Downton Abbey

Lately, I've come across a TV gem. I know, it doesn't happen that often because...well...it's TV and designed to rot your brain. But once in a while there's something educational AND fun. I know! It's like a party in your head. Or at least it is in mine.

Downton Abbey. I don't know how I came across it. I started hearing about it sporadically in entertainment news and then saw a season on Netflix. Next thing I know I'm scouring the Internet and TV for all three seasons. It's awesome.

I'm a fan of historical fiction. Usually this comes in the forms of books—see current book club pick, A Morning Gift—but the occasional movie or TV show is welcome. Downton Abbey is a TV series that takes place in early 20th century England, right around World War I. If you know anything about the British aristocracy—thank you Jane Austen—then you know that its power is really starting to wind down by this time. After all, the 1920s were less than 100 years ago. The middle class is getting richer and the aristocracy, once thriving on land, are running out of money.

Downton Abbey is about an aristocratic family, the Earl of Grantham, his wife, and his three daughters. The estate is going to be entailed away from his children because there is no male heir (and how old-fashioned is that law anyway?) and now it's a struggle for Lord Grantham to provide for the family sufficiently in the event of his death. And with girls, this means marriage. Again, thank you Jane Austen. It bears a striking resemblance to Pride and Prejudice, except that the distant cousin and heir in Downton Abbey, Matthew Crawley, is far superior to Elizabeth Bennet's cousin, Mr. Collins. In fact, Matthew Crawley might be my favorite character.

The series doesn't bypass the peons, either. The servants and their lives make up a good part of the storyline and provides more excitement than the problems of the aristocrats. In many cases the Downstairs and Upstairs combine and clash in interesting ways. Because that pesky serving class has really taken a step up by the 1900s. Soon they won't settle for half-day offs anymore and complete subservience.

Furthermore, this all plays out against a scenic backdrop and a period of time where the past and present seem to crash into each other with the enthusiasm of freight trains.

An added bonus? The earl's distinguished mama and the Dowager Countess of Grantham, Violet Crawley, is played by none other than Maggie Smith, known by most of the young generation as Professor McGonagall of the Harry Potter series. In Downton Abbey she's a spunky spitfire with an interest personality mix of traditionalist tendencies and modern ideals. She's quick, witty, acerbic, and an absolute pleasure. If you want to picture those big English manors that you only read about, check out this series.

My Book Club: A Morning Gift

While I was at the bookstore (a common occurrence), I picked up a book from the young adult section that I thought my mom might enjoy. You should know that I owe the majority of my love of reading and writing to my mother. Some of my best childhood memories revolve around her reading to me before nap time or reading to all of us before bed (imagine 10 kids stuffed into a king-sized bed—it was fantastic!).

That being said, my mom doesn't read for leisure anymore. She's huge on genealogy. When she's not on her computer at home using some mysterious (to me) new genealogy researching tool, she's taking genealogy classes or either studying or working at the genealogy library. I applaud this. I really do. But it's a proven fact that the human body works best in 90 minute intervals. You go from high energy to low energy within those 90 minutes, and then you need to take a break, relax, and do something to recharge for the next 90 minutes. 

Hence: the book.

My mom's afraid to read for fun, I think, because she doesn't want the reading to take on a life of its own and consume her. I freely admit that I bought this book for Mom because I knew that she'd then feel obligated to read it, and I think a little leisure reading will be good for her.

In deference to Mom's need to do something constructive, I chose a book by Eva Ibbotson: A Morning Gift. For those of you who don't know this author, she's fantastic. She largely writes (or wrote, rather) historical fiction set in the early half of the 1900s. She adds a lot of very contextually accurate and important historical details while keeping a magical, whimsical thread in her stories. The main characters are young women who face some sort of trial due to that historical period. A Morning Gift is about a young Jewish woman stuck in Vienna, Austria during the Nazi regime.

My sister and I also have the book and we are going to start a reading club to urge my mother on. Feel free to read along with us this month (I gave Mom and entire month to read the book) and post comments here on the book club page. I hope we get a good discussion going!