No proper Quirky Muffin this time as sickness has intervened. Not sleeping for a couple of nights and twenty four hours of not sleeping can really sap creativity. At least the doctor gave me a turkey sandwich before pushing me out the door.
Lesson to be learnt: Do not wear tight trousers.
O.
Monday, 14 October 2013
Saturday, 12 October 2013
Book: 'Gaudy Night' by Dorothy L Sayers (1935)
This wasn't what I was expecting at all. Maybe I was deluded. I had read the first five novels in the Lord Peter Wimsey sequence and found some detective stories that were slowly deepening into full-fledged psychological studies and then skipped straight to the penultimate novel 'Gaudy Night' and discovered a full scale classic.
Lord Peter Wimsey was an aristocrat detective of the highest intelligence. He may have concealed himself a little as a seeming fop but he was a serious proposition in practically any circumstance, and his substance was emphasised increasingly as the series moves on and his detective work transitioned from a hobby to a hardfought profession. Having started off seemingly as a generic novelty sleuth with aristocratic tendencies and shellshock from World War I, he ends a deeply complex character. Having said all that, the first of 'Gaudy Night's many decoys is that it's not really a novel about Lord Peter Wimsey at all, but is actually the story of his reluctant love interest Harriet Vane. He saved her from a wrongful execution in 'Strong Poison' and professed his love, but it's only here that their whole shared story comes to a resolution, seven books later. It's Harriet's story first, probably as it must have been lest it all come apart in a shower of literary debris.
The second decoy is perhaps the title, which I initially thought referred to the adjective 'gaudy' but actually relates apparently to a type of university reunion apparently celebrated at the time in some Oxford colleges. Hence when discovering the book you wonder what could be so gaudy about it all. The eponymous Gaudy Night is the start point of the novel, the launching point for Harriet as the protagonist as she goes to her first reunion, and the first portion of what will be the nominal mystery for the narrative.
The third decoy is the presumption that this is a detective story, as it is really a romance of the first order masquerading as a mystery. That all begs the question of what this book is really about, and therein lies the question of all questions. This mammoth and epic story is a study of the implications of educated women, the conflict between said education and the traditional roles of women in society, the ongoing tension between Wimsey and Vane, the subtext of Sayers' real life, and perhaps is a deliberate step toward the resolution of the entire series of Wimsey novels as only one more novel would be written.
To talk about the story briefly, a seeming prank at Gaudy Night escalates over a number of months into a potentially lethal tirade of incidents, which leads the Lady Dons of the College to summon Old Student Harriet to surreptitiously determine who is behind it all, and to stop them before someone dies in the process. The mystery is really only a tool of the plot to raise social issues and far more importantly to illuminate the desperate struggle in Harriet's heart as she comes to realise that the man whose proposals she has been refusing for five years may have been the man for her all along. It is hard to know how to feel about someone who saved you from the hangman's noose, after all. In addition, the introduction of Wimsey far past the mid-point of the narrative and in his old studying grounds of Oxford effectively reintroduces everyone to his brilliance via his academic reputation and how he relates to his nephew. We are reintroduced to Wimsey at the same time as Harriet is, and it is impressive. The psychology of the whole novel is impressive, and the coalescence of the disparate plots into a completely satisfying conclusion is dramatic for a mystery novel of the 1930s.
Somewhere there will be massive critical appreciations of 'Gaudy Night', which I could never hope to recreate, so my post will finish with an appreciation of this being a highly enjoyable and successful novel by a woman, about a college full of women and with a female protagonist. I hope I'm not a sexist but I would have been a little perturbed at the thought of what was to come with all that femininity considered, and then delighted because it all makes sense and is an example of the work standing on its own merits.
Go, woman power!
O.
Lord Peter Wimsey was an aristocrat detective of the highest intelligence. He may have concealed himself a little as a seeming fop but he was a serious proposition in practically any circumstance, and his substance was emphasised increasingly as the series moves on and his detective work transitioned from a hobby to a hardfought profession. Having started off seemingly as a generic novelty sleuth with aristocratic tendencies and shellshock from World War I, he ends a deeply complex character. Having said all that, the first of 'Gaudy Night's many decoys is that it's not really a novel about Lord Peter Wimsey at all, but is actually the story of his reluctant love interest Harriet Vane. He saved her from a wrongful execution in 'Strong Poison' and professed his love, but it's only here that their whole shared story comes to a resolution, seven books later. It's Harriet's story first, probably as it must have been lest it all come apart in a shower of literary debris.
The second decoy is perhaps the title, which I initially thought referred to the adjective 'gaudy' but actually relates apparently to a type of university reunion apparently celebrated at the time in some Oxford colleges. Hence when discovering the book you wonder what could be so gaudy about it all. The eponymous Gaudy Night is the start point of the novel, the launching point for Harriet as the protagonist as she goes to her first reunion, and the first portion of what will be the nominal mystery for the narrative.
The third decoy is the presumption that this is a detective story, as it is really a romance of the first order masquerading as a mystery. That all begs the question of what this book is really about, and therein lies the question of all questions. This mammoth and epic story is a study of the implications of educated women, the conflict between said education and the traditional roles of women in society, the ongoing tension between Wimsey and Vane, the subtext of Sayers' real life, and perhaps is a deliberate step toward the resolution of the entire series of Wimsey novels as only one more novel would be written.
To talk about the story briefly, a seeming prank at Gaudy Night escalates over a number of months into a potentially lethal tirade of incidents, which leads the Lady Dons of the College to summon Old Student Harriet to surreptitiously determine who is behind it all, and to stop them before someone dies in the process. The mystery is really only a tool of the plot to raise social issues and far more importantly to illuminate the desperate struggle in Harriet's heart as she comes to realise that the man whose proposals she has been refusing for five years may have been the man for her all along. It is hard to know how to feel about someone who saved you from the hangman's noose, after all. In addition, the introduction of Wimsey far past the mid-point of the narrative and in his old studying grounds of Oxford effectively reintroduces everyone to his brilliance via his academic reputation and how he relates to his nephew. We are reintroduced to Wimsey at the same time as Harriet is, and it is impressive. The psychology of the whole novel is impressive, and the coalescence of the disparate plots into a completely satisfying conclusion is dramatic for a mystery novel of the 1930s.
Somewhere there will be massive critical appreciations of 'Gaudy Night', which I could never hope to recreate, so my post will finish with an appreciation of this being a highly enjoyable and successful novel by a woman, about a college full of women and with a female protagonist. I hope I'm not a sexist but I would have been a little perturbed at the thought of what was to come with all that femininity considered, and then delighted because it all makes sense and is an example of the work standing on its own merits.
Go, woman power!
O.
Thursday, 10 October 2013
Geeky Weeks
This is turning into quite the geeky or nerdy week. Seven days ago I volunteered to be a library assistant in the village library. Six days ago I wrote about Sherlock Holmes. Four days ago I was approached to be parachuted in as an emergency university lecturer. Three days ago rumours about found missing Doctor Who episodes started swirling about in earnest. Two days ago I wrote about comic books. Yesterday I started working. Today, Doctor Who gossip continues to swirl until the press embargo is lifted at midnight and it somehow seems as if the storm is over.
Sometimes weeks are just irretrievably nerdy.
As all the Doctor Who speculation goes on and on and on (hooray if it does turn out to be 'Enemy of the World' and 'The Web of Fear', by the way) one had to wonder why Star Trek doesn't get anywhere near this attention anymore. There are no missing episodes of Star Trek of course, which makes it harder to be nostalgic about but it's also indicative of the facet of this show that allowed it to bloom so hugely but also then collapse: The franchise of Trek. For the great majority of its history Doctor Who is one show, constantly relaunching and metamorphosing, but one show at a time. Star Trek is six different television shows that mostly burst out in one brief period before collapsing inwards again having burnt all their narrative fuel. The original show, groundbreaking and exciting as it was, was the phenomenon and its movies and the spinoffs are the effects of its original success. Star Trek the original series will be remembered longer than its spinoffs but it only ran for three years and six revival movies. Even as the reboot Star Trek movies roll out once every three or four years it's hard to get excited, mainly because they're not really Star Trek to be honest. In contrast to all that, Doctor Who is about to have its fiftieth anniversary and has been in production for about thirty four of those years.
I love Star Trek and Sherlock Holmes, not Doctor Who so much but if third and fourth items were compulsory Doctor Who would definitely be one of them. I've rambled on about them before but those three sets of characters are multi-platform cross-media behemoths of incredible vitality, and my favourite Star Trek is the weakest in energy and vigour.
Lest that people become convinced that my life revolves slowly around television I must reveal that I have been reading a lot of Dorothy L Sayeys, who truly seems to be one of the unfairly lesser remembered gems of the Golden Age of Mystery Novels. What Sayers lacked in volume of output (Agatha Christie beats everyone there) she gains in painstaking effort, love of detail and probably re-readability. Once I've finished there shall be words on 'Gaudy Night' but what you get from her Peter Wimsey novels is a long-term, real-time narrative where time passes in between novels as it does for us, and the series as a whole thus seems somehow just a little more satisfying. Creativity is born from limitation. Yes, there shall be more on Lord Peter Wimsey of the ridiculous name.
That's a wrap. There's not much to say. Stories are coming though. Stories! And I guess more geeky talk. I need more novels.
O.
Sometimes weeks are just irretrievably nerdy.
As all the Doctor Who speculation goes on and on and on (hooray if it does turn out to be 'Enemy of the World' and 'The Web of Fear', by the way) one had to wonder why Star Trek doesn't get anywhere near this attention anymore. There are no missing episodes of Star Trek of course, which makes it harder to be nostalgic about but it's also indicative of the facet of this show that allowed it to bloom so hugely but also then collapse: The franchise of Trek. For the great majority of its history Doctor Who is one show, constantly relaunching and metamorphosing, but one show at a time. Star Trek is six different television shows that mostly burst out in one brief period before collapsing inwards again having burnt all their narrative fuel. The original show, groundbreaking and exciting as it was, was the phenomenon and its movies and the spinoffs are the effects of its original success. Star Trek the original series will be remembered longer than its spinoffs but it only ran for three years and six revival movies. Even as the reboot Star Trek movies roll out once every three or four years it's hard to get excited, mainly because they're not really Star Trek to be honest. In contrast to all that, Doctor Who is about to have its fiftieth anniversary and has been in production for about thirty four of those years.
I love Star Trek and Sherlock Holmes, not Doctor Who so much but if third and fourth items were compulsory Doctor Who would definitely be one of them. I've rambled on about them before but those three sets of characters are multi-platform cross-media behemoths of incredible vitality, and my favourite Star Trek is the weakest in energy and vigour.
Lest that people become convinced that my life revolves slowly around television I must reveal that I have been reading a lot of Dorothy L Sayeys, who truly seems to be one of the unfairly lesser remembered gems of the Golden Age of Mystery Novels. What Sayers lacked in volume of output (Agatha Christie beats everyone there) she gains in painstaking effort, love of detail and probably re-readability. Once I've finished there shall be words on 'Gaudy Night' but what you get from her Peter Wimsey novels is a long-term, real-time narrative where time passes in between novels as it does for us, and the series as a whole thus seems somehow just a little more satisfying. Creativity is born from limitation. Yes, there shall be more on Lord Peter Wimsey of the ridiculous name.
That's a wrap. There's not much to say. Stories are coming though. Stories! And I guess more geeky talk. I need more novels.
O.
Tuesday, 8 October 2013
The Other Kind Of Book
I was born a while ago, apparently longer ago than is first obvious if lovely Rochelle who was collecting for the National Deaf Children's Society today in Llanelli is to be believed, and when I first stumbled across comic books it was via the British over sized reprints of DC being published by London Editions Magazines. As a result of this and a few bundled US comics bought at Butlins in prehistoric times I was exposed to what I consider to be the fine era that I refer to as post-Crisis. John Byrne had rebooted Superman admirably, Giffen and DeMatteis had produced a fun take on the Justice League, and Batman was quite happily living with established continuity in what can only be thought of as a 'fuzzy reboot'. Things were happening everywhere but I was mainly exposed to the League, Batman and Superman and they were awesome. They were also fun, which is something that doesn't seem to be valued much anymore but there's no point in grumping on about it. Progress happens even if it's not agreeable to everyone. Over at Marvel that man John Byrne also produced a groundbreaking take on the now 'Sensational' She-Hulk and had in the recent past made the Fantastic Four relevant for the first time in ages. That man Byrne was incorrigible!
Even though clouds were gathering in the 1990s there was still fun and adventure to be found in Peter David's Supergirl and the Wally West incarnation of The Flash under practically every person who wrote for him. In the 2000s, it was tougher but Dan Slott did an awesome and innovative run on She-Hulk and Mark Waid pulled the Fantastic Four back into shape in admirable adventurous fashion. The Fantastic Four have always been a hard bunch to write for as not everyone seems to understand that they're not superheroes but adventurers instead. There's no obligation for fistfights and Battles Royale with the Four; They'll solve a problem scientifically or using their combined talents as a family group, and then have a dinner party or go the movies to unwind. Now, in the 2010s, I don't seem to have a comic book. Based on no experiences whatsoever I distrust DC to put out anything but fistfights and zombies, and Marvel has somehow always been the Other Company to be visited only for She-Hulk and the Four.
In the end, though, I normally return to my beginnings. The Byrne Superman is a lovely idea that I'll have to revisit in the near future, with a tangible element of fun always around the corner. Superman may have to do terrible things but it is still fun to be him, although he did have his moments of crisis and went loco after executing Zod and the Phantom Zoners (surely a great band name). It's never been clear to me why Superman has to be the strongest, fastest and most ridiculously overpowered superhero anyway. That doesn't make him super in any way except for being super-unrelateable. His potency is in the sheer variety of things he can do. The Flash is faster, Wonder Woman is a better diplomat, Batman is smarter, Green Lantern has better ranged weapons, the Martian Manhunter has telepathic/vision powers far more potent, and so we can go on but Superman can do everything: That is why he is 'super'. Maybe he should be the strongest or most invulnerable though. The Byrne Superman was more relateable and so was the Giffen/de Matteis League. Yes, their ranks were filled by characters you might not have heard of much but isn't that more believable in a full-time team anyway? If Superman's always in Metropolis then how is he always here too? And Batman and Wonder Woman too for that matter. It made more sense to have it the way it was, with jokes to counterpoint the drama and situations that the team had to bind together to defeat. It was a wonderful series, lessened somewhat when the team split into two main branches/series.
I would love to say that are excellent comic books out there right now, but I really wouldn't know. That initial post-Crisis Age was plum in the middle of the transition from mass sales to selling through specialist outlets, and that transition has led to increased pandering toward mature existing fans and movement away from recruiting new customers and the things I rather liked to begin with. Yes, now the storytelling is complex, developed and sometimes wittier than before but a lot of the fun has gone to be replaced by adult themes. The last entertaining thing I read was 'Hero Squared' again by Giffen and De Matteis, and even that ended on a tragedy after a long run of fun.
Is the comic book as we knew it dead? Maybe and maybe not, as it is the Age of the Internet. The future is in our hands now, and comic book companies should beware.
O.
Notes
For an interesting run of collected editions try to gather up the following series in their paperback (TPB) collections, or individual issues if necessary:
'Batman (Detective Comics)' by Greg Rucka (TPBs and back issues)
'Catwoman' by Ed Brubaker (TPBs and back issues)
'Fantastic Four' by Mark Waid (TPBs)
'Fantastic Four' by John Byrne (Visionary TPBs)
'The Flash' by Geoff Johns (TPBs)
'Hero Squared' by Giffen and DeMatteis (TPSs)
'Justice League' by Giffen and various (Justice League International TPBs)
'Sensational She-Hulk' by John Byrne (Back Issues)
'She-Hulk' by Dan Slott (She-Hulk TPBs)
'Supergirl' by Peter David (TPBs and back issues)
'Superman' by John Byrne (Man of Steel TPBs)
'Wonder Woman' by Greg Rucka (TPBs)
There's something there for everyone, over about twenty years of mainstream comic books, with a decent dose of fun to boot.
Even though clouds were gathering in the 1990s there was still fun and adventure to be found in Peter David's Supergirl and the Wally West incarnation of The Flash under practically every person who wrote for him. In the 2000s, it was tougher but Dan Slott did an awesome and innovative run on She-Hulk and Mark Waid pulled the Fantastic Four back into shape in admirable adventurous fashion. The Fantastic Four have always been a hard bunch to write for as not everyone seems to understand that they're not superheroes but adventurers instead. There's no obligation for fistfights and Battles Royale with the Four; They'll solve a problem scientifically or using their combined talents as a family group, and then have a dinner party or go the movies to unwind. Now, in the 2010s, I don't seem to have a comic book. Based on no experiences whatsoever I distrust DC to put out anything but fistfights and zombies, and Marvel has somehow always been the Other Company to be visited only for She-Hulk and the Four.
In the end, though, I normally return to my beginnings. The Byrne Superman is a lovely idea that I'll have to revisit in the near future, with a tangible element of fun always around the corner. Superman may have to do terrible things but it is still fun to be him, although he did have his moments of crisis and went loco after executing Zod and the Phantom Zoners (surely a great band name). It's never been clear to me why Superman has to be the strongest, fastest and most ridiculously overpowered superhero anyway. That doesn't make him super in any way except for being super-unrelateable. His potency is in the sheer variety of things he can do. The Flash is faster, Wonder Woman is a better diplomat, Batman is smarter, Green Lantern has better ranged weapons, the Martian Manhunter has telepathic/vision powers far more potent, and so we can go on but Superman can do everything: That is why he is 'super'. Maybe he should be the strongest or most invulnerable though. The Byrne Superman was more relateable and so was the Giffen/de Matteis League. Yes, their ranks were filled by characters you might not have heard of much but isn't that more believable in a full-time team anyway? If Superman's always in Metropolis then how is he always here too? And Batman and Wonder Woman too for that matter. It made more sense to have it the way it was, with jokes to counterpoint the drama and situations that the team had to bind together to defeat. It was a wonderful series, lessened somewhat when the team split into two main branches/series.
I would love to say that are excellent comic books out there right now, but I really wouldn't know. That initial post-Crisis Age was plum in the middle of the transition from mass sales to selling through specialist outlets, and that transition has led to increased pandering toward mature existing fans and movement away from recruiting new customers and the things I rather liked to begin with. Yes, now the storytelling is complex, developed and sometimes wittier than before but a lot of the fun has gone to be replaced by adult themes. The last entertaining thing I read was 'Hero Squared' again by Giffen and De Matteis, and even that ended on a tragedy after a long run of fun.
Is the comic book as we knew it dead? Maybe and maybe not, as it is the Age of the Internet. The future is in our hands now, and comic book companies should beware.
O.
Notes
For an interesting run of collected editions try to gather up the following series in their paperback (TPB) collections, or individual issues if necessary:
'Batman (Detective Comics)' by Greg Rucka (TPBs and back issues)
'Catwoman' by Ed Brubaker (TPBs and back issues)
'Fantastic Four' by Mark Waid (TPBs)
'Fantastic Four' by John Byrne (Visionary TPBs)
'The Flash' by Geoff Johns (TPBs)
'Hero Squared' by Giffen and DeMatteis (TPSs)
'Justice League' by Giffen and various (Justice League International TPBs)
'Sensational She-Hulk' by John Byrne (Back Issues)
'She-Hulk' by Dan Slott (She-Hulk TPBs)
'Supergirl' by Peter David (TPBs and back issues)
'Superman' by John Byrne (Man of Steel TPBs)
'Wonder Woman' by Greg Rucka (TPBs)
There's something there for everyone, over about twenty years of mainstream comic books, with a decent dose of fun to boot.
Sunday, 6 October 2013
Story: Oneiromancy, III
(Part O , II , IV)
The man, whose name was Stanley, awoke and stared blankly up at the ceiling for a little while in the darkened room. The curtains were bright with restrained light, and in an instant of strained reflection Stanley bolted out of bed and jumped for the bathroom.
Shaving and washing when you're two hours later for work is an activity which can only lead to trouble. After a couple of cuts and a bruise from hitting his knee on the shower door, Stanley barrelled out of the bathroom, dressed in a frenzy and almost slid out of the front door and into the outside world. Fortunately, Stanley had long stuck to the adage that commuting was evil and so lived almost next door to his place of work, the Deuteronomy Comprehensive School, and was in walking distance of the supermarket. It was his own little slice of heaven.
Walking hurriedly up the main entrance road into the school, Stanley waved off the offended looking headmaster Mr Deakins and scurried up to his class room and his first lesson of the day. He was five minutes late. Deakins was coming down the corridor so the somewhat confused teacher pulled himself together with a sheer force of will and entered the classroom.
One lesson later, and with much buffeted confidence, our unwitting protagonist entered the canteen and snagged a portable lunch before proceeding with all due deliberation and courage to the staff room where the inevitable grilling would occur. If he were lucky he'd be taken away by Dopey Deakins for an interrogation and if he wasn't lucky then his head of department Diane would get to him first. For a moment he considered what his excuse would be for being late and missing tutorials and the dream shuddered into his mind for a moment before he shuffled it off for later reflection. There could be no time for his crazy visions right now. Even if they were getting worse.
The staff room was quiet this early in the lunch period so Stanley dropped onto a couch and munched thoughtfully on his lunch as the sunshine gleamed temptingly through the window. Divertingly beautiful sunshine always seemed to be the worst part of Mondays, reminding him of what he could be doing outside, how that big pile of forms and marking wasn't so important, and that really teaching was an intolerable circumstance for this most wonderful of days.
Deakins came in and Stanley murmured a small sigh of relief. The headmaster was a decent sort, and Stanley had a decent record of being a good and reliable teacher. Then Diane came in too and he settled in for a long lunch.
Many hours later, Stanley walked out of the main street entrance to the school and stared vaguely about him before ducking into his house and meditating for a moment. Then, in the kitchen he opened the fridge and looked at the bareness before grumpily putting a pile of papers in a bag and setting off for the supermarket and maybe a restaurant too. It was the kind of day that would never get back to pattern, that would fight any attempts to make it more regular, so he would embrace it. Eventually ending up in the local library he set to work marking and was making progress when finally closing time came and he trundled home once again.
Only when he was about to go to sleep again did he realise that his waitress had had short blonde hair and been hauntingly familiar, and his dream of the preceding night did come back to mind, and then he fell asleep and began to Dream.
To continue...
The man, whose name was Stanley, awoke and stared blankly up at the ceiling for a little while in the darkened room. The curtains were bright with restrained light, and in an instant of strained reflection Stanley bolted out of bed and jumped for the bathroom.
Shaving and washing when you're two hours later for work is an activity which can only lead to trouble. After a couple of cuts and a bruise from hitting his knee on the shower door, Stanley barrelled out of the bathroom, dressed in a frenzy and almost slid out of the front door and into the outside world. Fortunately, Stanley had long stuck to the adage that commuting was evil and so lived almost next door to his place of work, the Deuteronomy Comprehensive School, and was in walking distance of the supermarket. It was his own little slice of heaven.
Walking hurriedly up the main entrance road into the school, Stanley waved off the offended looking headmaster Mr Deakins and scurried up to his class room and his first lesson of the day. He was five minutes late. Deakins was coming down the corridor so the somewhat confused teacher pulled himself together with a sheer force of will and entered the classroom.
One lesson later, and with much buffeted confidence, our unwitting protagonist entered the canteen and snagged a portable lunch before proceeding with all due deliberation and courage to the staff room where the inevitable grilling would occur. If he were lucky he'd be taken away by Dopey Deakins for an interrogation and if he wasn't lucky then his head of department Diane would get to him first. For a moment he considered what his excuse would be for being late and missing tutorials and the dream shuddered into his mind for a moment before he shuffled it off for later reflection. There could be no time for his crazy visions right now. Even if they were getting worse.
The staff room was quiet this early in the lunch period so Stanley dropped onto a couch and munched thoughtfully on his lunch as the sunshine gleamed temptingly through the window. Divertingly beautiful sunshine always seemed to be the worst part of Mondays, reminding him of what he could be doing outside, how that big pile of forms and marking wasn't so important, and that really teaching was an intolerable circumstance for this most wonderful of days.
Deakins came in and Stanley murmured a small sigh of relief. The headmaster was a decent sort, and Stanley had a decent record of being a good and reliable teacher. Then Diane came in too and he settled in for a long lunch.
Many hours later, Stanley walked out of the main street entrance to the school and stared vaguely about him before ducking into his house and meditating for a moment. Then, in the kitchen he opened the fridge and looked at the bareness before grumpily putting a pile of papers in a bag and setting off for the supermarket and maybe a restaurant too. It was the kind of day that would never get back to pattern, that would fight any attempts to make it more regular, so he would embrace it. Eventually ending up in the local library he set to work marking and was making progress when finally closing time came and he trundled home once again.
Only when he was about to go to sleep again did he realise that his waitress had had short blonde hair and been hauntingly familiar, and his dream of the preceding night did come back to mind, and then he fell asleep and began to Dream.
To continue...
Friday, 4 October 2013
Chattering about Holmes
For a long I have wanted to write about Sherlock Holmes and have stumbled over and over again due to the sheer immensity of the task. Sherlock Holmes is an immense character, an immortal work of fiction who appeared in sixty written stories by Arthur Conan Doyle and who then has spent the last one hundred and twenty years being constantly reinvented and translated across to radio shows, feature films, television series, comic books, interactive fiction games, board games and anything else you can possibly imagine. Holmes and his good friend Watson have lived through dozens of pairs of actors, been transplanted to the present day, moved to New York, and in one double-part adventure of Bravestarr shifted hundreds of years into the future. It is an amazingly vast subject, too big to ever even think about. As a result, talking about Sherlock Holmes is impossible in general.
I was introduced to Sherlock Holmes via two big hardback collections of his stories, one comprising the novellas and the other the short stories, that my parents bought for me from a then good service station nearby. This was the same place where we got giant anthologies of Famous Five and Secret Seven stories, and even a mammoth hardback five-novel James Bond collection. At least I think that was my first introduction as the BBC Radio 4 dramatisations may have been in full swing at about that time. On second though I'm reasonably sure that they were later but it's hard to tell with such childhood events. The Radio 4 shows were utterly enchanting, so much so that the sixty-four CD set was one of the first things I ever bought with my doctoral stipend when I was studying for the seemingly unending PhD. The radio shows really blur together with the written stories in my mind in the most idyllic way, where the voices of Clive Merrison and Michael Williams radiate off the pages as they're read. Those two actors, Merrison and Williams, were unique in that they were the only pair to complete the canon in dramatised form. I don't think anyone else has ever came close.
Many, many people will say that Jeremy Brett was the ideal Holmes, or Basil Rathbone. In the heat of the moment, a lot of people would currently espouse Benedict Cumberbatch but we'll have to wait until he and Martin Freeman finish their show and go through the long-time correction before that can really ring true. For me, Merrison and Williams were the ideal casting for the Great Detective and Stalwart Companion, and it is actually down to Michael Williams, who played by far the best version of Doctor John Watson to ever feature on the airwaves. In those Radio 4 plays Watson was a well-rounded, warm and sincere human being who couldn't be called anything even close to stupid. He was the character who wrote the stories, yes, but in those stories it is always implicit that Watson is playing himself down and Holmes up to make the tales more dramatic and exciting. Williams' John Watson was a full protagonist and foil to Holmes, who was more than capably played by Merrison but never to the detriment of his friend. It was a phenomenon. I suspect that Cumberbatch and Freeman will fare well under the fury of time's criticism but they won't approach the number of performances of my favourites and nor should they.
The modern 'Sherlock' is a fascinating beast of a television show, an adaptation and updating of the spirit of the original stories which cherry picks the best from those tales and meshes the results into compelling television movies but we'll be lucky to reach a grand total of fifteen segments before it collapses due to the busy-ness of its leads, its super-dependence on the mighty scribe Steven Moffat, and the danger in proceeding without sufficient remaining source material. No Sherlock Holmes has ever succeeded fully without being in contact with the source material in some way, which leads us into the show I haven't seen: 'Elementary'. I shall see it soon, and hope to be surprised, and if anything I've read is to be believed then the core to 'Elementary' is that Sherlock's back story is very connected to some version of updated canon and that it happened in London before he left for New York. If so, that's very smart to establish canon and also be in America, but we shall see.
O.
PS I hope my PhD ended. It's becoming very hard to say.
I was introduced to Sherlock Holmes via two big hardback collections of his stories, one comprising the novellas and the other the short stories, that my parents bought for me from a then good service station nearby. This was the same place where we got giant anthologies of Famous Five and Secret Seven stories, and even a mammoth hardback five-novel James Bond collection. At least I think that was my first introduction as the BBC Radio 4 dramatisations may have been in full swing at about that time. On second though I'm reasonably sure that they were later but it's hard to tell with such childhood events. The Radio 4 shows were utterly enchanting, so much so that the sixty-four CD set was one of the first things I ever bought with my doctoral stipend when I was studying for the seemingly unending PhD. The radio shows really blur together with the written stories in my mind in the most idyllic way, where the voices of Clive Merrison and Michael Williams radiate off the pages as they're read. Those two actors, Merrison and Williams, were unique in that they were the only pair to complete the canon in dramatised form. I don't think anyone else has ever came close.
Many, many people will say that Jeremy Brett was the ideal Holmes, or Basil Rathbone. In the heat of the moment, a lot of people would currently espouse Benedict Cumberbatch but we'll have to wait until he and Martin Freeman finish their show and go through the long-time correction before that can really ring true. For me, Merrison and Williams were the ideal casting for the Great Detective and Stalwart Companion, and it is actually down to Michael Williams, who played by far the best version of Doctor John Watson to ever feature on the airwaves. In those Radio 4 plays Watson was a well-rounded, warm and sincere human being who couldn't be called anything even close to stupid. He was the character who wrote the stories, yes, but in those stories it is always implicit that Watson is playing himself down and Holmes up to make the tales more dramatic and exciting. Williams' John Watson was a full protagonist and foil to Holmes, who was more than capably played by Merrison but never to the detriment of his friend. It was a phenomenon. I suspect that Cumberbatch and Freeman will fare well under the fury of time's criticism but they won't approach the number of performances of my favourites and nor should they.
The modern 'Sherlock' is a fascinating beast of a television show, an adaptation and updating of the spirit of the original stories which cherry picks the best from those tales and meshes the results into compelling television movies but we'll be lucky to reach a grand total of fifteen segments before it collapses due to the busy-ness of its leads, its super-dependence on the mighty scribe Steven Moffat, and the danger in proceeding without sufficient remaining source material. No Sherlock Holmes has ever succeeded fully without being in contact with the source material in some way, which leads us into the show I haven't seen: 'Elementary'. I shall see it soon, and hope to be surprised, and if anything I've read is to be believed then the core to 'Elementary' is that Sherlock's back story is very connected to some version of updated canon and that it happened in London before he left for New York. If so, that's very smart to establish canon and also be in America, but we shall see.
O.
PS I hope my PhD ended. It's becoming very hard to say.
Wednesday, 2 October 2013
The upward trajectory
The bottom of the emotional barrel is not somewhere to stay for long. Tempting though it may be to mope and cower in self-pity most people bounce back to normality or otherwise take the dark path of seeking solace in dangerous addictions and harmful behaviours. Several times in the past I've been at the bottom of the barrel, one barrel being far deeper than the others, and it felt on every occasion as if the world would never take that turn to feeling good again. But, of course, it eventually does.
As mentioned elsewhere, the key to escaping the doldrums is simply to get going and do something. Overly simplistic? Yes, but it works. The doldrums is a state that can only survive in a vacuum, and is vanquished in many simple ways. Why not go the public library and start to get to grips with Swahili or plant morphology? Or learn about Taoism or Jung?
For me, the main obstacle to escaping the doldrums at the moment is of course joblessness. For weeks it seemed hopeless but this week applications have gone out and things don't feel so bad. Of course they're somewhat forced applications but they still exist and count toward the mental well being tally. Another thing counting towards that vague feeling of happiness is Coursera, where I'm currently chugging through three different Stats courses in a bid to recover all my lost and long forgotten Statistical knowledge. It's hard to fit it all in, but time is so far yielding to the task. On top of that there's the Quirky Muffin, keeping me sane despite all the odds, freelance research (aka doing mathematics for myself), and swimming and cycling in the great outside.
We're into October now, and the days are pretty short already. It's really important to compensate for those shortening days by spending time outside and doing a little bit of what people call 'exercise'. Bleuch, exercise for the sake of it is anathema, but it is necessary and I do fortunately like going for random walks and cycles down a path or two. An hour of being outside at midday in the depths of winter is probably the most important thing for mood control that you can possibly do. Those mid-winter barrels can be pretty deep.
So, the weeks wind on, and progress is being made. A paper is being written and arguments are raging about boundary conditions and quality in my mind, but at least things are happening. It's far worse if they're not. And if they weren't then at least I have a book by Jung, shelves full of novels, and Stats courses to keep me going.
Life's quite good, really.
O.
As mentioned elsewhere, the key to escaping the doldrums is simply to get going and do something. Overly simplistic? Yes, but it works. The doldrums is a state that can only survive in a vacuum, and is vanquished in many simple ways. Why not go the public library and start to get to grips with Swahili or plant morphology? Or learn about Taoism or Jung?
For me, the main obstacle to escaping the doldrums at the moment is of course joblessness. For weeks it seemed hopeless but this week applications have gone out and things don't feel so bad. Of course they're somewhat forced applications but they still exist and count toward the mental well being tally. Another thing counting towards that vague feeling of happiness is Coursera, where I'm currently chugging through three different Stats courses in a bid to recover all my lost and long forgotten Statistical knowledge. It's hard to fit it all in, but time is so far yielding to the task. On top of that there's the Quirky Muffin, keeping me sane despite all the odds, freelance research (aka doing mathematics for myself), and swimming and cycling in the great outside.
We're into October now, and the days are pretty short already. It's really important to compensate for those shortening days by spending time outside and doing a little bit of what people call 'exercise'. Bleuch, exercise for the sake of it is anathema, but it is necessary and I do fortunately like going for random walks and cycles down a path or two. An hour of being outside at midday in the depths of winter is probably the most important thing for mood control that you can possibly do. Those mid-winter barrels can be pretty deep.
So, the weeks wind on, and progress is being made. A paper is being written and arguments are raging about boundary conditions and quality in my mind, but at least things are happening. It's far worse if they're not. And if they weren't then at least I have a book by Jung, shelves full of novels, and Stats courses to keep me going.
Life's quite good, really.
O.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)