Periodically gothic

So, woke up this morning still in my thirties. And I know it's a little vulgar, but I really must discuss presents. Most are in the mail, or were given to me in Canada during my visit there last month, or something like that. But what knocked my socks off a little bit was my department head taking the department out for lunch to celebrate, and giving me two books I actually really wanted.

2. Primo Levi, The Periodic Table. Whilst reading the Oxford Book of Modern Science, which see, I came across his excerpt - 'Carbon' - and it was so unsettling and beautiful, so grand and sweeping, that I resolved to find and read the Periodic Table post-haste, and of course forgot. We'd spoken about it then, my boss and I, but not since, although since meeting Rodelinda's neurochemist man it had been back on my brain in a low-key way . . . and then my boss bought it for my birthday! I was that touched; it was so thoughtful. Obviously work doesn't know about this blog since I don't touch it from there, so you can believe me when I write that I feel really lucky in the two managers I have here - such good communicators, good motivators, and now the department head has bought me the Periodic Table for my thirtieth birthday. Pity the Americans are as they are but I only have to deal with them once a quarter, so, well, there you are.

2. And she also bought Rule Britannia by Daphne du Maurier. She'd previously lent me a bunch of du Maurier books and I find them intriguing - there's something a little bit extra about them when you're just expecting a gothic romance, something a little stinging, rough and dark. I loved Rebecca in that sense. And then she also wrote some books that were just plain fucking nuts - whose premises were quite distant from the gothic romance she gets pigeon-holed in because of how famous Rebecca got. One which my boss already lent me is The House on the Strand, which is fucking nuts in this somehow rigorously bourgeois way - a drugged-out time travel book told in the language of a stodgy, conflicted middle aged white collar man who gets addicted to the past. Rule Britannia also seems a little nutbar - the story of the US occupation of the United Kingdom as told from the perspective of the inhabitants of a rural Cornish town.

Anyways, I can't get over the thoughtfulness of it all. She got me presents that some people I've known all my life have never rivalled in appropriacy. I'm a lucky girl to have her in charge. I've been really lucky with bosses before and I know that's not necessarily typical. Maybe I can do a better job of counting my blessings in my thirties.

Daphne Du Maurier vs. the Red Dragon

This was a good weekend - put lots of things in perspective and refreshed my aching brain, made the future more welcoming. Next weekend will be in Portugal. Oh yay. Between times read My Cousin Rachel, another of the Daphne Du Maurier novels my boss loaned to me. I have a very naughty habit of always reading the last page of a novel before I finish the first chapter, and what I like about the stings in Rebecca's tail and this book's tail is that the last page doesn't give anything away. In any case, the twists are the right kind - what you're expecting to a degree, and then also what you're not expecting to a degree, and the reactions to the twist are completely surprising.

Generally, what I liked about Rebecca I liked in My Cousin Rachel too. Certainly not the best written books in the world - some parts needed more trimming than they got - but great pacing otherwise. And the narrative voices of both were great portraits in human weakness and paranoia. Rebecca was stronger in that respect, but the portrait in My Cousin Rachel was more interesting.

Very interesting portrayal of sexuality in both books. I've had a bit of enough of Daphne Du Maurier - I compared Rebecca to roast beef a couple of entries ago, and I'm starting to get leadbelly from all her stodginess; thank god I have those nice astringent Bruce Chatwins waiting in the wings to play the part of the watermelon. But the sexual content alone is enough to make the next book I hit up the last one loaned to me by my boss, Jamaica Inn. There was something that the narrators of Rebecca and My Cousin Rachel had in common - a sort of dismissal of sex and sexuality, a kind of obliviousness to it even when they were having it (very subtly) which is juxtaposed with comparatively extremely highly sexy characters who, in a sense, both cavort to their destruction. But then, the destiny of the two sexual retards is not so glowing either, quite the opposite in fact, so there's no suggestion of some sort of morality tale.

The Red Dragon complains about the classics

I think South Park might be dead. I watched 'Tonsil Trouble' and was shocked that the only funny bit was the 'Are you sure?' - 'Yes - I'm HIV positive' exchange, which was then played upon until it wasn't even stupid anymore - just a time-eater. . . I don't know what the writing relationship is between Trey Parker and Matt Stone, but from the things I've seen that were written by Trey Parker versus things that were written by both, I'm guessing it has something to do with Matt Stone saying 'okay, that was funny. Now do something else.' The F-word used half an hour of his valuable vacation time to watch the next episode, which was about Britney Spears, and said it was even worse. Sigh. Pretty topical there, guys. BTW, saw Cannibal! The Musical, their student film, awhile ago. Exactly two laughs in 90 or so minutes, but very good ones.

Saw the rest of Rebecca and it was still pretty good, but not as good as I'd hoped. Leaving Wife No° 2 at Manderley during the visit to Doctor Baker so you could end on a note of suspense and a relieved kiss, instead of closing with the much bleaker car ride, which Laurence Olivier would have done SO WELL - ah shit, it's a pity, is all. Worse, the fucking Hays Code fucked it up - if her death was an accident, half of the emotional interest in the leads goes away. The Hays Code - what a thing. I've always believed that the second recording on every new audiovisual technology is either the inventor saying a naughty word or getting in a visual of someone naked - just one of those things we do, like using a dictionary to look up naughty words as soon as we learn to read. And the Hays Code thrashed back against that instinct so violently for so many years, in the process ruining countless excellent movies. And people still went to see them. How funny! There was simply nothing else.

The Red Dragon doesn't like extended apologies

Last night an American asked me what part of the States I was from, and he was so embarrassed when I said I was from Canada. It was the embarrassment that made it hard to take. Otherwise, I would have forgotten all about it as I was very high; and let's face it, people from my part of Canada talk like they're from Fargo and Fargo is an American movie, so it's confusing, I understand. But because the poor guy couldn't let it go and was so profuse in his apologies, it rankled a bit as it gave me time to ask myself 'hey, yeah. What part of the States are you from? What kind of a fucking question is that? Not even French people so far up their own assholes that they'll ask what part of France francophones are from' before the whole episode could disappear into billowing clouds of too-strong marijuana. But this guy had just spent the last several months in the Congo and Uganda trying to bring peace to the region so I'll get over it, I'm sure.

Moving on. Got home from getting reefer last night and started watching Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca, with Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, and Judith Anderson being awesome, and Laurence Olivier being stinking gorgeous. When he came out of his dressing room in his housecoat, I nearly fell out of my clothes. Had only watched about half the movie when the F-word arrived home - painful! Because didn't want to ruin it for him. It remains to be seen how it deal with the sensitive bits towards the end but so far this is my favourite Alfred Hitchcock movie. However, I haven't seen all that many, and my favourite had previously been Topaz (if I imagine it with the 'aeroplane' ending) which apparently I am 100% alone in enjoying so much, and certainly in preferring to Saboteur, Rear Window, Vertigo, and The Birds, all of which I thought were at least a little lame.

And now my boss has also lent me My Cousin Rachel and Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier, and I'm so happy. Okay - Rebecca wasn't the best book in the world - isn't even the best Jane Eyre spinoff in the world (Wide Sargasso Sea is better). But it was a fantastic book to just sink your teeth into and rip through - a real roast beef of a novel, filling and satisfying, so I can't wait for the next ones. Between those two books and the Bruce Chatwins I'm looking forward to all the miserable waiting around in aeroports next Friday - if they make it that long - I have a feeling at least one or two will have to be read before then.