With the arrival of cooler weather, perhaps you are spending more time indoors, When you get tired of reading or knitting, I have three top-notch television series to recommend.
Call the Midwife (PBS)
Nurse Crane & Sister Julienne (bbc.co.uk)
It’s hard to believe that this is the 10th season of Call the Midwife. Early seasons drew extensively from the memoirs of midwife Jennifer Worth. Successive seasons have built on the premise of an order of nun midwives working alongside secular midwives to serve a poor East London community. While some viewers may feel that the series is too sentimental, more recent episodes highlight medical and social issues such as Thalidomide babies and domestic abuse.
The current season, which the Chief Penguin and I binge watched, is both sober and thought provoking. It is 1966 in Poplar, the Beatles are popular, and England is in the World Cup. Abortion, Down syndrome, race, and wretched housing condition all figure here. And yet, your favorite midwives, from the often wise Sister Monica Joan, compassionate yet firm Sister Julienne, and outspoken but oh, so caring Trixie, aka Nurse Franklin, persevere. As the voiceover before every episode states, it’s definitely for mature audiences.
Grantchester (PBS)
Leonard Finch (distractify.com)
Grantchester too is a keeper, and the seasons keep coming. Most of us have adjusted to Sydney’s replacement by Will as the curate since detective Geordie, assistant curate Leonard, and housekeeper Mrs. C. remain in place! This season, season 6, is a much darker one than the previous ones.
It is 1958 and while there is a murder in every episode, Leonard’s homosexuality and the U.K. laws in effect are a running story throughout the season. It is a season with added depth and poignancy and one that made me appreciate society’s greater acceptance of differing sexual identities. This is first rate television. Highly recommended!
Maid is a new offering on Netflix and one also dealing with a serious subject. Based on a memoir by former maid, Stephanie Land, it’s a graphic and heart-rending picture of poverty and living hand-to-mouth while working. Alex, the maid, abruptly leaves an abusive relationship with her toddler daughter Mattie. Without a plan or any support, she is hard pressed to find a job or a place to live. Some of the social services offices she encounters seem unhelpful or at best indifferent. Reluctantly, she is offered a job as a maid cleaning houses. Some clients are wealthy with gorgeous homes; others are realtors having seriously filthy properties scrubbed for sale.
You can read about what it’s like to be poor in America, but this series clearly depicts how one small incident (a sick child, for example) has a domino effect on everything else from her job to her apartment. It’s raw viewing, but Alex’s daydreams and her interactions with her kooky artist mother provide some relief. Margaret Qualley with piercing dark eyes is amazing as Alex, while her real-life mother, Andie MacDowell, plays her mother here.
This week’s blog brings together several compelling works. One is a musical related to 9/11 while the other two are books. One book is a wonderful novel about the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, while the other is a cancer memoir, painful yet ultimately redeeming.
POWERFUL VIEWING: Remembering 9/11
Come from Away (Apple TV+)
Plane on the tarmac at Gander (appleinsider.com)
I doubt there is anyone of a certain age who doesn’t recall where he or she was on September 11, 2001. Come from Away (2013) is a musical about the passengers whose planes were diverted to Gander, Newfoundland, and how they were embraced by the local residents. Unabashedly energetic, even boisterous, it is also a compelling and heart-tugging perspective on five days of confusion, chaos, and community. Folks of different religions, nationalities, and cultures were thrown together at a tragic, uncomfortable time.
Members of the cast play multiple roles, switching back and forth from Gander community leaders to one of the many passengers. Standouts for me were the female airline pilot played by Jenn Colella based on the real Beverley Bass; Joel Hatch as the mayor of Gander; and Beulah Davis, chief organizer and comforter, played by Astrid Van Wieren. There is conflict, craziness, and coming together. I found watching it an uplifting experience. A live Broadway performance was filmed for this production and is aired with no breaks or intermission. Highly recommended!
RECENT READING
THE LANGUAGE OF WOMEN
The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
Author & her book jacket (betterreading.com.au)
I loved this novel and read it in just a day. If you love words and their meanings and how they are used, you too will be fascinated. Author Williams wondered how gender affects the use and understanding of words. Given that the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary was largely the work of older white Victorian men, she crafted a novel that reflects first a child’s, then a young woman’s participation in the creation of the dictionary. Some of the characters such as Dr. James Murray, the chief architect, and several of the male lexicographers are historic figures. So is Edith Thompson, a historian who contributed definitions and quotations for many thousands of entries.
The novel focuses on Esme, a child of six, who hides under the sorting table collecting the occasional stray definition slip of paper. Over the course of publication of all the fascicles from A-B to Z , Esme becomes a woman. Esme spends hours in the Scriptorium where the work is carried out. As she gets older, she becomes involved in sorting mail, then checking quotes at the Bodleian and other libraries, and eventually taking on some editing and correction duties. Lizzie, the household maid of all work, takes care of Esme and a friendship develops.
Esme is curious and full of questions and begins to wonder why some words, particularly those spoken by the lower classes, but not written down in books, are not to be included in the OED. She gets a graphic education in colorful language from Mabel, a down-at-the-heels vendor in the local market and creates her own slips with quotations for these less than polite terms. An only child whose mother has died, Esme leads a sheltered life until she meets actress Tilda and her brother Bill, encounters the suffragist movement, and delivers pages to the typesetting room at the press where she meets Gareth, a handsome young compositor.
The novel relates the laborious process of releasing the letters of the alphabet in sections from 1888 to completion in 1928 alongside the coming-of-age of Esme from age six to middle age. For Esme, the treatment of the suffragettes is disturbing, while the exodus of men to war means more work coupled with an all-consuming worry for their safety. How Williams weaves in the suffrage movement and the impact of WWI add to the richness of this story. But, some readers may be surprised at the ending and question if the author wraps things up too neatly.
Esme is not a common name. I wondered if Williams chose it as homage to J. D. Salinger’s notable story, For Esme with Love and Squalor, about a 13-year-old girl and a soldier during the Second World War.
Like the process of compiling a comprehensive dictionary, this novel unfolds slowly and gradually. I was committed to it from the first paragraphs. Highly recommended! (~JWFarrington)
CANCER AND BEYOND
Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted by Suleika Jaouad
Author Jaouad (latimes.com)
Cancer memoirs often take one of two forms. Either they are an account of battling and surviving the medical aspects of cancer or they are one individual’s experience and reflections which end just before death. Ms. Jaouad’s memoir is somewhat different in that she was diagnosed with leukemia at age 22, just after completing college. It was a delayed diagnosis, and she was by then very sick. She underwent massive chemotherapy treatments, endured numerous hospitalizations due to infections, and ultimately required a bone marrow transplant, a long and arduous process involving months of isolation.
The medical details in the first part of her memoir are graphic, frightening and often unpleasant. Yet she writes about them with candor, humility, and even occasional humor. She was blessed with loving parents and an unbelievable new boyfriend who re-arranged his life to be her primary caregiver.
What is perhaps more appealing is part two in which she attempts to regain a sense of normalcy. All treatments are over, and she’s deemed able to travel and work again. Yet her immune system is still, and may always be, fragile. She tires easily and finds it difficult to focus and apply herself without the goal of the next medical procedure. How to be normal again is not something the medical team has covered.
Probably what saves her, or at least provides emotional and intellectual sustenance, is a solo cross-country journey she undertakes. Dubbed the One Hundred Day Project, it is to visit individuals who wrote or e-mailed her after she published a regular column in the New York Times. Meeting these almost strangers, Jaouad gains perspective on herself and reflects on how she was often self-centered and needy in some of her relationships. I found this section of the book satisfying as she finally goes beyond her four years of treatment and comes into her own as a more well-rounded person. I wouldn’t recommend this book to everyone, but some readers may find her journey amazing and her sprightly writing a gift. (~JWFarrington)
Author Benedict has created a niche for herself writing novels about women, notable women whose contributions to society have often been overlooked. Previous novels focus on Albert Einstein’s wife, Andrew Carnegie’s personal maid, and Clementine Churchill. These novels are well researched and engaging reading; I’ve read the one about Andrew Carnegie.
Hedy Lamarr (the guardian.com)
This latest novel is about Hedy Kiesler, known to most Americans of a certain age as actress Hedy Lamarr. Austrian by birth and an aspiring stage actress in 1930’s Vienna, Hedy is romanced by entrepreneur and munitions dealer, Fritz Mandl. She is beautiful, and his attentions are pronounced, his determination evident. Hedy appreciates the finer things he offers. As Austria battles to stay out of Nazi German’s arena, marriage to him is a politically wise step for herself and her Jewish parents. What this marriage entails, how Fritz controls her activities, and what Hedy learns hosting high level business dinners becomes both valuable and dangerous. This is a multi-faceted Hedy Lamarr who takes risks to help in the war effort.
I enjoyed this novel but found myself wishing that the author had included an epilogue about her life after World War II.
CRIME IN DENMARK
The Sommerdahl Murders (Season 2 on Acorn)
Flemming, Marianne &
Dan (rotten tomatoes.com)
Dan Sommerdahl, his partner Flemming, and his wife Marianne return for a second season of crime, Danish style. Set in the waterfront town of Elsinore, there are eight episodes, and each case is solved over the course of two episodes. What makes this series appealing is as much the dynamics between the three principals as it is the intricacies of solving the case. Dan and Marianne have been married for 25 years, but the marriage is on the skids, Flemming has feelings for Marianne, and Marianne feels she’s taken an unfulfilling detour in her choice of career. Plus, she’s attracted to an old suitor. Each of them is attempting to define a satisfying personal life.
The culture of a particular country is reflected in a crime series. The behaviors and attitudes in this one seem especially Scandinavian. Good entertainment!
LOCAL CUISINE
The Thistle Inn
One of our favorite Boothbay Harbor restaurants of long standing, the Thistle offers comfortable dining indoors and out. Its dark wooden booths and bar inside are especially welcoming on a cold wet night. During the summer, dining on their porch is airy and made magical by little lights strung in the trees.
We’ve already dined outside twice this year and were pleased with old favorites and new choices on their menu. Their crab cakes are always delicious as was the baked haddock with cherry tomatoes and sautéed greens and their New England clam chowder. I especially enjoyed the seared diver scallops over a lemony risotto with spinach and bacon bits.
I liked their concept of shrimp scampi over pappardelle but wished that the pasta had been a little less sticky. For dessert the other evening, we shared the special pistachio crème brulee, a different twist. A very popular place making reservations essential!
We made the first of this year’s visits to Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens yesterday. It was lovely and mostly sunny. We were impressed with some new annuals and the expansion of beds near the entry bridge. These gardens get better every year!
Lisianthus in purple
Pink member of the canna family
This year’s highlight is the presence of some gigantic trolls. These wooden sculptures are the work of Danish artist Thomas Dambo. They were built on site over several months by the artist with assistance from garden staff and more than 150 volunteers. Dambo has been working with wood since early childhood, and his trolls are found around the world.
Soren Troll by Thomas Dambo
I was told that these five trolls will remain in place until they deteriorate and fall apart, estimated to be about five years, longer if they receive some maintenance. They are impressive works! We tramped around and found two of them, Soren and Birk.
I must confess to buying this paperback book partly because of its very attractive apricot-colored cover. It’s a novel set in Iraq in 2002 when Sadam Hussein was ruling the country. The author is a former international correspondent who spent a year living under that regime. Her depictions of the city and the environment are picturesque and chilling.
Wilkinson has created three female characters, one based to some extent on her own experiences. Ally Wilson is the wife of the Australian ambassador, Huda is a village girl who has advanced in life to working at the Australian embassy, but also acting as an informant for the government. Rania, born rich and privileged, has fallen on hard times; she and Huda were close friends as children. How these three women come to interact with one another and how Huda and Rania’s concern for their teenage children makes them compatriots is the heart of the novel.
I found the descriptions of daily life fascinating, but noticed a lack of tension in the narrative until about the last third of the book. Nonetheless, it’s worth reading about Bagdad during this brutal time. (~JWFarrington)
Detective Chief Inspector Cassie Stuart and Detective Sunny Kahn are partners in solving cold case crimes. Bodies turn up years later in odd places, in this season, a freezer. This duo must identify the victim and then excavate his or her past to determine how and why the individual died. Was it an accident or murder? And who were the principals in this person’s life and what role did they play in the demise? One incident and one quick decision decades ago reverberated through the lives of four people.
From the haunting and ethereal opening song, “All we do is hide away,” to the detailed interviews with possible suspects, each season is gripping drama. This season is exceptionally so. Nicola Walker as the lead (familiar to some viewers from her role in Last Tango in Halifax) is superb, as is Sanjeev Bhaska as Sunny. This pair like and care for each other as friends as well as colleagues. Their mutual respect is echoed in the respect shown to victims, suspects, and family members. Complex, involved, and compelling—highly recommended!
