Dr Zhivago, 'You' by Briscoe, Conjuror's Bird

Just watched the DVD of Dr Zhivago with Keira Knightly and Hans Matheson (2002). In a moment of nostalgia, I’d meant to order Omar Sharif (left, with Julie Christie) so was a little disappointed he didn’t show up.  Anyway, despite my prejudices, I found this newer version good, well filmed, great scenery, interspersed with real footage of the Russian Revolution. However, neither the hero nor the heroine quite convinced me. Well, Lara did at first but she failed to age  – then, come to think of it, Keira must have been very young in 2002.  Sam Neill was excellent as the rich baddy Komarovsky, Lara’s seducer, with good British actors in the minor parts. (Amazon US gives the writers as Andrew Davies and Boris Pasternak, in that order).

Recent reading:

You by Joanna Briscoe.  (Am not entirely sure about these fashionable one-word titles, because, for a start, you have to remember the author’s name too when searching for the book.)   Anyway this author is strong on emotions and has a wonderful sense of place.  Her Devon is Hardyesque – a lush rural backwater. Part of the action takes place in the 1980s, not that long ago, and I found some of the happenings unlikely – more milkmaids in trouble rather than late 20th-Century misses.  The storyline is that in the past Cecilia had a schoolgirl crush on a teacher which got out of hand, but she still (in my view, unfairly) blames her mother for the consequences.  The schoolgirl crush is brilliantly described, as are the intimate scenes – the language is interesting and original throughout -  but eventually I felt I wanted to slap Cecilia, mired as she was in self-centred regret.  That didn’t spoil my enjoyment of a good if rather complicated story. Here’s what the Guardian thought.

The Conjuror's Bird by Martin Davies
Despite being the leading expert in his field, Fitz has never written the great book on extinct species that everyone was expecting. Suddenly, a figure from his past reappears in his life. The beautiful Gabby wants him to help find The Mysterious Bird of Ulieta, which vanished over 200 years ago from the collection of the naturalist Joseph Banks. Spurred on to join the quest by his beguiling lodger Katya, Fitz finds that the only way to solve the puzzle is to unravel the mystery of Banks's affair with Miss B – who has disappeared from history as effectively as the bird he is hunting.

An original novel, two parallel stories.  I enjoyed the story of Banks’s mysterious love affair perhaps more than the modern archive hunt.  An interesting read rather than a page turner.  If you google the Bird of Ulieta you can see what it looked like, a kind of brown blackbird. Here's a review.

July garden,My Last Duchess, & film: The Social Network

The garden here in July. Some of the above roses have now been washed out by the rain and the wild sweet peas are not as bright, but the newish flower bed above is still quite jolly with some pink dascia now blooming in the middle.

My Last Duchess by Daisy Goodwin – an excellent holiday read.  Maybe we've seen some of the plot lines before but it’s huge fun. I loved the characters and the Downton Abbey setting (most action takes place Upstairs rather than down). As a spoilt American heiress, brought up by a strict, social climbing mother, haughty Cora does not find life easy when she comes to England and marries a Duke.  Dovegreyreader enjoyed it too.

Film – the Social Network. The story of the founding of Facebook by young geeks at Harvard. To work out what’s going on you probably need a young person with you to stop the DVD periodically and explain, or you could read up the plot on Wiki first, I dare say.  You may possibly also need subtitles, as the actors speak extra fast gobbledegook.  Good acting, an interesting film, not crucial viewing though.

Perfect puppy again, with quick reviews

Don't even think about it, Otto.

Otto waits in the corner underneath the hob waiting for me to drop something when I'm cooking.  He's not helping his Perfect Puppyhood: on Tuesday he broke a mug of cold tea and drank it. Yesterday I discovered he was tall enough to reach up and eat half a smart leather glove which I'd left on the kitchen table.

Film

Interesting German film - the Wave. About a teacher who tries to demonstrate autocracy and succeeds too well.

Book

Re-read The Ladies' Man by Elinor Lipman.  Amusing and sharp-witted social satire.

King's Speech and shopping with Otto

Quick link to interesting Daily Mail article about the making of the King's Speech and how they tried to get the period detail right in various locations. I agree with Logue's great aunts who said he'd never have called the Duke of York by his Christian name.

Pup and I went to Pets supermarket today. Great success. He was so nervous at first that I put him in a trolley with his rug where he was much admired by all the fellow shoppers. Owing to all this socialising, we took a long time finding, among other things: new toys, anti-chew spray, outdoor plant anti-animal spray, and, most useful, a mega-heavy ceramic water bowl for Otto who liked to take his stainless-steel bowl to bed, spilling his drinking water all over the room. He enjoyed all the attention in the supermarket and was fascinated by the live hamsters.  Short of a real hamster, the most successful toy I bought seems to be a rubber ball that squeaks. No, I'm not spoiling him, honestly. (He's now trying to eat the anti-chew spray bottle)

Avatar and Snowman

Film

I’d forgotten I’d ordered the DVD of Avatar. Did I really want to watch a teenagers’ sci fi film, I wondered, however many Oscars it had won and even if it had grossed more than Titanic? Well, Sigourney Weaver is in it, of course, and actually it was rather good, though too long. Plot is that baddy military people from Earth have invaded a distant planet because it has huge deposits of a precious mineral but the peaceful locals don’t like the soldiers. (Geddit?) The vaguely human-looking locals, the Na’vi, are extra tall, blue and beautiful, and the forests are full of strange, mostly frightening creatures. The blue people plug their tails into plants in order to communicate with them, as you do. (We understand that the Na'vi represent Native American Indians and similar aboriginal people as they use bows and arrows.) The goody Earth scientists have infiltrated the Na’vi by creating look-alike avatars and wandering around in these blue avatar bodies while their own bodies lie in a scanner. Hope you are with me so far. Anyway despite the over-lengthy battles, I actually enjoyed the film and recommend it as family entertainment for anyone over 7 and under 70 - young children might find it too scary and the older viewer too StarTrekky. I’m told it’s best in 3D - the special effects are terrific. I expect everybody except me saw it months ago.

Recent Reading
Just finished The Snowman by Jo Nesbo. It’s about a serial killer and I confess I worked out who dunnit fairly early on, but then began to doubt. It’s a clever intricate book and, having once visited Oslo, I was able to recognise some of the setting. Will I read any more Jo Nesbo? No, though it was gripping in parts, inevitably there were too many degrading violent killings for my liking. Also your granny might not approve of the somewhat joyless adultery. I don’t really go for police-based crime fiction, come to think of it. If you do, you’ll probably like it.

Tamara Drewe - film

Tamara Drewe (15) with Gemma Arterton, Tamsin Greig, Dominic Cooper
With a nod to Far From the Madding Crowd, this is an amusing bucolic frolic starring Gemma as a raunchy young journalist returning to the Dorset village of her birth to sell her late mother’s house. Three men fall in love with her, a poor but handsome handyman (Gabriel Oak obviously), a rock drummer (Sgt Troy) – the third bloke bears no resemblance to Mr Boldwood, as you will see. The film is partly stolen by two appallingly behaved bored schoolgirls, one of whom is ‘in love with’ the rock star. Much bad language and plenty of rumpy pumpy but not too graphic. The Telegraph found a moral vacuum in the film but the Guardian and Indy enjoyed it. I agree with both viewpoints. Downtrodden Tamsin’s faithless husband is a smugly successful crime author and she runs a writers’ retreat in their idyllic farm, providing endless opportunity for satire. I gather it is an adaptation of the cartoon-novel of the same name by Posy Simmonds. Lovely scenery, witty comedy with some tragedy, worth seeing or wait for the DVD.

Romantic Novel Poll and Amelia

ROMANTIC NOVELISTS' ASSOCIATION Press Release
The Best Love Story of the Last 50 Years

'Linda Gillard's book Star Gazing topped a poll to find the most romantic novel of the last 50 years. She beat Barbara Taylor-Bradford's classic book, A Woman of Substance and Trisha Ashley's Every Woman for Herself, who were both runners-up. The poll was organised by Woman's Weekly in conjunction with the Romantic Novelists' Association and the awards were presented at a champagne breakfast by best-selling author and Chair of the RNA, Katie Fforde.'   Many congratulations, Linda.  Linda was a Transita author too so am basking at a distance in her reflected glory!

Here is the longlist: A Horseman Riding By, A Woman Of Substance, An Absolute Scandal - Penny Vincenzi, Bridget Jones' Diary, Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett, Chocolat, Consider The Lily Elizabeth Buchan, Every Woman For Herself Tricia Ashley, Light A Penny Candle, Miss M and Me Jemme Forte, Penmarric - Susan Howatch, Possession, Riders, Scarlet Ribbons - Emma Blair, Someday, Somewhere Eileeen Ramsay, Star Gazing - Linda Gillard , Tell It To The Skies Erica James

Far Pavilions, French Lieut's Woman, The Island, Labyrinth

The Nearness Of You - Mike Hutton, The Nonesuch - Georgette Heyer

The Other Boleyn Girl, The Rector's Wife - J Trollope, The Shell Seekers, The Tamarind Seed - Evelyn Anthony, Tilly Trotter, Touch Not The Cat - Mary Stewart

Film

I order DVDs so far in avance from Love Film that when they actually arrive I've forgotten all about them. Sometime this is a good surprise, occasionally not.  But we did much enjoy Amelia, the life of Amelia Earhart starring Hilary Swank and Richard Gere.  I remembered that Amelia was a pioneer of early flying, the first woman across the Atlantic etc, but fortunately I didn't remember much more, so this film was all the more gripping.  Hilary Swank actually looks rather like Amelia and is well cast.  Do watch it. I'm not giving any links as the less you know in advance the better.

Swedish Connections: Girl who played with Fire and a historical romance.

I wanted to love the film of The Girl who Played with Fire (in Swedish with subtitles) but maybe I wasn't in the mood, maybe it tried to encompass too much of the plot, maybe there were too many characters, maybe the book was just so long and intricate that inevitably much of the sutbtleties were lost on screen.  I worked out which character was who and why they were doing what they did, but I'm not sure anyone who hadn't read the books would have had a clue what was going on. One of the many things I liked about the novels was the detail about Salander hacking blithely into everyone's computers, but that was glossed over somewhat in the film.  I did think that Noomi was good, a fascinating face, the other actors were fine, but there wasn't much time for character development and somehow Salander's concern for the trafficked girls was also missing.  It will be interesting to see what Hollywood makes of it all - even more subtleties lost, I suspect, while concentrating on violence'n'sex and Volvo car chases.

Had a problem finding the film in the first place as I thought m'computer said it was on in Basingstoke but I'd failed to notice that my 'favourite Vue cinema' had mysteriously changed itself to Fulham Road, London, so we had a wasted trip and tour of B'stoke multi-storey car park (an experience in itself, maybe they should set a film there.)  So next evening we tried Winchester, lovely cinema, but roads mysteriously closed on the way home due to night road works and hence long detours.  Maybe that's what made me feel so jaded. Can't stand people who tailgate along country roads in the dark - could have been that tall blond Swedish pyschopath after us.

In contrast, earlier last week I was cheered by the interesting Swedish background of Christina Courtenay's historical romance Trade Winds, with a suitably sexy and swashbuckling Scottish hero and sympathetic unusual heroine. Well-researched and a good read - I wish her and her publisher Choc Lit every success.

Kristin in French, JG Farrell's Troubles, hydrangea

Novel
Just finished reading Troubles by JG Farrell (published 1970 and winner of the ‘Lost’ Booker prize)
‘Major Brendan Archer travels to Ireland - to the Majestic Hotel and to the fiancée he acquired on a rash afternoon's leave three years ago. The Major's engagement is short-lived, but, for want of anywhere else to go, he is unable to detach himself from the alluring discomforts of the crumbling hotel. Surrounded by gentile old ladies and proliferating cats, the Major passes the summer. So hypnotic are the faded charms of the Majestic, the Major is almost unaware of the gathering storm. But this is Ireland in 1919 - and the struggle for independence is about to explode with brutal force.’
Actually there’s not as much as I expected about the Troubles, it’s more about the blinkered, narrow world of the Anglo Irish dying of muddled ennui in this dying hotel, (though the author does anchors us with clippings of what’s happening in the rest of the world). I loved so many of the brilliantly written funny descriptions it’s hard to single them out but Farrell is strong on cats and pigs as well as humans. If I have a criticism it is that the Major is an awfully limp sort of main protagonist and you long for him to do something, anything. But maybe he, the hotel and its crazy owner, are deliberately used as symbols of isolated decline. If you’re interested in the period and like comic tragedy, it is worth reading. I can't say how accurate it is historically and I hope readers don't assume all the Anglo Irish of the day were like JG Farrell's Edward Spencer.  To me, the world depicted doesn’t have the immediacy of, say, Molly Keane (MJ Farrell), but then she was writing about people she knew well. By the way, I don't remember her characters being so distant from or anti the locals – whereas many of JG Farrell’s are vile, upper class John-Bull caricatures, like the frightful planters he depicted in The Singapore Grip.  But at least the Major is sympathetic to the plight of the Irish.
I thought The Siege of Krishapur was JGF’s best book (despite the silly memsahibs). Sad he died so young.

Film
'I've loved you so long.' (Il-y-a longtemps que je t'aime) Watched a gritty DVD over the last two nights - too bleak to watch all at once.  Kristin Scott Thomas plays a woman just released after 15 years in prison, a brilliant performance, in French with subtitles.  Here's a good Times review.  I thought the denouement threw up a hole in the plot, but it didn't spoil this moving, totally unsentimental film about the healing power of family affection.

Media
Alexandr Orlov, the meercat, is writing his Simples family history, to be published in time for the Christmas market.  (Non UK residents should know this is a semi-cute advertising character.) Apparently the book will tell how Alexandr's family moved from Africa to Moscow.

Flax, film and my cousin Rachel

I was a little late is photographing the blue fields of flax/linseed.  I've only just discovered, by the way, that they are the same thing.  I often forget to take my camera with me so I miss perfect shots and a week later the magic scene has faded or the flowers have dropped.  Perhaps it was the hot dry weather that caused the late Spring flowers to disappear so quickly this year.  Am busy sweeping up the wisteria petals every day.

Books and Film
My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier.  This is a beautifully written semi-Gothic psychological thriller. Not sure why it was considered a romance. I must have read it at school but didn’t remember a thing about it luckily as I was gripped this time and could hardly bear to put it down. I admire the way the plot, with its unreliable young male narrator, unfolds layer by carefully confusing layer and we are left unsure as to who is the villain. We don’t even see Rachel very clearly as her character is distorted by Philip’s emotional viewpoint. Sally Beauman in her introduction considered this to be a feminist novel depicting a (Victorian?) woman at the mercy of men with money, and in turn they are victims of her charms. A very interesting and impressive book. I’ll probably read it again fairly soon and make notes.

I'd been looking forward to the DVD of Les Visiteurs, about a time-travelling knight who appears in modern France and quite naturally does not behave in a politically correct manner.  This is absolutely hilarious, I told the family, but none of us found it nearly so amusing the second time around.  Ah well.

On the other hand, I am enjoying Small Island by Andrea Levy much more on a second read.  The difference, and I hate to admit this, is that the TV film brought it to life for me.

It's Complicated - Meryl again

Much as I admire Meryl, I can't say that It's Complicated is the best movie I've ever seen. Story is that divorced Jane/Meryl, perfect cook, gardener and wonderwoman running an upmarket cafe (where she seldom goes), meets up with her ex who is now married to a frightening young woman. Whizz bang, ex and Meryl have an affair and try to conceal it from her grownup children. Meanwhile architect Steve Martin fancies her too - he's rather wasted as the serious guy. Frothy stuff suitable for middle-aged women who want a bit of a laugh, though it's only funny in parts and a sensitive divorced or recently widowed person might find it uncomfortable viewing at times. Young people might also find the idea of 50-somethings in bed embarrassing, so don't take your kids.