L is for The Little House by Philippa Gregory

It's my birthday today!! So I'm not really here, I'm spending time with my family and being thoroughly spoilt with presents and chocolate... hopefully. I'll catch up with all your comments tomorrow, but be sure to whisper!

On with today's post...

The Little House is a pyschological thriller about a new mother and the way her mother-in-law tries to take over. The writing is very stubtle. I was a new mother when I first read this book, and several of the early incidents happened to me - like not havng any clean nappies to hand at an inopportune moment, like not having time to have a shower and having milk stains down a top I wore yesterday, like not having time to hoover or clean the house.

The Goodreads page

The mother-in-law - who is nothing like the mother-in-law I have - is on hand to tell this poor new mother how she'd managed to always have a clean house, clean clothes, a fully made-up face to greet her husband. How she didn't have any help when she had a new baby.

Gradually, without the reader realising, the story escalates until the young mother is sectioned; with even her husband, the new father, believing that his wife is lacking as a mother and a danger to the baby. And when you look back, it all seems so reasonable. I remember a cold goose-bumpy feeling. Could I, could my friends, suffer the same fate?

I won't give the story away, if you haven't read it, but it's worth checking out.

What I took from this novel was pacing, the importance of balance and detail when you're creating the world in which your characters live.

TV Adaptations

One of the books that I have always enjoyed is The Little House by Philippa Gregory, written before she went off on her historical bent. It's a psychological drama about a new mum and the relationship she has with her mother-in-law. Some of the scenes have stayed with me - hauntingly so - even though I haven't read it for a few years.

So, it was with some reservation that I discovered that ITV were dramatising it, and I have just watched the first part.

I have mixed views on adaptations. The BBC version of Pride and Prejudice is wonderful, mostly because they took the trouble to create it over five hours and the casting director did the most amazing job on each and every character. The Keira Knightly version is rubbish, misses out half the story and has appalling casting (including Keira Knightly as Lizzie - what were they thinking, apart from she'll sell??)

Mostly, I think there's a reason why a story is told in novel form - the author has chosen it as the best way to deliver their story, otherwise it would have been a screenplay, or stage play, from the start - each of these formats is a wildly different device. Adapting a book for TV or film means removing from the original idea. Although, I do admit that it means many people will become aware of a story they might otherwise never known about; not everyone enjoys reading.

Back to The Little House: it was not as bad as I imagined, although because it was written for ITV with advert breaks, there was an obvious need to have a mini cliff-hanger every 15 minutes or so; and it was difficult to get into the head of the main character Ruth, the poor new mum. Her husband was just as wimpy as in the book, however, so that was perfect. And Francesca Annis was very subtle and menacing as the mother-in-law. The book, as it has more time to tell the story, is much slower and has more layers; the build up is much more tense because of that.

I am looking forward to the second part, simply because I know how it ends, and I am curious to see if they will keep to the book or go off on some bizarre tangent the way some adaptations have done in the past.