Filming Dunnett

Something I saw recently on Twitter claimed that someone is going to film the Lymond series of Dorothy Dunnett novels. I hope it is true - and I hope it is not true as well. I probably won't like their choice of actor for the hero, though I will be delighted if they choose Aidan Turner for Jerott. 

When I read a book, I have an image of the characters in my head. Call me odd if you like, but that image sticks with me through thick and thin and so often the stars the film production companies choose are so wrong compared to the image in my head. I suspect they are chosen for their "bankability" rather than their acting ability or their rightness for the part. 

Book groups never agree when they start on the right actor to play Lymond. They never have and they never will. Americans select actors the UK has never heard of, and no doubt we do the same in reverse. Very few actors are equally well known in both countries and very few of those can really act. I suppose the current popular choice would be Eddie Redmayne for the sometimes androgynous Lymond. I'll have to think about that. Will he do? Perhaps. Can he act? I think so but I've never actually seen him in anything.

On the other hand, I think Russell Crowe might do very well for Richard and I'd love Sam Neill to play Lord Wharton.

Fiction v reaity

Isn't it interesting how certain fictional characters become real to certain readers?
There's an interesting furore going on in the press at the moment because J  Rowling has finally admitted that Hermione should have married Harry Potter and not Ron Weasley. Her readership has neatly divided into squawks of anguish or howls of joy. It's fun to read how intense these people get - see the excerpts below -

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/02/jk-rowling-hermione-harry-ron-married
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/03/harry-potter-fans-jk-rowling-plot-regrets

But then on a little reflection I have to own up and say I too indulged in this sort of thing over the Crawford of Lymond novels by Dorothy Dunnett though I have to say I found Lymond's marriage to Phillippa perfectly acceptable. It must be the mark of a good book when the character are regarded as real, don't you think? And how often does it happen? Much as I enjoy the Outlander series, I don't get so involved in Jamie and Claire as to argue about whether they should or should not have had sex on the window ledge or parted the first time or even if she should have returned to Jamie the second time. No other book has ever been that real to me, except perhaps for Pride & Prejudice, and even then that didn't happen until I saw the 1995 BBC version with Colin Firth as Darcy.

Which books became real for you?

Bluebells and churches

Bluebells and churches seem to go together somehow, don't they? If anyone knows what the triangular piece above the church door in the picture below is called, do let me know. It is part of the old Norman church, still in use today, within the grounds of Seaton Delaval Hall.


(I've just added a piece about it to the new blog Historical Belles and Beaus - do pop over and take a look. here )

I like old churches, but dh dislikes going into them, or into churchyards, so I find myself sneaking into them when he is not around. I find them fascinating, gentle, peaceful places.

Locally we have the Saxon church at Escomb, the Normal Cathedral at Durham - a gorgeous contrast to the little Normal church at Seaton Delaval, and a pair of medieval churches at Bywell. There are many others dotted around Durham and Northumberland, but I can't mention them all!

I suppose I ought to mention the Abbey at Hexham. Its origins are Saxon, founded by St Wilfrid, no less. And there is a Saxon crypt with several Roman stones snitched from the Roman wall or Corstopitum, which isn't so very far away.
But much of the body of the church is not so very old. The Victorians did one of their refurbishment jobs on it. No doubt it needed it, and a fine job they did. But sadly, it no longer seems old to me.

I remember crawling around it with Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett in my hand, because one of the most dramatic scenes takes place within the Abbey. The transept in which Tom Erskine hides, watching a bowman take aim and fire at the hero, Lymond, still exists.

The arrow flies true, and Lymond...
'flung up his head, turned half around with the force of the explosion. The bow fell. For one second - two- he held fast to the broken coping, defying the heralds of agony and an easy darkness... The riven flesh and burst vessels made their protest, the freed blood springing liberal and scarlet through the fragments of Lymond's shirt. Erskine saw the long hands loosen, the sudden, uncontrolled sway; but was not prepared for the drowned, revealing blue gaze meeting his like a blow.
"And died stinkingly martyred," said Lynmond, with painful derision; and losing hold bit by bit, slipped into Erskine's gentle grasp.'

Still gets me, after all this time.