Hath Not Thy Rose a Thorn?*

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 You might say that Kate, the main character in my current novel, is a "thorny" woman. She's angry, impatient, and quick to take offense, and at first, maybe a little hard to like. Her thorns keep people from getting too close to her, which is how she likes it. Because she's been hurt, she protects herself by throwing out some pretty sharp barbs. In the course of the story, she grows and changes; in fact, she blooms. She remains a strong woman, but a much less angry one. (And not completely thorn-free--that's what makes her interesting!) I struggled with developing the character of Kate, because conventional wisdom says a main character has to be likable for readers to engage with her. The choice of pronoun here is deliberate. I suspect most readers, male and female alike, have a much easier time accepting an angry guy as a hero than an angry woman as a heroine. Our cultural expectations run deep and run strong, and that's a hard tide to fight against. We love our cold Mr. Darcys and our mean Mr. Rochesters because we know that underneath they are basically good men with loving hearts. As readers, we give these characters a chance--sometimes for hundreds of pages--before they justify themselves in the eyes of readers. We watch their characters unfold and reveal themselves worthy, not only of our time, but of the heroines they love. We appreciate their sweetness because of, not in spite of, their thorny natures. (By the way, did it occur to anyone else that Mr. Rochester's home is actually called Thornfield? Gotta love serendipity.) As readers, we embrace male characters who are--dare I say it?--prick-ly. And what's good for the hero ought to be good for the heroine as well.

♥ ♥ ♥

*Wm. Shakespeare

Will the Real Will Shakespeare. . .

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please stand up? (Please stand up.)

Having just finished Stacy Schiff's astonishing biography of Cleopatra, it occurs to me that we know much more about an ancient queen who lived 2000 years ago than we do about the much-closer-in-history William Shakespeare. It's easy to parrot the myths and half-truths: he was gay or bisexual; he had a mistress (or mister) in London; he played the role of Hamlet's ghost on stage; he was caught poaching on a wealthy man's estate; he didn't actually write the plays. Just for the record, I'm a staunch Stratfordian--I believe he certainly did write the plays--but I won't be touching that discussion with a ten-foot jousting pole.

But I am fascinated by our contemporary re-imaginings of a man who is, apart from his words, practically unknowable. In Kathryn Johnson's The Gentleman Poet, the author imagines Shakespeare as a passenger on a ship that sets sail for Virginia but ends up shipwrecked in Bermuda--thereby providing the inspiration for The Tempest.

                                                                                                  

Johnson's Shakespeare is a cagey personality with possibly Catholic sympathies in a Protestant realm. He's prickly, temperamental, and highly sensitive to criticism about his work, but reveals a sentimental streak towards the young protagonist, Elizabeth. And while a fascinating character, he isn't quite the Will I imagine.

On the other end of the spectrum is Shakespeare's film persona as portrayed by Joseph Fiennes in Shakespeare in Love. Fiennes' Will is young, ardent, and passionate; both lover and artist, he's a soulful Renaissance hottie who ends up playing his own creation, Romeo, on the stage of the Globe.

And while I love this movie to no end, I have a hard time believing in Fiennes' Will. I'd like to, but I suspect the real Shakespeare poured nearly all of his passion into his work, and was a cooler, shrewder, and much more pragmatic figure than the one Fiennes gives us.

Come September, we'll see yet another interpretation of the Bard in Roland Emmerich's Anonymous, a movie that sets the authorship question against the backdrop of Elizabethan political intrigue. The movie posits Edward de Vere as the "true" author of the works, with Shakespeare providing a handy cover identity.

Let me just say that this movie goes against everything I believe about my literary hero. But I still can't wait to see it.

♥ ♥ ♥

The Duchess of Dork

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I established my dorkdom at a young age. The summer I was ten, I spent every day reading. Every day. While my sister and best friend whizzed by on their bikes to find adventure, I sat in a lawn chair out in front of my house with my nose buried in my latest book. Carolyn Keene provided enough adventure for me, thank you very much. One day a neighbor walked over and in hushed tones asked my mother if I was sick. "No," my mom said, "that's just Rosemary."

I found out the hard way that not everyone embraced dorkitude with quite the same fervor as I, guys in particular. I distinctly remember sitting around one day in high school with a group of girls and guys, one of whom was my crush at the time. We were sharing our future dreams, and I started rhapsodizing about living on a windswept coast in New England, in a big white house just like the one in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. I described a quaint little town with a big library full of dusty old books. When I stopped for breath, I noticed my crush looking at me with a blank face. "That's your idea of fun?" he said. Clearly, there was no future for us. As a brand new teacher, one of the first things I did when I got my paycheck was to become a member of my local PBS station, and proudly sported my Channel Thirteen totebag each morning as I walked in the door. One day a male co-worker pointed to it, saying, "You know what that bag says? That bag says I don't want to get laid any time soon. " Ouch.

Further evidence of Dork-O-Rama:

 On a trip to London back in the 80s, I made my husband rent a car so he could drive me to Chawton so I could tour Jane Austen's house. Before it was cool, I might add. Did I mention it was our honeymoon? One of a multitde of reasons I know I married the Right Guy.

I have a collection of Great Women in Literature magnets. The Masterpiece Theatre music gives me goosebumps. I read Middlemarch every year. I have a Will Shakespeare action figure. (Complete with First Folio!) A Room of One's Own makes me cry. And there can never be enough costume dramas for me. If it's got corsets and great coats, I'm there.

 Those of you who rule dorkdoms of your own know what exactly what I'm talking about. Sadly, there are those who never will. But I don't have time to think about them right now--there's a lawn chair outside with my name on it.

♥ ♥ ♥

The Accidental Gardener

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I wouldn't say I have a brown thumb, but it's definitely a sickly yellow. In general, I neglect house plants to the point of death, and my husband coaxes them back to miraculous life. (And I dearly hope this is not a metaphor for our parenting.) I periodically plant fall bulbs, only to find them sprouting somewhere the squirrels thought more aesthetically pleasing. I buy perennials from catalogs or the local garden center, put them in and pray they return the following season. When they do, I am invariably surprised:

However, this does not mean that in spring I am not surrounded by colorful and healthy bloom. They just happen to have been planted by someone else. The beautiful purple flowers pictured at the top of this post hang over my back fence, where I enjoy them as much as if they were planted on my side.

Lining my driveway are four dogwoods currently in full bloom, courtesy of Darling Husband. Despite the width of my driveway, I did manage to tear some smaller branches from one of the trees one day as I was backing out. (Sorry, honey.)

And today, my beloved spouse presented me with this for Mother's Day:

His faith his touching, is it not?

♥ ♥ ♥

Southern Exposure

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                                                                                           My college roommate was from south Jersey, a foreign and exotic land where people call sub sandwiches "hoagies," pronounce "coffee" as CAH-FEE (when everyone knows it's CAW-FEE), make obscure references to "Pineys," and root for the Phillies. When they refer to "the city," they mean Philadelphia. (We say "the city" and we mean the real one.) Though we spent a lot of time making fun of each other's accents, we had two important things in common--classic films (see previous post) and a love of the Jersey shore. In the summers I sometimes visited with her and her family in Stone Harbor, my first experience with the south Jersey beaches. Quieter, less crowded, and without the carnival atmosphere of some of the places I was used to, I came to appreciate towns like Avalon, Margate, Ocean City, and of course, Cape May, which will get a well-deserved post of its own. So if your idea of the Jersey Shore comes from a certain reality television show, you need to take a long drive down Parkway South, where the exit numbers are lower, the sand is whiter, and the people are really friendly. Even if they don't tawk like we do.

♥ ♥ ♥

Here to Stay: An American in Paris

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On Saturday night I watched An American in Paris and two days later I'm still hearing Gershwin's jazz riffs in my head, still listening to the swelling strains of "Our Love is Here to Stay," and still wondering how Gene Kelly manages to make ankle-length pants, white socks and black shoes terribly, terribly sexy.

 I'm not generally a fan of the Techicolor era of movie musicals--I'm a diehard Astaire/Rogers gal--but I'm a sucker for this film. Kelly's character, Jerry Mulligan, is an ex-GI turned starving artist on the streets of Paris after WWII. Leslie Caron is Lise, a lovely shop girl with a secret. On first glance, the two don't seem to be much of a match. Until of course, they dance together.   While the film is best known for its wordless 17 minute ballet sequence at the end, for me it will always be defined by one number: the courtship dance to "Our Love is Here to Stay." Kelly is attempting to woo the resistant Caron, who leans shyly against a wall. But once the violins start, Kelly pulls her into a gentle embrace, and the two begin a balletic exchange that is at once sinuous and chaste. And while Caron is a delicate and nuanced dancer, it's Kelly who blows you away. Fleet-footed, graceful, athletic, and undeniably masculine. No matter how many grand jetes he executes, you never for a moment forget he's a guy. (Dance training tends to build muscle in rather interesting ways.)  I hadn't seen this movie in years before Saturday night, and as this dance began I actually let out an audible sigh. Just for a second, I felt as though I were dancing along the banks of the Seine. And it occurred to me that a good dance is a lot like a well-written love scene, with two people who dance around each other before they finally connect in the most satisfying of ways. A scene that builds to certain heights and then quietly falls. A scene that pulls the reader into a world she wishes she could inhabit, even if it's only for a couple of hours.

♥ ♥ ♥

Happy Feet

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Well, the thermometer hit 70 in Jersey yesterday, so it was time to break them out. Note the eye-pleasing fuschia color, the tropical design with its splashes of green and orange, and the pale lilac straps that are an exact match for the color on my toenails. And they're pretty comfy for a new pair; my toes are managing quite nicely after months of sweaty hibernation in dark socks. These two small pieces of rubber and plastic bring the promise of cool mornings and hot afternoons. Of feet propped up against the porch railing, and trips across the hot sand until the moment they can finally be kicked off and rinsed in the surf. And every step I take in them brings me that much closer to the summer that's out there waiting. Happiness at only $4.99.

♥ ♥ ♥

Mary, Mary, and Me

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My stories all seem to feature grandmothers. Given that my own were so strong a presence in my own life, I think it's my way of keeping them with me. Both my grandmothers were named Mary, but two more different women you could not imagine.    One Mary was tall, big-boned, the kind of woman people termed "handsome." She started going gray in her thirties, but never dyed her hair. No matter what drama was enfolding around her, she kept her counsel and her cool. She suffered the losses of her husband and oldest son with a strength and grace I've never seen in another person.

Because she came to this country as a baby, she grew up without an accent, and Americanized herself with great success. I spent the first year of my life under her roof, and growing up, I felt extremely close to her. I have fond memories of trips to the five and dime store and the Grand Union, and I remember her endless patience as she attempted (unsuccessfully) to teach me to knit. When I got my first job, I used to go to her house on a weekly basis to do my laundry and have dinner with her. She's been gone for nearly two decades now, and I'm grateful that she lived long enough to know my oldest son.

My other Mary was pretty, petite, and unapologetically vain about her appearance--a trait I seemed to have inherited, along with her facial structure. Sharp-witted and sharp-tongued, she was unafraid to speak her mind. She was also a gifted seamstress. If you can get past the polyester, take a close look at the dress she's wearing in the top photo. Note the cute collar and the unusual seaming--her design, as were all her clothes. She made me every dance costume I ever wore, and mine were always the envy of the other girls! In many ways, I think she was a woman out of her time. She worked her whole married life, and once confessed to my aunt that she had always wanted to learn fashion design, but never had the money to go to school. It was from her I learned to sew, as well as to appreciate good tailoring. She retained her accent, her hair color, and her sassy attitude until the day she died--at the age of 102, by the way. I hope I've inherited her longevity as well. When I look at that picture above, I get a pretty good sense of what I'll look like in about 15 years. I could do worse.

I feel that Nature has played a cruel trick on me. As a middle-aged woman myself, I've come to appreciate my grandmothers in ways I never did as a young woman. I have so many questions I'll never be able to ask them, and so much to tell them in return.  In the meantime, I'll give my characters their nonnas. But I'll never stop missing my own.

                                                                                           ♥ ♥ ♥