Farewell to the Woman Behind the Men

This being a ridiculous week, I've only just seen the obituary for Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who went off in search of a room with a better view yesterday at the fine age of 85.

Jhabvala was the silent partner in the magical film duo-really-a-triad known as Merchant/Ivory, the writer whose work underpinned much of what was best in their mostly very, very fine work.  Of them all, I must confess that it's her first Oscar-winner that's still, after 27 years (!), my favorite - indeed very nearly my very favorite film.  A Room with a View must rank as one of the most remarkable film adaptations ever - at once painstakingly faithful to E.M. Forster's dryly sentimental (an odd combo, but that's how he strikes me) view of the world and an achingly romantic, utterly cinematic creation.  It's a luxury wallow in beautiful clothes and wonderful rooms and stunning scenery, yet the wit and discipline of Jhabvala's screenplay make it ring true in every moment.  Let this fateful sequence represent the whole, even if it omits two of my pet characters, the dear Miss Allens.

Filling out Jhabvala's script, of course, is one of the more treasurable casts one can imagine:  fresh-faced and still un-Gothed Miss Bonham Carter, Julian Sands at the height of his considerable looks, Denholm Elliot rumbling away as his eccentric father, Daniel Day Lewis bechameleoned into an Edwardian dandy, young Rupert Graves in a small but toothsome baby-brother part, Dames Maggie and Judi as the straitlaced cousin and unbuttoned novelist, respectively, and - nearly as beloved as the Allen sisters - infinitely charming Simon Callow as the worldly Reverend Beebe.

Jhabvala wrote many more films, many of them marvelous indeed, as well as a great deal of distinguished fiction, but if she'd never done anything but this, she would still be a film immortal.  I've decided not to think about her dying; I think instead she has, like the Miss Allens, gone on to Constantinople.  The title of her last screen adaptation, after all, was The City of Your Final Destination...

To Sleep; Perchance to Dream...

One of the reasons I've been less than productive these past few days is that I've been sleeping oddly. Not badly, mind you; as happens occasionally, I've actually been sleeping rather too deeply. Mr. Muscato discovered this when a couple of nights ago I was unmoved and unwakened by a series of loudly slamming doors (wind; the downside of having the house opened up during these precious cooler months) and subsequently furiously barking dog.

When I go through these bouts of sleep-to-the-point-of-unconsciousness, I often wake more tired than after a similar amount of the usual dozing. Moreover, I'm more prone than usual to remembering dreams - usually long, complicated, and repetitive dreams. This week's featured, in a starring role, Miss Bonham Carter, albeit not in a lilac fur-trimmed peignoir as seen here.

We were walking together, for a very long time, doing the usual dream-state pointless searching for things, talking about other things, and generally not making much sense.

I woke suddenly yesterday morning at one such dream's end, just as she turned to me and said, "you know what the real problem is, don't you? Don't you?"

"Tell me," said I.

She turned away; looking gravely over her shoulder as she walked off, she said, simply: "Mystery clown."

And so I woke up. And this is what I Googled from that phrase:

Amazingly, despite the horror of that image, last night I slept the dreamless, refreshing sleep of the innocent and feel much restored.

But what could it mean?

It's a Look

I know these early snaps have already been all over the 'net, harbingers of Mr. Burton's upcoming interpretation of Alice in Wonderland. I'm particularly taken by this one, his lady-love Miss Bonham-Carter (and not everyone, ducks, can do two hyphenated phrases in a row) as the Red Queen.

I think I am especially amused because I firmly believe that it has been based on a combination of Elizabeth I and that colorful lady of the last century, Margaret, Duchess of Argyll.

Well, everything except maybe the pig (and, not to be a purist or anything, isn't it the Duchess who holds a pig?).

I Do Want to Go to Chelsea

This, in case you didn't know, is Chelsea Flower Show Week in London, an occasion our British friends treat with the seriousness (and column inches) more usually associated with natural disasters or another Madonna divorce.

In any case, the Flower Show always calls forth a healthy showing of the Great and the Good, as well as a great deal of the Silly. And why not? It's spring in London after their godawful winter, the flowers are in bloom, and some of our favorite people are out and about:

Isn't she just the kind of person who, when you think of her, you automatically feel better? I believe Joanna Lumley should be recognized as the (inter)national treasure that she is.

Much in the way that the somewhat more astringent, but equally fabulous, Dame Helen (seen here holding, apparently, the flower of her secret) has been of late. And she would seem to be wearing an article of clothing I thought as vanished as the bustle, a spring coat. Good on her!

Stopping to smell the roses is the ever dapper Mr. Stephen Fry. Why is it that only British men can get away with floppy bangs after 25?

Helen Bonham Carter is always good for a fashion moment; here she seems to be channeling one of her more rumpled outfits from Room with a View. You know, for someone who always complains about getting stuck in corset pictures, she wears an awful lot of Edwardiana...

It being London, hats are much and quite festively in evidence; here we have someone called Claudia Leigh - whom the Daily Telegraph seems to think we'll know all about, although I doubt she's any relation at all to the late Lady Olivier - in a really rather wonderful creation.

Although others have a significantly less-developed sense of proportion. Or, perhaps, far greater access to drugs. I only wish the lady in the towering garden trellis looked more pleased to be there...

Royalty is a regular presence at the Flower Show; the Prince of Wales, in fact, won a prize this year. In a retrospective of royal visits, I especially liked this lovely if enigmatic snap of a regal foot ("believed to be Queen Elizabeth II", the caption oddly tells us) treading a flower-strewn lawn. Such a pretty shoe, don't you think?

I keep meaning to be in London for the Flower Show, but somehow it never works out. I think of gardening like cooking; I may not be all that involved in the process, but I do like the results.