Author Archives: Janet Mullany

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Updated on November 29, 2007 by Janet Mullany

It’s here. It’s begun.

My extended family officially voted this year to exchange gifts, much to my dismay. We’d escaped unscathed for a few years–gifts for kids only–although the number of rule-breakers over the years has increased. Last year I was on deadline and didn’t even do any baking; we came more-or-less empty-handed and left staggering under the weight of guilt and loot.

The subject came up in today’s Cary Tennis article in Salon, when someone wrote in bemoaning the fact that kids today (oh does that ever make me feel like the old fart I am)–and some adults too–only want cash and gift certificates. While I find his response inexplicably silly (it’s all our fault as representatives of today’s materialist society) I loathe the idea of both because then the recipients know exactly how much I spent. I’d far rather buy something spectacular, unusual, and dirt cheap (ebay, here I come). But what do you get for the nieces and nephews you see only a few times a year and who you really don’t know? Or the adults who have everything? (My solution may well be Heifer International, a nonprofit I’m very fond of.)

Now I can’t delegate this to my husband, who, once when his workplace had a gift exchange of socks–a foolproof idea, you would have thought–gave a pair of socks that were not only used but stained (oh okay, they had some sort of heating element in them so they were special and oh-so-useful), and the recipient was a bit surprised and my husband is still surprised that she was surprised, and so on. As he points out, at least it wasn’t underwear.

And it’s times like this that I envy people in the past. In very early pagan times you might have given someone special a tree branch as a gift for the New Year (“Oooh, leaves! My favorite!”) which is why there’s so much emphasis on trees and greenery and Yule logs around Christmas. In the Regency, possibly you might have given the odd shilling to the servants and a condescending visit to the poor with gifts of gruel and the promise to see about repairing the nasty leak in the roof, then back home to the mansion to eat and drink yourself silly (much like the rest of the year in fact). And church, of course–my, what party animals they were.

So how do you and your extended family handle the gift problem and are you satisfied with it?

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Christmas, gifts | 13 Replies

Interview with Syrie James

Updated on November 25, 2007 by Janet Mullany

What if, hidden in an old attic chest, Jane Austen’s memoirs were discovered after hundreds of years? What if those pages revealed the untold story of a life-changing love affair? That’s the premise behind this spellbinding novel, which delves into the secrets of Jane Austen’s life, giving us untold insights into her mind and heart.

Today we welcome to the Riskies Syrie James, whose wonderful first novel The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen is now on the shelves. As usual, your relevant comment or question enters you into a contest to win a signed copy of the book, and Syrie will drop by to chat and answer questions.

Syrie, welcome to the Riskies. How did you come up with the idea for The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen? (which I loved, by the way–it was such fun to identify Austen’s inspirations and I found the ending tremendously moving).

I’d read and loved all of Jane Austen’s novels, and couldn’t accept the historians’ theory that this wonderful, romantic writer never fell in love herself. Since Jane Austen was a very private person—all her books were published anonymously during her lifetime—I realized it was entirely possible that she had a love affair no one knew about. I decided to give her that love affair, with the man who was her soul mate; to write the book that I wanted to read.

Tell us about the research.

I read dozens of Jane Austen biographies. I studied her letters in minute detail, reread all her novels, her juvenilia, and her unfinished works. I researched her era extensively and watched all her movies. I took a self-guided Jane Austen Tour of England. I even took English Regency Country Dance lessons!

Did you find anything unusual or unexpected in your research?

I was delighted by the gossipy, irreverent tone of Jane Austen’s letters and juvenilia. I was overwhelmed and awed when I visited Jane Austen’s house at Chawton, and walked through the very rooms she lived and wrote in during the last nine years of her life. Godmersham Park (the estate formerly owned by Jane’s rich brother Edward, where she often made extended visits) is far larger, and has more extensive grounds, than I ever imagined. The Cobb at Lyme Regis (made famous in Persuasion, and featured in my novel) offers absolutely gorgeous vistas, and is far windier than I expected!

Did you find channeling Jane Austen intimidating?

Only at first. After all the research, when I finally started writing, her voice seemed to come naturally to me.

Why do you think Jane Austen is so popular?

Austen was witty and ironic, and a brilliant craftsman. She wrote about real people in recognizable circumstances, and she examined what people risk when they fall in love—a very relatable topic in any era. I think her recent surge in popularity owes a lot to the movies. Something magical happens when you put Jane Austen’s stories on the screen!

Was this your first novel or do you have a collection of mss. under the bed that may never see the light of day?

Before The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen, I wrote a medical thriller which my agent loves, but has (so far) been unable to sell. That was heart-breaking. In my years as a screenwriter, although I sold 19 scripts, I wrote several that are still available!

Sorry, I have to ask you–have you seen Becoming Jane and what did you think of it?

I thought it was beautifully and reverently filmed, but I was disappointed by the story. I didn’t find it romantic. However, I loved the film adaptation of The Jane Austen Book Club.

What’s your favorite Austen novel?

Pride and Prejudice.

What else do you like to read?

I read everything! I read the newspaper every day. I subscribe to a lot of magazines. I usually have at least three or four novels in progress on my nightstand. I especially enjoy historical fiction, historical romance, women’s fiction, biography, memoir, mystery, humor and the classics.

What’s next for you?

I’m busy maintaining my website at http://www.syriejames.com/ … and I’m researching and writing my next book for Avon: a love story for Charlotte Brontë (another one of my favorite writers.) As you can imagine, I’m having a fantastic time “being” Charlotte!

As usual, we welcome your questions and comments!

Posted in Jane Austen | Tagged Interview, Jane Austen, Syrie James | 21 Replies

George Eliot, a truly risky writer

Updated on November 22, 2007 by Janet Mullany

Or, why Daniel Deronda is like Thanksgiving Dinner.

Yes, it’s Thanksgiving and it’s also the birthday of George Eliot (born 1819), to whom I would like to give thanks today. Highly literate and educated despite being born into the sort of provincial society she depicts in her novels, she left England at the age of thirty after the death of her parents and traveled in Europe, returning to become a writer for the Westminster Review. Her life was unconventional (she lived out of wedlock with a married man, George Henry Lewes, for years–as she grew in fame and fortune Victorian society accepted the liaison. After Lewes’ death she married a man twenty years her junior; go, girl. And she earned a living as a writer, “coming out” as George Eliot, a name she adopted early in her career.). Interestingly Eliot’s books rarely turn up on lists of “my favorite romance novels” in the company of Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre.

Why? Here’s a reason, in her own words:

Marriage, which has been the bourne of so many narratives, is still a great beginning, as it was to Adam and Eve, who kept their honeymoon in Eden, but had their first little one among the thorns and thistles of the wilderness. It is still the beginning of the home epic – the gradual conquest or irremediable loss of that complete union which makes the advancing years as a climax, and age the harvest of sweet memories in common.

Consider Middlemarch, possibly her greatest work, where the emphasis is on the community itself and the burgeoning romances are only part of the big picture. She subverts the marriage of true minds–Lydgate and Dorothea, two peas in a pod of innocence and idealism–and instead pairs them with partners who, in Lydgate’s case, are far their inferior. And Dorothea and Rufus Sewell, oops, Will Ladislaw–well, I can only conclude that he’s great in the sack and has the right sort of politics, certainly nothing to turn up one’s nose at, yet I digress–I’m left feeling that she sacrifices herself to romance. And I certainly think Mary Garth could have done better than Fred Vincy. Of course Eliot was smart enough to know that if she paired up Lydgate and Dorothea, there would be no book; that the troubling and imperfect relationships and their uncertain outcomes makes the book a brilliant masterpiece.

Now I love Daniel Deronda for similar reasons–the relationships aren’t what you think they’re going to be–and there’s no overt happy ending but a huge amount of interwoven complexity. She took the risk of trying to write about a truly good hero–Daniel, making a journey of discovery into his origins, forging his own destiny–and even she couldn’t quite do it. Daniel is really only interesting when he’s suffering, upon rare occasions, some sort of negative feelings–when he acknowledges his own snobbishness in becoming associated with a family of Jewish shopkeepers (oh, the vulgarity! How embarrassingly materialistic they are!). So Daniel is the turkey at the Thanksgiving dinner, handsome to look at, but a bit bland and occasionally dry. The rest of the book–the gravy and yams and cranberries and the rest of the delicious accompaniments, the fabulous secondary characters and their love interests and concerns–is Eliot’s unconventional triumph.

Have a great Thanksgiving, everyone.

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Daniel Deronda, George Eliot, Middlemarch, Thanksgiving | 8 Replies

Pea soupers

Updated on November 15, 2007 by Janet Mullany

I was riding into work on the bus yesterday and there was what I characterize as “a bit of a mist.”

Someone asked me if the fog reminded me of a London pea soup fog. No, it didn’t. I’m not (quite) old enough to remember the last days of the London pea soup fogs, the thick, yellowish-green killer fogs where you could only see a yard or so ahead. (Hint: want to kill off a character? Easy. Very busy streets and poor visibility. I think Galsworthy killed someone off in the Forsyte Saga like that.)

London got a wake up call in 1952, when thousands of people died in four days from what is now regarded as one of the deadliest environmental disasters of modern times. You can read and hear about it from a report NPR made on the fiftieth anniversary. The Clean Air Act of 1956, which banned the use of coal in the city, began the cleanup.

So what caused the London fogs? The River Thames, the climate, and coal. In 1800, London, with its population of one million, was the largest city in the world; and every household burned coal for heating and cooking. By the Victorian era the city had grown even bigger and dirtier:

No sun – no moon!
No morn – no noon –
No dawn – no dusk – no proper time of day.
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member –
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! –
November!

Thomas Hood, November (1844)

So how is your November? Do you feel the onset of winter yet and what are you doing to counteract cold weather and short daylight hours?

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged London fog, Thomas Hood | 10 Replies

Martinmas

Updated on November 12, 2007 by Janet Mullany

November 11 is Veterans Day–Armistice Day in England–the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month being when the First World War officially ended.

But November 11 is actually an older holiday, and rather an appropriate one, the feast day of St. Martin, patron saint of soldiers. The legend goes that he cut his soldier’s cloak to share with a dying beggar.

Martinmas was also traditionally the day on which hiring fairs were held, when servants sought new jobs, holding the symbol of their specialty–cooks held a wooden spoon, shepherds their crook, and female servants wore different colored aprons (e.g. for housemaid, nurserymaid). Hiring fairs were a great social occasion for servants, who, even if they were not looking for a new job, went to meet their friends and socialize, dance, and drink.

This was also the time of year when livestock was killed off for the winter and Advent, the run up for Christmas, officially began with a fresh meat feast. In Ireland, the feast began the previous night when the front door and four corners of the house were sprinkled with fresh blood from a slaughtered animal, and it’s still traditional on that night to have a roast pork dinner.

The date was seen as a turning point in the year–rents and contracts were often due at Martinmas–and the official start of winter, and the time to traditionally eat goose. And here’s a useful hint for your Martinmas goose feast–take a close look at the breastbone. If it’s a fair, clear bone, then winter will be cold and frosty. A dark bone indicates warmer temperatures with snow and sleet.

Of course we’ve had Christmas thrust down our throats for months already, but what are your plans for Christmas? It’s getting close… how ready are you?

Jane Lockwood is guest blogging over at Romance Sirens. Come and say hello!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Christmas, geese, hiring fair, Martinmas | 13 Replies