From Harry Potter-style mega-hits to controversy over banned books to hot competition for literary prizes, there is never a dull moment in the book world. Chapter & Verse keeps readers up-to-date on the latest in literary headlines. Check in with us daily to learn about books and their people - those who write them and those who love them.
Penguin Group authors discuss their new books at the Algonquin Hotel, one of critic Dwight Garner's stops on a literary tour of Manhattan. (The Algonquin Hotel/PR Newswire)
A book critic's literary tour of Manhattan
We can’t think of a better way to explore New York – or any city for that matter – than by way of a self-conducted literary tour, as book critic Dwight Garner recently did, with energy and exuberance, for The New York Times.
Spread across the pages of the Sunday Times in tantalizing detail was Garner’s assignment in “A Critic’s Tour of Literary Manhattan”: to “crisscross the island for a few days” to determine whether Manhattan’s literary life, as novelist Gary Shteyngart once lamented, was fading away.
“I wanted to take in Manhattan as a literary tourist,” writes Garner, once senior editor of The New York Times Book Review. “I wanted to touch base with haunts old and new. I wanted to see if there is still, for a certain kind of bibliophilic seeker, as Simone de Beauvoir put it, ‘something in the New York air that makes sleep useless.’”
Literary Manhattan, Garner determined after speaking with several writers and editors, “doesn’t seem to have the wattage it once did.” The culprits? The smoking ban was a “death knell” for the drawn-out hang-outs critical to literary life; the Internet obviated some writers’ need for companionship and consolation; creative energy has largely gone into food, where indie types are churning out artisanal pickles, chocolates, and beers, rather than literary works; and the bookish crowd, in large part, has dispersed into Brooklyn, where folks can actually eke out a life on a writer’s pay.
Nonetheless, Manhattan’s book culture remains vibrant, eclectic, and enduring, if somewhat leaner and occasionally regrettably modernized.
For his enviable assignment, Garner installed himself at the Algonquin, “the Midtown hotel where Dorothy Parker, Alexander Woollcott and others once traded juniper-infused barbs, and used it as a launching pad to crisscross the island for a few days...”
Among his stops: Café Loup, a “genteel but unpretentious West Village bistro” that editor of the Paris Review Lorin Stein calls “the closest thing I know of to a writer’s hangout in the old-fashioned sense”; Nuyorican Poets Café, a “warm and jubilant” haunt on the Lower East Side where raucous poetry slams are alive and well; KGB Bar, “a dark, intimate Soviet-themed... space” where cult novelist Kris Saknussemm “soloed like a jazz master” while “declaiming bits of his new autobiographical book, ‘Sea Monkeys’”; and Lolita in SoHo, where “the women looked like extras from an episode of Lena Dunham’s HBO series, ‘Girls,’” and the only readers were carrying Kindles. “When it’s no longer possible to tell what attractive young women are reading,” writes Garner, “part of the romance of Manhattan is gone.”
And while Garner finds the Algonquin, where “Do Not Disturb” signs read, “Quiet Please: Writing the Great American Novel,” “a bit chilly and corporate,” literary visitors to New York have other options. There’s the “sleek and geeky” Madison Ave. Library Hotel, not far from the New York Public Library, where the floors are categorized according to the Dewey Decimal System and each of the 60 rooms contains a set of books “devoted to a topic within that category.”
(Those with deeper pockets shelve their luggage at the new NoMad Hotel, housed in a turn-of-the-century Beaux-Arts building where the cocktail lounge-cum-library features “two vaulting stories of lighted bookcases connected by a spiral staircase imported from the South of France.”)
And though the city has far fewer bookstores than it once did (Book Row, along Fourth Ave., housed some three-dozen used bookstores before the last one closed in 1988), “the city’s survivors are beautiful to behold,” says Garner.
The highlights: Bauman Rare Books in Midtown, a temple to rare volumes, dearly priced; the small and expertly curated 192 Books in Chelsea; the brilliantly-named Unoppressive Non-Imperialist Bargain Books in the West Village; and the charitable Housing Works Bookstore Café in SoHo. Garner’s favorites? St. Mark’s Bookshop on the Lower East Side, where you go “when you need a reminder that the world’s literary culture is still big and weird and vibrant,” and The Strand, where “It’s worth flying in from London simply to browse the stacks.”
By the end of his literary tour, writes Garner, “I was smitten all over again.”
So are we. We reveled in Garner’s word-fueled romp through Manhattan, even more so after discovering that not only is literary Manhattan is alive and well, but that we can play a role in enriching literary cultures of cities across the nation if we engage in literary tours in our own cities. Visiting precious used bookshops, quirky indies, prized historic sites, famous scenes and settings with literary associations, and beloved literary hangouts, from trendy cafes to sober libraries to underground dives – what a wonderful way to discover a city and to encourage vibrant literary cultures in cities and towns across the country. We can’t wait to plan our own literary tour.
Husna Haq is a Monitor correspondent.
'Hobbit'-themed foods are being served at Denny's restaurants to promote the new film. Right: some of Denny's normal fare, including pancakes and bacon. (L: James Fisher/Warner Bros./AP R: Denny's/Business Wire)
'The Hobbit': Try a Tolkien breakfast at ... Denny's?
Movie and corporate tie-ins are nothing new – just ask any kid who ever got his own plastic Simba from McDonald's. But a somewhat unexpected pairing arose when the restaurant chain Denny’s announced that it would be serving a “Hobbit” menu to coincide with the release of “The Hobbit: There and Back Again,” the first movie in the planned “Hobbit” trilogy.
The menu includes such items as Radagast’s Red Velvet Pancake Puppies (named for the wizard Radagast the Brown), Gandalf’s Gobble Melt, Bilbo’s Berry Smoothie, and Hobbit Hole Breakfast. The “Hobbit” offerings will be available at Denny’s locations through early January.
Reviews of the dishes have so far been middling. Phoenix writer Alexandra Cavallow wrote that the Hobbit Hole, which consisted of fried eggs, hash browns, cheddar buns and bacon, was fine, though unhealthy. “But one imagines you'd need to carbo-load before risking life and limb in Mordor, so it made sense,” she wrote. “And those egg-filled cheddar buns were good.”
Wisconsin State Journal writer Rob Thomas said he was a little overwhelmed by the breakfast appetizer titled the Lonely Mountain Treasure, which was essentially lemon poppy seed nuggets with cream cheese frosting for dipping. “I'm sorry, I'm just too frightened right now to check the caloric content of that,” he wrote. “It was as if I could feel the baleful Eye of Mordor staring down and me and saying, 'You're going to eat all that? Really? Even my orcs have a little fruit with breakfast.' ”
He said conclusions about the menu overall were hard to draw.
“I don't know if I can honestly say, ‘If you love “The Hobbit,” you'll love Denny's!’ Nor can I say with authority, ‘If you love Denny's, you'll love “The Hobbit!”’ What I can say is that both things exist, in the same time and space, in America.”
Visitors to the website io9, which featured pictures of the food available through the “Hobbit” menu, seemed confused and impressed by the fact that the promotion was happening at all.
“Who knew that a character from the Silmarillion, which is basically where Tolkien put all the appendixes that wouldn't fit in Lord of the Rings, would one day be given his own promotional breakfast food?” a commenter named JulieMarieC wrote.
Settlements on both sides of the Atlantic favored Amazon. (Dominick Reuter/Reuters)
Amazon wins an e-book fight in Europe
Chalk it up as another win for Amazon, this time on European shores, in an e-book antitrust investigation that has roiled publishers on both sides of the Atlantic.
European Union regulators ended an antitrust probe into e-book prices on Thursday after accepting an offer by Apple and four publishers to drop pricing agreements aimed at preventing Amazon from undercutting e-book prices.
The settlement marks a clear victory for Amazon, allowing it to sell e-books more cheaply than rivals. (We reported on the proposed deal last month.)
“The commitments proposed by Apple and the four publishers will restore normal competitive conditions in this new and fast-moving market, to the benefit of the buyers and readers of e-books,” EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said, according to Reuters.
Under the deal, Apple and four publishers – Simon & Schuster, Harper Collins, Hachette Livre, and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck, owner of German company Macmillan – will abandon agency pricing, in which publishers set e-book pricing, and allow retailers to set e-book prices. According to settlement terms, retailers can cut e-book prices and offer discounts for a period of two years. And the publishers must suspend “most favored nation” contracts for five years. These contracts effectively barred publishers from selling e-books at prices lower than Apple’s.
As a result of the deal, writes the UK’s Guardian, “Readers should prepare for plunging e-book prices.”
Pearson’s Penguin group, which is also under investigation in Europe, was not part of the settlement.
Thursday’s settlement marked “a key development in an investigation into the e-book industry that has involved both sides of the Atlantic,” wrote the Wall Street Journal. The European deal comes on the heels of a similar decision Simon & Schuster, Harper Collins, and Hachette reached with the Department of Justice earlier this year. Apple, Macmillan, and Penguin continue to fight the DOJ suit in the U.S. The settlements on both sides of the Atlantic, both in favor of Amazon, will likely impact the ongoing suit.
Husna Haq is a Monitor correspondent.
Pictured is the text of 'The Tallow Candle' by Hans Christian Andersen, which was written years before his official literary debut. (Bubandt Martin/Polfoto/AP)
Never-before-seen Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale surfaces
It was a chance discovery seemingly out of a fairy tale.
Experts in Denmark unearthed “The Tallow Candle,” what they believe is the first fairy tale written by Hans Christian Andersen, found at the bottom of a box near the Danish writer’s home city of Odense.
Local historian Esben Brage was searching the private archives of a Danish family in the National Archive for Funen in Odense when he came across a small, yellowing piece of paper at the bottom of a box. Experts scrutinized the six-page, 700-word handwritten copy of the fairy tale and determined it was written by Andersen, reports the Associated Press.
“This is a sensational discovery,’ Ejnar Stig Askgaard of the Odense City Museum told the Danish paper Politiken. “Partly because it must be seen as Andersen’s first fairy tale, and partly because it shows that he was interested in the fairy tale as a young man, before his authorship began.” He added, “And I am in no doubt that it was written by Andersen.”
The tale tells the story of a grimy little candle, soiled by life and neglected until a tinder box sees its inner beauty and lights it. “The Tallow Candle had found its right place in life – and shown that it was a real candle, and went on to shine for many a year, pleasing itself and the other creatures around it,” Andersen wrote in the story.
Perhaps most incredibly, Andersen wrote the story when he was a schoolboy in the mid-1820s, some three to seven years before his literary debut in 1829. As such, “The Tallow Candle” is not “at the level of the more mature and polished fairy tales that we know from Andersen’s later authorship,” experts have said, according to the UK’s Guardian.
Nonetheless, the tale is “very, very Andersen,” author and fairy tale expert Sara Maitland told the Guardian. “It’s highly moralistic, rather sentimental, and it’s animating an inanimate object. That’s very Andersen.”
The manuscript is dedicated “To Mme Bunkeflod, from her devoted HC Andersen.” Bunkeflod is thought to be a widow and neighbor whom Andersen regularly visited as a child.
Danish paper Politiken translated and published a version of the story in English, which is available for reading here.
Andersen, who was born in Odense in 1805 the son of a shoemaker and washerwoman, went on to write nearly 160 popular fairy tales, including “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” “The Little Mermaid,” and “The Ugly Duckling,” along with dozens of novels, poems, and travel journals. He died in 1875, but his fairy tales are among the most popular children’s tales the world over, having been translated into more than 100 languages and read around the world.
Husna Haq is a Monitor correspondent.
'A Rule is to Break' is by John Seven and Jana Christy.
Anarchy for children? A pro-anarchy kids' book angers the Tea Party
Children’s books seem to be the center of controversy lately. First there was the 9/11 coloring book that depicted scenes from 9/11 and the killing of Osama bin Laden. Then there was “Maggie Goes on a Diet,” which encouraged young girls to diet.
This latest divisive children’s book has the Tea Party, Bill Ayers, and even President Obama ensnared in its controversial crosshairs.
“A Rule is to Break: A Child’s Guide to Anarchy,” by husband-and-wife team John Seven and Jana Christy, has some readers up in arms, with one Tea Party publication calling its publication “downright shocking.”
Published by Manic D, a small San Francisco press specializing in anarchist and fringe publications including “The Civil Disobedience Handbook,” and “The International Homosexual Conspiracy,” this 44-page picture book for children ages 4 and up is the press’s first foray into children’s book publishing, according to Publisher’s Weekly.
Its colorfully-illustrated pages contain such advice as “Don’t look like everybody else! Be you,” “Think for Yourself!” “No Baths Ever Again!” and “Give Away Stuff for Free,” along with the more eyebrow-raising “When Someone Says, ‘Work!’ You Say Why?” and “Do What You Want!...Or do nothing, if you prefer.”
And while some see it as “gently humorous,” like the UK’s Guardian, and showing “the softer side of anarchy, with an emphasis on fun and independence, but also community and kindness,” like Publishers Weekly, others aren’t so amused.
A report in the Tea Party publication Liberty News Network calls the book “horrendous” and “downright shocking.”
“But it gets even worse,” continues the write-up, “when we realize Bill Ayers, radical terrorist leftist and friend of Obama, not only endorsed it through his twitter account, his comments in support of the book are listed on the actual Amazon.com book page… Wow... If a person can be read by the company he keeps, what does this say about Obama?”
In his blurb, Ayers calls the book “a delight to read” and says that “a children’s book on anarchy seems somehow just right: an instinctive, intuitive sense of fairness, community, and interdependence sits naturally enough with a desire for participatory democracy, feminism, queer-rights, environmental balance, self-determination, and peace and global justice.” Beneath the blurb, Ayers is identified with a wink and a nod, as an “author… teacher, Barack Obama’s alleged terrorist pal, and grandpa.”
Not surprisingly, publisher Manic D approached this firestorm with a sense of humor and doesn’t seem bothered by the attacks. Sales are “pretty good,” marketing manager Jennifer Swihart Voegele told Publishers Weekly, and the controversy will likely only drum up more interest and sales. Incidentally, Manic D also sent early Christmas presents to rightwing pundit Bill O’Reilly and comedian Stephen Colbert: copies of the book with a ‘Happy holidays” card.
Husna Haq is a Monitor correspondent.
Mo Yan speaks at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm this week. (Claudio Bresciani/Scanpix for Sweden/AP)
Mo Yan's Nobel acceptance speech draws ire from critics (+video)
The controversy over Chinese author and Nobel Prize recipient Mo Yan only appears to grow.
After being called a “patsy of the regime” by Salman Rushdie for declining to sign a petition calling for the release of fellow Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo and reiterating his view that some censorship is necessary, Mo Yan accepted the Nobel Prize for Literature in a Stockholm ceremony Monday evening that left some in the literary community reeling.
“I want to take this opportunity to express my admiration for the members of the Swedish Academy, who stick firm to their own convictions,” Mo Yan said on accepting his prize. “I am confident that you will not let yourselves be affected by anything other than literature.”
Late last week, Rushdie called Mo Yan a “patsy” and expressed frustration that he would not support fellow writers and activists in calling for the release of 2010 Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo, a democracy activist who was sentenced to 11 years in prison for co-authoring a manifesto calling for the end of China’s single-party rule and the initiation of democratic reforms.
“This is really too bad,” Rushdie wrote on Facebook, according to Salon. “He defends censorship and won’t sign the petition asking for the freedom of his fellow Noblist Liu Xiaobo. Hard to avoid the conclusion that Mo Yan is the Chinese equivalent of the Soviet Russian apparatchik writer Mikhail Sholokhov: a patsy of the regime.”
More than 130 other Nobel laureates have signed the petition. When asked why he hadn’t signed it, Mo Yan said, “I have always been independent. I like it that way. When someone forces me to do something I don’t do it.”
Mo Yan further angered critics when he reiterated his defense of censorship in a press conference ahead of his Nobel ceremony.
According to press reports, Mo Yan compared censorship to the airport security checks he passed through on his way to Sweden.
“When I was taking my flight, going through the customs... they also wanted to check me even taking off my belt and shoes. But I think these checks are necessary.”
He also said that censorship should not stand in the way of truth, but that defamation and rumors “should be censored.”
“But I also hope that censorship, per se, should have the highest principle,” he added, in Chinese comments translated into English.
Even before he was named this year’s Nobel Prize recipient, Mo Yan has been criticized by human rights activists for not defending freedom of speech more aggressively and for supporting the Communist Party-backed writers’ association, of which he is vice president.
According to the UK’s Guardian, Mo Yan acknowledged that the Nobel Committee’s selection “has led to controversy.”
“At first I thought I was the target of the disputes, but over time I've come to realize that the real target was a person who had nothing to do with me,” he said. “…For a writer, the best way to speak is by writing. You will find everything I need to say in my works. Speech is carried off by the wind; the written word can never be obliterated. I would like you to find the patience to read my books. I cannot force you to do that, and even if you do, I do not expect your opinion of me to change. No writer has yet appeared, anywhere in the world, who is liked by all his readers; that is especially true during times like these.”
Husna Haq is a Monitor correspondent.
Lena Dunham stars on the HBO series 'Girls.' (JoJo Whilden/HBO/AP)
Lena Dunham's legal representative asks that leaked book proposal be taken down
“Girls” star Lena Dunham was not happy that the website Gawker published the entire proposal for her upcoming advice book online.
Dunham, who is the creator, writer, producer, director and star of HBO’s “Girls,” is planning to release an advice book titled “Not That Kind of Girl,” with the date of publication currently unannounced. She submitted a 66-page proposal to Random House and received $3.7 million for the rights to the book.
After Gawker posted the full proposal online, Dunham’s legal representative, Charles Harder, asked that it be taken down, and the website complied. However, Gawker had also selected 12 quotes from the book and used them within their article about the proposal, and Harder asked that those be removed as well.
Instead, under each update, Gawker writer John Cook added new text under each quote, which all open with “Lena Dunham's personal litigation counsel Charles Harder has contacted Gawker to relay a demand from his client, Lena Dunham, that we remove the above quote from our web site. In order to clarify our intent in quoting the above matter from Dunham's proposal, we have decided to append the following commentary.” Cook then added a comment on each excerpt, such as his remark about Dunham’s statement that she went to her first Women’s Action Coalition meeting when she was three years old.
“The quoted sentence is indicative of a nauseating and cloying posture of precociousness that permeates the entire proposal,” Cook wrote.
According to Salon, Dunham’s publisher, Random House, is not involved in the wrangle.
'Harry Potter' cast members are reportedly filming a new, short installment at studios in Hertfordshire in the UK. (Discovery Times Square/PR Newswire)
Is a new 'Harry Potter' short film in the works?
An all-new “Harry Potter” movie is being filmed, but don’t look for this one at your local multiplex. This film will be short and will only screen at “Potter” theme parks.
The shorter movie will reportedly be shown at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando, Fla. and at the planned theme parks in California, which is scheduled to open in 2014, and Japan, which is scheduled for a 2016 opening. Cast members are reportedly filming at the studios in Hertfordshire in the UK where previous installments were filmed.
What’s the plotline of the new movie? That’s under wraps for now. Guardian writer Ellie Lewis posited that it could show a previously unfilmed portion of Harry, Ron, and Hermione’s hunt for Horcruxes (“Though I'm not sure how much more camping we need to see,” she noted) or possibly delve into the life of the trio after Voldemort was defeated, in which Hermione went back to school and Ron and Harry started to train as Aurors.
Whatever’s being filmed, cast members are reportedly happy about the reunion.
“The cast have really enjoyed getting back together – they are so tight-knit,” a source reportedly told the Sun. “The shooting schedule is nowhere near as long as the films, so though filming has been intense, the stars have enjoyed being able to pop in and out.”
In the film adaptation of 'Game Change,' actor Ed Harris (l.) played presidential nominee John McCain and Julianne Moore (r.) portrayed Sarah Palin. (Phil Caruso/HBO/AP)
'Game Change' sequel will come next fall
The writers of the bestselling book “Game Change,” which followed key figures like Barack Obama, John McCain, Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton during the 2008 election, will release a new book titled “Double Down: Game Change 2012” which will focus on the 2012 race.
The new book by authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann is planned for next fall.
“John Heilemann and Mark Halperin reinvented the campaign narrative with Game Change," Penguin staffer Ann Godoff said in a statement. "Their new book, Double Down, will, of course, break news. But more importantly, it will create the lasting story of the 2012 race for the presidency.”
HBO’s film “Game Change” was based on the original book and starred Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin and Ed Harris as John McCain. The film was lauded by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, receiving an Emmy award in the Outstanding Miniseries or Movie category and snagging Moore an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie, among others. HBO has already optioned the rights to “Double Down.”
'Downton Abbey' features Maggie Smith (l.) and Hugh Bonneville (r.) as two of its 'upstairs' characters. (Nick Briggs/PBS/AP)
'Downton Abbey' insider Jessica Fellowes shares her behind-the-scenes take
Three years ago, would you have predicted British and American audiences alike would be fascinated by questions like "What are that footman Thomas and lady's maid O'Brien planning?" and "Who will inherit that large estate through British law?"?
But the TV series "Downton Abbey," which airs on ITV in the UK and on PBS in the US and addresses just such questions, has audiences on both sides of the Atlantic hooked. Fans are eagerly awaiting the season 3 premiere of the show in the States on Jan. 6, which will bring the show into the 1920s.
Impatient US fans had a bit of a consolation prize this fall with the release of the book "The Chronicles of Downton Abbey," which shared behind-the-scenes details about the show and discussed the time period in which it was set. Jessica Fellowes, the niece of "Downton" creator, writer and executive producer Julian Fellowes, wrote both "Chronicles" and a previous book, "The World of Downton Abbey" and is also the author of titles including "Is There A Psycho In Your Life?" and "Mud and The City: Do's and Don'ts for Townies in the Country."
In an interview with the Monitor, Fellowes discusses why "Downton" fascinates so many viewers, the secret to the actors getting in character, and more. Here are excerpts from the conversation.
Q: During the process of writing the two books, how often were you on the set when the seasons were being filmed?
A: When I was doing the first book, I wasn't writing it until after the first series wrapped, because obviously when the first series was being filmed, nobody had a clue [of its future success]. For the second series, I went on the set... not a huge amount, to be honest, because I was on such a tight deadline to write the book. I was at my kitchen table, typing, most of the time. I didn't really go for the third series – I had a researcher help me that time because I had to do two books in the first six months of this year.
I mean, I've been to Highclere [Castle, where the "upstairs" world is filmed]. It's a real privilege to go and see it, and Highclere is impressive, but I really like going to Ealing Studios [where the servants' rooms are filmed], because there's something amazing about the fact that they've built it all completely from scratch. They had to imagine, think and source every tiny bit that's on there, and it's so beautifully done, like Mrs. Patmore's kitchen.
There was a really funny thing about the cookbook – in those days, obviously, when you owned a copy of "Mrs. Beaton's Household Recipes," you owned a new copy. But if you put a new copy of a book in a period drama, people think it's wrong. They like it to look kind of dirty. I mean, that book did come out in the 1860s or something, I think, so you could get away with it being an older book, but it's just funny – you can't use anything that looks too new.
She's an interesting character because you have this hierarchy downstairs. [Butler] Carson and [housekeeper] Mrs. Hughes are almost a mirror reflection of Lord and Lady Grantham upstairs. You have these little dominions within kingdoms, where everybody's just trying to master what they've got. If anything, upstairs, it's more fluid than that.
Q: With other seasons coming up, would you consider writing another book on "Downton"?
A: I don't know – I think they are thinking about another book, which I will be involved in in some way, but I'm so committed to other projects at the moment... [But] I'm still very interested in keeping to the period. It's a period that I've always been interested in. All my favorite authors are from that time.
Q: What are a few of those authors?
A: Evelyn Waugh. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, Graham Greene, a couple of Ernest Hemingways. Antonia White is the latest discovery from that time – those are my comfort authors. They're always by my bed.
Q: What do you think appeals to people about "Downton"?
A: I think it's a combination of factors. It is a beautiful program and it's so well-written, obviously.
It has great actors of a caliber as well as unknowns, which I think is quite important, because you don't project anything onto them. We're able to meet them all for the first time. But then there's someone like Maggie Smith – you know who she is, and she's almost a reassuring figure and authoritative.
I think it's absolutely gorgeous to look at. You've got a real treat in store for the third season coming up, with the 1920s clothes. I think the fact that it goes out on a Sunday night is a masterstroke because it's when the whole family sits down together. You're in that kind of relaxed mood and ready to escape a little bit.
And then I think what's really clever is there's just a wide range of characters. It's very important to Julian and the producers that everyone be given equal treatment, equal weight, when it comes to story lines, whether they're above stairs or below stairs, it doesn't matter as to how they're treated on the show. I think because of that, whoever you are, you'll find somebody who you recognize. And nobody is black-and-white. There's a lot of shades in their characters, so you can find some sort of sympathy.
It does play on the issue of British class, which doesn't ever really go away and is always of interest to us, even if we're only measuring our ancestors by it.
Q: You said in your book that for a lot of the scenes, the aristocrats would be filming at Highclere Castle and the servants are on the sound stages. Did that help the dynamic between the cast, almost keeping them separate?
A: I think in a funny sort of way, it did create a sort of real-life above and below stairs sort of feeling. That house is a real castle. You can't help but sort of behave differently as soon as you walk through the doors. I think for the actors playing the family, it made a big difference for them and their performance.
And then Ealing Studios is an amazing set. And it's all in one seamless thing – you walk from the servants' hall through the hallway into the kitchen, you come off it into Carson's pantry. It is, as you say, sort of a soundstage, so very close by is the crew hanging around in their jeans and you can eat sandwiches and it's much more of a working atmosphere and it's much more relaxed.
In the first series, [Lesley Nichols, who plays cook Mrs. Patmore] was only at Highclere Castle once, and she said that she arrived and she felt genuinely kind of intimidated by the house. It is quite funny, because you see Mrs. Patmore, who's absolutely mistress of her kitchen – saucy, quick-tongued – and then she meets Lord Grantham and she's terribly sort of meek and she says she felt very cowed by the location when she got there.
It definitely helps, just like the right costumes help actors. They have to wear the right costumes all the way down to your underwear, because those corsets make you stand and sit in the right kind of way and what those people of that time were doing. When Lady Mary takes off her jeans and slips on her couture gown for the evening, I think that absolutely helps.
Q: When the show first premiered here in the States, critics worried, "Oh, Americans won't know what an entail is, they won't know these British terms" – did you worry about that?
A: It wasn't my concern, it was the producers', [but one of the] producers said the other day that PBS said, "Oh, maybe we shouldn't be using an entail," and he said, "We don't know what it is in Britain!" Which we don't. It's not a word we commonly use, it's not really a problem for more than 500 people.
But I do think it is a measure of Julian's success as a writer that he doesn't patronize his audience. He often will put in historical references that he doesn't fully explain, because he wants people to find it out for themselves. He wants to drive people to further knowledge, as it were, with the series, and I think he does do that.
Q: And the plan now is for the show to run five seasons?
A: I have no idea... I know we've confirmed the fourth series, but beyond that, they always get very cagey about confirming exactly what they're going to do.
Q: And probably same thing, but – have you heard about whether Dan Stevens will return for season four?
A: I haven't heard anything about it, but I've got my fingers crossed, because I like him so much and I think that his character, he's someone that people want to watch.
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