Book Review: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

I'm always wary of reading books with a list of fantastic reviews a mile long. That's probably why Wolf Hall languished on my shelves for too long. I finally picked it up last week and, despite the length, I read it fairly rapidly. That's an endorsement if ever there was one.

Briefly, Wolf Hall charts the rise of Thomas Cromwell from a blacksmith's boy to his place as one of Henry VIII's key advisers. A great chunk of the novel takes place during Henry's attempts to legalise his divorce from his first wife and marry Anne Boleyn. The characterisation in this novel is exemplary. Mantel has taken characters we know from perhaps a few traits and fashioned them into instruments and human beings. The setting is also magnificent. I can't comment on the historical accuracy, but it certainly gives off the impression of being immersed in the era. We're so far removed from this part of our heritage and yet we're fascinated with it. Mantel surely is and the love of it shows in every sentence. It's a hefty book, yes, but one thoroughly enjoyable in terms of characterisation, setting and plot.

However, a couple of stylistic things grated on me as I progressed. The use of the present tense proved difficult for me personally. I understand why Mantel decided to use it but in a book of this magnitude it kept drawing attention to itself. In a smaller work it might have passed unnoticed. Secondly, the referral of Thomas Cromwell as 'he' almost constantly was a little confusing at times, especially considering the number of men present in the novel. These were personal gripes, though, and I can understand other readers having no problems with them. They didn't detract from my enjoyment of the novel as a whole and I look forward to reading the sequel at some point in the future.

Save The Red House!

I was aghast to read this Guardian article suggesting that Kirklees district council are gearing up to close and sell the Red House Museum in Gomersal. This stems from the fact that the wellbeing and communities directive, in charge of museums and the like, have to cut their costs by 19% to £105m. To quote from the article: "Closure of the Red House in September would make a full-year saving of £116,000 with sale of the site an additional, one-off capital receipt, probably of around £750,000." The yearly cost seems negligible compared to what they need to cut. As for the one-off receipt: are they so confident they'll find a buyer? I'll come back to that bit.

I was fortunate enough to visit the Red House last year. Despite living so close, I'd just never got round to it. That seems bizarre, given the Bronte links, but sometimes the heritage on your own doorstep slips by unnoticed. You may pay attention when it's no longer there but my general feeling was that it wasn't going anywhere. Lucky I didn't wait a few more years judging by this. Anyway, although the house itself is quite small, it is wonderfully kept. It is a perfect small replica of Victorian life for those younger visitors who might be interested in history, but not that interested in musty old rooms. There is also an exhibition in the barn - holding, amongst other little artefacts, a card for Emily Bronte's funeral - and a beautiful small garden to admire. There's a little gift shop on the ground floor of the museum and, all in all, the place is a nice little outing. More importantly, it's history. Wiping that away for a few pounds seems silly.

I would be arguing for the preservation of the Red House even if it wasn't for the Bronte connections. It's a gorgeous little place. However, the Bronte links are compelling and rather difficult to ignore. Charlotte Bronte didn't just visit the house - it helped inspire one of her novels. This is taken from the Yorkshire.com website entry about the museum:

"The stained glass windows, described in 'Shirley' are perfectly preserved in the dining room. And the award-winning recreated 19th Century gardens, with their shaped beds, decorative ironwork and authentic varieties of plants and shrubs, help to capture the atmosphere of this fascinating bygone age. 


Explore Charlotte Bronte's Spen Valley connections and her friendships with Mary Taylor and Ellen Nussey in The Secrets Out exhibition in the barn. What did local people say when they discovered that she'd based some of her characters in 'Shirley' on them? And how did Charlotte, Mary and Ellen react to society's strict view of 'a woman's place'?"


Can you see how we'll be losing a slice of history if we let this slip quietly away? The Brontes are a major draw to Yorkshire. The more things we can offer the average visitor, the better. The council seem to think that because the museum drew so few people last year that it deserves to be closed down. It doesn't. It deserves to be promoted. There are plenty of schools in the area so why did less than 1,000 schoolchildren visit the house last year? This is a problem that probably delves deeper into school management than this blog post requires but it's certainly worth looking at. If a property fails, especially when it's free entry, it is usually down to a failure on the part of the management, not a failure of the historic site itself. The Red House is certainly a little off the beaten track but it's survived as a museum for quite some time and I don't see why we should let go of it now.

I would urge local residents to make their feelings known about this. As the Guardian article says, this is a decision hastily made that will be regretted in the long term. The Red House is a Grade II listed building. This means that a potential buyer would have to jump through all sorts of hoops to make changes to it. Have Kirklees council actually investigated whether there are interested parties in the event of a decision to sell? If not, the building will rest empty for a prolonged period, with the council still responsible for the maintenance. They will be getting all the difficulties of owning a listed building but with none of the rewards of enriching the area and providing access to a beautiful little house.

Savings have to be made. We know this. However, this does not only strike me as rash but also idiotic if they haven't completely thought it through. Can we have some sense please? And not lose a genuine piece of literary history while we're looking the other way.

I Am Good (Possibly)

Today I attended a seminar group about how to teach seminar groups (yes, I know). One of the first little tasks we had to do was think of something we're good at. Whereas a year or so ago I would've dodged the question, desperate not to think of my many shortcomings, this time the answer shot straight into my head. Writing. I'm good at writing. It's actually very difficult to get me to say I'm half-decent at anything, despite people attempting to drum it into me (yes, Nicola, I'm looking at you). Today was a big step forward in my development. I am good at writing. I know I am. I also know there's plenty of room for improvement but I am on the path. It's like answering the tricky question of when you start to call yourself a 'proper' writer (I blogged about this last year). I think you have to be comfortable with whatever label you give yourself and how you measure your own success.

The next part of the task was to think what had made you good at your little something. Practice, that was my answer. Perseverance. Of course, that doesn't apply to just writing. Unless you're naturally gifted, everybody has to put in a little effort to get where they want to be.

Do you think Dorothy agrees or disagrees? I can't decide...

Priorities

Yesterday I was given a date for my upgrade viva - 27th February. So that's the date this PhD charade comes crashing down around my ears, the day I learn that I'm perhaps not cut out for this academic career I had planned. Nevertheless, I have to give it a shot. The two things I need to accomplish in the next month, then, are to complete my upgrade chapter (currently in the fourth draft of the...third incarnation - possibly) and complete an abstract for the rest of the thesis. I also need to firm up my bibliography but, honestly, that's the least of my problems.

Getting this chapter up to required standard is proving difficult. I've been writing too much fiction lately so I'm having to be ultra-careful with my phrasing and the urge to slip into 'dialogue mode' is strong. I have to say, the pompousness associated with academic standards is really starting to get on my nerves. Alas, it's the way it is. My more pertinent problem stems from the abstract. Since changing my direction late last year, I've been struggling to play catch-up. Essentially, I'm reconfiguring the year and a half of work I've done to match my new focus. Unfortunately, much of the work I've done is no longer relevant. I've read books by authors I'm no longer covering; I've analysed others in a way that now seems to be useless. I'm going to have to read perhaps every novel Edmund Yates wrote to back up my abstract - and that's before I start finding Wilkie Collins novels to compare them with. See how unmanageable it's starting to look?

Then comes the upgrade viva itself. For a girl who has panic attacks walking into town to meet someone she knows well and has stress-related health issues, this is going to be painful. Literally, painful. While I've made progress in public-speaking and raised my confidence slightly, I still tend to suffer meltdowns at critical moments. I just stop talking. It'll be interesting to see how they deal with an oral examination where the candidate won't speak.

All this said, it's obvious something has to give. It has to be the writing, doesn't it? At least for the next month. I have to rewrite one more chapter for a submission somewhere (I'm not jinxing myself with explanation) but, apart from that, I think I have to focus constantly on PhD work. I already know that it'll drive me up the wall but I have to try. Don't I? Do I?

I need a little Judy to cheer me up. The girl she's singing about is the girl I long to be.

Book Review: Judy, A Legendary Film Career by John Fricke

Any regular visitor to this blog will know that I'm a devoted Judy Garland fan. Consequently, when I was asked what one book I wanted for Christmas, this was my first and only choice. I'd seen it in a shop and barely prevented myself from sitting down on the carpet and cracking it open there and then.

This is an overview of Judy's film career, broken down by period and then by each individual film. There's enough biographical information in it to satisfy the layperson but not too much to distract from the focus of the book. Each film is given it's own section with a cast list, synopsis, contemporary reviews, notes on the production and, perhaps most wonderfully, a selection of quotes from people who worked on the film. These quotes range from Judy herself down to contract dancers and backstage personnel and proved to be one of the highlights of the book.

However, the main highlight has to be the pictures. There are hundreds of them packed into this book, many never seen before and all of the best quality. You've got Judy and Doris Day meeting up on the set of A Star is Born; Judy helping prepare Liza for her little appearance in In The Good Old Summertime; and the cast being instructed by Victor Fleming in the specially-extended picture album for The Wizard of Oz. Every time I turned the page I was faced with yet more wonderful pictures. They complimented the excellent analysis of each of the films without overshadowing it.

Some of the films naturally get slightly more coverage than others - The Wizard of Oz, A Star is Born, Meet Me in St. Louis, Easter Parade - but I was gratified to see the attention given to Judy's last film, I Could Go On Singing. When I watched this film I was struck by Judy's intense performance, along with her beautiful yet heartbreaking renditions of several songs. There's a gorgeous picture of Judy in discussion with director Ronald Neame on a bench while young co-star Gregory Phillips (who played Judy's son in the film) looks on with evident admiration in his eyes. It was Phillips's words on working with Judy that stuck with me when I closed the book:

"When Mr. Neame took me into Miss Garland's dressing gown...[she] gave me a big hug and said, 'Hello, darling!' It was marvellous, and so quick I forgot to be frightened. 'Come and sit down by me,' she said, and the next thing I knew, we were discussing the part, and I felt as if I'd known her all my life. All through the film, [she and Dirk Bogarde] were both wonderful to me. They are so completely natural, with no 'side' at all. It was the most friendly job I ever had."


I adored this book. It doesn't go into excessive detail for each of the films but it reveals fresh information and is worth buying for the pictures alone.

Thoughts on Video File Sharing

Let me preface this by saying that, while I don't claim to be an authority on this issue, I do have some valid experience. In the past I've resorted to what some would call 'illegal methods' to get hold of clips for various reasons. Some of these were British shows (most of which I'd purchased on DVD anyway) and some were American and impossible to get hold of any other way. Do I consider what I did to be contributing to a larger piracy problem? Not really. I paid for the British shows, either via my licence fee or via the DVD costs. I wanted the clips on my computer to watch and make music videos for my own pleasure. I'd already paid once - twice for those programmes I'd watched on the BBC and then bought the DVD of. As for the American shows (I might as well say we're talking specifically about Guiding Light, the now defunct soap), there was no option for me to watch it any other way but on YouTube or by downloading the clips. There was no way I was going to miss out on the storyline that had gripped me. Equally, a current Spanish show, Tierra de lobos, has caught my attention. If I don't watch the clips via the Internet then I don't see how I can watch it. Is that just hard luck on my part? Well, with the Internet as powerful as it is, companies need to start using their brains.

Let me take an example of a show that's doing it right. Venice: The Series is a web-series currently showing its third season. Unlike many Internet-based shows I've come across, Venice charges a subscription for each series and did this from the start. It ruffled some feathers but since the fee is only a few pounds in UK money, it's more than affordable. For that you get ten or so episodes of, I'd say, average twenty minutes each. (Another good thing about a web-series is that it isn't constrained to tell a story in so many minutes - the time variants always fit the arc of the episode.) I've been paying for Venice from the start and, as far as I can tell, Crystal Chappell and her team have done everything right. They established there was a market for the show (building on the success of Chappell's last storyline in Guiding Light), they assembled a fantastic cast and they created a business model that meant the show would effectively pay for itself and guarantee it a chance at longevity. In a recent interview for the Lesbian News blog, Chappell explained: "We’ve sort of cultivated an audience that needs to come back, thankfully, and we use a lot of social media to promote it -- like Facebook, Twitter. They seem to be there. Originally it was supposed to be, and it still may be, a dual platform show with sponsorship and subscription but it’s enough to cover…it’s covered itself, it’s paid for itself for the past three seasons and it’s a show that costs about $125 thousand dollars a season; so it’s not an inexpensive show." There you go: it's working and people are happy to pay for it.

There is one main reason why traditional media is failing to battle piracy: they're not making enough of their content widely available or, when they do, they're being too greedy about it with extortionate fees. The Venice model is a good one to follow because they're focused on the quality of the show and what the viewers what. I realise that for bigger companies there has to be a profit in there somewhere, but I think they've lost sight of the fans and what they want. It's why the future is wide open for people like Crystal Chappell.

Oh, and one final thing: Venice offered the first episode free as a taster. Try before you buy is definitely worthwhile and it will usually champion quality.

Book Review: The Poison Tree by Erin Kelly

From the prologue onwards, The Poison Tree was a riveting read; both atmospheric and enjoyable. The story is told from the perspective of Karen and straddles two periods a decade apart. In 1997, having just finished her degree, Karen encounters a young actress, Biba, and is quickly drawn into her bohemian lifestyle. She spends the summer living in Biba's ramshackle house and growing closer to Biba's brother, Rex. It's no secret to say (since the blurb reveals as much) that two people end the summer dead, changing Karen's life forever. In the more recent timeline, Rex is released from prison and struggles to adjust to his new life with Karen and their daughter, Alice. Karen is also on edge, having been on the receiving end of silent phone calls recently.

There's not much more I can say about the plot without ruining it. But I will say that the twists and turns certainly kept my attention. Throughout the 1997 story there are hints about what's to come but since Kelly piles discord on top of discord, it's impossible to see where the eventual danger will emerge from. I enjoyed just following Karen through the summer and trying to work out exactly what was going to happen. I couldn't and that's exactly how a good novel should be.

Karen is effectively an average, though talented, student when we first meet her. Her foray into Biba's world works because we experience the new and bizarre as Karen does. We can understand why Karen's so intrigued by the odd brother and sister pair and their associates. However, I think the reader has more reservations about Biba from the start than Karen does. Entranced by her new friend, Karen seems content to be allowed into her world, however she's treated. Biba is actually a complex and surprising character. Whatever she does feels real and her actions are always foreshadowed. Rex, I have to say, is a lovely but troubled man and was possibly my favourite character, despite the fact I didn't like him much at the beginning. All of the supporting characters are well-rounded, from Karen's parents down to the tutor we only meet once.

What struck me particularly about this novel, though, was the evocation of 1997 London. The accuracy of detail along with the sights, smells and noises discussed help to create a place - and therefore novel - that leaps from the page and feels real.

As you can probably tell, I loved this book. Several days after finishing, I'm still thinking about it. I look forward to reading more of Kelly's work in the future.