tough women from the 1950s could exhibit great independence alongside odd, cloying deference to men--but with fairy tales, such claims descend into a not-always convincing game of parsing exactly which parts are supportive and which parts are non-supportive rather than looking at narratives in their entirety.) 
 
I always considered that the plethora of female villains was precisely because women were telling the tales, and domestic tales are going to involve domestic villains.
 
If one wanted to get Freudian, one would also point out that the female villains exercise an impressive degree of autonomy. From a purely narrative point of view, is a victim of social injustice really somebody that listeners want to relate to? I can see female readers debating the merits of Lucy versus the White Witch--I can't imagine any fantasy reader wanting to emulate Updike's Gertrude.

More on Amateur Aristocratic Detectives: Harley Quin

Although a great many Golden Age detectives created amateur aristocratic detectives, Agatha Christie didn't much. Her primary detectives--Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple--are thoroughly middle-class gentry. Her lesser known detectives tend to be the police or, like Colin Lamb, people connected to the police. 

The one somewhat aristocratic character that Christie created was Harley Quin. He appears in the short story collection bearing his name, The Mysterious Mr. Quin. He is a dark, saturnine young man who shows up when problems/mysteries arise involving lovers. He often solves them by prompting an elderly man Mr. Satterthwaite to take certain actions. 

Harley Quin is not entirely aristocratic, but he bears markers in common with Wimsey and Vance--namely, his secrecy and vaguely humorous air. However, he has a far darker side than the other characters. Christie was drawing on Harlequin from the Harlequinade, and Harley Quin has the unorthodox and faintly chaotic nature of Eros. Not the cutesy Cupid but the god who might just challenge all expectations. 

Christie's novels show a continual willingness to allow for passion and terror in the face of domestic love. She would, of course, come down on the side of Miss Marple regarding civility and decent behavior. But she allows that people are often helpless before their emotions. Characters who plan and carry out deaths are far more venial in her books than characters who wish and hope in secret, full of painful desires. On more than one occasion, Poirot consoles a character by pointing out that "wishing" for a death, however desperately, is not the same as carrying one out. 

Christie also, continually, comes down on the side of young women leaving home to "chance" their lives with rogues and other such lovers rather than remaining safely at home. One gets the impression that she wouldn't be all that big on trigger warnings. Stepping outside the door matters more than throwing up blockades to experience.

Harley Quin protects lovers but not always in the way we or Mr. Satterthwaite expect. The stories are, oddly enough, more Hans Christian Andersen's mermaid walking about on legs that give her continual pain than anything from Hallmark. 

Love is dangerous. Harley Quin will help but he will not pause or excise the emotion.

Two Short Jokes

I'm short. I don't mind. And I think short jokes can be very funny.

Example One

The podium in Spin City. It is raised to give the tall mayor the illusion of being less tall--and therefore, supposedly less intimidating. When Michael J. Fox's character, Mike Flaherty (Alex Keaton, all grown up) walks behind it, he disappears. Flaherty, of course, takes the event in stride. (Click on the image to see the clip.)

Example Two

Doris Sherman (Katherine Helmond) comes to persuade Hayden to become her coach. She walks into a room where everyone, including Shelley Fabares, is taller than her. Katherine Helmond is 5'2", my height. 

She comments that she had to drive so far into the woods to find Hayden's cabin, she thought she would encounter Big Foot. 

She turns and sees Dauber. 

"Hello," she says in an oh-there-you-are tone. 

Bill Faberbakke is 6'6"--the perfect height for a football coach!


V is for Van Dine and Deja VU: The Amateur Aristocratic Detective of the 1920s

What I read: The Scarab Murder Case by S. S. Van Dine

S.S. Van Dine's hero, Philo Vance, is remarkably--and I mean, remarkably--like Peter Wimsey (in the early Wimsey novels). Both are of the upper class (Peter Wimsey is of the British aristocracy; Vance is a New York socialite). Both have a deliberately nonchalant way of speaking and say things like, "We're dealin' with a most unusual situation. Somebody translated [the victim] from this world in to the hereafter in a very distressin' fashion." Both have the ability to become serious, when necessary. Both have a friend who plays "straight man" to their overblown personalities (Charles Parker, a police inspector, and Markham, a D.A.). Both have "deceptive upper body strength" (as Colby says to Charlie in Numbers). Both wear a monocle!

In fact, the similarities are so striking that I compared dates. Sayer's first Wimsey novel appeared in 1923; Van Dine's first Vance novel in 1926.

If one were to argue origins, I would have to come down on the side of Sayers. Wimsey is not only more authentic to the Wodehouse/Hugh Laurie/Lord Percy (Tim McInnerny) tradition of over-educated, amusing fops, Wimsey himself is both funnier and more complex than Vance. (Vance, however, made Van Dine a lot more money during his lifetime than Wimsey made Sayers. On the other hand, the Wimsey novels have lasted in a way that the Vance novels haven't. Which is the preferable career?)

I actually think it is possible that both Sayers and Van Dine brought their characters to life at the same time without ever reading each other's works though both were part of the "Golden Age of Mysteries.: They likely at least knew about each other's works.

William Powell played Vance before
and after Thin Man

But it is also entirely likely that there was a zeitgeist--something in the air--that led to the creation of the gentleman detective, Wimsey and Vance.  It's kind of like when every movie studio in Hollywood suddenly decides to do a movie about bugs. Or aliens. It's in the air!

Why amusing fops who investigate crimes would be in the air in the 1920s is something I can't explain off hand. It was the season of the flapper: a sort of jump-start era to the later rock-n-roll era of Elvis and the Beatles. Both horror and murder mysteries were big news. Hitchcock was on his way to making a killing (ha ha ha) as the premier mystery/suspense director in Hollywood.

But Hitchcock relied on Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant for his heroes: the all-American boy and the all-sexy Britisher. 

Another explanation is that the amusing, witty, aristocratic detective was an attempt to meld Holmes (wholly cerebral) with Bertie Wooster (wholly extroverted and quirky). 

To return to The Scarab Murder Case, it is a bit slow, being more focused on "railway tables" (so to speak) than on human motives.  The mystery is more about whowentwherewhen than relationships. The subject matter is interesting: ancient Egyptian history. The solution is fairly unimpressive. (Agatha Christie did this particular mystery problem better.)

2023: I read the first Philo Vance, The Benson Murder Case. I was confirmed in my reaction that Van Dine is a "mechanics" murder mystery writer. Every chapter is headed with a date and time. Each chapter reveals more about the mystery's forensics or timing. 

Van Dine also focuses on the "surprise" or whodunit. Sayers spent more time on "how" a murder was committed though interestingly enough both Van Dine and Sayers make the same point: without overwhelming evidence, one can make an argument against anyone for just about any reason. The most interesting part of The Benson Murder Case focuses on breaking the primary suspect's alibi. Both the alibi and the solution are interesting, and the climax is quite exciting. The other chapters, which focus on "then we go here and question this person"  aren't so much.

As mentioned above, Sayers not only focuses more on people and "how," she is also funnier and less prone to "telling" than Van Dine. Van Dine (the writer and the narrator) tells readers exactly what they are supposed to think about Vance and everyone else, in exhaustive detail. In comparison, Sayers' first book starts with Wimsey already in motion. We readers learn about him from his behavior and conversation. Although he is lightly rendered in the first book, he yet reveals a more substantive character, as when he confesses to Charles Parker that he likes the beginning of a case when it is just a puzzle but finds it more difficult to proceed when he begins to actually know people. Charles robustly tells him that he is focusing more on his attitude--his pose--than on the truth, and he needs to grow up and cut it out. 

Van Dine portrait by his brother.
Vance in Van Dine's first book will become stern and occasionally, when necessary, kind. But it's hard to spot anything else beyond the surface behavior. Interestingly enough, although Hollywood presents Vance as...well, William Powell, Vance of the book is presented as someone that people will perceive as possibly homosexual. Since Vance is also entirely heroic, such as a choice for a mainstream series is rather impressive for the time period.

Another notable difference between Sayers and Van Dine is that Van Dine is as interested in the police officer characters as in Vance. That is, I got the impression that Van Dine actually wanted to write Blue Bloods! (Nearly all of Van Dine's books were made into films when he was alive.) 

But the zeitgeist referenced above was all about the so-called amateur detective, so the amateur detective is what Van Dine supplied. 

Fairy Tales: U is for Unique Uchida

For "U" I read four books by Yoshiko Uchida, a Japanese-American writer who created picture books of retold Japanese folktales as well as tales for Japanese-American children about seminal American events, from World War I to the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II.

I enjoyed the first three books I picked out--The Wise Old Woman, The Magic Purse, and The Two Foolish Cats--and later picked up another--Rokubei and the Thousand Rice Bowls--though none of them struck me as books I would collect for continual readings. As in manga and with illustrators like Trina Schart Hyman, the images match the text; they simply aren't my preferred type of illustration, being somewhat muted. The choice could have been deliberate--a desire to provide a wood-cut feel to match the settings and characters.
Of the four books, I found The Magic Purse the most captivating. The softer feel felt appropriate to the tale.
 
What impressed me most, however, was the text. Years ago, I examined written folktales for an English class. I concluded that the texts avoided lots of transitions and relied on FANBOYS (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so) for conjunctions, primarily "but" and "and." In other words, the written fairy tales sounded like the spoken word. 
 
Uchida accomplishes such crisp and neat tellings and with relatively complex tales where characters go through multiple events. The writing relates and resolves conflicts with easy symmetry. 
 
An impressive storyteller!

Kopakonan and Other Mermaids: Upcoming Publication

In my novel slated for May publication, a Congregation--group of sainthood investigators--delve into the possible sainthood of a mermaid, Saint Margaret. 

They discover that she (possibly) fled Bamburgh Castle for the Faroe Islands. Is that likely at all? For someone, human or mermaid, to head from Northumbria's east coast to the Faroe Islands around 500 C.E. (A.D.)? 

Yes! Saint Brendan the Navigator performed this task about the same time as my saintly character. 

I discovered that the Faroe Islands produced one of many selkie tales common to Northern Europe: a seal woman sheds her seal skin when she comes ashore. That skin is stolen by her husband-to-be. She stays with him for many years, but as soon as she finds the skin again, she dons it and departs. In the Faroe Island version, the human husband later kills Kopakonan's seal husband and children, and she curses his descendants. 

I used the idea of a mermaid's curse in my first published short story: "The Birthright."

The investigators in my new story have to square the vengeance part of the tale with the saint's supposed merciful character. They are helped by (1) medieval saints being somewhat more belligerent than modern saints; (2) the Lady Margaret apologists who live on the island. 

The statue of Kopakonan on Kalsoy (above) was erected in 2014. 

The second tale comes much later and is largely ignored by my fictional investigators. But it is a real tale--in the sense that I was able to get a digital copy of the 1882 chapbook version of the tale from WorldCat during my research: Thanks, WorldCat! 

The story is of one John Robinson, a young sailor who ends up in the sea when his ship wrecks. A mermaid saves him but only because he catches hold of her girdle and "got the first word with her." The chapbook states, "Never, never let a Mermaid get in the first word!" She gives him the means to get to shore, but she later returns, gets in the first word, and claims him. 

The mermaid here is similar to the mermaids in Pirates of the Caribbean and elsewhere: less vainly self-centered and more entirely amoral. 

A much nicer tale from Cornwall reports a young male member of the church choir who joins a mermaid in her watery home--and appears later to be living happily with her in a cave. 

But that tale proves the rule: mermaids are incalculable, like keeping lions as pets. They might cozy up to you. They might eat off your face.

U is for Unsatisfying Uhnak and Ummm Updike

What I read: Victims by Dorothy Uhnak

I'm not a huge fan of crime novels. Mysteries, yes. I LOVE mysteries. And I'm a big fan of television police procedurals (CSI, Law & Order, Blue Bloods). But I've never found novel cops and robbers particularly interesting.

Victims, however, starts out good. The main cop protagonist is interesting, and the entire novel (at first) is based around the real-life Kitty Genovese case in which a woman was stabbed (several times) outside an apartment complex; her neighbors saw and heard it happen, but no one helped.

Using a similar set-up, 2/3rds of Victims focuses on interviews with the neighbors and their reasons for not calling 911. Uhnak does a fairly good job demonstrating a wide range of what is popularly called the Bystander Effect. There is a nice degree of tension between the protagonist, the famous reporter who wants to write about the neighbors, and the neighbors.

And then, the book completely collapses. It collapses because Uhnak falls back on the plot device of POLITICAL MACHINATIONS by POWERFUL PEOPLE.

There are really no words to express how unbelievably boring this plot device is. If anything can make me fall asleep while upright, it is POLITICAL MACHIzzzzzzzzz.

Like death, POLITICAL MACHINATIONS by POWERFUL PEOPLE is a writer's ultimate cop-out, a contemporary deus ex machina. The autopsy report was changed! Thousands of workers were bribed to keep their mouths shut! The reporter sells out for movie rights! Money buys off everyone!!

It's boring. (This may be why, while I enjoy crime shows, I lose interest the moment the Mafia enters the picture.) And it completely overwhelms the human element. The story is no longer about individuals struggling to get on in life; it's about whatever the powerful people are doing or thinking or...who cares?

How can this type of art even speak to people? Other than conspiracy-theorist, paranoid-type people? Sure, if all a person wants out of life is a fear of big, bad forces OUT THERE--I suppose the art has some use. But I can believe in big, bad forces OUT THERE without the help of art. Those big bad forces are called volcanoes. And earthquakes. And, if I'm really insistent, asteroids. I don't need to rely on people to clutter up my vision of big, bad forces.

If I'm going to watch movies and read books, I expect something more human, something closer to the human condition. The trappings are unimportant. The exploration of human interaction is what matters. Genre matters less than human connection, be it humorous, light, fantastical, bizarre, down-to-earth...

But plot devices that fall back on tired cliches about everyone being at the mercy of THE MAN--oh, please. Who cares. Go leave that message on someone else's machine.




Give me Columbo over POLITICAL MACHINATIONS any day.

2023: I read John Updike's Gertrude and Claudius.

It was readable but intellectually tedious. Despite the wealth of historical details and the use of supposedly medieval names (until the end), the story felt like a suburban love affair plopped into the middle of a historical moment.
 
Updike may have been making a point. Yet the story felt--not contrived but curiously lifeless. I am generally a fan of seeing universal human nature in the past--that is, although I believe that the past doesn't truly repeat itself and history relies on distinct, non-repeatable individuals, I also believe that human emotions/human biology/human desires show up in every era.
 
Consequently, a show like Rome--which has a number of flaws--still manages to capture the experience of actual human beings trying to survive a turbulent time.
 
Rome (again, despite its flaws) points the difference to Gertrude and Claudius. With Rome, I feel that human beings are reacting humanly to unforeseen events (there's no "right side of history" here--it's a mess!). The Tess of the D'Urbervilles approach (how many more dramas can the scriptwriters heap on a single family?) gets a little wearisome. Yet the sense of normal people just trying to get by remains.
 
While reading Gertrude and Claudius, on the other hand, I continually felt like the whole thing was an elaborate game of dress-up, which again may have been Updike's point but seems a tad extreme for 200-odd pages. Not normal people with normal human emotions trying to survive but contrived "types" costumed and buried in historical references. The bored and misunderstood wife! The cosmopolitan and enraptured lover! The pompous and mean-spirited husband!  
 
The non-reality of these types may have been Updike's point...but the book takes itself rather seriously. Worse, it isn't even funny.

I, Claudius
, like HBO's Rome, descends into melodrama but is pulled back from the brink by the dark humor and phenomenal comedic timing of the main actors, namely Derek Jacobi, Sian Phillips, George Baker, and Brian Blessed. At one point, Sian Phillips as Livia and George Baker as Tiberius encounter each other--both in their own litters--in the marketplace where they start squabbling about her birthday. It's a fantastic scene that undercuts the melodrama and brings the viewer in on the joke: Yes, we are making the ancient Romans sound like a family in a sitcom. That's the point! Why shouldn't they be?!
 
Updike doesn't seem to be aware of anything so grounded as real people simply being weird. Throughout his novel, I did occasionally ponder if he was trying to play fair, to show that Hamlet, the father, was not without insight; that Claudius (Fergon) and Gertrude (Gerutha) are wholly self-serving and rather shallow.
 
But the jacket paints Gertrude and Claudius as having "fond intentions...on a stage darkened by the ominous shadow of a sullen, disaffected prince."
 
I don't particularly mind Hamlet (the younger) being kind of a jerk, an immature, smug man who pulls down an entire edifice over arguably self-important emotions.
 
Unfortunately, Updike doesn't see any other character as clearly. His supposedly historical drama lacks the tough self-mocking reality of Monty Python's look into the medieval and ancient worlds.
 

Fairy Tales: T is for Tolstoy and Tendentious

In "T," I came across a collection of tales by Travers and a collection of created stories and fables by Leo Tolstoy. 

I didn't enjoy Tolstoy's works. 

Fairy tales have always been used--from Aesop to the French philosophers of the seventeenth century--as vehicles for lessons and morals. Even Disney--sometimes tendentiously, sometimes not--tends to attach life lessons to its movies. Consequently, the belief that fairy tales are primarily meant to improve people's lives is a common misconception.

Hopefully, this list has shown that fairy tales have been used for as many different reasons as any other creative production: to entertain, to distill social conditions, to preach lessons, to inflict horror, to work out flights of fancy, to create another world, to explore the "other," to question, to ponder, to experiment...

A tale with a lesson is definitely one possibility, and I don't automatically dislike it. After all, I adore C.S. Lewis and George MacDonald, and I don't particularly mind mice or other characters singing out their life lessons. In a sense, Into the Woods is an exploration of morals and meaning. 

So why does Leo Tolstoy bother me so much?

To start, I should stress that Twenty-Two Russian Tales for Young Children By Leo Tolstoy is an interesting compilation. Some of the tales have morals. Others are more "slice of life" and still others appear to be reminiscences from childhood. 

But the moral tales aren't simply tales with morals. They are moralistic

Like C.S. Lewis and George MacDonald, Tolstoy has a gift for detail. The people and animals belong to specific times and places. 

Unlike C.S. Lewis and George MacDonald, the tales seem devoid of complication. They belong to what I occasionally refer to as "Box A or Box B" religious thought. Instead of people making the best decisions they can while faced with conflicting moral goods, random outcomes, and occasional non-answers (take a path--see what happens), all life's choices are distilled into GOOD PEOPLE/CHOICE BOX A and BAD PEOPLE/CHOICE BOX B. The result is not a sense of people trying to do the best they can at any given moment but, rather, people being applauded for BEING GOOD TODAY! 

"And Sergei never again wanted to trap birds." 

"[F]rom that day, they again let the old man eat with them at the table and took better care of him." 

With C.S. Lewis and George MacDonald, I always feel (and felt as a child) that their characters are real people saying, "Right now, I'm going to take this risk, make this choice, and hope it is for the best. Later, I could change my mind. No matter what, I will keep on being the same person. I will live with the consequences of my actions. Nobody will shower me with adoration for my supposed goodness." 

Edmund, for instance, makes a series of poor choices whose consequences don't suddenly get washed away when he is rescued. He changes and begins to return to his true self. And he goes on making choices, many of which aren't clearly BOX A or BOX B. Edmund has to use experience, his wits, and his best guesses to navigate. 

Moreover, his personality doesn't radically alter. Throughout the series, he remains somewhat wry and diffident about his past. It gives him wisdom and good judgment. It doesn't alter his innate ability to observe. Nor does it excise his responsibilities: to exercise wisdom, he has to call on his past--not simply "be" that guy now. 

As for George MacDonald, his characters seem, like the characters from Babette's Feast, to be overwhelmed by grace. They are ordinary, flawed, odd people (like everyone!) who come in contact with the sublime. Grace doesn't lead them to the perfect choice. Grace enables them to make choices over and over again. And to not be ashamed of their human need to make choices over and over again.

In comparison, Tolstoy's characters--at least his characters for children--get applauded for behaving in seriously restrictive yet approved ways. 

One can understand why children's literature in the mid-twentieth century suddenly began to swerve into Lemony Snicket-type territory: children got tired of being squeezed into proper "here's how the good people act" and "here's what the good people say" roles. 

Kids know: Life is more complicated than that

AI is a Bad Writer

I detested AI "writing" from the beginning--I was never one who thought that AI was soooo amazing, which is rather sad since the programming likely is amazing. But it was presented to me, from Day 1, as writing that was indistinguishable from a professor's writing. 

My reaction, from Day 1, was "well, sure, a professor who is a terrible writer."

Unfortunately, that is a lot of them! Students who try to use AI in my literature course inevitably end up giving me something that sounds like it was written by a pompous Ivy League professor who never does any real research--on anything.

The writing is beyond awful: generic, redundant, full of supposedly sophisticated thesaurus terms hiding hollowness, dangling modifiers (yup, even when "good grammar" is requested), illogical arguments, a lack of decent claims, passive voice, and off-topic information. 

I'm not even talking about the obviously dumb stuff--the so-called "hallucinations." (Watching pro and con AI pundits anthropomorphize a machine, for good or ill, doesn't exactly impress me with their scientific acumen.)

Here is an AI-produced passage:

Recognizing the potential for cognitive development, social interaction, and personal enjoyment, fostering a healthy gaming environment becomes essential. As gatekeepers, parents should engage with their children, exploring age- appropriate games together and understanding the positive impact these experiences can have on skill development  and social dynamics. By fostering open conversations, setting boundaries, and promoting responsible gaming  practices, parents can harness the potential of video games as valuable tools for the growth and development of their children.

Here is what it means:

Seeing the possibility for improved thinking skills, people skills, and fun [dangling modifier]. As the people in charge of what enters the home, parents should work with their children, checking out child-level games together and grasping the good [nonsensical parallelism followed by a vague phrase] can have on improved abilities and people skills. By encouraging their children to talk, creating rules, and encouraging responsible behavior, parents can make video games a useful means for the improvement of their children.

In other words, the passage repeats the same thing over and over without producing any real meat. What type of improved thinking and people skills? How do video games foster "healthy gaming environments"? Specifically? What type of boundaries? What does "age-appropriate" even mean? Which games, for that matter? 

The passage says absolutely nothing--but, hey, it says absolutely nothing a lot!

It is embarrassing how many English and Humanities instructors buy into this stuff.

Even more embarrassing: in the last year, it has gotten WORSE. 

Here is an AI passage produced within the last month:

Whether they reside in a bustling city apartment or a quiet countryside home, cats effortlessly adjust to their surroundings. This adaptability makes them suitable companions for individuals with diverse lifestyles. Additionally, cats are known for being low-maintenance pets, requiring less attention than some other animals, making them an excellent choice for busy individuals.

The same paragraph with my notes:

Whether they reside in a bustling city apartment or a quiet countryside home, cats effortlessly adjust to their surroundings [logical fallacy of hasty generalization—sounds like a generic advertising statement]. This adaptability makes them suitable companions for individuals with diverse lifestyles [such as?]. Additionally, cats are known for [passive voice] being low-maintenance pets, requiring less attention than some other animals, making them an excellent choice for busy individuals. [Off-topic—no longer about cats but about owners.]

Frankly, I expect better from my students. And I always have.

Trollope Continued: Review of The Warden & Entirely Relevant Trollope Quotes about Social Media

The Warden by Anthony Trollope (see T is for Terrific Trollope) revolves around an important religious issue in the 19th century (and now). A clergyman is living, partly, on the income derived from the property attached to an Almshouse. As the Almshouse property value increased, the amount extended through charity remained relatively the same. The older men at the Almshouse--who are basically in assisted living--are not abused or even struggling. Nonetheless, in truth, the clergyman is living a rather well-padded existence based on a charity that gives him most of the money.

The clergyman is a good, decent, sweet-natured, timid man who honestly looks after his charges. When the disparity in the funds' distribution is brought to his attention, he is devastated.
 
The matter is brought to his attention through the actions of a reform-minded young man in the neighborhood, Mr. Bold, who starts the entire matter. It is exacerbated by the clergyman's son-in-law, an officious self-righteous blowhard with no tact (though even with this character, Trollope goes out of his way to point out that the events have highlighted the man's faults more than his virtues; and he did pay the lawyers' bills!), and by the newspapers. 
 
Much of  Trollope's most trenchant commentary is delivered about the news. If anyone foresaw Twitter, it was Trollope!
 
Here reigns a pope, self-nominated, self-consecrated...a pope hitherto afraid of no Luther...who manages his own inquisition, who punishes unbelievers...one who can excommunicate thoroughly, fearfully, radically; put you beyond the pale of men's charity, make you odious to your dearest friends, and turn you into a monster...
 
Bold thinks of his editor friend: 
 
"[He accuses Harding, the clergyman] as an imposter on no other testimony than my chance conversation; but when I offer him real evidence opposed to his views, he tells me that private motives are detrimental to public justice!"
 
[Trollope's perhaps unfair but clever criticism of Dickens whom he calls Mr. Sentiment]: 
 
"His good poor people are so very good; his hard rich people so very hard; and the genuinely honest so very honest."
 
What makes the book so remarkable is that Trollope so closely and excitingly (!) portrays what is a quite domestic matter--a small issue of a single Almshouse in a single town--yet matters tremendously to the people involved.
 
In the end, the clergyman resigns. A timid man with a fierce conscience and strong integrity, he is the most lovable character in the book. 
 
But nobody is left better off. The charitable trust isn't fixed. The old men have lost a patron who truly cared about them. And the position, warden of the almshouse, is not filled, which is both good (the issue should be fixed first) and bad (the care of the elderly is left untended). It's not right or wrong. It's messy fall-out from life being life and people being people.
 
Barchester Chronicles was televised by the BBC in 1982. It stars such notables as Donald Pleasance, Nigel Hawthorne, Alan Rickman, David Gwillim, and a number of extraordinary female actors, including Phyllida Law. The Warden is quite faithful to the text and Donald Pleasance, as the Warden, naturally shines. Alan Rickman in the story's continuation, Barchester Towers, is so creepy as a self-serving sycophant, he is actually enjoyable to watch (creepy sychophants are usually not my thing but, well, Alan Rickman). 

Like the book, the series is domestic, funny, devastating, and spellbinding all at once. And it doesn't do what so many current BBC productions do: "improve" on the material. Trollope was a master at making the large problem personal and the personal problem loom large. There's no point in "improving" him.

T is for Terrific Trollope

What I read:
The American Senator by Anthony Trollope

Trollope is fun. Reading Trollope is rather like reading Dickens, Austen, and People magazine all at the same time. Trollope creates gentle yet ironic, deftly drawn characterizations. One of the most impressive achievements of The American Senator is that I ended up routing for the cold, manipulative femme fatale. Trollope does a fair job depicting the reality of life for a single English woman in the gentry class circa 1900. The machinations of the femme fatale become understandable, even justifiable, the further you get into that world.

I don't think Trollope would have expected me to side so much with this character (Arabella). I think I was supposed to be bowled over by the sweet, kind, heartwarming mirror to Arabella. But Trollope is too good at what he does to NOT to give Arabella a complex personality.

The book is also hilarious. Towards the end, the narrator tells us:
The duke had objected to the term "thoroughly bad girl," which had been applied by his wife to his niece. He had said that "thoroughly bad girl" was strong language, and when the duchess defended the phrase he had expressed his opinion that Arabella was only a bad girl and not a thoroughly bad girl. The duchess had said that it was the same thing. "Then," said the duke, "why use a redundant expletive against your own relative?" The duchess, when she was accused of strong language, had not minded it much; but her feelings were hurt when a redundant expletive was attributed to her.

This is Monty-Python level humor! Great stuff.

Despite liking Trollope so much, I probably won't be reading him again soon. The American Senator took me about 2 months. Seriously. It was like reading War & Peace except the names were easier to follow, and it was less depressing. But talk about long.

But I do recommend him!

2023: Review of Barchester Chronicles's Book One, The Warden, to follow!  

Fairy Tales: T is for Thoughtful Transformations

For T, I read About the Sleeping Beauty by P.L. Travers and a collection of Russian tales by Tolstoy.

Despite the urban fantasies of P.L. Travers and the occasional fantastical motifs within Tolstoy, neither are writers that I associate with folklore.
 
P.L. Travers' book interested me because it reminded me of Vivian Vande Velde's collection of fantasy short stories surrounding The Rumplestiltskin Problem.  
 
Like Vande Velde's collection, P.L. Travers' collection presents a discourse on the tale though Travers' discourse comes after her retelling and before the various versions she has collected, from Grimm, Perrault and others.
 
Vande Velde focuses on the inherent inconsistencies of the original tale and Travers does the same in passing (Why not invite the thirteenth fairy?!). However, while commenting on Sleeping Beauty, she comments on fairy tales in general. The quotes are worth presenting in full:
 
"Is it not true that the fairy tale has always been in a continuous process of transformation? One cannot say of any of the Sleeping Beauties in this book that here is the sole and absolute source, if, indeed such a thing exists." 
 
The best-known version "is as though the tale itself, through its own energy and need, had winnowed away everything but the true whole grain." 
 
"[My version] was written not at all to improve the story...but to ventilate my own thoughts about it." 
 
"[W]e must not forget that there has to be a story...and once we have accepted the story, we cannot escape the story's fate." 
 
"The Thirteenth Wise Woman stands a guardian of the threshold, the paradoxical adversary without whose presence no threshold may be passed...she, not the heroine, is the goddess in the machine" [I love this line: the goddess in the machine]. 
 
"No amount of rationalising will bring us to the heart of the fairy tale." 
 
Like Vande Velde, Travers does attempt to explain some loose ends, such as the king (or sultan, in Travers' version) wiping out a cottage industry in order to protect his daughter. Travers has the spinners turn to other occupations and the merchants make a bundle importing fabrics from other kingdoms!
 
While I'm not generally a fan of the Mary Poppins' books, I admire their intense fantastical reality. Though I didn't find Travers' version of Sleeping Beauty all that unique, I did find it engaging. Travers knows how to write!  

A look at Tolstoy's fairy tales will follow next week.

Cats Like to Look Cool

One of the most delightful traits of cats is that they try to look cool! 

Despite their sure-footedness, they knock over lamps, push food out of cupboards, scatter stuff like packing peanuts over a wide area, slap down stacks of papers and then roll in them...in a phrase, they cause messes

Except the messes aren't messes--they are, ah, art, interior decorating, intentional rearrangements of one's living room (and yes, I am anthropomorphizing).

The first cat that I took complete responsibility for, Aurora, once ran across my table, slid into the glass doors, got up and sauntered away. It wasn't a mistake. It was a stunt!

The two pictures here illustrate the sheer delight of cats that cause messes and then, like Akihito, claim, "It wasn't me. I didn't do it!" 

In both cases, the human-animal hybrid makes the jokes (even) funnier, like Cat from Red Dwarf.


Stop the Christie Murder: Death on the Nile and Murder in Mesopotamia, Murder & Affairs

*Spoilers*

I reference the ridiculous murder in Death on the Nile here. It is one of the easiest to prevent since all anyone has to do is not leave the murderer alone when he is supposedly shot (the reason for leaving him alone isn't plausible--one of the other passengers should have gone for the doctor, not taken the accomplice TO the doctor). 

Murder in Mesopotamia is less easy to prevent. Although the particular murder in the book is easily prevented (I don't think anyone should be sticking their head through the bars of windows, anyway), the murderer is fairly remorseless. He would likely try again and succeed. 

The question here is, Could the reason for the murder be prevented? 

I generally ignore motive since murderous intent is (1) not other people's fault; (2) not necessarily based on anything substantial enough to merit intervention, no matter what "crime is the fault of society" folks try to preach. Dorothy Sayers argues in multiple places that figuring out HOW is far more important than WHY since there are too many WHYs: the murderer could be anyone!

However, in both above books, a "stolen" lover and an affair are the direct motivations. Could my intervention detectives stop the events that set everything into motion?

Christie makes clear with Death on the Nile that the instigator is Simon, not Jacqueline or even Linnet. Although Poirot points out to Linnet that she took her friend's lover, he does so to stop her prevaricating. He still pities her (Branagh's version also shows Linnet in a reasonably positive light). 

The problem is Simon who, like Willoughby from Sense & Sensibility, wants love and money. Jacqueline, with a more sensitive conscience, goes along to prevent him messing up the matter. 

I think my prevention detectives could stop the ill-fated marriage between Linnet and Simon. They could point out Simon's avaricious nature using bank records and testimonials (Linnet is fairly hard-headed). They could put pressure on Jacqueline to abandon the plan. They could excoriate Simon, who wouldn't care to see himself as dishonorable. All the parties involved are human enough to be stopped. 

Murder in Mesopotamia would be more difficult but at least one member of the party, Richard Carey, feels guilty enough about the affair to potentially be stopped. 

Here is where motive gets messy, though. Even if the affair was prevented, it is possible that the husband, Dr. Leidner, would still kill his wife. Her betrayal is less physical and more emotional. It isn't that she is having sex with Carey; it is that she has fallen in love with him. 

The prevention investigators would have their job cut out for them. 

I have always been impressed that Agatha Christie, whose first husband left her to marry another woman, was able not only to extend compassion to those embroiled in love affairs but to also see them as differing from each other considerably. 

Her mysteries always come back to character.

S is for So-So Sansom and Stunning Sutcliff

What I read: Dissolution by C.J. Sansom

The book is a historical mystery, and it does a lot of things right. The author manages to combine a modern voice with a historical perspective. To my mind, this is exactly how historical novels should be written.

For example, I dislike historical novels where everyone speaks "forsoothly." It's one thing to put up with that kind of language from Shakespeare (after all, he has an excuse). It's another to put up with it from a modern writer who will, inevitably, get the "forsoothiness" wrong anyway.

In any case, medieval people didn't sound "forsoothly" to each other. Why not just make them sound like human beings? Especially since human greed and political-mongering ain't exactly new to the human race. It isn't as if everyone hit the Middle Ages and then got all high-minded and archaic about certain behaviors. So why make it sound that way?

A Man for All Seasons is a good example of a play that captures the politicking and even the formalism of court speech while avoiding the "forsoothiness".

The other thing Sansom does right is capture the historical mindset. He is writing about the time period right after Queen Anne was beheaded. Henry VIII, through Cromwell, is attempting to dismantle the Catholic monasteries piece by piece.

Sansom does an excellent job capturing the complexity of the issue. The most remarkable thing to me is how little resistance there was. This was not a case of an entirely Catholic country being turned, overnight, into a Protestant one. Many English men and women were already headed into, or firmly entrenched in, Protestant territory when Henry VIII broke with the Catholic church (a weasly powerplay, if there ever was one).

Which doesn't mean nobody put up a fight (hence priest holes and plotting to put Mary, Queen of Scots on the throne during Elizabeth's reign), especially since Henry VIII and Cromwell were motivated as much by greed and power as by any particular theology. (Dismantle a monastery, get its land, fill your coffers!) Sansom wends his way skillfully through what must have been a quagmire of good, bad, and ambivalent intentions.

And it was boring. It shouldn't have been. But it was. I was so impressed by Sansom's skill with the historical time period, I got out his second book, but it didn't take, and I never even finished the first (I got to within the last chapter, skipped ahead, discovered the murderer, and put the book down with a grateful sigh).

I actually recommend the book if you like well-written, historical, medieval mysteries. But don't blame me if you run out of interest!

2023: Sutcliff's The Eagle or The Eagle of the Ninth

This first A-Z list was originally meant to be an exploration of fiction authors I'd never read before (the second list is fiction books I have read). I have read several of Rosemary Sutcliff's books. 

However, I hadn't read The Eagle

I decided to read The Eagle after I learned about it from a Great Course's History Films DVD. I watched the movie, read the book, then watched the movie again. 

Rosemary Sutcliff is a skilled writer. Like Sansom, she captures the time period though her prose is rather more readable. These days, I don't read books as quickly as I used, but I finished The Eagle in record time. In fact, I read it faster than the time I'd given myself, I was so engaged. 

Sutcliff tackles early medieval history, the first four centuries of the C.E. era before and after the Romans occupied Britain. It should be noted: she wrote these books before The Mists of Avalon and other such novels. And she is quite accurate, not only to Roman Britain but to the culture and the mindset. 

Marcus, for instance, casually accepts Esca as a slave right up until someone challenges his decision to travel past Hadrian's Wall with Esca, at which point he frees Esca (I discuss the film change to this detail below). Likewise, although both Marcus and his uncle disparage the "games" (mostly for being lousy--in the movie, Donald Sutherland as the uncle says in his deadpan way, "This is fun. Right?"), nobody stands up and says, "My goodness, killing people for entertainment is so wrong. Stop it, now! Where are the protesters!?" 

In addition, Sutcliff manages--in all of her books--to balance the perspectives of her characters. Marcus and Esca are Roman and Briton. Marcus serves Rome yet comes to realize that he truly doesn't desire to go home--technically to an Italian province, not Rome, a detail Sutcliff gets right. Esca has opposed Roman rule but is willing to move on with his companion and his companion's wife-to-be to the land rewarded by the Senate. Neither of them is apologetic about their stances. Neither of them sees any conflict between their soldiering and "retirement." 

They are primarily military men in their thinking: We fight. We stop fighting. We do something else. 

The movie captures that mindset extremely well. It is, in many ways, a military film. 

There are a few changes. Marcus doesn't free Esca until almost the end of the film. At first, I thought the filmmakers were trying to make some sort of statement, but actually, after the second viewing, I think they were heightening tension about Esca's motives. 

The ending of the movie is exciting but I found the book's ending more suspenseful and interesting. However, I don't  hold the difference against the filmmakers. I thought it was clear that whoever wrote the script honestly loved and admired the book. Most changes seem to be visual/plotting alterations rather than a desire to "improve" the book. I was quite touched since I love to see a book given due tribute. 

I do think the film should have used the book ending for the eagle--rather than trying to do one ending with an alternate--but I like the movie ending anyway for the mutual look of "you are not a soldier, dude, so shut up" the two young men give the Roman politician. 

I recommend the movie and the book!