Why You Should Be Watching Web Series If You Love Books

I admit that a little more than a year ago, web series were a bit of a mystery to me. I saw people tweeting and posting about various ones with names I did not understand, and I only had a vague awareness of their existence.

At some point during my unfocused internet browsing I saw someone mention "The Lizzie Bennet Diaries". I cannot remember who this earthly messenger was, so I cannot give my grateful thanks to them. I only know one day I watched an episode, and I kept watching, delighted that I could keep following the path of this story, familiar yet unfamiliar and then.....well this explains it best:

``I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.''

A web series is basically a set of videos posted on the internet which tell a story. "The Lizzie Bennet Diaries" is  in the form of a vlog (i.e. a video blog or journal which allows people to spout off, rant, chat or communicate in whatever way they like on the internet.) The difference with "The Lizzie Bennet Diaries" (or "The LBD" as it is affectionately called . See I'm hip! Do people still say "hip"?) is that the vlog is not about a real person; it tells the story of a particular literary character who should be familiar to many of you if you've ever read this blog. If you're feeling a bit slow today, think Pride and Prejudice and you should be fine. The result was one hundred videos of roughly four to five minutes in length which gained a record number of fans and recognition and gained the creators an Emmy.

The incredibly creative team behind the series produced an addictive entertaining series which modernized the story of Pride and Prejudice, reproducing most of the characters and themes in an engaging way and making alterations where necessary that enhanced the story instead of diluting it as some modern adaptations have done in the past.  I truly had a eureka experience with them. The series had already been running for some time when I found them. After watching one or two of the videos, I was drawn into a feast of the existing twenty-five episodes which I ploughed through with vigor. Afterward I was reduced to the predicament of the fans who were with the series from the beginning and who had to wait for each of the two short episodes per week to be uploaded. Anticipation is a strange phenomenon: you both enjoy it and hate it. In building suspense and keeping the enthusiasm of the fans flaring, the series' showrunners vastly succeeded.

The whole experience was enhanced by the use of transmedia, another concept I was not very familiar with before. (Really this series has proven to be very educational.)  While the main story played out on the blog, the story was also continuing in other platforms. Most of the characters had twitter accounts. Crazy Lydia decided to do her own vlog. When Darcy was revealed to be the CEO of a thriving company called Pemberley, a professional looking website with a company profile and all the trimmings came into existence. Talk about an all inclusive experience. I loved it.

The quality of the series was also excellent. Despite all the modern media, the art of storytelling really was evident throughout the series. The series' Lizzie (Ashley Clement) can tell a captivating story, enhanced by her ability to do some hilarious impressions, and it astonished me how engrossed I was even when it was just her talking about her Lizzie Bennet life.

 The characters are also a delight. In particular, all the sisters were well done. I have to commend the actress who played Lydia who proved to be very obnoxious and rather overwhelming (as she should be) but yet didn't make me dislike her, and that is a difficult task. Her part in the story is the most altered, and as usual I wasn't overjoyed when her situation encroached on Lizzie's story, but I found myself invested in the changes and more concerned about Lydia than I have ever been. Sister Jane is such a strange creature. Usually characters with unfailing optimism are universally disliked, but from my limited observations, Jane rarely is. A good Jane inspires empathy not dislike and this Jane manages it.

Of course Darcy is a major factor in any Pride and Prejudice adaptation, and here he is portrayed by the impossibly good looking Daniel Vincent Gordh. By the time, the series ended I had decided that he is one of my favourite Darcys in adaptations. I realize that there are not a lot of Darcys out there, but that's still a huge endorsement from me. Trust me. DVG is not perfect in his portrayal, but by the end of the series I was completely invested in him and his many positives overwhelmed his few negatives.

I can't stop to go into how much I liked this series' Charlotte, Mary, Bingley, Georgiana etc. etc, but there's a good chance that your favourite characters from the book will bring you joy.

So yes, if you like Pride and Prejudice , you should feel obligated to look this one up.

One of the other great outcomes of the Lizzie Bennet Diaries are the inevitable "copy cats". After seeing how well "The Lizzie Bennet Diaries" was received, others have started dreaming of what other classical adaptations could appear in short video chunks. From the same team has come an adaptation of Jane Austen's unfinished novel "Sanditon" and I have seen passing mention of an adaptation of "The Great Gatsby" and "Phantom of the Opera". I choose to recommend "The Autobiography of Jane Eyre" which has managed to duplicate my wild anticipation for new video instalments each week. It's terribly compelling and features another great lead actress. As Jane Eyre, Alysson Hall often has to give poignant and sad monologues which are consistently touching and real. The story also plays with the format more than the Lizzie Bennet Diaries which filmed in limited locations. For example, sometimes Jane goes outside. Sometimes she only films what she wants others to see and has little screen time herself. 

This series has not ended yet, and we are currently embroiled somewhere in the middle of the novel, and I cannot wait for the next video after I see the current one. Rochester is also a younger version of the book with funky men's socks and tattoos and who is at present clearly smitten with Jane. Again his portrayal is not perfect, but the overall impression he's left on me is strong. I long to see him again, and if you start to watch, you will too.

  

Because of the success of "The Lizzie Bennet Diaries", one of the most anticipated series out there is The LBD team's official full length follow up to it: "Emma Approved". This modern adaptation of another of Jane Austen's more famous novels looks beautiful and polished and features some great acting by series star Joanna Sotomura who embodies a bossy, rather egotistical Emma.  She is so in control and sure of herself, it will be interesting seeing her begin to lose her edge as Emma's many plans begin to lose their structural integrity. I don't feel as invested in this series as in the other two as yet. Even Mr. Knightley (though tolerant, cheerful, practical and firm as he ought to be) doesn't have a hold on me as yet, but I am willing to keep watching, and I feel safe in recommending it.

Even if any of these ultimately disappoint, it is clear that I have many other options out there to consider. While looking through an article about these web series, I saw comments about series about William Shakespeare and another about fairy tale characters set in universities just to name a few. The possibilities for amusement are endless.

What do you think of this trend?  If you're a fan of any of these series, feel free to express your opinion of them in the comments and please, please recommend any other literary-like web series, so we can explore!

Jane Austen Greetings

My dear Ms. Austen,

Please permit me to wish you a most happy belated birthday. You may be surprised to receive such a message from me - a person who you never saw in your life, but if you had even an inkling of the number of people who have been inspired, delighted, altered by the your work, you might understand a bit more.

Allow me to express how ardently I admire your work Ms. Austen. From the moment I apprehensively picked up your Pride and Prejudice and realized that the first chapter was amusing, clear and devoid of heavy, incomprehensible description, I was devoted to your compositions. From the moment, I sat down to watch the television series based upon your novel and realized how beautifully your words could be brought to the screen, I was committed. (You would have found television interesting I think. There is as much to amuse as to annoy on it. I think you would have found a great deal to marvel and laugh at.) I must thank you Ms. Austen for enriching my life with your novels.

Thank you for your heroines - for delightful people like Elizabeth Bennet, Catherine Morland and even opinionated Emma Woodhouse. Young women who I wish to emulate. They are flawed yet principled. Intelligent, but with a lot to learn. Some of them are witty. All are wonderful in their own ways. I can hope that someday I can learn to be more like them.

Thank you for your heroes – true they have spoiled me for having real life relationships with the boring men of the world, but ah well - I would not pass up making the acquaintance of your Mr. Darcy and Mr. Tilney and many of your other gents for the world. Your gentlemen are kind and wonderful. They show us what true nobility is. Mr. Tilney particularly is witty and adorable in every sense of the world. I envy your creation of him as I envy so many other aspects of your work.

Your ability to construct concise, loaded, truly hilarious sentences strikes me every time. If ever I can learn to express myself as you do, I would believe that I had reached the epitome of writing ability. You may think I exaggerate to flatter, but I do not. I speak the absolute truth.
I do not wish to weary you with a lengthy Mr. Collins-style epistle (you characterized him and your many other bores excellently by the way. I fear that you suffered the company of many such types in your short life). I will conclude directly. I cannot end though without saying that I love your villains. They are real. John Thorpe is so vivid in my imagination. Also many of the movies your novels have inspired are fantastic, and I have spent considerable hours enjoying them. It is because of you that I have been introduced to the amazing skills of the likes of Colin Firth, Jennifer Ehle, J.J. Feilds and many others. Perhaps you have a suspicion now of the pleasures you introduced into my existence. I can honestly say my life is better because you lived on this earth for forty-two short years.

Perhaps, you a white, British woman did not realized that one day your “bits of ivory” would touch the heart and mind of a young, black West Indian woman, but that is the beauty of writing isn’t it? We reach through the pages we write to touch other human beings; we cannot know how far the vibrations will go. Yours go very far indeed, and I hope you are aware of this in some way.

Happy 233rd birthday.

Yours respectfully etc.

Read more about this remarkable woman here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_austen

Adventures in Lit Class

Let me know if this is weird to anyone out there, but quite often when my friends and I from St. Joseph's Convent Port-of-Spain meet up, our reminiscing about our adventures in school often meander around to the books we read then. I wonder if anyone else does this? I can explain why we do it. It's probably because we spent so much time poring over these books, discussing them, sometimes hating them (and man did we hate some of them) that they are forever interwoven into our memories of crazy teachers, mind numbing tests, the lame (or adorable) boys across the street and that time a pervert took up a vantage point across the street (remember that guys).

During my own reflections I have found that I am overall rather pleased with the books that came my way during my seven years of exposure to school literature. The selections were supposed to expose us to a variety of classical books which touched on different cultures, and they didn't do too badly. Now a days I can smugly say I've actually read Chinua Achebe and Derek Walcott and Tennessee Williams. Even though, the aftermath of some of our literature lectures resembled a battlefield with fallen convent girls sprawled on their desks (not dead but sleeping the sleep of the dead), I still vividly remember some of the insights expressed by our teachers, and the ideas which dawned on me. I loved good class discussions on good books – when everyone had something to say and the reflections and ideas zipped back and forth. Those were joyous times for me.

And we read some good books, especially as we came to the last years of school. I was introduced to Jane Austen in SJC. Saw my first Shakespeare film then too and it's still one of my all time favourites. Perhaps I might never have picked up these books if they had not been introduced to me. Even the books some of us disliked gave me new perspectives and opportunities. I don't like Hardy's "Tess of the Durbervilles" but I love his "Far From the Madding Crowd". I am not a huge fan of Virginia Woolf's "To the Lighthouse" but I still was inspired by her "flow of consciousness" narrative. I do not think it's possible to read what is considered good literature without getting something out of it. I learned how to define true love as we examined Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities". I got a better appreciation of poetry from Wordsworth's lyrical ballads and I learned to love many works which are still a part of me today. I was surprised to find that my university education didn't have the same effect on me. I suppose my SJC exposure will remain as one of my greatest inspirations.

So in appreciation for these great influences I'm going to do my own tribute to my literary education – the best of times and the worst of times, and I'll start with.....

THE DEPRESSING

I don't remember who among my classmates noted that the books we read tended to be depressing. Whoever made that observation was right. There seemed to be a conspiracy among our literature teachers to expose us to the most gloomy texts among the recommended reading lists. In Form One, we read Patrick O'Brien's "Island of the Blue Dolphins", not a terribly sad book, but it had a tasty selection of unhappy situations. In later forms, it just got worse. Second year featured John Steinbeck's "The Pearl", a story of how the discovery of a spectacular pearl brought tragedy and destruction to a guiltless fisherman and his wife. You certainly didn't put down this book with a sunnier, more hopeful view of the human race.

Later on, we tended to study authors as well as the books they wrote, and it became quickly apparent why some of these people wrote the unfortunate tomes which dotted our literary landscape – they were a pretty messed up bunch themselves. Poor Virginia Woolf, besides living through years of sexual abuse from her half brother and the throes of bipolar disorder, apparently sometimes heard birds singing to her in Greek. I personally thought that I would not recognize what languages birds were singing in, but I assumed this was a confirmation of her brilliance mixed with her mental problems. Anyway the poor lady eventually drowned herself. However Tennessee Williams could quite easily compare notes with her. After all he spent a troubled life dealing with his mentally ill mother and abusive father before presumably killing himself by swallowing a bottle cap. (My question here is: Why?!) The fact that evidence has surfaced lately that Williams' may have been murdered doesn't stack up to a whole lot in the scheme of things – not to Tennessee anyway.

Please be assured, I am not of the school of thought that every book should have a gloriously, happy ending. Authors have a right to miserable lives just like everyone else. (They do seem to tend to have miserable lives more than the average person which does not bode well for me, but I digress.) However, we did seem to have a dirge of downers at SJC. This became more apparent to me when I made a comparison with my brother's reading material at his all boys school. He read "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" in Form One and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" in Form Two! Some sort of prejudice was apparent there; I'm sure of it. Are girls more likely to enjoy the tragic and disheartening? Is it necessary to ensure that boys be exposed to the fun, the magical, the uplifting? Someone needs to look into this, but once again....I digress.

Don't get me wrong, depressing books don't equal to mediocre ones. I could wish to be as brilliant as Woolf, Williams, Steinbeck et al for a hundred years and not come close to their brilliance, but their stories didn't touch me and some of my classmates. But the great thing about books is that we are free to change our feelings and opinions about them. I often wonder if I would still feel a bit impatient with Tess Derbyfield of "Tess of the Durbervilles" or feel a little world weary of Blanche DuBois' fragile instability if I took a look back at these stories years later. Who knows? It's definitely worth a try, but I have a particular affection for the books which I felt a connection with almost at once – the stories done by my fellow kindred spirits.....

THE INSPIRATIONAL

Once people hear you like to read, they are inclined to pick up any book that comes to hand to give as presents assuming the notorious book lover would be delighted to get anything with words printed on a page. I have no doubt that there are people who would gladly devour anything that is handed to them, but unfortunately this does not work with me.

Since I am incapable of throwing a book away, some of these untimely gifts remain on my bookshelf untouched. Such was the case when my aunt gave me a copy of Jane Austen's "Emma". Out affection for my dear aunt, I made an effort now and then. I glanced at long complex introduction or looked hopelessly at the first lines of the actual story, but of course I had no real interest in diving in. Then some clear sighted, far thinking genius among the St. Joseph Convent POS English literature teachers chose Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" as a book to study for A Level Literature. Oh happy day though I did not know it yet.

Instead, foolish me, I approached the novel apprehensively and read the first, surprisingly brief chapter, then I paused in disbelief. It was interesting; it was fun; it did not lose me with heavy, lugubrious prose. Could it keep up the momentum? Could it? It did. Though many years have passed, I will always recall my first experience reading of the romantic trials of Elizabeth Bennet as one of the most astonishing relationship with a book I've ever had. P&P was everything the critics always say and that you don't dare to believe – it was sparkling, witty, unforgettable etc. etc.

And so Miss Austen and I became lifelong friends, and I was flung with delight into the flood of adaptations, internet fan groups, fan fiction etc which went with it. The 1995 version of the book came out around that time and drew other fans into the fold. (If you haven't seen this movie, you must! I shall expound at a later date.) Miss Austen is now delightfully interwoven into my literary landscape and she and her following are always more than welcome wherever I hang my hat. Since then of course I've read Emma which is - like all of Miss Austen's work - so brilliant, I would be jealous of her if I didn't love her so much, so you see, never throw away those weird books your family, friends and co workers foist off on you. You really never know...

The Bard himself also came into my life more fully during my school career. I had gone through "Midsummer Night's Dream" by the time I'd reached Form Three and thought it was okay. I was mostly smugly proud of having completed at least one work by the intimidating playwright no one understood. But I had not yet learned the true joy of Shakespeare. And once more in my life a movie helped to bring that impression home. If you haven't seen Kenneth Brannagh's version of Henry V, you need to right away as it is one of the most thrilling movies ever. It's dramatic and wonderfully acted. Brannagh delivers the speeches of the Henry V in a gripping way which makes you want to jump into the breach on the next battle charge (even if you've never held a weapon in your life and probably would be crying for your mommy before the fight was half over). Our teachers had taken the entire class to see the movie, and I confess we understood very little of the intricacies of what was going on, but that didn't matter! We had escaped the confines of school for several hours and we were in a cinema. We were watching a show with lots of action and some stirring looking scenes and it ended with a lovely romantic interlude (one of my favourites up to this day). I for one had a wonderful time, and the fact that Shakespeare was to be said out loud, acted out loud and just scene came home to me from that moment. Thanks Kenneth. Thanks Will.

Of course there were other books and authors that worked their way into my universe in my formative years. I won't discuss them at length here. I am really glad that I had a chance to read "A Man for All Seasons" and "Ti Jean and his Brothers". As I say, the books got better as we got older, or maybe we were changing and getting better as we changed. Some stories were still sad like Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart" but as I said that doesn't equate to not liking the story. The simplicity and power of Achebe's novel was a joy and though the tale was tragic it wasn't too heavy to bear. Isn't literature wonderful? Without my lit class I would not have experienced the bawdiness of Geoffrey Chaucer for example or the simpler poems of William Wordsworth. I definitely have another reason to appreciate my time in SJC during my best of times and worst of times.

Feel free to share your own literary adventures. Come on! Post already!

Our First Meeting

I've been planning to do this blogging thing for a while now, and as usual I've been thinking about it a lot and not actually getting around to it. Though I think I am justified in over thinking this a bit. After all it's a blog – a blog which can potentially touch the hearts and minds of millions if done in just the right way. That's an intimidating possibility. Can I write something that can touch the hearts of millions? I would be happy if I just caught the attention of a small, loyal band of followers – at –Duh, Dah, Dah, Duh - the Crossroads of Imagination!

What kind of weird, new age kind of title is that you may ask? Well, what I hope is that I can use this blog to reflect on creativity and creative thinking, but don't worry this is not as didactic as it sounds at first. Think of how creativity and imagination figure in the world around us. Creative people like Jim Henson, George Lucas, Diana Wynne Jones, Coldplay and Jane Austen inspire and delight us every day, and I love talking about them and discussing them and talking about them some more. So if you don't recognize some of these names you will. I'll probably spend a lot of time talking about the books, movies and television shows that inspire and fascinate me as well.

And of course, I'll be discussing my own travels in one of my favourite countries i.e. my own imagination which is truly an astonishing place as it is for each of us. This will mostly involve my discussing my efforts to make writing and editing a career. I hope that likeminded people, especially writers or at least people interested in literature, will come and share their thoughts as well.

And of course what better place could this great meeting of minds occur but at a crossroads of the imagination - a place where all these various creative thought processes can converge. What more can you ask for? I can't wait.