From the movie Angel directed by Fracois Ozon and starring Romola Garai and Michael Fassbender |
In Part 3 of Angel, Angel spends the season in London, finds her way to Esme's studio and has her portrait painted. Taylor describes her love for Esme as follows:
Esme's sister Nora in contrast...
felt the pains of martyrdom more exquisitely. She brooded over her sufferings with a saintly acceptance of them, added each new one to her hoard and wondered if any woman ever was so wretched.
Angel seduces Esme with food
Esme's declaration of love in the conservatory
Have you seen the adaptation of Angel by Ozon? It was interesting that he chose to place Theo rather than Esme with Angel when she discovers Paradise House, n'est-ce pas?
Sam Neill as Theo |
Have you seduced someone with food? Was it a saddle of mutton or a terrine?
7 comments:
I confess that I haven't seen the film and I probably won't. I'm very ambivalent about adaptations of books I love - I have such a strong image of characters and scenes from reading them that I don't want anyone else's image messing with that. For this reason I've never seen any of the films about or adaptations of Virgina Woolf!
Very interesting what you say about the food - is it a coincidence therefore that she later becomes vegetarian when there is no need for meat for Esme? Trust Taylor to use meat as a metaphor!
Ha Ha - your last comment made me smile wryly...I hadn't thought of that....yes - adaptations can be a bit tricky can't they? This one didn't do it for me I'm afraid.
I'm not especially interested in seeing the film; I think this is one I prefer to leave in my imagination.
What is it with Taylor and vegetarianism? It shows up in several of her books, and not in a bad way or anything, but I can't figure out why if it's an important theme or not!
I'm a vegetarian myself and I can't quite work out what angle she's coming from to be honest!
I'm a vegetarian as well, kaggsy! I have an impression (based on absolutely no research whatsoever) that vegetarianism has become more common since Taylor's era, and would have been considered unusual bordering on odd during the time she was writing. She doesn't take a firm stand on it, which makes me curious whether she was "for it" or "against it" or just saw it as a quirky character trait?
I think you're right Laura - when Taylor was writing it definitely would have been regarded as slightly peculiar to be vegetarian. And you're also right that she doesn't take a stand - curious!
Well of course now I want to read a history of vegetarianism. I have been browsing this site http://www.ivu.org/history/societies/united-kingdom.html and then was led to this page http://www.ivu.org/history/shelley/mary.html which I think makes for interesting reading....what do you think?
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