The Howards End Trifecta

I dove back into my comfort zone this past month: English literature. As you may see from my Goodreads feed in the corner of this blog, I listened to the 2009 Blackstone Audio recording of Howard’s End by E.M. Forster narrated by Nadia May and available on iBooks. I sifted though a few samples before landing on her as my narrator of choice (narrators can make or break an audiobook). This, of course, was after I’d watched the 2017 BBC series based on the novel starring Hayley Atwell and Matthew Macfayden. However, before I decided to compare it with the 1992 feature length film version starring Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins.

I love watching adaptations. I love getting more of something I already love or seeing how ~maybe~ the movie could make it better *cough cough* The Horse Whisperer *cough *cough* or present it exactly the way I’d imagined and more! Books and their movie counterparts can be equally enjoyable, change my mind. I will say, I was a tad surprised that I found the 1992 adaptation lacking. I was bored stiff, and by amazing actors and performances. But I don’t think it was the running length. Obviously the 2017 miniseries had more time to explore the details of the novel – it was the 1992 versions’ screenplay.

The script followed the outline of the novel well enough, but it was devoid of any of those cinematic moments that truly make you feel for the characters you’re watching. And this is coming from a person who has watched the 2005 Pride & Prejudice FAR more than I ever have the beloved 90s miniseries. The film hit all the right plot points, but I wasn’t torn when Margaret was forced to choose between her sister and her husband upon accepting Mr. Wilcox’s proposal nor was I very worried when Helen suddenly broke contact for mysterious reasons. Those small moments that get us close and intimate with a character I think were lost in the film’s attempt to be a faithful adaptation to the text beat by beat.

I guess I just can’t say enough good things about Macfayden’s nuanced performance as Mr. Wilcox either. He’s an amazing actor to watch. You hate him one moment and love him the next, Hopkins seems far too detached to be likable even in the end when the audience is meant to come around to his character. All the characters seem more fully realized in the 2017 miniseries. Except Leonard Bast… I’m still trying to figure out what Joseph Quinn was doing looking mildly constipated the entire time.

So, here’s the order in which I consumed my media:

2017 BBC miniseries
1910 Novel
1992 Film

I recommend all for comparison, but the novel doesn’t exactly need my endorsement. It’s a classic.

(featured image is Hayley Atwell as Margaret Schlegel in the 2017 adaptation available on STARZ)

greta, thou hast surprised me

Color me wrong. The best kind of wrong.

There were many happy surprises throughout a film that I was prepped not to like, but found myself charmed instead. It reminded me a bit of the book > film adaptation Mansfield Park (1999) which fills out the heroine’s personality (Fanny Price) with characteristics of the story’s author (Jane Austen). A huge deviation from the book, but something that works for one of Austen’s most criticized heroines.

There’s flecks of Louisa May Alcott’s actual life peppered into Jo’s story in the film (her meetings with her publisher) which rely less on the source text of Little Women and more on the actual journey of Alcott as an author. Not a bad choice considering I think the book, overall, is a bit more saccharine than Alcott seemed to be herself.

A friend tipped me off that the story was told in a non-linear fashion, events unfold out of sequence and the movie does a great deal of timeline hopping. This actually reminded me of my initial reading of the novel when I was in high school. I was given the SECOND installment of Little Women, published under the title Good Wives in 1869, as a gift and read it without knowing it was the first half of Alcott’s now famous tale of the March sisters. Much as this reading experience didn’t affect my appreciation of the story – neither did the this choice for the film. A technique of which I am usually skeptical, but Gerwig uses it effectively. One example is with Professor Bhaer.

He’s the first man we meet in the film as it works it’s way back to him again. This gives the audience more familiarity with him than in the book where he can seem like a tacked-on love interest after Jo’s rejection of Laurie. That’s my take on it anyway. If you’re looking for a more in-depth reason as to why Prof. Bhaer is so dreamy in this version I think The Cut covers that pretty well here. And I agree with Gerwig’s choice.

I think the 90s version still has my, overall, favorite casting choices. I won’t harp too much on comparing one film version to another as this is a novel > film comparison, ultimately. I think each adaptation brings it’s own strengths/weaknesses to the table. HOWEVER, if you want a good laugh that will leave you wondering if some critics ever bother to read the source material you can always click here to see why one man thinks what I consider an OK adaptation is OMFG THE BEST EVER. He pretty much hates everything Greta did with a vehement passion and offers no justification tying it back to the actual novel. He says Gerwig “settles for sentimentality.” Classic. Um, have you even *read* Little Women, bro? It’s sentimental AF. Why is that a bad thing? ROTFL. #endrant

Other than that, the reviews I found online were mostly favorable. Mine being one of them. I could go on about casting choices (surprised how much I enjoyed Emma Watson as Meg in this, Gerwig really seemed to bring out her acting chops and not just rely on her Emma Watson-ing), but I think I was pleased with most of them. The actors played well off each other and the sister-dynamic that is so crucial to the telling of Little Women was present and accounted for. Amy was much more grounded in this, but I attribute that to a slight rewriting of her character and less on Florence Pugh’s performance. Another change I didn’t mind.

I think if an audience member comes into this film with no expectations and fresh eyes it can be an amazing experience. I didn’t think a new version of this story was needed. Now, I’m glad we have this one in the canon. I think Gerwig made it just different enough to introduce a new generation to the March sisters and renew an interest in Alcott and her legacy. I just wish the previews didn’t make it seem like such a feminist manifesto, save for a few bolder scenes (Amy’s speech about marriage to Laurie), the film is much more nuanced than that (Jo’s speech to her mother about being independent, but also lonely <— REAL LIFE).

I recommend Little Women (2019) right up there with my other favorite version(s) of the film. Oh yeah, the book is pretty great too.

The Hero With a Thousand Faces

This looks like it was scanned on an old copy machine.

Where have you been, Kassie? That’s a very good question. I’m living in the UK! Fatherland of Great Literature and I find myself (as a student) with far more time to read than I had before in my crazy busy life in southern California. So, I thought I’d dip back into this for my own enjoyment. It was hard to get myself to sit down and read for long stretches of time (if you can believe it) I kept thinking there were other things I should be doing. BUT I managed to knock out The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell in just over a week. This book was first published in 1949. I was reading an edition from the 1960s borrowed from my school library because, well, poor student – but it served its purpose. I know there’s been more recent editions published so some of my criticisms may have been addressed in subsequent editions, but we can’t all be high-rollers. This book is fairly dense so I will try to keep to short and make it go down easily.

I have a basic familiarity with Joseph Campbell (and by basic I mean I sat through 6 hours of DVD interviews with him) and I have to say a lot of his theories and ideas I think are something that would come to any enthusiast for other cultures/mythologies/religions (you’re talking to the woman who picked up a volume of Finnish folks tales and dabbled in Journey to the West FOR FUN). The ideas that all mythos are interconnected in some great psychological, cosmic (I almost said “cosmotic”) way I think is valid. Although he uses a lot of Freud and dream analogy as evidence for this idea and I think you’d have to be quite a Freudian to go along with some of Campbell’s arguments in that area.

I do love the idea of the monomyth – that there’s one great overarching story we share – and a similar hero’s journey cross cultures. By the end of the book though, I’m not quite convinced he’s gotten his point across that man uses this to find religion in himself: “It is not society that is to guide and save the creative hero . . . every one of us shares the supreme ordeal–carries the cross of the redeemer . . . in the silences of his personal despair” (391).  The conclusion is something I get but I don’t know that he’s spent enough time in his text arguing that point and using the evidence to support it. I think Campbell may have stretched himself too thin. This book is dense with research into folk tales and the traditions of other cultures. He may have served his purpose better by choosing fewer examples to give an easily distracted reader, such as myself, more to latch onto.

Now, I’m no feminist, but Campbell hardly references the female journey or “coming of age” rites in this book as well. Granted, he’s a male writer who really wasn’t considering this – which is fine – not really a criticism of him, but if he’s going to apply a universal message to the end it might have been good to see more of the feminine aspects of the societies he analyzes. His does his best to give fair play to the female (and even bisexual) roles of male/female dichotomy in mythology and it’s not his fault women throughout time have mostly played an ancillary role in some of these stories. Still, this is a point worth noting as I am reading this from the opposite perspective… even though most of my heroes are men.

His Catholic roots also show through great deal in this book, more than I think he even realizes. I had to laugh in the DVDs I was watching when he seemed so anti-established religion at times and then called for a return to traditional (I think even Latin) Catholic ceremonies in an effort to call humanity back to ritual which he seems to think is the backbone of order for future generations. I thought, “What a snob you are Joseph Campbell!” To wrap this up, I don’t think this book brought on any major revelations for me, but you can tell it’s fairly exhaustive and Campbell brings up a lot of good points about the interconnectivity of mankind, our search for glory and purpose, and our efforts to understand the world around us for eons and eons. I would love to see someone write a counter to it since it seems these ideas have gone relatively uncontested for so long.

The Birth of a Podcast: Pride & Prejudice

Ever wonder what two women with degrees think about some of the popular adaptations of great works of literature?  Now is your chance to find out by listening to the It’s Not That Terrible podcast where me and my pal Camilla tear apart and analyze literary classics and their film adaptations.  This episode features commentary on Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice (everyone’s favorite) and its 2005 film adaptation (not everyone’s favorite) directed by Joe Wright and starring Keira Knightley and Matthew MacFadyen .

Click Here to download the first episode.  Special thanks to Ace Garcia for our music.

Up next:  The ever popular and currently over-blown The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.