So, some years ago, I was very entertained by Dickensian, a tv miniseries that smashes various Charles Dickens canons into each other on a general prequel basis, i.e. lets their backstories take place simultanously and in connection to each other, with the death of Jacob Marley (which is a murder to be solved) as the narrative read thread holding the different stories together, by and large.

I was wondering whether this was possible with a 19th century French novelist as well, but got immediately sidetracked by thinking not of a fusion of canons from the same novelist but two of the best known novels of the two romantic titans, to wit: a Les Miserables/Count of Monte Christo crossover. I mean, Javert's bound to have done some police work in the time jump between Valjean and Cosette entering the nunnery and leaving it again, or even after but pre ending that's unrelated to Valjean and/or the 1832 uprising, and there are the various murders among the Villefort family to be solved, to pick the most obvious possible intersection. Valjean would disapprove of the Count's grand revenge scheme even before there's lethal collateral damage, of course, but otoh they could relate about lengthy prison sentences and kindly clergymen who change your life. Edmond/the Count would not understand why Valjean doesn't solve his Javert and Thenadier problems by a complicated scheme during which one is set against the other. Albert de Morcerf and Franz d'Epinay could hang out with Marius and compete in well meaning cluelessness. And maybe what Eponine needs to distract her from unrequited love to Marius is a flirt with Eugenie Danglars when the later catches her stealing?

There is a fantastic new MCU vid, Lions Inside, which also uses the most recent movies, Black Panther, Thor: Ragnarök and Infinity War:



Now, on to the book meme:

21. Summer Read

Why not try the first of the Order of the Air novels by Jo Graham and Melissa Scott, Lost Things? For me, each of them are a great summer read, but it does make sense to read them in chronological order. The 1920s, aviation, archaelogy, adventures of the "normal" and of the supernatural type, and an endearing ensemble of characters who make a found family/team that's still in the getting-together stage at this point.

22. Out of Print.

Guy Endore: The King of Paris. (At least Amazon here tells me it's out of print?) Which is a novel about two of the three Alexandre Dumas, though the first one, the general, gets the three opening chapters before finding his early and sad demise. The two Alexandres at the core of the novel are Mr. Historical Swashbuckler, the author of The Count of Monte Christo and The Three Musketeers, and his larger-than-life personality comes across vividly in the novel, and his son of Lady of the Camelies (aka La Traviata) fame. You could call it a comedy and a tragedy at the same time, immensely entertaining and yet also very aware indeed of the flaws as flaws. Considering the more recent biography of the first Alexandre, the general (son of a black slave and her white French owner) , might have reawakened interest in the Dumas family, I hope it will be republished at some point. If not - check out your local library!

( The other days )

Aka, the new BBC show "based on characters by Alexandre Dumas", which is a wise credit to insert in your opening titles because it tells your audience at once the show won't have anything to do do with the novel beyond using the same names and perhaps one or two vaguely similar situations. This being said, I was amused and not bored, as opposed to the abysmal Disney movie in the 90s, and some other laterday Musketeer adaptions.

( A few spoilery thoughts )

Emerging bleary-eyed from a lot of reading, I bring reccomendations. (Well, the first part of them anyway. More to follow.) As for my own stories, both the recipients liked them and wrote lovely things about them at their own journals (their summaries of what the stories are about are better than mine, drat!), which makes me glad, but not too many other people so far bothered to check them out so far, woe. Ah well. Self, you knew this would happen, a rare fandom is a rare fandom, and within rare fandoms, at least in one case you picked a subject you knew maybe only recipient and yourself are interested in. (But I still want other people to read both stories, she sniffles, they mean so much to me this year!)

However, as a reader, I'm in unqualified ecstasy. Have a first bunch of recs (excluding, of course, my gifts which I have already talked about).

History/Hunger Games: The Sticking Place

Yes, you read the fandoms right. Someone wrote an ingenious fusion of the Hunger Games premise with the 15th century. In the Fifth Hunger Games, Lucrezia Borgia, Richard (III.) of York, Marguerite d'Anjou and poor Henry of Lancaster are all tributes. It sounds like crack, but the characters are played, err, written straight, and of course it has to end the way it does.

History: The most pleasant tale of Lady Bessy

Four titles Elizabeth of York never held, and one she did. The "Five Things" format applied to the woman who was the last Planatagenet princess and the first Tudor queen, but rarely gets fictional or biographical attention. This year, she got several stories. This one which applies the "Five Things" format in ingenious ways is my favourite.

A Place of Greater Safety: Parallel or Together

In which Camille Desmoulins tries to bring Robespierre and Danton together. It doesn't work out the way he expected. The characterisations ring very true to Hilary Mantel's novel, and it does something I've been secretly and not so secretly hoping for when reading the actual book, where it didn't but could have. :)

Babylon 5:

The Subtle Arrangement of Stones: the Babylon 5 story I never knew was missing in my life, but retrospectively it so was, and oh, how it wins at Yuletide! Set during the first season. Londo, G'Kar and Delenn are kidnapped by the Homeguard, and it's up to their valiant aides, Vir, Na'Toth and Lennier to rescue them. The characterisations and - as invevitable given the characters in question - the bickering are top notch, the format (Garibaldi interviewing everyone for the security files afterwards) ingenious, and it fits into canon beautifully. I loved this to bits.

The Price of a Favour: Timov in the days of Cartagia. I'm always thrilled to find fic dealing with my favourite B5 one episode character, and this was great.

In Flagrante: three times Londo and G'Kar are caught in the act. One happy, one angry, one sad. Alternatively funny and heartbreaking, as Londo and G'Kar are wont to be.

James Bond: Protégé

M passes on what she learned. Contains two of my favourite things, M backstory and Eve Moneypenny fleshing out. I loved it.

Elementary (which had 21 new stories in Yuletide - hooray!):

Three Anniversaries: A Love Story: Not all great love stories are about romance is the summary the author gives, and this one celebrates the (platonic) friendship between Sherlock Holmes and Joan Watson through the years. Present and future fic that feels true to where the characters are now and where they could be through the years, and has that same restraint and understated affection I find appealing on the show.

The Long Summer: this one is an ensemble fic that uses a frustrating case to show Holmes' relationships to Watson, Gregson, Bell and deliver an excellent Holmes character exploration to boot.

Greek Mythology: this year one of the requests was for a story about Ariadne and Icarus growing up together in Crete. This resulted in a dozen or so great tales, and it feels unfair to single one out, but this is my favourite of them all:

Thirteen Views Of A Labyrinth: They are not so very different, Ariadne and Pasiphaë, Icarus and Daedalus, Ariadne and Icarus. This has fantastic world building and awe-inspiring characterisations of everyone, is full of shades of grey and surprising yet sense making twists on the myths. I admire it so much.

The Count of Monte-Cristo: Constant.

It's a rare story which takes one of the source canon's villains - in this case Fernand Mondego, the later Count de Morcerf - and fleshes him out without going the excuse and woobiefication road. This story accomplishes it.

New Tricks: New Tricks for Old Dogs (or Five Alternate Universes Where Sandra Pullman Was Always Awesome)

What the title says. :) Wonderful banter and character voices in every universe.

Prometheus: Satellites: Three events in the life of Peter Weyland. Dysfunctional family relationships are my soft spot, and they rarely come more messed up than with Weyland, Meredith Vickers and David 8. This story gives us some background for this, in a Weyland, Meredith and David pov respectively, and it's fascinating.

At first I thought this was a big practical joke and/or a fannish prank, but apparantly it is for real: Joss Whedon used his spare time (?) between Avengers directing to film Much Ado About Nothing at his house with various of his favourite actors from pretty much every show he ever was involved with. *blinks* I remember first hearing about the Shakespeare readings with the actors chez Whedon in the later Buffy and Angel days; for example, according to interviews he got the idea for Illyria through them since the Shakespeare revealed Amy Acker's range.

Cast thoughts: I remember how mainly but not only disgruntled Wes/Lilah shippers bashed not only Fred the character but Amy the actress through much of s4 and s5, getting sometimes really vicious and personal about everything from her legs to her voice... until Illyria showed up, at which point the Amy bashing stopped. Along with the cries of "no chemistry", because while Wesley and Fred might not have had, Wesley and llyria did. Then Amy Acker enjoyed herself as a villain in Alias' fifth season, which impressed people further, and while Dollhouse had a mixed reception for very good reasons, everyone seemed to agree she was outstanding there as well (one of many problems of the show being that everyone proved to be more versatile than the lead, but AA in one of the supporting roles was very good indeed). So I have no doubt she'll do justice to Beatrice. As for Alexis Denisof, it remains as big a mystery to me as to everyone else why his career didn't take off after his outstanding performance through Angel's run, and I am utterly unsurprised that Joss gave him the leading part for this one. I always found the guards scenes the only parts of Much Ado I don't enjoy, but Nathan Fillion might make Dogberry not just bearable but genuinenly amusing to me. And I'm looking forward to Sean Maher as Don John. Am very amused to learn that after ASH had to drop out (he was supposed to play Leonato), Joss stole Clark Gregg (Agent Coulson to you, if you've watched the Iron Man films and Thor) from the Avengers set and gave him the part. And Andrew Tom Lenk! I can see Reed Diamond as Don Pedro, and am amused the other Dollhouse alumnus, Fran Kranz, who on that show played possibly the most twisted form of that Whedon archetype, the babbling gleeful fanboy, gets to play everyone's most disliked lover (aka Claudio - at least I never met anyone who likes Claudio, though I hasten to add there might be Claudio fans out there... somewhere).


In other news, I won't write a proper review of the latest Three Musketeers (it, err, is what it is), but as it was filmed partially in my hometown and surrounding areas, I shall include a few remarks on what location ended up being what. Not least it causes much amusement and cheers every time the film is shown in a Bamberg cinema.


( Steampunk France = Franconia in Bavaria, with spoilers )

New Three Musketeers Trailer. I am completely distracted from complaining by the sights from my pretty hometown and assorted other Franconian locations. ZOMG swordfights in the Bamberger Alte Hofhaltung! The Würzburger Residenz doubling for the Louvre! I tell you, Franconian France is the prettiest AU France ever.

Also Dumas seems to have changed places with Jules Verne because there is an airship lurking and other steampunk stuff, but I am in a "who cares?" mode today because soon Bamberg's cinematic fame as 17th century France shall be assured. (And shezan will still be the only French person recognizing France due to getting the tour de Bamberg from me.) You know, I am on board with Milady having fighting skills, too, despite my complaint a few days back about female characters only being recognized as strong when they get sword fights. Never mind me contradicting myself, Milady swordfighting is a nifty prospect. Is it too much to hope she gets to have a go at Athos and D'Artagnan before the plot (such as it still exists) catches up with her?

Unconnected, but still on a theme of pleasing visuals: you wouldn't think that after 40 years there are still new Beatles photographs making the rounds, but you'd be wrong. Here's one from the 1966 tour (their last one), Paul and John doing their mirror position composing thing in some hotel room, with Brian Epstein in the background:



And not new, but always funny to look at, John's sketch of all four Beatles a few years later:



(If you have to ask which one is which you are new to this journal. *g*)

Not much to say on Merlin this week.

( Let's do the time warp again )

In other news, more pictures of the Franconian Musketeers. Pretty costumes! Also, of interest probably only to German readers, someone picked up the trend to mix classics with the horror genre (a la Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) and did this with Karl May's Winnetou I, now "Winnetou unter Werewölfen". The result is pretty amusing as far as Karl May parodies go and shows the author has actually read the books ("Immer fällt mir, wenn ich an den Werwolf denke, der Indianer ein"), though I wouldn't call it a must have; just browse through it in a book store and giggle as I did.

In my last pic spam of my beautiful hometown, I mentioned the summer theatre festival taking place in one of the old residences, the Alte Hofhaltung. One of the plays this year is a dramatization of Dumas' Three Musketeers, which was basically fluffy fun, although for some reason while they only picked the first half of the novel (i.e. the affair with the queen's jewels), they included Mylady's death, which is problematical within the novel itself and even more so if you put it in the first half, because Mylady does most of her villainous deeds in the second. Still, other than that, it was a fun evening, one of the actors I've admired since teenagerdom played Richelieu, and it made for some neat pictures of Dumas' characters in my hometown.

( All for one, and one for all! )

You might or might not have heard about the
controversy regarding the casting of Gérard Depardieu as Alexandre Dumas (père), he of the Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Christo. The crucial point being that Dumas was the grandson of an Haitian slave, self identified as "un nègre", and Depardieu, of course, is white. Now, the article I linked quotes the director stating defensively: "“It would have been an historic error to have chosen a mixed-blood actor ... He had blue eyes like Depardieu.”

Well. Thankfully, Alexandre Dumas lived well into the age of photography. In lieu of a post to which I, as a person of white privilege, do not feel qualified, I offer a pic spam showing the elder Dumas as depicted by various 19th century cameras. And one portrait by painting. I think it makes my point far better than anything else could.

( Mesdames et Messieurs, Alexandre Dumas )

artaxastra the other day reminded me how much enjoyed reading Alexandre Dumas’ novels as a kid. It makes me sad that future generations will probably get to meet them through increasingly dumbed down film versions. The irony is that Dumas, Père, never quite made it into literary heaven. (As opposed to his contemporary and friendly rival, Victor Hugo.) He was incredibly popular and regarded as incredibly trashy; it was only last year that they moved his remains to the Pantheon. And he certainly thought that a good plot should come before good history. But what happened in recent movies isn’t either.

Take The Three Musketeers. The quintessential swashbuckling adventure novel. It’s fun, it’s drama, it has likeable heroes and memorable villains, and even two very memorable death scenes. But when you look at the most recent massacres, you can see either producers or scriptwriters had massive trouble with the villains. Dumas gives us three: Cardinal Richelieu, Lady de Winter, and Rochefort. Rochefort is there so D’Artagnan has someone to duel with, Mylady to commit the dastardly deeds and to die, and Richelieu as the clever menace in the background. By the end of the novel, two out of three are just fine and not in a melodramatic foiled villains kind of manner. Rochefort has moved on to regarding the duels with D’Artagnan as fun. Richelieu has actually won. His first plot in the novel, to discredit the Queen via her gifts to her lover, Buckingham, got foiled by Our Heroes, but the second, getting Buckingham assassinated so the English won’t relieve the siege of La Rochelle, worked just fine. Mylady did the job (or rather got Felton to do it for her), La Rochelle falls, and since Our Heroes kill Mylady, Richelieu doesn’t even have to pay extras. He’s still as much in power as ever as the true ruler of France. (And in the sequel, Our Heroes even mourn he’s gone since they regard Mazarin as a second-rate replacement, which btw is rather unfair to Mazarin.) This for a Hollywood movie apparently won’t do any longer. So instead of being a ruthless statesman who may have awful methods but does what he does for the benefit of France, Richelieu gets changed into an Evil Vezir straight out of the Arabian Nights tales, out to get the throne for himself, and naturally thoroughly defeated and/or killed. As I said, Dumas wasn’t exactly the most faithful to history, either, but this would have made him groan because of the stupidity.

And then there’s Mylady. Lady de Winter is one of the best villainesses in 19th century literature. Dumas invented her from scratch (as opposed to most of the rest of his ensemble for this novel), but that’s no reason not to appreciate what he gives us. Mind you, in retrospect and as an adult I’ve lost all sympathy for Athos when he recounts the tale of his marriage to the young Mylady, because frankly, reacting to the discovery of the lily on her shoulder (i.e. proof that she had been tried at a French Court and found guilty either as a murderess or as a prostitute) by trying to kill her without even bothering to ask for an explanation because being married to a convict dishonors his name is just… You know, he so deserved everything life dealt out after that one. Of course this is the backstory, not the main story in the novel. Mylady in the main story is an experienced and totally unscrupelous agent and not above killing for spite as well as for professional reasons, either, as poor Constance Bonancieux, D’Artagnan’s mistress, finds out. Still, it’s hard not to be captivated and root for her when she manages to get herself out of incarcaration by mindmessing with her Puritan guard without so much as kissing him once, and getting him to kill Buckingham for her as well. But I suspect what was too much for modern Hollywood to handle was her ending, in particular. Because after capturing her Our Heroes get the chief executioner of Lille, whose brother she had seduced in the past (which ended badly for the brother, who was a priest at the time), to kill her. They don’t do it themselves, they don’t do it in haste or in self defense, they hand her over to be killed by someone else after playing accusers and jury in one, and then watch her die. The reasons, btw, are perfectly sound from their pov: as Richelieu’s agent, she wouldn’t be condemmed by a real court. The ethics of it are still questionable, and Athos finds himself haunted by the action in the first sequel. But it seems these days, the only way swashbuckling heroes are allowed to kill villains is in self defense, or by letting the villain drop over a convenient cliff.

Which brings me to the other Dumas novel recently massacred on screen. If The Three Musketeers is the quintessential swashbuckling novel, The Count of Monte Christo is the quintessential revenge novel. Oh, and escape-from-prison novel, of course. No, as opposed to the Musketeer atrocities, I did not see that one, but honorh did, and her description at the time made me yelp in horror. A happy ending for Edmond and Mercedes? Albert Edmond’s son? Fernand obviously somehow melded into Danglars? The revenge on Villefort prettified? No Caderousse? Et cetera, et cetera. One shouldn’t have to point this out, but the Count, aka Edmond Dantes, really, really wants revenge for his 13 years in prison, dead father and lost love. And he’s not nice about it at all. Which means that while at first it’s very satisfying to see the four people responsible for it set up to get their comeuppance, one grows increasingly uncomfortable with it and wonders whether this is still justifyable. In fact, when the Count is not above manipulatingVillefort’s second wife into poisoning most of her family and only bothers to save Villefort’s daughter because one of his friends fell in love with her, and when this all results in Villefort going insane, even the Count realises he went too far. And the relationship with Mercedes quite realistically can’t be repaired.

After all my growling about bad film versions of Dumas novels, I have to admit there are some good ones out there, too. As for the Musketeers, I’m always torn between the Gene Kelly (d’Artagnan)/ Lana Turner (Mylady)/ Vincent Price (Richelieu) one, and Richard Lester doing the whole thing in 60s camp but very stylishly so, with Michael York as D’Artagnan, Faye Dunaway as Mylady and Charlton Heston as Richelieu. (It took me a while before I realised it was Heston, because a) one doesn’t expect him to play a villain, and b) he’s really good and subtle in the part.) Oh, and let’s not forget Oliver Reed as Athos, definitely to me the best interpretion. These take liberties, too, but not by going for more convenient black and white, and they capture the zest and playfulness Dumas has along with the unabashed love for bloody melodrama. If he were living today, I suspect he’d have written for Xena:Warrior Princess. But certainly not for those adaptions which shall no longer be named.

One last word about Dumas: he must have been an engaging man in addition to being a fun writer. Couldn’t even write a cooking book without said mixture of playfulness and melodrama, and if you look at pictures of him, you believe he enjoyed his food. (Incidentally, the cooking book is highly readable even to non-gourmets like myself.) Had affairs by the dozens (one resulting in Alexandre Dumas fils), outraged America the one time he visited because you see, Dumas was what was then called “coloured” and his mistress(es) white. Travelled far and wide and had an anecdote about pretty much everything. There’s a novel about him written by Guy Encore, The King of Paris. I’m not sure whether it’s still in print – I read it in a library myself – but if it is, I can definitely recommend it. But only after you’ve read at least two of his novels…