Adaptation Review: Persuasion [2007]

This is the very first time I’m reviewing an adaptation but seeing it’s still highly relevant, and, after all, I have reviewed The Turn of the Screw in Opera, I thought why not? I do have a penchant for those lovely BBC Regency and Victorian productions. It’s also fun to spot any other British actors in any one of these productions. It seems like a rite of passage for each actor to star at least once in a BBC period piece, Miss Marple or Poirot.

This 2007 adaptation of Persuasion really is a lovely companion to the novel. It is fairly short and it doesn’t attempt to laboriously reproduce and insert each and every scene. Sally Hawkins (Fingersmith, Happy-Go-Lucky) plays Anne Elliot, an unmarried 27-year old woman who is pushed around and unappreciated by her family. Her father (played here by Anthony Head a.k.a. ‘Giles’) and elder sister, Elizabeth, are very proud people who are adamant that segregation between high and low society and the purity of titles be maintained. At the age of nineteen, Anne was persuaded by her godmother to reject the proposal of her beloved because he was a poor, penniless sailor. Broken hearted, Frederic Wentworth (a very worthy and most eye catching , Rupert Penry-Jones) leaves for the seas.

In the current day, Anne’s father and sister have bankrupted the family’s fortune with their reckless spending and inability to concede that they are not as wealthy as their title (Sir Elliot) may indicate. Their family home is let out and Sir Elliot and Elizabeth go off to Bath while Anne goes to stay with her younger, married and whiny sister nearby. In true Austenite coincidences, the Elliot house is leased to Frederic’s sister and her husband. News have come that Frederic, now Captain Wentworth, is now extremely wealthy and is coming down to visit. News of Captain Wentworth’s return distresses Anne, angry that she was persuaded to let go of the one man she truly ever loved and she is certain that he is still angry that she could have been so easily persuaded. The two inevitably meet, moving in the same circle of friends, and there is a lot of subtle flirting and tension as they get to know one another again without meaning to.

The cast was fantastic although I wasn’t too sure about Hawkins’ Anne. I had imagined Anne as more confident and not as easily startled or flustered. Penry-Jones’ Captain Wentworth was divine. The camera work was a little bizarre sometimes, with odd angles and frames, the ending especially so with all the running and close ups.

I had read Persuasion last year and I absolutely loved it (though I didn’t review it). It is such a quiet, strong and mature approach to romance. Dare I say that I found it even more romantic than Pride and Prejudice? I thought Austen could never top Darcy but Wentworth (he went off to the seas to find his worth?) comes pretty darn close.

Booking Through Thursday

I haven’t done one of BTTs in awhile but I realised that Deb has posted my question that I asked earlier in the year! So I guess it can only be fitting that I join in.

“I couldn’t sleep a wink, so I just read and read, day and night … it was there I began to divide books into day books and night books,” she went on. “Really, there are books meant for daytime reading and books that can be read only at night.”
- ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera, p. 103.

Do you divide your books into day and night reads? How do you decide?

To a degree, I do. I don’t consciously divide my books but I find that my brain is more perceptive to some books during different times of the day as I discovered during uni. Lighter books that don’t need too much concentration are read during the day. The more difficult books, including non-fiction and theories, are read during the night. There’s really no point in trying to read and digest them during the day because I’d just need to re-read everything at night. I find I like reading classics most during the night.

This passage really struck me because I have sleep issues and am a semi-insomniac. I’m generally nocturnal and do everything better at night. It also makes me feel better and more energetic than during the day and in sunlight (perhaps I’m secretly a vampire. I do sparkle some times). All my best uni work, writing and research was done at 3am. 12am to around 4.30am is/was my peak and most productive period. Of course, since I started working, I can’t do that anymore but I always find myself up at 3.30ish on my days off even without meaning to.

Review: “In a Strange Room” by Damon Galgut [2010]

The hum of award season is in the air and I think this might be the very first time I’ve actually been interested in reading the shortlisted books while the hype is positively buzzing. In a Strange Room is certainly an interesting book, both plot and prose wise. It is divided into three sections and each can easily be considered short stories if taken out from the book. Each part drops us into the life of the main character, coincidentally named Damon, at different intervals of his life and each time while travelling.

The first part, The Follower, Damon is in Greece where he drawn to a stranger, a German named Reiner. The two cross paths several times and travel around together before they separate, swapping addresses. Back home in South Africa, Damon floats around, crashing on friends couches, moves about and struggles to settle down. He keeps up the correspondence with Reiner for two years when Reiner writes to tell him that he is coming to visit South Africa. Once they are reunited, their relationship and connection has altered. In attempts to cover the cracks, the two decide to go hiking across the country together. Damon feels alone as ever during the hike and Reiner seems determined to push Damon as far as possible to see when he’ll snap.

In the second part, The Lover, Damon is wandering around Zimbabwe a few years later, alone and rootless as ever. He joins a group of tourists who are heading up to Malawi even though he does not like anybody in the group. While on the train, he notices another group of travellers who arouses his interest. As his group journeys further, Damon feels more alone and isolated as ever, feeling unconnected with every place and every person.

If I was with somebody, he thinks, with somebody I loved, then I could love the place and even the grave too, I would be happy to be here. – p. 68

Time and time again, he bumps into the other group he spotted on the train and eventually joins them instead. The group is smaller and he is drawn to the Swiss twins, Alice and Jerome, but particularly Jerome with whom he shares a connection. Some time after their abrupt separation, Damon is travelling in Europe and visits the twins who have invited him to stay. His reunion with Jerome is confusing and charged with the things that are unsaid between them but in the end, this new connection also ends badly.

In the last and most powerful section, The Guardian, Damon is older and a little more settled. He is finding that he stays in places longer, setting up little routines and is not flitting about as much as he did when he was younger. Damon flies to Goa, planning for a six-month sojourn, with his friend Anna who only plans to stay for eight weeks. She is going to Goa in hopes that it will do her some good, having been released from a clinic recently. While in Goa, it is clear that Anna is bi-polar and has to be heavily medicated but even so, her illness takes an incredible hold over Anna. Before leaving, Anna challenges Damon if he could handle her to which he replied he most certainly could.

But already, just a few days into the trip, he understands that they’re playing by a new set of rules. She and he have always been on the same side, but it’s as if she’s changed allegiances somehow, to who or what he doesn’t know, though he comes gradually to understand that the danger to Anna, the force from which she must be protected, is inside her. – p. 131

Anna’s erratic behaviour eventually wears Damon down and in a lapse of watchfulness, Anna attempts suicide a week before she is due to fly back to South Africa.

This is really a remarkable book. The stories may not sound like much but the prose is something else altogether and may take some time getting used to. The narration switches between first and third person particularly during times, I think, when Damon feels the most removed from himself. There is a lot more first person in the last part when he is older and more settled. There are also no talking marks and conversation is integrated inside the prose but everything is done is such a marvelous and skilled way. Everything is parred back, sparse and very restrained but even so, the isolation, loneliness and rootlessness of Damon is very moving as he searches throughout the world for a place to call home. While this is also a book about South Africa, the tragedy of Damon is very difficult to ignore. A very beautiful and sad book.

And On a Side Note…

Perhaps I’ve been placed under the influence since I’m reading Booker shortlisted In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut or perhaps it’s because it’s really time that I did it.

I’m talking about going on the Big Trip that everybody must/should do at some point in their life, preferably while they’re young. People usually take it after high school or during university. Well, those have now also passed so I’ve decided that I will finally do the Big Trip next year. There is one problem. It seems that I’ll have to go it alone. All my friends have either already gone to the places I want to go, can’t get leave from work (darn real life), or won’t travel without their partners. As somebody who is an international travelling newbie, this is a scary scenario. I have only been to one country and it was with family.

So, along with asking all my friends several times and friends of friends, I thought, short of asking strangers, I’d first ask on my blog. At the very least, I would know that anybody who replies will have as much of a book fetish as I do and won’t complain if I stop at every, single bookstore or library along the way. So, the plan: I’m hoping to go backpacking in Europe, and perhaps adding in the top end of Africa if we can, for around two months next year, either in April-June or from September. Is anybody interested in going along with me? Email me!

And for the others, do you have any travelling tips? Have you backpacked around by yourself? Hopefully, the world won’t go into another financial meltdown again next year.

Review: “The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett [1911]

There’s something so wonderfully mature about this children’s classic. The Secret Garden begins with Mary Lennox, an unwanted and isolated ten year-old living in colonial India. Her mother, a beautiful and graceful woman, is much more concerned about parties and society than about her sullen, sickly child. Left alone almost all her life with her Indian servants, Mary grows to be a spoiled and snobbish girl who has come to expect that everything much be done for her. When an epidemic of cholera wipes out most of the village including her parents, Mary is sent to England to live with her uncle.

In England, Mary lives at Misselthwaite, a relatively secluded rambling estate on the Yorkshire moors. With the no-nonsense attitude of the servants, Mary soon learns that her usual behaviour will not do at Misselthwaite and that she must learn to be independent.

“Are you going to be my servant?” Mary asked, still in her imperious little Indian way.

Martha began to rub her grate again. “I’m Mrs. Medlock’s servant,” she said stoutly … “but you won’t much waitin’ on.”

“Who is going to dress me?” demanded Mary.

Martha sat up on her heels again and stared. She spoke in broad Yorkshire in her amazement.

“Canna’ tha’ dress thysen!” she said.

…

“No,” answered Mary, quite indignantly. “I never did in my life. My Ayah dressed me, of course.” – p. 25.

Mary eventually warms to Martha and they become friends. While Martha works, Mary explores the manor’s vast gardens displaying a surprising affinity to nature and wildlife. While she is free to wander the grounds as she pleases, Mary soon finds out about a secret garden that has been locked up for the last ten years after the devastating death of her aunt who had loved the garden.

During one violent storm, and strong winds circling the house making the noise known as ‘wuthering’, Mary hears somebody cry. Everybody denies there is anybody else in the house but Mary hears the cries again in the next few days and goes exploring. She finds Colin, her sickly, spoiled cousin, with a temper as bad as Mary’s when she first arrived. Colin has been isolated in his room ever since his mother died in childbirth. As a sickly child, Colin was expected to die but he clung on to life and for the last ten years, everybody, including Colin himself, has been waiting for his death. To the servants’ surprise, Mary and Colin enjoy each other’s company and together with Dickon, Martha’s good willed, nature loving brother, they set out to find and restore the secret garden and in doing so, effectively restore and regenerate themselves.

One of the most loveliest thing about reading this is seeing the growth of Mary and Colin under their own direction. Both sickly, bad tempered and spoiled when we first meet them they mature into healthy and empathetic children. Mary develops an endearing quality when she attempts to speak Yorkshire to Dickon and Martha to their amazement. With minimal help from the adults, both Mary and especially Colin uses the garden and positive thinking to transform themselves. It is also interesting to read the colonial undertones. Mary is made better by the fresh, wholesome Yorkshire wind and her ramblings along the moors with the wind blowing away the sickly heat and humidity Mary acquired in an ‘unnatural’ land. There is really nothing better than retuning or finding one’s home.

Review: “Beautiful For Ever” by Helen Rappaport [2010]

In Victorian England, the use of cosmetics was taboo. It was perceived as evil and corrupt and not dissimilar from witchcraft and sorcery with innocent men as victims. Beautiful For Ever details the career of the controversial and almost mythical figure of Madame Rachel: cosmetician, con artist and almost likely, a procuress of prostitutes. Madame Rachel, whose real name was Rachel Leverson or Levison, was an astute entrepreneur with a keen eye for business, rising from poverty to creating one of the most infamous businesses in Victorian society. Although illiterate, Rachel made sure her children had the best education she could afford to give them and who would in turn help her in her deceptions.

Once Rachel Leverson established herself in a small shop on expensive and reputable Bond St, she changed her name to more exotic ‘Madame Rachel’. Her products, face washes, soaps, creams, cosmetics and special baths, were sold and promoted under a guise of similarly exotic ideas:

The catalogue abdounded in exotic potions such as Rachel’s now much-hyped Magnetic Rock Dew Water for Removing Wrinkles and her extensively advertised Circassian Golden Hair Wash. Madame’s Royal Arabian Face Cream and Honey of Mount Hymettus soap worked wonders too; as did her ‘Arab Bloom’ and ‘Favourite of the Harem’s Pearl White’ face powders – not to mention a whole range of fumigated oils, gums, scents and essences of perfumes and herbs from the most exotic and far flung places. – p. 76

These ‘exotic’ potions promised to make women ‘beautiful for ever’ and in a society obsessed with the women’s marriageability, anything must be done to enhance a girl’s physical attributes. To encourage the myth of Madame Rachel, she told her many wealthy customers that she was actually several decades older than she looked and it was due to her potions.

The business of Madame Rachel proved very successful for awhile and even opening up a branch in Paris and Rachel’s wealth grew enough to send her children to the best schools there. With so much cheating and conning with the products, the consequences soon found Rachel . Many wealthy women, duped and coerced by Rachel’s sales tactics, quickly lost a small fortune and many amassed a debt. This grew messy because the women hid their visits from their husbands. The women, almost all who held high standing and reputations in society, feared their visits to Madame Rachel would become known and Rachel held this to her advantage.

For those who have read Sensation Fiction, Madame Rachel appears in two (the two that I know of) of the popular titles: in Wilkie Collins’ Armadale, Madame Oldershaw is a weak caricature of Madame Rachel. The infamous ‘Beautiful For Ever’ catalogue briefly appears in Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret.

Helen Rappaport writes a very readable biography of the infamous Madame Rachel and I believe this is one of the few books available on Rachel Leverson. While it’s incredibly readable, I’m not sure if it’s suitable for academic research even though Rappaport does back her study up and it is very well researched. Reading this, I couldn’t help but compare the rather harmless procedures (of course, discounting the use of poisonous minerals such as arsenic and lead!) the women used to enhance, or completely alter, their beauty with the procedures we do today: body sculpting, liposuction, breast implants, nose jobs, face lifts, botox, scrubs, facials,  wraps, spas, etc. What is real and what is fake? What is real beauty? And of course, we all buy numerous amounts of creams, lotions, cleansers, exfoliators, perfumes, lipsticks, foundation, eyeshadows with promising tag lines.