THE CHARMING PERECTION OF CRANFORD

The BBC has truly outdone itself with the wonderful production of "Cranford". The triumverate of Judi Dench, Eileen Atkins, and Imelda Staunton makes the series a sheer force of cinematic brilliance. All three of these leading lights prove incandescent, but their luminous talents do not vie for favor--rather, each actress brings her own magic to the performance, and each complements the other wonderfully.

Nor is the skill limited to this trio. The supporting cast is also well-matched, with legends Michael Gambon and Francesca Annis lending their assistance, as well as Simon Woods (whom I recognized from "Rome"), the lovely Lesley Manville ("The Cazalets", "North & South"--the 2nd being another Mrs. Gaskell adaptation), and the darling Claudie Blakely ("Gosford Park", as well as 2005's "Pride & Prejudice"), to name but a few.

Purists may squirm that this film is not a verbatim reproduction of Elizabeth Gaskell's novel of the same name, but incorporates much of that book's plotline as well as those of two of her other works , namely, "Mr. Harrison's Confessions" and "My Lady Ludlow". I found the result of this Gaskellian confluence supremely enjoyable.

Cranford's rural English society of the early 1840s is dominated by a cadre of thoroughly proper ladies, who are the self-appointed arbiters and guardians of local refinement and manners. They are governed by the imperious spinster Miss Deborah Jenkyns (Atkins). Her sister, Miss Mathilda (played by Dame Dench; also an old maid, she is popularly known as Miss Matty--one cringes to envision the result of a person daring to address her sister as "Miss Deb" or, even worse, "Miss DEBBIE") Jenkyns, is more gentle and mild; if Deborah is generally unyielding and stern, her sense of compassion and duty does ingratiate her character to the audience eventually. Miss Pole (Staunton) is easily the grande-dame of the village's gossip circuit and her near-hysterical antics in making certain she is "THE FIRST" to pass along juicy tidbits makes for several laugh-out-loud incidents.

While often lighthearted and amusing, "Cranford" does address more sobering issues, such as the rigorous class structure's inherent refusal to allow a person to better himself. This is best demonstrated by Lady Ludlow's (Annis) disgust at learning her head clerk, Mr. Carter, has taught young Harry Gregson (the son of a local squatter/poacher) to read and write. Literacy, according to Lady Ludlow, is a privilege solely reserved for the upper classes; if the lower orders were to attain it, they would not remember their place.

The imminent arrival of the railway in Cranford is another focal point of the storyline. The majority of the village's citizenry loathe the idea and are terrified of the great changes it will surely herald for them all. Romances, demises, losses of fortune, family squabbles, the bleaching of lace collars, and the manner in which to consume an orange with the greatest degree of propriety [quite seriously--and the results are most amusing!]: "Cranford" affords all this and much more, and will assuredly leave the viewer with a gleeful smile and a full heart.

"Cranford" was released on DVD in the United States May 20, 2008, with a runtime of 291 minutes--both the DVD and the novels on which the series is based are available from the Main Library.

THE WORKS OF J. A. KONRATH

Not everyone enjoys a solidly crafted murder mystery--this is understandable. However, mysteries/thrillers compose a consistently high-demand genre of popular fiction, and as a librarian, I am sometimes asked who I might recommend from among the vast throng of writers from said genre. I will take this opportunity to wholeheartedly endorse J. A. Konrath.

I am a reader of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum franchise, although most of the time I simply cannot digest the credibility of a woman who is so consistently clueless about her work as a bounty hunter. Besides which, as any reader of the Plum novels will tell you, we keep coming back for the shenanigans of Grandma Mazur and Lula. I'm also a serious P. D. James fan: her tortured, completely repressed Scotland Yard Commander, Adam Dalgliesh, is as revered as Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot among devotees of British investigatory mainstays.

Joseph Andrew (who writes as J. A.) Konrath presents a variety of murder mystery titles which make for a pleasant stop-gap between Evanovich's utter fluff and James' more sober prose.

Like so many mystery authors, he has an established central character with a retinue of ancillary figures. His protagonist is Lieutenant Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels, a savvy, world-wise, but compassionate Chicagoan whose career is the driving force of her existence. In her early 40s and divorced, her partner is fifty-something Herb Benedict; her former partner, Harry McGlade, erupts into each novel in the most unwelcome fashion, as his history with Daniels is less than civilized. Phineas Troutt, a shady, quasi-rehabilitated criminal who acts as Jack's inside man on many occasions, rounds out the recurring character list.

While Lieutenant Daniels' personal life is often fraught with comic situations--whether it's her abortive attempts to find (and keep) a man in her life or successfully cope with her elderly (yet quite sexually active) mother visiting her cramped apartment from Florida--Konrath's plots also feature with some very gritty crime writing. Critics have claimed the juxtaposition of the merry, lighthearted banter and zinger-laced repartee that often occurs among the characters with the (sometimes) gore-filled depictions of the villain's atrocious crimes is irreconcilable. This reader finds the blend of the two--pardon the pun--intoxicating: the good guys are credible, heroic crimefighters and the psychopathic serial killers are evil, inhuman monsters. I consider Konrath's brief novels the written equivalent of television's much-lauded (and, at least by this reviewer, deeply revered) "Law & Order" series. Add in the fact that each title is named after a popular cocktail, and I wonder what more a mystery-loving reader could want?

All of Mr. Konrath's titles are available in hardcover and audio CD from the Main Library:

Whiskey Sour (2004)

Bloody Mary (2005)

Rusty Nail (2006)

Dirty Martini (2007)

Fuzzy Navel (2008)

VIVE LA FRANCE

HAPPY BASTILLE DAY!

July 14th is Bastille Day, the national holiday of France. Its name originates from a prison in Paris that held political captives whose philosophies were found abhorrent to the sovereign. On July 14, 1789, a mob stormed the Bastille to liberate the prisoners (there were only 7 captives incarcerated at the time) and collect the large arsenal of weapons stored there. It was a bold move which left no doubt that popular support for the monarchy had all but vanished. Bastille Day is the birthdate of France's contemporary history, marking the death of the ancien regime (the established socio-political order of France that dated from the early Middle Ages), the eventual execution of the King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette, and the abolition of feudalism.

The violence of which Bastille Day was born was nearly replicated in 2002, when then-President Jacques Chirac was almost assassinated by a disgruntled conservative, Maxime Brunerie. The gunshot was a narrow miss, and Bruniere would have made a second attempt had he not been overpowered by fellow spectators at the military review where it occurred.

The Fete Nationale (National Holiday) of France is referred to colloquially as Quatorze Juillet (14th of July), in much the same manner as America's Independence Day is commonly called the 4th of July. Military parades, speeches, and fireworks along the Champs-Elysees in Paris take place on Bastille Day; of note is the fact July 14 also falls in the middle of the Tour de France every year.

The celebration of Bastille Day is not limited to France. Modern nations that were once French colonies--such as Canada, French Guiana, the islands of French Polynesia, Vietnam, and numerous African states, such as Djibouti, the Ivory Coast, Benin, among others--still recognize Bastille Day with myriad forms of celebration. In the United States, the cities of New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Milwaukee, and Seattle all host large celebrations in honor of the holiday.

LEARN MORE ABOUT BASTILLE DAY WITH THESE MAIN LBRARY MATERIALS...

Blood of the Bastille, 1787-1789: From Calonne's Dismissal
to the Uprising of Paris by Claude Manceron, 1989.
944.04 M 311 b


The Oxford History of the French Revolution by William Doyle, 1989.
944.04 D 778 0


The French Revolution: Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite, A & E Home Video, 2005
DVD 944.04 Fre

DAYS AMONG THE DEAD

The American Resting Place: Four Hunded Years of History Through Our Cemeteries and Burial Grounds by Marilyn Yalom; published May 15, 2008, Houghton-Mifflin

What, if anything, does one feel when faced with a cemetery? To some, a burial ground of any sort evokes a shudder and a wish to remain free and clear of its environs. To others, they elicit little to no reaction at all. However, cemeteries do have their devotees, and for them, they are intriguing, interesting, and even beloved sites for any number of reasons. Marilyn Yalom takes the last approach and presents her findings in The American Resting Place.

Over the course of several years, Marilyn and her son, Reid, journeyed across land and sea to exhaustively research American burying grounds--Marilyn wrote the text, Reid took over sixty (remarkable) accompanying photographs of what they'd seen. Besides a show-&-tell of over 250 communities of the dead, The American Resting Place details the history of how and why Americans have interred their deceased for over four centuries.

The earliest European settlers, including both the Spanish in Florida as well as the English Puritans in New England, utilized deaths' heads (skulls) alone in their decoration of America's first tombstones. Besides name and date information, the rare epitaph would typically read as an indictment to the living to remember that death is the inevitable end of us all. Grim, cheerless messages were exactly what graveyards were meant to convey--as a matter of fact, any place where burials occurred was almost exclusively known as a graveyard (or perhaps churchyard) in the U.S. until the 1850s-1860s.

Graveyards typically stood next to churches, although municipal grounds were not unknown, which were placed near a civic building such as a town hall or courthouse. With the population boom of the early 19th century, American cities such as New York and Philadelphia were among the first to actively remove entire graveyards to bucolic settings. Smaller communities followed suit, freeing valuable municipal property and devising greener areas for their dead. Rather than cramped, austere lots found within city limits, rolling fields dotted with lush trees and grandiose funerary monuments rapidly gained popularity. "Cemetery" comes from a Greek word meaning "place of sleep"--the neologistic moniker clearly indicates a shift from dwelling on the severity of death to spotlighting the peaceful, verdant atmosphere of a garden. In the last century, the low-maintenance lawn cemetery made its first appearance, where there are no tombstones at all, only markers set flush with the ground (I personally find these distressingly monotonous). Cremation, which was once strictly taboo as a means of treatment for the dead, has also become a standard option for many people.

Yalom covers a wide spectrum of burial practices from the myriad groups that made their way to America. The Mexican-Americans' zealous observance of the Day of the Dead (November 2) is counterbalanced with the African-American tradition of the Jazz Funeral in New Orleans. She discusses how the deaths' heads gave way to a cherub's winged countenance on tombstones in a further effort to "lighten" cemetery art. While I'd known the urn (especially one sculpted as draped in cloth) is a typical symbol of mourning, I hadn't realized the significance of the broken tree trunk, which stands for a life that has been cut short. I'd also not been aware that, among Jews, the simple act of placing stones on grave markers is a customary way of honoring their dead. The humble Amish burial grounds of Lancaster County are extolled alongside the Roman Catholic cemeteries of the greater Chicago area, which host thousands of elaborate crucifixes and statues of the Virgin Mary and the saints.

Even if you're not particularly prone to amble through cemeteries, this book sheds new light on American burial practices with great aplomb.

Adult Summer Reading Grand Prize

Once again, the Sovereign Center has most generously donated the grand prize for the Adult Summer Reading Program!

This year we are raffling two tickets to see Terry Fator on Sep 25, 2008.

Information on the Sovereign Center event
Terry Fator's Official Site

LEARN MORE ABOUT JULY 4th

"Independence Day: A History of July 4th",
The History Channel, 1997

This is a one-hour program available from the Main Library in videocassette format only (although we will be adding the DVD to our collection in the future, I am certain). Hosted by Harry Smith, "Independence Day" traces the history of America's national holiday, beginning with July 4, 1776, the date when the colonies adopted the Declaration of Independence.

Many colonists at the time of the Revolution were actually against the idea of indpendence, considering themselves loyal Britons, professing complete fidelity to the Crown. Key figures such as John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, who both advocated absolute severance from England before most other Founding Fathers, helped generate support for the cause. While Northern states took to indepenence relatively quickly, the South resisted, as they identified themselves more closesly with the landed gentry of the old country than did their industrialized Yankee neighbors.

The 4th of July became integral to national morale amid the bloody years of the American Revolution, which raged from 1776 through 1781. On July 4, 1777--America's first birthday--the fledgling states witnessed a grand patriotic spectacle in Philadelphia, America's brithplace, with feasting, fireworks, and even a flotilla of ships decked out in the colors of the nation: red, white, and blue. Americans, new to their identity as a sovereign state without an overseas motherland, looked to the natal anniversary of their republic for inspiration and solidarity. In the 19th century, the holiday took on similar importance after the divisive American Civil War (1861-1865), when citizens of all states desperately needed a unifying concept to bring healing after Lee's surrender at Appomatox.

The focus of Independence Day was, for almost a century, on the veterans of the nation's wars. Eighteenth-century festivities placed Revolutionary soldiers in the forefront; the 1800s reserved the honors for Revolutionary veterans as well as those from the War of 1812, the Civil War, and other military incursions. Orations and public addresses by community leaders and politicians were the order of the day following the veterans' parades. However, it was during the 1800s that the social aspect of having Americans gather simply to revel in their position as citizens of the United States began to emerge.

Churches and civic organizations began hosting patriotism programs, with civilians taking place in choral performances featuring national songs, revues reflecting historic events, and similar activities. Families would re-unite far-flung members around July 4th and take part in picnics and campfires. And, of course, the tradition of fireworks,which remains one of the most recognized and eagerly anticipated ways the holiday is celebrated, was introduced as well.

This little program delivers these and other interesting tidbits as to how America's Independence Day has been celebrated throughout our history, and makes for both entertaining and as well as eductional viewing.