Books give us entrée into the lives of others. I wouldn’t want to live like Anne la Bastille, the author of Woodswoman, who lived all alone in an isolated, tiny log cabin in the Adirondacks without electricity or modern plumbing. She had to haul water from the lake and chop a huge amount of wood for heat. Klutz that I am, I know that I have no business handling an axe. La Bastille also had to keep buckets of water handy in case of fire. If the cabin burned during the winter she would quickly freeze to death. What a woman!
I’ve not been a grand adventurer such as she, but I try to view the little incidents of my everyday life as mini adventures. The minute charming, greedy Squirrelie spots one of us through the big window, he dashes to the door, sits up and begs for peanuts until we finally cut him off. Our “peckaries,” as I call our birds, are also piggies who flock to the feeder from dawn till dusk.
The beauty and art of nature are all around us, if we are observant: the rising and setting of the sun and the moon, the complex, lacy pattern of frost on the window, the red cardinal, the vivid blue jay, the sleek gray and white junco, falling snow that makes everything look pristine and fresh — all such things can enrich one’s being.
Oh how rich we are! Manmade art changes the way I look at the world. One of the great Monet’s snowscapes makes me look — really look — more closely at the scene outside after a heavy snow. However, we don’t realize often enough that a stage, film or TV drama can be a form of high art that gives us insights into lives that we shall never live, the human condition and the interconnections of people. It makes us think, just as great painters help us see better.
I’m still getting rave reviews about Downton Abbey which is a topic of conversation at dinner parties and on Facebook. I read an excellent book, The Chronicles of Downton Abbey, which shows how seriously its producers and actors view it and their hard work. The castle is frigid, even in summer, so that the actors wear quilted coats and use hand warmers between takes. One line might require the work of fifteen people. No wonder there are so few episodes a year. There are moments that equal Humphrey Bogart’s “Play it again, Sam” in Casablanca. I’ll never forget Edith’s wedding veil floating down when she threw it over the banister after being jilted at the altar.
The series is as complex and as rich in characterizations and details as a Dickens novel. It’s a compilation of continuing vignettes of the lives of “upstairs” and “downstairs” people so that its characters are three-dimensional and sometimes evoke one’s own experiences. For example, the cook’s cuisine wasn’t up to snuff because she was losing her sight. She was frightened about what would become of her when the Earl summoned her. Instead of firing her, he sent her to London for a consultation with an ophthalmologist and subsequent successful cataract surgery. Watching her story unfold brought back memories of my father’s fear of cataract surgery which, alas, left him blind.
It is impeccably researched and makes history seem human and real rather than a dry compilation of facts and footnotes. It depicts the inequality of the class system, the drudgery of the servants, the excesses of the wealthy, how both classes were bound by tradition and social prejudices, the beginnings of the women’s movement and a vivid portrayal of the horrific trench warfare of World War I. Most of the officers were untrained aristocrats. Their life expectancy was six weeks.
Watching this portrayal of a long-ago era and its people makes me feel well content with the life that I’ve had. wclarke@comcast.net