Shocked, shocked, I tell you

[nineveh_uk]

I was going to write something brief and sarcastic to the effect that although it is some time* since I got half-way** through War and Peace, though my memory of it is imperfect I was pretty sure that it didn't contain surprise incestuous undertones, or indeed overtones. Fortunately for my dignity I looked up the character list first, and apparently the incestuous undertones are at least somewhat canon***. I'm not sure that I'm convinced by the adaptation so far: for something set in Russia in 1805 I'm not getting much sense of a fundamentally different society to that of a generic Jane Austen adaptation, or indeed the present day UK, but I'll be watching the second episode.

I note that it so far lacks the extremely tight breeches of the big Russian film version, but it has one thing in common in that forty years from now, anyone who watches it will look at the women's hairstyles and think how much more they look like the period in which it was made than the period when it was set.

*About twenty years.

**I was disappointed it wasn't Anna Karenina II.

***Though I will need to make a second attempt to discover whether the novel had them as totally scurrilous rumour or otherwise. I will make sure I choose a more engaging translation.

ETA: I have just learned that the adaptation was by Andrew Davies, and thus all is explained.

Comments

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I'm not watching it either, but this does seem to be a general - nay, almost universal - feature.