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gwynnegaAt Aqueduct Press's blog, I talk about some of my favorite reads of the year.
One book that didn't make it onto my list is Robert Nathan's novel The Bishop's Wife (1928), which I finished reading (well, listening to on audiobook) this morning. The 1947 film is a favorite of mine, and it was one of the inspirations for my novel Thank You for Sending Me an Angel (which I'm nearly done revising!), but I had never read the novel before. In many ways it is a more sophisticated and philosophical story than the film, though neither version has what I would call a satisfying ending.
The novel makes it clear that the bishop is sexually repressed and that his wife Julia has been disappointed about this since their wedding night, though she enjoys being a mother to their daughter. The marriage between the bishop and Julia is one of mutual respect but, unlike in the movie, there doesn't seem to be much love there. The angel (Michael in the novel) is more earnest and less suave than Cary Grant's Dudley. (He's also fair-haired, and I understood for the first time why they originally thought to cast David Niven as the angel instead of the bishop.) Unlike Dudley, Michael actually kisses and embraces Julia and declares himself to be in love with her. For awhile, I was starting to wonder if Michael and Julia might actually hit the sheets. (Alas, they don't. Julia won't commit adultery, and apparently angels can't actually get carnal, even though Michael is clearly a great kisser.)
The novel is much more explicitly critical of organized religion than the film, and it also brings up antisemitism and racism. I got a little uneasy when the book introduced the wealthy Mr. Cohen, until Cohen told Michael about his grandparents who were killed in a Ukraine pogrom. Wait, I thought, was Robert Nathan Jewish? Sure enough, he was Sephardic. (Side note: he was also the husband of Anna Lee, of Val Lewton and General Hospital fame!)
As much as I like the movie, I can't help but wonder what a Pre-Code adaptation would have done with the book. The novel ends with Julia resigning herself to her unsatisfying marriage, though she has chosen to get pregnant again by the bishop. (At least in the novel, no one gets their memories angelically erased at the end.)
One book that didn't make it onto my list is Robert Nathan's novel The Bishop's Wife (1928), which I finished reading (well, listening to on audiobook) this morning. The 1947 film is a favorite of mine, and it was one of the inspirations for my novel Thank You for Sending Me an Angel (which I'm nearly done revising!), but I had never read the novel before. In many ways it is a more sophisticated and philosophical story than the film, though neither version has what I would call a satisfying ending.
The novel makes it clear that the bishop is sexually repressed and that his wife Julia has been disappointed about this since their wedding night, though she enjoys being a mother to their daughter. The marriage between the bishop and Julia is one of mutual respect but, unlike in the movie, there doesn't seem to be much love there. The angel (Michael in the novel) is more earnest and less suave than Cary Grant's Dudley. (He's also fair-haired, and I understood for the first time why they originally thought to cast David Niven as the angel instead of the bishop.) Unlike Dudley, Michael actually kisses and embraces Julia and declares himself to be in love with her. For awhile, I was starting to wonder if Michael and Julia might actually hit the sheets. (Alas, they don't. Julia won't commit adultery, and apparently angels can't actually get carnal, even though Michael is clearly a great kisser.)
The novel is much more explicitly critical of organized religion than the film, and it also brings up antisemitism and racism. I got a little uneasy when the book introduced the wealthy Mr. Cohen, until Cohen told Michael about his grandparents who were killed in a Ukraine pogrom. Wait, I thought, was Robert Nathan Jewish? Sure enough, he was Sephardic. (Side note: he was also the husband of Anna Lee, of Val Lewton and General Hospital fame!)
As much as I like the movie, I can't help but wonder what a Pre-Code adaptation would have done with the book. The novel ends with Julia resigning herself to her unsatisfying marriage, though she has chosen to get pregnant again by the bishop. (At least in the novel, no one gets their memories angelically erased at the end.)
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Date: 2023-12-18 01:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-18 01:53 am (UTC)(I do love the reversal in HMC, where Sophie is old and Howl is young and heartless. Old women protagonists are still so rare, it feels like.)