The First English Novel

I recently reread my novella Mr. B Speaks! and, what do you know, I liked it! (This is a very useful reaction with one's own writing.)

So I have taken a "page" out of Eugene's blog and will be posting sections of Mr. B Speaks! (slightly revised) over the next few months accompanied by historical notes. These sections will appear under the MR. B SPEAKS! tab.

The story begins with Mr. B being pulled out of his novel into the "real" world to be tried for his supposed crimes as a rake. He is pulled out just after the birth of his third child. This birth is referenced in Pamela, Volume II by Samuel Richardson. Pamela, Vol. II; or Pamela's Conduct in High Life details Mr. B and Pamela's life together as a married couple while the first volume, Pamela; or Virtue Rewarded--upon which Mr. B Speaks! is based--details their courtship and first few weeks of marriage. The two books were published approximately a year apart.

Both books were wildly popular in the 18th century although the first book was more popular and lasted longer (basically, think Star Wars IV: A New Hope and Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back). Although Wikipedia claims Richardson wrote his classic (and currently, better-known) novel Clarissa because interest in Pamela was wavering, it would be more accurate to say Richardson wrote Clarissa because he figured out with Pamela what he was trying to do. Clarissa is more novel-like (and much, much longer) than Pamela.

However, Pamela bears the merit of being the first English romance novel and, for many people, the first full English novel, being told from a character's point of view, containing a clear plot structure (rising and falling action) and being its own reward--that is, the story is told for the sake of the story, not to support a travelogue or satire or sermon. Granted, Richardson skirts the line on the latter.

Agatha Christie was Right and So are Romance Paperbacks

In the recent BBC version of The Mystery of the Blue Train, the rogue husband of the murdered victim does NOT pursue the book's staid, grey-eyed heroine.

He does in the book.

I was disappointed by this alteration and considered it another example of how much the writers of the latest BBC Poirots don't "get" Agatha Christie. Don't get me wrong: I love the series, and some of the movies are pretty good--but like a great deal of television/movies/literary literature in the last decade, the stories are often edited to prevent the rogue from getting the girl.

Which is not in-line with Christie's vision.

It isn't that she was especially devoted to rogues. What makes her so entirely unique (and different from Marsh, who used the same romantic couple over and over and over, and from Sayers, who was only really concerned with one romantic couple) is that she believed in the individuality of love. She was willing to allow (in a very English tolerant way) that every relationship has its own vibe. Sometimes the good guy gets the good gal (4:50 to Paddington). Sometimes the adventurous guy gets the adventurous gal (Cards on the Table). Sometimes a tough strident woman gets a dreamer (Hercule Poirot's Christmas). Sometimes a passionate couple realize that they are actually also friends (Moving Finger). Sometimes the bad husband gets his wife back (Mysterious Affair at Styles). Sometimes the passionate exuberant gal really does want the limp, waffling idiot (Sittaford Mystery). Sometimes the girl-in-love-with-the-aloof-man learns to love someone more compassionate and real (Sad Cypress). Sometimes the taciturn brute gets the matter-of-fact Wren (Taken at the Flood).

And sometimes the rogue gets the princess.

I have found it downright refreshing how much the latter is allowed to happen lately, even in Disney. A perusal of teen fiction will tell you that not only is the rogue alive and well, he is flourishing, and nobody is being apologetic about it. Books like Jane by April Lindner (based on Jane Eyre) and The Hollow Kingdom by Clare Dunkle don't reform the supposed rogue-villain to be the "right kind of guy" but rather use him in all his roguery.

Now, I admit that like many people I find rogues such as stalky Edward somewhat problematic--although my problems with Twilight have always been more about the boringness of the heroine, rather than the bad-boy behavior of America's best-known vampire. However, the plot solution is for the rogue to grow up, not for the rogue to stop being himself.

The wrong solution (the rogue stops being himself or else) was one (of several) mistake made by the Buffy writers towards the end of Buffy's run: Spike is a bad-boy, ooh, we don't want to send the wrong message to teenage girls: Buffy and he mustn't have a real relationship!

Yeah, just check out the fan-fiction and see how well that little message of good behavior went across.

The truth is, a rogue without compassion and loyalty--a Flynn who actually does sail away--would be completely unappealing to any woman/human being (one hopes). But--and this is why the terribly insightful and human and well-lived/well-loved Agatha Christie rises above all other writers--creating a relationship where the gal is completely willing to take on the rogue with all his roguery . . . that works.

The solution is not to make the rogue less masculine or less clever or less edgy or less prone to hit people or less aggressive or less assertive or less insert-quality-usually-associated-with-rogues-and-men but, rather, to create couples that complement (not "compliment," as Bones points out to Booth though that is nice too) each other.

I will grant that not all writers can pull this off. Stalky Edward needs to get a new, more interesting, hobby. But some can. And nobody gets tired of it.

Which is why romance paperbacks will never, ever, ever die.

Ruminating on Animal Experimentation while Reviewing Project X

In keeping with the current list on the Mike-Kate Video Club, I recently watched Project X with Matthew Broderick (two of the films on the list star Broderick: War Games and Ferris Bueller's Day Off).

The movie surprised me, mostly for how much I got invested in the fate of the chimps.

For those of you who don't remember, the plot of Project X is that chimpanzees are being trained to fly machines, then exposed to lethal amounts of radiation to see how much longer they will keep flying. Pilot Jimmy Garrett decides to save a particular chimp, Virgil.

I should state now, upfront, that I am not opposed to animal experimentation. I think it is kind of pointless with things like cosmetics. I think it is downright meritorious with things like cancer research.

I should also state that I have never been a huge fan of anthropomorphizing animals in fiction or real life. In fiction, I run out of interest. In real life, I think it is unfair and disrespectful to the animal. A cat is a cat, not a human in fur. Chimpanzees, no matter how many genes they hold in common with humans, are chimpanzees.

By the way, the respecting-animals-for-being-animals-not-cute-humans ideology doesn't prevent me from eating steak.

So I basically anticipated that Project X would be a long screed about how bad and immoral and evil animal experimentation is blah, blah, blah. (I saw it when I was younger but had forgotten everything except that monkeys--well, chimps--were involved.)

It isn't a long screed. Yeah sure, that message is in there. But the message relies not on stoic idealists spouting their opinions but on the viewer becoming invested in the chimpanzees' fate.

This actually works. I was stunned. I was sad when Goliath died--I think I actually cried. I was worried about the chimps getting away. I wanted them to be free!

This is all due to how the story is told--from the inside out. The audience learns things as Garrett (Broderick) learns and experiences things. He gets interested in teaching Virgil. He sees the radiation test. He is uncomfortable with it. The entire story unfolds as a slow emotional web that gets you invested without telling you to get invested.

The one off-note is when Broderick tries to stop the second test (on Virgil) by breaking in on the head honchos and arguing against it. In terms of plot, the scene makes sense. Garrett isn't put forward as an orator or a protester. He just doesn't want the animal he trained to die.

And he makes the same argument that, what do ya know, Broderick's character made in War Games: "You can't compare the chimps to humans; the chimps will keep flying, but the humans won't because they will know they are going to die."

The first part of this argument is actually correct: You can't compare the reaction of chimps to humans--and a computer model quite frankly would be more effective here (computer models are used instead of animal testing quite often these days).

The second part of the argument is wrong, and it is the one false note in the movie. Well, okay, the sign language and flying-the-plane stuff is a little out there, but the movie establishes those outcomes as givens, so I accept them.

But otherwise, the chimps in the movie actually act just like chimps (and at one point, trash the lab, which is  fun). They act, in other words, like animals rather than humans.

And animals do not do well with stress. Animals do not do well with illness. Animals will die from straight shock and pain.

Humans, on the other hand, can go amazingly heroic things despite extraordinarily adverse conditions because their brains decide that they should. They keep flying because they believe they are protecting something higher (their country). They live longer because they believe they have a purpose. They fight the effects of illness because they don't want others to pay for their mistakes.

Believing that animals should be treated humanely is a civilized belief. But it immediately loses credence when people try to tell me animals are as good as or better than humans. Animals are animals, and if they were ever actually tried by the moral standards of humans, they would all be labeled psychopaths. When a young lion takes over an older lion's pack, he doesn't send the older lion to a retirement home or give it charity antelopes. He basically forces the older lion to starve itself to death.

Okay, put that in human terms and think about how it makes you feel.

Ewwww is the normal reaction.

But as animals, lions--and chimpanzees--can be utterly adorable, and Project X is a well-told story, using adorable (trained) animals, that never forgets to be a story.

I'm starting to think the 1980's has a lot to say for itself in terms of strong film narratives!