Blood and Circuses - TV vs Book

"Justice, not money, determines the cases worthy of my attention."

~Phryne Fisher, Blood and Circuses (TV)

As I said in my entry about the book, there are a lot of different thoughtprovoking issues in Blood and Circuses and I probably get back to it in the future. It was however one issue that was more prominent than others to me and it was how both versions of the case at the circus sort of got to Phryne Fisher herself, but in different ways.

Phryne, Dot and Jane sneek a taste.

I had really decided I was going to leave Phryne as a character pretty much alone until I had read through all the books, but after reading this book (and to some extent also after a person I like said Phryne was only a shallow James Bond character), I figured I needed to address her character pretty much immediatelly, but first I will do a recap of the plot of the TV episode and how it deviates from the book one.

Just like the book, the TV episode starts with Mr Christopher (here called Miss and is considered a woman) and the episode starts with her being found strangled, stabbed and with a python around her neck in the magician’s vanishing cabinet (overkill as Phryne calls it) during the circus Farrell’s show and not in his bed at the boarding house where he lives in the book. Not pleased with Senior Sergeant Grossmith who has been assigned to the case, Phryne’s old friend Samson(Sam) seeks Phryne out to try getting her to help. For once, Phryne is rather reluctant to go back to Farrell’s since it was there that her little sister Jane disappeared while Phryne was too caught up in the magician perform a vanishing act in the same cabinet (at least I think it is) that Miss Christopher is found dead in. 

Jack and Elsie share a moment.

The TV episode is not one of my favourites. It is quite messy and it is not made clear exactly who made what and why. However Elsie Tizzard is probably my absolute favourite among the minor characters. I love her special relationship with Jack, but also how she bonds with Amelia Parkes in the cell. The latter is just one of all the amazing depictions of female friendships that we can see throughout both TV and book series.

Another aspect I really enjoy as an archaeologist is how they have used how memories (even unwelcome ones) are triggered by materialities. Phryne is extremely reluctant to go (back) to Farrell's circus to investigate and it is not until Jack (for once) gives her a definite no that she agrees to Samson's request and takes on the case. When she gets to the circus, the memories become even more prominent and we get much longer flashbacks with Jane and Phryne at the circus. Correct me if I am wrong, but I also think this is the first time we really get to see Janey Fisher's blue ribbons.

We have seen Phryne vulnerable before, but the memories of Jane are humbling in a new way. They seem to give her new insights into what happened to her sister and the episode itself sort of works much more as a build-up to the two that follows it.

'Tonight you shall share my luxury', she said, pulling off the dress and the scarf and shedding battered undergarments, 'because tomorrow I shall share your poverty.'

~ Kerry Greenwood, Blood and circuses (book) 

Phryne and Samson

In the book, Phryne goes through an even more humbling journey. She is forced to leave her luxurious lifetotally behind as she goes undercover as Fern Williams, the trick rider at the circus. Like Peter Smith, the anarchist, does in the Death at Victoria Dock book, Mr Burton questions what she does at the circus and Phryne gives him a similar answer that she is tired of being said not to understand or being able to manage a more simple life because of her otherwise privileged lifestyle. Because the Janey Fisher/Murdoch Foyle plot was made up for the TV show, the circus does not provoke as many bad memories for Phryne as in the TV show, but it does turn out to be a very hostile environment.

Little Phryne and her sister Jane in one of the flashbacks.

Like the TV episode, the book works a lot with materialities, but instead of connecting them to memores, it connects them to Phryne's self-esteem and confidence in a way that had me thinking of the song Wig in a Box from the musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

The musical is about trangendered Hedwig who goes through sex reassignment therapy, but the surgery goes terribly wrong and she is left with an "angry inch" and in a state of not belonging to either of the binary sex/gender construction that is still considered norm in today's Western society. As you might understand, this can in many ways be related to the transgender theme of both book and TV episode (In the TV episode, we even get to know that Miss Christopher pays a surgeon to have her "additional appendage" removed.), but in many ways it can also be related to Phryne as a character.

Kerry Greenwood made a cameo at the circus in this episode.

As I have said before, I do not like the comparisson of Phryne to James Bond. I actually find it a bit degrading of her character. Phryne is so much more than just a female version of the action male archetype. Yes, she is wild, adventurous and reckless, active in every scene she is in (traditionally male traits), but she is also empathetic, compassionate and kind (traditionally female traits). She does not show many emotions (male trait), but she is sensitive to other people's needs (female trait). (I admit the latter does not always apply to Jack, but in that case it has much more to do with him not behaving like a traditional male way.) She is cunning and clever (male traits), but also flirty and seductive (female traits). She also uses violence and reacts to it in a very different way than Bond (or for that matter Indiana Jones who she is also compared to). Even though she often brings her golden pistol with pearl handle and has a dagger in her garther, she does not use them other than when it is totally necessary to save herself or others. I agree that her wild, reckless and sexual side is far more conspicuous, but I think we more should ask ourself why that is instead of only calling her a female James Bond/Indiana Jones.

Her overall apparence is also totally female with her beautiful, often very feminine clothes, hats and red lipstick. This is also where the relation to Hedwig and the song Wig in a box becomes most apparent. Like Hedwig, Phryne has a dark past which has been made clear at this point in the TV series, but not in the books, so I will leave it until it is brought up. Both of them also hits rock bottom, but they decide to turn their life over and they both sort of find exuberance in fashion. This is also how the book points to the material aspect of Phryne's identity and how important it is to her.

She was feeling of balance. Deprived of her usual props and stays and allies, and having to speak with the accent of her childhoo, she was losing confidence. No one seemed to like her, and she was used to being liked, or at least noticed. She closed her eyes.

~ Kerry Greenwood, Blood and Circuses (book)

Jane asks Samson for stories about Phryne.

In a way the circus makes her time-travel back to her childhood in poverty in Collingwood, leaving her feeling self-concious and lonely. When the clown Matthias/Jo Jo does her make up for her performance in the circus show, she does no longer recognise her face, seeing only a stranger in the mirror.

But again it is a material object that destroys her identity all together. When she is discovered by Jones and his men and they are about to rape and kill her, they take away both her clothes and the belonings she has hidden underneath and inside them. Among those is the St Christopher medal Dot gave her right before she was leaving her home.

She made no sound until he broke the thong which held the holy medal and pocketed it. Phryne gave a pitiful cry. Her last link with her own self was gone.
~ Kerry Greenwood, Blood and Circuses (book)

The medal triggers a basic instinct inside of Phryne, making her fight the men. Because she is no simple "damsel in distress", she manages to avoid rape, but she does not win her freedom. Instead Jones and his men locks her in an animal case calling her a "wild beast".

This is actually not the first time in the book where humans have been compared to other animals.This is actually a theme also woven into the plot. Trapped in the animal cage and naked, Phryne's identity travels even further back in time (The mentioning of her friendship to the archaeologist being extremely fitting in all of this). Her fear of the lions was established already as Dulcie showed her around the circus and is already then said to enhance a primitive version of herself. She, however, remains quite active, trying to get herself out. In the end though, she realises she might need help from a friend or two. Humans are, after all living in hoards by nature...