It's a new disease, as debilitating as Putrid Throat, so I felt I should offer a place of sojourn and some hope of recovery from Poldark Deprivation Syndrome to ask how are you all coping??
I have found some mild solace in Macmillan's republication of Poldark's Cornwall, written by Winston Graham in the early 1980s, and which they very kindly sent having sensed that I would be sickening once the series finished.
They weren't wrong, took me out overnight it did.
The book is lavishly illustrated anew and really does take the edge off that depleted feeling, to say nothing of saving all that bother of galloping along the cliff tops to see for yourself whether Ross really was that close to the edge.
It is well-known that initially Winston Graham was no fan of the first series of his beloved books and in a new introduction to Poldark's Cornwall, Andrew Graham, Winston's son, elaborates on his father's wrath and his attempt to withdraw from the contract. By the second series thankfully, and possibly aided by astronomic book sales and the fast-growing public adoration of Ross and Demelza, all was 'sweetness and light.'
Fortunate to have known Cornwall in the days before what Quiller-Couch diagnosed as Bungaloweczema struck, Winston Graham's love for the county shines through as he experiences first delighted discovery, then the sun and sea addiction followed by the nostalgic return. And as for Poldark...well the plan for one novel soon spilled over into many more and having little experience of writing historical fiction so the research began.
Winston Graham mounts a spirited defence of the historical novel arguing that if they are to be downgraded as a genre then what of War and Peace and Vanity Fair and Wuthering Heights...
'I do not know how near to the truth of life in the eighteenth century these novels are; all I know is that they are as near to the truth as I can make them...any writer, any good writer, takes a set of events and imposes his own view upon them...
And an interesting take on the interloper authors...
'Cornwall has particularly suffered from the writers who have spent a few months living here and have decided to write an epic set in the county...'
Winston Graham was known to be particularly furious by Daphne du Maurier's portrayal of the wreckers in Jamaica Inn; deliberately blacking out lights and luring ships onto the rocks a practice for which he could find no historical evidence. Plenty of sharing the spoils, often with greed and violence after the event, yes, and little wonder when the people were starving, as was so well portrayed in that final episode.
Talking of that final episode, but without spoiling it...what did you think ?
I was spell-bound by it all and near to tears. I thought Jack Farthing as George Warleggan achieved something superb in conveying the vulnerabilities, the sadness and the loneliness lying just beneath the veneer of his machiavellian tendencies.
Having now finished Book One, and marvelled at what a brilliant writer Winston Graham was, I can see how tightly the script writer, Debbie Horsfield, has held to the original, and I love her take on Ross...
Ross Poldark is one of literature's great heroes: a gentleman who is also a rebel, who has a keen sense of morality and social justice but without any priggishness or moralising. He's also a great romantic figure - caught between two women from two completely different backgrounds. A gentleman who marries his kitchen maid. A man who doesn't stand on ceremony, who doesn't play by the rules and often falls foul of authority. He has elements of Darcy, Heathcliffe, Rochester, Rhett Butler and Robin Hood - quite a combination!
You can read more in an interesting interview with Debbie Horsfield here.
So Poldark's Cornwall has been nothing short of bliss, the perfect remedy and a huge help in my partial (but not complete) recovery from Poldark Deprivation Syndrome, but meanwhile how are the rest of you coping...
Anyone else feeling that Sunday night just won't be the same...
Anyone else prostrate on their chaise longue reading the books...
Anyone else going to jump to Book Three because they can't wait a year to know what happens next...
Anyone else giggling at this picture which is doing the rounds...
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