Posting about Dorset in the late summer here brought back good memories of a very different Dorset experience, on the coast, in February last year. Not perhaps the most obvious choice for a weekend break - who'd go to an English seaside town in mid-winter? - it was intended as a weekend writers' retreat, with a fun but sadly short-lived creative writing group I was part of at the time (the other members departed for other countries soon afterwards).
We were a short drive from the town of Lyme Regis - all steep cobbled streets and quaint historic buildings leading down to the 'Cobb', the harbour wall famously haunted by Meryl Streep shrouded in black cloak as the French Lieutenant's Woman. John Fowles lived in Lyme Regis for 35 years until his death, and understood the romantic appeal of this coastline where the English first engaged with the Spanish Armada in 1558 (remember Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth I improbably but memorably striding the cliffs watching the battle in billowing white?). Jane Austen also loved it here and made the Cobb an important setting in Persuasion.
There are wonderful views from the Cobb ... this is the Jurassic Coast, stretching along England's southern shores from Devon to Dorset. Along these cliffs you can see a continuous sequence of rock formations that span 185 million years of the Earth's history.
People scour the beaches here in search of fossils. But author Ian McEwan discovered it's not a good idea to take things away, when he took a couple of pebbles home from nearby Chesil Beach while doing research for his novella On Chesil Beach. A zealous, sharp-eyed conservation officer spotted the pebbles on his desk in a newspaper photo and he was ordered to hand them back!
The Lyme Regis Museum, top left, filled with fossils telling the story of the cliffs' history
A little further down the coast, these are the views from the Golden Cap (below) - the distinctive golden rock outcrop between Bridport and Charmouth, which is the highest point of Britain's south coast. And this golden light was exactly as these unedited photos show - amazing in mid-winter.
These were taken from the Anchor Inn pub where we had a drink (well wrapped up) at the outside tables with a view ...
... to east and west ...
English beaches tend to be a subject of derision when you've spent time on gorgeous golden African sands. But I thought this stretch of coast had its own special beauty.
In between beach excursions some writing did in fact take place, in front of a huge log fire, with not too much seriousness, a fair amount of red wine and home-cooking in this old rented farmhouse just a few miles inland ...
with views to the sea in front and the rolling hills of Dorset behind ...
Justin Cartwright is a British author with African roots, who was born in South Africa and educated there and in the USA before doing a degree at Oxford and working in Britain in broadcasting, advertising and film. He draws on all these experiences in his novels.
After Masai Dreaming, his first really successful novel (in 1993) - and a wonderful read - I found his books a bit hit and miss, but lately he seems to just be getting better and better. They're filled with interesting characters and thoughtful reflections about random aspects of contemporary life, written in almost deceptively simple style. Two of my recent favourites have been The Promise of Happiness and To Heaven by Water.
Photo source: www.foyles.co.uk
His latest novel, Other People's Money, has the recent banking crisis and financial
meltdown at the heart of its story. It centres on the declining fortunes of
the Trevelyan-Tubals (I love this absurd name!), an upper class English private banking family, whose
wealth is in jeopardy. Elderly patriarch, Harry Trevelyan-Tubal, is dying
in his Matisse-filled mansion in Cap d’Antibes, conveniently unaware of the crisis and of the
increasingly desperate measures being taken by his son Julian, his reluctant
successor, to save the family from disaster.
Into this scenario Cartwright weaves a colourful,
rich cast of characters. He conveys the world of privilege, private yachts and
trust funds as vividly as that of those with no money – the latter most
memorably in the shape of ageing
playwright and thespian Artair MacCleod, reduced
to consuming leaky Cornish pasties while working on his magnum opus and eking out a living staging productions of
Thomas the Tank Engine for ‘little, obese, pig-faced kiddies of Cornwall’.
Photo source: www.guardian.co.uk
There are some great female characters too ... The dying patriarch’s much-younger, attractive wife, Fleur, is back in London cavorting with her personal trainer in in a broom cupboard at the local gym
while reflecting on her vulnerable future position in the family. And twenty-something cub reporter Melissa is on her first job at a parochial
Cornish newspaper, finding herself shifting uncertainly from blogging about cupcakes to
becoming caught up in a story of national importance. I thought Cartwright
treated them with empathy and intelligence, avoiding simplification.
The story also conveys very well the tension of looming
financial disaster, though (thankfully) without boring us with the
technicalities of the process – (I'm thinking here of Sebastian Faulks who also used this as
a theme for A Week in December but
with pages of detailed and mind-numbing explanations of sub primes, hedge funds
and collateral debt). An engaging plot intertwines the affairs of all these
characters in what is really a comic, satirical novel – intelligent and also
highly readable. And as a wee bonus, the novel signs off with a final scene involving a well-known actor that
is wildly improbable, but at the same time sweet and comical, and made me laugh
out loud.
Photo source: www.guardian.co.uk/
Browsing the internet for images for this post, I was reminded of a weekly feature that The Guardian ran a few years back, called Writer's Rooms, which featured a photograph and accompanying description of the places where well-known writers graft away at their novels. I loved this series - mostly because I loved reading about and seeing the objects that writers surround themselves with in their creative working spaces. I was sorry when it ended, though I guess there's a limit to the number of recognised authors one can feature. Here's the link to Justin Cartwright's writer's room, in the pic above, and from there to the others in the series.
On an unrelated note, apologies for my previous post having turned into gobbledygook (in some browsers only, it appears). I can't fix it in Edit mode, as it appears correctly there. Of all the weird things Blogger has been up to lately, this is the weirdest.
La Rentrée is officially upon us and one must rally one's energy for a new year and a new round of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed students eager for knowledge. But with summer out like a light, and the light itself fading earlier, we can look forward to cosy nights of telly-watching and DVD-fests.
I know it's a bit early for a best of the year list, but some of this year's stand-out TV series have a second season on the way to look forward to this winter - yay! - so here's my list of top favourites whose second series I can't wait to see ...
1) Who killed Nanna Birk-Larsen? was the question everyone was asking when the Danish series The Killing (Forbrydelsen, in Danish with English sub-titles) aired earlier this year in Europe and Britain. This is unquestionably top of my list and the best thing I've watched in ages. I read that the Germans and Dutch loved it for the intelligent plot, while the British loved it for the characters; put these two elements together and you begin to see why it developed a cult following.
Cast of Forbrydelsen/The Killing
Against a backdrop of a bleak Copenhagen winter, Sofie Grabol (centre above and below) plays homicide detective Sarah Lund, hell-bent on solving the murder of a teenage girl. I'd never heard of this actress, though Danish colleagues tell me she is Denmark's finest and a veteran of Ibsen and Strindberg in the theatre. Her Sarah Lund goes against all clichés of woman detectives you've ever seen; her performance is unique and memorable, the kind that inspired heated debates on Killing-besotted websites as to whether she is a feminist role-model or a screw-up.
Dressed in wellies and a trademark woolly jumper (the jumper alone having occupied as much media space as the speculation on whodunnit), with no make-up, her pony-tail grows progressively messier and her personal life more shambolic in direct proportion to her growing obsession with finding the killer. You may not want to be her, exactly, but you will badly wish you could have her as your friend.
There's no glamour, no car chases, glossy sex or crime-plot formulae in The Killing - just a great plot that keeps everyone guessing right up to the brilliantly written and acted final reveal, and a cast of finely-drawn, complex characters. One of these is Pernille Birk-Larsen, mother of the dead girl (played by Ann Eleonora Jorgenson, below), whose raw grief and unravelling is almost unbearable to watch, and whose relationship with her husband is one of the most moving I've ever seen acted. A thriller with two strong, finely acted women like this is almost too good to believe.
... though lets not forget cool politician Troels Hartmann (actor Lars Mikkelsen), surely the thinking woman's bit of Danish crumpet, who is running for Mayor of Copenhagen and whose office becomes embroiled in the murder case ...
(I'll include two pics of Troels, why not - I'd vote for him any day)
On a final note, The Killing has been re-made completely in America, using an American setting and actors - apparently on the grounds that, notwithstanding its huge success in Britain and Europe, American viewers would not cope with sub-titles. I find it difficult to wrap my head around this way of thinking, but mostly what I think is: how insulting to American viewers! If you haven't seen it, get hold of the original and look forward to being immersed in the intriguing cadences of Danish while being completely and utterly gripped by the story. (And avoid the temptation of reading about The Killing on the internet in case of spoilers!). Me, I have series 2 on pre-order from Amazon already (out early December).
2) For British crime, we were treated to Case Histories on BBC1 in June - the screen adaptation of the first two of Kate Atkinson's wonderful series of books featuring private investigator Jackson Brodie (I reviewed the latest of her Brodie novels, Started Early, Took my Dog here - see the side-bar), set in photogenic Edinburgh ...
I was both excited and nervous about this series, having very strong feelings about who could play the complex and engaging Jackson (anyone who's read the books will understand this). As it turned out I thought Jason Isaacs (above), although a sexed-up version of his literary character (see here for an amusing view on this), did a pretty good job, though my household saw some heated arguments about the merits or downright cheek (depending on point of view) of various departures from the novels (see here).
Fenella Woolgar and Natasha Little as the Land sisters, and Amanda Abbington as DC Louise Munroe
There's talk of a second series, though no date yet - one lives in hope. Meanwhile here's a taster with a typically funny scene played by Isaacs and his secretary, wonderfully played by Zawe Ashton ...
3) On a different note, and filling the gap for a period piece, was The Hour, which screened last month on BBC2. Set in 1950s London, it's about a group of idealistic young BBC news reporters who set up a new, cutting-edge (for the time) current affairs programme as an alternative to the dull, stuffy, propaganda-style Beeb news reporting they've been weaned on ...
Against a background of the developing Suez crisis, various sub-plots unfold, including MI6-sanctioned murders, Soviet spies and KGB recruits. Besides all the action there are doomed romantic liaisons, unrequited love and plenty of the class tensions and resentment the Brits excel at.
If you're a fan of The Wire, you'll be thrilled to see Dominic West going native in this one as the smooth, upper-class newsroom anchor and romantic lead (with Romola Garai above). But the star attraction for me was the wonderful Anna Chancellor (below) as whisky- and work-driven foreign correspondent Lix Storm ...
For some reason The Hour evoked many comparisons with Mad Men (which incidentally would have to top my list of best-of-2010 TV shows if I'd made one), though the two in fact have nothing in common besides an overlap in period and fashion. But I did laugh at one reviewer's comment in the Guardian who was amused to "see how American drama [Mad Men] idealises the aesthetic of its past, while we make it look really grimy and all the clothes look like worsted and everybody's tights look as though they're just about to fall down." Season 1 is available on DVD and a second season is in the making.
4) If you're still with me, Silk deserves a mention, as a very watchable legal drama series. Maxine Peake and Rupert Penry-Jones (below) are the leads, as two London barristers ambitious for QC status. Predictably, class and gender issues get in the way (he's posh, she's working class, while the roles are reversed for their two pupils (bottom), and the most interesting character is possibly the Machiavellian senior clerk (played by Neil Stuke, bottom) who orchestrates everyone's lives ... This is on DVD and series 2 will air early next year.
Finally, in an honours category of its own, I'm thrilled that Downton Abbey is returning this month for a second season - see here. Period drama (series one opened with the sinking of the Titanic and closed with the announcement of World War I), written by Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park, Vanity Fair) and with a fabulous cast, it's what the English do best, innit ...
... and with another round of the re-made Upstairs Downstairs, Downton's rival in the period stakes, due after Christmas, my viewing happiness will be complete. Out come the woolly socks and red wine, up go the feet ...
The English summer gets a bad press generally speaking - (and I'd have to include myself here, if we're pointing fingers).
But the English countryside on a summer's day, however rare that might be, is a lovely thing to behold. So when we were invited to rural Dorset for a birthday lunch for a special friend ...
... I could have kicked myself when I realised I'd forgotten to bring my camera and had to rely on my mobile phone to snap the lush late-summer surroundings.
Though it turns out that iPhone photos are not too bad really ... albeit a bit grainy, and including a few (unintentional) interesting effects that make it look as if I'd gone wild with photo editing ...
The setting was a rural idyll - the 18th century walled kitchen gardens of the Pythouse estate, on the border of Wiltshire and Dorset.
After champagne in the garden, lunch was waiting on a tented flag-stoned terrace with hanging paper flowers, hand-made by a daughter ...
... at a long white table decorated with sweetpeas and lavender from the garden outside
... a seating plan drawn on a paper roll tacked to the ivy-covered wall ...
There was a warm and funny speech from a caring husband ...
the love of family and friends ...
... and a quintessentially English dessert of strawberries and clotted cream.
English writer and florist Sally Page, who lives in Dorset, is keeping a blog I've just discovered, on a year in the life of this garden. I was interested to find a mention of our lunch party in one of her recent posts, including some photos she took of it, almost identical to mine, over here.
This is Thomas Hardy's corner of England, the "partly real, partly dream country" he called Wessex, after the old Anglo-Saxon kingdom it used to be. Every time I travel to Dorset I'm bowled over by its gorgeous, uniquely English charms.
A perfect day, summer's last shout, and apples by iPhone, haha!
