A bitty post of assorted literary thoughts...
Firstly, I have been re-reading Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm (1932), a comedy which tells the story of Flora Poste, orphaned at the age of nineteen and who decides to live with relatives the Starkadders. This strange family, whom she has never met before, have messy lives which she determines to clean up for them. Amusing in its own right, it is also a clever parody of several popular works of the time (now unknown) and of D.H.Lawrence - something I never noticed before, but having read Sons and Lovers (1913) fairly recently I 'got' some of the allusions. Despite this link to a canonised writer, and despite a good 1995 TV adaptation starring the lovely Rufus Sewell and a rather young-looking Kate Beckinsdale, it is relatively unknown and uncritiqued. Even searching academic online journals I found only one good article devoted solely to this clever book. If you fancy a giggle from a writer who doesn't take herself too seriously, this book is great.
Secondly I stumbled across a fantastic blog today called merely 'Costume drama reviews', which I'm sure I will be returning to again and again in the future. It's a good place to look if you are interested in 'the classics', in watching adaptations or finding recommendations. From here, and from my mini-series obsessed American friend here in France, I learn that there is an imminent new film of Middlemarch, although how they'll squeeze 700+ pages into 2 hours is beyond me!
In books, I found an interesting one in the V.O. (Version Originale) section of Tours library last week: An Intimate History of Humanity (1994) by Theodore Zeldin. In it Zeldin explores the full range of human emotion - love, fear, curiosity, ambition - where it comes from, how it has developed and what it seems to be doing now. His aim is to provide us with an idea of our roots and heritage as humans, rather than as Brits/Americans/French/Japanese etc and is very interesting. He begins each chapter with stories of French women (why, I don't remember) and then broadens his view to see history, so we see both an intimate and a long-sighted view of history, which is interesting. I also found Kate Morton's second novel The Forgotten Garden (2008) (after enjoying The House at Riverton - 2007) - not bad for what can be a very hit-and-miss couple of shelves!
Lastly, I've been to the cinema twice this week! I know, indulgent... well, I do only pay 3,70 euros each time. Thursday I saw Invictus (apparently not out yet in the UK?!) which was just fantastic, even if the last twenty minutes did go a bit heavy on the rugby, and incredibly inspiring. Go and see it. I'm definitely going to be hunting out Nelson Mandela's autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom. Actually, I wanted to talk about Bright Star, directed by Jan
e Campion (directed The Piano - no, I haven't seen it either, not yet). It's the story of John Keats - one of my favourite poets - and his fiancee Fanny Brawne. It was a beautiful film in every way - music, direction, actor who plays Keats (!), poetry - but I wouldn't blame people for not enjoying it. It's slow-moving and the ending's predictable but most importantly, I think, the poetry doesn't get in the way, it enhances the story. Wait, didn't someone say something like that about literature and reality...?! Most importantly we hear 'Ode to a Nightingale' (one of my favourites), 'Bright Star' (possibly the only poem directly about Brawne), 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' and 'Endymion', and not just from the mouth of Keats himself.One thing I found particularly interesting was the way Keats' own words from his letters were occasionally put into his mouth in the film. For example, during Fanny's first 'poetry lesson' he tells her: "A poet is the most unpoetical thing in existence" and goes on to quote one of his own, most famous letters. What I felt was done successfully was to show the depth of Fanny's emotions and feelings, but also to show her to be a very ordinary woman in many ways (despite her sometimes startling clothing). One of the best scenes, I though, was the one in which Keats believes his friend Charles Brown to have sent Fanny a Valentine and storms into the woods with them both following him. This is followed by Brown's tirade against Fanny, where she stands silently listening. However I couldn't help feeling that there was something a little Twlight-like about Keats and Fanny's relationship - not only the moping around and crying in the woods but also the theme of the unusual and extraordinary man falling in love with the surprisingly ordinary woman. I suppose the appeal of this kind of story lies in the fact that we all feel somehow that we deserve to be loved in such a way.
The best thing I can say about this film is that I saw it with a friend who knew nothing about Keats and who doesn't particularly like poetry, but she came out having enjoyed it and wanting to try and read Keats' poetry for herself. Give it a go!
P.S. Next time I hope to give some anecdotes on the subject of "Teaching English (and literature) in France"... watch this space!
