Rohase Piercy's Blog, page 9
December 13, 2017
Ferdinand - Fable, Film and Future
As many of you will know, this year's Christmas release for the kids is 'Ferdinand', from Blue Sky Studios and 20th Century Fox Animation – coming to a cinema near you even as you read. And it's not just kids who await it with eager anticipation – the animal welfare movement has high hopes of it too. Based on The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf (illustrated byRobert Lawson), its central character is a gentle Bull who prefers flowers to fighting but is forced to confront his destiny in the Corrida at Madrid. In the book he refuses to engage with the matador in the bullring and is more interested in the scent wafting from the flowers in the ladies' hair; he upsets everyone and spoils the show, but is allowed to return unscathed to his pasture home. Presumably something of the sort happens in the film too, though according to Wendy Ide of 'Screen Daily' it 'doesn't tiptoe around the facts of the sport'.
As someone involved in the anti-bullfighting campaign – I'm a supporter both of The League Against Cruel Sports https://www.league.org.uk/?gclid=EAIa... and the Spanish movement 'Bulls Defenders United' https://en-gb.facebook.com/europaagai...- I'm cautiously optimistic. By and large, the younger generation in Spain do not support the Bullfight and are embarrassed by the negative publicity it attracts; a little extra push can only help, and Peter Debruge of 'Variety' opines that 'Ferdinand' could be 'very bad for the already controversial sport.'
As the song says, our children are our future, and it was with this in mind that I wrote What Brave Bulls Do back in 2010, after reading a particularly graphic report of a poor bull tortured to death in the 'Toro de la Vega' Fiesta . I learned a lot whilst researching 'Brave Bulls' – for example, peaceful, friendly Ferdinand is not such a phenomenon as the book and film would have us believe. Bulls are cattle after all, herbivores, herd animals who may enjoy a bit of horn-locking, snorting and posturing from time to time but are not naturally aggressive unless threatened – hence the need for picadors to stab them with lances, banderilleros to impale them with barbed sticks, and matadors to provoke them with cloak-waving. (The cloak, by the way, doesn't have to be red – bulls are colour-blind, it's the waving and shouting they perceive as a threat). Because of their size, and to give the matador the necessary advantage, the animals' horns are shaved, their systems weakened by being fed salt and emetics, and their eyes smeared with petroleum jelly to blur their sight. Add to this the noise, the isolation of a herd animal from his herd, the pain inflicted by lances (whose purpose is to weaken the neck muscle so the bull cannot fully raise his head, thus making it easier for the matador to deliver the final blow) and the taunting of the matador, and you have an animal cornered, frightened, weakened, in pain and panicking, forced to fight for his life until his aorta and spinal cord are finally severed by the matador's sword. Good traditional family entertainment? In the Roman Arena, perhaps, but hardly in the 21st century.
'Brave Bulls' had a mixed reception – one common (and fair) complaint being that it doesn't know whether it's an adult book for children, or a children's book for adults. One reviewer described it as 'Tommy Steele's "Little White Bull" as sung by Leonard Cohen', which I thought was both perceptive and hilarious. It does however feature 'Munro Leaf's Ferdinand as depicted by Rohase Piercy' - Old Ferdinand is an elderly, battle-scarred, one-eyed bull who once fought bravely in the Corrida and was granted an 'indulto' (a pardon) and brought back traumatised, bitter and cynical to live out his days at the ranch. Our hero Ario and his young companions are confused by Old Ferdinand's cryptic answers to their eager questions about the Corrida, and it is from this battered old survivor that Ario finally learns the truth about the fate that awaits 'brave bulls' at the hands of humans. There's still time to order a copy for Christmas if you've children aged between seven and ten whose curiosity might be awakened by 'Ferdinand' over the holidays...
As someone involved in the anti-bullfighting campaign – I'm a supporter both of The League Against Cruel Sports https://www.league.org.uk/?gclid=EAIa... and the Spanish movement 'Bulls Defenders United' https://en-gb.facebook.com/europaagai...- I'm cautiously optimistic. By and large, the younger generation in Spain do not support the Bullfight and are embarrassed by the negative publicity it attracts; a little extra push can only help, and Peter Debruge of 'Variety' opines that 'Ferdinand' could be 'very bad for the already controversial sport.'
As the song says, our children are our future, and it was with this in mind that I wrote What Brave Bulls Do back in 2010, after reading a particularly graphic report of a poor bull tortured to death in the 'Toro de la Vega' Fiesta . I learned a lot whilst researching 'Brave Bulls' – for example, peaceful, friendly Ferdinand is not such a phenomenon as the book and film would have us believe. Bulls are cattle after all, herbivores, herd animals who may enjoy a bit of horn-locking, snorting and posturing from time to time but are not naturally aggressive unless threatened – hence the need for picadors to stab them with lances, banderilleros to impale them with barbed sticks, and matadors to provoke them with cloak-waving. (The cloak, by the way, doesn't have to be red – bulls are colour-blind, it's the waving and shouting they perceive as a threat). Because of their size, and to give the matador the necessary advantage, the animals' horns are shaved, their systems weakened by being fed salt and emetics, and their eyes smeared with petroleum jelly to blur their sight. Add to this the noise, the isolation of a herd animal from his herd, the pain inflicted by lances (whose purpose is to weaken the neck muscle so the bull cannot fully raise his head, thus making it easier for the matador to deliver the final blow) and the taunting of the matador, and you have an animal cornered, frightened, weakened, in pain and panicking, forced to fight for his life until his aorta and spinal cord are finally severed by the matador's sword. Good traditional family entertainment? In the Roman Arena, perhaps, but hardly in the 21st century.
'Brave Bulls' had a mixed reception – one common (and fair) complaint being that it doesn't know whether it's an adult book for children, or a children's book for adults. One reviewer described it as 'Tommy Steele's "Little White Bull" as sung by Leonard Cohen', which I thought was both perceptive and hilarious. It does however feature 'Munro Leaf's Ferdinand as depicted by Rohase Piercy' - Old Ferdinand is an elderly, battle-scarred, one-eyed bull who once fought bravely in the Corrida and was granted an 'indulto' (a pardon) and brought back traumatised, bitter and cynical to live out his days at the ranch. Our hero Ario and his young companions are confused by Old Ferdinand's cryptic answers to their eager questions about the Corrida, and it is from this battered old survivor that Ario finally learns the truth about the fate that awaits 'brave bulls' at the hands of humans. There's still time to order a copy for Christmas if you've children aged between seven and ten whose curiosity might be awakened by 'Ferdinand' over the holidays...
November 30, 2017
Howards End and Mr B
The BBC adaptation of Howards End - what do you think of it so far? My reaction, with one episode left to go, is that it's really good; it manages to connect with the modern viewer despite its subject matter being the divisions sown by upbringing, class, education and money over a century ago. (Well, given the situation in Britain today, maybe that's not so surprising ... plus ca change, and all that).
E.M. Forster's characters are brilliantly depicted in all their irritating, well-meaning, vulnerable complexity. I do have one reservation - personally, I'm not sure whether a black Jacky is a help or a hindrance. We're repeatedly told in the novel that the reason Leonard's family won't accept her is that she's 'not respectable' (ie she's a woman with a past) – a label that's lost much of its sting today of course, but does it help to introduce the additional possibility of racial prejudice? This is not a modern makeover, and as the novel stands Jacky's not a candidate for colour-blind casting – if she were dark skinned the other characters would comment upon it in no uncertain terms!
There have been so many different critiques of Howards End over the years - so many dissections of the Schlegels, the Wilcoxes and the Basts and their failure to 'only connect' with each other's attitudes and thought processes, so many opinions expressed as to the credibility or otherwise of the sequence of events that follows Helen's disastrous attempt to confront Henry Wilcox with the Basts' financial crisis - that one might wonder what fresh perspective anyone can possibly come up with. Well, over the past three weeks I've been treated to one: nobody, it seems, has gone out of their way to seek the opinion of a self-educated council estate boy. Enter Mr B...
Hubby is a voracious reader, but he prefers crime and fantasy to the classics so this is his first introduction to Howards End. It's certainly provoked some strong emotions! He identifies passionately with Leonard Bast, and grinds his teeth at the Wilcoxes' smug capitalism; but he also loathes the Schlegels, all of them, with their endless theorising and well-meant but sadly misplaced interference. He wishes it were a straightforward bare-knuckle fight between the other two families, unhindered by said interference; and when I point out that the Schlegels are pivotal to the story, and that furthermore they and their attitudes are alive and well and living just down the road in Hanover, Fiveways and Hove, it provokes yet more weeping and gnashing of teeth. (This is a man, I should stress, who's not averse to accommodating middle class traits when it suits him; he meditates, burns incense, listens to Baroque music, watches BBC 4, and is a passionate vegetarian-going-on-vegan).
Mr B's atavistic reaction to Forster's characters is a legacy of his troubled, thwarted, poverty-ridden childhood; but also, surely, it's a tribute to the sensitive, observant upper middle class author who worked so painstakingly to make those characters believable. Forster was a product of his class and era as we all are, but his insight into human nature is second to none. He also seems, like Shakespeare and Austen, to have the knack of encapsulating complex psychological processes within his creations by instinct alone. It's a remarkable achievement, and one that I think the BBC has, by and large, done justice to in this adaptation. Looking forward to seeing how they handle the final outcome!
E.M. Forster's characters are brilliantly depicted in all their irritating, well-meaning, vulnerable complexity. I do have one reservation - personally, I'm not sure whether a black Jacky is a help or a hindrance. We're repeatedly told in the novel that the reason Leonard's family won't accept her is that she's 'not respectable' (ie she's a woman with a past) – a label that's lost much of its sting today of course, but does it help to introduce the additional possibility of racial prejudice? This is not a modern makeover, and as the novel stands Jacky's not a candidate for colour-blind casting – if she were dark skinned the other characters would comment upon it in no uncertain terms!
There have been so many different critiques of Howards End over the years - so many dissections of the Schlegels, the Wilcoxes and the Basts and their failure to 'only connect' with each other's attitudes and thought processes, so many opinions expressed as to the credibility or otherwise of the sequence of events that follows Helen's disastrous attempt to confront Henry Wilcox with the Basts' financial crisis - that one might wonder what fresh perspective anyone can possibly come up with. Well, over the past three weeks I've been treated to one: nobody, it seems, has gone out of their way to seek the opinion of a self-educated council estate boy. Enter Mr B...
Hubby is a voracious reader, but he prefers crime and fantasy to the classics so this is his first introduction to Howards End. It's certainly provoked some strong emotions! He identifies passionately with Leonard Bast, and grinds his teeth at the Wilcoxes' smug capitalism; but he also loathes the Schlegels, all of them, with their endless theorising and well-meant but sadly misplaced interference. He wishes it were a straightforward bare-knuckle fight between the other two families, unhindered by said interference; and when I point out that the Schlegels are pivotal to the story, and that furthermore they and their attitudes are alive and well and living just down the road in Hanover, Fiveways and Hove, it provokes yet more weeping and gnashing of teeth. (This is a man, I should stress, who's not averse to accommodating middle class traits when it suits him; he meditates, burns incense, listens to Baroque music, watches BBC 4, and is a passionate vegetarian-going-on-vegan).
Mr B's atavistic reaction to Forster's characters is a legacy of his troubled, thwarted, poverty-ridden childhood; but also, surely, it's a tribute to the sensitive, observant upper middle class author who worked so painstakingly to make those characters believable. Forster was a product of his class and era as we all are, but his insight into human nature is second to none. He also seems, like Shakespeare and Austen, to have the knack of encapsulating complex psychological processes within his creations by instinct alone. It's a remarkable achievement, and one that I think the BBC has, by and large, done justice to in this adaptation. Looking forward to seeing how they handle the final outcome!
November 11, 2017
A Perfectly Splendid Idea
Well if any of you have had a chance to check out the new website I share with Charlie Raven - http://www.theravensbunker.com - you'll know that a Special 30th Anniversary Edition of My Dearest Holmes is in the offing.
'I've just had a perfectly splendid idea' announced Charlie a few weeks ago – 'isn't it thirty years next April since MDH was published?...'
Blimey, I thought, is it? I checked the publication date in my battered old scrapbook, where I keep various newspaper clippings and reviews pertaining to MDH and The Coward Does It With A Kiss (including the famous 'Sherlock Homo!' article from The Sun), and there it was – 'Published 14th April 1988', courtesy of The Gay Men's Press. That's a whole generation ago ...
… and how times have changed! I've written in earlier blogs about the reaction my modest offering received from the press, the Sherlock Holmes Society and the Conan Doyle Estate, so I won't repeat myself here except to say that from a present-day perspective it all seems rather surreal – I wouldn't expect to be asked on live radio in 2018 'why I had to drag this nasty little element of homosexuality into a perfectly normal friendship'; that 'The Woofter of the Baskervilles' would be suggested as a sequel in the popular press; or that I'd be accused of harbouring a 'dangerous urge to update the past' just because I'd written a (romantic, non-explicit) novel exploring the possibility that Watson was in love with Holmes. It's unthinkable today ... (isn't it? I seem to recall that a mere seven years ago the Conan Doyle Estate brought pressure to bear upon Guy Ritchie & Co not to insert any 'element of homosexuality' into 'A Game Of Shadows' following the already rather camp overtones to his 'Sherlock Holmes').
Anyway be that as it may, a 30th Anniversary Edition is currently in production, and this means that Yours Truly is having to type up the whole thing from scratch since no file exists from those prehistoric times and all I have is the actual book. There'll be some Extra Features – the exploratory essay about the Gothic and Decadent influences on Conan Doyle's most famous character that I've already used as a basis for blogs, initially written soon after the book itself and finally published in the Baker Street Journal's 2015 Winter edition, plus a brand new Foreword – but rest assured, the storyline remains unchanged. I wouldn't and couldn't interfere with a narrative that actually did seem, all those years ago, to unfold of its own accord, as though I really were discovering what John Watson, if not Arthur Conan Doyle, had been wanting to write all along.
It's an interesting experience, re-reading one's own work from an older and wiser perspective. Not only am I unable to resist tightening up a line or two of clumsy dialogue, adding a word of explanation here or subtracting an annoying repetition there – well I guess I'm perfectly entitled to edit my own work as long as it doesn't change the narrative – but I can also look at it with a critical eye, mindful of the comments and critiques of reviewers over the years.
'Everyone in this book is gay!' complained one reviewer back in the day. Well, there are heterosexual characters as well, surely?... Lord Carstairs in 'A Discreet Investigation' and, er … then in 'The Final Problem' there's Mycroft, Moriarty, and (presumably) Mrs Hudson. That's four straight characters. Too many? Oh, sorry, that wasn't the problem… well, the difference between then and now is that now we have a Genre. Gay Romance, as a sub-heading of LGBTQ Fiction, if officially a Thing, and readers presumably know what to expect.
'This book is just pieced together from old stories …' well, duh, The Final Problem is supposed to be the unexpurgated version of The Adventure of the Final Problem and its aftermath. But when it comes to 'A Discreet Investigation' – 'there's no real detective story here, it just hinges around the fact that Everyone is Gay.' Ouch. Okay, so I'm not a crime fiction author. But I did think I'd managed to insert a bit of misdirection and an element of surprise … what with Miss D'Arcy … talking of whom, she's aged twenty-nine, fair complexion, 'fine light eyes', who does that remind me of? Surely I wasn't so vain as to try and put a self-description into my novel? Oh dear - the Arrogance of Youth. And here's something you won't know – I was very naughty with the name 'Maria Kirkpatrick'. Hopefully the two people of whom she is an amalgam have never read the book. Or if they did, they've declined to comment, for which I am truly thankful.
If all that's managed to whet your interest, there's not that long to wait. April 2018. Put it in your diary, and think of me slaving away ...
'I've just had a perfectly splendid idea' announced Charlie a few weeks ago – 'isn't it thirty years next April since MDH was published?...'
Blimey, I thought, is it? I checked the publication date in my battered old scrapbook, where I keep various newspaper clippings and reviews pertaining to MDH and The Coward Does It With A Kiss (including the famous 'Sherlock Homo!' article from The Sun), and there it was – 'Published 14th April 1988', courtesy of The Gay Men's Press. That's a whole generation ago ...
… and how times have changed! I've written in earlier blogs about the reaction my modest offering received from the press, the Sherlock Holmes Society and the Conan Doyle Estate, so I won't repeat myself here except to say that from a present-day perspective it all seems rather surreal – I wouldn't expect to be asked on live radio in 2018 'why I had to drag this nasty little element of homosexuality into a perfectly normal friendship'; that 'The Woofter of the Baskervilles' would be suggested as a sequel in the popular press; or that I'd be accused of harbouring a 'dangerous urge to update the past' just because I'd written a (romantic, non-explicit) novel exploring the possibility that Watson was in love with Holmes. It's unthinkable today ... (isn't it? I seem to recall that a mere seven years ago the Conan Doyle Estate brought pressure to bear upon Guy Ritchie & Co not to insert any 'element of homosexuality' into 'A Game Of Shadows' following the already rather camp overtones to his 'Sherlock Holmes').
Anyway be that as it may, a 30th Anniversary Edition is currently in production, and this means that Yours Truly is having to type up the whole thing from scratch since no file exists from those prehistoric times and all I have is the actual book. There'll be some Extra Features – the exploratory essay about the Gothic and Decadent influences on Conan Doyle's most famous character that I've already used as a basis for blogs, initially written soon after the book itself and finally published in the Baker Street Journal's 2015 Winter edition, plus a brand new Foreword – but rest assured, the storyline remains unchanged. I wouldn't and couldn't interfere with a narrative that actually did seem, all those years ago, to unfold of its own accord, as though I really were discovering what John Watson, if not Arthur Conan Doyle, had been wanting to write all along.
It's an interesting experience, re-reading one's own work from an older and wiser perspective. Not only am I unable to resist tightening up a line or two of clumsy dialogue, adding a word of explanation here or subtracting an annoying repetition there – well I guess I'm perfectly entitled to edit my own work as long as it doesn't change the narrative – but I can also look at it with a critical eye, mindful of the comments and critiques of reviewers over the years.
'Everyone in this book is gay!' complained one reviewer back in the day. Well, there are heterosexual characters as well, surely?... Lord Carstairs in 'A Discreet Investigation' and, er … then in 'The Final Problem' there's Mycroft, Moriarty, and (presumably) Mrs Hudson. That's four straight characters. Too many? Oh, sorry, that wasn't the problem… well, the difference between then and now is that now we have a Genre. Gay Romance, as a sub-heading of LGBTQ Fiction, if officially a Thing, and readers presumably know what to expect.
'This book is just pieced together from old stories …' well, duh, The Final Problem is supposed to be the unexpurgated version of The Adventure of the Final Problem and its aftermath. But when it comes to 'A Discreet Investigation' – 'there's no real detective story here, it just hinges around the fact that Everyone is Gay.' Ouch. Okay, so I'm not a crime fiction author. But I did think I'd managed to insert a bit of misdirection and an element of surprise … what with Miss D'Arcy … talking of whom, she's aged twenty-nine, fair complexion, 'fine light eyes', who does that remind me of? Surely I wasn't so vain as to try and put a self-description into my novel? Oh dear - the Arrogance of Youth. And here's something you won't know – I was very naughty with the name 'Maria Kirkpatrick'. Hopefully the two people of whom she is an amalgam have never read the book. Or if they did, they've declined to comment, for which I am truly thankful.
If all that's managed to whet your interest, there's not that long to wait. April 2018. Put it in your diary, and think of me slaving away ...
October 19, 2017
The Kiss
I don't know about you, but I'm still mulling over The Kiss and its tragic aftermath. For those of you who haven't a clue what I'm talking about, this was enacted in the British ITV series 'Victoria' between Leo Suter and Jordan Waller, playing Edward Drummond (Private Secretary to Prime Minister Robert Peel) and Lord Alfred Paget (Chief Equerry to Queen Victoria) respectively. Naturally it caused quite a stir and prompted questions in the tabloid press; the main question being, 'were these two historical characters lovers in real life?'
Well the short answer is no, at least as far as anyone is aware. All those meaningful glances, loaded questions and lingering moments in corridors, culminating in a (long overdue) kiss in a secluded glade at Balmoral, are actually 'creative moments' according to screenwriter Daisy Goodwin. But it made for a lovely subplot to the series and was, of course, destined to end in tears – the final episode featured Drummond's death at the hands of a deranged gunman angered by the repeal of the Corn Laws and aiming for the Prime Minister. Offered smelling salts and comfort by the sympathetic Duchess of Buccleuch, poor Lord Alfred is gently but cruelly reminded that 'the chief mourners at Mr Drummond's funeral will be his mother and his fiancee'.
Now as the man says, the truth is rarely pure and never simple: Edward Drummond really did get shot by an anti-Tory gunman in mistake for PM Robert Peel, but it was three years earlier in 1843 and the Corn Laws had nothing to do with it. Moreover, he was fifty-one years old at the time, not the twenty-something lad portrayed so winsomely by Leo Suter. Lord Alfred Paget, whatever youthful indiscretions he may or may not have indulged in, went on to marry respectable heiress Cecilia Wyndham in 1847 and fathered fourteen children. He was Drummond's junior by twenty-four years.
Disappointed, gay romance addicts? The fact is, both probably lived happier lives than would have been their lot had they been in love. The word 'homosexual' did not exist in the 1840s, but the death penalty for sodomy still did, and would continue until the Offences Against the Person Act was revised in 1861 (the last two men to be hanged for that offence in England, James Pratt and John Smith, were convicted in 1835). Gay men of the Victorian era lived in fear and danger, driven to subterfuge and deceit and tormented, as often as not, by self-loathing. Lesbians had it easier, of course; Queen Victoria's famous quote 'But surely it cannot happen between women?' - which effectively exempted women from the 'Gross Indecency' clause of the 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act - would be a marvellous opportunity for a 'creative moment' in a future series, but I won't hold my breath ...
Anyhow be that as it may, having witnessed The Kiss we now can't stop ourselves from imagining a whole alternative future for our heroes, with Drummond recovering from his wound to release his unwanted fiancee from an engagement to a partial invalid; he and Lord Alfred could then continue their dangerous liaison, consummating their love in stolen moments until Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act (up to two years' imprisonment for anything that could be described as 'gross indecency between men, in public or in private') forces them to consider joining the hurried exodus to the Continent in the wake of the Oscar Wilde trials. We could, perhaps, imagine the two Lord Alfreds, Paget and Douglas, meeting up in Naples to await the release from prison of their disgraced lovers. We could even write Drummond and Paget a happy ending, living together in exile somewhere in Northern France, taking up bee-keeping in old age and sending cryptic messages by carrier pigeon across the Channel to another couple of retired beekeepers secluded away on the South Downs …
… Well, I think it would work! Meanwhile, if that's the sort of story you like, why not give these two a try: My Dearest Holmes and A Case of Domestic Pilfering.
Well the short answer is no, at least as far as anyone is aware. All those meaningful glances, loaded questions and lingering moments in corridors, culminating in a (long overdue) kiss in a secluded glade at Balmoral, are actually 'creative moments' according to screenwriter Daisy Goodwin. But it made for a lovely subplot to the series and was, of course, destined to end in tears – the final episode featured Drummond's death at the hands of a deranged gunman angered by the repeal of the Corn Laws and aiming for the Prime Minister. Offered smelling salts and comfort by the sympathetic Duchess of Buccleuch, poor Lord Alfred is gently but cruelly reminded that 'the chief mourners at Mr Drummond's funeral will be his mother and his fiancee'.
Now as the man says, the truth is rarely pure and never simple: Edward Drummond really did get shot by an anti-Tory gunman in mistake for PM Robert Peel, but it was three years earlier in 1843 and the Corn Laws had nothing to do with it. Moreover, he was fifty-one years old at the time, not the twenty-something lad portrayed so winsomely by Leo Suter. Lord Alfred Paget, whatever youthful indiscretions he may or may not have indulged in, went on to marry respectable heiress Cecilia Wyndham in 1847 and fathered fourteen children. He was Drummond's junior by twenty-four years.
Disappointed, gay romance addicts? The fact is, both probably lived happier lives than would have been their lot had they been in love. The word 'homosexual' did not exist in the 1840s, but the death penalty for sodomy still did, and would continue until the Offences Against the Person Act was revised in 1861 (the last two men to be hanged for that offence in England, James Pratt and John Smith, were convicted in 1835). Gay men of the Victorian era lived in fear and danger, driven to subterfuge and deceit and tormented, as often as not, by self-loathing. Lesbians had it easier, of course; Queen Victoria's famous quote 'But surely it cannot happen between women?' - which effectively exempted women from the 'Gross Indecency' clause of the 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act - would be a marvellous opportunity for a 'creative moment' in a future series, but I won't hold my breath ...
Anyhow be that as it may, having witnessed The Kiss we now can't stop ourselves from imagining a whole alternative future for our heroes, with Drummond recovering from his wound to release his unwanted fiancee from an engagement to a partial invalid; he and Lord Alfred could then continue their dangerous liaison, consummating their love in stolen moments until Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act (up to two years' imprisonment for anything that could be described as 'gross indecency between men, in public or in private') forces them to consider joining the hurried exodus to the Continent in the wake of the Oscar Wilde trials. We could, perhaps, imagine the two Lord Alfreds, Paget and Douglas, meeting up in Naples to await the release from prison of their disgraced lovers. We could even write Drummond and Paget a happy ending, living together in exile somewhere in Northern France, taking up bee-keeping in old age and sending cryptic messages by carrier pigeon across the Channel to another couple of retired beekeepers secluded away on the South Downs …
… Well, I think it would work! Meanwhile, if that's the sort of story you like, why not give these two a try: My Dearest Holmes and A Case of Domestic Pilfering.
October 7, 2017
Raffles and Bunny - Dark, morally uncertain, yet convincingly, reassuringly English?
Over the last fortnight or so I've been introducing my Grumpy Old Man (aka Mr B) to the delights of the 1970s TV series 'Raffles', starring Anthony Valentine and Christopher Strauli. It's a little dated in some ways, but has actually stood the test of time amazingly well! I was in my teens when it first aired, and remember being fascinated by the relationship between suave, sophisticated 'Gentleman Thief' Arthur J Raffles and his wide-eyed, puppy-faced sidekick Harry 'Bunny' Manders. I didn't dare speculate back then about any deliberate homoerotic content – but viewing it now, I can see that the scriptwriters were having a field day! The dialogue includes such gems as 'Being stripped naked by a policeman was certainly a novel experience!' 'I think I can safely say I've seen everything you've got, Bunny!' and 'A gentleman is always open to corruption – shall we go into the bedroom?' Mr B was particularly amused to see Raffles perusing a 'Gentleman's Magazine' featuring a large advert for Vaseline on the front page ...
Are these innuendos present in the original stories? That's not a rhetorical question, I actually haven't read them, though I've now put The Amateur Cracksman by: E. W. Hornung: The Amateur Cracksman Was the Original Short Story Collection by E. W. Hornung Featuring His Most Famous Character, A. J. Raffles, a Gentleman Thief in Late Victorian Great Britain. on my 'want to read' list! E.W. Hornung, who wrote the twenty-six short stories, one novel and two plays between 1898 and 1909, was actually the brother-in-law of Arthur Conan Doyle, so it's obvious where he got his inspiration from. ACD was somewhat equivocal in his acceptance of the sincerest form of flattery: 'I think there are few finer examples of short-story writing in our language than these, though I confess I think they are rather dangerous in their suggestion. I told him so before he put pen to paper, and the result has, I fear, borne me out. You must not make the criminal a hero.'
Hornung was unrepentant. Raffles and Bunny, he insisted, are 'something dark, morally uncertain, yet convincingly, reassuringly English.'
What on earth does that statement mean? Raffles certainly stands upon his dignity as an English gentleman, but what particular branch of moral uncertainty is deemed justifiable when personified by an upper class Englishman? Was Hornung perchance implying something about the (peculiarly English) relationship between his hero and sidekick, whose association had its roots in the (peculiarly English) public school system of 'fagging'? The French have a word for it, as they so often do – 'le vice anglais' supposedly favoured by ex-public schoolboys could constitute either flagellation or homosexuality (or, presumably, a combination of both). In his 1999 biography Raffles and His Creator: The Life and Works of E.W. Hornung, Peter Rowland claims that Hornung based Raffles and Bunny partly on Holmes and Watson and partly on his good friends Oscar Wilde and Bosie Douglas; writing in 1898, three years after Wilde's disgrace, this was bold to say the least....
At least ACD tried (unconvincingly) to marry Watson off, whereas Hornung appears to have contented himself with making Raffles rhapsodise over a series of beautiful, unattainable women: 'Are you in love with her?' asks Bunny anxiously on one such occasion; 'No, I don't think so' answers Raffles reflectively, 'I just think she's the most beautiful creature I've ever seen'.... Meanwhile, twentieth century British aficionados continued to insist manfully that there was nothing 'queer' about 'two chaps sharing digs' (actual quote from Captain Bill Mitchell, Secretary of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London, sharing radio airtime with Yours Truly following the publication of My Dearest Holmes back in 1988).
Charlie Raven claims that we watched repeats of the 1975 TV series whilst working on My Dearest Holmes and A Case of Domestic Pilfering respectively – a memory that surfaces only vaguely to mind, in a haze of red wine, French cigarettes and Bach violin partitas – in which case, a little bit of Raffles and Bunny could well have worked its way into that other upper-class partnership of the 'morally uncertain' fin de siecle era, Guy Clements and Max Fareham. Readers of A Case of Domestic Pilfering will have to make up their own minds about that … meanwhile, if you'll excuse me, I have some gaps in my reading to remedy...
Are these innuendos present in the original stories? That's not a rhetorical question, I actually haven't read them, though I've now put The Amateur Cracksman by: E. W. Hornung: The Amateur Cracksman Was the Original Short Story Collection by E. W. Hornung Featuring His Most Famous Character, A. J. Raffles, a Gentleman Thief in Late Victorian Great Britain. on my 'want to read' list! E.W. Hornung, who wrote the twenty-six short stories, one novel and two plays between 1898 and 1909, was actually the brother-in-law of Arthur Conan Doyle, so it's obvious where he got his inspiration from. ACD was somewhat equivocal in his acceptance of the sincerest form of flattery: 'I think there are few finer examples of short-story writing in our language than these, though I confess I think they are rather dangerous in their suggestion. I told him so before he put pen to paper, and the result has, I fear, borne me out. You must not make the criminal a hero.'
Hornung was unrepentant. Raffles and Bunny, he insisted, are 'something dark, morally uncertain, yet convincingly, reassuringly English.'
What on earth does that statement mean? Raffles certainly stands upon his dignity as an English gentleman, but what particular branch of moral uncertainty is deemed justifiable when personified by an upper class Englishman? Was Hornung perchance implying something about the (peculiarly English) relationship between his hero and sidekick, whose association had its roots in the (peculiarly English) public school system of 'fagging'? The French have a word for it, as they so often do – 'le vice anglais' supposedly favoured by ex-public schoolboys could constitute either flagellation or homosexuality (or, presumably, a combination of both). In his 1999 biography Raffles and His Creator: The Life and Works of E.W. Hornung, Peter Rowland claims that Hornung based Raffles and Bunny partly on Holmes and Watson and partly on his good friends Oscar Wilde and Bosie Douglas; writing in 1898, three years after Wilde's disgrace, this was bold to say the least....
At least ACD tried (unconvincingly) to marry Watson off, whereas Hornung appears to have contented himself with making Raffles rhapsodise over a series of beautiful, unattainable women: 'Are you in love with her?' asks Bunny anxiously on one such occasion; 'No, I don't think so' answers Raffles reflectively, 'I just think she's the most beautiful creature I've ever seen'.... Meanwhile, twentieth century British aficionados continued to insist manfully that there was nothing 'queer' about 'two chaps sharing digs' (actual quote from Captain Bill Mitchell, Secretary of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London, sharing radio airtime with Yours Truly following the publication of My Dearest Holmes back in 1988).
Charlie Raven claims that we watched repeats of the 1975 TV series whilst working on My Dearest Holmes and A Case of Domestic Pilfering respectively – a memory that surfaces only vaguely to mind, in a haze of red wine, French cigarettes and Bach violin partitas – in which case, a little bit of Raffles and Bunny could well have worked its way into that other upper-class partnership of the 'morally uncertain' fin de siecle era, Guy Clements and Max Fareham. Readers of A Case of Domestic Pilfering will have to make up their own minds about that … meanwhile, if you'll excuse me, I have some gaps in my reading to remedy...
September 19, 2017
Aubrey Beardsley - Brighton Boy
A couple of weeks ago Charlie Raven and I took the Aubrey Beardsley Tour of Brighton – a piece of research on Charlie's part, as he features as a minor character in her upcoming novel 'The Compact'.
It was one of several 'Open Door Events' organised by the Regency Society, taking place at various locations around the City over the course of a week, and our guide was prominent Brightonian and Beardsley enthusiast Alexia Lazou. Her enthusiasm certainly galvanised our merry band as we took the steep incline of the West Hill from Brighton Station to Buckingham Road, where an ornate plaque on a substantial-looking residence informed us that 'Aubrey Beardsley, Master of Line, was born in this House'). From there we took in the (currently derelict) site of the old Brighton, Hove & Sussex Grammar School which he attended as a boy (not, as is often supposed, Brighton College, which was reserved for the 'sons of gentry'); the Church where his parents were married (St Nicholas, oldest in Brighton and proud guardian of a twelfth century font) and Pavilion Gardens where he apparently mis-spent many a leisure hour. Our group then decided to eschew the long hike to Lower Rock Gardens, where Aubrey and his sister Mabel stayed periodically with their Great-Aunt Sarah at no. 21, and the climb up Muesli Mountain (aka the Hanover area) to the Church of the Annunciation where he used to worship, in favour of the Yellow Book Bar on London Road where they serve a lethal gin-based concoction known at 'The Aubrey Beardsley Special'.
We were a great little crowd, around twelve taking the walk dwindling to eight partaking of refreshments; many interesting conversations were started up as we swapped our differing reasons for taking the Beardsley Tour and our various snippets of knowledge about his life and art. Alexia passed round examples of the various stages that went into developing his distinctive artistic style - from very ordinary-looking adolescent sketches and caricatures to the well known ornate black-and-white prints that adorned the walls of the bar - and recommended biographies and further reading material. It was a fun and fascinating experience.
What really stands out for me in retrospect is the struggle that poor Aubrey experienced, as the son of a tradesman, in making his way into the artistic elite of the Decadent era. Unlike his rich patrons (Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Oscar Wilde, Jerome Pollitt etc) he had no independent fortune, and was driven to humiliating measures to obtain commissions for his work; he was dependent upon the kindness of relatives, the generosity of old schoolmasters, the waxing and waning enthusiasm of connoisseurs, the flimsy popularity of journals that showcased his art such as The Yellow Book and The Savoy, to make a living. His father Vincent Beardsley had lost his own modest inheritance to a breach of promise of marriage prosecution, and despite finding employment with various London breweries was unable to support his wife and two children; his mother Ellen was obliged to give piano lessons and French tuition to supplement the family income, and his sister Mabel eventually found work as a moderately successful actress. All his life Aubrey was haunted by the twin spectres of illness (the tuberculosis that was eventually to kill him at the age of twenty-five having been present from early childhood), and poverty. Not only that, but his ill health prevented him from being able to partake of the pleasures of the Decadent era to quite the extent that admirers of his erotic art might like to imagine; he could well have answered the (still ongoing) speculation about his sexuality with Alan Bennett's immortal phrase 'There's been something of both in my life, but not enough of either!'
All in all, Beardsley's is a very Brighton story – an exotic facade presented to the word with damp brickwork decaying behind. Charlie and I agreed that while he doesn't come across as a particularly likeable person, his ability to produce such unique, beautiful and disturbing art against such overwhelming odds makes him an admirable one! If you'd like to know more about him, I can thoroughly recommend Matthew Sturgis' book: Aubrey Beardsley: A Biography
You might also enjoy Charlie's account of his shopping trip with Oscar Wilde in Dieppe: http://www.travtasy.com/2017/07/oscar...
It was one of several 'Open Door Events' organised by the Regency Society, taking place at various locations around the City over the course of a week, and our guide was prominent Brightonian and Beardsley enthusiast Alexia Lazou. Her enthusiasm certainly galvanised our merry band as we took the steep incline of the West Hill from Brighton Station to Buckingham Road, where an ornate plaque on a substantial-looking residence informed us that 'Aubrey Beardsley, Master of Line, was born in this House'). From there we took in the (currently derelict) site of the old Brighton, Hove & Sussex Grammar School which he attended as a boy (not, as is often supposed, Brighton College, which was reserved for the 'sons of gentry'); the Church where his parents were married (St Nicholas, oldest in Brighton and proud guardian of a twelfth century font) and Pavilion Gardens where he apparently mis-spent many a leisure hour. Our group then decided to eschew the long hike to Lower Rock Gardens, where Aubrey and his sister Mabel stayed periodically with their Great-Aunt Sarah at no. 21, and the climb up Muesli Mountain (aka the Hanover area) to the Church of the Annunciation where he used to worship, in favour of the Yellow Book Bar on London Road where they serve a lethal gin-based concoction known at 'The Aubrey Beardsley Special'.
We were a great little crowd, around twelve taking the walk dwindling to eight partaking of refreshments; many interesting conversations were started up as we swapped our differing reasons for taking the Beardsley Tour and our various snippets of knowledge about his life and art. Alexia passed round examples of the various stages that went into developing his distinctive artistic style - from very ordinary-looking adolescent sketches and caricatures to the well known ornate black-and-white prints that adorned the walls of the bar - and recommended biographies and further reading material. It was a fun and fascinating experience.
What really stands out for me in retrospect is the struggle that poor Aubrey experienced, as the son of a tradesman, in making his way into the artistic elite of the Decadent era. Unlike his rich patrons (Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Oscar Wilde, Jerome Pollitt etc) he had no independent fortune, and was driven to humiliating measures to obtain commissions for his work; he was dependent upon the kindness of relatives, the generosity of old schoolmasters, the waxing and waning enthusiasm of connoisseurs, the flimsy popularity of journals that showcased his art such as The Yellow Book and The Savoy, to make a living. His father Vincent Beardsley had lost his own modest inheritance to a breach of promise of marriage prosecution, and despite finding employment with various London breweries was unable to support his wife and two children; his mother Ellen was obliged to give piano lessons and French tuition to supplement the family income, and his sister Mabel eventually found work as a moderately successful actress. All his life Aubrey was haunted by the twin spectres of illness (the tuberculosis that was eventually to kill him at the age of twenty-five having been present from early childhood), and poverty. Not only that, but his ill health prevented him from being able to partake of the pleasures of the Decadent era to quite the extent that admirers of his erotic art might like to imagine; he could well have answered the (still ongoing) speculation about his sexuality with Alan Bennett's immortal phrase 'There's been something of both in my life, but not enough of either!'
All in all, Beardsley's is a very Brighton story – an exotic facade presented to the word with damp brickwork decaying behind. Charlie and I agreed that while he doesn't come across as a particularly likeable person, his ability to produce such unique, beautiful and disturbing art against such overwhelming odds makes him an admirable one! If you'd like to know more about him, I can thoroughly recommend Matthew Sturgis' book: Aubrey Beardsley: A Biography
You might also enjoy Charlie's account of his shopping trip with Oscar Wilde in Dieppe: http://www.travtasy.com/2017/07/oscar...
August 25, 2017
In Praise Of Shorter Novels
One of my daughters is writing a novel; it'll be a jolly good one, if her earlier writing is anything to go by. She's planning it around the demands of a full-time job, which is pretty impressive in itself to a lazybones like me, and aiming to get a first draft of around a hundred thousand words ready to work on by the New Year. 'Wow,' I said, 'A hundred thousand words! That'll be quite a tome!' 'Mum,' she replied in that pitying tone adult children use towards out-of-touch parents, 'That's just average length these days. And anyway, that's the number of words it'll take to tell the story.'
Well of course I completely agree that if you have a story to tell you use as many words as it takes, no more, no less. My own novels seem to average out between forty and fifty thousand, give or take – A Case of Domestic Pilfering, for example, is just a hundred and eighty-two pages long - and I'm well aware that this is unfashionably short. Many publishers won't even look at a submission under seventy thousand words and class anything shorter as a 'novella' – a description that always seems to imply that the writing is juvenile, the plot flimsy, and the subject matter light and frivolous. Novellas, we are assured, have a very limited readership and are not worth a mainstream publisher's consideration.
It's a good job Joseph Conrad wasn't fobbed off with this - his Heart of Darkness (which is hardly light and frivolous!) is just seventy-eight pages long in its latest edition. Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol manages to stretch to ninety-six pages, R L Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to ninety-two. George Orwell's dark social commentary Animal Farm is a hundred and forty-four pages long, Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes classic The Hound of the Baskervilles a hundred and seventy-six. All these 'novellas' have stood the test of time and are still topping the bestseller lists; would any of them have been picked out of the slush pile today, one wonders? I've been trying to think, off the top of my head without looking anything up, of any short novels that have made it to the mainstream recently, and I can only come up with two: Alan Bennet's The Uncommon Reader (twenty-five thousand words) and Colm Toibin's The Testament of Mary shortlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize in spite of its brevity at thirty thousand.
In the same year, Alice Thomas Ellis' three short novels The Clothes In The Wardrobe, The Skeleton in the Cupboard and The Fly In The Ointment were republished as one acceptably-sized three hundred and thirty-nine page paperback entitled The Summer House: A Trilogy. They're interlinked, of course, and intended to be read back to back, but they were originally published individually, one at a time, and I still have the three slim hundred-and-fifty page paperbacks. I prefer them that way.
Actually, I've long thought that the 'Summer House Trilogy' should actually be a Quartet … there's a voice missing there, someone else's take on that sequence of events crying out to be told. I'm onto it. Watch this space. It'll be short ...
Well of course I completely agree that if you have a story to tell you use as many words as it takes, no more, no less. My own novels seem to average out between forty and fifty thousand, give or take – A Case of Domestic Pilfering, for example, is just a hundred and eighty-two pages long - and I'm well aware that this is unfashionably short. Many publishers won't even look at a submission under seventy thousand words and class anything shorter as a 'novella' – a description that always seems to imply that the writing is juvenile, the plot flimsy, and the subject matter light and frivolous. Novellas, we are assured, have a very limited readership and are not worth a mainstream publisher's consideration.
It's a good job Joseph Conrad wasn't fobbed off with this - his Heart of Darkness (which is hardly light and frivolous!) is just seventy-eight pages long in its latest edition. Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol manages to stretch to ninety-six pages, R L Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to ninety-two. George Orwell's dark social commentary Animal Farm is a hundred and forty-four pages long, Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes classic The Hound of the Baskervilles a hundred and seventy-six. All these 'novellas' have stood the test of time and are still topping the bestseller lists; would any of them have been picked out of the slush pile today, one wonders? I've been trying to think, off the top of my head without looking anything up, of any short novels that have made it to the mainstream recently, and I can only come up with two: Alan Bennet's The Uncommon Reader (twenty-five thousand words) and Colm Toibin's The Testament of Mary shortlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize in spite of its brevity at thirty thousand.
In the same year, Alice Thomas Ellis' three short novels The Clothes In The Wardrobe, The Skeleton in the Cupboard and The Fly In The Ointment were republished as one acceptably-sized three hundred and thirty-nine page paperback entitled The Summer House: A Trilogy. They're interlinked, of course, and intended to be read back to back, but they were originally published individually, one at a time, and I still have the three slim hundred-and-fifty page paperbacks. I prefer them that way.
Actually, I've long thought that the 'Summer House Trilogy' should actually be a Quartet … there's a voice missing there, someone else's take on that sequence of events crying out to be told. I'm onto it. Watch this space. It'll be short ...
August 3, 2017
Pride, without prejudice.
Well, it's that time of year again – Brighton Pride will be busting out all over the city this weekend! The rainbow flags are out, tents and stages of all shapes and sizes are appearing in various festive locations and the phrase 'Gayer than a Brighton Bus Stop' has been given a whole new meaning by the transformation of one of our iconic bus shelters into a rather garish work of art. And it's a special celebration this year, as we mark the 50th anniversary of the (partial) deciminalisation of male homosexuality in Britain – a landmark step towards the equality laws of today.
Just imagine what someone visiting the city from the back of beyond, with little or no idea of Brighton's reputation as a magnet for all things LGBTQ, would make of it all. 'BRIGHTON PRIDE – wow, these people have a great sense of civic identity! Why don't we do anything like this back home? A bit over the top, actually … but it's a nice colourful procession … wait a minute, what's this? Who are these people? Are those men or women? What does that banner say? Ye Gods, the place is crawling with gender-benders of every possible description! Why didn't they specify that it was a Gay thing? Is this what people round here regard as normal?'
Well yes, we do actually. We've come a long way since those raw, angry days of the 1980s when Charlie Raven and I used to join the London Gay Pride Marches, striding along in our dungarees sporting badges assuring bemused or hostile spectators that Lesbians Were Everywhere whilst chanting 'What is Gay? GOOD! What else is Gay? ANGRY!' Those marches were much-needed political protests, but not really celebrations of diversity; the homosexual community had only just managed to accommodate the word 'Lesbian' alongside 'Gay' and the acronym LGBTQ was unheard of. The lesbian community itself was divided – there was a chilly standoff between feminist Dungaree Dykes and old-style Butch/Femme identities – and those of us who suspected (well okay, knew full well) that we actually came under the 'B' label were definitely persona non grata. 'No Bicycles!' was a popular badge at the time, while a heated debate raged as to whether the newly-opened London Lesbian & Gay Centre should admit bisexual members. 'You lot have a choice', the reasoning went, 'Therefore you're not truly oppressed and can't claim solidarity with the rest of us'. As for the Trans community, they were well and truly ostracised, by feminist lesbians at least - a trans friend of ours was reduced to tears when denied a pair of custom-made shoes by a feminist collective on the grounds that she was 'not a real woman'.
What a difference a generation makes! Thirty-odd years later, we have the LGBTQ community celebrating its diversity by welcoming not only those who identify as bisexual or transgender, but also those who dwell on the periphery, questioning distinct gender identities and expectations whilst not necessarily wishing to pin themselves down. It's a wonderfully liberating development which has only been made possible by the struggle of those brave pioneers, the gay men and lesbians whose stories have been movingly featured in the BBC's recent 'Gay Britannia' programmes; and of course for many LGBT people all around the world, the struggle for rights and recognition continues. But here in Brighton, we have the privilege of being able to celebrate our diverse population with a civic festival that everyone can enjoy – with PRIDE.
(Can't join us this weekend? Why not delve into a bit of LGBTQ history with a couple of stories set against the criminalisation of male homosexuality back in the late 19th century: My Dearest Holmes and A Case of Domestic Pilfering ...)
Just imagine what someone visiting the city from the back of beyond, with little or no idea of Brighton's reputation as a magnet for all things LGBTQ, would make of it all. 'BRIGHTON PRIDE – wow, these people have a great sense of civic identity! Why don't we do anything like this back home? A bit over the top, actually … but it's a nice colourful procession … wait a minute, what's this? Who are these people? Are those men or women? What does that banner say? Ye Gods, the place is crawling with gender-benders of every possible description! Why didn't they specify that it was a Gay thing? Is this what people round here regard as normal?'
Well yes, we do actually. We've come a long way since those raw, angry days of the 1980s when Charlie Raven and I used to join the London Gay Pride Marches, striding along in our dungarees sporting badges assuring bemused or hostile spectators that Lesbians Were Everywhere whilst chanting 'What is Gay? GOOD! What else is Gay? ANGRY!' Those marches were much-needed political protests, but not really celebrations of diversity; the homosexual community had only just managed to accommodate the word 'Lesbian' alongside 'Gay' and the acronym LGBTQ was unheard of. The lesbian community itself was divided – there was a chilly standoff between feminist Dungaree Dykes and old-style Butch/Femme identities – and those of us who suspected (well okay, knew full well) that we actually came under the 'B' label were definitely persona non grata. 'No Bicycles!' was a popular badge at the time, while a heated debate raged as to whether the newly-opened London Lesbian & Gay Centre should admit bisexual members. 'You lot have a choice', the reasoning went, 'Therefore you're not truly oppressed and can't claim solidarity with the rest of us'. As for the Trans community, they were well and truly ostracised, by feminist lesbians at least - a trans friend of ours was reduced to tears when denied a pair of custom-made shoes by a feminist collective on the grounds that she was 'not a real woman'.
What a difference a generation makes! Thirty-odd years later, we have the LGBTQ community celebrating its diversity by welcoming not only those who identify as bisexual or transgender, but also those who dwell on the periphery, questioning distinct gender identities and expectations whilst not necessarily wishing to pin themselves down. It's a wonderfully liberating development which has only been made possible by the struggle of those brave pioneers, the gay men and lesbians whose stories have been movingly featured in the BBC's recent 'Gay Britannia' programmes; and of course for many LGBT people all around the world, the struggle for rights and recognition continues. But here in Brighton, we have the privilege of being able to celebrate our diverse population with a civic festival that everyone can enjoy – with PRIDE.
(Can't join us this weekend? Why not delve into a bit of LGBTQ history with a couple of stories set against the criminalisation of male homosexuality back in the late 19th century: My Dearest Holmes and A Case of Domestic Pilfering ...)
July 26, 2017
'Marry him, murder him or do anything you like with him' - Conan Doyle's imprimatur.
Doyle himself famously testified to his most famous fictional character's ability to take on a life independent of his creator: 'He takes my mind from better things', he wrote of Holmes, confessing 'That pale clear-cut face and loose-limbed figure was taking up an undue share of my imagination.' Many actors who've played Holmes on stage and screen, immersing themselves in his character for months on end, have confessed to being similarly 'taken over' in a way so powerful that they've had to fight for their own identity: 'I became obsessed … during the last seven years I have merged myself so much with Holmes that I have at last reached saturation point.' (Basil Rathbone). 'Some actors have actually become suicidal playing him … I jettison him as fast as I can come the end of the day … He's very dangerous.' (Jeremy Brett).
For Doyle, the solution seemed simple: in The Adventure of the Final Problem, written in 1893 but set in 1891, he sent Holmes to his death, plunging over the Reichenbach Falls in Moriarty's deadly embrace. But Holmes, is seemed, had no wish to die and fought for his life with an energy that finally overwhelmed his creator. Public outrage at his fictional demise grew to such a pitch that black armbands were seen on the streets of London and a stream of abusive letters poured into the offices of The Strand. Doyle held out for nine years, writing the retrospective The Hound of the Baskervilles as a sop to his angry readers, but was eventually persuaded in 1902 to resurrect the great detective in The Adventure of the Empty House.
As the years went by Doyle maintained an uneasy peace with his prodigal creation, but showed no desire even to attempt to control the way he was presented on radio, play or film. As early as 1899, The American actor William Gillette, playing Holmes on stage in a story of his own invention, telegraphed to Doyle 'May I marry Holmes?' and received the reply, 'You may marry him, murder him, or do anything you like with him. AD.' Doyle watched Eille Norwood filming scenes for the silent movies made in the 1920s, and saw the fifty-six year old Arthur Wontner's portrayal of Holmes in one of the first talking pictures made in Britain; he did not live to see the famous Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce pairing which from the 1940s onwards became viewed as the definitive Holmes and Watson – the all-English man of action and the genial old buffer – but if he had, he would probably have raised no word of protest.
The British hero was being cast in a new mould, popularised as never before on celluloid, and into this mould Sherlock Holmes was being reshaped to fit. Sydney Horler, detective writer of the 1930s whose Tiger Standish stood alongside Sapper's Bulldog Drummond and the heroes of Edgar Wallace as the ideal of contemporary masculinity, expressed himself thus on the subject: 'A pipe, a dog and a golf club: if you want to win the heart of a man, give him one of these. And when I say a man, I mean a MAN – not one of these emasculated cigarette smokers.'
And so we find, from the late 1930s onward, a totally transformed Holmes appearing on film, in literature and in the popular imagination: physically healthy, rugged of jaw, striding purposefully across London with pipe firmly clenched between his teeth; the boxer, swordsman and singlestick expert emphasised to the total exclusion of the ennui-prone cocaine addict; manic, but not depressive; independent of women, but not sexually ambiguous; eccentric perhaps, but only a little, and certainly not decadent! The remoulding did not go entirely unnoticed - here is Graham Greene, commenting upon Basil Rathbone's portrayal of Holmes: 'What is wrong, surely, is Mr Rathbone's reading of the great character: the good humour (Holmes very rarely laughed), and the general air of brisk good health (there is only one reference to the depraved needle).' 'Rathbone is physically made for the part of Holmes; one feels he was really drawn by Paget; but mentally, he forgets that he belongs to the end of a century, and probably met Wilde at first nights. One cannot imagine this Holmes indolent, mystical or untidy (there were tobacco jars and not – shouldn't it have been? - a Turkish (sic) slipper on the chimney piece)'.
Nevertheless, this manly, stiff-upper lipped portrayal of Holmes persisted by and large right up until the 1980s, when Jeremy Brett flounced onto our television screens in the Granada TV adaptations of the Canon. Languid as a panther and twice as deadly, sporting the 'quiet sartorial primness' of the original Paget illustrations, Brett's Holmes - partnered originally with David Burke's handsome, soldierly Watson and later with Edward Hardwicke's sensitive, intelligent portrayal - re-introduced the original troubled, cocaine-addicted Holmes to a public on the cusp of another fin de siecle. Brett soon came to replace Basil Rathbone as the 'definitive' Holmes; and his portrayal opened the door to a whole host of 21st century re-interpretations of the famous detective and his sidekick, notably Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law camping it up in Guy Ritchie's 'Sherlock Holmes' and 'A Game of Shadows', Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman wielding i-phones and dodging bucketfuls of innuendo in the BBC 'Sherlock' series, and Sir Ian McKellen taking on the mantle of 'Mr Holmes' in retirement, staving off dementia in the film adaptation of Mitch Cullin's A Slight Trick of the Mind.
'Marry him, murder him, or do anything you like with him?' Online fanfic and multiple pastiches have treated us to Holmes consorting with vampires -less of an update than a regression, arguably - and with Watson in a plethora 'Hwatson' and 'Johnlock' slash (if that's your thing, by the way, I can recommend Elinor Gray's Compound a Felony: A Queer Affair of Sherlock Holmes). We've had theories put forward about Holmes' gender in Ms. Holmes of Baker Street: The Truth About Sherlock, and the homoerotic subtext to the original stories has been well and truly brought out into the open with titles such as A Study In Lavender: Queering Sherlock Holmes and Kissing Sherlock Holmes.
Oh, and you might also enjoy these two: My Dearest Holmes and A Case of Domestic Pilfering. Happy reading!
For Doyle, the solution seemed simple: in The Adventure of the Final Problem, written in 1893 but set in 1891, he sent Holmes to his death, plunging over the Reichenbach Falls in Moriarty's deadly embrace. But Holmes, is seemed, had no wish to die and fought for his life with an energy that finally overwhelmed his creator. Public outrage at his fictional demise grew to such a pitch that black armbands were seen on the streets of London and a stream of abusive letters poured into the offices of The Strand. Doyle held out for nine years, writing the retrospective The Hound of the Baskervilles as a sop to his angry readers, but was eventually persuaded in 1902 to resurrect the great detective in The Adventure of the Empty House.
As the years went by Doyle maintained an uneasy peace with his prodigal creation, but showed no desire even to attempt to control the way he was presented on radio, play or film. As early as 1899, The American actor William Gillette, playing Holmes on stage in a story of his own invention, telegraphed to Doyle 'May I marry Holmes?' and received the reply, 'You may marry him, murder him, or do anything you like with him. AD.' Doyle watched Eille Norwood filming scenes for the silent movies made in the 1920s, and saw the fifty-six year old Arthur Wontner's portrayal of Holmes in one of the first talking pictures made in Britain; he did not live to see the famous Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce pairing which from the 1940s onwards became viewed as the definitive Holmes and Watson – the all-English man of action and the genial old buffer – but if he had, he would probably have raised no word of protest.
The British hero was being cast in a new mould, popularised as never before on celluloid, and into this mould Sherlock Holmes was being reshaped to fit. Sydney Horler, detective writer of the 1930s whose Tiger Standish stood alongside Sapper's Bulldog Drummond and the heroes of Edgar Wallace as the ideal of contemporary masculinity, expressed himself thus on the subject: 'A pipe, a dog and a golf club: if you want to win the heart of a man, give him one of these. And when I say a man, I mean a MAN – not one of these emasculated cigarette smokers.'
And so we find, from the late 1930s onward, a totally transformed Holmes appearing on film, in literature and in the popular imagination: physically healthy, rugged of jaw, striding purposefully across London with pipe firmly clenched between his teeth; the boxer, swordsman and singlestick expert emphasised to the total exclusion of the ennui-prone cocaine addict; manic, but not depressive; independent of women, but not sexually ambiguous; eccentric perhaps, but only a little, and certainly not decadent! The remoulding did not go entirely unnoticed - here is Graham Greene, commenting upon Basil Rathbone's portrayal of Holmes: 'What is wrong, surely, is Mr Rathbone's reading of the great character: the good humour (Holmes very rarely laughed), and the general air of brisk good health (there is only one reference to the depraved needle).' 'Rathbone is physically made for the part of Holmes; one feels he was really drawn by Paget; but mentally, he forgets that he belongs to the end of a century, and probably met Wilde at first nights. One cannot imagine this Holmes indolent, mystical or untidy (there were tobacco jars and not – shouldn't it have been? - a Turkish (sic) slipper on the chimney piece)'.
Nevertheless, this manly, stiff-upper lipped portrayal of Holmes persisted by and large right up until the 1980s, when Jeremy Brett flounced onto our television screens in the Granada TV adaptations of the Canon. Languid as a panther and twice as deadly, sporting the 'quiet sartorial primness' of the original Paget illustrations, Brett's Holmes - partnered originally with David Burke's handsome, soldierly Watson and later with Edward Hardwicke's sensitive, intelligent portrayal - re-introduced the original troubled, cocaine-addicted Holmes to a public on the cusp of another fin de siecle. Brett soon came to replace Basil Rathbone as the 'definitive' Holmes; and his portrayal opened the door to a whole host of 21st century re-interpretations of the famous detective and his sidekick, notably Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law camping it up in Guy Ritchie's 'Sherlock Holmes' and 'A Game of Shadows', Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman wielding i-phones and dodging bucketfuls of innuendo in the BBC 'Sherlock' series, and Sir Ian McKellen taking on the mantle of 'Mr Holmes' in retirement, staving off dementia in the film adaptation of Mitch Cullin's A Slight Trick of the Mind.
'Marry him, murder him, or do anything you like with him?' Online fanfic and multiple pastiches have treated us to Holmes consorting with vampires -less of an update than a regression, arguably - and with Watson in a plethora 'Hwatson' and 'Johnlock' slash (if that's your thing, by the way, I can recommend Elinor Gray's Compound a Felony: A Queer Affair of Sherlock Holmes). We've had theories put forward about Holmes' gender in Ms. Holmes of Baker Street: The Truth About Sherlock, and the homoerotic subtext to the original stories has been well and truly brought out into the open with titles such as A Study In Lavender: Queering Sherlock Holmes and Kissing Sherlock Holmes.
Oh, and you might also enjoy these two: My Dearest Holmes and A Case of Domestic Pilfering. Happy reading!
July 17, 2017
Jane Austen Bicentenary - 18th July 2017
Amongst her own contemporaries, Jane Austen was not regarded as a literary phenomenon. The rise of the female novelist in the late 18th - early 19th century is well documented, and Austen's original readership would already be devouring the popular and often sensational works of Fanny Burney, Ann Radcliffe, Maria Edgeworth and Hannah More. This is not to imply that female writers were ten a penny, or that publishers were welcoming them with open arms – thirty years after Jane's death, the Bronte sisters were still so fearful of the stigma attached to female authors that they published under male pseudonyms - but the precedent had been set, success had already been achieved by others, and while Jane Austen's work was praised and admired, it wasn't regarded as unique. Today however, when it could be said (and has been!) that female writers ARE ten a penny, she is definitely regarded as unique - a literary phenomenon still topping the bestseller lists two hundred years after her death.
The reason? Her characters. Psychologically believable and instantly recognisable, they're unshackled by their historical context and still make perfect sense to us today. Look at it this way: while many of us may lament the fact that we've never encountered Mr Darcy, I'll bet we all know a Mr & Mrs Bennet with teenage daughter Lydia (Pride and Prejudice), a ditsy Marianne Dashwood convinced she's met Mr Right when he's obviously Mr Wrong (Sense and Sensibility), a fussy, nervous, dependent father like Mr Woodhouse (Emma), and a small-minded, manipulative Mrs Norris (Mansfield Park). Austen's characters, like Shakespeare's, can and have been played in modern dress and language in present-day settings without having to change a single sentiment expressed or a single reaction to their situations. They're utterly memorable because they're utterly believable.
There's one Austen character who seems to me to achieve this feat without being allowed one single word of dialogue: Anne de Bourgh, Lady Catherine's 'spoilt, sickly' daughter from Pride and Prejudice. Fussed over by her former governess Mrs Jenkinson, Anne sits silent and lumpen while her mother holds court and Mr Collins pontificates, Elizabeth Bennet sparkles and Fitzwilliam Darcy smoulders and sulks. She is described as 'pale and sickly; her features, though not plain, were insignificant'. Her mother assures the assembled guests that she would have 'performed delightfully' upon the piano 'if her health had allowed her to apply'. She appears to speak not one word to Elizabeth Bennet or Maria Lucas during the whole of their visit to Kent, though on their final departure she '[exerts] herself so far as to courtesy and hold out her hand to both'. We are given no hint of her feelings towards her cousin and supposed fiance, Mr Darcy, who is courting Elizabeth under her very nose; his casual indifference towards her, however, is made abundantly clear.
The first time I saw Anne de Bourgh portrayed with any individuality on screen was by Moir Leslie in the 1980s BBC adaptation starring Elizabeth Garvie and Nicholas Rintoul. When Anne 'holds out her hand' to take leave of Elizabeth Bennet for the last time, she actually grasps her by the arm and looks into her eyes with timid longing, as though wishing she'd been able to pluck up the courage to make friends. That brief scene set me wondering – what would Anne's story be, what perspective might she have on the courtship and eventual marriage of her cousin to this lively, witty usurper? What must her childhood have been like, with such an overbearing mother? What was her relationship with her late father? Why was she so sickly and delicate? What happened to her after Darcy and Elizabeth married? These were the questions that eventually led me to write Before Elizabeth - the story of Anne de Bourgh, and which I've tried to answer as believably as possible in a writing style as close to Jane Austen's own as I could make it. It takes the form of a diary, in which Anne looks back at her childhood and early youth, recalls her father, her cousins, her formative years, and tries to gain some insight into her own state of mind and situation. The ending I've imagined for her may come as a bit of a surprise … why not celebrate Jane Austen's bicentenary with a delve into one of her most neglected characters?
The reason? Her characters. Psychologically believable and instantly recognisable, they're unshackled by their historical context and still make perfect sense to us today. Look at it this way: while many of us may lament the fact that we've never encountered Mr Darcy, I'll bet we all know a Mr & Mrs Bennet with teenage daughter Lydia (Pride and Prejudice), a ditsy Marianne Dashwood convinced she's met Mr Right when he's obviously Mr Wrong (Sense and Sensibility), a fussy, nervous, dependent father like Mr Woodhouse (Emma), and a small-minded, manipulative Mrs Norris (Mansfield Park). Austen's characters, like Shakespeare's, can and have been played in modern dress and language in present-day settings without having to change a single sentiment expressed or a single reaction to their situations. They're utterly memorable because they're utterly believable.
There's one Austen character who seems to me to achieve this feat without being allowed one single word of dialogue: Anne de Bourgh, Lady Catherine's 'spoilt, sickly' daughter from Pride and Prejudice. Fussed over by her former governess Mrs Jenkinson, Anne sits silent and lumpen while her mother holds court and Mr Collins pontificates, Elizabeth Bennet sparkles and Fitzwilliam Darcy smoulders and sulks. She is described as 'pale and sickly; her features, though not plain, were insignificant'. Her mother assures the assembled guests that she would have 'performed delightfully' upon the piano 'if her health had allowed her to apply'. She appears to speak not one word to Elizabeth Bennet or Maria Lucas during the whole of their visit to Kent, though on their final departure she '[exerts] herself so far as to courtesy and hold out her hand to both'. We are given no hint of her feelings towards her cousin and supposed fiance, Mr Darcy, who is courting Elizabeth under her very nose; his casual indifference towards her, however, is made abundantly clear.
The first time I saw Anne de Bourgh portrayed with any individuality on screen was by Moir Leslie in the 1980s BBC adaptation starring Elizabeth Garvie and Nicholas Rintoul. When Anne 'holds out her hand' to take leave of Elizabeth Bennet for the last time, she actually grasps her by the arm and looks into her eyes with timid longing, as though wishing she'd been able to pluck up the courage to make friends. That brief scene set me wondering – what would Anne's story be, what perspective might she have on the courtship and eventual marriage of her cousin to this lively, witty usurper? What must her childhood have been like, with such an overbearing mother? What was her relationship with her late father? Why was she so sickly and delicate? What happened to her after Darcy and Elizabeth married? These were the questions that eventually led me to write Before Elizabeth - the story of Anne de Bourgh, and which I've tried to answer as believably as possible in a writing style as close to Jane Austen's own as I could make it. It takes the form of a diary, in which Anne looks back at her childhood and early youth, recalls her father, her cousins, her formative years, and tries to gain some insight into her own state of mind and situation. The ending I've imagined for her may come as a bit of a surprise … why not celebrate Jane Austen's bicentenary with a delve into one of her most neglected characters?
