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Monthly Archives: July 2006

Happily ever after

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Borrowed from fairy tales, known as the HEA in romance–does it always work? Do you appreciate the book that ends like a slow fade on camera, moving away from h/h? Or do you prefer the full monty of explanations, apologies, tears, laughter, the whole package of loose ends and subplots tied up with a pretty ribbon , followed by an epilogue where h/h are surrounded by babies and all’s well with the world? I have to admit I can’t write endings worth a darn. I write and rewrite the last few lines, then shrug and type in The End, and put myself out of my misery (several nights in a row for a week or so).

Here’s a technique for The End which I’m rather fond of: Black Ice by Anne Stuart, where you realize the heroine is indeed going to take up with that thrillingly scruffy French psychopath. All in one sentence. Any/all of Judith Ivory’s thrilling throwaway one-sentence enders–yes, I rather like the sensation of leaping off a cliff, particularly if h/h have spent the entire book jumping off minor cliffs and are now going for the Big One, the Commitment–marriage, the final frontier. I don’t want cosiness and domesticity and the patter of tiny feet. Let the dysfunctionality thrive beyond the endpages!

Some readers got very upset about the end of Jennifer Crusie’s Bet Me where the h/h married but had a dog instead of children. It was seen as breaking the rules in some strange sort of way; even stranger is that Ms. Crusie claims she wrote it that way because the book is a fairy tale (lost shoes! Princesses in towers! Yes, the elements are all there). I think the only sort of dog that appears in a fairy tale would be a magic one, with eyes that roll round and round, for instance, and guards treasure. Well, maybe there was more to the dog than we knew.

Share your favorite endings–without giving away the plot, if you can.

Janet

Posted in Reading, Writing | Tagged , , | 6 Replies

Bertie Takes a Bath

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Oh my, isn’t my face red. I meant to hit the little keys to make the title of this “Bertie Talks About Bath.”

But somehow, it doesn’t say that.

And I cannot decipher how to change it. Please forgive me. I never talk about indelicate things, such as — well — you know. At least, I never talk about them by accident.

Ahem.

Bertie Talks About Bath

Bath is dreadfully boring. I have no idea why you all like it so much.

I will concede that it is a pretty little town. Some of the buildings are aesthetically pleasing. As are a few of the ladies.

But save me from those Bath tabbies! Those plump, red-faced, elderly women who always tell one “stand up straight, Bertie!” and “drink your water, Bertie!” and “meet me at 9 o’clock in the morning, Bertie!” and “Dance with my ugly grand-daughter, Bertie!” (Very well, I admit that they don’t phrase the last command with those precise words. But that’s the meaning, I assure you.)

It’s enough to give one chills, even in this weather.

My reply to the tabbies:

1. As far as I am concerned, there is no 9 a.m. There is a 9 p.m. I could meet you at 9 p.m. (But I won’t.)

2. I’d much rather drink wine, thank you very much.

3. I am standing just as straight as is fashionable. No more, no less.

4. Dancing is too too fatiguing. I’d much rather have more wine.

Those are my ruminations on Bath.

I have never read Miss Austen’s novel Northanger Abbey, so I cannot say whether or not I care that it will be filmed in Ireland. Ireland is a beautiful country, but — oh, you know. It would be quite splendid if only there weren’t so many Irish folk living there.

Yours elegantly, as always,

Bertie the Beau

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NORTHANGER ABBEY without Bath?

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Breaking news! According to the Irish edition of The Sunday Times, the upcoming Northanger Abbey television adaptation (scripted by Andrew Davies, the screenwriter of the beloved Firth/Ehle Pride and Prejudice) will be filmed entirely in Ireland. Apparently, Ireland gives much better tax breaks for television productions than Britain does, which led to the decision. So next year, when Northanger Abbey airs on ITV, all the backgrounds and buildings and assembly rooms will be Irish.

I must admit, this decision disturbs me greatly!

I do adore Bath, but that’s not the only reason I’m upset that the new Northanger Abbey will not be filmed at all there. It’s that I cannot imagine the story of naive Catherine Morland, sprightly Isabella Thorpe, boorish John Thorpe, satirical Mr. Tilney, and all the rest taking place anywhere else! (I refer, of course, to the first [and better] half of the novel. The last bit can be filmed anywhere at all, for all I’m concerned.)

Jane Austen gives our heroine the true Bath experience! She attends the Pump Room, the Upper Rooms (pictured here), the Lower Rooms, she shops on Milsom Street, she stays on Pulteney Street, she “breathes the fresh air of better company” up at the Royal Crescent. The first half of the book is truly about Bath. And Bath is immediately recognizable. How can they possibly film it anywhere else?

So, in honor of Bath, so cruelly slighted, I am sharing with you some of the photos I took of Bath during my recent trip there. In fact, I have so many pictures I want to share, that I’ve put them in two different blog posts. (Blogger gets touchy about a post with too many pictures!)

My question for today: what do you think of the decision to film Northanger Abbey entirely in Ireland? Do you think Ireland’s Georgian buildings can pass for Bath with some clever photography? Do you think it doesn’t much matter where the story is set? Do you think the previous Northanger Abbey adaptation was so dreadful that anything will be an improvement?

All opinions welcome!

Cara
Cara King — www.caraking.com
MY LADY GAMESTER — Booksellers’ Best Finalist for Best Regency of 2005!

Posted in Jane Austen | Tagged , , | 14 Replies

More Bath Pics

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Here are some more of my photos of Bath taken during my recent trip. I love just wandering around Bath, looking at everything, and taking pictures.

Of course, as Jane Austen pointed out, it does rain a lot in Bath. (Then again, it rains a lot everywhere in England. I have always thought it a bit odd that Austen seemed to believe it rained more in Bath than anywhere else. I suppose her general unhappiness in Bath may have something to do with it. Or perhaps it just happened to rain more when she was there? Or perhaps when she was indoors at Bath, she could hear the rain on the pavements much more than she could hear the rain in the countryside.)

As I was going to say, I just walk around Bath, wait for a break in the rain if it’s rainy, and wait for a break in the cars. Then I wait longer, hoping for a break in both at the same time. Or for blue sky. But in spite of all these difficulties, I’ve gotten a lot of lovely Bath pictures over the years! Here’s a “chair” — carriages weren’t very suitable for Bath’s hilly roads, so you would take a chair (carried by chairmen) up and down the hills, to the Baths, to the Pump Room, to the Assembly Rooms, etc. The fares were set and published, so the chairmen couldn’t cheat you!

Here we have the interior of the Pump Room. Just lovely. Here Catherine Morland strolled arm in arm with Isabella Thorpe. And of course, to be truly healthy, one would drink the mineral water here. (Nowadays one can have a cream tea instead. Much less healthful, I fear, but much more enjoyable.)

Here’s the outside of the Pump Room — the area here was known as the Pump Room Yard. It’s bordered by the Abbey Church (quite lovely, and much restored since the Regency, when it wasn’t nearly as nice as it is now) and right in the middle of everything — now nearly as much as it was two hundred years ago — at least for visitors to Bath!

And how could I forget a picture of Pulteney Bridge, surely one of the prettiest sights in Bath? A bird happened to fly through the picture as I was taking it — you may be able to make him out if you look closely.

Ah, Bath. What would Mr. Tilney ever do without you? You supply him such a variety of people to make witty remarks about. And you supply Mrs. Allen with a wonderful choice of fabrics. And Catherine Morland with more books than she could imagine.

Ah, Bath!

Cara

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India – Pre-Regency

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I’ve been enjoying my research into India during the Regency for Wolfe’s story (Wolfe of the Ternion in The Marriage Bargain). The story will begin in India, assuming Warner’s approval of my next idea, but will mostly take place in England.

I’ve discovered some interesting things about the English in India. In the early years of the East India Company it was not uncommon for the English company men to adopt a native lifestyle, native dress, taking Indian wives. Such men were tolerated in the early years and not much was made about them, but later, closer to our time period, adopting native habits was beginning to be frowned upon or looked upon with suspicion. Typically, by the Victorian age, it was not tolerated at all, given the certain belief that the British were superior in all ways.


I’m reading White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth Century India by William Dalrymple, which tells the story of James Achilles Kirkpatrick, a Colonel and an Ambassador, who married Khairunnissa, the daughter of an Indian noble family. Kirkpatrick converted to Islam to marry her and—according to a web article—spied for the Nizam against the British. The marriage was a happy but brief one, lasting only four years. The couple produced two children who were sent to England. Shortly after, Kirkpatrick unexpectedly died. It was 1805. Their mother never saw them again. She was soon seduced by Kirkpatrick’s assistant and kept as his mistress until she died a few years later at age 27.

At the time of Kirkpatrick’s marriage, one of the British who expressed concern over Kirkpatrick’s allegiance to Britain was Colonel Arthur Wellesley, in India after vanquishing the Tipu Sultan.

In the book Original Letters from India by Eliza Fay there are interesting details about life in India, but also a great amount of detail about her travel to India. Across the Suez, her caravan was attacked. And later, finally in India, the ship was boarded by the local Indian governor’s soldiers and Eliza, her husband, and the other passengers and crew were taken prisoner. She hid their watches and other small treasures in her hair.

Cheers,
Diane

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