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Questioning college lecture subject matter

posted 18 years ago by roghache
15 replies | jump to latest

Somehow I don't remember from the novel the lecture material in these girls' college classes being the sexual practices of savages. How likely would this be for the topic in a coed class back in strict & conservative 1950's Catholic Ireland? Hollywood has got to be kidding. They would more probably be learning Latin. Of course it's all in keeping with the fact that they turned this reasonably good novel into an admittedly mildly entertaining college soap opera, totally revolving around sex. They even had to bring sex into the lecture theatre, but it simply comes across as ridiculous here.

[–] katedodonnell 18 years ago

that's andrew davies for you. this screenplay written by a man who told colin firth to "act as though darcy had an erection" while filming pride and prejudice and who wrote a screenplay (bbc's a house of cards') where the female lead sleeps with the older man, or fantasises about it (we had great debates about whether is really happened or not in lit class) and calling him daddy.
and in the film they refer to the subject, saying it "used to be known as baby latin". meanwhile in the book the reference to baby latin is when jack stands outside a lecture thinking it is benny's but she didn't take baby latin, because mother francis would have killed her had she taken the easy option. (i have read this book far too many times it would seem)
and i agree - this subject would not have been accepted in 50s ireland.
but have to admit maeve binchy is an airport novelist (though she creates wonderful characters and i always enjoy reading her books, though the same characters pop up with different names very often - i tara road there is a rosemary ryan who is just like nan!) and airport novels are the literary version of hollywood films. dare i say...da vinci code???

[–] roghache 18 years ago

It seems from what you've said about this screenplay writer that it's just as I concluded...let's make a sex saga out of Maeve Binchy's novel. No, the lecture material would definitely NOT have been The Sexual Practices of Savages in a co-ed college class in 1950's Ireland.

I only read Light a Penny Candle, Echoes, and Circle of Friends, not the more recent Binchy novels. I don't remember the novel version of this very well, it's ages since I read it.

[–] katedodonnell 18 years ago

you should read it again. it's my favourite of all hers. i've read the recent ones too and they're okay. good summer light reading. and they're making a film out of tara road, i hear.

[–] Major_Movie_Star 18 years ago

Tara Road was released last year. Didn't see it, but reviews were not great.

[–] aljentra 18 years ago

I'd like to see Tara Road, but I just can NOT see that as a good movie...Circle of Friends, even though they changed it, was enough of a 'movie-story' to work well as a film, even though it lost alot during the transformation.

But Tara Road is just so totally different, I can't see it as a film that would carry across the situations and things as well. It just wouldn't work...

[–] 18 years ago

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[–] roghache 17 years ago

As noted in my previous post, it's been a long time since I read the novel but I don't recall mention of what Benny was studying either. If asked to speculate, I would have said the Humanities -- English, History, Classics, Philosophy, maybe French or another foreign language. Suffice to say, The Sexual Practices of Savages wouldn't have sprung to mind! No, these girls didn't appear very interested in intellectual discussion! I can see where the story would focus on romance, but I found it quite a worthwhile novel whereas the movie seemed "dumbed down", as shown by the lecture topic mentioned!

[–] 17 years ago

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[–] 17 years ago

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[–] Harlequin06 17 years ago

There is a female character named Sheila in the book who's studying law along with Jack and Aidan but the other girls are studying Arts and both Benny and Eve plan to become librarians, although it's hinted near the end of the book that Benny may get into teaching.

Maeve Binchy herself was a teacher and spent a lot of her life struggling with her weight. I always felt Benny was a character who had a lot of Maeve herself in her - whether that's true or not, I don't know!

I thought the law students in the book were interesting - not just because I was a law student myself but because Maeve Binchy's brother William was one of my lecturers (he's a very well-respected barrister and academic) and I used to try to imagine him as a student in those days and wonder if his sister used him as inspiration or just a source of info. :-)

My favourite characters in the book were Eve and Aidan - Benny was a dote but Eve with her fierce loyalty and bad temper really appealed to me. And I loved Aidan for appreciating Eve. I liked Eve in the film and even though Aidan wasn't nearly as garrulous or off-the-wall as he was in the book, he seemed very sweet - draughts forfeits notwithstanding.

My mother and her sisters went to college in Dublin a few years after the time in which this book was set and she loves this book as a great depiction of student life at the time. The film gets a lot of things wrong (the sexual life of savages for one!) but it's good at others. I just wish they'd cast more Irish actors in it - the only one of the young crowd with the right accent is the delicious Aidan and it's very distracting. No-one's accent is truly terrible, apart from Chris O'Donnell's, but it's annoying nonetheless.

[–] 17 years ago

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[–] ruth-94 16 years ago

In terms of how the 'sexual life of savages' fits in, they are studying the Trobriand Islanders as I did myself in social anthropology 1 when studying for a master of arts in 1998. The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia is a 1929 book by anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski.

However, yeah, seems an unlikely choice in 1950s Dublin.

[–] Jazmataz1980 15 years ago

yep, that is the impression I got from the movie, too; dumbed down

[–] marvelass 7 years ago

How likely would this be for the topic in a coed class back in strict & conservative 1950's Catholic Ireland? Hollywood has got to be kidding.

Circle of Friends is an Irish film. No Hollywood studios were involved in the production. It was a UK/Irish production with a predominantly UK/Irish cast, save for Chris O'Donnell.

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[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

Indeed. Not everything can be blamed on Hollywood.