Elizabeth Taylor’s Angel: some miscellaneous thoughts

This final article in the series inspired by Elizabeth Taylor’s novel Angel includes some more connections and a few miscellaneous points of interest.

Angel Deverell and Esmé Scarron the sorcerer

These two people have generated many articles between them; it would be very easy to produce some more, but enough is enough!

By coincidence, Esmé is the name of Angel’s debt-ridden wastrel of a husband, but she bears more resemblance to Stella Gibbons’s villain Esmé Scarron from The Shadow of a Sorcerer than he does!

Angel shares Scarron’s arrogance and preference for having admiring followers or even worshippers rather than real friends.

She too has a bad effect on the people around her, her mother and husband in particular.

Angel could have improved her inner state and become a better person, but just like Scarron she lacks the necessary humility.

Brothers and sisters

Angel’s husband’s full name is Esmé Howe-Nevinson. He is the brother of Nora Howe-Nevinson, Angel’s companion and assistant.

It is not just Esmé’s name that has a connection to Stella Gibbons: his personality and behaviour resemble those of her younger brother Lewis.

As mentioned in the first article in the series, the novelist Marie Corelli was one of the inspirations for Angel. Corelli’s half-brother Eric was a wastrel who was always demanding money from her; Elizabeth Taylor probably created Esmé from what she knew of Eric, but he is also a classic, textbook case.

Many of us will encounter people like Esmé, who go through life leaving a trail of failures, debt and destruction behind them and who are forever taking on new initiatives without the resources and reserves to back them up. They make life hell for anyone they can get a hold over.

Both Stella and the fictional Nora kept house for their brothers;

Both Stella Gibbon’s brother Lewis and the fictional Esmé were unstable; they got into financial and other messes and left it to their sisters to sort it all out.

Same game, different players yet again.

Diana Wynne Jones’s witch Aunt Maria: part III

A brief summary of Diana Wynne Jones’s Black Maria makes it seem like a complete fantasy, a children’s story that is interesting and entertaining but has little relevance to real life. I have actually found much of it familiar, informative and very useful - not so much the purely supernatural parts but the scenes involving mind control and manipulative behaviour. 

It is ironic that this little book is considered suitable reading for eight-year-olds yet it has caused me to produce so much material that I decided to break my article first into two then into three parts.

Telepathy, spying and psychic attacks
One member of Aunt Maria’s circle gives Mig a book of pictures, the kind a little girl will love. Some of them are indeed of flittery little fairies, but others are frightening and sinister: the worst one is titled ‘A naughty little girl is punished’ and makes Mig feel ill. This seems like a message, a warning, and reminds me of one of the disturbing pictures sent to Marianne in Marianne, the Magus and the Manticore by Sheri S. Tepper.

Diana Wynne Jones’s witch Aunt Maria: part II

I have performed several data mining exercises on Black Maria aka Aunt Maria by Diana Wynne Jones and found a lot of useful material each time I made another pass through the story. There are always more points of interest to be extracted and connections to be made.

Diana Wynne Jones said that Aunt Maria was based on a real person. This might well have been her mother, who by her account was a horrible woman. I have never met anyone quite like Aunt Maria, but some of the actions of her and her circle and the effects that they have on people are very familiar indeed. More and more similarities come to mind each time I go through the book. 

Aunt Maria lures the family into a trap
With people such as Aunt Maria it is important to identify them immediately, if possible avoid them completely and if not begin as we mean to go on and let them know where we stand. Unfortunately, we often realise this too late. 

Diana Wynne Jones’s witch Aunt Maria: part I

Aunt Maria appears in Diana Wynne Jones’s Black Maria aka Aunt Maria. She operates and does a lot of damage on more than one level: she is both a dreadful, detestable, manipulative old woman and an evil witch. 

Aunt Maria gets under my skin in a way that none of the other witches I have discussed so far does. I can read about her turning people into animals without any problems, but I can hardly bear to read the descriptions of her ‘this world’ behaviour towards the family that she asks to come and stay with her: it comes too close to home; it triggers very painful memories and feelings. 

Her intrusive behaviour over the phone in the first few pages of the book is more than enough to make me want to stop reading, but I persevere because there are lessons to be learned and points and connections to be made.

Aunt Maria’s personality and behaviour
Aunt Maria is hateful; she is insufferable; she is intrusive, annoying, selfish, demanding and controlling. She is a complete expert at using suggestion, disapproval, martyrdom, disappointment, guilt trips, intimidation, emotional blackmail and mind control to manipulate people into doing what she wants. She is cruel and unscrupulous. She is a tyrant in disguise: she subtly forces everyone to dance to her tune.