Pictured here is the historical d'Artagnan, who was named Charles de Batz de Castelmore, and was not a schlub.
Now lets get into the overthought portion of your evening’s entertainment. The most interesting thing about the new series is another element that it gets wrong. One of the classic structures for historical fiction is the Tale of the Schlubby Bystander. In this kind of novel, we see important moments in world history through the eyes of a not-particularly-distinguished observer who rubs elbows with the great, and feels the repercussions of their actions, but has little to no active role in the creation of history. Johnny Tremain is a great example of this, as is The Three Musketeers, as are pretty much all of Sir Walter Scott’s books (Scott having essentially invented the historical novel with Waverley). The attractions of this structure are obvious. The readers get to identify with the Schlub: after all, they too are bystanders. The author is spared the indignity of having to put too many words in the mouth of (and worse, thoughts in the head of), notable personages such as Paul Revere and Anne of Austria. It’s really a win-win. But it does entail a tricky balancing act. Stories of this kind always require the author to shift back and forth between the main character – i.e. the Schlub – and the more important supporting characters. Even in the sections focused on the Schlub, the author needs to balance the character’s personal emotional life with his/her involvement with world events.
One of the best examples of this balance can be found in The Three Musketeers. The first big section of the book is all D’Artagnan all the time. He traipses around France on his godawful horse, gets in some duels, makes a friend or two or three, becomes a Musketeer (although actually he totally doesn’t, yet). Then, slooooowly, we zoom out. Now D’Artagnan is running errands for the Queen. Now he takes part in the siege of La Rochelle. At the climax of the book, we witness the assassination of the Duke of Buckingham! How did we ever get here? (And note that D’Artagnan is not really even peripherally involved.) Then in the falling action we zoom back in, and it becomes all about the personal vendetta between the Musketeers and Milady De Winter.
In the book version, The Pillars of the Earth follows a similar arc. When it starts out, it’s all about Tom Builder and his family trying like hell not to starve to death after someone steals their pig. Gradually we zoom out to the point where we see Prior Philip struggling to run his thriving medieval town, and rubbing elbows with Kings and Archbishops in his efforts. Towards the end, we zoom back in and focus on how all this has derailed the main character’s love life. On its most fundamental level, for all the chase scenes and heavy petting, The Pillars of the Earth is about how the best-layed plans of mice and men are upset by institutional forces like monarchy and religion (although, unlike The Wire, it does offer the individual a way to struggle back against the system: if one is lucky and persistant one may get the chance to build a cathedral, which after all will stand long after the current king is dead).
What makes this structure work is that it’s not a bait and switch. We know going in that we’ll eventually be seeing the big picture – we just don’t know how it will relate to the small scale stuff. Part of the reason that the small scale, pig-stealing stuff can be compelling is that we know these characters are destined for greater things… but we don’t know anything specific. If we did, it would wreck it: the mystery, which must be carefully maintained, is what really makes the story tick. Said mystery is established in the very first scene of the book, in which an unnamed man is hanged by the neck on the orders of a likewise unnamed monk, knight, and priest. The dead man’s lover – who turns out to be our old friend Ellen, she of the active bladder – curses them, which apparently was a thing you could do back in the middle ages. I really dig Follett’s prose here: “I curse you with sickness and sorrow, with hunger and pain; your house shall be consumed by fire, and your children shall die on the gallows; your enemies shall prosper, and you shall grow old in sadness and regret, and die in foulness and agony.” Proper. Next time someone cuts me in line at the grocery store, I’m gonna whip that one out.
Who the dead man is, and why he was killed, is the central mystery of the book. We find out sloooooowly, even more slowly than we pull back and start to engage with the broader political situation. Arguably the answer, when it arrives, is something of an anticlimax – but with big narrative mysteries like this, the anticipation is always sweeter than the event itself. Follett manages to sustain the tension for well nigh 1,000 pages, and that in itself is something to celebrate. Also cool is the way that Ellen’s curse actually comes true. One of her antagonists turns out to be the old Prior whose cathedral burns down, giving Tom a chance to design the new one; one is Percy Hamleigh, whose loathsome son William eventually does die on the gallows; and one is Waleran, who at the end of the book we are told is “a sad old man… and knows that [he has] wasted his life.” If you’re paying close attention throughout the book, you can figure most of this out, but it’s not actually spelled out for you until the very, very end. Which is how it should be, with a major narrative mystery. It’s not exactly rocket science – just basic narrative craft.
The TV show bungles this on every conceivable level. Rather than the slow zoom out from the petty concerns of petty people to the great concerns of the nation, it cuts back and forth between them constantly from the very first episode. As a result, I found myself hard-pressed to care about either one. Rather than the lingering mystery of the hanging and the curse, we learn in the first episode that [Spoilers! Although the writers of the show apparently don’t think so!] the man was killed because he knew something about the shipwreck that caused the death of the King’s only heir. We also learn right away that the old Prior was involved with the coverup, because he makes a deathbed confession to his successor, Philip. Yes, you read that right: when adopting the novel for the screen, the writers found it necessary to add a dramatic deathbed confession that basically gives away the plot. And Ellen’s curse (which does not happen right at the beginning, where it would be cool, but halfway through the second episode), is considerably dumbed down. I don’t remember it word for word, but rather than telling Waleran that he’ll grow old in sadness and regret she says that he’ll “climb very high, and then fall.” Really? I mean, really? If this turns out to be setting up a scene in the last episode where Jack Jackson tosses Waleran off the top of the newly finished cathedral, shouting a one-liner like “I’ll take the pillars – give my regards to the earth,” I may well vomit.
But that’s only if I end up seeing the last episode. And I don’t think I will. After all, we’re living in a golden age of television. I have better things to do with my time.
*Granted, the combination of sleaze and scholarship in Pillars of the Earth is not particularly strange for a historical novel. Once in a library I picked up a book called Raptor that was ostensibly about the reign of Theodoric the Great, and turned out within the first ten pages to feature an extensive episode of what can only be described as “hot hot female-nun-on-intersexed-nun action.” I guess the point that I’m trying to make is that historical fiction, as a genre, runs to weirdness.
** This isn’t to say the book is actually perfect… there are lots of flaws. Although Follett’s prose usually does a good job of avoiding the Scylla of Ye Olde Englishe and the Charybdis of “Yo yo yo, wassup your Majesty? Isn’t this, like, bubonic plague thing totally harshing your buzz?” there are rare occasions where a modern-sounding phrase lands on the reader’s consciousness with a deafening leaden CLUNK. A couple of major plot threads are left hanging in a way that’s probably meant to be realistic (because in real life people sometimes do just up and die at narratively inconvenient times), but comes off as a failure of imagination. The book could stand to be a bit less rapey – or if we think that’s an important reality of the time period, it could at least be much, much less prurient about it. And most damningly, the main character, Jack Jackson, has a bit of a Mary Sue problem. Nevertheless, I do think that Pillars of the Earth would be pretty much the best possible book to study if you wanted to learn how to write a historical potboiler. Follett is a tremendously gifted craftsman on both small and large scales, and his balance of geopolitical sweep with the soap opera angst in this book has got to be some kind of minor miracle.
I don’t actually have Starz, but I watched the first two episodes online- and without having seen the movie- because the historical geek in me was intrigued (and because the book was on an endcap thingy at my favorite bookstore with the new cover featuring the actors). If the rest shows up on their site, too, I may watch it, but I won’t go out of my way to, either.
I think the adaptation problems you’re discussing are purely that, though: historical fiction movies have a different format than those allowed for novels, meaning the politics and sociology are not as big of a part. The “reveal” in the first episode felt very formulaic to me, not having read the book, and the fact that it’s onscreen made me think it’s supposed to be something close to dramatic irony, which is always a big pull for cinematic efforts. The urination scene *was* pretty damn awful, and it’s fairly obvious who dun what in the past and what’s going to happen sooner or later (I expect Jack to somehow rise to the throne or something close, aye?), and I think that’s the point of it being onscreen as opposed to in print- the miniseries makers aren’t presenting a mystery, but blatant exposition. And why, well, I’d chock that up to lack of faith in the audience, which I can’t really blame them for. They’re ramping up the sex because that’s a draw for film and television, and they’re oversimplifying the plot because the audience they’ll draw in with said sex wants softcore porn, not mystery. I’d categorize it with _Rome_ and _The Tudors_, two series I haven’t watched but have been told to because of the historical spin- but I have been reluctant because these same recommenders first mention how the shows are uber sexxay, the historical part being an afterthought; and while I’m not a prude, I don’t watch movies or shows simply because they’re hott. But, I still make the comparison because while there is supposedly lots of politicking in the two other series, the ads are at least pitched to ignore that- it’s all sex and sieges and swords, and the politicking sort of takes a backseat position to the rest. Any soundbites (apart from heaving and panting) are cheesy, action-packed one-liners that are fairly generic and give absolutely no mystery at all.
Oh, no, Gab. Rome is awesome. Yeah, it’s not the most historically-accurate thing ever, and it’s full of sex, but the politics and social stuff are pretty front-and-center, too. I don’t recall any generic one-liners in that show at all–it’s not 300 or Spartacus: Blood & Sand. I haven’t seen The Tudors, either, but my friends who watch it suggest that it’s much more egregiously-sexy and ahistorical.
Oh, sorry, I guess I didn’t make myself clear. What I meant was while there may be lots of socio-political drama in _Rome_ and _The Tudors_, they are *pitched* as though it’s all sex and violence. I can’t quote directly, but I remember getting the impression that the ads all had lines like, “I’ll never give up,” or, “I’ll stop you, if it’s the last thing I do!” with sword/ shield or dagger in hand, or a generic, lustful/romantic phrase just before a passionate embrace. I wasn’t saying that’s all of the entirety of the shows, but rather the ads were filled with nothing but, and, as such, gave the *impression* the shows would be that way, too.
But your clarification about _Rome_ makes me wonder if it lost viewers because there was what *they* would call “too much” politicking involved. Sad as it is, I very easily envision a scenario in which the mob (get it?) demands more sex and swords, and the studio either caves and sacrifices plot for hott- thus risking a loss of a chunk of audience because they get angry or disgustipated by the inaccuracies and such- or doesn’t and loses at least some of the chunk of audience watching for the promise of people in (or out, I guess) of togas getting it on.
How much have you seen? Does it get sexier as it goes, less sexy, or does it stay pretty consistent?
How funny would it be if the last episode of Rome was literally nothing but gladiator fights and loving, Food-Network-esque shots of fresh baked bread? All set to a soundtrack of happy fiddle music?
(Don’t get me wrong – I would totally watch that show.)
Only if, after the happy violin music, the hoi polloi ended up throwing said bread at each other or the nobility in their attempt at a revolution. While this was playing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okEqLPDxr1s
Ah, sorry, Gab! I must have misread your comment. I’m a little sick today, so I’ll use that as an excuse.
I’ve seen all of Rome. If I’m remembering correctly, it gets less sex-ful in the second season–maybe that’s why it got canceled? I would say, sexwise, it’s between Pillars of the Earth the book and Pillars of the Earth the TV show. The sex adds to the plot and historical ambience about 50-75% of the time, and the rest of the time it’s just there because yay sex. As I’ve written on OTI before, the fun of the show is that it showed so many different kinds of Roman sex: low-class sex, high-class sex, sex with a teenage prostitute, sex with Cleopatra, loving sex with your female slave, angry gay sex with one of your male slaves, sex with your sister because you’re being manipulated for political purposes, sex sex sex sex sex…
And also there’s some history. And one gladiator scene.
You’re sick, that makes me sad. :(
If that really is why _Rome_ was cancelled, because the sex decreased and, with it, the viewership, I don’t know if that means the writers just can’t write without it, or the audience just can’t stand the politics without the reprieve of naked time every so often. And I don’t know which is more depressing.
Gab, your comment is helping me to articulate something that I wanted to say in the post itself but couldn’t quite get my mind around. The reason I was excited about the series to begin with was that the the book was already an uber-sexxay version of history, but one that – like Rome, from what Mlawski tells me – somehow managed to stay interesting and intelligent. An adaptation of Pillars SHOULD need no dumbing-down or tarting-up: it’s already as audience friendly as a book of that length can possibly get.
Also, although I guess I did say that they ramped up the sex in the TV version, that’s not quite accurate. So far there’s actually been less sex, believe it or not. What they have done, though, is made the plot-function of the sex much, much more stupid. In the book, Tom and Ellen’s sexual relationship is used to demonstrate a sociological point. Because everyone’s sleeping in the same room, they get it on in front of the children all the time, and no one really cares too much about it. Semi-public sex is just part of poor people’s lives. When Alfred tells the monks that Tom and Ellen are having sex, it’s not because he’s trying to get her in trouble, it’s because he doesn’t understand that anyone would be mad about it. And even the monks aren’t really mad. They understand that this kind of thing is typical, especially among the poor. They just use it as a pretext for their own political jockeying, striking at Prior Philip through Tom through Ellen. And this too tells us something about the broader social context.
In the show, they have sex once, Alfred sees it, and it triggers some kind of Oedipal crisis where he blames her for replacing his mother. Then he goes and tells a wildly embroidered version of the story to the monks with the specific goal of destroying her. Like the urination scene, the actual smut level has not changed… and yet it’s so much more obnoxious, isn’t it? It no longer serves to advance the depiction of character or society. Instead, it advances a standard melodrama plot, and while I’ve got nothing against melodrama as such I feel like it tarnishes both 1) the original book, and 2) oddly enough, the sex.
How about this: the series is not ramping up the smut, it is distilling the smut. By boiling away all of the intelligent stuff around the sex, they end up with a final product that’s closer to pornography.
There being less instances of sex in the miniseries isn’t hard to believe, actually, especially when you put it like that. The dumbing-down of the plot goes hand-in-hand with the distilling of the sex, though, which makes it seem, like you said, more like pornography and less purposeful.
So then what do you think, is the distilling and dumbing-down a result of the producers’ preferences, what they think would be most successful in the medium, or just piss (hah!) poor adapting of a decent (not necessarily SPECTACULAR) piece of historical fiction? If the book worked and was simple enough, why do you think they changed it? Because I think it goes a little beyond the arguments of, “Well, there are just some things that can’t translate from page to picture,” which is often an excuse for film adaptations of books. That works sometimes, but not always, and what you’re saying makes me think it shouldn’t in this case.
To take a specific example (since I was totally WTFd when I saw it, and you mentioned you didn’t remember it in the novel): Did they add the incest because they thought it would be cool and EVERY show should have something shocking like that, because they thought audiences would like it, or because they thought there needed to be another dynamic for that character (William?) and that was all they could come up with?
(And about the incest again, and related to the last possibility there: I really hope they don’t try to use the twisted relationship between the dude and his mom as an excuse for his raping the other girl… “My mommy f***ed me up, so I have relationship and power issues! I’m not *really* an asshole, I can’t help myself!”)
I can’t even really speculate as to why they made some of the choices they did. The incest thing, in particular, had my eyes bulging out of my head. And if you ask me, they already are using it as what TV Tropes calls a “Freudian Excuse” for his crimes. (For those who didn’t watch it, William’s mother gropes him in the bathtub while she tells him how awesome it was that he raped Aliena. “Ick” does not even BEGIN to cover it.)