My Favourite Judy Garland Story

This extract is taken from the wonderful biography of Judy, Get Happy by Gerald Clarke. I reviewed it last month and I'd wholeheartedly recommend it to any fan. This extract takes place during one of her hospital stays prior to her final fracture with MGM. Judy has been going regularly to visit children at their hospital next door and has been most drawn to a frightened girl who hasn't spoken for two days because her family has been so cruel to her. Judy spends a lot of time with her, talking about her life to the girl and not minding that she didn't answer back.

By the end of August Judy had recovered her weight and energy, and it was time to say good-bye. On her last day in Boston, she paid her final visit to the children's hospital, where each of the patients, scrubbed and smiling, held a tiny bouquet of flowers in her honour. "Well, my friend, I'm going now," she said to the girl who refused to speak, "and I want to thank you for all you've done for me. I'm going to miss you." As Judy leaned over to kiss her, the girl reached out and clasped her as tightly as she could, and all the words she had not uttered for so many months poured out in a seemingly endless torrent. "Judy!" she screamed. "I love you! I love you! Don't leave! Don't leave!"

Watching that poignant drama, the rest of the ward was all but awash in tears: the nurses cried, the other children cried, Alsop cried and so, of course, did Judy. When Alsop warned her that they would miss their train, Judy waved him away. "Well, we'll just have to miss it," she said. "I'm not going to leave this child right now while she's talking." And there she remained for the next two hours, listening to her little friend's excited babble and bringing the nurses over, one by one, so that the girl would continue to speak even after Judy herself had returned to California. There had been other gratifying moments in her life, Judy later said, but nothing approached that one. "I didn't give a goddamn how many pictures I'd been fired from. I had done a human being some good. She had helped to make me well, and I had helped her."

Book Review: The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter

I bought this collection of short stories for one of my undergraduate modules. I promptly read the requisite story (the title piece) and left the rest to be completed at a later date. I'm rather glad I did. After my first real experience of Angela Carter in the form of Nights at the Circus I learned to appreciate her in a way I don't think I would've been able to five years ago. One of the best things about Carter are the layers she injects into her stories. Read them on the literal level, read them on the figurative, then drift into the abyss between and see what you find there. The Bloody Chamber was an enchanting, if quite disturbing, read.

Carter takes traditional fairy tales and legends as her base for this series of compelling short stories. The results are usually darker than the originals but they retain the essence of them. Carter's tales seem to compliment the fairy tales rather than detract from them. She merely demonstrates another strand, another interpretation.

There are ten stories in this collection, the longest being the title piece. I have to say, that is one of my favourites, probably because of the gruesome imagery that runs rampant throughout it. It takes Bluebeard as it's underlying tale but is very much an excellent tale in its own right. My other favourites were "The Courtship of Mr Lyon", mainly due to the Beauty and the Beast base, and "The Lady of the House of Love". The latter was bewitching, particularly the language of decay that permeates the narrative.

I'd highly recommend this collection but I would add a caveat - don't read it just before you go to sleep!

Book Review: A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe

This book featured in my recent list of books I couldn't read for whatever reason. I was nudged towards reading it by The Amateur Casual, someone whose opinion I trust. While I'm glad I've read Journal, I can't pretend it didn't feel like a chore at times.

A Journal of the Plague Year is essentially what it claims to be - with one important caveat. The year it documents is 1665 but the book was first published in 1722. Also, since Defoe was a small child at the time, it must be taken that - however accurate his sources - it is a work of speculation in parts. That said, though, the initials at the end of the text suggest that many of the tales within the pages came from Henry Foe, Daniel Defoe's uncle. This adds legitimacy to the book, as does the fact that Anthony Burgess in the introduction included in my Penguin Classics edition states that Defoe immersed himself in contemporary sources to produce a work of significant journalistic merit.

There is no doubt that Journal is a landmark in British journalism. Defoe's devotion to his subject means that, as well as presenting overviews of situation, he hones in on the personal stories which the plague left in its wake. How truthful these personal tales were it is, of course, impossible to ascertain but the use of them accentuates the truthfulness of Defoe's over-arching narrative. If he makes a statement he tries to back it up with a personal story. This is the crux of modern journalism really.

The language in the book is very difficult to get used to. As a student of later fiction, my main forays in eighteenth-century literature has been through novels such as Defoe's Moll Flanders and Fielding's Tom Jones. Somehow the grammatical differences of those texts were overshadowed by the on-going excellent story. It was a lot easier to ignore the capitalisation of words and punctuation differences in those novels because I was eager to find out what happened next. In the case of Journal, because of its fragmented nature (slipping from one digression to another), I found myself constantly noticing the layout and order of the text. It became distracting and was part of why I was happy to reach the end of the book.

Journal does offer us lessons for our own time. The idea that differing religions were put aside in order for people to survive is quite a poignant one. It's difficult to stifle the irritation when, inevitably, the religious divisions are some of the first to return when the crisis begins to abate. Also, in reading the book, I became aware how desensitised they were - and we are - towards mass death. Just as the figures of the reported dead were gigantic, we deal with terrible figures of those touched by earthquakes, tsunamis and famine today. Our reaction seems to be similar to that of eighteenth-century dwellers: the enormity of the figures are too much to comprehend so they focus on the local and the personal; their neighbours and their families.

Did I enjoy Journal? I don't think 'enjoy' is the word. It was certainly an educational experience. It informed me about a period of history I was sketchy about and did so by introducing me to a few personal tales which may or may not have been based on fact. However, Defoe's repetition of facts seemed to demonstrate a distrust in his audience to retain information for more than a few pages at a time. While it added to the overall feel of the Journal, it became irritating to be told things four or five times. I also feel his frequent digressions were unnecessary and fragmented an already-difficult text. At one point he returned to talking about two brothers, having left them many many pages earlier. I'd actually forgotten we were going to return to them because he went off on such a tangent.

I'm glad I've read Journal but I don't think it's something I'll rush to re-read. I would recommend it as a semi-historical source but perhaps not as fun reading material.

Some Television Renewals

I was a little anxious about whether ITV would recommission some of the excellent dramas they've shown this year. The channel don't have a great track record for sticking with things (aside from soap and reality television, of course) and I don't think the viewing figures were as high as executives hoped. However, I was proven pleasantly wrong today as Case Sensitive, Scott & Bailey and Vera were all renewed.

Case Sensitive will be another two-parter centring around DS Charlie Zailer and DC Simon Waterhouse. According to Sophie Hannah's Twitter feed, it will take her novel The Other Half Lives as its story. That was the first of Hannah's books I read so I'm eager to see how it will translate onto screen. Olivia Williams and Darren Boyd were fantastic in the lead roles last time around and I suspect they'll be as riveting this time. Read my review of the first Case Sensitive here.

Scott & Bailey was the series I was most concerned about. Despite having a stellar cast, it struggled to maintain a decent balance between crime and the personal stories in each episode. I commented at the time that it was most likely because the run was so short at only six episodes. Well, ITV have upped that this time to eight episodes which is a show of faith - but perhaps not enough. Now both actors and writers have got a proper feel for the characters I think this should work very well. Interestingly, this is the only programme out of the three which wasn't adapted from a book. Read my review of series one of Scott & Bailey here.

I never got round to reviewing Vera because I watched it so long after it was broadcast. However, I really enjoyed it. Brenda Blethyn was excellent as the tough-skinned, abrasive detective and the supporting cast came into their own as the episodes progressed. It was beautifully shot as well, utilising the North East landscape to make it as much of a character as Vera herself. Filming has already started on the four two-hour episodes and I look forward to seeing and - hopefully - reviewing them.

Any thoughts on the recommissions?

July - How Things Stand

We've reached that time of year when I re-evaluate everything. It's probably something to do with my birthday next week; growing a bit older panics me as much as it does many people. But looking at my current situation makes me feel a little queasy. So much to do, no time to do it. So what am I up to?

Well, I'm battling towards my MPhil upgrade to PhD level. I'm confident my opening chapter on the novelist Edmund Yates (I'll tell you all about him soon, I promise) is decent enough but it's the abstract for the rest of the thesis that I'm struggling with. After all, I've been burned in the past by making assumptions about novelists I've barely read. I don't want to make a fool of myself so I'm trying to do as much reading as possible. The four authors I'm hoping to look at - James Payn, Charlotte Riddell, Charles Gibbon and Annie Thomas - have over forty books available on Archive.org alone. Most of these are three-volume whoppers; it's understandable why working through them is taking time. I've only managed two so far but I'm trying to keep up the pace. Failing at this stage is one of my worst fears.

What about the writing? I'm highly disappointed with myself to be honest. I've got two completed and redrafted manuscripts which I'm sitting on because...well, who knows why? Because I don't think they're good enough? They've each been submitted to competitions but I'm a little reticent about submitting them directly to agents. Maybe that's just fear striking again but something needs to happen. Aside from those I've got the beginnings of three other novels sat on my hard-drive and various short stories I'm trying to finish. Looking at my diary I find that I've got one short story and one short play out on submission - and I've had no success this year. Well, apart from the BBC long-listing but February feels so long ago now. I haven't written properly in weeks and I know the longer I leave it the worse I'll feel. But how do you combat your own sense of inadequacy when you're trying to keep your head above water in so many other areas?

My 'fun' reading is also suffering at the moment. I'm drowning so much in PhD reading that I'm not allowing myself the time I should to relax and read something I want to. I've got eighteen books on my TBR pile including some I'm desperate to read - Girl Reading by Katie Ward, The Somnambullist by Essie Fox, South Riding by Winifred Holtby to name but three. I need the release of being able to read for enjoyment in order to make the other stuff worthwhile.

There are some things I'm determined to keep up with. I'm Welfare Moderator for a new group 2020UK, writing articles about the state of our welfare system and debating ways for the country to progress. I'd definitely recommend you check out the site if you've got a minute. Along with that, I'm writing articles for Lesbilicious. As is this is my only source of income I certainly can't give that up. I'm dabbling in some old fan fiction, mainly to keep my writing muscles flexed while I ponder what the future holds for my original stuff.

What else is happening? The dog's going round the twist. She's hiding biscuits around the dining room (at least she thinks she's hiding them) and behaving very oddly when challenged. The builders have allegedly fixed the roof and the scaffolding should vanish soon, although the redecoration of my room to fix the damp patch is unlikely to happen...ever. Aside from occasional jaunts, my social life is barren and I'm desperate for intellectual conversation that doesn't happen via a computer screen. Oh, well, I suppose sometimes we want too much!

But this is how my life stands at the moment. I have to remind myself that I wanted this, I wanted the PhD. Giving up on my dreams now would plunge me into a deeper difficulty than even the great Wilkie Collins could conjure up. So...onwards?

Musings on Sensation

A few weeks ago there was an article on the Jeremy Vine Radio 2 programme asking whether relatives of the gunman Raoul Moat should be allowed to place flowers at the place he died. For those who don't recall, Moat is the man who sparked a manhunt in Northumbria last year after seriously wounding his ex-girlfriend, killing her new partner and blinding a police officer. He committed suicide after a stand-off with police in the village of Rothbury. A terrible case indeed. However, what was striking about the item Jeremy Vine covered was the fact that it came out that people go to the scene of Moat's suicide to recreate his death. Some visitors even use children as young as five to rest on the ground as Moat reportedly did.

I'd imagine most of us feel a sense of disbelief at that. After all, Moat committed some vile acts. It's one thing to allow his family to grieve for him if they so wish; it's quite another to glorify him in death. It strikes me as very nineteenth-century in nature. As much as we criticise the spectacle the Victorians made of crime and murder, we follow the exact same path as they did. Sensation means newspaper sales, webpage hits. More importantly, sensation means attention. For the media outlet, for the reporter, for the little old blogger having their say. I do, by the way, realise the idiocy of me writing a blog post to protest about blog posts.

I'm currently working my way through The Invention of Murder by Judith Flanders. So far it's a book I'd heartily recommend; I only wish I could devote more time to reading it at the moment. One particular case she mentions is the 1823 murder of William Weare. Flanders draws attention to the 'murder tourists' who plucked the hedges where the murdered man may have been dragged almost clean of their leaves. Everybody wanted a sovenir: even Walter Scott recorded going on such a sightseeing excursion.

Nothing's really changed, has it? The murdered dead still hold a fascination for us, as do the names of their killers. I can name many people, criminal and victim, who will be forever linked in the public consciousness. I won't go into them here; I think the sickening cases of the last decade speak for themselves. We will remember them though and perhaps some of us will indulge in these macabre activities to pay homage to them. The moral outrage that's erupted in recent weeks over the phone-hacking scandal is one significant burst of humanity against a tide of ugliness. But, as has been mentioned, if there wasn't an appetite for this ugliness then the News of the World wouldn't have been selling 2.8 million copies a week, would it?

Personally, I feel revulsion towards the Murdoch empire and everyone potentially involved in the hacking. I also cannot understand the motivations of those adults using their children as Raoul Moat substitutes in Rothbury. It seems like we're teaching the next generation to glorify death. I don't want to imagine where that one might lead.

Last year I blogged about the shootings in Cumbria and the ruthlessness of the journalists hounding the public - on the behest of the rest of the public. Somehow we need a balance. What is it within the 'public interest' to know? And what simply provides titilation for the masses? Can we make stuff up to fill that latter criteria so that innocent people aren't caught in the crossfire? Or did I miss a trick - do we just do that already?

Keys

I've left my keys outside the door on occasion. It might make me a little scatty but I've always realised pretty quickly. My grandmother did it a few times, leaving her solitary key with a picture of Mike Baldwin attached hanging limply from the lock. In the area she lived in we were lucky it didn't end badly.

The street I live in at the moment has a bit of a bad record. A few months ago my friend commented on the blackened letterbox half way up the road and we've been the victim of two car break-ins, one burglary and one theft from the back garden in the decade we've lived here. Still, it's definitely not as bad as it could it. Nonetheless, a couple of weeks ago it was pointed out to me that the neighbours next-door-but-one, who I can't recall ever seeing let alone speaking to, had left the keys in the front door. What to do?

Well, my conscience wouldn't allow me to walk on by. I knocked twice but there was no response. My assumption had been that they'd left the keys outside when they'd gone in but it was equally as possible they'd been distracted and walked off leaving them in the lock. Surely, in a high crime area, it wasn't a deliberate decision to leave them there... Well, people are odd but perhaps not that odd. So, again, what to do?

Without thinking, I posted them back through. After all, the chances of someone else not having a set were slim - if the keyholder didn't happen to be home. And, I weighed it up, if I were in their shoes would I prefer to have to pay for a new lock or new contents for my house? Easy choice. There hasn't been any comeback on it so I'm assuming things worked out all right. I did wonder, though, if the shoe had been on the other foot whether someone on our street would have covered up our stupidity or simply taken advantage of it? I'd better not attempt to find out.

EDIT 03/08/11: Well, I'm an idiot. In the middle of extremely heavy rain yesterday I rushed inside and...yep, I left my keys on the outside. Ten minutes later there was a knock at the door with some kind Asian chap (who may actually come from the house next-door-but-one!) pointing out the fact my keys were on the outside. Looks like my honesty was replicated. Not that I intend to do this again, you understand! As I said, I'm an idiot.