Shakespeare Retold

I recently discovered a 2005 BBC show called Shakespeare Retold. Has anyone else seen this? It’s so much fun! There are four episodes, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Macbeth, and The Taming of the Shrew. 

Each one is an hour and a half modern re-telling of one of Shakespeare’s plays. They all have a unique twist, for example Macbeth is set in the kitchen of a fancy restaurant where everyone wants to be the head chef instead of the king.

The casts of each episode are incredible! James McAvoy, Imelda Staunton, Damian Lewis, Billie Piper, Richard Armitage, Rufus Sewell, it’s a who’s who of British actors.

The thing I love about them is that it’s one more example of how Shakespeare’s plays are still incredibly relevant. His themes of jealousy, ambition, love, etc. never become dated and can be reworked in any time period. Just as other modern versions like 10 Things I Hate About You, The Lion King and West Side Story have shown, the stories work today just as they did then.

I watched them through Netflix, I’m not sure where else they are available, but check them out if you get the chance.

**p.s. I can’t wait to see Joss Whedon’s version of Much Ado About Nothing!

Vanity Fair Readalong: Ten Reasons Why You Should Do It!

Get excited people! Trish of Love, Laughter, and a Touch of Insanity and I are going to start reading Vanity Fair in the middle of February. So Happy Valentine's Day to all of you. Here are the top ten reasons you should read it with us!

1) Charlotte Bronte dedicated the second edition of Jane Eyre to William Makepeace Thackeray, seriously! 

2) It's on the list of 1,001 Books to Read Before You Die list 

3) Stanley Kubrick wanted to make a film version of it in the 1970s. Weird. 

4) The BBC's Big Read poll listed it as one of the "Nation's Best-loved Novel" in 2003. 

5) Trish is awesome and she's co-hosting with me! 

6) It has a magazine named after it. 

7) It was published in 1847 so it qualifies for any Victorian or 19th Century reading challenges you may have committed to. 

8) The hashtag is #YoureSoVain 

9) The author's middle name is Makepeace, which is a pretty sweet name. As in, make peace with the fact that you're going to do this readalong!

10) You know you want to do it and it will be super laid back (no weekly check-ins).

We will be starting February 15th, checking in once in the middle on March 1st and posting our final thoughts on March 15th. That's about as easy and simple as it gets! 

I hope you join in the fun! We'll have an official Linky post up on February 15th when we start. 

Bleak House

Bleak House
by Charles Dickens
★★★★

If Dickens was on facebook, my relationship with him would be “It’s Complicated.” After a decade of reading his books I feel like I’ve developed an appreciation and love for his work. I read and enjoyed Christmas Carol and Tale of Two Cities, but I really didn't like Oliver Twist. Great Expectations and David Copperfield were the turning point for me. I adored both of those books and I think because of that, my hopes for Bleak House were incredibly high.

I was extremely excited about Bleak House, it’s often called Dicken’s masterpiece. Even the name is gothic and mysterious and it has Dicken’s only female narrator. But I should have remembered that Dicken’s work was originally printed in monthly installments in the paper and he was paid by the word. This beast clocks in at more than 1,000 pages.

I made a major mistake when I read Bleak House. I was reading Moby Dick and Cloud Atlas at the same time. Both of those books are a lot to process on their own without adding in the wordy Mr. Dickens and his 702 characters and their crazy names! If I’d focused only on Bleak House and I think I would have enjoyed it more. The plot is so convoluted and I felt like I was trying to keep everyone straight for the whole first half of the book. The plot grew on me once I had a chance to get to know a few of the characters.

Like all good Dickens novels there is a huge cast with intertwining story lines. There are orphans and rich people, lawyers and lords. It’s hard to jump right into these books because you really have to get to know everyone first. It takes such a long time to figure out who everyone is and really get into the story.

The whole book revolves around a complicated court case called Jarndyce v Jarndyce that has stretched on for decades. There has been no resolution; people have gone broke and committed suicide over the case after hanging their hopes on its outcome and hoping they would inherit the massive fortune.

Half of the book focuses on the wealthy Lady Deadlock and her elderly husband. She lives an unhappy life, filled with secrets, in the old mansion called Chesney Wold. We bounce back and forth between an omniscient narrator who tells her story and the character of Esther, who narrates in the first person.

The book’s second plot line involves Ada and Richard, cousins who are both wards of the case. Their fates and fortunes are unknown until the case is resolved. Esther is a young woman who has been raised by her aunt. A man named John Jarndyce decides to take Ada and Richard into his home and he hires Esther as a companion for Ada.

All of that and I haven’t even touched on half the characters! There’s the mysterious Nemo, manipulative Tulkinghorn, the Jellyby family with their distracted mother and sweet daughter Caddy, Lady Deadlock’s crazy maid Hortense, Mr. Snagsby, combustible Krook, loyal George, wonderful Allan Woodcourt, Esther’s maid Charley, Inspector Bucket and more! Obviously I wasn't kidding when I said this novel had an overload of characters and subplots.

SPOILERS

At first I had some serious issues with the main characters. Esther was just a bit too nice and accommodating. She sounds a bit like Jane Eyre whenever we read chapters that she’s narrating, but she doesn’t have the same spunk or view of self-worth. I wanted her to stand up for herself or decide to pursue something that she loved. The moments I liked her best were the ones where she held someone else (like Mr. Skimpole) accountable for their actions.

Richard was just hopeless, why wouldn’t he give up the case! It was so distressing to watch him waste away as he threw his money towards the case. I wanted so badly for him to understand that his life was with Ada and she was worth so much more than the case.

Mr. Skimpole was captain creepy pants with his “I’m just a child” nonsense and I wanted to smack him in the face. People like that are just the worst. I love how Dickens can create such wonderful villains, sometimes they are evil because they are weak and devious, instead of being outright bad people. Mr. Guppy was another odd one. He believed he fell in love at first sight, but it was really just a shallow infatuation that brought out his stalker qualities.

The entire Jarndyce v Jarndyce fortune was eaten up by court costs just as they finally figured out who the money was going to go to. I couldn’t believe it when that happened! I was shocked when Esther got smallpox too. There were all these major plot points that caught me off guard and I really liked that.

I thought Esther was going to end up with her guardian until the very last moment and I was pissed! I am so glad it didn’t turn out that way or I might have hated it.

Oh yeah, someone dies of spontaneous combustion… seriously. I was a bit surprised by that.

SPOILERS OVER

BOTTOM LINE: I think this is one that will undoubtedly benefit on a reread. After I got through the first third I really enjoyed it, but it was much tougher than most of the Dicken’s I’ve read up to this point. If you’re thinking about dipping into his work, don’t start here. I would recommend reading Great Expectations or David Copperfield and seeing if they work for you.

Dickens builds wonderful stories and gives readers some of the best characters (both good and bad) that they’ll ever encounter. I know that I’ll continue to work through his catalogue and I’ll reread this one in a few years.

SIDE NOTE: I would highly recommend the 2005 BBC miniseries of Bleak House. I watched it after finishing the novel and it was excellent.

The Doctor

Hello my name is Melissa and I’m a Whovian. (Insert loud chorus of “Hi Melissa.”)

When I was growing up I occasionally watched the old Doctor Who with my Dad. I heard about the reboot a few years back, but for some reason I never checked it out. Then a lovely friend prompted me to watch it and (thank goodness) I finally did.

I’m a complete addict now. I dare you to watch the entire first and second season and not fall in love with the characters. Yes, there are aliens and end of the world attacks, but the show is really about people and the complicated relationships they have (no matter what planet they are from).

The man who plays the doctor changes every few seasons and David Tennant is far and away my favorite. He’s clever and funny and yet he can break your heart with a glance. He also has companions that travel around with him, but each one never last more than a few seasons. That keeps the show interesting because the chemistry is always changing and it stays fresh. I adored Rose, but Donna is my favorite because she’s so sassy. It took me a minute to warm up to her, but once I did I was a fan for life. She’s not a love interest for the Doctor, she’s his best friend and she provides a much needed balance to his life.

The writers never shy away from difficult issues or plot twists. They are always trying new things and surprising their audience. They create such memorable characters and then continue to grow their stories even when they aren’t series regulars anymore.

A few things I didn’t realize when I started the series:

1) Doctor Who is freaking hilarious. It has that wonderful dry British sense of humor that I’m so fond of.
2) The Harry Potter movies are like a Who’s Who of the people who have guest starred on Doctor Who.
3) Even if they weren’t in HP, if they are a British actor, they’ve probably made a guest appearance.
4) The show has a fierce and faithful following, many of whom are incredibly creative and have awesome etsy shops.

Some of my favorite episodes:

1) The Empty Child
2) Love & Monsters
3) Doomsday
4) Human Nature/The Family of Blood
5) Blink
6) Silence in the Library
7) Turn Left
8) Journey's End
9) The End of Times Part 1 and 2
10) Vincent and the Doctor
11) The Big Bang
12) A Christmas Carol
13) The Day of the Moon
14) The Doctor's Wife
I may be late to the party, but I’m glad I’m finally here. Any other Whovians out there?

Awesome images from here, here and here.

BBC Book List

So I've been seeing this list everywhere, like at Wicked Wonderful Words and Chasing Bawa and I love lists, so I couldn't resist.

The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. How incredibly depressing is that?

Put an 'x' after those you have read. Unless I counted wrong, I've read 71.75 (I'm counting the 3/4 of Shakespeare's complete works that I've read).
 
*UPDATED 1/5/16
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen [X]
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien [X]
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte [X]
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling [X]
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee [X]
6 The Bible [X]
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte [X]
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell [X]
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman [X]
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens [X]
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott [X]
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy [X]
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller [X]
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare [about 3/4]
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier [X]
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien [X]
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk [X]
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger [X]
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger [X]
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot [X]
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell [X]
22 The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald [X]
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens [X]
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [X]
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams [X]
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh [X]
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky [X]
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck [X]
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll [X]
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame [X]
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy [X]
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens [X]
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis [X]
34 Emma-Jane Austen [X]
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen [X]
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis [X]
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini [X]
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres [X]
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden [X]
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne [X]
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell [X]
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown [X]
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez [X]
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving [X]
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins [X]
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery [X]
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy [ ]
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood [X]
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding [X]
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan [X]
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel [X]
52 Dune - Frank Herbert [ ]
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons [X]
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen [X]
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth [ ]
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos RuIz Zafon [X]
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens [X]
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley [X]
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon [X]
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez [ ]
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck [X]
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov [X]
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt [X]
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold [X]
65 The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas [X]
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac [X]
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy [X]
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding [X]
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie [ ]
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville [X]
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens [X]
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker [X]
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnet [X]
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson [X]
75 Ulysses - James Joyce [ ]
76 The Inferno – Dante [X]
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome [X]
78 Germinal - Emile Zola []
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray [X]
80 Possession - AS Byat [X]
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens [X]
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell [X]
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker [X]
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro [X]
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert [X]
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry [ ]
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White [X]
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom [X]
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [X]
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton [ ]
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad [X]
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery [X]
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks [ ]
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams [X]
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole [X]
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute [ ]
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas [X]
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare [X]
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl [X]
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo [X]

Photo by moi.