Blogging NaNoWriMo 2013: A Sense Of Place

Yesterday, I promised to discuss the places my characters will be visiting in my NaNoWriMo novel for 2013. As I said, the action takes place on a cruise ship, a trip to the Mediterranean. The ship first docks in Lisbon and, perhaps, my characters will take a trip to the Castle of São Jorge. Wonderful views from up there...

Next, they travel to Gibraltar, that tiny block of land so heavily disputed where the mischievous apes live.

Malaga, birthplace of Picasso, is the next port.

After that, they'll go onto Cadiz with its narrow streets and beautiful sea views.

The last port will be La Coruña, though who knows what state my protagonists will be in by then?

Blogging NaNoWriMo 2013: The Research Trip

This year, taking a holiday in October, I thought I could combine this trip with research for my NaNoWriMo novel for 2013. I was struggling with an idea for this year but as soon as I decided it would take place on a cruise ship within the narrow confines of a fortnight's holiday the novel came alive in my head. The main character jumped at me first - a freelance photographer employed to publicise the flagging company. I like Carys, I have to say. Her foil? Pippa, a woman hiding a couple of dark secrets. 

Naturally, my own holiday will feed a lot into the novel. The places I visited will be the places they visit. However, they are already making those places their own. I felt it as I took notes at the end of each day. I dug into how Carys and Pippa would react to places and events in my mind and, thanks to those few minutes of pondering per day, I'm in a very good position as far as knowing the basics of my characters goes, possibly better than I've been before.

Of course, regular readers of this blog will know that I don't really have time to participate in NaNoWriMo this year. This neat little summary dictates what I have to do before 2013 is finished with and the things I'd like to do. NaNoWriMo is on there because it's important to me. I like the deadlines, I like the freedom of just writing. I also like having the ability to justify my writing time to both me and the people around me - participating in NaNoWriMo gives the illusion that my writing time is not time wasted. It might only be a psychological thing but I need the validation that I'm meant to be writing at the moment. Justifying the time I spend on my fictional works is becoming all the more difficult as academic anxiety kicks in. 

Perhaps one of the most important aspects of this year's novel will be a sense of place. I took hundreds of pictures while I was away, trying to catch the essence of the ports visited far too briefly. Tomorrow, I'll give you an overview of the main places. In the meantime, here's a picture of me being dwarfed by a tree in Cadiz.

Classic Film Review: Mr Lucky (1943)

Mr Lucky stars Cary Grant as Joe Adams, a gambler who has appropriated the name of a dead gangster in order to escape the army. He plans to con a war charity by affixing a gambling den to their function and siphoning off the profits. Volunteer and society girl, Dorothy Bryant (Laraine Day), suspects he's trying to con them but they gradually fall for each other. What they don't know is that Joe's former partner Zepp (Paul Stewart) is plotting against them. If Joe does have a change of heart, it won't be simple.

One of my issues with this film stems from the confusion about what it's meant to be. IMDB lists it as a comedy/romance while the television guide had it down as a drama. For me, it was all those things - a comedy in the first half with drama in the second and a romance string stretching through the piece. Cary Grant plays the charmer extremely well but once Joe begins to fall in love with Dorothy the humour necessarily disappears. There is one scene in a Greek church where he learns about the fate of his appropriated name's family at the hands of the Germans that signals a complete shift in tone and sets up the final half an hour.

Grant was good, though struggling with a script that kept information back from the audience in a rather sluggish manner. Laraine Day was excellent as the feisty society girl, less so as the romantic sap who falls for Joe. The supporting cast, with the exception of Gladys Cooper as Dorothy's boss, are mediocre with no depth. There are a few good comic moments, with Joe conning people on behalf of the charity and learning how to knit, but once the serious tone sets in, it becomes more run-of-the-mill.

I did enjoy it, for all the difficulties. It was an odd role to find Grant in and, on occasion, the romance aspect seemed completely implausible. That said, I wanted to see how it all ended, so it can't have been that disastrous a film.

Classic Film Review: They Came to Cordura (1959)

They Came to Cordura stars Gary Cooper as Major Thorn, an officer guilty of cowardice who now wants to create some real heroes. He takes five men after a 1916 battle against the Mexicans, intent on delivering them up as real-life heroes to be looked up to in the troubled years ahead. They are accompanied by a prisoner accused of helping the Mexicans - Adelaide Geary (Rita Hayworth). But as they travel through the difficult landscape, tempers fray and the nature of these 'heroes' becomes clear.

The first twenty minutes of this film - establishing Thorn and showing the actual battle - dragged for me. I understand why it was included but it was only when the seven set off on their trek that the film got interesting. I'm not certain we needed to see the heroic deeds in order for the rest of the film to work. Also, it's fair to say that Cooper was too old for this role, but that only makes itself blatantly clear in the final sequence. It was a decent performance but he did feel out of place.

Rita Hayworth, coming into her own towards the end of the film, was a revelation. Apart from the irritating aspect of her perfect hairstyle throughout (after days in the desert), she fulfilled her role wonderfully from the first time she sets herself against the men to the painful finale. Her act of sacrifice for Major Thorn is notable for its unshrinking honesty. There is one scene where Thorn and Adelaide are discussing what happened to label him a coward and it is stunning for its quiet intensity.

Occasionally, the soldiers become caricatures, almost pantomime villains. That can be said of the chief antagonist, Sergeant John Chawk (Van Heflin), who offers us tantalising glimpses of the man beneath but not enough to justify why he makes it his mission to not only overthrow Thorn but to kill him too. Lieutenant William Fowler (Tab Hunter) is probably the most intriguing of the detail - the man who joins the pack last and has the final line of the film.

This is a film about courage and cowardice, one that attempts to demonstrate that simply being a 'hero' or a 'coward' once in your life is not all a person is about. As Adelaide says: "One act of cowardice doesn't make a man a coward forever, just as one act of bravery doesn't make a man a hero forever." That is the point of this film, and it's one it makes very well.

Grandmother Update: Failure

Regular readers of this blog or my Twitter feed will know what for the past year or so I've been increasingly worried for, and harassed by, my ageing grandmother. It all started in March 2011 when she was moved into sheltered accommodation that I knew wasn't right for her and was really just better for my aunt and uncle. For a while she seemed to like her new place but that changed rapidly, as I'd feared it would, and coincided with a decrease in her mobility. For the past year the phone calls from her have increased to an average of 20 a day, reaching 40 on some memorable occasions. They're confused calls, they're distressed calls and, finally, it has been decreed that she can't stay where she is any more. But the way this has happened has infuriated me.

You see, my aunt was away for most of September in America. Nonetheless, we continued to speak to my grandmother everyday and I continued to calm her down (even when I was away in Birmingham myself). My aunt returned about a week ago and yesterday everything kicked off - there had been disturbances during the night in the accommodation, my grandmother had been lectured by my aunt (which explained the lack of phone calls) and, even more surprisingly, there was a backlog of 'incidents' that the warden had neglected to tell us about.

Yes, despite being listed as the secondary next of kin (and going to see her/calling her/answering the damn phone), the warden didn't think to let us know what was going on, preferring to wait until my aunt got back to talk to her about it. I was astounded. Social services have been brought into the equation before we were. The upshot of this is that she's being moved to a residential home as soon as possible, probably a temporary one before we get her into one we actually approve of.

Now, she wants to go into a home. So she says. She's been angling for it for months, as things have deteriorated between herself and the other residents at the sheltered accommodation. However, her complaints about the accommodation are worrying in this context: she says she feels like she's in a prison and doesn't like being told what to do and having to wait for the carer etc. She doesn't seem to realise that being in a residential home really is like a prison. Just like the reality of sheltered accommodation finally hit, this realisation will hit and there'll be nothing at all I can do about it.

You see, the truth here is that I've failed. It's easier to blame my aunt for pretty much dumping her there and leaving her or criticise my dad's short temper but, really, I've failed. I knew sheltered accommodation wasn't right for her and I allowed myself to be talked round when she was. I've experienced how bad it's been getting and how miserable she is but I've told myself there were no other options. Perhaps there were none now but there were some then, and I let them slip through my fingers.

I know how my grandmother feels. We've got the same anxieties about things being right and worries about what will happen when. Out of all of us, I'm the one who cares the most and understands. So why didn't I understand two years ago? She's an educated woman who hates being surrounded by, I'm sorry to say it, stupid people. That's why she's had difficulty in the sheltered accommodation and I fear it'll be worse in the home.

You never know, I could be wrong. I don't want to be right, I don't want her to suffer any more than she already has done. I hate seeing her cry and look at me like I'm the only friend she's got in the world. I suppose time will tell but, in the meantime, it's fair to say that I failed the one person I'd set out to look after - again. You can always count on me to muck things up, it's a speciality.

Colour-Coding Overload

There's a moment when you think that maybe, just maybe, you've overdone the close reading of a book. My mission for the past week or so has been to reread Wilkie Collins's No Name in order to gather a semblance of an argument for my final thesis chapter. This is the result...

What you see there are actually five colours (there are two shades of pink). It occurred to me halfway through that I should probably just stick a multicoloured post-it on the front of the book and have done with it. As it is, my desk is lit up by its very own Wilkie Collins rainbow. Just when I thought my life couldn't get any odder... 

Anyone want a Minstrel? 

Classic Film Review: Wuthering Heights (1939)

This adaptation of the Emily Bronte novel stars Laurence Olivier as Heathcliffe with Merle Oberon as Cathy, David Niven as Edgar Linton and Flora Robson as Ellen. It only tells half the story of the novel, up to Cathy's death and misses out everything to do with the children. It works well, centring Heathcliffe and Cathy in a somewhat compact adaptation.

It maintains the frame narrative, the story being told by Ellen, which allows for the passages of time to be easily glossed over. The childhood scenes are surprisingly well acted with Rex Downing doing an excellent job as the young Heathcliffe. Once Olivier takes over, the role becomes necessarily more nuanced and it is a very good portrayal, faltering at times. I was less impressed with Merle Oberon overall - her confrontation scenes with Isabella (Geraldine Fitzgerald) late in the film are more memorable than most of her scenes with Olivier. The character is, of course, a difficult one to like but there's depth missing from Oberon's performance. For me, the standout stars were two of the supporting cast - Flora Robson as Ellen and Hugh Williams as the older Hindley Earnshaw, drunk and bitter with Heathcliffe.

Something this adaptation does exceptionally well is generate atmosphere. Although filmed in America, the outdoor scenes do have the sense of wild Yorkshire moorland. The lighting is perfect and the direction just subtle enough. I think the score, slightly overpowering at times, assisted in scenes where not a lot was said but a great deal was conveyed.

Overall, this is an excellent - if curtailed - adaptation of a very complex book. Olivier was a good Heathcliffe but credit for the atmosphere of this film must go to all involved.