the master and margarita

If ever there was a book that deserved to be adapted as a graphic novel, this is it. I didn’t talk about the book much when I read it, but considering that was right after I had arrived in the UK, it’s safe to say I had more important things to do. Still, I didn’t forget about it, and obviously it showed up on my top ten books of 2008, which Jamie saw and was kind enough to get me the graphic novel for Christmas. It’s a lovely piece of work, as well it should be, since the art is by internationally acclaimed artists (Andrzej Klimoski, who does the black and white paintings of the main action, and Danusia Schejbal, who does the Pontius Pilate scenes in gouache).

Very little has been altered from Bulgakov’s daring and strange narrative. The sequencing, since this is more cinematic than novelistic, has been streamlined. Instead of beginning with the poet and writer in the gardens of the Patriarch’s Pond, we are introduced to the Master, Margarita, and their love affair. Klimoski’s black and white paintings remind me of the work of Chandre and others who illustrated the French-produced graphic novels of Agatha Christie, like Murder in Mesopotamia and Murder at the Vicarage, and it has the perfect sombre tone for 1920s Russia. In the first few paintings, the Master even looks like John Barrowman! The reason she calls him the Master, by the way, is because she thinks the novel he’s writing on Pontius Pilate is a masterpiece, but unfortunately it leads to the dissolution of their relationship because he is blackballed for writing it (a religious novel in Communist Russia? I don’t think so!).

With that necessary prologue out of the way, we proceed to the wonderfully absurd scene of the writer Berlioz and the poet Bedomnzy meeting Woland and his supernatural crew. It’s Woland who narrates Pontius Pilate’s story, and the wonderfully colorful art highlights that the Pilate story may be the best part of the book (well, it’s my favorite part). It’s not merely a retelling of the story of the crucifixion—its power lies in the fact it not only tries to make the story of Christ (known here as Yeshua Ha-Notsri) as close to historical narrative as possible, it tells it from Pilate’s point of view, not so much sympathetically as . . . well, as a novelist would imagine a character, with private passions and fears.

There are some very clever touches in the art adaptation that, again, highlight the genius of the source material. The scene at the Variety Theatre, a triumph of magical realism and a very funny dig at many of the Soviet institutions of the time, is also painted in gouache. “Well, now, they’re a people like any other. They’re overly fond of money, but then they always were. . . . They’re thoughtless, but sometimes feel compassion, too.” That’s the Devil’s conclusion about man, or at least Moscovites.

I was only disappointed at the ball of the damned sequence. Most of that was excised, while a not-very-funny-joke took up about four panels. Oh well. Maybe the artists didn’t want it to descend into the level of soft porn, as Margarita, her maid Natasha, and Hella the witch spend most of the rest of the book naked. Margarita is a very strange character, I find. Her love for the Master is what prompts her to preside as hostess at the Devil’s ball, and instead of in a normal fable, where selling your soul to Satan in exchange for getting what you want does not lead to damnation or any kind of retribution (that I can see), the Master and Margarita are a lot more well-off than most of the characters by the end of the book. Yet, I do like the ending; Pontius Pilate waits in some kind of limbo with his beloved dog, “He’s waiting for his prisoner, Ha-Notsri. He longs to talk with him again . . .”

Yes, I know this is a graphic novel I will return to often.

north and south (spoilers)

Cast your mind back to the second week of December. That’s what I have to do, if I’m going to be able to write a review of this book! I’ll set the scene: I was über-gaga for Richard Armitage, and since no one was going to buy me the mini-series of North and South, I decided I would read the book and then go from there! As you know if you read my Top 10 books of 2008, North and South surprised and impressed me. I guess I shouldn’t have been that surprised, considering that I almost completed Cranford in 2007 and quite enjoyed it.

Elizabeth Gaskell, though she didn’t publish that many books, it’s true, was a professional. In the first scene, it’s wham—bam—and we’re thrust into the story and introduced to our heroine, Margaret Hale, and her cousin, Edith. With an excellent trick of effortless exposition, we learn that Edith looks like Titania and Margaret does not. It’s not a stretch to compare Gaskell’s style to Jane Austen’s, just as no one will be surprised when, later in this review, I compare the structures of the two books. Edith is engaged, and Gaskell delights in telling us that “Mrs Shaw enjoyed the romance of the present engagement rather more than her daughter [did].” There’s a mystery sewn into the seams of North and South, below the surface—as some writers have gone back and written prequels and inter-quels like Wide Sargasso Sea, Wicked, Ahab’s Wife, etc, I’m tempted to write about what really happened to Frederick, Margaret’s brother.

This is where Gaskell resembles Austen, too, as Frederick belongs to Austen’s age, to her bevy of sea-faring brothers: long before the action of the novel, Frederick commits mutiny at sea and is living in Spain to avoid the court-martial that will inevitably ensue should he return to England. But this kind of derring-do belongs in the past; Gaskell is concerned with her present. And the present is bringing into conflict the two “nations” in the title: the genteel, educated south of England, where Margaret and her family live, and the industrialized, provincial north. English readers will no doubt be very familiar with this divide, but I was somewhat surprised that in many ways the split resembles the one between the American north and the American south (at least, pre-Civil War). At first, Margaret, a clergyman’s daughter, has very haughty notions toward northerners: “What in the world do manufacturers want with the classics, or literature, or the accomplishments of a gentleman?”

Circumstances, of course, conspire to challenge Margaret’s views when her father loses his living (for his spiritual beliefs; rather like Rev. Dennis Hassett being sent to Never-Never in Oscar and Lucinda). Mr and Mrs Hale and Margaret are forced to take up a living in the working town of Milton-Northern (supposed to resemble Manchester) where Mr Hale becomes a tutor to northern men who had not time for Oxford or Cambridge in their youths. This is where the POV shifts to that of Mr John Thornton, a Milton mill magnate. This shift is jarring at first but I quickly got used to it—and without it, we’d never know what Thornton or his family were thinking since they are not a particularly expressive tribe.

Everyone who has ever read Pride and Prejudice loves the sexual tension between Lizzy and Mr Darcy, so I’m surprised all those readers have not yet sung the praises of North and South. Because John Thornton falls in love with Margaret Hale almost the moment he meets her, despite her seeming haughtiness. Gaskell can be one sexy writer, as in her detailing the fact Thornton obsesses over Margaret’s bracelets and how she uses her fingers as sugar tongs is far more sensuous prose than I would expect any Victorian woman to write. And I’m convinced, of course, they cast Thornton correctly in the mini-series I will someday watch: “Without being unpleasantly sharp, [his eyes] seemed intent enough to penetrate into the very heart and core of what he was looking at.” Margaret, despite herself, is immediately attracted by his dazzling but seldom seen smile. (Ooooh, Richard!!) And despite his bluff manner, like all good romantic heroes, Thornton has a sympathetic past, and he is not ashamed of revealing, despite his present wealth and authority, his father “died in miserable circumstances”—ie, he committed suicide.

But, like Darcy and Lizzy, Thornton and Margaret are immediately at odds, despite the initial attraction. In my humble opinion, Darcy and Lizzy were simply in a row over wounded pride initially, whereas Gaskell uses her protagonists to illustrate ideological differences that no doubt occurred at the time (and still do). Margaret sees Thornton as the heartless, slave-driving factory foreman—“Cromwell would have made a capital mill-owner, Miss Hale?”—and Thornton defends his capitalistic view as a man who rose from poverty to power. Margaret, of course, starts out snooty, finds out the real conditions of Milton from a neighboring family, and takes a moral stance against Thornton: “as if commerce were everything and humanity nothing!” Thornton, for his part, finds her condescending initially, then naive.

Unfortunately for him, though, he can’t forget about her. With characteristic northern physicality, he tries to shake her hand upon their first meeting, which she finds presumptuous. He spends the next forty pages trying to shake her hand! The gunpowder ignites, therefore, a lot sooner than I expected: during a mill-workers’ strike, Thornton’s life is threatened, and Margaret—without really knowing why—risks hers to protect him from violence. When she’s knocked unconscious, he confesses, “Oh, my Margaret—my Margaret! No one can tell what you are to me! Dead—cold as you lie there, you are the only woman I ever loved!” Margaret isn’t dead, by the way, and having heard him, she is embarrassed by his passion. For one, she only saved him because she felt compassion. That’s not how Thornton’s mother sees it, already obsessed with the idea that Margaret is trying to “nab” her son.

As in Pride and Prejudice, Thornton makes up his mind pretty quickly. Having felt her touch briefly before she was knocked out in the mill-yard, he feels “a mixture of joy, of anger, of pride, of glad surprise, of panting doubt . . .” and takes the only sensible way out: he proposes. Margaret, embarrassed for the reasons I pointed out earlier, and feeling degraded by the proposal, heartily rejects him, even claiming the fervour of his feelings offends her! Thornton proves that elusive and fantastic quality of being manly and sensitive at the same time: “I am a man. I claim the right of expressing my feelings.” As is so often the case, though, he can’t make himself hate Margaret. He continues to do good deeds for her family, including buying fruit for her quickly ailing mother. He defends her to his mother, which is quite a feat.

Mrs Thornton is almost as fascinating a character as her son. She is a single parent (Thornton’s younger sister Fanny is a flibbertigibbet of no consequence) who barely had enough food to put on the table while Thornton was growing up. She is proud, economical, but moral. The two share a unique mother-son bond I can’t recall seeing in any other literature of the period; they are almost best friends. He is not really what you would call a momma’s boy, but they do care about each other deeply. You can understand why Mrs Thornton would hate to give him up to Margaret, but she is incensed when the haughty southerner rejects him.

Things, of course, go from bad to worse. The strike stretches on. People die, children starve. Margaret’s mother dies. Margaret spends more time with her neighbors, the Higginses. The youngest daughter is an interesting character, grappling between faith and disbelief as much as she does with pneumonia, finally succumbing. “God help ‘em!” cries Nicholas Higgins, her father. “North and South have each gotten their own troubles.” Frederick Hale makes a daring visit that almost ends in tragedy; unfortunately (and perhaps predictably) Thornton sees him from afar and think he is a suitor ruining Margaret’s reputation (“he lashed himself into an agony of fierce jealousy”). Before you say this is overwrought, I dare you to reflect in your own past, consider your own small bouts of jealousy, whether justified or not (or perhaps you are lucky enough not to have had any). Thornton now has to deliver Margaret from being implicated in a murder investigation as well as believing that she’s “compromised” herself with someone who isn’t him!

Margaret actually had a legitimate suitor at the beginning of the book, the rather shallow brother of her cousin’s husband. He comes back to haunt her later in the book, but for the moment, the strike takes precedent. When Higgins loses his job, Margaret encourages him to go to Thornton. Thornton, of course, hires him once he finds out it was Margaret who sent him. So, Thornton slowly redeems himself in Margaret’s eyes, by helping her in ways small and large. She suffers the death of her father, then removal from Milton-Northern altogether to live in London with her cousin. In the meantime, unbeknownst to her, Thornton visits her hometown in the south which she speaks of so adoringly. He dreams of her (again, surprisingly sexy!). He becomes a more kindly master of his mill because of her. Outwardly, he tries to appear indifferent: “ ‘Do you speak of her as you would of a horse or a dog?’ Mr Thornton’s eyes glowed like red embers.”

This is all very Darcy of him. (There is, in fact, a hilarious script on the Richard Armitage Appreciation Group on Facebook proving just how Darcy.) And nothing more so than his second proposal, which is, of course, accepted. Unfortunately, the novel ends—just like that! A total lack of denouement is the only fault I can find with this keen social commentary and delightful romance. At 520 pages it may seem like a hefty read, but I finished it in a few days—that’s how good it is.

The Milton Season

“Once you do tune in [to Paradise Lost], your life is changed for good.”

John Milton WHO? was the response I got most often in 2008 when I told people it was the 400th anniversary of his birth. And not just your everyday person with little interest in history or literature—there was nothing about Milton at the Museum of London even though two autobiographies were published in 2008. Now, he did get his degree in Cambridge but he spent most of his life in and around London. He was born in Bread Street in 1608, went to St Paul’s school (pre-Christopher Wren, of course) where he worked extremely hard (he stayed up late reading by candlelight, no doubt affecting his eyesight, in order just to be on par with the other students). His father was a merchant and amateur musician who believed in the value of a good education. He read and spoke several languages and wrote a great deal before going blind in the 1650s, when he turned to amanuensis like Andrew Marvell and his own daughters. He, of course, wrote his magnum opus Paradise Lost after complete blindness had set in.

There are so many interesting facts about Milton, yet he is in large part forgotten. I studied him some in my survey of English literature before taking an entire course devoted to him. I am indebted to Dr. Cheryl Fresch who taught that course for instilling a love of this poet. It was the last Milton course she taught before retiring. My friend Johanna was in that course with me, the first one we’d been in together since 8th grade, and it was a lot fun doodling all over each other’s textbooks with irreverent notes and drawings. It was during that course that I had the idea to adapt some of Milton’s life for film (people have tried in the past to dramatize Paradise Lost).

from PARADISE LOST
Book 9
How can I live without thee, how forgoe
Thy sweet Converse and Love so dearly joyn’d,
To live again in these wilde Woods forlorn?
Should God create another Eve, and I
Another Rib afford, yet loss of thee
Would never from my heart; no no, I feel
The Link of Nature draw me: Flesh of Flesh,
Bone of my Bone thou art, and from thy State
Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.

The BBC succeeded, though, in giving this poet his proper due in 2008. In what they called the Milton season, our lady of Christ College

[1] was all over the airwaves. Here’s what I managed to catch.

Radio 3

Words and Music: Darkness Visible—John Milton’s Adventurous Song—This was a series of excerpts from Paradise Lost and other poets’ works set to music in order to make concrete Milton’s situation when he was blind and attempting to compose.

Philip Dodd dramatizes Samson Agonistes—I missed this as I had gone back to America, which is too bad since I’ve never read Samson Agonistes.

Catherine Bott on the Early Music Show explores Comus—Comus is the masque Milton wrote in 1634 for the Earl of Bridgewater’s family who had a castle in Ludlow, on the English-Welsh border. (You better believe I visited it when I was in that area in November 2006.) I really like Comus. Few masques resonate with us today since they are less dramatically satisfying than the drama Shakespeare and his successors created, but Comus is tricksy. Comus himself, the villain, is a bit of a warm-up for the Satan of Paradise Lost. The Lady is a strong female character, as is Sabrina the Spirit of the Lake:

Sabrina fair,
Listen where thou art sitting
Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,
In twisted braids of lilies knitting
The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair;
Listen for dear honor’s sake,
Goddess of the silver lake,
Listen and save.

For the program, Catherine Bott visited Ludlow Castle and played some tracks of Henry Lawes’ music from the masque (which I had never heard before).

Radio 4 had a weeklong series on John Milton the Essayist, in that every day in The Essay slot, a scholar, writer, educator, etc, talked about something Milton had written. It was very educational.
· Martyn Crucifix on the Treatise of Education—We read many of Milton’s essay/prose pieces in the Fresch course, but I didn’t remember the Treatise of Education very well. This was a nice refresher. Milton was heavily into the classics, especially Latin, and he loved Italy. His ideal educational system was rigorous but wide-ranging.
· Sharon Achinstein on Divorce—Milton’s first marriage was a disaster. His father had loaned money to another man, whose daughter Milton ended up marrying. She was younger than he was, and after the wedding, she actually returned to her parents’ house and would not stay with Milton. This was in the midst of the Civil War, further complicating matters. I don’t know enough about it to pretend to know why she was so opposed to the marriage. The consequence, though, was that Milton wrote a Treatise on Divorce. He advocated divorce be available to people of either sex if marriage was unhappy and was quite a forward thinker in this respect. The Treatise, actually, offers little biographical insight—he kept his personal feelings on his failed marriage out of it. (He went on to marry two more times.)
· Andreas Whittan Smith on Areopagitica—Despite the perplexing-sounding title, Areopagitica [air-ee-o-puh-jit-iht-ka] is one of Milton’s most enduring, most radical pieces. It argues for freedom of speech, à propos since during the Civil War, some of Milton’s works were condemned, especially in Europe. It was interesting to hear it described by a man who once edited a liberal newspaper (I forget which one) and now works on the UK Censor Board for movies. The parallel with Milton is pretty obvious: Milton writes Areopagitica after having worked for Cromwell.
· Tom Paulin on the Second Defence of the English People—My mom didn’t think much of Milton after she found out he worked for Cromwell and wrote to justify regicide. Neither did Salmasius, a French writer who attacked Milton in pamphlet form and said that his ugliness

[2] and blindness were a direct result of his supporting Cromwell. In it, Milton commends the English people for recognizing tyranny and overthrowing it. Though I myself prefer Milton’s drama and poetry in general to his essays (with the exception of Areopagitica) I remember his defense being systematic and calm. You can read a good summary of it here: http://www.michaelbryson.net/miltonweb/defense2.html
· Annabel Patterson on Milton in America—I hadn’t given much thought to Milton’s reputation in America. I always thought he would be more recognized in Britain than the U.S. and while that’s probably the case, I found this essay very interesting because it noted that John Adams was a great admirer of Milton. The two writers and statesmen probably found each other’s beliefs coincided more often than not. Both did not want mob rule; Milton has a touch of snobbishness to him, and those who have seen HBO’s John Adams will recognize one of the chief reasons that Jefferson and Adams fell out was their amount of trust in the common person.

I decided to see some Milton sights while I was in London over New Year, forcing my kind-hearted hosts to go with me. We saw St Paul’s Cathedral (I’d have to do some research to find out how it looked in Milton’s boyhood) and found the plaque in Bread Street that commemorates his birthplace. We also visited St. Giles Cripplegate, his parish church, and where he’s buried. Unfortunately we went late on New Year’s Day so the church wasn’t open. Not far from it is a plaque that marks where the first German bomb fell in London in 1940. The entire area was razed but St. Giles, miraculously, survived.

I hope to go back to London, Cambridge, Ludlow, and the other Milton house in Chalfont St. Giles to do more research.

In the meantime, some cool Milton links:

St Giles Cripplegate
Annotated Listing of All Milton's Works
The John Milton List serv (I am on it ... for Milton's birthday, one person made a devil's food cake and an angel food cake and patterned them with apples!)
Christ College Cambridge's Listing of Milton celebrations
Some illustrations of Paradise Lost
Comus, by Welsh artist Frank Brangwyn


[1] One of my favorite facts about Milton is that he acquired this nickname while going to Christ College in Cambridge because of his long hair and a certain effeminate air. It always made me smile though it also made me feel sorry for him! He once wrote to a friend that he felt a third of his classmates in Cambridge wished him ill!
[2] In the surviving portraits he doesn’t seem particularly ugly—here is how the writer puts it: “a great stinking pestilence, an impious tormentor, a gallows slave, a dark pettifogger, an ulcer to the church and a poison to religion.”

the next doctor

31-12-08 “The Next Doctor”

The Doctor: But that’s a screwdriver.
The Next Doctor: It makes noises. That’s sonic.

I had a really bad feeling about this. Seeing the three-minute preview on Children in Need night, I felt my flesh crawling like it was going to be another “Runaway Bride.” It was pleasant enough, I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t superb. As David Tennant once said, “It’s set at Christmas—what more do you want?”

I guess I ruined the first few minutes for myself by wracking my brains to figure out where in Wales it was being filmed. Not Swansea, I don’t think. Anyway, we establish right away that the Doctor is companionless and wandering around Victorian London at Christmas (and is very cheerful about it) in a series of dizzying panoramic shots. You’d swear Dickens was going to swagger by if he hadn’t already in 2005. Instead an annoying urchin asks “are you ffick or somefink?” Once the Doctor has established the year is 1851, I’m dismayed that he calls it “dull.” First of all, it wasn’t dull, and second of all, he should remember he and Martha met Alphonse and Dorinda in 1851. So there.

The opening from there, though, is quite accomplished. The Doctor hears his name called and immediately rushes onto the scene to help a buxom lady whose costume came from the same suitcase as Rose’s Victorian hooker gown. She isn’t calling him, though, she’s calling “the Doctor” who is David Morrissey in a somewhat First/Eighth Doctor frock coat. Seeing this scene before on CiN, I was squirming at David Morrissey’s broad characterization of “his” Doctor, but of course it all makes sense later on. “You’re the Doctor?!” “The one, the only, and the best!” By the way, the situation to which they are all responding is a Cyberman-headed creature (Cybershades I think they’re called). I can’t decide whether they are genuinely creepy (à la the “monsters” in The Village) or just silly, like the trolls in Willow. Anyway, they’re “primitive conversions” made by the Cybermen. The Doctor is astounded at the revelations he has just heard, but hasn’t much time to reflect. “Talking’s all very well,” snaps Rosita in her bosomy outfit. To capture the Cybershade, the Next Doctor brings out a lasso (still, somehow feeling very One/Eight). There’s some good slapsticky stuff as the two Doctors make their attempts to right the situation—“nothing changes,” the Doctor muses. “Don’t you recognize me?”

Hanging onto the lasso for dear life, the two Doctors follow the Cybershade through empty warehouses on a fun ride reminiscent of, yes, the TARDIS chase in “Runaway Bride.” “It’s gonna jump!” screams the Doctor. “We’re gonna fall!” shouts the Next Doctor. Gleefully they do just that. The Cybershade escapes, but the two laugh and embrace. I’ve written that somebody’s a schmuck, I assume the Next Doctor, but I can’t remember why. Fans of the Eighth Doctor may have felt their hearts lifting momentarily as the Doctor investigates why the Next Doctor doesn’t recognize him. The Doctor feels both elated and weirded out to be meeting his future self (though wouldn’t he be worried about damage to the timeline or does that not apply anymore?). The Next Doctor has “certain memories” missing, prompting me, at least, to think of the Eighth Doctor spending all those books not knowing who he was. On the other hand, the Next Doctor knows who he is—just not how he got there. The Doctor is surprised that none of the recent adventures have made a dent in the Next Doctor’s memory—“don’t blink, remember that?”). Situation sorted, and the Doctor having not revealed his identity to his “successor,” the Next Doctor is off on more adventures. “Can’t I come with you?” asks the Doctor, a little forlornly. Later, Rosita asks the same thing. “The Doctor’s companion does what the Doctor says,” says the Next Doctor, not entirely truthfully—surely the harassed Fifth Doctor would have a different take!

I never felt the Victorian was handled quite right in “Tooth and Claw,” and while “The Next Doctor” gets a bit closer, I still have this niggling feeling RTD is at his best not writing historically. Our villain, Miss Hartigan, who shows up a bit later seems like Theodore Maxtible from “The Evil of the Daleks.” You can almost shout at these people never to make deals with Daleks or Cybermen (and indeed, the Doctor later does) but it’s never going to get through to them. Miss Hartigan, who is proud to inform us later that her first name is the believably Victorian Mercy, is a woman scorned and obsessed with how men have put her down. She even goes so far as to attribute masculine qualities to the Cybermen: “how like a man!” She is aiming for revenge at the “court of the CyberKing,” which sounded a bit naff to me. She reminds me of Miss Wade in Little Dorrit, who certainly has ample reason for bitterness, though her character fizzled out a bit.

Meanwhile, the Doctor has followed the Next Doctor in his investigations at the house of Reverend Fairchild. The Doctor is a bit distraught to discover his sonic has been replaced by a normal screwdriver and covertly uses the sonic to help the Next Doctor in his investigations (“what’s that noise?” “it’s me . . . I’m whistling”). I was hoping for once the Doctor might actually get rid of the sonic, but alas . . . In order to give us a foothold on this story and explain it to the, for once, clueless Doctor, the Next Doctor tells us that the weirdness began with the death of a man called Jackson Lake. “I seem to be telling you everything.” Flashbacks seem to imply regeneration from David T. into David M., but what we learn is that, wrested away from the Cybermen were Infostamps, nice, compressed videos of information. While making these discoveries, the Doctor and the Next Doctor are attacked by Cybermen and Cybershades. The Doctor confronts them with a sword and notes “you need me alive!” However, the Next Doctor attacks them with the Infostamp, and they are able to escape.

A rather Phantom-in-Perros-like graveyard is the site of the burial for Reverend Fairchild. Just as I remember from North and South that it was not customary for women of quality to go to funerals in the 19th century, Miss Hartigan takes the words out of my mouth. She’s wearing a very harlot-y red gown (splendid; I’ve seen it in person now) with devious intent as she taunts and tortures her fellow child-exploiters. She reveals that she heads a workhouse, is seething with anger about double standards, and has gathered all the men together with a funeral so she can pick off some and cyber-ize the others (the ringing off of their names has a lovely Dickensian sound).

The Doctor follows the Next Doctor to his temporary H.Q. where it’s revealed Rosita seems to have been a prostitute in trouble before the Next Doctor saved her life. The Next Doctor has all of the murdered man, Jackson Lake’s, stuff, including lots of suitcases and Infostamps. The Doctor begs to go see the Next Doctor’s TARDIS. Cue rather cool fake-out. It’s a hot-air balloon—“Tethered Aerial Release Developed In Style.” (I’d like to see Susan come up with that one!) As the Doctor asks the Next Doctor to tell him more about Jackson Lake, he takes a look at all those Infostamps. Then I go YAY YAY YAY YAY. This is because the tabloids weren’t lying, just a bit misinformed—all ten Doctors do appear, if only in brief clips (à la “Resurrection of the Daleks”). “He must surely have bad dreams . . .” The Doctor has realized that the Next Doctor is really Jackson Lake, whose wife was killed by the Cybermen and who accidentally downloaded the identity of the Doctor from an Infostamp. This put him in a “fugue state,” which made it easier to adopt the Doctor’s identity than deal with the traumatic circumstances. A cynical person might say this is just ripping off “Human Nature” in reverse, but I think it plays off the desire of most of us to either be the Doctor and/or a companion. It also reminds me of a Batman comic, “Urban Legend” by Bill Willingham, except that one was hilarious where this is poignant.

Recovering from this shock, Jackson lets Rosita follow the Doctor to where Miss Hartigan is taking the children. (As I suggested to Jamie, were I do to do a musical parody of this episode, I’d totally use Oliver.) The Doctor and Rosita confront Miss Hartigan. “I doubt he paid you to talk,” Hartigan says to Rosita; below the belt, I think! The Doctor convinces the Cybermen that he’s the Doctor. Rosita punches Hartigan as she escapes, prompting the Doctor to exclaim, “Can I say I completely disapprove?” The Cybermen want to convert Hartigan, which pisses her off. She was promised she wouldn’t be converted—“that was designated a lie.” However, her will is so strong it overpowers the conversion and takes out the Cyberleader. She feels joy at the Cybernetic state; “joy is not acceptable.” She is going to bring “fury and passion” to the logic and strength of the Cybermen and will bring the CyberKing up from the depths (hints of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen).

The last kids are brought, as hard labor, to work on the CyberKing and get it running. They aren’t needed long, as it finally powers up, with Hartigan inside. Jackson has followed, taking out Cybermen with spare Infostamps. Jackson realizes he has a son, one of the poor urchins, and has to rescue him (the child appears to be wearing mascara for some reason). Meanwhile Hartigan is on the Cyberthrone of Doom. The Doctor has realized the Cybermen came through the Void they were trapped in during “Doomsday,” probably through the same mechanism that allowed Rose to get through. He goes after the CyberKing rather than Lake, citing “you’ve got a reason to live.” Hartigan refuses to negotiate with the Doctor, who has taken Lake’s TARDIS to meet her at eye-level. (It’s the like the giant claw in “Planet of the Ood.” Cheesy or cool? I can’t decide.) Hartigan is a bit drunk on the power and declares “no man will ever assert himself against me in the night.” Uh oh. She has been more than scorned. The Doctor plays the same trump card he did when discovering the Cyberman weakness in “Age of Steel”—he holds up a mirror. “Look what you’ve done.” I don’t understand why this always works. Surely some people aren’t going to be too bothered about becoming Cybermen? I don’t know.

So the Doctor saves the day, the CyberKing, Cybermen, and Hartigan get sucked into the Void, and it’s Christmas pudding for all. Jackson Lake invites the Doctor to share Christmas dinner, something Donna tried and failed. (Surely the Doctor can’t hate turkey that much?!) The Doctor shows him the interior of the TARDIS; perhaps one of the best reactions of anyone ever. But Lake has his fill rather quickly, making him something other than companion material (though that would have been interesting)—“that’s quite enough!” The Doctor has spent the last three Christmas specials feeling sorry for himself, which is a little much, I think. He whines about his companions, “they forget me . . . they break my heart.” First of all, he has two hearts—why wouldn’t he say “hearts?” Secondly, Earth to Doctor—you leave them as often as they leave you. And you just wrapped up your clone like a present and pawned him off on Rose, whether that’s what they wanted or not. And Martha left because you broke her heart first. Ahem.

So our year of specials begins with something called “Planet of the Dead.” Enjoy the Tennanty-ness while it lasts.

batman: hush vol. 2

As usual, I do things backward. There wasn’t much choice of Batman comics in Barnes and Noble, and since this was authored by Jeph Loeb and had Harley Quinn in it, I wasn’t too worried about continuity. I think this fits somewhere between Dark Victory and Catwoman: When in Rome, though at first I had no idea how to reconcile one plot strand with Under the Hood vol. 2. It does, in fact, make sense, and you have to commend the writer and artists for cramming all the superstars and villains of Gotham into 150 pages: Batman, Nightwing, Jason Todd, the third Robin (Tim), the Joker, Catwoman, Ra’s al Ghul, Talia Head, Huntress, Two-Face, Oracle, Gordon, Harley, the Scarecrow, Clayface, Superman, the Riddler (and the earlier instalment featured Killer Croc and Poison Ivy as well!).

Hush is an unlikely villain who’s pulled all the strings and enveloped Batman in a conspiracy that touches all of his enemies, and it’s a classic case of misdirection. It pushes Batman’s buttons in such a way he is willing to contemplate what he shied away from in The Man Who Laughs and The Dark Knight Returns, which to be honest seemed a little out of character for him (even though Loeb has taken pains to set up the backstory). It takes the combined efforts of Catwoman and Jim Gordon to stop Batman on his rampage (and Harley doesn’t stand a chance . . . “in some perverse way, she loves him”).

The opening is a good one, theatrical and operatic, and what villain better suited for that than Harley? This is also one of the best Catwoman/Batman romance stories, as they actually get to do a bit more than angst at each other. There are also some winning moments between Catwoman, Nightwing, and the current Robin. The tender moments also abound—Catwoman inspecting Batman’s scars, including the ones she inflicted.

As the story revs up, Loeb does a good job of providing backstory and characterization for Batman’s various allies and enemies. There’s some weird subplot with LexCorp, and the Huntress stuff goes right over my head. As you know, I tend to yawn at all aspects of Batman related to Ra’s al Ghul, and this is no exception (though the Lazarus Pits are an important plot point). The Scarecrow’s part, though small, is delightfully kooky.

It’s not often, of course, that Jeph Loeb’s writing isn’t paired with Tim Sale’s artwork. Jim Lee, however, is clearly a genius. His detailed yet atmospheric pencil flashback sequences are as powerful as his dynamic action sequences and portraits. He really is a master of all aspects of drawing a full-bodied, intricately-plotted comic such as this. I must particularly mention his animation-like sequences of Harley and Catwoman leaping from one place to another. Alex Sinclair is also an excellent colorist.

All in all, though I missed Hush vol. 1, I had no trouble jumping into this one, and I think it’s superb. I rather think Loeb has a soft spot for the Riddler, rehabilitating him from minor crook status to incredibly shrewd and a supervillain who fights dirty—yet is capable of the pathos that so many of the supervillains seem to exude.

serenity: better days

Since I seldom buy comics, this sequel to Those Left Behind may have been out early in 2008 and I didn’t even realize. When I saw it in the bookstore, I didn’t even glance through it—I just knew I had to get it. My conviction wasn’t misplaced, though this effort (by the same team responsible for the first one) isn’t quite as good.

Though it lacks the fabulous pin ups of the previous volume, Better Days boasts an absolutely gorgeous spread of all nine main characters. The amusing introduction is given by Adam (“not a girl’s name”) Baldwin, and the art by Will Conrad is generally as good as what he did in Those Left Behind (though I’m less a fan of this colorist).

The script simply isn’t as good. Somehow it’s lacking the punch-per-page wit of its predecessor. Of course, it’s Joss Whedon, so it’s far above most comic scripts. I’m rather a connoisseur of Mal/Inara material (I am in the Livejournal group and have contributed one story to the pairing) and there are some short, but sweet, moments for them (including a spread so steamy I was a little embarrassed to be reading it on an airplane).

The general story, though, while swerving dangerously into the first season’s later and darker material, is a howl and proves, as usual, that it’s the journey, not the destination, that we love about Firefly. It involves the crew finding the jackpot and each fantasizing what he or she would do with the wealth. For Jayne, it’s captaincy (and a “Jayne-sized” crushed on Kaylee!); Wash and Zoe’s is to raise a family on a luxury cruiser; Kaylee’s of course involves Simon. Shepherd Book’s is a scream, as River’s, which looks like it came from Big Fish. There’s also a very amusing section where Jayne asks Simon’s advice on approaching a companion.

Twice I turned the page and wondered whether I was missing a page or two in the narrative, and there’s an odd suggestion at the end that Simon is Inara’s client—I’m sure that was resolved at some point that he just went to her for conversation. There are too many witty moments to share, but I will give you this one from Mal and Zoe: “Why do I open my mouth?” “Sir, we’re none of us sure.”

phantom-y goodness

“There’s no danger in a name . . .” --Raoul
“A storm’s coming. We should go below.” --Christine

Phantom of the Opera is one of the few things I can really say I am an expert in. I read the book for the first time when I was 16, and now own three English translations, the original French, and some children’s adaptations, as well as Susan Kay’s Phantom. (Someday I’ll act on my impulse to write the ultimate English translation.) I’ve seen the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical 5 times, twice in Albuquerque, twice in London (Her Majesty’s Theatre where it has played since 1986), and once in Denver. I went to the Albuquerque premiere of the Joel Schumacher film and have all the commercially available cast albums (including the Canadian, Mexican and Original London casts). In fact, the Ethan Freeman/Claire Moore CD is the first time I ever heard of John Barrowman (who played, and in my opinion still plays, the best Raoul). I’ve visited the Paris Opera House and the Bois de Boulogne, as well as the beach in Perros-Guirec in Brittany where Raoul and Christine met as children, and Opera architect Garnier’s grave in the Cimitère Montparnasse. I’ve seen nine of the film/mini-series versions (and own seven of them). Perhaps most importantly, I’ve taught the book to a classroom of college freshmen in a University Honors program (which was an extremely rewarding experience, one which I hope to repeat someday).

Those are my credentials, if you want to call them that. The truth is, I’m just a very obsessed fan girl with an interest in literature, history, and the Gothic and a few degrees to back it up. Thus, I was over the moon when I found out that Big Finish—who has done some really great Doctor Who audio plays—had done an audio version of the classic novel which went back to the roots. It took me quite a while to actually listen to it, but from two episodes on BBC7, I was hooked. I bought it, and I’ve revelled in the production ever since. It’s taken me some time to write the review, however, because I’ve just got so much to say.

Andrew Lloyd Webber has gone on record as saying that the original novel, by lawyer-turned-reporter-turned novelist Gaston Leroux, is pretty amateur stuff. I think this is often a misconception that people have, probably because the book fits into several genres. However, director and adapter Barnaby Edwards has seized on the book’s strengths and almost uniformly used them to structure his audio adaptation. With so many film (and musical and play) adaptations, different directors have used different approaches in order to pick and choose what elements of the original they want to use. Edwards is very true to the original book, but not slavishly so—that’s why I was so electrified when I first heard it on BBC7. Someone who understands how to use the novel’s full dramatic potential! It is, of course, a story that’s very suited for radio, with its many musical references and its phantasmagorical scenery, much better pictured in the imagination than on stage or screen (usually).

One of the funnest things about the book is that it’s structured in a very leading way, which draws you in immediately to the mystery. There are several narratives going on at once, and you come in at the story from so many angles. The ALW musical manages this to an extent; you don’t actually meet the Phantom until halfway into the first act. The Big Finish version accomplishes this by giving us a narrator. Not Leroux, not the Persian, but, interestingly, Madame Giry. I wasn’t sure how well this would work, but of course Anna Massey is perfect for the role, and Edwards has written his Madame Giry as starchy and wry, with the appropriate warmth. She makes an ideal narrator because she is opinionated and not afraid to confuse the reader slightly in order to get a lot of exposition out of the way. “The skeleton—I knew that would get your attention.” Like the narrator of the original novel, she puts a great deal of emphasis on the veracity of the so-called story.

Immediately the adaptation sweeps unnecessary characters like La Sorelli and Jammes away in light of combining them with La Carlotta and Meg Giry so we can get the exposition out of the way and get into the story! Carlotta and the managers are traditionally the comic figures, and I’m delighted with Carlotta’s dry sense of humor: “a breath of absinthe, you mean!” I really like the device they use to get the managers’ back story out: they are so vain, they demand to read the article in the newspaper about their takeover of the opera house again. “It won’t do to be in debt to a ghost!” “Are we living in the nineteenth century?!” This humor extends to Raoul’s older brother Philippe, who most adaptations ignore, who pokes fun at Raoul’s sudden devotion to Christine (a point of contention among phans for ages). Even bit characters like the stableman give us a chuckle: “Unless you know of another white horse named César in the stables!”
Part one ends with a great cliffhanger set in the Perros graveyard, where the Phantom plays “The Resurrection of Lazarus” waltz for a perturbed Christine and Raoul. It might be a good time to mention the music, arranged and composed by Tim Sutton (based around the score of Faust and a few other pieces specifically mentioned in the book). I thought the name looked familiar, and upon inspecting my liner notes for Doctor Who and the Pirates, I realized that Tim Sutton sang and played several parts (and Helen Goldwyn, Christine, coincidentally played the “tragic student Sally”—no wonder she, too, sounded familiar!). The main theme shares a similar sound of nervous strings to “Point of No Return” in the ALW musical. Overall I found the score very satisfying.

Madame Giry displays more of her dry wit over the “concertina’d concierge” who replaced her, and then returns to Raoul’s fate in Perros—“I bet you thought I forgot about him.” I love that she acknowledges that he was a naval officer off to the North Pole, but that he “fainted.” I should mention that I think casting James D’Arcy as Raoul was an inspired choice. He’s played villains and heroes before, so I think he brings an appropriate measure of both to Raoul. Raoul has a bad reputation among phans, and I admit in the beginning I was a Raoul-hater. D’Arcy highlights Raoul’s jealousy and sheer frustration at Christine’s unfathomable behavior, which is a darker aspect to his character often overlooked. He also has all the heroic attributes you come to expect from the dashing young nobleman (though he sounds an awful lot like Patrick Wilson when shouting “he is not your father!”).

One character the adaptation does not ignore is Mamma Valerius, who I suppose is necessary to the mystery as originally written. Raoul pursues the Phantom’s trail—“since when did an angel drive a carriage?”—to the masked ball. Since Barnaby Edwards’ otherwise exhaustive listing of Phantom adaptations misses the 1990 Hirschfield stage musical starring David Staller, I expect he does not realize that both it and this version use Saëns-Sans’ “Danse Macabre” in the masked ball scene (well-known to viewers of Jonathan Creek). The confrontations and disguises during the scenes are also similar, with the managers matching the masked Phantom tit-for-tat in some witty exchanges: “I thought the Red Death brought plague, not revelations!”

It took two hearings to appreciate Helen Goldwyn as Sally in Doctor Who and the Pirates, but I think she does a solid job with Christine. Christine usually comes off as a romantic fruit loop (Joel Schumacher would only cast a very young actress in order to make the character’s naiveté believable). The book gives her scenes of strange power and mastery over the male characters, and in this adaptation, she doesn’t let Raoul push her around. “One day, you will beg my pardon. I answer to only one man, my husband. Well, I haven’t got a husband. I shall never marry.” The scenes on the rooftop with Apollo’s Lyre move between the witty and the intense. “I know he’s a monster, but his heart is so great.” “Are you sure this is pity and not love?” Christine describes the Opéra as the third-tallest building in Paris, and Raoul remarks that the Hôtel des Invalides “glints in the sun like a mirror.” This is a good transition into Christine recounting her descent into the lair with her angel of music. There is another superb cliffhanger when Christine, during Othello, removes the Phantom’s mask.

I believe the entire cast and crew have a conspiracy against the name “Erik,” which is the Phantom’s real name, because Madame Giry mentions it and James D’Arcy can’t contain his mirth over it. Personally I’ve never had a problem with it, it yields one of the most beautiful lines of the book: “Neither am I a ghost. I am a man, Christine. My name, if you must have it, is Erik.” Peter Guinness is an interesting and very capable choice as the titular character. Though Meg describes the ghost’s voice as “soft and gentle,” it’s very difficult to achieve the super-human quality of Erik in the book with real people. Clearly Guinness’ voice is distinctive and serves for the more wraith-like qualities Erik must possess, and Matthew Hargreave, who serves as Erik’s singing voice, creates a rich, operatic tone. Even in the ALW musical, you find tenors and baritones both able to sing the role, a superlative few adept at both the whispery, sweet quality and the resonant and wrathful.

This audio play is adapting the book, and from that perspective it’s not out to emphasize the phan-girlish qualities. Erik is to be pitied, which Guinness achieves well during the unmasking, but he is not so overwhelmingly sympathetic as other treatments have made him (Phantom by Susan Kay, for one). While Guinness himself sees the human side of Erik, the other actors, it seems, are less inclined to see him that way. So, in a small way, part of me is disappointed that the scenes that describe Erik’s behavior don’t do more than the book dictates.

What does impress me, however, is the inclusion of the Persian, who is almost always absent from adaptations, and played by Alexander Siddig, no less! Again, great casting, as he doesn’t go overboard with the accent but keeps the character suitably mysterious until Raoul encounters him in part three. The Persian is connected to several of the most Gothic and least rational moments in the book. Raoul’s encounter on the balcony with “the two stars” (which in the book could be a cat, could be a ghost, could be Erik stalking Raoul) are dismissed as the last option, and similarly explained is Erik’s Siren. (The Ratcatcher is disappointingly mundane, and the Shade does not appear at all.) However, I’m really impressed with the aural rendering of the Siren, something that never really made sense to me in the book. Hats off, too, for explaining the Punjab lasso—“I shall be pointing mine [pistol] straight ahead!” announces Raoul. “Things happen here that defy explanation!” is the fate of the hapless managers as the adaptation handles the affair of the safety pin in uproarious detail. The Persian’s account of Erik’s life works well as told to Raoul as they descend through the cellars, and I am glad that the Persian retains his lack of moral judgement: “I do not hate him [Erik].” Part three ends as Raoul and the Persian are attacked by rats. I was expecting the more supernatural tone of the incident in the book, but with wonderful sound production, the more mundane rat-attack is gruesome and frightening!

I love the way Madame Giry looks up Erik’s name for the Persian, Daroga, in the dictionary—“he was a copper!” I am impressed at the way tension is maintained above the surface as the bumbling police inspector, Madame Giry, and the managers attempt to account for Christine’s disappearance, concluding that Raoul has carried her off—“That’s the only explanation I’ve heard all night that makes sense!” Raoul and the Daroga escape from the rats, only to fall into . . . the Torture Chamber! I can’t think of a single adaptation other than the silent film that approaches the Torture Chamber in more than an homage, and I was really excited (I am morbid!) in seeing how it would be handled on audio. I think Raoul and the Daroga could have suffered a bit longer, but overall it was very well-done. “Those gas flames are doing more than illuminate . . .”

The actor who really shines in this, though, is Helen Goldwyn. A lot of pressure is put on Christine here, much more than on the Christine in ALW (who only has herself and Raoul to save), for she has the fate of the entire opera house, Raoul, and the Persian in hand, should she turn the grasshopper. “What if I make no choice?!” she demands of her captor, who she says, has been made “mad” by love. I like the allusion to the rarely-mentioned scissors incident when Erik refuses to release Christine from her bonds because “you may choose to hurt yourself.” Peter Guinness is, of course, no slouch—it’s difficult to make Erik sympathetic in this scene, when he is so intent on harming people, without the aid of singing (as in ALW). “All I have ever wanted is to be loved for myself,” Erik moans. “My mother never kissed me, you know.”

I was a little disappointed with the ending. I guess I have been too spoiled with Susan Kay and ALW, which present Christine’s redeeming kiss and compassion in real-time, instead of relayed back to Raoul through the Daroga and our narrator. It loses some of its immediacy and power that way, but I guess it focuses the story once more on a) Raoul and Christine’s happy ending; and b) the narrator’s insistence on tying up the true story’s loose ends. It has really ceased being Erik’s story and has become the Phantom’s. Madame Giry sums up the story and is sympathetic to a point—she describes Erik’s mother as “stonehearted”—but finds Erik “by nature devious.” To Erik’s heart, which could encompass the world, “only Christine has the key to it.” I do like the warmth in describing who Christine kept her promise to return Erik’s plain gold ring, and the circular nature of bringing us back to the singular skeleton Madame Giry mentioned at the very start.

Phantom of the Opera is an ideal play for adapting for audio, though I do hope Big Finish will consider adapting some others. For new fans, I suggest listening to the story if you are hesitant about the book. Longtime phans will find much to love about this adaptation as well.