Literary Crushes: In which I discover a preference for English gentlemen

Following from a stray thought in a previous post, the fictional characters that could turn me into a fangirl, in no particular order:

(Add on: I just realised that most of these characters have been brought to life of celluloid. Could a literary crush have been formed because of the readily visualised screen version, rather than an impression formed from the pages of a book? I think my list is entirely based on literary characterisation, but my enjoyment of these characters might no doubt be enhanced by a well-acted, in-character performance. Comments on the screen realisations - and the actors - have been added)

1) Lord Peter Whimsey (Dorothy L Sayers)

Dorothy L Sayers was said to have indulged in a bit of Mary-Sueism when she wrote the Harriet Vane character, a mystery author that Lord Peter later marries. Sayers was accused of falling in love with her own character and writing herself into the books as a romantic interest. If so, who can really blame her? Lord Peter is delightful; a decidedly English nobleman with a clever mind and a graceful way with words.

(There is a mini-series on the Lord Whimsey mysteries, but I have not seen any of it.)

2) Mr Darcy (Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice)

P&P is my favourite novel because it is light, sparkling, hilarious and deeply satirical. Mr Darcy stands out because he seems different from the tone of the book. He is quiet, aristocratic (but not snobbish), inclined to be judgemental (but redeemably so), generous and given to noble Grand Gestures, carried out earnestly and with a seeming lack of irony. He is almost, but not quite the ideal romantic hero (that would be Persuasion's Wentworth) but his imperfections make him all the more interesting. Even without Colin Firth's wet shirt sequence, Mr Darcy would be a fictional heart-throb.

(Since I mentioned Colin Firth, it goes without saying I have seen the BBC P&P. It is one of my favourite mini-series/movies and I own it on VCD. It seems almost cliched to say it now, but Colin Firth is really the perfect Mr Darcy. He has the voice down pat; there is an aristocratic dismissiveness in many of his early scenes that is exactly how I imagine book!Darcy to be. What I like best about Firth's performance is his expressiveness when he isn't saying anything. In the book, Darcy is hardly voluble but you learn something about him nevertheless, because of Austen's masterful writing. Colin Firth ably substitutes.

I realise there is a new movie version of P&P out now, but Keira Knightley as Lizzie just seems so incongruous to me that it might take a while to convince myself to watch this. I don't think Firth's definitive Darcy would be bettered, even if it might be equalled.)

3) Atticus Finch (Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird)

Not an Englishman, for a change. He is almost English, though, in the quietness of his bearing, his non-demonstrative affection for his children and his impeccable good manners. Although TKaM revolves around Scout and Jem, Atticus is the heart of the book for me. He is a man who does the right thing despite knowing it to be a lost cause. He does it because to do otherwise would be be like killing a mockingbird.

(Gregory Peck won a Best Actor Oscar for playing Atticus Finch in the screen adaptation of Mockingbird. I enjoy most old movies and would watch this whenever it pops up on TV, but it does not quite have the same magic as the book. Peck was a very fine Atticus, bringing the right sense of nobility and an air of weary detachedness. To me, he was too good looking for the role, even with the hair-cut and the glasses. Not quite the Atticus of my imagination, but good enough.)

4) Lord Percy Blakeney (Baroness Orczy's Scarlet Pimpernel)

I might actually prefer the stylish fop Lord Blakeney to the action-hero Pimpernel ! He is witty, genuinely funny, unfailingly good-natured and always fabulously turned-out. Of course, the SP himself has more than a few virtues, chief amongst them being a charmingly adoloscent enjoyment of a good prank.

(There have been more than one screen adaptation of the Pimpernel tales. The only one I remember had Anthony Andrews as Blakeney and Jane Seymour as Marguerite. Anothony Andrews was perfectly adequate in the role and I did enjoy the twinkling-eyed fun he brought to the Pimpernel's proceedings. It has been years since I saw this mini-series (TV movie?) but I remember thinking Andrews was not quite foppish enough when he was playing Blakeney.)

5) Benedict (Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing)

Ah, a woman-hater who speaks in Shakespearean verse! What is there not to like? Before he is converted to the cause of love, Benedict is particularly wonderful: caustic, wry and for all that, jolly good company and a genuinely loyal friend. He sounds exactly like the type of guy that you want to hang out with over a jug of beer and you could listen to him being sarcastic for hours.

(The version I have seen is Kenneth Branagh's movie adaptation, with the director playing Benedict alongside then-wife Emma Thomson's Beatrice. I adore Branagh as a Shakespearean actor; his voice fits the poetry of Shakespeare so beautifully and his line readings demonstrate true comfort with Shakespeare's language. Physically, Branagh is not anything like the Benedict that I read off the page, but I can forgive him that when he does such justice to the spoken words.)

6) Remus Lupin (JK Rowling's Harry Potter series)

This is ground that I have covered before. Lupin does not get a lot of page-time in the series although he is prominent in a couple of chapters in PoA. Yet he is one of the most popular supporting characters to emerge from the HP books. He is a good teacher and a good man who lives a difficult life with seemingly good cheer. But what I like best about him is something he shares with Percy Blakeney: an enjoyment of mischief. And I find it particularly appealing that this prankster is not boisterous or attention-seeking, but is rather portrayed as being quietly pleasant and unflappable.

(In the movie version of HP and the Prisoner of Azkaban, David Thewliss is a very tall, swing-music-loving Remus Lupin. He is a fine actor and brings off the character very well indeed, especially considering the butcher-job that was the screenplay. He is too tall and physically too imposing to be the Lupin that I visualise from the books, but that is hardly Thewliss's fault.)

7) Kester Woodseaves (Mary Webb's Precious Bane)

I just love this book. It is so lyrical and atmospheric, I can see myself in the Shropshire countryside, working alongside the Sarns and watching the dragon-flies with Prue Sarn and Kester Woodseaves. Although we meet Kester Woodseaves earlier in the book, it is in this scene that we fall in love with him. Before, we have learnt that he is brave, generous of heart and kind; here, we see his humour and intelligence. The cut and thrust of his gentle teasing is amusing, but never cruel to Prue. He knows that she feels something for him and befriends her with charming directness. When he leaves, he subtly hints that her feelings might be one day requieted. It is wonderfully done.

(There is a long lost BBC mini-series adaptation of Precious Bane, which, sob, I have not ever seen. I wish I could hunt down a copy, or that the BBC would release it from its back archives, if it still exists. Better still, could someone not film a new version? The book practically screams adaption, with its evocative visuals, strong characters and absorbing plot.)

8) Psmith (PG Wodehouse's Psmith series)

An eccentric Englishman with good taste and who plays cricket! You have to love him. Psmith is so marvelously quirky, self-assured and utterly comfortable in his own unique skin. His sense of humour is delicious and amongst Wodehousian heroes, he is the hunk du jour.

(I am not aware if there is a screen adaptation of the Psmith stories - and if no, why not?)

9) Lord Goring (Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband)

Well-dressed by all accounts, a bit of dandy, a philosopher and possessed of a wonderfully wry and irreverent sense of humour. If he is supposed to be a thinly disguised alter-ego for Wilde himself, we could do a lot worse. He makes some of the most marvelously subversive observations and seems to have no regard whatsoever for the conventions of society beyond the importance of a well-chosen buttonhole. This is the man who says, "The only possible society is oneself" and "To love onself is the beginning of a life-long romance". Simply superb and oh, so fanciable.

(Ahh, Rupert Everett playing Lord Goring in Oliver Parker's movie adaptation of An Ideal Husband. Everett being openly homosexual, the entire enterprise has an almost self-referential cleverness. But sexuality has nothing to do with why Everett's Lord Goring is one of my favourites in any adaptation of a literary classic. He pulls off the dry, cutting witticisms with nochalance and grace. When he duels verbally with Mrs Cheverley and Mabel Chiltern, he is completely amoral in two completely different ways. When I read An Ideal Husband, I imagine Goring to be impeccably dressed and fine-looking, but not drop-dead gorgeous the way that Everett is. But somehow, Everett makes it believable that Lord Goring should be devastatingly handsome, with a profile as sharp as his words.)

There's subtext and then there's subtext

I was supposed to be ranting about Christine/Erik shipping in the Phantom of the Opera fandom, but had this to get off my chest first.

Why do people insist on seeing homoerotic subtext in everything and insisting upon it as canon? I am fine with the first part - reading unintended (or even intended) subtext is part of the fun of reading or watching TV or movies. But subtext is subtext and until authorial intent reveals otherwise, it's neither proven or disproven. The fun is in the speculation and extrapolation because it's not proven or disproven. Insisting on subtext as gospel truth actually removes the fun element from the whole exercise!

First off, I am not homophobic. Heck, I have been reading homoerotic subtext in to Smallville since Ep 1 of Season 1. Michael Rosenberg is a one man charisma generator and playing Lex Luthor, he manages to have chemistry with Tom Welling's rather wussy Clark Kent. Of course it's pretty much dead upon arrival in terms of canonical probability; Clark Kent dated Lana Lang and goes on to fall in love with Lois Lane. It's not just subtext, it's disproven subtext! Maybe the fact that it is disproven made it enjoyable. It was never going to be happen "for real", so fans could just have fun with the phallic symbolisms and heavy-lidded exchanges of looks. I understand the Smallville fandom and its obsession with subtext seeking; it is an entertaining diversion in a show that has gone seriously downhill.

In the fandom that I am having trouble understanding, the homoerotic subtext is more or less disproven, although not definitively. But before it was disproven, fans were claiming it as canon with rather frightening intensity and certainty. The latest revelations throwing a spanner into these convictions have been greeted with much gnashing of teeth and bitterness of spirit (it should go without saying that not all the subtext-seekers have reacted like this, just a sizeable and vocal segment). Yes, the fandom is Harry Potter and yes, the relationship in question is Sirius Black/ Remus Lupin. Now that Rowling has written N.Tonks as a (seemingly requited, but that is another whole kettle of fish) romantic interest for Lupin, it is that little bit harder to insist that Lupin is gay in canon.

I have previously confessed a fondness for the Lupin character (if I was to fangirl fictional characters, he would be on the list - together with Mr Darcy, Kester Woodseaves from Precious Bane, Sir Percy Blakeney and Atticus Finch, among others - Note to self: must post on this one day). But my fondness for the character has nothing to do with my failing to see the how the gay subtext could be read as being intended. The evidence for it has not been all that convincing. And I can see alternate interpretations that just made so much more sense within the textual intent and theme of the HP series.

Some of the subtextual evidence for Gay!Lupin being in a relationship with Gay!Sirius:

"... embraced him like a brother." (POA)
Using 'brother' to mean homosexual, as in "City of Brotherly Love", isn't totally off the wall. If this was not children's literature, that is. Since we are seeing everything through Harry's eyes, I think it safe to say that what Harry saw was precisely two men who embraced like siblings. I suppose Rowling could have made it clearer by saying "embraced him like a long lost dear friend whom he had wrongly thought to be a murderer". No danger of mistaken subtext there, if she didn't intend to them to be gay! I guess she was just trying the word-economy route.

Lupin lives in 12 Grimmauld Place with Sirius. (OotP)
Many fanfic writers who don't subscribe to the RL/SB dynamic have explained this as Lupin being tasked to watch over a dangerously unbalanced Sirius. I agree; the textual evidence points to it - Sirius was falling apart with frustration from his imposed imprisonment within his ancestral home. It was only human kindness to have an old friend stay with him, especially one who is himself impoverished and perhaps in need of free board.

Lupin and Sirius give a joint Christmas present to Harry (OotP)
This has been taken as some sign of a domestic arrangement akin to marriage. If you squinted really hard, you could see it that way. But is it not more convenient (or obvious) to say that Lupin is dirt poor and probably could not afford a present himself? Since the gift was books on Defence against the Dark Arts, it made sense that Lupin would have a hand in buying the gift, even if he didn't exactly pay for it.

Wolf (Lupin) and Dog (Sirius in Animagus form)
This is by far my favourite of the misinterpreted subtexts. It is compelling, for sure, and a powerful symbolism; dog and wolf, different yet alike. But there are practical reasons for Sirius being a dog. Only as a dog could he have prowled around as he did in PoA and GoF. Imagine if Sirius was a stag, like James Potter. Imagine a stag wandering around the grounds of Hogwarts, in Hogsmeade or accompanying Harry to King's Cross station. JKR would have had to resort to unnecessarily complicated plots to avoid this incongruence. Having Sirius as a dog was a convenient contrivance and made the most sense for her story. He could be seen in human company and be relatively unsuspicious.

Not to say that these aren't valid gay subtexts, because they most definitely are. Until Rowling put out Book 6, these could be read as suggesting a non-platonic relationship between Lupin and Black. But they do not PROVE that such a relationship existed, only that it was plausible.

It would probably save a lot of people a lot of angst if they just continue exploring the Lupin/Black relationship without the unfounded conviction that it was intended by the author. Why the devastation that "practically canon" has become "not likely ever to be canon"? It was NEVER canon, nor "practically" canon. Rowling was not making a comment about lycanthropy = homosexuality and did not intentionally introduce gay subtext as a subliminal message to her readers. It is fine for fans to read it any way they choose to, and in fact analysis of extra-authorial intent is part of enjoying literature. Let's just stop trying to put words in the author's mouth.

As for the belief that Rowling put Lupin and Tonks together to stop the Lupin/Black slashing, I don't buy it. Mainly because I don't think the slash community is much on her radar, and also because slashers, while so prominent in online fandom, are a very small proportion of her readership. Why stick in a (otherwise irrelevant) romantic sub-plot just to shut up a relatively insignificant minority? But it was the case, would that not be further proof that she never intended a Lupin/Black non-platonic relationship? The counter argument is that the gay subtext was intended but she got frightened by how her subtle symbolisms have taken on a life of their own, and have become not so much "subtle" as "explicit". I don't buy this either; it is giving the online fandom too much credit, and giving Rowling too litte.

Upshot: seek out the subtext, have fun doing it, be imaginative interpreting it, believe what you want from it. But don't claim that the author intended you to believe what you want to believe. And don't get mad at the her if she didn't.

What have we wrought? Popular Culture, Adaptations and the Death of Canon (Part 2)

Part 1 is here

Les Miserables
The poor victimised creature in Les Mis is Cossette. For some strange reason, people "ship" Marius with Eponine; and milksop Cossette just gets in the way. I blame it on the music. Eponine simply gets the more memorable music and the more theatrically effective moments .

Eponine's solo is "On my own", a song that has taken on its own life and is now one of the most recognised and sung of show tunes. It has a sweet melody and a yearning, aching quality that translates well as straight pop music. It makes you symphathise with Eponine. It ends with a gentle fading of appregios, a perfect applause point.

Cossette on the other hand gets "In my life" (what's with these self-absorbed wenches? "On my own", "In my life", what next?). This is a rangy soprano showcase which is fiendishly difficult to sing but less memorable than "On my own". It is much more entrenched in the conventions of musical theatre and does not work as a standalone pop song. Worst of all, it does not even end properly, as it segues into "A Heart Full of Love". Whoever sings Cossette does not get her moment to bask in a soloist's ovation.

Even the duets with Marius musically favour Eponine. She sings "A Little Fall of Rain" with Marius. This is one of my favourite moments in the musical, a beautiful and quiet lullaby in the midst of all those soaring strings and stirring brass. It is an incredibly effective piece of theatre, her singing as she lies dying in his arms. She actually dies before the song ends, which is a coup de theatre on any terms.

Poor Cossette sings "A Heart Full of Love" with Marius, a song that I also adore for its artless lyricism and youthful ardour. It goes swimmingly, but then Eponine joins in and the duet becomes a trio and ends as a trio. Later in the musical, Cossette and Marius sing together on "Everyday" which transits into a reprise of "A Heart full of Love". Before Cossette can truly start enjoying her moment in the lights, Valjean has joined in and the song again ends as a trio. Cossette gets the short end of the straw again!

If people only knew Les Miserables through the musical, I can see how there are superficial arguments that Marius might have been happier with Eponine than with Cossette. VERY superficial arguments in my opinion, based on conclusions that are fallacies.

Fallacy # 1: Eponine loves Marius more than Cossette does

There is no doubt that Eponine is in love with Marius. She gets a whole song to make that point. Cossette only has part of a truncated duet and a few lines in an ensemble piece to communicate her love. She has less music and less memorable music but that does not mean that she loves Marius any less than Eponine does. During "One Day More", she sings that "I did not live until today. How will I live when we are parted?". I think that qualifies as love, just as much as "And all I see is him and me, forever and forever".


Fallacy #2: Marius loves Eponine and what he feels for Cossette is infatuation

Shippers who insist that Marius was in love with Eponine do not give full credit to Marius's feelings as expressed in his music and his characterisation. Yes, much of his music in his first meeting with Cossette is giddy and when he sings of her in "Red and Black", he is impetuous and impassioned. Compared to the subtlety of "A Little Fall of Rain", one might say this music suggests the flush of infatuation, rather than a strong love based on friendship (which is presumably what he feels for Eponine, sigh). One might say it, but one would be wrong.

To really get at Marius's feelings about these two women, one should look at ALL of his music, even that sung when neither women are on stage. And the only possible reading is that Marius loves Cossette romantically, and his love for Eponine is fraternal more than anything else.

But let's look at some of the specific claims:

Sub Fallacy #2.1: "A Little Fall of Rain" is proof that Marius loves Eponine

This is the trouble-making song, because Marius sings "You will live .... if I could heal your wounds with words of love".

That does sound pretty darn conclusive, doesn't it? Isn't this proof enough that he loves her? Well, yes, it is proof that he loves her, as he loves Enjolras and his ABC Cafe brothers. We have to look at this song in the context of what has gone on before. Earlier, he calls her "the friend who has brought me here". He regards her as a friend and grieves for her suffering, and later, her death. There is nothing in this song that suggests it is romantic love on his part.

Later, at his wedding, he tells the Thenardiers that "When I look at you, I think of Eponine. ... She is happier with God, I hope, than here on earth." His affection for Eponine is undeniable, but again, there is nothing here that even hints of romantic love. He is at his own wedding, for starters and his tone is one of fondness and not of regret.

Sub Fallacy #.2.2: Marius does not really love Cossette, he is just infatuated with her

And of course, he marries her only because his true love, Eponine had inconveniently gotten herself killed. The mind boggles.

Where the composers tripped themselves up was to play up the "love at first sight" angle. "Just one look and I knew ... I knew it too"and "She has burst like the music of angels ..." and all that really plays into the hands of the "infatuation" theorists.

It might have started as infatuation, but it certainly becomes much more by the time he is staring death in the face. Not long after Eponine's death (the very scene, mind you, where he supposedly realises he has been in love with Eponine all along), he sings, "Do I care if I should die now she goes across the sea? ... Life without Cossette means nothing at all...". Does this sound like a man who had just realised he had all along been in love with another woman?

After he has recovered from his battle wounds and sung his lament to his lost friends, he asks Valjean, "Is gratitude enough for giving me Cossette?". These are words from a man who had grown up overnight, watched his friends die and now lives with the guilt of having survived them. This is not a man who would be grateful for having an object of mere infatuation.

After the fall of the barricades, he refers to her as "my beloved Cossette" and "my love". I think the writer's intention is clear - he loves her. And because he loves her, he marries her.


Les Miserables in Canon

If we put aside the musical and consider the book, the entire shipping issue is completely moot. Eponine as portrayed in the book would never be considered a viable love interest for Marius. Victor Hugo never intended her to be and did not write her in a way that left any room for ambiguity. Eponine in the book is, to me, more interesting than the musical version but not a tragic romantic figure. She is a bit scary and has a stalkerish streak, if anything.

Cossette in the book is much more developed and her relationship with Marius is never less than convincing. Her innocence and kindness are recognised as virtues, and if she is less interesting than Eponine, we are never in doubt that she is a good person who deserves happiness. Marius's feelings for her are never in doubt. There is no love triangle with Eponine because Eponine is never in the picture as a romantic rival. Victor Hugo did not write that story. I wish the fans would stop trying to do it for him.

Next, Phantom of the Opera and the absurdity of Christine/Erik shipping.

What have we wrought? Popular Culture, Adaptations and the Death of Canon (Part 1)

The point of this post, when I finally get around to it, is that adaptations of literature in popular culture have tended to emphasise an overly romanticised angle, spawning fandoms that are copiously creative in their worship of romantic pairings, but seem to have no regard for authorial intent in the original sources.

What got me thinking about this was a movie which is not even technically an adaptation of a book. I recently read a few online opinions on the Lancelot-Guinevere-Arthur triangle and there was an uniform distaste for the glorification of the adulterous pair's passion for each other; as if passion excused Lancelot's betrayal of his king, or Guinevere's betrayal of her husband. I agree whole-heartedly. In fact, I wish the entire Lancelot plot was never in the classic Arthurian writings. It detracts from the true glory of Arthurian legend - the tales of courage, chivalry, battles, brotherhood, loyalty, love, magic and mysticism. The love triangle with Lancelot was just a rather tawdry distraction.

Then I came across First Knight while channel surfing. An entire movie ostensibly inspired by the King Arthur legend, and it had this tagline: "Their greatest battle would be for her love."
No prizes for guessing what was important to the film-makers. Not the battles for independence and sovereignty (although battles formed the backdrop), not the Knights of the Round Table (although several knights were featured), not Merlin (this was alas, not a wizard-world version of Arthur) , not even the creepy incestuous Morgaine/Mordred subplot (again, no magic in this version). Nope, the most important thing about King Arthur is that he had a wife who fell passionately in love with a young handsome knight and their love could not be denied. Yeah, well, ho-hum. I might be more interested if Lancelot wasn't played by Richard Gere, who was just so uncomfortable in period costume.

The thing is, I don't really much mind how film-makers choose to interpret the Arthur story. There is not one fixed text that they could faithfully follow or carelessly defile, as is more often the case. There are so many accounts and versions from Tennyson to White to Zimmer-Bradley. Canonical King Arthur is a many-headed creature. A romanticised approach is not at the expense of textual faithfulness, so I can live with it, although I reserve the right to decry shoddy film-making and maudlin sentimentality.

Too often though, romance is highlighted in book adaptations to the extent that it is deterimental to other textual points. While book purists cringe, the adaptations find new audiences and new fans, many of whom are of the "shipper" breed. I am not sure why, but female fans are especially quick to hook into the romance angle of any story. Even if romance is only a minor plot point in the original, fans have the ability to magnify it and analyse it to death.

This is still not so bad if the romance is within the realms of canon. The 1995 BBC mini-series adaptation of Pride and Prejudice launched a million Darcy-Lizzie ships, on the strength of one wet shirt, one exchange of looks and a very chaste kiss. Lizzie and Darcy did marry in the book, so this was a Austen sanctioned relationship.

Where it starts to get weird is when people start "shipping" pairings that are not in the original books and are clearly not within authorial intent. The two fandoms that come to mind immediately are the BIG 2 musicals - Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables. Both are based on French novels and both have pseudo-operatic scores with lush melodies. And both have spawned rabid fans wishing death on one half of the central romantic pairing.

To follow in the Part 2: Les Miserables

Banned Books

Here is the list of the top 110 banned books (of all time), according to the American Libraries Association. Not being raised in either Europe or America, I am not au fait with some of the cultural and political complexities of book banning in the US. I know better now, but it used to amaze me how straight-laced the Americans were back in the Victorian and Edwardian ages, especially compared to their European counterparts. This banned books list is a long one and contains some really strange and unexpected titles. The religious ones, fine. Huck Finn? Yeah, we know about the potentially explosive racism angle. The salacious and the scandalous, perfectly understandable. But Little House on the Prairie was banned?

The exercise: Bold the ones you've read. Italicize the ones you've read part of. Underline the ones you specifically want to read (at least some of).

#1 The Bible
#2 Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
#3 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
#4 The Koran
#5 Arabian Nights
#6 Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain (A childhood favourite. I can see why it was banned back in the days, but this is a GREAT piece of children's literature)
#7 Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
#8 Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (Assigned book for English Literature. A tough slog, but good stuff)
#9 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (I was too young to appreciate this when I read it the first time. The second time I read it was after seeing bits of the horrendous film version with Demi Moore. I had to re-read the book to cleanse my mind, and found it wonderfully rewarding.)
#10 Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
#11 The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
#12 Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
#13 Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (Assigned book for Eng. Lit. But I would have read it anyway)
#14 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
#15 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
#16 Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (Book? Musical? Movie? I love the musical and know most of the lyrics by heart. I cannot say the same for the book, but the book is by far a greater work of art. It is a stupendous achievement.)
#17 Dracula by Bram Stoker(The original and the best horror novel. So creepy and atmospheric and truly bone-chillingly terrifying.)
#18 Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin
#19 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
#20 Essays by Michel de Montaigne
#21 Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
#22 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by EdwardGibbon
#23 Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (My favourite Hardy novel after the Mayor of Casterbridge, which was another Eng Lit assigned book. )
#24 Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
#25 Ulysses by James Joyce (I was in University and surrounded by flyers proclaiming numerous Blooms Day events. I beat a path to the library and spent a month with Ulysses. This is not a book that I will read for fun, but I recognise what a monumental achievement it is.)
#26 Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
#27 Animal Farm by George Orwell (Eng Lit assigned book. This was an easy read.)
#28 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
#29 Candide by Voltaire
#30 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (I owned a battered copy that my brother had recovered from a stack of disposed books at his school library. It had neither front or back cover. I re-read the book a few hundred times as a teenager. I own a nicer copy now, with a proper cover, and still re-read it often. Outside of the Austen oevre, this is probably one of my favourite novels, for its atmospheric writing and understanding of the growing pains .)
#31 Analects by Confucius
#32 Dubliners by James Joyce
#33 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (Not sure why, but I couldn't really get into Steinbeck. I had this book on loan for 3 months, and could never get to the end of it.)
#34 Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
#35 Red and the Black by Stendhal
#36 Das Capital by Karl Marx
#37 Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
#38 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
#39 Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence (This book is NOT smut. I think it is a beautifully written character study, with a romantic sub-plot.)
#40 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (Well, I had to read this because it was the cool thing to do back in university. The strange thing is that I don't actually remember much of it. It is the ultimate dystopia novel, the grandaddy of the genre, but it hasn't left an impression on me. Strange.)
#41 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
#42 Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchel (I read this as an impressionable teenager in an all-girls school. This was the swooning 1000 page romance that my schoolmates and I cried over. Except that the heroine was a bit of a brat. And the romance wasn't really that romantic since everyone was lying to everyone else. But we were 15, what did we know?)
#43 Jungle by Upton Sinclair
#44 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
#45 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
#46 Lord of the Flies by William Golding
#47 Diary by Samuel Pepys
#48 Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
#49 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
#50 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
#51 Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
#52 Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
#53 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
#54 Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus
#55 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
#56 Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
#57 Color Purple by Alice Walker (I really liked this book. It is so much better than the movie, which was a decent cinematic experience but doesn't pack the punch of the written version. Very touching, very real.)
#59 Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke
#60 Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
#61 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
#62 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#63 East of Eden by John Steinbeck
#64 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
#65 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
#66 Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#67 Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais
#68 Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
#69 The Talmud
#70 Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#71 Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
#72 Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
#73 American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
#74 Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
#75 Separate Peace by John Knowles
#76 Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
#77 Red Pony by John Steinbeck
#78 Popol Vuh
#79 Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith
#80 Satyricon by Petronius
#81 James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
#82 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (This is a work of genious. Yes, the subject matter is uncomfortable, and illegal, in many places. But it is so beautifully written and so wonderfully constructed. This is a book that challenges and rewards at the same time. Just brilliant.)
#83 Black Boy by Richard Wright
#84 Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu
#85 Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
#86 Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
#87 Metaphysics by Aristotle
#88 Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
#89 Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean Calvin
#90 Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
#91 Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
#92 Sanctuary by William Faulkner
#93 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
#94 Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
#95 Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
#96 Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
#97 General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
#98 Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
#99 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown
#100 Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
#101 Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines
#102 Emile Jean by Jacques Rousseau
#103 Nana by Emile Zola (I kept reading about how Emile Zola was supposed to have written such scandalous novels. Well, I found both Nana and Therese Raquin rather mild. Conceptually dangerous, but executed with such taste and class that I could not imagine being outraged by it.)
#104 Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
#105 Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
#106 Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#107 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
#108 Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
#109 Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
#110 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Tally: 30 that I have read in their entirety. 16 that I have read in parts. Not bad. Not illicit-materials- smuggler calibre, but not bad.

The 12 Character Fanfic Meme: Austen Edition

This had to be done. I had so much fun with the last opera version, I had to repeat the exercise, using characters written by my favourite author. That's right, Jane Austen. Nothing is sacred, after all. And there are TONNES of Austen fanfics, including numerous multi-novel crossovers.

Technicalities of this exercise:

• I chose two characters, one male and one female, from each of Austen's six finished novels. So convenient that she wrote 6 novels and this meme needs 12 characters!
• To avoid squicky incestuous pairings, I chose pairs of characters that are not related by blood. Not even first cousins, although Austen herself had no qualms about those (witness Fanny Price and Edmund Bertram).
• No child characters, for obvious reasons. Imagine ending up with Margeret Dashwood/Mr Wodehouse. ** Mind needs to be sandpapered
• No established couples that are married or engage in canon. That just makes things boring, no?
• Minimal number of central characters. The supporting characters need their day in the fanfic sun. So, no Lizzie, Darcy, Knightley or Anne Elliot, even though they are my favourite characters in Austen canon.
• I used Excel to randomly sort the characters into the order I am using for this exercise. I might have seen the questions before, but thanks to the random ordering, I have no idea what combinations will be thrown up.

The 12 Austen Characters:

1. Charlotte Lucas-Collines
2. James Dashwood
3. Henry Tilney
4. Mr Wodehouse
5. Jane Fairfax
6. Captain Benwick
7. Isabella Thorpe
8. Elizabeth Elliot
9. Lucy Steele
10. Tom Bertram
11. Mary Crawford
12. Mr Wickham

Here goes nothing!

Have you ever read a Six/Eleven (Benwick/Mary Crawford) fic? Do you want to?
No, can't say I have. Would I want to? Only if well-written. This is an unlikely pairing and their differences is great fodder for an imaginative writer. I can see how these two characters can fall for each other; she certain could be his type, at least. I think she might like his literary tastes, although not his tendency towards melancoly.

Do you think Four (Mr Wodehouse) is hot? How hot?
Errrrr, I really prefer NOT to think about Mr Wodehouse that way. I suppose he must have been quite attractive in his youth, to have produced Emma, who is by all accounts a young woman of pleasing countenance.

What would happen if Twelve (Mr Wickham) got Eight (Elizabeth Elliot) pregnant?
Hahaha. First off, I am so glad I didn't get a male pregnancy with this one. I can actually see these two having a steamy affair, and Elizabeth Elliot making sure that both kept a very tight lid on it. If Wickham got Miss Elliot pregnant, she would turn to Mrs Clay for a quickie abortion and probably not tell Wickham a thing.

Can you rec any fic(s) about Nine (Lucy Steele) ?
I have seen a few comedic pieces about Lucy Steele, but not read them myself. I guess she really is not on my fanfic radar.

Would Two (James Dashwood) and Six (Captain Benwick) make a good couple?
They would be temperamentally suited, but nothing much might ever get done because of their chronic passivity.

Five/Nine (Jane Fairfax/Lucy Steele) or Five/Ten (Jane Fairfax/Tom Bertram)? Why?
Jane Fairfax/ Tom Bertram. And not because this is a heterosexual pairing. Superficially, Tom Bertram bears some resemblance to Frank Churchill. Jane Fairfax likes her cads, I think. Lucy Steele is too lightweight and probably too silly for Jane On the other hand, I think Lucy Steele could like the Jane Fairfax "type" quite a lot, and both of them are great at keeping secrets, so who knows? For my money, though, Tom Bertram and his excesses are more Jane's cup of tea.

What would happen if Seven (Isabella Thorpe) walked in on Two (James Dashwood) and Twelve (Mr Wickham) having sex?
She'd plot to blackmail James Dashwood out of his fortune and spread vicious rumours about Wickham.

Make up a summary for a Three (Henry Tilney)/Ten (Tom Bertram) fic.
Two boys meet at Eton. Profligate Tom Bertram and charming Henry Tilney form a bond built on a shared ability to not take life too seriously. One weekend in the country, an encounter with a group of giggling girls send them running for cover ... and into each others' arms. (Hey, I am not a slasher by any means, but school-aged Henry and Tom engaging in a spot of experimentation is conceivable.)

Is there such a thing as One (Charlotte Lucas) /Eight (Elizabeth Elliot) fluff?
Well, this would make an interesting, and oddly plausible, femmeslash pairing, but not a fluffy one. Elizabeth Elliot is too sharp around the edges for fluff.

Suggest a title for a Seven (Isabella Thorpe)/Twelve (Mr Wickham) hurt/comfort fic.
"Relying on the Comfort of Hypocrites". I'd like to see this pairing happen; they are both so deliciously amoral.

What kind of plot device would you use if you wanted Four (Mr Wodehouse) to deflower One (Charlotte Lucas-Collins)?
** Choking ** Mr Wodehouse suffers from a rare ailment that can only be cured by his "taking" of a virgin (assuming that Charlotte hasn't married Mr Colllins yet).

Would anyone you know read Seven (Isabella Thorpe) slash?
I could think of people who might, yes.

Does anyone you know read Three (Henry Tilney) het?
Heh, a resounding yes. Much of the Republic of Pemberley would read Tilney het, I think. Even if the fic doesn't involve Catherine Moreland.

What might Ten (Tom Betram) scream at a moment of great passion?
"Oh, good Bertram!".

If you wrote a song-fic about Eight (Elizabeth Elliot), which song would you choose?
"My Way".

If you wrote a One /Six /Twelve (Charlotte Lucas / Captain Benwick / Mr Wickham) fic, what would the warnings be?
Threesome, slash, bondage (Charlotte/Wickham), suggested masochism (Benwick).

What might be a good pick-up line for Two (James Dashwood) to use on Ten (Tom Bertram)?
"Care to burn some money together?"

When was the last time you read a fic about Five (Jane Fairfax)?
About a year ago. It was a Jane/Frank missing moment fanfic about the circumstances behind their secret engagement.

What is Six's (Captain Benwick's) super-sekrit kink?
SM - the M part of it. I don't know why, but I get that vibe from him.

Would Eleven (Mr Wickham) shag Nine (Lucy Steele) ? Drunk or sober?
Hell, yes. And he wouldn't need to be drunk either. Neither would she, probably.

If Three (Henry Tilney) and Seven (Isabella Thorpe) get together, who tops?
Hahaha. A canon-possible pairing from Northanger Abbey. Isabella would like to imagine herself on top, but Henry would always get the upper hand on her.

One (Charlotte Lucas) and Nine (Lucy Steele) are in a happy relationship until Nine (Lucy Steele) suddenly runs off with Four (Mr Wodehouse). One (Charlotte Lucas) , broken-hearted, has a hot one-night stand with Eleven (Mary Crawford) and a brief unhappy affair with Twelve (Mr Wickham), then follows the wise advice of Five (Jane Fairfax) and finds true love with Three (Henry Tilney). What title would you give this fic?
"The Path to a Good Man is Paved with Hellish Encounters". I love how Charlotte has to get entangled with a bunch of Austen's most devious characters before ending up with her most likeable hero.

How would you feel if Seven (Isabella Thorpe)/Eight (Elizabeth Elliot) was canon?
Wow, Lisptick Lesbian Bitch Femmeslash heaven!