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Madam, will you walk and talk with me?
Being unable to sleep last night, I re-read Mary Stewart's This Rough Magic, My Brother Michael and Madam, Will You Talk? These are books I inherited from my mother, battered paperbacks from the 1960's or hardcovers that I've tracked down in used book stores over the years,* and last night's were three favorites of mine.*
I remain permanently amazed that no one ever made films or even miniseries out of these books. In the best ones, the suspense and the romance are inextricable from one another, the settings are integral to the plot, and the heroines are never damsels in distress, as the heroes are never cardboard leads; and even the lesser ones have some break from formula that makes them worthwhile. I will admit that I'm not as fond of the more Gothic novels, like The Gabriel Hounds or The Ivy Tree, although for some reason I do like Nine Coaches Waiting—perhaps because it takes so many Brontë themes and plays pretzel with them—but I've only ever disliked one.*** They're comfort reading, I suppose, and I've read them so many times that I could probably recite scenes from memory if pressed, but I also think they're not without literary value. And so filmable! For God's sake, am I the only person who has ever wanted to see Derek Jacobi play Sir Julian Gale?
. . . Well, I still do. And now I should sleep before I start casting the rest of the books in my head. I suspect most of the actors I'd like to have seen in the roles are no longer alive, anyway. Alas.
*My mother collects Georgette Heyers in the same way, although so far I've imprinted only on Mary Stewart. (It didn't hurt that I fell in love with The Crystal Cave and the rest of her Merlin trilogy in about seventh grade.) By now, we have hardcovers of all of Stewart's suspense-romances with the exception of Wildfire at Midnight, which I finally gave up on and bought as a reprint, and The Wind Off the Small Isles, which I've never found. I don't think that one was ever published in the U.S., however; so I have something of an excuse.
**Airs Above the Ground is the other one I love. By all rights I should also adore The Moon-Spinners, for its Greek setting, but I still prefer the other two named above—My Brother Michael and This Rough Magic.
***The Stormy Petrel. I don't know if this is because it was written much later (1991, whereas most of her novels are from the 1950's and '60's and set accordingly; Madam, Will You Talk?, for example, is a very post-war novel) or because it simply didn't work, but . . . I don't recommend. Fortunately, you have many other titles to choose from.
I remain permanently amazed that no one ever made films or even miniseries out of these books. In the best ones, the suspense and the romance are inextricable from one another, the settings are integral to the plot, and the heroines are never damsels in distress, as the heroes are never cardboard leads; and even the lesser ones have some break from formula that makes them worthwhile. I will admit that I'm not as fond of the more Gothic novels, like The Gabriel Hounds or The Ivy Tree, although for some reason I do like Nine Coaches Waiting—perhaps because it takes so many Brontë themes and plays pretzel with them—but I've only ever disliked one.*** They're comfort reading, I suppose, and I've read them so many times that I could probably recite scenes from memory if pressed, but I also think they're not without literary value. And so filmable! For God's sake, am I the only person who has ever wanted to see Derek Jacobi play Sir Julian Gale?
. . . Well, I still do. And now I should sleep before I start casting the rest of the books in my head. I suspect most of the actors I'd like to have seen in the roles are no longer alive, anyway. Alas.
*My mother collects Georgette Heyers in the same way, although so far I've imprinted only on Mary Stewart. (It didn't hurt that I fell in love with The Crystal Cave and the rest of her Merlin trilogy in about seventh grade.) By now, we have hardcovers of all of Stewart's suspense-romances with the exception of Wildfire at Midnight, which I finally gave up on and bought as a reprint, and The Wind Off the Small Isles, which I've never found. I don't think that one was ever published in the U.S., however; so I have something of an excuse.
**Airs Above the Ground is the other one I love. By all rights I should also adore The Moon-Spinners, for its Greek setting, but I still prefer the other two named above—My Brother Michael and This Rough Magic.
***The Stormy Petrel. I don't know if this is because it was written much later (1991, whereas most of her novels are from the 1950's and '60's and set accordingly; Madam, Will You Talk?, for example, is a very post-war novel) or because it simply didn't work, but . . . I don't recommend. Fortunately, you have many other titles to choose from.
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The only book of Stewart's I didn't like was THE PRINCE AND THE PILGRIM.
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There's also Rose Cottage, which is like Stormy Petrel -- I thought both of them were just fine, but they didn't have that thing.
If you like them, you would also like Joan Aiken's gothics, which are very similar. They're hard to find, though libraries that keep old books often have some of them. They scratch the same itch.
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Okay: I haven't read that one. Is it connected into the Merlin series or a stand-alone?
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It never occurred to me to read any of Stewart's non-Arthurian novels. I should track them down.
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Especially MADAM, WILL YOU TALK?, AIRS ABOVE THE GROUND, and MY BROTHER MICHAEL.
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Not worth hunting down.
(You're better off searching for other things like THORNYHOLD or ROSE COTTAGE, which are perfectly fine if not top-rate Stewart.)
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I have those. : )
Seriously, The Wind Off the Small Isles is the only one we don't own in some form or another. I even have A Walk in Wolf Wood.
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The other one I'd start with is This Rough Magic: Lucy Waring is a second-string actress whose latest play has just folded, and who has come to Corfu to stay with her sister and get away from London for a while. Also in residence on Corfu, however, is the famous thespian Julian Gale, who retired from the stage a few years ago under obscure circumstances; nerves, perhaps. He lives now with his son Max in a glorious solitude of roses, and all would be well on Lucy's holiday except that she and Max take an instant, vicious dislike to one another—given all the Shakespearean echoes in the text, I think their Beatrice-and-Benedick flavor is no accident—and, more critically, a local fisherman has turned up dead and a local boy has gone missing. I'm not sure this novel is as much a thriller as Madam, Will You Talk?, but it has got fantastic crackpot Shakespeareana and dialogue that you want to hear out loud, and I maintain that Derek Jacobi as Julian Gale would be brilliant.
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How do you feel about other books of hers?
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Could that be Thornyhold? I haven't read it in years, but it's the only one that sounds even remotely like. Touch Not the Cat has a sort of clairvoyance, but no coven.
I love The Crystal Cave. Along with Phyllis Ann Karr's The Idylls of the Queen and Elizabeth E. Wein's The Winter Prince, it's one of my top favorite Arthurian retellings.
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And as I'm having to try hard I'm gonna say no, I guess.
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I saw this, televised, when I was in high school. It was fun.
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Heh. (I plead total ignorance of most films involving Hayley Mills!) Thanks for letting me know!
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cheers,
c.
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(I am in the middle of Nine Coaches Waiting at the moment. Hurry, hurry, hurry—ay, to the devil . . .)