Thoughts about Death at Victoria Dock

This episode is about Phryne helping a friend of aunt Prudence when his daughter goes missing. His dock workers are striking and while Phryne is at the dock, a young Latvian man is shot to death and dies in front of Phryne. Of course she gets involved in the investigation of his death and crosses path with anarchists and Jack. Even though he seemed to soften towards her in Green Mill Murder, he is most reluctant to do so now. Can it be out of fear that she will be killed? The anarchists tries to do so a few times during the episode after all.

I know people want to see Phryne as this "larger than life superhero" and of course I love that aspect of her too, but I love even more when she is human. When she allows herself to stop her otherwise hectic tempo and reflect and react with emotions to the things happening around her.

This episode is one of those times. She is deeply affected by the death of Yourka and I love to see here. She might not spend so much time reflecting over things and she does not look back towards her past, but she has emotions and she does care about others. She has a lot of empathy and I so very much love her for it.

"It'd be a tactical error to think you had me pegged just yet, Miss Fisher"

~ Jack Robinson, Death at Victoria Dock

Like I said above, Jack still tries to avoid working with Phryne in this episode and he is frustrated that she has constable Hugh Collins totally wrapped around her fingers. But in the end he tells her not to judge him yet, a sign that he is slowly accepting her more and more. He also acknowledge that he is aware of how he has treated her and that he deep down wants her to stick around no matter how ambivalent his feelings are towards her.

Thoughts about The Green Mill Murder

In The Green Mill Murder, Leonard Stevens is murdered in the jazz club The Green Mill which Phryne and her friend Charles Freeman visit. It turns out that Leonard has made a lot of enemies by blackmailing them about their biggest secrets. Among them is Charles and he is the first one to be suspected of murder since he flees the crime scene.

"As far as I'm concerned, everybody should be allowed to marry whomever they choose. Though personally, I'm not the marrying kind."

~Phryne Fisher

Like in Cocaine Blues this episode partly deals with issues regarding sexuality that was (and still is in some countries) regulated by laws and how this can be used to give some people a hold on others. Charles is homosexual and Leonard Stevens is blackmailing him and his lover Robert Sullivan after having found out. The episode also portrays an interracial marriage between Noreen and Ben Rogers. The former is also blackmailed by Leonard.

The camera turn into Jack as he is excusing himself through
the crowd at the Green Mill

I like this episode despite the fact that the method of murder is a bit unbelievable. I think that there are just too many factors that need to be right for it to work. This is also addressed more in the book as far as I remember. The book also looks more thorough into the First World War and how it still effects society and its members ten years later. Charles's brother Victor is still living alone and in secret far away from his family, but his PTSD (called shell shock at the time) plays a much more prominent role in the book.

I love Phryne's flapper outfit and how the camera turns into Jack as he excuses his way through the crowd at the Green Mill to get to Phryne and the dead body. He is still a bit standoffish, but particularly at the end of the episode, we get a glimpse that he likes and is far more interested in her than he lets anyone (and perhaps himself) know.

Phryne takes a small interest in Tintagel Stone, the band leader of the Green Mill and I think he, together with Lindsay Thompson from Murder on the Ballarat Train are the sleaziest of the men she seems to at least want to have sex with. I am all for her being sexually liberated and I do not want to judge her, but those two men in particular would not be my own first choice because of their sleeziness.

Thoughts about Murder on the Ballarat Train

The second episode of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries finds Phryne and Dot boardering a train to Ballarat where they are going to pick up Phryne's new car. On the way there, Mrs Henderson is murdered. Phryne also moves into her new house and hires Mr Butler and buys a new taxi car for Bert and Cec. This is also the episode in which we are introduced to Jane who is sneaking aboard the train, comes across Mrs Henderson's jewels and gets accused of murder before Phryne, of course, sorts it all out again.

I really enjoy this episode. The plot holds up pretty well and I like it how the "family" is united more in this one than in the first (even though Mac and aunt Prudence are missing).

After reading the book, one thing I like less about the episode is that they have sort of degraded Eunice Henderson, daughter of the murdered woman, to a woman dependent on both her mother and her boyfriend. Book-Eunice is much more independant and the one who provides for herself and her mother so the latter can continue to live a more glamorous life-style despite having lost her money due to bad investement.

Another thing that I find less good about the episode is that it is the only time we see Ruth, who Phryne adopts besides Jane in the books. It seems odd based on how close she and Jane are. I wonder why she could not be one of the flower-maidens in Queen of the flowers.

There is a big Hottie-momen in this episode when they meet in the hallway of the train. That is one of my favourite with those too loveable characters. Looking at these early episodes, you can really see how much Dot develops.

Jack is still quite grumpy in this episode. He is not used to Phryne and her ways yet. But we get our first Phrack-moment with the scene in the murdered woman's compartment on the train and this episode also has the first night-cap between them.

Thoughts about Cocaine Blues

All throughout January and in the first few days of February did I have my own rewatch of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries from Cocaine Blues to Death do us part. I watched one episode a day, but when I was done I realised I should have taken the opportunity to discuss them a bit on this blog too. Therefore I will be doing it now and also involve my Lego project. I will not be doing one episode a day, but I will try to at least do one episode a week and see how it goes. First up is of course Cocaine Blues. This was the first one I saw (almost two years go on 22 February 2016) and one of the episodes I have discussed the most in the past.

I did find the show through Essie Davis. I had become a fan of her after watching the Babadook back in December 2015 and started looking up what more she had done. Basically I was hooked from the very beginning. I loved Phryne Fisher from the moment she stepped onto that gangway and met Mac at the harbour in Melbourne.

The plot is about the honourable Phryne Fisher who gets back to Melbourne after some years abroad. She is met with her best friend Dr. Elizabeth “Mac” MacMillan who becomes her most trusted confidant throughout the first episode. The audience soon learn about Murdoch Foyle kidnapping Phryne’s sister Jane when they were kids and that Phryne’s main reason for returning to Australia is to make sure he will not get out of prison. Phryne is also invited to a luncheon at her old friend Lydia Andrew’s house, but Lydia’s husband has been murdered.

At the Andrews’s house, Phryne encounters some of the people who will be more and more important as the show goes on: Dot Williams, Jack Robinson and Hugh Collins. We are also introduced to Phryne’s aunt, Prudence Stanley. When Phryne gets there, Dot comes out of the house telling her that John Andrews has passed away and Phryne immediately gets interested. During a visit to the bathroom where he was found, she meets Jack for the first time. I have talked about their meeting before and I stand by what I said back then. 

Jack is easy to misjudge during this first episode. He is a bit arrogant and stand offish and I first saw him like a typical “cop” having troubles with the lady detective, but there is a twist to him and he grew on me as the series progressed. 

Dot is hired as Phryne’s companion and will also become very important to her. She is certainly the character who grows the most throughout the series. In my blog entry discussing Ruddy Gore I compared her to the invisible child Ninni who is brought to the Moomin family in Tove Jansson’s book with the same name.

Like with Jack it is so easy to misjudge her and she is timid and afraid of everything (especially electricity!), but under Phryne’s care, she grows into a strong, confident young woman over the first two seasons. In the third season she sort of regresses somewhat, but I will get into that more when we get to those episodes.

Through the Andrews’s other maid Alice who has been dismissed after John Andrews got her pregnant, Phryne also gets to know Bert and Cec and the social theme of the episode: illegal abortions. The episode shows that abortions will always happen no matter what the law says and if it is illegal, it can end up severely hurting women while no one will be able to charge the ones carrying them out so the women are often used and might even die. 

In one scene, Bert says that Lenin made abortion legal in the Soviet Union in 1920 and I thought I really had to look it up. It turned out to be true and one of the strangest things I have looked up. I really never thought it was a subject I would look into, but at the same time I am glad I did.

Even though dealing with the past is my profession, I have never really had an interest in the 20^th century. I more or less live by the motto: The older the better. I have always thought you should enhance the holocaust and the Second World War because it is really important that we never forget how horrible that was, but Phryne has given me a real interest in the century in a totally different way. It showed me that there are still stories that needs to be told and I am glad I found it.

To be called out on your ignorance

Yesterday I went to a writing workshop with Australian writer Gillian Polack that I might talk about more in a different blogpost. In this one, I would like to focus mainly on one thing she said that has left me feeling a bit uncomfortable all day that I seriously feel I need to comment on. It might make a lot of people uncomfortable, but since Miss Fisher fans in general seems very open-minded I hope you can at least hear me out and reflect on it before you start trolling me.

A lot of fans hang out in a certain chat forum where we discuss just about everything. Most of us there are from The US and Europe and not from Australia. This is important because it plays into why I react so much to this.

Yesterday I learned that Australian readers are used to different types of characters and writing styles to European and American ones. I think it is important to realise that Phryne is actually written into this tradition (probably in the beginning not really intended for non-Australian ones either) by an Australian author. What Gillian Polack also said yesterday, was that, if Australian authors are to be sure to make it outside of Australia, they needs to tone down their "australianess" to please Americans and Europeans (which are the biggest markets for Australian literature outside of Australia).

During discussions among (mostly) American and European fans the differences in Phryne's book and TV persona often comes up. Book-Phryne is shallow, serious and a little spoiled, while TV-Phryne is exuberant, kind and feeling.What has been bothering me all day is not other fans's opinion on the books as much as that I have not seen any comment about the "strangeness" people feel in regard to the books's writing and characters might be attributed to different cultural preferences in fiction. This is, to be honest, rather typical reactions coming from Americans and Europeans to something that is out of their familiar area too.

I really do get the strangeness, I also think the books a bit weird at times. This post is made mostly because I have kind of been called out on my ignorance and it has made me uncomfortable all day. Even more in light of the changes that were made to the characters for the TV show and I wonder how much that really was because of a want to have it work better in other countries than Australia.

I guess Australia can be seen as part of Western culture. What the whole issue really shows is that even if we are all thinking of it as homogenous, we are still quite different. I also wonder what in Swedish litarture that others find strange and if a clue is to be found in the remakes of films Hollywood does.

Ruddy Gore - TV vs Book

While Ruddy Gore is the 7th book about Phryne Fisher, it is the 6th episode of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries. Like in most cases this far, the plot has been reduced and changed somewhat for the TV adaptation. To be honest, I really do find part of it to benefit the pacing of the story. The theatre felt quite overcrowded in the book and, like I said in my book entry about Ruddy Gore, I did have some problems taking an interest in all the cast and crew. They are all quite egocentric and in love with each other.

I found the best part with the book to be Phryne's date with Lin Chung and the issues it provoked with interracial relationships at the time. This issue was treated by the TV show in the episode of The Green Mill Murder and I was pleasantly surprised to see Phryne contemplating it as much as she did. Same goes for her finding it sad that she is going to lose one of her lover, Dr Mark Fielding,who returns from Flying too High, to the nurse-trained actress Mollie Webb.

Phryne with Bernard Tarrant and Lin Chung

I do love that Phryne is adventurous and reckless and sort of does whatever she wants and does not care about what people think. However, I do find those moments when she gets emotional. Especially in regards to her relations to other people. It keeps her grounded. Makes her human. Even though she only has loose liasons with men, she does care about them. This caring for her lovers is taken out of the TV show almost entirely except for in the case of Lin Chung. (Again on the subject of recurring characters and plots that is evident in the book, but not on the show.) Besides Lin (and Jack Robinson of course), we do not get to see any of her "gentlemen callers" ever again. The case does rattle Phryne in a slightly different way though. When a sand bag falls, Jack saves her and it falls on Gwilym Evans (the actor Dot Williams has a celebrity crush on) instead, killing him. This incident happens in the book too, but in a slightly different way and for different reasons.

'Don't make the mistake of thinking their emotions are all put on. They're real people underneath, just exxaggerated. They talk to me', she observed, 'because I care for them. They call me Mum. The're quivering little things under all that glamour. They're always afraid that no one really loves them, that they're going to fail. But they're addicted to applause.'

~Miss Pomeroy, Ruddy Gore

The ghost of Dorothea Curtis

Even though I do prefer the simplification of the plot in the TV episode in this case, I do find it sad that they have left out one of the central themes of the book: wanting/needing to be seen. I really think this is a basic human instinct. Not that everyone does need to stand on a stage to fulfill it, but I think everyone feels a need to be acknowledged and taken seriously from time to time. The setting of the plot in a theatre and also to a certain extent the apperance of "a ghost" work well to enhance this theme.

'I bet none of you have ever handled stage machinery.'
The murmurs increased.
'Of course not, we're actors, not technicals', said Cameron Armour. 'If I'd wanted to be a tradesman, I wouldn't have done ll that voice training.' Phryne began to understand Mr Brawn's rage and scorn.

~Ruddy Gore

Phryne and Dot

It is not that the show does not deal with this subject. In fact it does so to a larger extent than the books seem to be doing actually. Phryne's employed taxi driver Bert Johnson tells his partner Cecil Yates that he is hopless when it comes to collecting strays in Cocaine Blues which is a trait also true of their employer. Both in the books and in the TV show, Phryne has an ability to really see people who needs it. She cares for them and encourages them to reach their full potential. She does not ever pamper them, which can be seen by the way she treats the female star of the theatre production Leila Esperance in the book.

Finnish author Tove Jansson is considered one of the giants in the children's litterature of the Nordic countries and her works about the Moomins are known worldwide. I have not talked about her before on this blog, because I have long felt a need to reread her books before I do so. However, one of her short stories, Det osynliga barnet (The invisible child) is very much worth mentioning here.

In the short story the character Tooticki brings the girl Ninni to the Moomin family. Ninni has been taken care of by a horrible older lady who did not like her. Because of this, she has lost all her confidence and turned completely invisible and the only way to know she is there is by the sound of the little bell, the lady had put around the girl's neck. Ninni is placed under the care and love of Moominmamma and little by little she becomes visible again.

I feel like there are certain similarities in Moominmamma's treatment of Ninni and how Phryne handles Dot in the TV show. When she first meets the younger woman in Cocaine Blues, Dot is mainly invisible. She works as a maid at the Andrews's house, but you cannot say that she draws much attention to herself. As she comes to work for Phryne however, Dot starts to develope as a person. She finds her confidence and role in life without giving herself away at the same time. And Phryne is there, nudging, caring and encouraging. You can see her become surprised by Dot's strict religious reasonings of the modern world in Cocaine Blues, but she never judge her.

"When I came to work for you, Miss, I was afraid of everything. And you taught me so many things, and you made me brave, and you made me happy."

~ Dot Williams, Death do us part

Dot is quite different in the books. She is much more timid and not as active in Phryne's cases as she is on the TV show. With Phryne's mentoring, TV-Dot starts learning the detective skills and from time to time ends up solving the crimes to a certain extent. In a way I think Dot is the main character who develope most throughout the show. I prefer the more active TV-Dot over the passive book one. The friendship between the two women in the books is just wonderful and they certainly love and respect each other (even so much that Phryne continue to wear the St Christopher medal that Dot gives her before she goes away to the circus in Blood and Circuses). However, I do miss Dot doing her own sleuthing and Phryne teaching her the ways of the detective. She does participate from time to time (like helping Phryne go through all the dressing rooms at the theatre in Ruddy Gore) but it is just not the same and the character does not go through the same evolution in the books as in the TV series.


The image of the cover of Det osynliga barnet, did I borrow from here.

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...

Treasures of Ancient Egypt

"We cannot find our future if we forget our past."

~ Alaa Awad, modern Egyptian artist

I have been watching this three part documentary called Treasures of Ancient Egypt where art lover Alastair Sooke discover ancient Egypt through 30 art pieces and what he finds is very intriguing.

At a first glance, ancient Egyptian art seems schematic and static and everything is supposed to be the same over thousands and thousands of years. Sooke, however, finds that there are a lot of things that interupts the static and schematic pictures, making them full of life. Some art pieces also goes more or less against the schematic style. I loved the so called ostraka Sooke finds in the worker's village Deir-el-Medina. They are much more free-styled and a lot of them are also parodies on the official style.

As someone who has studied colonialism/imperialism/cultural meating for awhile I do not really see it as strange that the invaders in Egypt after the New Kingdom tried portraying themselves as Egyptian, but also incorporating their own style, creating a hybrid. This is something I have tackled before, here and here but it might be time for a recap. To me, we are thinking too biologically about the concept of culture, one of the many things we have not been able to shake from modern imperialism of the last two centuries. It is extremely seldom that invaders go in and force their own culture on the colonized groups. This is an idea sprung from imperialism during the last two centuries and only one form out of many types of colonialism. Everyone of them were about power, but not everyone of them has been as devestating as imperialism during the last 200 years. Sooke says that maybe the Greek dynasty, the Ptolemies were not so powerful so they could introduce Greek culture into Egypt. I, however, would rather say that they were smart. They seem to have a much better understanding of cultures and how they interact than we do today. By using history and the old expressions of power in Egypt, they legitimized their right to rule over the Egyptians. They sought to build on the sense of eternity and stability presented in ancient Egyptian art, but like all cultures do as they adopt new traits, they interpreted it through their own cultural logic. This is why we actually can see some Greek influences in Egyptian art from this time. It really is like Egyptian artist Alaa Awad said to Sooke and which I qouted in the beginning. We all must look to the history to find our future.


Picture was borrowed here.