• About
  • GCA and the need for funds
  • How to follow Ninevoices
  • Publications
  • Writings

ninevoices

~ Nine writers on reading and writing.

ninevoices

Tag Archives: Rebecca

Homework # 1: Write about a villain you love to hate, or hate to love

24 Friday Apr 2020

Posted by ninevoices in Christine, Ed, Homework, Maggie

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Andrew Scott, Killing Eve, Moriarty, Pride & Prejudice, Rebecca, Sherlock Holmes

  1. Maggie

A Villain from the Pages of Literature : Elizabeth Bennet’s Father

Surely not, you protest? For Mr Bennet of Longbourn is initially an extremely appealing figure. Cultured and educated, we see immediately that he is shackled to a wife seemingly designed to make any man of refinement squirm. While feeling deeply sorry for him, we are amused by his quick wit. By his dry, acerbic humour. And by his frequent retreats from family life into the eighteenth-century man-shed of his study, with its much-loved books and a decanter of the finest Madeira.

We laugh at his waggish humour and at his impatience with what he sees as trivial female concerns:

‘No more lace, Mrs Bennett, I implore you.’

‘If he had any compassion for me, (Mr Bingley) would not have danced half so much! For God’s sake, say no more of his partners. Oh! that he had sprained his ankle in the first dance!’

At the same time, we admire his acute social perception and good humour.

‘For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours and laugh at them, in return.’

Yet this is also a man who is publicly dismissive of his wife, frequently in front of their children and, as we come to know him better, his sarcasm – coldness even – begins to grate. What twenty-first-century wife would not chuck a heavy china ornament at a partner who delivers such careless rejoinders to legitimate concerns about the future of their girls, and what will happen when she and they are eventually evicted from their home?

‘You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.’

‘Let us flatter ourselves. I may be the survivor.’

Eventually, however, considering Wickham’s treatment of the Bennet daughter, Lydia, – seducing a sixteen-year-old and only making an honest woman of her after being handsomely paid off by Darcy – we see how badly his moral compass is skewed:

‘Wickham’s a fool, if he takes her with a farthing less than ten thousand pounds. I should be sorry to think so ill of him, in the very beginning of our relationship.’

Pride and Prejudice, as Jane Austen signals from the beginning, points a beady eye at marriage and how essential mutual respect is to marital happiness. Through dissecting the Bennet’s own shaky partnership – based, we learn, on little more than youthful passion and imprudence – Austen highlights, as evocatively as only she can, the realities of marrying in haste and repenting at leisure.

Disappointment has made Mr Bennet cruel and results in making this reader sigh for the man he might have been, had he either chosen a more compatible wife or made an effort to be more understanding of the fallible woman to whom he has tied himself.

Even Elizabeth, the closest of his daughters to her father, has ‘never been blind to the impropriety of her father’s behaviour as a husband.’ He loves her (being at least prepared to stop a marriage to the ridiculous Collins), and she him, but the soundest lesson he is able to pass on to her is that love alone is rarely enough. And that being a bad father can have dire consequences.

Oh, to be able to create such complex characters as Mr Bennet!

 

—-0000—-

 

2. Ed

The villain speaks

At least that simpering whining little thing has gone to London.   She’s out of my sight, thank goodness – I can’t bear to see her creeping round this house, this lovely mansion that isn’t hers and never will be.  I do get some pleasure in tormenting her and frightening her but that doesn’t make up for the ache I get when I think of the real mistress.

But the master has gone to London with her.  Why does he stick with her?  And why marry her in the first place?  His wife had been dead for only a year.  How could he fall for her in Monte Carlo?  I suppose he was lonely.  Maybe she just happened to be there and simple male desire made him go for her – men are so stupid that way.  But I can’t think that she would satisfy him in that respect – you can’t imagine her doing anything but just lying there and waiting for it to be over.  Now the real mistress, she’d be lively, adventurous, exciting in bed!   I bet she taught the master a thing or two, for all his debonair man-of-the-world appearance.

Was it because this one is so different?  She’s got no spirit: she doesn’t stand up to me, and she lets that overseer Crawley take advantage of her.  Timid, she is – one example: she hasn’t even asked me what happens to all the food that’s not eaten at breakfast – I know she’s curious about that, but she just hasn’t got the nerve to ask!  How feeble.  And when I showed her her writing desk, where she’d be writing her letters – well, the look of dismay on her face!  The real mistress, she had friends in high society, in London, in foreign places, everywhere.  But this one doesn’t know anyone.   No-one to write to.

The master has to see that he’s made a dreadful mistake in trying to bring this one here.  She’ll never take the place of the old mistress in this house.  I’m seeing to that.  I thought I’d managed to drive him away from her at the ball, tricking her into trusting me and wearing the real mistress’s gown: the look on his face, that was magnificent!    The shame, the horror on hers!  I really thought I’d broken them then.

But it didn’t work.  He still seems to want her. She should’ve got rid of me after that.  But she’s not brave enough.  So I’m still here. I’ll have to do something else, something that will drive her out even if it doesn’t make him kick her out.  This may take a little time, I must plan something even better than the ball gown trick.  I know she’s afraid of me, but I’ll become her friend again, then she might be so pleased, I could do anything.  I’ll do nothing for a few weeks, lull her into a false sense of security.  Yes, that’s it.  Be all smiles when they get back, and for a couple of months …

Can I smell burning  … ?

 

—0000—-

 

3. Christine

The trouble with fictional villains is that they don’t always translate to the screen.

Moriarty is a straight bad egg in the books, a moustache-twirling crazy-clever enemy of Sherlock Holmes.  Conan Doyle designed him expressly to meet the need to challenge the ridiculous intellect of Holmes.  We respect and fear Moriarty, but don’t have much in the way of mixed emotions about him….in the books.  Put him on screen, and cast Andrew Scott, and we are confronted with a boyish, gentle psychopath, one with a soft Irish accent and melting eyes…and we kind of want to mother him as well as run away from him.  We see his genius, we admire his suits…we slightly fancy him.  I thought Scott was awful casting when he first appeared, but gradually I grew to adore him.  He wasn’t the villain.  He was the star attraction.  He was hardly a villain at all.

I haven’t read the Villanelle novels that arrived on screen as ‘Killing Eve’.  Perhaps Villanelle is written just as Jodie Comer plays her, but I can’t imagine anyone could get down on paper what Comer does on screen.  She’s the coldest sociopath, who kills on a whim for mischief, in hideous (but often blackly hilarious) ways.  Yet she’s also wonderful, a riot of convincing accents and disguises, who find endless pleasures in life, who is by turns childlike and hostile with her handler Konstantin.  We understand why Eve is so fascinated with her.  We don’t want to be fascinated ourselves, but somehow, appallingly, we are.

But the most unsuccessful translation of a villain from book to screen, for me, remains Daniel Cleaver in Bridget Jones’ Diary.  In the book he’s an out-and-out sh*t.  We feel his villainy ooze from every paragraph.  Dump him, Bridget! we silently implore. Run to Mr Darcy!  But on screen, they had Renee Zellweger forced to choose between Colin Firth and Hugh Grant.  Both utterly butterly, I’m sure we agree.  But Daniel’s charm was supercharged by Grant.  Watching him, I felt I could almost overlook his dishonesty, ruthlessness and lechery.  The producers didn’t think this through. After all,  there’s not much chance any of us will ever need a suitor to spring us from a Thai prison.  But a man who can make us laugh and fancy us because of our Big Pants? A man who makes us feel sexy at all times?

You begin to understand the attraction of Wickham.

Cheering up Man Flu – Londonopolis

02 Tuesday Jan 2018

Posted by ninevoices in Ed, Fiction, History, Reading

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Christmas presents, Daphne du Maurier, East India Company, London, Londonopolis, Man Flu, Martin Latham, Rebecca, William II

I’m reading Londonopolis – A Curious History of London at the moment (thanks to my family for a great Christmas present). The author, Martin Latham, says, “You can read this book in any order, or leave it in the lavatory for the occasional reverie.” I can add another good use for it: silent entertainment for a case of Man Flu. It’s written in easy chunks (chronologically ordered), and so can be picked up and put down as fitfully as the suffering patient desires, with no loss of continuity.

It’s amusing and full of interesting oddities. It encouragingly takes on received historical wisdom: eg William Rufus was actually quite a good King (his Westminster Hall is a masterpiece), and the East India Company was in some respects better than the Raj that replaced it in India, and it had enlightened HR policies here at home (thieving employees would merely be publicly whipped through the street rather than be hanged or transported to the colonies). The illustrations are fun. While reading this the invalid won’t be plaintively and feebly calling to his devoted nurse for more lemon tea or more pillows or fewer pillows.

I was reading Daphne du Maurier’s excellent Rebecca (a 2016 Christmas present!), but felt that if I was already feeling sorry for myself that book’s atmosphere of tension and worry was hardly going to help. So Rebecca is on hold. Better something quirky that brings a smile.

There’s a fuller review of Londonopolis on the Turbulent London website, at https://turbulentlondon.com/2016/02/11/book-review-londonopolis-a-curious-history-of-london/.

Nasty germs apart, a Happy New Year to all ninevoices’ readers!

The Opening Chapter

06 Wednesday Dec 2017

Posted by ninevoices in Ed, Fiction, Read Lately, Writercraft

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Balloons, Daphne du Maurier, Enduring Love, Ian McEwan, M40, Rebecca, Vicar of Dibley

The opening chapter – it must really work, we’re taught. Maybe it’s the bit a potential agent would read. Maybe it’s the bit that a browser in a bookshop will look at. Maybe it’s the bit that will make a reader decide whether to carry on reading …

One of the most exciting opening chapters I’ve read is that of Enduring Love by Ian McEwan. This was recommended by our creative writing tutor, and as soon as I read it I could see why. Its dramatic account of a balloon ride gripped me. I think of it every time I drive down the escarpment on the M40 where it’s set (going towards Oxford, near Stokenchurch – as in the film shown during the opening credits of ‘The Vicar of Dibley’). Curiously, after that amazing start, the subject matter of the rest of the book drifts away from balloons. But that opening definitely made me read on.

The opening chapter of the book I’m reading now, Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, is another Must Read On one. Its description of the abandoned and overgrown Manderley is all the more evocative as it’s a dream, and reads with all the mystery and menace that a dream can have.

What opening chapters stay in your memory?

‘The Birds’

02 Sunday Nov 2014

Posted by ninevoices in Ed, Fiction, Horror, Inspiration, Reading, Stories

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Daphne du Maurier, Fear, Great Novels, Lighthouses, Rebecca, The Birds

Talking of lighthouses: – a week or so ago my wife and I were on the coastal walk near Fowey in Cornwall and rested at the old lighthouse at the top of the hill called Gribbin Head. There we read a plaque stating that not only were we near Menabilly, said to be the real Manderley in Rebecca, but that it was in the very area we were then standing in that Daphne du Maurier got the inspiration for The Birds. How interesting, we thought, and then noticed the seagulls circling above us. Us. They kept circling. Let’s press on, we thought. We pressed on.

Subscribe

  • Entries (RSS)
  • Comments (RSS)

Archives

  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • July 2014
  • April 2014
  • February 2014
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013

Categories

  • 2017 Hysteria Writing Competition
  • Adventure
  • Agents
  • Alan Bennett
  • Amazon Self-Publishing Award
  • Art
  • audiobooks
  • Authors
  • Autobiography
    • Claire Tomalin
    • Stephen King
  • Barbara Pym
    • A Glass of Blessings
  • BBC1
  • Bestsellers
  • Biography
  • Book etiquette
  • Books for Christmas
  • Bookshops
  • Bridport Longlist Published
  • Cecily
  • challenge
  • Characters
  • Children's books
  • Christopher Fielding
  • Classics
  • clergy
  • Collaboration
  • Colm Tóibín
  • Comedy
  • Coming up
  • Competition
  • Competition Win
  • Competition Winners
  • Competitions to Enter
  • Crime
  • criticism
  • Dame Hilary Mantel, Reith Lectures 2017, Historical Fiction
  • Dialogue
  • Drama
  • eBooks
  • Elizabeth Gaskell
  • Exeter Novel Prize
  • Factual writing
  • Fame
  • feedback
  • Festivals
  • Film
  • Finding an Agent
  • Finishing that novel
  • Forty-six years
  • Fowey Festival Adult Short Story Competition. Daphne du Maurier
  • Genres
  • Getting down to it
  • Getting Published
  • Girls Gone By Publishers
  • Good Housekeeping Novel Competition
  • Grammar
  • Halloween Writing Competition
  • Heard lately
  • heroes
  • heroines
  • Historia
  • Historical
  • Historical Novels
    • book reviews
  • History
  • Homework
  • Horror
  • How to Write a Short Story
  • Humour
  • Hystyeria 6
  • Ideas
  • Imagery
  • Imagination and the Writer
  • Inspiration
  • Jane Austen
  • Jane Austen House Museum
  • L. M. Montgomery
  • Laptops and Coffin Lids
  • Location
  • Lockdown
  • Maggie
  • Management
  • manuscript services
  • Margaret Kirk
  • Marketing
  • McKitterick Prize
  • Memoir
  • Military
  • Mslexia
  • Mslexia Writer's Diary
  • Myslexia Magazine
  • Mystery
  • Mythology
  • Newly Published
  • Newly Published Author
  • News
    • Competitions
    • Obituary
  • Ninevoices
    • Anita
    • Christine
    • Ed
    • Elizabeth
    • Jane
    • Maggie
    • Sarah
    • Tanya
    • Valerie
  • Ninevoices' winning short story
  • Observations
    • Grammar
    • Words
  • On now
  • Orion Publishing
  • Our readers
  • Plot
  • PMRGCAuk
  • Poetry
  • Police Procedurals
  • Publish Your Book
  • Publishing
  • Punctuation
  • Puppy Dogs
  • radio
  • Read Lately
    • Articles
    • Books
  • Reading
  • rejection
  • religion
  • Research
  • reviews
  • RNA Learning Programme
  • Romance
  • Romantic Novelists' Association
  • Sarah Dawson
  • Satire
  • Science fiction
  • Seamus Heaney
  • Seen lately
  • Shadow Man
  • Short stories
  • Short Story Competition
  • Social Media
  • Spelling
  • Sport
  • Spotlight Adventures in Fiction
  • Structure
  • Style
  • submissions
  • Synopsis Writing
  • Technology
  • Television
  • The Bridport
  • The Bridport, Lucy Cavendish, Bath, Yeovil, Winchester
  • The Daily Mail Crime Novel Competition
  • The Impostor Syndrome
  • The Jane Austen House Museum
  • The London Magazine Novel Competition, Henshaw Press, Writing Magazine, Writers' Forum
  • The Mirror & the Light
  • The Servant, Getting Published
  • The Times
  • Theatre
  • Thomas Hardy
  • Thrillers
  • Translation
  • Travelling hopefully
  • Uncategorized
  • Valerie
  • villains
  • Vocabulary
  • Volunteering
  • War
  • Websites
  • Westerns
  • Windsor Fringe Kenneth Branagh Award for New Drama Writing
  • Winning Competitions
  • Winning Writing Competitions
  • Wolf Hall
  • Words
  • Writercraft
  • Writerly emotions
  • Writers' Forum
  • Writers' groups
  • Writing
    • Column
    • Drama
    • Fiction
    • Poetry
    • Stories
  • Writing Competitions to Enter
  • Writing conventions
  • Writing games
  • Writing Historical Fiction
  • Yeovil First Novel Competition

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • ninevoices
    • Join 3,915 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • ninevoices
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...