Now, don't get me wrong: I don't hate my job. It is as good a way to earn a living as anything else. But this is what it is - a way to earn a living. It does not fill my life with meaning, or make me jump out of bed with a song on my lips wondering what lovely things will happen to me today. The answer to the question "Would you quit your job if you won 20 million?" (not likely to happen in my case as I don't play the Lottery) is, for my part, "YES OF COURSE. Are you crazy?"
Surely I'm not the only one to feel this way? So how can one explain the current annoying fashion of glorifying work? As week follows dreary working week, I feel insult is added to injury when opinion makers buy into the "work ennobles" fad. Measures that may make perfect pragmatic sense but are bound to raise a few grumbles are pitched with a mixture of enthusiastic "work for work's sake" rhetoric and lofty incomprehension of the fact that anyone could actually mind working more, sometimes for less. A more modest "I know this sounds crazy, but this is why it's a good idea" approach would have more chance of persuading me. I have a pet theory that a lot of conflict is caused by the gulf between those who love their job and those who don't and their mutual failure to see each other's point of view. There may be something in it - or I may just be tired and wishing all-too-chirpy-seeming PMs/mayors/newspaper columnists would shut their face. To quote Ariel: "Is there more toil?" (and I certainly don't blame him for his low level of job satisfaction).
Sorry for straying from the vaguely-cultural blog theme a bit. I'm not going to have another Slackbridgeian attack - I just need a holiday.
Not much is happening book- and TV-wise. I promised myself to read more books in the Swedish language this year, as my daily speech has become ever more crowded with anglicized words. The project started well, with a vivacious novel about an old Swedish scandal and the dire consequences of a king taking a lover so unsuitable he makes Piers Gaveston look like Jackie Kennedy. The book even starred an enjoyable villain in the shape of a ruthless (and of course vice-free) court official. Heartened, I over-ambitiously decided to follow up with a novel by Strindberg: his autobiographical tale The Son of a Servant. Let's just say I haven't progressed very far. It is a very good depiction of a troubled childhood, but I'm just not that fond of childhood depictions. Please give me the adult world of gossip and love affairs instead - and of course brainy villains.
onsdag 28 mars 2012
onsdag 21 mars 2012
Far from the maddening accidents
I must confess to only ever having read one novel by Thomas Hardy. It wasn't even one of the famous ones: it was The Hand of Ethelberta, an unusually light-hearted Hardy novel where nothing very terrible happens. That, I'm afraid, is exactly why I read it. But even without grave misfortunes hailing down on the characters, I found the prose pretty hard going. Yes, the plotting was good, there were memorable set-pieces and the characterisation was strong - it is quite an achievement when you can make readers care for a pronounced goody like Ethelberta's sweet sister. But when even The Hand of Ethelberta isn't an altogether easy read, I wonder what Jude the Obscure must be like.
As someone who claims to have a great interest in Victorian novels, I have often felt that I should read something more by Hardy. I have toyed with the idea of reading Far from the Madding Crowd, as it ends - kind of - happily and I know about the tragic bits in it. But after having re-watched the ITV adaptation with Paloma Baeza, I feel less inclined to give it a go than ever.
I watched the film with Julie Christie when very young, and chiefly remember one thing about it: the dishy Peter Finch as farmer Boldwood gazing devotedly at Julie Christie's Bathsheba with those wonderful eyes. I spent the whole film thinking Bathsheba a goose for not wanting to marry Boldwood - and a good-for-nothing, flirtatious goose at that, sending him that Valentine card and making his heartache worse. The ITV adaptation's handling of the Boldwood affair was enlightening. I'm not saying Nigel Terry doesn't cut a fine and upstanding figure as Boldwood, but he's not Peter Finch, and I suspect that farmer Boldwood really shouldn't be a Peter Finch. A catch in the eyes of the neighbourhood, yes, but not too dreamboaty. Furthermore, in this version, Boldwood has no interest in Bathsheba before he receives the Valentine card - which makes her joke less insensitive - and his passion for her and inability to take no for an answer is slightly unhinged from the start. This makes Bathsheba's behaviour more understandable, though she is still darn silly. In the ITV version, Gabriel Oak, Bathsheba's "best" suitor, is played by Nathaniel Parker, and it's clearly shown that he is shrewd as well as loyal and honest. Falling for the flashy Sergeant Troy instead is about the worst thing Bathsheba could do - but fall for him she duly does.
Silly heroines are nothing new, and I think I could be able to stand Bathsheba Everdene even in the novel format. But the sheer bad luck that keeps upsetting the lives of Hardy's characters, now that's something else. The most well-known - and most parodied - feature of Hardy's novels is the cruel tricks of fate he visits on his poor characters. It is always satisfying to be able to claim that the generally held opinion of an author is a mistaken one or at the very least a simplification, but I'm afraid I've seen nothing to contradict it so far. In Far from the Madding Crowd, Gabriel's farm goes bust because his untutored dog chases all his sheep over a cliff; Sergeant Troy is prevented from marrying his true love Fanny Robin due to a mix-up over the churches; Boldwood goes nuts over that Valentine card which, but for chance, would have been sent to a boy at Bathsheba's farm instead who would have had the sense to take it as the joke it is; and Boldwood's attempts to draw a promise of marriage from Bathsheba are always frustrated at the last minute (admittedly, this is more Troy's fault than fate's). And this all happens in a book which is considered to be lighter fare than the usual run of Hardy novels!
The prolonged agony of Tess Durbeyfield in Polanski's film Tess doesn't exactly have me reaching for Tess of the d'Urbervilles either. If she has to hang, she has to hang, but was all that suffering beforehand really necessary? I'd better stick with what I know, i.e. Dickens and Collins and such - even the villains fare better with them than Hardy's protagonists do.
As someone who claims to have a great interest in Victorian novels, I have often felt that I should read something more by Hardy. I have toyed with the idea of reading Far from the Madding Crowd, as it ends - kind of - happily and I know about the tragic bits in it. But after having re-watched the ITV adaptation with Paloma Baeza, I feel less inclined to give it a go than ever.
I watched the film with Julie Christie when very young, and chiefly remember one thing about it: the dishy Peter Finch as farmer Boldwood gazing devotedly at Julie Christie's Bathsheba with those wonderful eyes. I spent the whole film thinking Bathsheba a goose for not wanting to marry Boldwood - and a good-for-nothing, flirtatious goose at that, sending him that Valentine card and making his heartache worse. The ITV adaptation's handling of the Boldwood affair was enlightening. I'm not saying Nigel Terry doesn't cut a fine and upstanding figure as Boldwood, but he's not Peter Finch, and I suspect that farmer Boldwood really shouldn't be a Peter Finch. A catch in the eyes of the neighbourhood, yes, but not too dreamboaty. Furthermore, in this version, Boldwood has no interest in Bathsheba before he receives the Valentine card - which makes her joke less insensitive - and his passion for her and inability to take no for an answer is slightly unhinged from the start. This makes Bathsheba's behaviour more understandable, though she is still darn silly. In the ITV version, Gabriel Oak, Bathsheba's "best" suitor, is played by Nathaniel Parker, and it's clearly shown that he is shrewd as well as loyal and honest. Falling for the flashy Sergeant Troy instead is about the worst thing Bathsheba could do - but fall for him she duly does.
Silly heroines are nothing new, and I think I could be able to stand Bathsheba Everdene even in the novel format. But the sheer bad luck that keeps upsetting the lives of Hardy's characters, now that's something else. The most well-known - and most parodied - feature of Hardy's novels is the cruel tricks of fate he visits on his poor characters. It is always satisfying to be able to claim that the generally held opinion of an author is a mistaken one or at the very least a simplification, but I'm afraid I've seen nothing to contradict it so far. In Far from the Madding Crowd, Gabriel's farm goes bust because his untutored dog chases all his sheep over a cliff; Sergeant Troy is prevented from marrying his true love Fanny Robin due to a mix-up over the churches; Boldwood goes nuts over that Valentine card which, but for chance, would have been sent to a boy at Bathsheba's farm instead who would have had the sense to take it as the joke it is; and Boldwood's attempts to draw a promise of marriage from Bathsheba are always frustrated at the last minute (admittedly, this is more Troy's fault than fate's). And this all happens in a book which is considered to be lighter fare than the usual run of Hardy novels!
The prolonged agony of Tess Durbeyfield in Polanski's film Tess doesn't exactly have me reaching for Tess of the d'Urbervilles either. If she has to hang, she has to hang, but was all that suffering beforehand really necessary? I'd better stick with what I know, i.e. Dickens and Collins and such - even the villains fare better with them than Hardy's protagonists do.
tisdag 13 mars 2012
Wrapping up Great Expectations
The last episode of the new Great Expectations adaptation was a bit of a let-down, because once again - it was the same with the Rampling version - they failed to get the relationship between Pip and Magwitch right. It is really important that an adapter follows Dickens closely here. In the novel, Magwitch never guesses that Pip is disappointed in his benefactor - and I and I suspect a great many other readers want to keep it that way. But no, the modern the-truth-must-out-generation feels compelled to change the story so that Magwitch does suss that he's not wanted, but by the end he and Pip have formed a bond based on true feelings. For pity's sake, people! There are more important things than honesty at all costs, and Magwitch's affection for Pip being undimmed by trouble from first to last is one of them. Go and do a high school movie and get all that "truth prevails" nonsense out of your systems.
Miss Havisham's personality change ended up bugging me more in the last episode than in the two previous ones, as she's not even allowed a proper epiphany. The TV adaptation's Miss Havisham, apart from her little-girl-lost ways, is also meaner to Pip than she was in the book. There, Miss Havisham's cruelty was more an indication of indifference than anything else: Pip was someone for Estella to practice on, and someone Miss Havisham could annoy her relatives with. He was collateral damage. In the adaptation, as a contrast, she starts him dreaming of becoming a gentleman only to consciously dash his hopes by paying for his apprenticeship. I don't think it entered Miss Havisham's head in the novel that her payment of Pip's apprenticeship might not be welcomed by him. Even so, there is an argument for a more malicious Havisham-treatment of Pip: he is a man, after all.
What is necessary, in my view, is that Miss Havisham realises the grief she has caused him and others by witnessing his impassioned plea to Estella. She recognises the pain of thwarted love and is sorry. This is central to the novel: in the adaptation, however, Miss Havisham is unmoved by Pip's plight and doesn't scruple to make things worse by insulting him. It's only after she's lost Estella completely that she asks his forgiveness, rather half-heartedly. Her death becomes more or less another act of self-indulgence.
These and a few changes to Magwitch's back story which left Jaggers looking worse than he is were my main gripes, but other things were handled well. Pip's debts were reduced to an amount which it would be plausible for Joe to pay off. Pip paying Magwitch's jailers and undertakers with bits and pieces of his gentleman uniform such as his rings and his cane was a nice touch, and so was Estella thanking the horse that did for the spot-on loathsome Drummle. The ending, thankfully, had the right note of hope. All in all, still a better Great Expectation adaptation than the last one.
What is the BBC planning to do next in the Victorian novel genre, though? A new Moonstone, if you please! I've started to rewatch the spendidly cast version from 1996 trying to figure out how they could possibly improve on it. No luck so far. The story moves along smoothly, the characters are shorn of their most irritating characteristics and played by the cream of English actordom. As I've said before, I find The Moonstone overrated as a book, and this is already a better adaptation than it deserves. Why waste time on a new one? Please, BBC, be a little original once in a while. Why not do Armadale instead?
Miss Havisham's personality change ended up bugging me more in the last episode than in the two previous ones, as she's not even allowed a proper epiphany. The TV adaptation's Miss Havisham, apart from her little-girl-lost ways, is also meaner to Pip than she was in the book. There, Miss Havisham's cruelty was more an indication of indifference than anything else: Pip was someone for Estella to practice on, and someone Miss Havisham could annoy her relatives with. He was collateral damage. In the adaptation, as a contrast, she starts him dreaming of becoming a gentleman only to consciously dash his hopes by paying for his apprenticeship. I don't think it entered Miss Havisham's head in the novel that her payment of Pip's apprenticeship might not be welcomed by him. Even so, there is an argument for a more malicious Havisham-treatment of Pip: he is a man, after all.
What is necessary, in my view, is that Miss Havisham realises the grief she has caused him and others by witnessing his impassioned plea to Estella. She recognises the pain of thwarted love and is sorry. This is central to the novel: in the adaptation, however, Miss Havisham is unmoved by Pip's plight and doesn't scruple to make things worse by insulting him. It's only after she's lost Estella completely that she asks his forgiveness, rather half-heartedly. Her death becomes more or less another act of self-indulgence.
These and a few changes to Magwitch's back story which left Jaggers looking worse than he is were my main gripes, but other things were handled well. Pip's debts were reduced to an amount which it would be plausible for Joe to pay off. Pip paying Magwitch's jailers and undertakers with bits and pieces of his gentleman uniform such as his rings and his cane was a nice touch, and so was Estella thanking the horse that did for the spot-on loathsome Drummle. The ending, thankfully, had the right note of hope. All in all, still a better Great Expectation adaptation than the last one.
What is the BBC planning to do next in the Victorian novel genre, though? A new Moonstone, if you please! I've started to rewatch the spendidly cast version from 1996 trying to figure out how they could possibly improve on it. No luck so far. The story moves along smoothly, the characters are shorn of their most irritating characteristics and played by the cream of English actordom. As I've said before, I find The Moonstone overrated as a book, and this is already a better adaptation than it deserves. Why waste time on a new one? Please, BBC, be a little original once in a while. Why not do Armadale instead?
tisdag 6 mars 2012
A neurotic Miss Havisham vs... another neurotic Miss Havisham
I have finally watched two of the episodes of the most recent Great Expectations TV adaptation (Yes, I know, GE again... but it is the Dickens Bicentenary after all), and I must reluctantly confess that I do not hate it. I had no time at all for Sarah Phelps's Oliver Twist adaptation, as I've mentioned in this blog before, but this is quite different. Maybe it helps that, according to a newspaper article Phelps wrote, Great Expectations is her favourite Dickens novel. She seems to understand Pip in a way she didn't understand Oliver, and so she has not changed the character overmuch. The other characters are relatively unscathed too. Joe is good and honest - if a bit more rugged and less simple than one is used to - Jaggers is splendidly stony (you'll never see David Suchet behaving less like Poirot), Orlick is properly scary and no working-class hero as in the Beeb's previous adaptation, though his case is made. Herbert Pocket behaves brattishly as a child, which is a bit of a shame, but when he appears again as a grown-up he is just as charming as he should be. Estella is treated much too kindly, but then she almost always is.
The only character radically different from the book is Miss Havisham - and here, Phelps is helped by the fact that the previous adaptation with Charlotte Rampling wasn't true to the Miss Havisham character either. Also, I have to admit that traditional Miss Havishams have a hard time making the character as chilling and as poignant as she should be. Miss Havisham is tricky. She is so very histrionic - but at the same time, she has been through every woman's nightmare, so you can't dismiss her behaviour as being completely incomprehensible. I can understand the temptation to try to make something different out of her than the usual bird's-nest-wigged hag. Where Rampling was nervy and slightly diva-ish, Gillian Anderson goes one better. Her Miss Havisham has the manner and voice of a child-bride whose development has been arrested: if Dora Spenlow had been jilted on her wedding day (and had been more ill-natured) she might have ended up like this. It's a pity all the same, this trend for neurotic Miss Havishams. Dickens's jilted bride had a wryness which is lost if you play her as self-indulgent and round the twist: in some ways, in spite of never getting over Compeyson's betrayal, she is still a tough old bird.
The best TV adaptation of Great Expectations, in my view, is still the one from 1989 with Jean Simmons as Miss Havisham, John Rhys-Davies as a sweet Joe and (somewhat improbably) Anthony Hopkins as Magwitch. But then, that adaptation had oceans of time at its disposal and could include such things as Wemmick's private "castle" and his Aged P. Phelps has much less time and has been forced to prune the story ruthlessly: Biddy has been sacrificed, as has (to Phelps's own regret) the Aged P. I don't care much for Biddy - I'm sure she doesn't guilt-trip Pip consciously, but her mopeyness is one of the reasons he feels so ill at ease with his old family once he has become a gentleman, and thus avoids them when he can. Still, Biddy is essential to Joe's happy ending, and I wonder how the third episode will work out without her. Orlick, surely, is less central to the plot and could have more easily been disposed of. For all that, so far, this adaptation is an improvement on the last one. Now a great deal hinges on how the relationship between Pip and Magwitch is depicted in episode three.
The only character radically different from the book is Miss Havisham - and here, Phelps is helped by the fact that the previous adaptation with Charlotte Rampling wasn't true to the Miss Havisham character either. Also, I have to admit that traditional Miss Havishams have a hard time making the character as chilling and as poignant as she should be. Miss Havisham is tricky. She is so very histrionic - but at the same time, she has been through every woman's nightmare, so you can't dismiss her behaviour as being completely incomprehensible. I can understand the temptation to try to make something different out of her than the usual bird's-nest-wigged hag. Where Rampling was nervy and slightly diva-ish, Gillian Anderson goes one better. Her Miss Havisham has the manner and voice of a child-bride whose development has been arrested: if Dora Spenlow had been jilted on her wedding day (and had been more ill-natured) she might have ended up like this. It's a pity all the same, this trend for neurotic Miss Havishams. Dickens's jilted bride had a wryness which is lost if you play her as self-indulgent and round the twist: in some ways, in spite of never getting over Compeyson's betrayal, she is still a tough old bird.
The best TV adaptation of Great Expectations, in my view, is still the one from 1989 with Jean Simmons as Miss Havisham, John Rhys-Davies as a sweet Joe and (somewhat improbably) Anthony Hopkins as Magwitch. But then, that adaptation had oceans of time at its disposal and could include such things as Wemmick's private "castle" and his Aged P. Phelps has much less time and has been forced to prune the story ruthlessly: Biddy has been sacrificed, as has (to Phelps's own regret) the Aged P. I don't care much for Biddy - I'm sure she doesn't guilt-trip Pip consciously, but her mopeyness is one of the reasons he feels so ill at ease with his old family once he has become a gentleman, and thus avoids them when he can. Still, Biddy is essential to Joe's happy ending, and I wonder how the third episode will work out without her. Orlick, surely, is less central to the plot and could have more easily been disposed of. For all that, so far, this adaptation is an improvement on the last one. Now a great deal hinges on how the relationship between Pip and Magwitch is depicted in episode three.
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