Something the darkness can't take

I never thought I would like murder mystery TV shows, but I've discovered I do.

After enjoying seven seasons of Grantchester, about a vicar who helps the local police inspector solve murders in a village near Cambridge, England, I've recently been watching Endeavour. Set in Oxford, England in the 1960s, it's an excellent series that focuses on Endeavour Morse, a moody young detective working with his mentor, Inspector Thursday, to solve complex murder cases. 

(Hmmm... two shows about university towns with lots of murders... considering I live in a university town, should I worry? Or should I just get busy solving crimes?)

In an early episode, Morse is rattled by a psychopathic murderer whom they have just captured. Before he is taken away, the killer makes pointed comments about Morse's painful past and how the two of them are alike: brilliant but lonely.

As they stand on the roof of a college building after catching the killer, Morse asks Inspector Thursday how he does it -- how he can leave his work at the front door when he goes home to his family at the end of the day.

 image from Endeavour, "Fugue"

"'Cause I have to," replies Thursday grimly. "A case like this'll tear the heart right out of a man."

Then he says, "Find something worth defending."

Morse says, "I thought I had found something." (He doesn't elaborate.)

"Music?" Thursday asks, referring to Morse's love of opera and classical music. "I guess music is as good as anything. Go home, put your best record on -- loud as it'll play -- and with every note, you remember: that's something that the darkness couldn't take from you."

 image from Endeavour, "Fugue"

I've thought about these lines a lot since watching this episode. They remind me a bit of Sam in the movie depiction of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Two Towers, urging Frodo to hold onto the fact "that there's some good in this world... and it's worth fighting for."

I noted that Thursday doesn't say, "Find a cause or a project and put all your effort into it." There are definitely times when we need to throw ourselves behind a worthy cause. But not everyone is in a position to pursue a big project, become an influencer, blaze new trails, fight big battles. I think the deeper point is that anything beautiful and meaningful, anything you love (even something that's been misused, as the killer in the Endeavour episode had misused music by basing his crimes on scenes from various operas), can be a force that resists darkness, that can't be destroyed by the evil in this world.

I was going to continue this post with a list of things that might fit this description. Music. Poetry. Birds. Sunsets. Sunrises. But to be honest, it sounded a bit feeble. And anyway, Thursday says "music is as good as anything" -- as if it doesn't even matter that much what the thing is. So there doesn't seem to be any point in making a list.

Then today I read this paragraph in poet Maggie Smith's fantastic new memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful:

What now? I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.* But here's the thing about carrying light with you. No matter where you go, and no matter what you find -- or don't find -- you change the darkness just by entering it. You clear a path through it.

And it hit me: yes, we need to find something worth defending, something the darkness can't take away ... but we also are something the darkness can't take away. Just by being truthfully, genuinely ourselves we make a difference. Who we are can be an act of resistance to the forces that seek to destroy and divide. We can fight the darkness by being the carriers of light that we already are, and by letting our light reveal everything -- and everyone -- that is good and beautiful.

I find that well worth pondering. And I love it when the things I'm watching and reading, whether murder mystery or memoir, come together to tell me something.

*"I am out with lanterns, looking for myself": line from Emily Dickinson

Family Day update

 

 Family Day is the first holiday so far this year (after New Year's Day, of course), and I thought this might be a good time for a family update.

On January 10 Richard was out running down by the Kingston waterfront, slipped on a patch of ice that was hidden by a newly-fallen dusting of snow, and fell. His left foot/ankle was extremely swollen and sore and he couldn't walk, so he had to text me to pick him up in the car. At first he thought/hoped it was just a bad sprain, but X-rays the next day revealed he had a broken fibula: that's the thinner of the two bones in the lower leg. He was fortunate enough to get an orthopedic clinic appointment a couple of days later, and at that appointment, further X-rays showed  he'd need surgery on the leg. He had surgery on January 16 and has to avoid weight-bearing on the affected leg for six weeks (so of course no work). His next appointment is Monday, which is seven weeks after the injury and six weeks after surgery; he's hopeful that he'll be able to start putting weight on his leg soon and can gradually segue back into work and other activities.

In the meantime he's been hobbling around on crutches. For the first two weeks after surgery he couldn't go outside at all because of all the snow and ice -- and for an active, athletic person that is not easy. We bought some crutch spikes (they attach to the bottom of the crutch and flip down and up as needed), which have enabled him to get outside for walks. Rich is trying to look at this as a temporary setback and be grateful that it wasn't any worse.

Our household routine has had to change somewhat of course because of Rich's injury. He can't help a lot with Jonathan's stuff, so I've taken over that, and he can't drive because our car is a standard, so driving, groceries, etc. have become my responsibility. But we're managing OK. Neighbours and friends have helped with some snow-blowing and shoveling and have dropped off some meals, which have been very welcome.

It's Reading Week right now, so Allison has a break from her Queen's classes. They've been all online so far this term, but next week students return to (mostly) in-person learning, so she'll be heading off to campus for two of her three courses. Oddly, two of them occur back-to-back on the same day, which was fine when both were online -- but now one's on campus and the one immediately following is remaining online, so she'll have to dash home to join her Zoom class or figure out some other arrangement.

Jonathan is doing great. After all the struggles with his seizures this past summer and fall, he is now three months seizure-free. He has a new neurologist; the pediatric neurologist he'd been seeing retired, and Jonathan has outgrown pediatric services anyway -- so it was good timing to get settled with a new doctor. She seems extremely nice so we're happy to have that transition completed. Jonathan has been enjoying school and also some extra respite times on Saturdays and Sundays with his former EA, Dylan, who has helped us out a bit more since Richard's injury.

I've been working away on my online course and doing a bit of freelance copyediting as well. This is my last semester instructing the course, so every time I mark an assignment or compose a course announcement I find myself thinking, "This is the last time I'll do this." But it feels right, and I'm ready for the change and whatever it brings.

With all our free evenings we've been watching a lot of TV series, and thoroughly enjoyed The Durrells in Corfu. This 4-season series is based on a real-life family who moved from London to the Greek island of Corfu in the 1930s. It's perfect winter viewing: lovely warm scenery, interesting characters, and the right mix of hilarious and touching. If you're looking for something to watch, give it a try!

 

 I've also been reading some good books, mostly memoir/nonfiction: 

Unprotected by Billy Porter

No Cure for Being Human by Kate Bowler

Once More We Saw Stars by Jayson Greene

The Sacred Pulse by April Fiet (I was an early reader for this lovely book and even appear in the acknowledgements!)

Events in Ottawa with the trucker convoy have occupied a lot of our attention over the past month. We're coming to see how this protest (which might have some legitimate origins like concern over people's livelihoods in the face of vaccine mandates) morphed into a full-scale occupation that terrorized neighbourhoods, forced businesses to close out of concern for safety (how ironic), and drew racist and insurrectionist elements out of the woodwork. We really need to stay focused on our priorities as a country (ensuring the well-being of citizens and helping those who are truly disadvantaged, whether because of necessary Covid rules or for some other reason) and not let right-wing agitators take any deeper root than they already have.

This Family Day holiday is a good reminder to be grateful for our smaller circles of loved ones but also to realize how much we owe the broader community of which we're a part.

Five Minute Friday: MERCY

Today I'm linking up with Five Minute Friday, writing for five minutes on a given prompt. This week's word is MERCY.

Richard and I have been watching a very entertaining drama series called A Place to Call Home this summer, and the episode we watched last night was a fascinating example of the complex relationship between justice and mercy. (NOTE: IF YOU ARE CURRENTLY WATCHING OR INTEND TO WATCH THIS SHOW, YOU MAY WISH TO STOP READING TO AVOID SPOILERS.)

In the show, an evil, malicious man and woman (we'll call them Bad Guy and Bad Gal) are working together to bring down a wealthy but (mostly) good family. They do some terrible things to this family out of ambition, envy, revenge, resentment, twisted love -- all kinds of reasons.

But eventually Bad Gal is brought low, and gradually, over a period of three years, she starts to change. Bad Guy wants to keep using her to hurt the rich family -- but bit by bit she starts siding with the family, telling them Bad Guy's plans and how to get back at him. Because she's done such awful things on her own and in the service of Bad Guy, none of them wants to trust her at first. But slowly that changes too. The warnings she gives them come true. The suggestions she makes for how to thwart Bad Guy actually work. They begin to believe that -- despite all her malicious deeds -- she might actually be on their side after all.

When Bad Guy realizes Bad Gal has been working against him rather than for him, everything explodes, and Bad Gal is found dead. All the evidence points to Bad Guy, who is charged with her murder.

But then two members of the family make a shocking discovery: that Bad Gal actually ended her own life in hopes that Bad Guy would be charged with her murder. Bad Guy had the motive to kill her, and he probably wanted to, perhaps even tried to -- but he didn't do it.

So then the family must make a choice. Do they stay silent about what they've discovered, honour the sacrifice made by a woman they once despised, and let Bad Guy, who has caused them so much suffering, be punished for a crime he didn't commit? Or do they tell the police what they know, thus allowing Bad Guy to go free and (seemingly) nullifying Bad Gal's final attempt to atone for her misdeeds?

After deciding that the choice to keep silent must be a unanimous one, each member of the family states their opinion. One by one, each of them states that they want to keep silent and let Bad Guy go to prison. Finally the matriarch of the family speaks, casting the single opposing vote. She says, "I once betrayed my moral code because of love [helping her terminally ill husband end his own life]; I refuse to do it again because of hate." So the family tells the police, and Bad Guy goes free.

So is this an example of justice? Or mercy?

For Bad Guy, justice prevails: a man is accused of a crime, he's proven not to have committed that crime, and he's freed.

But Bad Guy also receives mercy. The family owe him nothing; he owes them reparations for all the ways he's violated them. But they make a choice that frees him of all obligation to make amends. He never pays and (from what we know of him) probably never will.

For Bad Gal, justice also prevails: she has done awful things, and she pays with her life to atone for them.

But there is mercy for her, too. The family has had every reason to reject, disbelieve, and mistrust her; yet they give her the gift of trust, of believing her when she says she's changed -- and she honours that trust. She ends up dying for people who have given her a chance. There's redemption in that.

Sometimes fiction is too black and white: the villains too villainous, the good guys too perfect, the outcomes too cut-and-dried. But good fiction reminds us how complex life can be -- how the black and white can blur into gray, how justice and mercy, love and hate, forgiveness and vengeance, can be all mixed together in a very complicated, and very human, package.

Five Minute Friday: CONTROL

Today I'm linking up with Kate Motaung for Five Minute Friday. This week's word is "CONTROL."

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When I was young, my brothers and I loved watching Get Smart: a TV show about a dim-witted secret agent, Maxwell Smart, who worked for the Control agency, battling against an evil organization called Kaos.

Even now we still quote lines from the show, like this one:

Oily villain from Kaos: "You're very loyal ... and very stupid." 

Max: "We're Control agents. We're trained to be very loyal and very stupid."

Or this: 

Max: "There are a hundred Control agents outside at this very minute."

Villain: "I find that very hard to believe."

Max: "Would you believe fifty Control agents?"

Villain: "I don't think so."

Max: "How about three Boy Scouts with slingshots?"

In Maxwell Smart's world, Kaos was no match for Control. In my world, though, control is rarely the solution to chaos ... at least not my control. I may have my own narrow ideas of how to solve problems or what should be done to make the world better -- but so often they fall short because I don't see the whole picture, only my small part of it.

Life works better when I accept my limitations and trust that God is in control. That doesn't mean I do nothing -- only that I recognize when it's time to stop forcing and accept that I don't have all the answers. It's actually a lot easier to see what my place and purpose are if I don't try to control everything. I need to remember that.

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Five Minute Friday: REFINE

Today I'm linking up with Kate Motaung for Five Minute Friday.  This week's prompt is "REFINE."

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Downton Abbey ended a year ago, and I'm still missing it. I loved that show. I still re-watch old episodes so that I can go back into that world again. I felt like the Crawleys and their staff were my friends, and sometimes I have this sense that they're still all out there going on with their lives, only without billions of pairs of eyes watching them.

The Crawleys were so refined. The women would come down to dinner in gorgeous, decadent dresses, dripping with jewelry. They'd sit straight-backed, their wrists (never their elbows) resting elegantly on the edge of the table.

And those voices! I loved their sophisticated English accents. If you want a good laugh, CLICK HERE to see a clip of Downton Abbey actors reading their lines in American accents. It's pretty hilarious to see Lord Grantham as an American mogul, pontificating to his kids about properties and acquisitions .... on second thought, let's change the subject. 

It's so easy to get starstruck by elegant people. Their beautiful houses, sophisticated clothing, refined manners ... they must be doing something right. They must be just a bit better than the rest of us.

But the truth is, we're all equal. No one is better than anyone else because of their status, their inheritance, their possessions, or their refined manners. This Irish song that I love, "John O'Dreams," reminds us that at the end of the day -- or the end of life -- we are all on the same level ground:

Both man and master in the night are one;

All things are equal when the day is done.

The prince, the ploughman, the slave, the free man

All find their comfort in old John O'Dreams.

The Bible also reminds us of the surprising humility of Jesus:

Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. (Philippians 2:5-7, The Message Bible)

It's fun to immerse myself in the world of the rich and refined for a while, but my comfort comes in knowing that the trappings of wealth and power are not what matter to God. He is a friend to the poor, the weak, the lonely, the powerless. He became one of us to prove that.

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Downton Abbey, Jane Eyre, and the mad wife

(Warning: post contains spoilers)

 Downton Abbey ended last weekend after its sixth and final season. Like millions of other fans of the show, I loved it, and I'm going to miss it. Yes, I still have my DVD's, but it's not the same.

The grande finale episode was very touching and satisfying. Still, I'm left with this feeling that the Crawleys and their staff are going on with their life without us, and we're missing it!

In most cases I enjoy thinking about the characters moving on in life. It's fun to envision the three Crawley children fussing over Baby Bates and, in a few months, Baby Talbot; and to imagine Andy and Daisy's youthful romance unfolding alongside the possibility of Mr. Mason and Mrs. Patmore's not-so-youthful one.

But it's a little sadder to think about other characters -- like Lizzie.

If you don't remember a character named Lizzie, that's not surprising. She never appeared on screen, and she was mentioned only a few times -- only once, I think, by name.

She was Michael Gregson's mad wife.

 When Edith Crawley noticed London editor Michael Gregson showing a romantic interest in her, she picked up the phone and called his newspaper office to ask about his private life -- only to find out he was married. When she confronted him, he admitted he was married, but that his wife had been in an insane asylum for many years. 

The "mad wife" trope is, of course, best known in Jane Eyre. But at least in that novel, the mad wife's existence caused the characters some genuine moral misgivings. When Jane found out on her wedding day about Rochester's tragic secret, her choice was clear: he wasn't free to marry her, and she couldn't live in sin, so she fled to avoid temptation and reassert her own strength and dignity. And even Rochester had done the noble thing by taking his wife home and ensuring she was cared for, even though he had been tricked into marrying her.

But in Downton Abbey, the mad wife is just a plot device. Edith never shows one iota of sympathy or pity for Lizzie Gregson and never offers to distance herself from Michael to ease his moral dilemma. In fact, for him it barely is a moral dilemma. He does say, "Lizzie was a wonderful person. I loved her very much. It took me a long time to accept that the woman I knew was gone and wouldn't be coming back." But by the time we meet him, whatever struggle of acceptance he might have gone through is done: Lizzie is now just an annoying obstacle between him and Edith. I cringe at the scene in Season 3 when Gregson is fishing with Matthew and whining about his fate:

"Of course it's a lot to ask [that Edith get involved with him knowing he's married], but what else can I do? I'm prevented from divorcing a woman who doesn't even know who I am. Does the law expect me to have no life at all until I die?"

The practical Matthew replies, "You've been misled by our surroundings. We're not in a novel by Walter Scott."

Or a novel by Charlotte Bronte, either, apparently. Edith falls in love with Gregson; he tells her that if he moves to Germany he can divorce Lizzie ("You'd do that? For me?" Edith says meltingly...); then he disappears and is found dead, leaving Edith with a baby whose identity she must hide. The Edith-and-baby plotline comes to dominate the last three seasons.

Finally, in the end, Edith achieves true happiness: she finds love with a new man and gains a title of honour. I'm glad for her. 

But I feel very sorry for Lizzie -- because if we imagine the characters we know and love having an ongoing existence beyond the grand finale episode, then we have to imagine her having an ongoing existence, too.  And in 1925 it would have been a pretty bleak one. 

I know, I know: it's just a TV program with fictional characters, and with so many subplots the writer can't be expected to do justice to every single thread of the story. But it's still sad to see a person with a devastating mental illness treated as meaningless and invisible.

So I just want to say: Lizzie, I wish you well. I hope you've found a little bit of happiness in your life and that somehow you know you're more than just a speed bump in someone else's plotline.

 

The ten worst Downton Abbey subplots, seasons 1-5

It's time to take a break from the trivial subjects I usually write about and talk about something important: Downton Abbey. I love this TV show, and I love sharing my opinions about it with anyone who will listen.  

In this post I'm discussing what I consider the show's ten worst subplots, starting with the least worst and ending with the absolute worst.  Do you agree or disagree?  Please make your opinion known in the comments; I'd love to hear what you think!

Note:  there are numerous spoilers ahead, so if you're watching Downton Abbey but haven't reached the end of Season 5 yet, you may want to skip this post.

10. The Denker-Spratt rivalry (season 5).  Spratt is such a stuffed shirt that we're eager to see him meet his match -- but his rivalry witih Denker quickly wears out its welcome.  Spratt hides one of the Dowager's suitcases -- ooh, wouldn't it be fun to see Violet arrive in London without her underwear? --  but nothing comes of it; Denker discovers the omission right away, so the sparks instantly fizzle.  And pardon me, but who cares if Denker can make delicious broth?????   

(Come to think of it, why do so many lame side plots occur at the Dower House?  Violet's illness, which no one in her family seems at all concerned about ... Violet's gardener, who might have been a thief but isn't ... yawwwwn ...) 

9.  Anthony Strallan and Edith (3).  This romance shows Edith at her most lovely and radiant, but Strallan proves to be a jerk, giving a pathetic excuse for not marrying her (and waiting until they're at the altar to tell her he can't go through with it).  Let's wipe this one from the family memory book, shall we?

8.  Sarah Bunting and Tom (4-5).  If there was any real chemistry between Miss Bunting and Tom, we might believe him when he says that she's made him remember who he used to be. But he never seems remotely comfortable in her presence.  Tom himself has shown that it's actually possible to be decent to people whose values you don't share -- but Miss Bunting seems unable to do that.  She would be a poor replacement for the sweet, spirited Sybil.  I'm not a bit sorry to see her go.

7. Edna Braithwaite's return (4).   Edna was bad enough in season 3 when she was dogging Tom's steps as a housemaid; now in 4 she returns to plague him and annoy everyone else (except the clueless Cora, who thinks Edna's just fine and dandy and castigates anyone who dares to hint that she might not be quite right for the job).  Edna is an irritating character with no interesting backstory and no redeeming qualities.  Please, let this be the last of her.

6. The mysterious soldier (2).  The sudden appearance of a disfigured (and therefore unrecognizable) soldier who might-or-might-not be the supposedly dead Patrick Crawley is straight from the cliche pile.  This subplot was disposed of within a single episode, thank goodness.

5.  Alfred and the kitchen maids (3-4).  Everyone, Mr. Carson in particular, goes on about how nice Alfred is and how hard he works, but I can't warm to his oafish character.  And the triangle between Alfred and Daisy and Ivy (or quadrangle, if you include Jimmy) just doesn't make sense to me.  When Ivy first appears, Daisy resents her -- but by the end of season 3, they're great friends, arm in arm at the county fair. Then in season 4, Daisy is again spouting venom at Ivy every chance she gets.  But why?  Maybe I missed something, but I can't see that Ivy leads Alfred on at all.  And anyway, if Daisy couldn't love William, who was a fine, upstanding person, how can she love a dope like Alfred?  (He's also related to Miss O'Brien, a black mark that, in my opinion, he'll never be able to overcome.)

4. Michael Gregson and his aftermath (3-5).  OK, Edith's only past writing experience appears to be penning a nasty letter about Mary, but it may not be too far-fetched to believe she could be an accomplished columnist.  And Michael does seem to love Edith.  But to complicate their romance by giving Gregson a mad wife ... hasn't that been done in literature before?  Give me a break!  And then there's Edith's pregnancy, which she cleverly hides from her mother by suddenly going to Switzerland for a six-month vacation. (At least that gives Cora time to return from whatever planet she's on.)  And Edith's obsession with little Marigold, however understandable, leads her (twice!) to wrench the child from the only family she knows, finally bringing her to Downton where she ... promptly leaves Marigold with nannies in order to take trips to London and Duneagle.  Sheesh.  (And by the way, when Robert says that Marigold reminds him of Michael Gregson, that's just not credible scriptwriting.  It would make much more sense for Robert to observe that Marigold looks like Edith did when she was a baby.) 

3.  Mary's suitors (4-5).  Tony Gillingham seems like a promising prospect for Mary.  Their attraction appears genuine, and their kiss when she refuses his proposal is lovely.  While I understand Mary's reluctance to marry him so soon after Matthew's death, I'm rooting for him.  But then Charles Blake comes along and complicates matters ... or does he?  His relationship with Mary is really much more brother-and-sisterly (seeing as it involves throwing pig manure at each other and all).  Does he ever even mention loving her?  To these guys, courtship appears to consist of showing up at every event Mary attends and glowering at each other.  (So ... the way to a woman's heart is to trail after her like a puppy?  Who knew?)  I feel sorry for Tony:  he goes from being almost too nice to being a pathetic hanger-on to being dumped for no apparent reason other than that Mary has changed her mind.  Her rejection of him, and Charles' scheme to help her jilt him and send him back to Mabel, seems phony and contrived.  Mary shows ten times more true emotion over Tom's leaving Downton than over any of her suitors. The truth is, no one can really replace Matthew* in her heart -- or ours -- regardless of what may happen in season 6. 
*Note that I'm not including Matthew's death in this list, for the sole reason that it was forced on the writers because of the actor's desire to leave the show -- it wasn't an event that they forced on the script.

2.  The Prince of Wales and the letter (4).   From the fake card party to the ransacking of Sampson's apartment to Bates exercising his forgery skills, this subplot is weak and farcical.  In fact, there are too many new characters in this final episode of season 4, yet nothing to really make us care about any of them:  the Prince of Wales, his mistress, Cora's brother, the old man who woos Cora's mother, the old man's daughter who -- inexplicably -- falls for Cora's brother... See, I can't even remember any of their names.  For a season finale, this one is pretty shabby.

1.  Anna being sexually assaulted by Green (4).  As a Twitter friend said recently, "I've never been a big fan of violence against women as a salacious plot point." At the point when this event takes place, Series 4 is barely under way and there are plenty of interesting plots that could be pursued.  To have a central character attacked so brutally -- and in a way so inconsistent with the whole tone of the show -- seems totally inappropriate.  I'm not suggesting such a thing could not happen to women of the servant class (or any class) in that period, but here it seems gratuitous.  It also leads to a flood of complication and lies that muddle character development rather than enhancing it. The Downton household's support for Bates at his previous trial was based on the staunch belief that he was not capable of murder:  yes, he hated Vera; yes, he threatened Vera; but he would never have killed Vera.  Yet why does Anna lie to Bates about her assault?  Because she thinks he is capable of murder.  So then what are we supposed to think about him, or about her, or about their relationship?  Currently, at the end of season 5, Anna herself is charged with the murder, which is ridiculous.  The Anna-Bates storyline has always been one of the best things about the show; it could have been deepened without making Anna a victim of senseless violence. Actually, I see this subplot as a perfect example of what's called "jumping the shark" -- an unexpected, gimmicky plot device that signals desperation and a show's declining quality.  While I still love Downton and will of course be watching when the final season airs next year, I  think the overall quality has declined:  note that almost all of the subplots in my "10 worst" list took place in seasons 4 and 5.


Well, I've had my say on this significant issue. Now it's your turn ...