“The Portuguese Widow” follows the misadventures of charming, half-Portuguese Nan Baldaya Benedict, twice widowed at barely 21 years of age. Regency Bath is taken aback by Nan’s cosmopolitan household: the retinue of faithful Indian ayahs and bhais, Kentish maids and footmen, and the French chef. Then, horrors! Her late mother’s scandalous history is raked up. A move to London results in the fortune hunters discovering her nabob’s fortune, the grandes dames looking down their noses at her, and an encounter with the wicked Lord Curwellion, a notorious rake.

Inevitably, the warm-hearted Nan becomes embroiled in other people’s lives: the gentlemen include the fashionable baronet Sir Noël Amory, the handsome diplomat Lord Keywes, and the grim-visaged Colonel Vane. The ladies range from the shy, sweet Cherry Chalfont to the hilariously eccentric Mrs Urqhart, who describes herself as “the widder of an India man.” Proper English ladies have nothing to do with theatrical persons, but Nan plunges herself into a theatrical venture led by the stout and fruity-voiced Mr Perseus Brentwood and the lugubrious Mr Emmanuel Everett. Few of these encounters are likely to do anything for the reputation of a lady anxious to establish herself creditably. And of course, there’s the unfortunate episode of the duel…

A modern FAIRY TALE

Isabella Down To Earth: Once Oberon, King of the Fairies, makes the mistake of introducing his daughter Isabella to the mortal realm, she develops a taste for mortal men. Ben is the man in question, a young merchant banker from New York, NY, not given to fantasies of any sort and no believer in fairies. The Fairy Land, which operates on fairy logic, comes into collision with the realities, some good, some bad, some simply hilarious, of modern urban life as we mortals know it—from Starbucks and Grand Central to the Bonn tower blocks by way of the Tube, the panto and the London Eye, and back to the wizards of Wall Street. Complications arise: Ben blots his copybook; Isabella’s back home but so miserable that primroses sprout from her tears. Merlin’s merely doddery, Puck’s merely irritating, Grimalkin hasn’t the power to help, Oberon’s thunderous… Perhaps the Faerie Queen, Titania, Queen of All the Fairies, Great Majesty, Queen Mab, will sort it out! Nobody puts much faith in that one, given her past record. How will Ben and Isabella ever live happily ever after?

    Isabella Down To Earth is at once a celebration and a critique of the way we live now. Seen through fairy eyes, some of our urban commonplaces take on quite a new shine. To a fairy, the dubious modern treats of muffins, donuts, Oreos, and hamburgers, with or without gherkins, all have a certain appeal. Coffee hits, trendy ethnic restaurants, underground railways, all look different in a fairy perspective. As do the big urban centres like London, New York, Paris and Bonn and their great urban icons. “Starbucks” strikes as magical; London’s “pickle” is puzzling. The Empire State? We-ell, fairies can fly.

    And some of the old tales that we’ve known since our childhood turn out to be not what we expect. They were, after all, written down by mortals. Fairy logic sees them rather differently. Even Father Christmas, in his Realm of Snow, isn’t quite how we envisage Santa. Or take the Danish icon of icons, in Copenhagen: Isabella will have to summon all her strength to break the spell that holds the little mermaid captive in her bronze prison.


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