It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place, add six books, and see where we end up. This month’s starting point is The End of the Affair by Graham Greene (1951), who was one of my grandmother’s favorite writers.
First Degree
The 1955 movie featured Deborah Kerr as adulterous Sarah Miles, leading to my first degree, Black Narcissus by Rumer Godden (1939)(my review). In that movie, Kerr plays a beautiful nun.
Second Degree
Another movie starring Deborah Kerr was The King and I, based on the 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon (1944). Do you remember this song?
Whenever I feel afraidI hold my head erect
And whistle a happy tune
So no one will suspect I'm afraid
While shivering in my shoes
I strike a careless pose
And whistle a happy tune
And no one ever knows I'm afraid
The result of this deception
Is very strange to tell
For when I fool the people
I fear I fool myself as well
The book was inspired by Anna Leonowens, who became governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in the early 1860s, and I read it after my school put on the musical.
Third Degree
It’s a common literary trope for a young woman to seek her fortune as a governess and my third degree is perhaps the most famous governess of all time, Maria Augusta von Trapp, whose memoir, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers (1949) was later fictionalized in Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway musical The Sound of Music. The family eventually settled in Vermont. When I was a child, my uncle was in the army and the only thing he told us was one of the von Trapp sons had trained with him. They had both been chosen for their German language skills and we suspected they were undercover in East Germany.
Fourth Degree
Also set in early 1940s Austria is A Song for Summer by my beloved Eva Ibbotson (1997). Heroine Ellen Carr is lower on the totem pole than a governess as a housekeeper at a boarding school. At first, Ellen is happy mothering the neglected children but she soon realizes there is something wrong at the Hallendorf School and that the man she loves, a mysterious gardener, is secretly smuggling Jews out of the country. Dangerous but exciting! You see I can't get away from WWII books, even in #6Degrees.
Fifth Degree
The School at the Chalet by Elinor Brent-Dyer (1925) is another school story set in Austria. Madge Bettany decides that starting a school would be a plausible way to support herself, while also providing a home for her younger sister Joey. Unable to afford to establish the school in Britain, she purchases a large chalet in the Austrian Tyrol – and the rest (64 books) is history! I visited Brent-Dyer’s home and church in Hereford the weekend Diana, Princess of Wales, died.
Sixth Degree
My final link is to one of the trashiest books I ever read, Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words by Andrew Morton (2004). Don’t worry, I wouldn’t enrich that sleazebag Morton by buying the book! I suspect I stood in a Barnes & Noble in New York and read it. It's a bit like stealing a bite of dessert from someone else's plate: the sleaze doesn't count if you didn't purchase it.
So the end of Charles’ affair is that his true story was to be with Camilla, and now even her mother-in-law is singing a different song about her becoming queen. So much for standards!
Have you read any of these? Did you play #6Degrees this month? Next month (April 2, 2022), Kate will start us off with Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield. For a second, I was afraid she had chosen The Road to Wellville by T.C. Boyle. Readers of this blog may remember my first encounter with Boyle . . . .
12 comments:
Love the link between Black Narcissus and The King and I! Very well done.
Fun chain of books. :) The only one I've read is The End of the Affair.
I've also only read The End of the Affair -- well, technically listened to the audiobook, beautifully narrated by Colin Firth. He's a wonderful reader and it's really heartbreaking, so different from most of Greene's other works.
I do love a school story so I'll have to see if I can find the Ibbotson, I've loved nearly all of her books so far.
Great chain - I particularly like your Deborah Kerr links. I read Black Narcissus last year and enjoyed it. I haven't read the rest of the books in your chain, but I'll definitely be reading A Song for Summer at some point as I've loved other Eva Ibbotson books.
The problem with #6Degrees is you want to drop everything to read some of the books you are recollecting! Karen, maybe I should give The End of the Affair another chance. I was very disappointed by Our Man in Havana, which my book group read and then watched the movie together. This sounds more like Brideshead Revisited but without the charming characters!
Lark, you should read some of Ibbotson's adult fiction when you are in a comfort read frame of mind. A Song for Summer was the last one she wrote so I have only read it once.
I love the way you put this chain together. Many interesting books here and I have not read a one of them, not even The End of the Affair. I really need to read more by Graham Greene. I am interested in Ibbotson also, although I know nothing about her or her books.
They simply don't make musicals like The King and I and The Sound of Music any more. In fact, do they make any musicals at all? I can't think of any. Musicals seem to be confined to the stage now and the few musical films there are seem to come out of those stage plays. Oh, well. Excellent and clever chain, Constance.
Great chain - very different and original. And by the way, I think the Queen shouldn't name Charles as the next King, she should skip him and give it to William and Kate!
I've only read The Black Narcissus, the film is good too, and The School at the Chalet.
Davida, it would be too cruel to dump all that work on William, there's a lot of very boring stuff involved in being at the top of the royalty pile!
The only book in your chain I've read is The End of the Affair. The writing was wonderful but I didn't care for the story or characters at all.
A Song for Summer does appeal to me though. I may have to look into that one further.
As always, a fun thread to read.
Great chain! I loved how you made your links!!
Great conenctions! Fun how you mixed books and movies to start with
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