I started The Reader by Bernhard Schlink yesterday and finished it this morning. It was one of those books that I always thought I’d get around to reading at some point, but continued to put off when new books came my way. My friend Bobby loaned me the paperback along with a stack of other books, and I stuck it in my school bag yesterday on the off-chance I’d have time to read during the day. I’ve been proctoring benchmark testing for the past few days and took the opportunity to start this book.

Once I started, I couldn’t stop. When I wasn’t reading the book, I was thinking about it. It’s the story of fifteen-year-old Michael, who becomes involved with an older woman after a chance meeting. The two become very close, and then the woman vanishes from Michael’s life. The next time he sees her is during his time in law school, at a trial for war crimes. The woman is one of the defendants.

First, this book utterly captures the emotions and behaviors of adolescence. The author describes perfectly how easy it is as an adolescent to fall victim to obsession, whether it’s with a person, place, or thing. The main character also exhibits that sort of bipolarity of teenagers; they’re either completely confident or completely terrified, at the heights of happiness or the lowest pits of despair. There’s really no emotional middle ground for them or for Michael.

As the story’s narrator ages, the author also beautifully portrays that unique kind of homesickness that seems to strike people as they age and start their own lives and families. Some people experience it in different ways, as a longing for a place or a specific object, and only over time do they come to realize that what they really miss is the innocence and freedom of childhood. This book contains some of the most beautiful writing on this topic that I’ve ever read.

The characters in this story are well-drawn. The author doesn’t spend a lot of time giving physical descriptions of them, yet I was almost immediately able to picture them in my mind’s eye. Their actions and interactions were so well-described that it was easy to picture them without lengthy characterizations.

Mostly, though, the author’s style won me over. The book is full of gorgeous German countrysides, scenes on streetcars, and summer breezes. Even parts that should be ugly or painful to read, namely descriptions of concentration camps and the horrors of winter death marches, are painted with such skill that reading them is a privilege.

This is a book full of words and phrases that I wanted to wrap myself in like a blanket. The story is engaging, the characters are real, and the writing is artistry. I highly recommend it.

The story of Sweeney Todd has been around, in various forms, since 1785, when it first appeared as a serial “penny dreadful” tale. It was adapted as a play by Christopher Bond in 1973, and as a musical by Stephen Sondheim in 1979.

The original Broadway cast included Len Cariou as Sweeney Todd, Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Lovett, and Victor Garber (Spy Daddy!) as Anthony Hope, the sailor who rescues Sweeney from the ocean. By the time the show was telecast in 1982, George Hearn had taken over the title role, and Garber had been replaced by Cris Groenendaal.

The telecast (available on Netflix, y’all) is simply a recording of the musical as it appears on stage. The set includes a rotating box which acts as Mrs. Lovett’s sitting room, the basement bake house, and, on the top floor, Sweeney’s tonsorial parlor. In addition, there are several sets of stairs, a catwalk, and the front facade of Fogg’s Asylum. It sounds very sparse, but with the talent that this show packed in, the limited sets are really all it needs.

As someone who had only Tim Burton’s movie (which I love, not gonna lie) to judge and compare with this production, I truly enjoyed it. The role of Sweeney was intended for a bass baritone, and it was satisfying to hear George Hearn’s deep, dark voice compared with Johnny Depp, who I think is more of a tenor. Hearn gives the character much more personality than Depp’s interpretation, and proves a perfect match to Angela Lansbury’s delightfully manic Mrs. Lovett. If you’re a fan of Tim Burton’s version (or the show itself), you should do yourself a favor and check out this version. The pared-down visuals give you a chance to really focus on the story and Sondheim’s brilliant score.

Which brings me to my first installment of Diva of the Moment: Angela Lansbury

With the exception of Julie Andrews, no feisty, mega-talented British woman had more impact on my childhood than Mrs. Lansbury. My sisters and I have probably seen Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Beauty and the Beast, and Anastasia a thousand times between us. I also spent a lot of time bonding with my grandmother watching Murder, She Wrote (and Father Dowling Mysteries, but that’s another entry!).

Her career has spanned almost seven decades, and she’s amazing. If you haven’t delved past the Disney or Jessica Fletcher portion of Mrs. Lansbury’s work, here are a few recommendations:

• Gaslight (1944)
• The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)
• The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
• Death on the Nile (1978)
• Nanny McPhee (2005)

Do yourself a favor and spend some time getting to know my Diva of the Moment.*

(*I chose Diva of the Moment over Diva of the Week or Month, because who’s to say I won’t pick a new Diva in two days? Or not update my blog again for two months? )

For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated with the American Revolution. This has a lot to do with the fact that I am a proud native Virginian, just as George Washington, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Jefferson. I was raised less than two hours away from the site of Henry’s fiery “liberty or death” speech, and less than an hour from the site of Cornwallis’s surrender to Washington at Yorktown. I grew up spending summer days walking the streets of Colonial Williamsburg. Even at a young age I was enthralled by the history of the commonwealth and our nation’s struggle for independence.

Which is why I have found myself in the midst of an internal struggle; a real and true obsession with the culture of our late oppressors, the British, versus my inborn urge to remain fiercely American, even when choosing my daily diversions. The truth is, I’ve spent my life appreciating the entertainment exports from across the pond, but only lately have I found myself debating the merits of two cultures who so long ago battled over certain inalienable rights.

First of all, I was raised on a steady diet of Disney; the live action films as well as the animated classics. The best of these, for the most part coming from the 1950s and 1960s, strongly showcase Britain’s acting and voice talents. While most of these films were produced in Britain purely as a tax dodge, they served as my introduction to the varied accents and cadences of the Queen’s English. These sounds became as familiar to me as the lazy mid-Atlantic drawl of my family gatherings and Great Bridge peers. To this day, I could listen to David Tomlinson sing-speak the phone book for hours on end and be perfectly content.

Many of my favorite books as a child were also decidedly British. Authors like A.A. Milne, Rudyard Kipling, and C.S. Lewis introduced me to traditions like tea and Boxing Day, of which I almost immediately became jealous. Stories like The Secret Garden made me wish my family lived on the moors, because obviously everyone who lived there had wild animals for pets and huge houses with secret rooms. While in general I can’t stand rainy weather for more than a day or two at a time, stories like these made it seem like there could be no better place I could possibly dream of living.

As a teenager, I discovered plenty of other British staples: Dickens, Holst, Vaughan Williams, Monty Python, and Dylan Thomas (God bless the Welsh), and many, many other British artisans, but I was not yet ready to admit my problem. I could appreciate these artists guilt-free because they are praised universally. My problem was about to compound significantly through the medium of television.

I never really followed television (other than Nick at Nite reruns and Seinfeld) until I fell in love with The West Wing and subsequently found myself in a downward spiral of keeping up with numerous shows of varying quality. This problem became even worse once I purchased a TiVo, subscribed to Netflix, and discovered ways to access TV shows over the internet. It was here that my problems began in earnest.

Netflix led to the start of a love affair with the BBC. By the time I had to cancel my subscription because of the dent graduate school put in my viewing time, I would estimate that BBC shows took up more than half of my queue. It started with The Office, then MI-5 (or Spooks), and eventually I made it around to Doctor Who.

“New” Who has acted as a gateway drug to “Classic” Who – essentially 25 years worth of television to catch up with. And not all of Doctor Who is award-winning television, either. A lot of it is really quite far from it. And while I’ve always been a science fiction fan, the sheer British-ness of Doctor Who is what really makes me love it. The dry humor, the historical perspective, and the locations all come together for this piece of purely British art that makes my little heart pitter-patter with Anglo-Saxon joy.

Following British television like Doctor Who has only made my Anglophilia worse. It’s sparked an interest in other British shows, British actors, British authors, and on and on and on. I spend time looking up British slang on the web to understand Skins. I bemoan the value of the dollar against the pound, mostly because I can’t afford to shop on amazon.co.uk. When I’m feeling blue, I fix a cup of tea and hope the local PBS affiliate is playing a rerun of As Time Goes By. And the more I watch, the more the guilt increases. I can just hear the Father of Our Country rolling over in his grave, a mere four hours north of here.

The fact is, there’s no turning back at this point. This problem is one that will stay with me forever. So while I continue to make my annual pilgrimages to the commonwealth’s historical sites, read books about the Revolution, and feel a huge sense of pride any time I get to tell someone I’m from Virginia, I’ll have to learn to reconcile my love of country with my love of those gorgeous accents, jokes about the prime minister, and tea.