Monthly Archives: March 2018

Glory

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Almost all the snow in my backyard has melted. We might get more on Monday, but I’m pretending that we won’t. I’m sitting in a quiet yellow room, waiting for life to start blooming again.

I finally managed to see A Wrinkle in Time, and I predictably loved it. It wore its heart right on its fancy, shiny, sparkly sleeve, and it didn’t feel self-conscious about it at all. I respect and admire that about any type of art. I can’t really speak to it as an adaptation, because I don’t quite remember the book well enough to do so, but as a movie for children and people who are not afraid of Big Feelings, I found it very successful.

Blooming is, I think, a good word for A Wrinkle in Time. Colors open up and spill out across the screen, music crescendos, hope turns its face towards the sun. Or, you know, towards Oprah. Though my dear Claire wondered if she would feel, as she perfectly and delightfully put it, Oprah-whelmed by Mrs. Which, we both agreed that all of the gloriously decked out celestial guides were perfect for both Meg and the viewers. Mrs. Which especially isso gentle in her power. Gentleness is an awfully underrated quality. It provides rich soil for seeds of hope to hide in when they’re not quite ready to grow.

Meg herself is not quite ready to grow for much of the movie. This movie is not remotely subtle, but Storm Reid’s acting is. Even though a lot of emotions wind up baldly (and I’ll admit occasionally jarringly) stated in the dialogue, Ms. Reid conveys a whole host of unsaid things, as well. She conveys Meg’s sense of isolation, of smallness, within the tension in her shoulders and the slight frown on her face. Meg, of course, is not small, but fear is a diminishing state, and Meg has existed in that state for a long time. She fears that she is unworthy and unlovable, and so she doesn’t look up or out, in case she finds evidence that she is right.

But her story makes her look up and look out and look within. In all directions, she sees the universe, and that universe, the movie insists, is glorious. The universe doesn’t care if you think it’s too sentimental or showy in its beauty. The splendor of existence won’t mind if you think it’s a try-hard. It will be as vast and spectacular as it naturally is, and it will make room for even the smallest, most frightened girl to be vast and spectacular, too. Because she is. Because she always was.

It’s spring, and there may be more snow coming, but it’s time to bloom anyway — gentle and powerful, hopeful and huge.

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Not Too Much To Ask; Or, Kathleen Will Never Shut Up About Les Mis

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I did not actually have any ideas for this month’s blog, so Anna suggested I write about my ideas for how I would do a Les Mis miniseries, because she has known me for 900 years and has spent 850 of them listening to me talk about Les Mis. For those of you about to check out of this post, I beg you to bear with me! Talking about Les Mis is also talking about LIFE ITSELF, so if you’re on this blog, you apparently have at least a passing interest in my thoughts on that topic. For those of you who are unfamiliar with my lifelong love affair with this story, here are the main points you need to know:

  • I saw the musical when I was 10 and understood most of it, immediately started reading the book and understood very little of it, put it aside until I was 12, still understood not a lot, but finished it and loved it anyway. I’ve read it a bunch of times since then (well, not the Waterloo tangent). My first copy literally ripped in half. I care about precisely three (3) 19th century novels, and somehow this 1400 page Romantic monstrosity is one of them.
  • Also the musical is just my whole life. I memorized the soundtrack immediately, and then my mom had to explain way more than she had intended because she had to beg me to please not sing certain lyrics in public. This was, you’ll note, entirely her fault for taking me to see it, even though somehow MPAA ratings were Law in our household. (Uh, except when I semi-conned her into letting me see Trainspotting when I was a freshman in high school.) (In hindsight, my bad.) (Look, I was really into Ewan McGregor.)
  • It is a scientific fact that, compositionally, I am 87% Les Mis opinions by volume.
  • A new BBC miniseries is being made! http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2018/les-miserables-casting

So obviously, in the background of my mind at any given time until this miniseries happens, I am running through all my hopes and dreams for this adaptation. My mom asked me who I would watch it with, and I answered, “I don’t think anyone would want to do that.” I’m an adaptation grinch by nature, but I also saw the musical movie three times in theaters (I know), so what I’m saying is that if anyone does wind up watching this miniseries with me, they should know they’re going to be in for six hours of alternating crying and yelling.

I am trying not to have preemptive opinions about the miniseries, though I do wish Davies would stop talking smack about the musical. Like, bro, I get that it’s probably annoying that people keep asking you about a different adaptation, but surely you realize that a bunch of people who care about the book got there by way of the musical, so perhaps cool it with the “shoddy farrago” remarks. But based on the cast members whose work I’m familiar with, I’m optimistic about the performances. (I am obviously obsessively checking IMDB until the full cast is on there. They have a Favourite now! That’s neat. She definitely doesn’t get to be in a whole lot of adaptations. But also where is my favorite?? RELEASE THE FULL LIST.)

But while I may not have preemptive opinions, I sure do have a wish list. Obviously, a significant part of this list is just all my favorite scenes, word for word (surely not much to ask in … six hours. Hmm.)(But listen, I’ll forgive almost anything for a phenomenal Orestes Fasting and Pylades Drunk) (RELEASE THE FULL CAAAAAAST LIIIIIST). I also have some big ticket items, as well, which are as follows:

  • First and foremost, please do not make this a Dark Muddy Colored Period Piece Of Sadness. I mean, it is a period piece of sadness — consider the title — but it’s also Romantic. Hugo went hard for symbolic light motifs, and the miniseries should, too. (Dare I mention the musical? Because, listen, nothing guts me quite like the Bright White Spotlight Of Sanctified Death. Take notes, Davies.) I want alllll kinds of light in this thing. Bright light, soft light, golden light, light like halos around specific characters’ heads at the appropriate moments, light seeming to emanate from their very faces. Don’t feel the need to be subtle; Hugo sure didn’t.
    • To whit: “God is behind everything, but everything hides God. Things are black, creatures are opaque. To love a human being is to make her transparent.”
    • And: “Brothers, whoever dies here dies in the radiance of the future, and we are entering a grave illuminated by the dawn.”
  • This probably seems contradictory following Intense Light Symbolism, but I also want the miniseries to be super relatable. Like, sure, everyone’s kinda Jesus, but also they’re people living their lives that they would prefer (but generally don’t get to) keep living. I’m going to need the props and set design to provide tomes of information about everyone, especially if we see them in intimate spaces. The progression of Fantine’s rooms as they slowly shed belongings should be devastating. What small, pretty things will disappear first? Will they look like the small, pretty things that Cosette later places in her room? (They should.) I want to see characters pause mid-sentence to smile at a cat that walks by. I want to see them yawn at nighttime and catch glasses that they’ve upset right before they spill. I want nervous tics and “you weirdo” looks and startled smiles.
    • So putting those two thoughts together, I want the viewer to be able to look at any given character and have a moment where they say, “Same.” And then when that character has a moment of being kinda Jesus, the viewer can then think, “Wait, so then am I kinda Jesus?”
      • Yes.
  • I’m going to need this miniseries to be overtly, inescapably, relevantly political. Quoth Hugo, from the introductory note of his own damn book: “so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, there should be need for books such as this.” There’s, um, kind of a lot of that going around. I do not want anyone to be able to walk away from this miniseries and think, “Gosh, things sure were rough in 19th century France,” and have that be the end of it.
    • This is one of my issues with the movie musical, actually. The musical itself can fluctuate in how confrontational it is about its politics depending on the production, and the movie version sadly dialed it down with certain choices. Example lyric change: “And the winter is coming on fast, ready to kill” became “And the plague is coming on fast, ready to kill.” Plague theoretically could kill anyone. Winter only kills the poor.
    • Listen: one of the most important and least comfortable thesis statements of this book is that injustice on a systemic level precludes morality on a personal level. Jean Valjean must break his parole to be a better person. He can’t follow the law, because the law won’t let him be a good person under the ridiculous restrictions of his parole. He also needs cash dollars. Or, you know, semi-stolen silver. (Another infuriating lyric change from the movie musical: there, the bishop says “I have saved your soul for God” instead of “I have bought your soul for God.” No! It’s bought! It has to be bought, because his soul can’t be saved without the material means the bishop provides. That shouldn’t be true! But it is.)
      • Basically, you don’t get to care about JVJ and be okay with literally anything about our judicial system. Sorry, I don’t make the rules. I want this miniseries to make you ask, “Wait, would it be easier for released convicts to live moral lives if they break their own paroles and assume new identities, too?” And then I want it to answer, “Yep.” And then, “Do something about it.”
        • Also: Do something about how women like Fantine are chewed up and spit out, because she’s definitely kinda Jesus, didn’t you see her symbolic halo? Do something for the girls like Eponine. They’re still here; they’re called trashy. But she hums when she looks in the mirror, and so do you, and so do they. Do something for the protesters, the revolutionaries. Not just the calm ones. The desperate, furious ones. They’re illuminated by the dawn.

So that’s what I need: big soul, big themes, small dear fragile human people. Transcendent beauty, fury, and love. Time and space collapsed, no distance at all between characters and audience. But really, isn’t that what I want of all fiction, all the time? It’s certainly what I try to do, even though my fantasy stories for kids and teenagers are, to put it lightly, pretty damn different from the Brick. But scratch the surface, and it becomes obvious that I imprinted on Les Mis as an earnest preteen duckling. As I always do when I read the book or watch and listen to the musical, I want my readers to think:

They’re just like me.

They’re holy.

I’m holy.

I will help all the holy people. I will make them transparent.