frenchclubbooks: As it is Oscar Sunday and the year in which we lost the talented Alan Rickman, I wa
frenchclubbooks: As it is Oscar Sunday and the year in which we lost the talented Alan Rickman, I wanted to post a note about my favorite film this year: A Little Chaos. Directed by Rickman, who also plays the marvelous Sun King, and starring the lovely Kate Winslet it is a feast for the soul. (New York Times Review)There is no way I am objective in recommending a film such as this. Like my first book it is set in Versailles, a place for which I’ve had nearly a lifelong obsession. The story focuses on the talents of a gardener, who may as well have been born out of the dreams of my own protagonist, botanist and former Versailles employee, Professor Monier. The film opens with a vision–a tree hovering above the ground, hoisted there just before planting. Moments later the famed King Louis XIII states unequivocally what he intends for his future gardens–that they be “of exquisite and matchless beauty.”I can’t recall when I first became fascinated with such stately gardens. It was in adulthood that I became familiar with the likes of Capability Brown and obsessed with places like Stourhead, Hidcote Manor and Versailles. There must have been a moment earlier though, when I became hooked. Perhaps a childhood walk on a summer weekend through the Elizabethan Gardens with my mother and siblings. Or maybe it was studying abroad in college and finding myself on weekends sitting in the Boboli Gardens writing journal entries or postcards.My mother is equally obsessed with gardens and used to read us the books of Tasha Tudor, a children’s book illustrator from Vermont who lived a period life (1830s) surrounded by antiques, living without running water yet maintaining her beautiful house and gardens. She was with me on a trip to Versailles that resulted in the Hunt for the Haunted Gems. I keep threatening to take her with me on a trip to the site of my next book, however she recently returned from a month in Japan where she went garden-hunting without me.To enjoy a little inspiration some not nominated recommendations for you on Oscar Sunday:For grown-ups: A Little Chaos currently available on HBO Go and HBO Now.For the littlest ones: A Tale for Easter available on Amazon.For a visit in person: in Southern California the Huntington Botanical Gardens. -- source link