The Faraway Tree

Impossibility, originally uploaded by Princess Crazyhair.

For Illustration Friday.

Dusk, originally uploaded by Princess Crazyhair.

My second submission for the Illustration Friday Topic ‘Fleeting’.

An older drawing, submitted now because I’m on holidays away from my scanner!

I have an old story idea still percolating about strange personified ideas. One of the characters – probably minor – is Dusk. One of the main characters, I know, is her sister Dawn. But after that the family tree gets complicated and I can’t decide their parentage. I know Lady Night is their mother, but I could go with Lord Day as their father or – cooler, I think – with The Lord of the Verges. He has charge of beginnings and endings, and the division between things. Things will get fun in the story if I can turn the main character into someone interesting, so we can hurry up and go *meet* people like the Heartbreaker. Sigh. One day!

Luthien Tinuviel, originally uploaded by Princess Crazyhair.

For Illustration Friday, Topic: ‘Fleeting’.

An illustration I did for ‘The Song of Beren and Luthien’ by JRR Tolkien.

An older drawing, submitted now because I’m on holidays away from my scanner!

I do like this one, so I’m glad to use it. I had to darken it from the original – it was too light for the scanner to pick up the detail easily.

The poem is below. (more…)

I love Elizabeth Gaskell. She is halfway between Dickens and Austen: her stories having some of, but not dominated by, the former’s darkness and melodrama, and the latter’s witty character observation, frivolity and social commentary. The plot and style of Cranford most resembles the realism of Middlemarch, by George Elliot, if you have read it (well worth the effort).

There was a cow in pyjamas and a cat which eats lace. There was also death, unpleasant fates and confronting medical procedures. There were some hilarious — and I mean better-than-Austen hilarious — conversations between the gossiping biddies. Every character was so well-drawn.

There were some amazing women. Almost the whole story, it seems, was about women, and there are a few standout characters I found myself thinking of, “Oh, how modern of Gaskell!” The casting was flawless and the acting unparalleled. Of course people like Michael Gambon, Imelda Staunton and Dame Judy Dench could not fail to be perfect, but honestly! You watch Judy Dench and forget that it’s her. She’s mind-boggling! And of course, *everyone* else in it we’ve seen before, in other period pieces. Even the child character was amazingly acted. A couple of the male characters (one of whom was much over sixty if he was a day) made quite charming beaus and admirable characters. I have a special regard for the character played by Philip Glenister, of Life on Mars fame.

Even so, with all this to commend it, and the special historical merit it has (I love Victorian history, especially as regards daily life and women), my personal taste runs more to the sweeping love stories than to observations of whole towns. Therefore, it didn’t quite catch me like North and South did, which balanced one love story with one issue. I found there were so many stories and so many fascinating characters – and that most (90%) of them were women – removed some of the intensity of the individual love stories, comedies and tragedies occurring throughout. Maybe this would be different in the book. Apparently it’s based on THREE books by Gaskell.

Having said that, I can’t think of one character I’d have liked to see less of, or could even justify seeing more of at the expense of another: it was well balanced and I loved so many of them, and all the plot lines, that I wish a story could have been made about them all individually. But that is not possible, and would entirely defeat the purpose of the story, which was to observe the mechanics of an insular society run by the gossip of single women and their ideas of society and morality; and to show that community on the very cusp of change which terrified them.

Also, the two spinster sisters are acted by people who strongly resemble – and who should rightly act – Terry Pratchett’s Discworld characters Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg. (Yes, you heard me right. Dame Judy Dench is my prime candidate to play Nanny Ogg. Her character, is wholly different in Cranford. But it struck me that she has the face and the ability to carry it off marvelously.)

PS. I also watched Amazing Grace for the first time the other night. Wonderful!

Talisman, originally uploaded by Princess Crazyhair.

For the Illustration Friday Theme ‘Talisman’.

One interest of mine is the issue of religious freedom around the world.

I don’t mean for the necklace to be an actual talisman, but the thing it represents. Such an item is most often a luxury nobody in a restricted nation can afford to be seen with.