We Are Cultured, Dammit!

I am sure that many of you watch Downton Abbey. Despite my brief exile in Saudi Arabia and lack of a television now, I can assure you that I also go to some lengths to keep up with this PBS show.

In fact, I revel in Downton Abbey, and not because of a simplistic love of things British. No, I like the show because of the sly bits that the writers slip in here and there, references to literature and art and politics and science and philosophy.

This year, the fifth of the series, has been particularly entertaining. The first episode included a scene between the Dowager Countess of Grantham (Maggie Smith) and Lady Shackleton that had me on the floor rolling with glee. I nearly peed myself when this exchange took place:

     Lady Shackleton: A single peer with a good estate 

                won't be lonely long if he doesn't want to be. 

 

     Countess: You sound like Mrs. Bennett.

Of course! Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, published in 1813. Her novel was just as relevant in 1924, nearly 100 years after it was published, as it is now. The fact that the Countess made the reference underscores how the novel was even then connected to both the past and to the emerging modern age. It still resonates today, I think.

There are a handful of books that helped to shape my young imagination: The Hobbit, Watership Down, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre. I read these books again and again, and I still re-read them today. Of course, I am aware of the many flaws in these stories, the many stereotypes of class and of sexism, but on each reading of these novels, I find new insights into the human condition. I find magic in these stories.

(Re Jane Eyre, IMO there is no better cinematic interpretation than the one directed by Cary Fukunaga in 2011. It's fantastic.)

Downton Abbey rekindles some of this magic. Not in the thin fantasy style of Harry Potter but in the style of the great authors who have shaped our ideas and our culture by writing about the people around them in a way that gives us insight into ourselves 200 years later. I'll admit, I teared up when Lord Grantham unveiled the small plaque he had commissioned for the nephew of Mrs. Patmore. That was good writing and good drama.

And since our topic of today is Downton Abbey, and I have just watched episode 8, in closing I have to warn you all, don't fuck with Lady Sinderby ("And then you will have a scandal worthy of the name.")