The Fair Fight - Anna Freeman

It is the end of the eighteenth century, around the same time that Jane Austen was writing of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy. Down in Bristol, three people are living very different lives. Ruth Webber was born and brought up in a brothel, but was offered an alternative life at a young age: to box at the local tavern and later on, at the fair. Charlotte Dryer, nee Sinclair, survivor of the smallpox that killed all her family except for her and her abusive brother Perry, is trapped in a loveless and lonely marriage. Meanwhile, George Bowden, the bisexual youngest son of minor gentry, is a lovable scoundrel looking to make an honest - or dishonest -living the best way he can. The three lives come together one evening, the night of Ruth's fight at the Bristol fair...

I found it really fascinating to learn through this novel about women in Regency England who defied the gender norms and took to prize-fighting on a stage. It is such a shocking, violent life when set beside Jane Austen's world of balls and courtships. So it's rather a shame that the book only focuses on that particular aspect for part of the story; Ruth's patron, Granville Dryer soon switches his attentions to training up her gentle giant husband Tom, instead. But the women's fights are not confined only to the stage; for both Ruth and Charlotte, under very different circumstances, every day brings its own battles.

Ruth was the richest character, the strongest voice. Her narrative is full of 18th century Bristolian slang; men are "cullies," babies are "babbers," to fight is to "mill," and to punch is to "fib." She is a most unladylike woman, shocking everyone she comes into contact with by her rough and aggressive manner. She is a fighter. But when she forms attachments, she is just as fierce in her loyalty.

Charlotte, by contrast, appears to be a proper lady, but she burns with an inner fire in need of an outlet. She is desperate to rebel against her repressive life. Her husband, Granville, is a thoroughly contemptible character. He is not a bully like Perry Sinclair, Charlotte's drunken brother, but he is unforgivably selfish and heedless of others. He values other people as far as they are useful or entertaining, but when that is no longer true, they just cease to exist for him.

I thought that the third narrator, George's story was the weakest part of an otherwise well-plotted and gripping novel. It starts off well, but seems to be dropped partway through, and when it resumes, although his actions do affect the other two story strands, his thread is not so tightly woven in as the rest of the book.

The Fair Fight is an exciting, punchy page-turner, with characters you grow to love (except for those you have to hate.) It shows a different side to a popular era in historical fiction, celebrating women who broke away from gender expectations at a time when a woman's role was seemingly fixed in place. An excellent read, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Book to Film: L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables (2016)

As a general rule, I don't really approve of remaking classic films. But a second, or fourth, or nineteenth filmed adaptation of a book is not the same thing as a remake, and so when I heard that there was to be a new film of my book, Anne of Green Gables, I was not one of the Megan Follows devotees who bewailed that the 1985 series was untouchable. Because, excellent as that series is (at least, the first one) having multiple adaptations available sends you back to the source material. All on-screen Annes are imitations of the Platonic Ideal Anne found in the pages of L.M.Montgomery's novels. And as far as I'm concerned, the more Anne the better.

All the previous versions of Anne that I have seen have aged Anne up a bit, or a lot, from her original eleven years. Megan Follows' Anne (1985) started out as thirteen, Anne Shirley's Anne Shirley (1934) was fourteen, and although I've only seen the sequel to the BBC version from the '70s, it looks like Kim Braden would have been at least in her late teens. Both contemporary-set webseries Green Gables Fables and Project Green Gables started her story at the age of seventeen. But Ella Ballentine was closer to Anne's real age, and reminds us that she was in fact only a child, and yet she'd already been through so much. She is a resilient, loving little soul who has used her vivid imagination to survive a turbulent childhood and bring what comfort she can to others; we see her trying to cheer up other children in the orphanage and on the train to Prince Edward Island. When she speaks of her hardships, her matter-of-fact tone breaks the listeners' hearts, both in-universe and out, that nothing strikes her as unusual in living with guardians who she was sure meant to be good to her, or never having had a friend.  After such an existence, she revels in life in the countryside, and although Matthew and Marilla don't know what to make of her joy at such (to them) commonplace things as the scent of lilac, the flight of seagulls, they come to see their world as for the first time. This bright-eyed little girl with the fancy turn of phrase is both strange and endearing,

Of course, if Anne is the right age, so are Diana and her schoolmates, and so is Gilbert Blythe (13). He is very definitely a mischievous schoolboy and not a romantic hero. But this is Anne of Green Gables before it becomes a love story; its focus is on family and belonging, and a celebration of simple wonders. Diana is a true kindred spirit; the film shows us a little bit more of what draws her and Anne together, their love of fairy-tales and make-believe. Mrs Rachel Lynde provides a light comic touch. "Now, you know me, I'm not one to interfere..." Marilla Cuthbert is well-drawn, played by Sara Botsford, striking the right balance between severity and soft-heartedness. Martin Sheen's Matthew, was not quite Matthew Cuthbert as we know him. He's lovable, quiet and sweet, but not shy so much as introverted.

This film doesn't cover the whole book, but only Anne's first year at Green Gables. Still, it's better to take its time over the first half and do it well than to rush the entire book into a two-hour movie. It ends with a slight deviation from the original story, in order to have a satisfying conclusion part-way through, while still potentially leaving it open to a sequel.

And if this team does not make a sequel, there will be more of Miss Shirley to come next year on Netflix, with a new series simply entitled Anne. Watch this space.

The Bath Bookshop Crawl 2016

I wrote in my rereadathon wrap-up post that I've spent the end of my holiday in Cardiff and Bath. Although I was only away for four nights, I managed to fit a lot into my time away, catching up with two friends from the Isle of Wight, recording a podcast with one of them, seeing Going Postal in Cardiff, and the trip culminated in the Bath Bookshop Crawl on Saturday. This was another event organised by Bex, following on from the success of the London Bookshop Crawl at the beginning of the year.

The Bath Bookshop Crawl was smaller than the London one, but no less memorable. There were ten of us altogether, which was a good cosy number to get to know each other. We met in a coffee shop by the station for tea or milkshakes, all except for Ellie whose train was delayed. Our first bookshop stop was Good Buy Books, a little discount bookstore on the corner, whose selection might not be huge but had some great bargains and surprising gems. I snapped up a hardback copy of The Time Machine for a good price. Some of us went to explore the nearby wool shop and haberdashery, before regrouping and heading off towards the Guildhall market. Ellie joined us along the way, recognising a small huddle of people laden down with book bags. Bath is a nicely compact city, without too much of a walk between destinations (although I took a long time the previous day to orientate myself.

Next up Skoobs (no relation to Skoob Books in London, which is another great bookshop to check out, right by Russell Square tube station.) It was described as a second-hand bookstall in the marketplace, but that doesn't really do it justice; not just a table spread with dog-eared copies of The Da Vinci Code, Skoobs was a decent-sized small bookshop in its own right. There was a lovely selection of books of all genres, bookcases for children's books, fantasy and horror, romance and saga, general fiction - and quite probably a lot of non-fiction too, but I didn't see everything there. But there were a lot of children's books from my childhood and fantasy from my teenage years, all in editions that brought me out in nostalgia - and I finally completed my Malory Towers collection with "my" covers (Well, they all have the same pictures though some are different styles; the Dragon/Armada ones from the late '80s and early '90s.) I also bought The Outsiders, which I'm pretty sure I read as a teenager, but don't quite remember, and which I've found so many references to in the last few months. Several of us huddled round by the sci-fi, fantasy and horror shelves, and I sighed happily over the Dark Moon by Julia Gray, a long-forgotten series that devoured a crucial week or two of study-leave before my A-Levels. I also went off on a bit of a rant about how terrible Stephen King's Dreamcatcher is. Sorry people!

Waterstone's was the biggest bookshop we visited, and it really is a beauty. They very kindly offered us a free lunch, and our scouts emerged from upstairs to tell us that there was a table set for us in the cookery section. One of the booksellers waited on us, giving us real VIP treatment, taking orders for toasted paninis, cakes, and plenty of tea and coffee, even giving us all goody-bags. I was just expecting a plate of triangle sandwiches and maybe a cupcake or two! I think we all felt a bit guilty that they went to so much trouble for us. We are not worthy! (But thank you so much, Waterstone's Bath, you really made it a special experience.) 

I bought two books: Fellside by M.R. Carey, the author of The Girl With All The Gifts, and The Race by Nina Allan, another book with a figure silhouetted against a starry sky on its cover. (Hey, that worked out well last time! This is apparently a very different kind of book to Small Angry Planet, however.) I also came away with a 99 Things That Bring Me Joy journal, to fill in and keep in my Happy Box. (I don't think I've written about my Happy Box before. Remind me to do a post about it some time.) 

Our next stop was Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights, which is a beautiful and I believe a rather famous bookshop. The decor was beautiful, with a wall of Tintin comics, tote bags on a ceiling, and the downstairs toilet had been decorated/doodled on by artist and illustrator Chris Riddell. In Waterstone's I had more or less decided to put off buying Joe Hill's latest tome The Fireman for another day - it was heavy and quite expensive - but I had no sooner set foot in Mr B's than I discovered they had signed copies for sale. So whoops, onto the pile it went! I also went in search of a book I'd noticed in Cardiff, The Fair Fight about lady boxers in the eighteenth or nineteenth century, which has been compared to and has a blurb by Sarah Waters - always a promising sign.

Our final bookshop was Topping and Company, just around the corner, a proper, elegant old-fashioned kind of bookshop, with high shelves with those long ladders that every book-loving little girl dreams of. There was a table full of hardback fiction, many signed first editions, with protective plastic covers. I only had enough money for one more book and was torn between The Essex Serpent and The Muse, before finally settling on the latter, because I'd really liked Jessie Burton's previous offering The Miniaturist. We were offered tea and biscuits while browsing; I'm not sure if that was a special bookshop crawl thing or whether all shoppers get to have afternoon tea as part of the Topping experience. We were all rather weary by that point and glad to have a sit down and put down our heavy tote bags for a while. 

 

We had one other shop on the itinerary, American Dream comics, but by the time we got there, it was about five minutes before closing time. The shop was quite a small one, with plenty of comics and Pop Vinyl figures. I don't read a lot of comics or graphic novels, and there wasn't time to have a good old browse. I did look for a Holtzmann figure from the new Ghostbusters film, but alas, I have not yet been able to find her.

Some of our number went home at that point, but six of us went over to the pub where my friend James, one of my fellow "People Under The Stairs" from high school, works. I'd met up with him the previous day, and we'd gone out for drinks - and I added him to the list of people I'd introduced to The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet. (That makes six that I know of.) The bar was busy, it being a Saturday night, but James was able to pop out of the kitchen briefly to say hello. We ordered drinks and food, and counted up our combined purchases. There were about 40 between the six of us, and I made it 76 altogether, a not-too-shabby contribution to the Bath bookselling economy.