On more English matters

[selenak]

Devil's Whore, Part II: still disappointingly predictable and full of bodice ripper stereotypes. Though I will say the leading actress has a great period look. Still, given all the talent involved, I expected so much more, and I'm sulking at not getting it. (And considering rewatching Charles II - The Power and the Passion, which does a great job in delivering the ensueing epoch, its religious and political strife and its main characters in a complex and still compelling fashion.)

Brideshead Revisited, film version: I agree with yahtzee63's review here, which is beautifully phrased and to which I can add little. Except that any version of Brideshead Revisited, book, tv or film, makes me snap out of idyllic homoerotic Oxford scenes by thinking: "That's nice, boys, but who pays for the strawberries and the champagne, huh? Not you, so quit the whining later!" Which robs me of sympathy for Sebastian the poor little rich boy and Charles the social climber both.

Mind you: this might be caused not so much by my own social conscience than by the awareness of Evelyn Waugh as one of the most spectacularly unpleasant people and snobs on the planet. Which didn't stop him from being a witty writer, of course. Here are some choice excerpts from his correspondance with Nancy Mitford, which I might as well start with quotes about Brideshead Revisited:

NM: Darling Evelyn, Brideshead has come (...) - there are one or 2 things I long to know. Are you, or not, on Lady Marchmain's side? I couldn't make out. I suppose Charles ends by being more in love than ever before with Cordelia - so true to life being in love with a whole family (it has happened in mine tho' not lately). (...) I think Charles might have had a little more glamour - I can't explain why but he seemed to me a tiny bit dim & that is the only criticsim have to make because I'm literally dazzled with admiration.

EW: Dearest Nancy, Yes I know what you mean; he is dim, but then he is telling the story and it is not his story. It is all right for Benevunto Cellini to be undim but he is telling his own story and no one else's. I think the crucial question is: does Julia's love for him seem real or is he so dim that it falls flat; if the latter the book fails plainly. (...) Lady Marchmain, no I m not on her side; but God is, who suffers fools gladly; and the book is about God. Does that answer it?

NM: I quite see how the person who tells it is dim but then would Julia and her brother and her sister all be in love with him if he was? Well lov eis like that & one never can tell. What I can't understand is about God. Now I believe in God & I talk to him a very great deal & often tell him jokes but the God I believe in simply hates fools more than anything & he also likes people to be happy & people who love each other to live together - so long as nobody else's life is upset (& then he's not sure).

EW: There is no doubt that God does like dunces repugnant as it is. I think it is like the lower classes - everyone loves the simple gaffer until he starts telling us what he heard on The Brains Trust the evening before. We are all very lower class to God and our cleverness & second-hand scholarship bore him hideously.

Nancy Mitford tried to avoid theological subjects - but that was hard to do with Evelyn Waugh, who had all the fervour of a convert and seems to have regarded tolerance is one of the lethal sins. Occasionally they came up, which led to exchanges such as this:

EW: My dear Nancy, Would it not be best always to avoid any references of the Church or to your Creator? Your intrusions into this strange world are always fatuous.

NM: Don't start My Dear Nancy I don't like it. I can't agree that I must be debarred from ever mentioning anything to do with your creator. Try & remember that he also created me.

Their exchanges were quite often in this Punch and Judy style. See also:

NM: I hear your daughter Teresa is beautiful & fascinating how lucky for you.

EW: My daughter Teresa is squat, pasty-faced, slatternly with a most disagreeable voice - but it is true that she talks quite brightly. She has cost me the best part of 1500 pounds in the last year & afforded no corresponding pleasure.

He must have been horrid as a father; these kind of remarks about his children are quite the rule. Though as he grew older, he democratically disliked everybody. With the French (Nancy lived in France) getting special bile and Americans special condescension:

EW: You see Americans have discovered about homosexuality from a book called Kinsey Report (unreadable) & they take it very seriously. All popular plays in New York are about buggers but they all commit suicide. The idea of a happy pansy is inconceivable to them.

And then there is Evelyn Waugh's list of how to deal with fanmail. If you think Aaron Sorkin or Tim Kring or Russell T. Davies were rude...

a) Humble expressions of admiration. To these a post-card saying: I am delighted to learn that you enjoyed my book. E.W.
b) Impudent criticism. No answer.
c) Bores who wish to tell me about themselves. Post-card saying: Thank you for interesting letter. E.W.
d) Technical criticism. Post-card: Many thanks for your valuable suggestion. E.W.
e) Humble aspirations of would-be writers. If attractive a letter of discouragement. If unattractive a post-card.
f) Requests from University Clubs for a lecture. Printed refusal.
g) Requests from Catholic Clubs for lecture. Acceptance.
h) American students of 'Creative Writing' who are writing theses about one & want one, virtually, to write their theses for them. Printed refusal.
i) Tourists who invite themselves to one's house. Printed refusal.
j) Manuscript sent for advice. Return without comment. I also have some post-cards with my photograph on them which I send to nuns. In case of very impudent letters from married women I write to the husband warning him that his wife is attempting to enter into correspondance with strange men. Oh and of course
k) Autograph collectors: no answer
l) Indians & Germans asking for free copies of one's books:no answer.
m) Very rich Americans: polite letter. They are capable of buying 100 copies for Christmas presents.

****

Another recently read book: England's Mistress, by Kate Williams, which is a good and vividly written biography of Emma, Lady Hamilton. It occurs to me that after The Duchess brought back the Georgian age on the screen, we might be due for another take on Emma, with her improbable yet true life starting out in poverty, then going from exploited child servant to teenage prostitute to courtesan to wife of an ambassador to Nelson's mistress to dying in debts and poverty. Two of the most memorable screen portraits so far were Vivien Leigh back in the day in Churchill's favourite film, That Hamilton Woman (the Romantic version) versus Glenda Jackson in A Legacy to the Nation (the character eviscerating version - this is the Emma the vulgar drunk versus Fanny the noble wife story). Surely it's time for something balanced in between extremes? Novel-wise, there has been Susan Sontag's The Volcano Lover which is actually about Sir William Hamilton, Emma's husband, but the irrespressible Emma managed to kidnap the story and made herself the most memorable character anyway. Williams' biography is written with sympathy for Emma but without attempting to overlook her flaws. Or Nelson's, for that matter. It also does a great job bringing Georgian society to life, from the brothels to upper class parties, and, I thought, managed a more vivid portrait of Sir William and his relationship with Emma, both before and after Nelson, than most other renderings of this story. (Sir William Hamilton must be the character most baffling to contemparies and ensuing biographers until the present day, because he refuses to fit into clichés, being neither the "cold" husband - he married his nephew's cast-off mistress for love, after all - nor a jealous old man; he genuinenly liked Nelson and when Nelson threw a jealous fit imagining the Prince Regent might take Emma away from him wrote him a stern letter about being sensible and not upsetting Emma.)

The only complaint I have is a minor, minor nitpick. Quoth the author: "By the spring of 1787, she felt ready to show Goethe, travelling Europe to enjoy some of the celebrity of his smash-hit Sorrows of Young Werther and relax after a punishing schedule of work." Err, no. This was a decade after Werther (about whom Goethe at this point already felt like Arthur Conan Doyle about Sherlock Holmes), and Goethe didn't travel Europe, he lived in Italy for two years, enjoying not celebrity but a break from same (he travelled under a pseudonym). Also a chance to rediscover himself as a poet because he had tried to be a statesman after the young duke of Weimar had given him the job, for years; it was in Italy that Goethe decided he was a writer first and foremost and if he returned to Weimar, it would be on that condition.

(There seems to be a curse on writers about Emma Hamilton re: Goethe. Susan Sontag in The Volcano Lover presents him as a stiff humorless caricature, which owes more to both Thomas Mann's characterisation of the old Goethe in Lotte in Weimar - Sontag was a big TM fan - and Thomas Mann himself (he tended to write Goethe as a self portrait) as it did to JWG, who was at his best in Italy and absolutely enthusiastic about meeting Sir William - a fellow naturalist and lover of antiques! - and Emma, whom he described with much admiration in The Italian Journey.)

Comments

[shezan.livejournal.com]

Ah, but Waugh often came to Paris (first at the Guinnesses' flat on rue de Poitiers; then staying at the Travellers on the Champs-Elysées) and he was from all accounts much better company than he sounds. And his son Auberon wrote about being brought up in that family, also not as hard as Waugh makes it sound.

Also, Yahtzee & I clearly weren't reading the same book if she thinks the main BR love story is Charles and Julia. The main love story is OT3: Sebastian/Nanny Hawkins/Aloysius.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I had the impression the main love story was Charles/ Social Climbing And Desiring Brideshead, but there you go.*g*

Waugh: must have been better company, for he sounds terrible, and it's hard to understand why people put up with him (other than because of his talent). Also, one hopes when in France he left off remarks such as "thanks for telling me the frog Jews like Helena".

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Though I will say the leading actress has a great period look.

She's almost right; to me she looks a bit more Restoration. But hey, she's supposed to be ahead of her time.

Did you see her in Margaret Thatcher: The Long Walk to Finchley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thatcher:_The_Long_Walk_To_Finchley)? She was a hoot, and by the end unexpectedly convincing.

By the way, did it really say "Two Years Later" at the start of last night's episode, or was it "Two Weeks Later"? I couldn't quite see how she'd survive more than two days on her own without having to fall back on prostitution or robbery.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

It said "Two Years Later", which baffled me for exactly that reason. Also, she had the same dress as she had at the end of the previous episode, presumably to indicate she spent those years virtuously begging until the encounter at the start of ep 2.

No, haven't seen the Thatcher film: is it worth watching?

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed it; it managed to engage my sympathies for a figure I could hardly bear to hear or see in real life, and was also very funny. I suspect Heath didn't play quite such a prominent role in her early career in reality, but for dramatic purposes it worked well enough.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

*reads wiki description, gets distracted by half a phrase*

That's this about "shy and possibly gay" Ted H.? Was/is he?

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Gosh, I never answered this question. Um... I don't think anyone's quite sure. He didn't discuss his sexuality. Naturally, a lot of people assumed this was the only possible reason for a man of his age and position not to be married. And then there were occasional rumours that he had shown interest in some woman or other a very long time ago. I don't think anyone ever came up with anything conclusive either way.

Anyway, the reason why I'm passing this way again a month later was to say that The Long Walk to Finchley (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00c188n) is being shown again on Tuesday night. I don't know if that's any help to you if you want to see it.

PS

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

The only scenario I could think of was that Angelica had actually spent two years with a rich protector, but he'd become so abusive that she ran away, and therefore she wasn't reacting to the idea of selling herself for the first time, but to the idea of having to put herself through it again, and to the knowledge that if she did there would be no way back from prostitution. That wouldn't explain the dress, unless she made a point of changing back into her old clothes because she didn't want to take anything belonging to the man she was leaving.

Re: PS

[selenak.livejournal.com]

This would make much sense. What I don't understand is them playing coy about it. If you want to show your heroine going from privilege to the rock bottom of existence only to rise again through determination etc., then there is no sense in chickening out of the rock bottom part. Even if it's just a bodice ripper - I'm thinking Amber by Kathleen Winsor. (Though she started as a country girl, but still.)

(And then there's Scarlett O'Hara. Instead of getting a "I'll never go hungry again" moment, we cut directly from Angelica stabbing the guy in despair to Angelica rescuing Sexby as an self-assured outlaw. Ah, well.)

[kathyh]

still disappointingly predictable and full of bodice ripper stereotypes.

Oh dear! We were out last night so I haven't seen Part II yet but now I'm not sure I want to bother.

I can't help thinking Evelyn Waugh would have caused a riot on LJ. His style of listing his responses to fanmail would lend itself quite easily to memes *g*.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Evelyn Waugh would be in a flame war every day, despite having friendslocked his journal quite a while ago.

Part II: as I said last week, it's not that it's BORING, it's just that the constant awareness everyone involved can do better frustrates me a bit.

[neuralclone.livejournal.com]

I read a rather horrid story about Evelyn Waugh as a father - evidently upon getting his first banana after World War II (none imported for the duration!) Waugh sat down and ate the entire fruit ceremoniously in front of his children without offering a single bite to anyone else in his family. If nothing else it makes him appear a monster of selfishness!

Re. "The Devil's Whore" - what a shame! Still, with a title like that it's not surprising, and there's always a place for an old-fashioned swashbuckle. Errol Flynn, eat yer heart out! *G*

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Sounds believable. His streak of sarcastic and negative comments on his children is pretty much non-stop.

Old fashioned swashbuckle having a place: true, and sometimes I'm very fond of it. It's just that in this case, I expected more due to the scriptwriter. I'll have to stop that.

[artaxastra.livejournal.com]

I will have to run, not walk, to buy England's Mistress. Good biographies of Emma are few and far between -- the last one I liked was Flora Fraser's Emma, Lady Hamilton. I keep thinking I have to do Emma one of these days. The Tria In Una Juncta is so fascinating, and I can see how to make that work from a variety of angles. Sir William, as the New Roman, a man who yearns for the Julio-Claudians with an incredible love, and whose deepest desire is to restore the world that is gone, both through scientific work which attempts to rebuild the wisdom of the ancients and through literally digging up their world and restoring it. And Emma, his creation who brings it to life, a "child of nature" who as he said, "seems a perfect heathen, unspoiled by the modern century." His only chance of playing Pygmalion, his only chance of seeing, experiencing the past as a living being. But of course she's more than that. She's telling an entirely different story about herself and her life, more Tom Jones than Ovid, more Pamela than Arcadia. Not a misty anachronism, but vivid and vibrant and supremely practical. And Horatio, lately come to the party, telling his own story with far fewer neoclassical flourishes, an ironic story made possible by the Age of Revolution of a parson's son made peer because of his supreme usefulness in upholding the status quo of his betters. (We tend to forget that as a young man he made a name for himself fighting against the Americans in the American Revolution. Fortunately for us, he annoyed an admiral by providing too much gratuitous advice from a young captain, and was exiled to patrol off Nova Scotia, thereby leaving the Chesapeake open to Admiral de Grasse's fleet, and allowing Cornwallis to be pinned against the water at Yorktown!)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Oh, I would so love to read your take on the story.

Age of Revolution: Kate Wilson points out that young Emma -then Amy Lyons - and young Horatio could have run across each other in London when they were a teenager and a very young sailor respectively, and at the respective lowest in their worlds, never expected to get anywhere.

Re: the narratives - but don't forget Sir William also broke out of one and created another by his reaction to Emma. Charles Greville thought he was playing by the rules - he wanted to ensure his uncle wouldn't marry again and he wanted to get rid of his mistress, so he did the callous Georgian thing and passed her along without telling her as much. And nobody but nobody expected anything to happen other than Sir William keeping her as his mistress for a few months/years, then, with some money, to get rid of her as well. Marrying her, introducing her as his wife to kings and queens, that just was not something anyone would have seen as the remotest possibility when Emma arrived in Naples.

(Actually, Wilson quotes him making an allusion to a narrative - he wrote to someone that reformed rakes are often the best of people, so why should this not be possible for women as well?)

[artaxastra.livejournal.com]

I could see Amy Lyons and Horatio -- that would be very, very interesting.

Oh no. Plot bunny. Will you stop giving me plot bunnies? ;) They always grow so very laaaarge!

And yes, Sir William is quite the rule breaker himself. I really think the key to him is his Classicism. That it's not just that he wants Roman things, but that he'd like to exchange English society for Roman. That if he could step back into 68AD in a moment he would. (of course seeing himself as Pliny or the like, naturalist, soldier and diplomat.)

PS

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Also, I didn't know about Nelson and the American Revolution! Yes, there's an inherent irony here, with him and Emma vis a vis the queen in Naples, too. Upholding the status quo was a passionately personal thing for them, due to personal loyalties and the need to prove themselves worthy, and yet they were by their very lives people who could not have existed in an unbroken status quo.

Incidentally, the way everyone washed their hands of Emma and ignored Nelson's request looks worse than ever in that book.

Re: PS

[artaxastra.livejournal.com]

We're fortunate that Nelson was a bit abrasive as a young captain and PO'd his admiral rather than being listened to! Because if Nelson had indeed blockaded the Chesapeake as he wanted to, we would not have won Yorktown! Washington's trap worked because the British navy was gone.

Upholding the status quo was a passionately personal thing for them, due to personal loyalties and the need to prove themselves worthy, and yet they were by their very lives people who could not have existed in an unbroken status quo.

That's a very astute observation. Yes, that. And Emma at least would not have seen the irony if it dropped on her head. But part of it is not seeing beyond themselves to a certain extent. It's very well to rise personally, but what about everybody else?

I think Naomi Novik has captured that nicely in her latest with Nelson's avatar, William Laurence. Though interestingly enough, the better that's done the less readers like him!