The Moth

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There's some line in Anne of Green Gables where Anne describes the ocean as something that blows out the cobwebs of her soul. This is what Catherine Cookson books (at her best) do for me. I'm always sort of driven up and outward when reading my favourites by her, particularly The Moth and Fifteen Streets, and she expresses in me a wonderful sort of restlessness. Maybe its that she's able to pen words to abstract feelings. I dunno. I just know I'm grateful to have read her books. The critics are justified, but at the end of the day, sometimes you gotta accept the formula, roll with it, and see it for the web of feelings it is. Cookson [née Davies], Dame Catherine Ann (1906–1998), writer". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (onlineed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi: 10.1093/ref:odnb/70039 . Retrieved 11 June 2020. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.) In particular re: my distaste for The Moth, the final straw (spoiler beware) was when a formerly loyal family retainer goes insane & sets fire to the house, then runs inside to his death after realizing his beloved Unbalanced Daughter of the House was still in the bedroom with her dog. Why did he do this? Because he couldn't face the Older Daughter of the House marrying a commoner who used to work for him in the stables & would therefore become higher than him on the servants' social ladder.

Catherine Cookson was born as Catherine (Katie) Ann McMullen on 20 June 1906. She never knew her father and was brought up by her illiterate and uneducated step-grandfather John McMullen, her grandmother Rose and the woman she initially thought to be her sister, Kate Fawcett. It was only when Catherine was seven that she discovered that the alcoholic Kate was actually her mother. Example: reading The Lord of the Rings is a visceral, gut-wrenching thing for yours truly. There are chapters where JRRT rips my heart from my chest cavity, jumping up & down on my feels like a sadistic mofo. Yet such woebegone sadness is NOT A CONSTANT. There are brief periods of hope, contentment, & (most important) an overall aura of "Yes, it hurts, but I KNOW these people will make it to something better." Even old-skool rippers like This Other Eden or Stormfire, while epic in their suffering, embrace that oh-so-important glimmer, that pride in an as-yet unrealized period of "this too shall pass." On the eve of the New Year, everyone gathers to dance to accordion music provided by someone who is either their gardener or a hostage. The development of the separate stories which eventually culminate in Robert being accused of bedding his cousin and fathering her child, and Sarah's mother dieing, leaving her to cope with failing finances and keeping a household going under the constant glare of her father and then her brother. Being from Catherine Cookson land i am a bit biased to promote the television works of the great lady's novels...but this one surpassed any of the previous adaption i had seen.A Dinner of Herbs (2000) with Jonathan Kerrigan, Melanie Clark Pullen, Debra Stephenson, David Threlfall and Billie Whitelaw

Angry Butler dies attempting to rescue Millie; Robert burns the living hell out of his hands actually rescuing Millie (and the puppy). Romantic interest(s): Each other! Marvelously. In a way that makes you want to bang their dolls together almost as much as they do. Robert gets the job, and tries to settle in to being subservient in a household, when his carpentry skills have meant, in the past, that he can make his own terms. It’s interesting!So, the setting for this one means that it covers a lot. There are pubs as the centers of political debate, the rise of industrial employment and urban living leading up to and during the war, and some low-level feminism. But mostly it’s an adorable love story, and some of the usual plot soup that Cookson does so much.

Tyneside was one of the poorest areas of Britain, and in these bleak surroundings fatherless Catherine was brought up by an impoverished family, in constant fear of the workhouse. Her childhood was deeply scarred by abuse, violence, alcoholism, shame and guilt, wounds she carried all her life and which came across so many times in her novels. She always had negative, self-destructive tendencies that damaged both her personality and her relationships with other people. Advance: Philanthropy at Newcastle University" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 June 2011 . Retrieved 5 April 2023. Also not having it: Angry Butler, who’s getting a twitch like Daria’s history teacher just thinking about his darling Sarah lowering herself to chat with a Davenport: Also, as per usual, this is a DVD of a recording made when someone held a pin camera up to a VCR recording, so the quality of the screencaps is iffy, and occasionally there is just nothing doing in terms of legible screencaps. It’s all part of the charm of Cookson.The Moth is actually where all this rigmarole got started in the first place: my friend Eileen, who knows from period pieces, brought The Moth over on a visit on a lark, thinking we’d watch it a little and then hang out and actually do something in New York. That was foolish, obviously, because as soon as we finished that one I was looking for the next one. Also, it turns out we accidentally started with the best one, which made the rest of the Catherine Cookson Experience sort of a slide downhill? Not that I hold that against Eileen at all; I think the only way to handle Cookson is to start with a nice one, because if you open with The Tide of Life the entire thing sort of becomes a non-starter.