Witty Cinderella Retelling

[shadowkat]

Eloise James aka Mary Bly is quite witty. The re-telling of Cinderella (A Kiss At Midnight) is wittier than the Sondheim version (which is my favorite). The Sondheim version is from "Into the Woods" based on the Grim fairy tales. In that version, Cinderella dances with the Prince each night and races off at midnight. She sings a rather witty song about having to make a decision...because turns out the Prince is rather smart and has put pitch on the stairs, so that she's stuck.

In this version the banter and witty commentary regarding the characters and situations has me cackling out loud. Example:

[Kate Daltry has taken her half-sister's place at Pomeroy Castle in Lancaster, to meet her half-sister, Victoria's, fiancee's uncle. The uncle must approve Victoria's marriage to Algernon. But Victoria has an infected lip due to her dog Cesear biting it. She was feeding him scraps from her mouth. As a result, Kate must pretend to be Victoria, even though she looks nothing like her half-sister - as she keeps attempting to point out. The following sequence takes place at the Prince's castle and is an exchange with his majordomo, Berwick while they are looking at the Prince's menagerie of caged exotic animals. Apparently instead of money, political allies and dignitaries give exotic animals. Three of these animals are an aging lion, and an elephant and monkey (who appear to have fallen in love)]

It turned out that Caesar, who showed proper caution around the lion, had no such sense when it came to the elephant. He rushed between the bars of the cage, yapping madly, trying to catch the monkey.

The elephant looked uneasy and began shifting back and forth.

"Elephants don't like mice, and that dog is not much bigger," Berwick pointed out, sounding entirely unconcerned. "She might stamp on him."

"Caesar!" Kate cried. "Please come out of there!" She waved a piece of cheese desperately. [Kate has been using cheese to train her sisters dogs which she had to bring with her as a prop, because her sister goes everywhere with them.]

But Caesar was as dimwitted as he was brave, and he seemed to think the monkey's tail would drop into his mouth if he barked loudly enough.

Berwick sighed. "Excuse me, ladies." He pulled open a small box attached to the cage, took out a key, and unlocked the door. One step inside the cage and he scooped up Caesar.

"I'll have to keep him on a leash," Kate said. "I'm afraid that he's quite fearless. He has no brains."

"None?"

Kate shook her head. "Absolutely none that I can ascertain. It's like that sometimes."

Berwick raised an eyebrow.

She smiled at him, just as if she were at home, funning with Cherryderry. "He's male. I've noticed that sometimes the brains simply get left out of the package."

Earlier on there's a bit about how one of the original residents of Pomeroy castle absconded with an Italian Sculptor and the Sculptor in a fit of pique turned everyone in the castle into cherubs and escaped in a butter churn.

My only complaint so far is the heroine thinks she's over the hill at 23. Although the writer appears to be making fun of that particular trope. And one must keep in mind this was back in Regency England or the early 1800s, back then people died at 40.
Now, we can live much longer.

Comments

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

Most of the increase in life expectancy over the centuries has been due to dropping infant-child mortality. If you made it to ten outside wartime you had a good chance of living to what would be considered old age now.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Makes sense - the reason why people had so many kids back then, over half of them died.

Although there were also high death rates due to disease - specifically consumption (basically pneumonia and the flu - sometimes a heart-attack, I know because that's what my great-grandfather, died of, the Welsh one) and wasting disease (ceiliac -- back then they had no idea what caused it, now, Hollywood believes it's a miracle health diet, sigh Hollywood. We've advanced but not by that much apparently.)

I remember my aunt, the school nurse who is also obsessed with family trees, telling me how each of our ancestors died. And the two I listed above were common. They just didn't know what they were or how to treat them back then. And of course Cancer - which doctors were slowly figuring out. I haven't even touched on the childhood diseases.

In the 1800s, there were a lot of flue epidemics. Also TB and Polio - which either crippled you for life or killed you. Measles, HP, cholera, whooping cough, etc. My own father was bed-ridden for about half a year during his childhood due to some disease or other. He spent the whole time devouring classic novels.

The advances in medical care alone have extended our lives by about 30 years. People can live until 100 now. It happened back then, but was quite rare.