Tales of Persuasion

I came late to Jane Austen fandom. Not too surprisingly, although her more famous works such as Sense and Sensibility as well as Pride and Prejudice deserve plenty of applause, it is two other works that grabbed my heart. Oddly, or not, my faves are the lady's first and last novels.

Northanger Abbey was her very first novel, and dealt with a the young Catherine Moreland venturing into the real world with little same her own tiny experiences coupled with what she'd gleaned from novels.

Persuasion, her last, tells of Anne Elliot -- a much older (but still young) lady, one who has seemingly missed her chance at love and as a result happiness. Years before the story's beginning, Anne was in love with a Captain Wentworth, a then-penniless officer of bright prospects in the Royal Navy. Her late mother's friend, Lady Russell, persuaded her to reject the Captain's offer of marriage. Now, she is hardest-working and least-appreciated daughter of a spendthrift baronet forced to rent his estate to make ends meet -- and the admiral to whom he rents the place is wed to the same Captain Wentworth's sister! More, in the interim, he has made his fortune with prize money while Anne is now viewed as a spinster.

What follows is a seemingly gentle, but subtly tempestuous tale of these two somewhat-older persons finding each other once again. Austen rarely takes an obvious or easy way to the climax of her novels. This shows itself no exception. For example, we learn that Anne need not have been a spinster at all. She had another offer of marriage, and looks to be perhaps gaining another two -- one from a like-minded widower, another from a charming and intelligent cousin. This is important because in Austen women are in some real way always the equals of men. Equal in foolishness or venality, maybe -- or equal in passion and strength. In this case, the point is that Anne need not have pined for Wentworth yet she did. And being the eminently sensible, utterly reliable, demonstrably self-possessed person that she is -- why should that be? For the same reason Wentworth, a very handsome and wealthy man considered pleasing by virtually every girl he meets, does little more than flirt while hovering around Anne's life, often glaring at her or avoiding her yet never roaming far. Why? Because these two love each other with a depth quite beyond their petty errors or misjudgments.

This is, IMHO, one of the world's great love stories.

And recently I've watched two different adaptations of it, both made for television. Both are also excellent. Interestingly, both are also very different from one another, yet faithful to the source material. Bravo on both counts (or all three -- depending upon how one looks at it).

The 1995 version stars Amanda Root and Cieran Hinds as the once and future lovers. While Hinds is an actor I admire greatly (he'll be in the next two Harry Potter flicks incidentally), this was the first time I was aware of Ms. Root. She frankly deserves more acclaim than I think she has received, but then that might be a false impression. Evidently she works long and often in Britain.

The 2007 version stars Sally Hawkins and Rupert Penry-Jones as the leads, and they likewise make a wonderful set of lovers. I'll admit to playing some favorites in both cases. For the one, I prefer Hinds' Captain Wentworth while for the other my choice would be Hawkins' Anne Elliot. Not to put down either one of their partners, who are very good and admirably suit their roles.

What is interesting is how the two productions approached their material. Here is a simple one -- the naval officers in the earlier version wear their uniforms, whereas the latter do not. This reflects the more naturalistic appearance of the '95 production. Clothes look more worn, candlelight is noticeably dimmer, and the action correspondingly more subtle (this is helped by the fact that Mr. Hinds is one of those actors who can do with a glance what many others might need a soliloquy to accomplish -- Ms. Hawkins is another one). Yet the action of the later version is more telling, often more exciting. The visit to the shore ( such an important event) takes place in bad weather, unlike the relative calm and sunny day of the first version (well, second--but I haven't seen the still earlier one). The long and weary journey to tell news of an accident is shown rather than skipped over, while Anne's sense of having actually gone through these trips is stronger. Likewise, the climax of the tale involves Anne actually racing to find Wentworth in the wake of receiving his letter -- she is literally breathless as she says her lines, and you can see how she trembles between her own self control and the passion of that moment.

In the '07 version the story veers between the POV of Anne and of Captain Wentworth himself. As a result, he is much less a cypher and we follow his own personal journey. Unfortunately, this costs some set up of essential exposition regarding the intentions of Anne's cousin. Such is handled much better in the '95 adaptation. Likewise there is a certain "sameness" to many of the male cast in the later one, in terms of general look and dress especially. Not so the earlier one, when it is easy to tell all characters apart at a glance -- not only in terms of looks but in dress.

At the same time, it is difficult not to see how some characters are made more overtly sinister in the '95 film, probably against the actual text. Lady Russell, for example, comes across as rather a villain in the earlier production -- a self-satisfied snob playing with Anne's life according to rules that have precious little to do with Anne's happiness. The later version is someone much more benign, who feels some guilt over the consequences of her persuasion. She has an agenda, to be sure, and one at odds with our own hopes but we also get the feeling that she would probably end up very pleased with how Anne's life ended up.

Likewise Anne's father, an arrogant fool as in the book, is interestingly different in the two versions. One has him as something of a ridiculous fop, pathetic in his own way and surrounded (by preference) with women as silly and petty as himself. Another dimension seemed to exist for the second (or third) version, albeit a subtle one. He appears to be treating his favorite (and most snobbish, like himself) daughter as a surrogate wife -- not in terms of sexuality but in terms of a partnership. He frankly comes across as a darker individual, and Anne a more impressive person having resisted his ways.

Both versions come up with endings not really in the novel. In '95 they made much of Captains having their wives aboard, and we see at the end Anne Wentworth beside her husband at sea. It was a lovely image of freedom from their pasts. The filmmakers twelve years later ended with the Captain giving his bride a special wedding gift -- the house where she'd grown up and which she clearly loved dearly. It felt more like a fairy tale ending, as well as a testament not only to Wentworth's esteem of his Anne, but his understanding of her.

In short, I recommend both, having appreciated both and remain grateful to those who created both versions.

Review: "Fingersmith"

Every now and then, you fall in love. With a coffee house, or a kitten, or maybe a moment under a specific tree on one particular day.

Sometimes you fall in love with a novel. In this case, a novel about falling in love.

Is this review sufficiently saccharine yet? Wait--it gets better! Really!

Fingersmith is a novel by Sarah Waters. It is also Victorian slang for "pick pocket." In the context of the novel, it also functions as a double ententre. You see, like the writer's two previous novels, its plot concerns a lesbian love story. But not one of those plithy tales of nice girls who fall for each other then stand up to a social order that disapproves. Such can be the stuff of good story-telling, to be sure. Look at Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit for example or But I'm A Cheerleader. But Waters challenges us rather more than that. The term "politically correct" having become too degraded to mean much of anything anymore, instead let us call this novel one that confounds all expectations--and makes perfect sense. No small feat.

The first stirrings of the plot you can read on any cover of either the novel itself or the DVD of the miniseries adapted from it. Sue Trinder, raised in a squalid but raucus part of London by Mrs. Sucksby, is hired by a charming rogue known as Gentleman to help fleece an heiress. Said heiress is Maud Lilly, a girl Sue's own age--kept under the thumb of a tyrannical uncle Christopher Lilly in his estate of Briar (love the name of that manor--feels perfectly authentic yet seethes with meaning). It is a cruel plan, a ruthless one, and it hinges upon Sue earning Maud's trust.

As perhaps one might suspect, things do not go according to plan. Sue grows close to Maud, and finds herself in a terrible conundrum. In time, they grow more than close. Herein lies the stuff of tragedy.

Waters, one should mention, has a degree in Victorian literature and it shows. She wields a startling plot (or plots) with a skill one might expect of an expert on Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens and like. Or not. Because the creation of story points and satisfying revelations has never been a matter of studying Anne Radcliffe or Sheridan LeFanu. That requires ability, rather than mere knowledge. For that matter, the book is draped with telling details with layer after layer of meaning. Mr. Lilly, for example--he of the purple tongue from ceaseless wetting of his quill pen, and the brass finger on the library floor beyond which servants are forbidden. Or the extra income Mrs. Sucksby earns because one of her windows shows the nearby gallows (quite a boon execution time, with folks willing to pay for the "show").

Lest you have not yet read or seen this work, I offer no spoilers. Precise twists and turns in the plot remain unwritten for this review. What I will mention is that a co-worker, to whom I'd lent the novel, came in one day with less than ten pages left and uttered the words "I have no idea what is going to happen next!"

Maybe my co-worker is not a good judge of such things. You have no way of knowing. But assume for the sake of argument (as is indeed the case) that she is. Consider then what a testimonial she gave in that moment! Let my own testimony confirm it! One of the grave problems with reading or viewing many works of fiction--whatever the media--is that an audience member becomes jaded. One watches a film or reads a book and what happens within too often ends up predictable. This is my major complaint, for example, with the last book of the Twilight Saga--after chapter one, the bones of plot for all the other chapters were naked to my mind's eye. Not so this book!

Alas, my fear is that now readers might halfway expect UFOs to abduct one of the characters, then clone her to become the president of a distant planet of living lawn furniture.

No fear. Surprising, yes. Silly, no.

What I can say without hesitation is that Fingersmith captures the feel of another era, a time before modern forensics or women's rights, before the cataloging of all things had reached quite such a pervasive level, where "class" meant something much than it does to us today (at least, I hope so). Social services--what would those be? London--a place only imagined and barely that without television or films or even photographs. More tellingly--Identity. A more malleable thing in some ways without social security numbers or fingerprints, much less DNA profiles or digital records. Waters' words take us to another place, one not so very far from us in time--hence familiar yet alien. Quaint, and also disturbing. Yet comfortable in some odd way.

More than this, she weaves a constellation of characters in orbit around one another that compel interest and caring. Sue's practicality coupled with a growing shame at her own actions. Maud's ignorance, slowly but surely demolished in the wake of meeting Sue. The charm and cruel honesty of Gentleman. Mr. Lilly--tyrant and cripple (in soul far more than body). And the strange, difficult journey of Mrs. Sucksby as plots unravel and secrets start doing a dance. Yet at its heart--a love story. Two complex and complete human beings who--and why this should be so utterly believable and understandable is the art of the thing--find in each other some part of themselves they've been missing. Sue and Maud are the heart of this tale, with all its mystery and betrayals. They are the ones we care about most, and from whose eyes we learn all kinds of uncomfortable truths. Each becomes a treasure to the other, but under more bizarre and challenging circumstances one might fear to imagine.

In passing I should mention the BBC made a fine adaptation of the novel, starring Sally Hawkins and Elaine Cassidy in the leads. Behold the trailer: