Nathan Page's autograph and me totally fangirling about it

I had to pospone my entry about the Tutankhamun exhibition I went to yesterday, because look what arrived in the post today!!! It is Nathan Page's autograph! I asked an Internet friend who was going to Nathan's High Tea on 4th March if she could ask for an autograph for me and he was kind enough to actually do it

Nathan Page, photo by Sam Mcadam-Cooper

Since Swedish postal service is really not what it has been (I do wonder from time to time what Axel Oxenstierna - who founded the Swedish post office - would say about it really...) and I have been somewhat worried it would get lost on the way across half the world really. This has made me quite secretive about it and only a select few have seen it up until now when I have it in my hand.

As I have said many times before, I went into Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries as a fan of Essie Davis. This because her film The Babadook,which I saw first, became extremely personal to me (I have written all about it here.) and I sort of looked up what more she had done (that I could watch through Swedish Netflix) and I totally fell in love with Miss Fiher's Murder Mysteries and Jack Robinson and Nathan Page came into my life as part of that.

The, by far, most popular entry to this blog is the one I wrote about Jack in November last year (It can be found here.) and I really think Nathan is a very good actor. Both he and Essie are phenomenal when it comes to making subtle emotions with their facial expressions. Nathan seems to be a kind and nice person in real life and he also seems perfectly fine taking a backseat to Essie/Phryne which is all too rare in male actors.

I am so fangirling over all of this. I know it is just a piece of paper and I am sure he forgot all about me the moment he had written it, but it is my piece of paper and he has written it for me!

I doubt you will ever see this Nathan, but thank you so very much for the autograph! It means a lot to me and you have totally made my day! Twice (Once when I got to know Debra had got it for me and today when it finally arrived.)! ❤️




Photo of Nathan used in this post was taken by Sam Mcadam-Cooper.

Phryne and Jack - the first meeting

I have already written my thoughts about this on Facebook, but I thought I should write it here as well.

In the TV version of Cocaine Blues, we see Phryne Fisher meet Detective Inspector Jack Robinson for the first time in Lydia Andrews's bathroom where her husband John Andrews has been found murdered. I really do think their reaction to each other here is very interesting and it sets up the tone for the entire show in regards to their relationship.

I have talked a lot about Phryne as a character before and how complex she is in regards not least to gender norms (The latest was in the entries Blood and Circuses - TV vs book and Phryne and the gender norms of the 1920's.) and in this particular scene in the bathroom we actually get to see her using both her feminine and her masculine sides.

Phryne is good at charming people. She usually either does it with her "feminine" flirty, seductive side or her "masculine" cleverness and cunning. She is also good at knowing when to use which. The fact that she is not so good when it comes to Jack in this scene tells a lot about what a special place he will come to have in her life after this first meeting. Jack is not exactly like other men in  Phryne's life and because of this she often ends up hurting him by treating him like she would any other men.

Phryne first tries flirting with Jack. This action gives us a small glimpse at her past as a poor girl in Collingwood and also how she has been dealing with the police before. This comes up again in for example Blood and Money when she tells Jack about the swallow brooch and she gives us a much more thorough view about it.

Phryne: You know, the first thing I ever stole, the police let me keep. 
Jack: Really? 
Phryne: This little brooch in the shape of a swallow. I saw it in the pawnbroker's window, and I coveted it for a whole year until I seized the opportunity.
Jack: And you were caught? 
Phryne: Well, someone lagged. 
Jack: Ah. Then you talked your way out of it. 
Phryne: Well, I told the police that my grandmother had given it to me and my father had hocked it for a bottle of beer.

~ Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, Blood and Money

Unlike Constable Hugh Collins, who she wins over straight away in the bathroom scene in Cocaine Blues, Jack turns out not to be so easily charmed. Therefore, we see Phryne changing tactics using her cleverness and cunning side instead. But, before giving a thorough analysis of the crime scene. Interestingly enough, she at the same time, also jokes a bit about the stereotype Jack seems to think she is.

Jack: Miss Fisher, I appreciate your curiosity for crime.
Phryne: Well, every lady needs a hobby.

~ Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, Cocaine Blues

It is evident by the looks Hugh and Jack give each other that they did not expect her competence, but Jack still will not let himself get charmed by her. So Phryne tries again, going back to the flirting and finally makes him give her his card...

The Detective and the Rose - Jack Robinson and Rosie

Jack and Rosie, Murder most scandalous

I mentioned Rosie Sanderson in my post about Jack Robinson, but never talked about her so much and I know you all prefer Phryne Fisher as Jack's companion (the whole Phrack thing) and I do too, but I think it is important to talk about Rosie as well.

We do not really get to know much about Jack's first marriage more than the fact that the First World War drove he and his wife apart. Rosie is vaguely mentioned already in Murder on the Ballarat Train and we get small glimpses into their estranged marriage, until we hear they get a divorce in Murder in the Dark at the end of season 1.

We (and Phryne) get to meet Rosie for the first time in Murder most Scandalous, the first episode of season 2 and she is part of the overarching plotline in that season. She is the daughter of the Deputy Commisioner, George Sanderson and we and Jack find out that she is now engaged to her father's godson Sidney Fletcher.

Rosie, Marked for Murder

I do not hate Rosie! In fact I feel sorry for her. She does not really do anything wrong. She seems to come from a privileged household and she was probably raised into a traditional female role. I discussed the thought of "the ideal woman" in my entry about Phryne and the Astrid Lindgren girls. It originated among the bourgeois in late 18th century Europe. The bourgeois woman was considered more or less too fragile to do anything.The man was the one out in society. He created it and did so to fit himself. The woman, on the other hand, was confined to the home where her main task was to please the bourgeois man who's guidance she needed to move through life. She was her husband's subordinate in everything and she was supposed to love him submissively. During the late 19th century, these gender roles spread to other social classes, which is quite strange since experiences from basically every other social class proved that women were just as capable as men.

These gender roles are interesting in relation to Rosie, Phryne and Jack and explains their characters and actions pretty well. We do not know if Rosie belonged to a working class family before her father gained power and titles in the police force. The fact that she married a working class man (Jack) seems to indicate this. She could have married "down" of course, the system provided women with far more opportunities to move in the class system of that time than men, but we can assume she was born rather privileged. This would also mean that she was raised to fit into the category of the ideal woman at the time, described above. This means that she was raised to not have anything to do with society outside the home and to marry and support someone like her father.

Phryne meeting Rosie for the first time, Murder Most Scandalous

Compare this to Phryne who was not raised among the bourgeois. Instead, she was raised very poor and in the lower societal classes, the women had to be out and about to provide for their families just as the men did. In theory, the women were subordinated the men, but in practice they were more or less equal. This meant that she is much more used to defy the norm of the woman (and the man) that is considered a static trait among the bourgeois. Instead of idolising her father like Rosie does hers. She more or less loathes him.

Jack and Rosie, Murder most scandalous

This background explains how they both deal with men, including Jack. Rosie idolises her father and wants Jack to have a career like his. The series has not given us any facts about Jack's character prior to the war. Therefore it remains my own speculation to think that he was probably not too content or happy with the prospect of imitating his father-in-law's career even then. For short, Rosie is not used to bend societal norms. She treats Jack like her father, because that is the only type of man she knows of. I also think this is why her marriage to Jack collapsed after the war. Again, we are not told or shown what actually happened, but due to Jack's sensitive nature, one might guess he was depressed and/or shell shocked which was the term used for PTSD at the time. This was probably something entirely new to Rosie and the fact that she was raised to more or less "obey" the norms to whatever cost probably did not help.

Jack and Rosie, Murder Most Scandalous

Similar to Rosie, Phryne also treats Jack like she would her father. Actually Concetta Fabrizzi  is the only one of the three women in Jack's life that we are aware of, that does not seem to do that (I am saving Concetta for a future Phrack post.). Phryne also tend to seek male bed partners that is similar to her father. However, Jack is nothing like Henry Fisher and while Rosie does not really seem to realise she hurts Jack, Phryne does. Even though Phryne is unfamiliar with men like Jack, she does not follow the norms as strictly as Rosie does and therefore is not unfamiliar with people who fall out of them... like Jack.

Jack, Murder most Scandalous

I have compared Jack to the Astrid Lindgren boys before and the comparison works even in this case. He is neither like George Sanderson nor Henry Fisher. He is sensitive, introvered and rather emotional. I find it interesting to compare him to the hero of the book Mio min Mio (Mio my Mio). When he lives in Stockholm and is called Bo Vilhelm Olsson, he learns that boys need to be tough and brave and should never show emotions. He is never happy with this and really blooms out only when he gets to Landet i fjärran (The land of far away) and becomes prince Mio. There he can really let go of the boy norms and show how scared he is, be emotional and even hug his best friend Jum-Jum. This is also when he becomes a super hero, saving all the children from the evil Riddar Kato with a heart of stone. Jack is pretty much the same. He becomes happy when he can break free of the male norm and be his own fantastic self.

Jack: "I went to war a newlywed"
Phryne: "But you came home."
Jack: "Not the man my wife married... 16 years ago"

 ~ Raisins and Almonds

Like I said in the beginning of this (too) long post, I do not hate Rosie and I do not think the series wants us to either. In fact, Rosie's plotline is a rather tragic one. Rosie does everything right according to the book, but still comes out on the losing end of things and I do not think she ever understands what went wrong. It is obvious that she still trusts and cares for Jack (not least because of the fact that she is openly jealous of Phryne), but she does not know how to love him. The same goes for Jack I think. He still cares for Rosie (He comforts her at the end of Unnatural habits.), but he knows he cannot be the man she needs and he does not love her (He goes to Phryne instead.).

Jack and Rosie, Unnatural Habits

Death at Victoria Dock - TV vs Book

Phryne Fisher

Death at Victoria Dock is the fourth book and the fourth TV-episode about the Honourable Phryne Fisher. However, the second book, Flying too High was never turned into a TV episode. It is still the fourth episode however, since for some unknown reason the TV version of the book after, The Green Mill Murder, was placed before Death at Victoria Dock in the line up of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries episodes from season 1. Because I could not really compare the book version of latter to the TV version of the former and vice versa, I needed to make a similar switch.

In the book Phryne happens to be witness to the murder of Yorka Rosen while driving past the docks. On TV, however, she hears him being shot outside, while meeting with Mr Waddington. On both occasions, he dies in his arms and also on both occasions, Phryne takes his death pretty hard.

Phryne Fisher

As I said in the entry about the book, I like vulnerable Phryne. It has nothing to do with me not wanting her to be the fabulous, reckless super hero. It just shows a much more complex character, letting her have a tender, vulnerable side to her. It makes her human and I love her even more because of it! I am so glad her feelings towards Yorka's death was left in the TV episode.

This is the book in which we first get to meet Constable Hugh Collins, but in the TV series, we have known him since the beginning. In the book he is Catholic, while his protestant faith clashes a little with Dot's Catholic one on TV. I was also really pleased to see that Hottie was actually canon even in the books. Dot and Hugh are just the sweetest couple ever!

Phryne Fisher

The depiction of the anarchist plotline is actually interesting in the book. We have already from the beginning known that Bert and Cec are communists and that Phryne accepts them just as they are anyway. The Death at Victoria Dock book actually dwells further into the socialistic bracket of the modern political scale and it does it very well. It is far from the Hollywood demonization of it.

Socialism is a very big field with lots of different variations, just like any other political ideology and movement. Some are better and some are worse than others and everyone of them has its benefits and its problems. I do not like to get into politics so much on this blog, but some things need to be clearified because there are a lot of misunderstandings going around about every one of the political ideologies.

In the wake of the US election Swedish media has had some sort of a wake up call and there have been a lot of discussion of the "bullying rhetoric" spreading from there to here. So the last couple of days have been a lot about that and lots of politicians have shown what great friends they are with and/or how much respect they have for politicians on "the other side of the scale". Just because you do not have the same opinion, does not mean you cannot share a friendship and/or respect for one another which both book and TV Phryne shows very well. She builds her own sort of family of people she likes. She never looks down on anyone or judge them for their opinions, their heritage or their personalities.

Phryne Fisher

In the TV episode, there is a lot less talk about different types of socialism in the TV episode, even though Bert and Cec tell Phryne about different variations as they go to the Latvian club and there is some talk about anarchism. It manage to show us that anarchistic methods might not be the best way to handle things (Just like the book do.), but it does not demonize all of socialism like many American films and TV shows tend to do.

There are a few changes to the more domestic plotline in the book where Phryne takes on the case of the missing teenage girl Alicia Waddington-Forsythe (Lila Waddington in the TV episode). Her father has remarried and she does not like her stepmother. When Phryne investigates, she finds Alicia's story is deeply tragic, being sexually abused by her brother who then moves on to get their stepmother pregnant and forced into a mental institution by that stepmother where they try telling her she is crazy for more or less telling the truth.

Jack Robinson

Lila Waddington's story is not as tragic. Her brother has still impregnated their stepmother, but the stepmother then tricks her into thinking she sees tears on her madonna painting and in the end it drives her to the mental hospital where Phryne and Jack come to save her. Her father is also the boss at the docks and there is a strike as Phryne goes to speak with him about the case in the beginning of the episode. Phryne also convinces him to talk to his workers in exchange for her discretion about his family "problems". We also get to know that Jack Robinson was part of the police strike of 1923, which Phryne did not expect.

Yes, Jack is in this episode even though he barely gets a few mentions in the book. Before I talk about him, I think I need to address the response to the blog post I wrote all about him a couple of days ago. I am both overwhelmed and scared about the whole thing. Social media is so strange. I shared the post on Tumblr myself since it is there I have "friends" I normally discuss Miss Fisher with. The fact that it was shared on other social media platforms without my knowledge does in fact frighten me a bit. This blog is my oulet for thoughts and feelings I have about subjects I am nerdy about. Because the entries to this blog are so deeply personal to me, I would like to have at least some sort of control about where it is being shared and what is being said about it. Not least so I can explain uncertainties and/or defend myself against criticism. I am so happy and overwhelmed and humbled by all the positive response to the Jack entry. I love that so many people have read it, but if you like something I have written and want to share it anywhere on the Internet, please use the comment section underneath any entry and tell me that you do so it will not be such a shock that I suddenly have had hundreds of visitors in a day.

"It'd be a tactical error to think you had med pegged just yet, Miss Fisher"

~ Jack Robinson

But, back to Jack. As said above, he only gets a few mentions in the book and keeps himself a little more in the background in the TV episode as well. Because of the switch in order between Death and Victoria Dock and The Green Mill Murder, it is a little hard to tell all of Jack's character in this entry without giving too much away from that episode. Jack still tries to remain firm about not letting Phryne in on the investigations (and she shamelessly uses Hugh to still be able to medle), but you also see him softening towards her. When she gets shot at, he seems really worried for her safety. The Green Mill Murder and this episode are also when I first started to realise that there was more to Jack than what he first appears to be. Over the course of the series, he is much like a chiffonier where Phryne and the viewers continuously find hidden compartments, not seldom where they least expect it.

Death at Victoria Dock was actually one of my least favourite episodes, but rewatching it now, after having read the book, I saw it in a rather different light. From time to time the plots of the episodes in the TV series can feel a bit forced together (probably to make Phryne only investigate one case instead of many like in the books), but this one flows better. The two cases (Lila Waddington and the anarchists) are still kept apart, but held together through Lila's father at the docks where Phryne more or less picks up both cases. It only shows that ones opinions might change based on circumstances and that Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries is a series one must watch more than once.

Phryne Fisher and Jack Robinson

Detective Inspector Jack Robinson

"You might as well call me Jack. Everyone else does."

~ Jack Robinson, Murder on the Ballarat Train, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries

Vemod is a Swedish word that is not exactly easy to translate into English. It can best be described as an underlying, longing sadness. A sadness that is actually rather positive how strangely as that sounds. The concept might not have an equivalent in English, but I still think it summarize the character of Detective Inspector Jack Robinson perfectly.

I have talked a little about Jack in most of my previous entries about Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries and the Phryne Fisher books. However, I have long felt a need to give him an entry totally on his own.

To this date I have only read four of Kerry Greenwood's books about Phryne Fisher and even though I enjoy the books just fine, I really miss the Jack of the TV series while reading. In the latest one, Death at Victoria Dock he only gets a few mentions and, unlike in the TV series, has remained pretty much in the background in the other three as well.

From Murder on the Ballarat train

There are also som major differences between the TV and book characters as well. Book-Jack is happily married with children and has much easier time accepting Phryne's meddling in police work from the very beginning. TV-Jack is far more reserved and at first thinks Phryne is a stupid socialite in need of a hobby. However, as they continue to meet at different crime scenes, he starts to respect her more. This is as far as I will take the comparison between the two. This entry will henceforth be entirely about TV-Jack because he was the one I fell in love with in the first place.

"I see a very careful man, who professes to be cynical in the face of mysteries he can't explain, and claims to have no passion in spite of a heart that runs as deep as the Pacific Ocean"

~ Phryne Fisher, Death Comes Knocking, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries

Jack is a very private man. Therefore we do not know much about his personal life or his background and we have never visited his home.The little we do know is that he was married to the Deputy Commisioner's daughter Rosie, but that their marriage got destroyed by his participation in the First World War and he tells Phryne that Rosie has been living with her sister for "quite some time". They get a divorce at the end of season one.
There is a lot to say about Rosie and Jack's relationship to the other women in his life, Concetta and last, but certainly not least Phryne. However I have noticed a tendency in the fandom on the internet to view Jack only through those relationships (Especially the one he has to Phryne.) and I do not think that is entirely fair to the character. Because of this, I will focus on him in this entry and only briefly go into his relationships.

"It'd be a tactical error to think you had me pegged just yet, Miss Fisher"

~ Jack Robinson, Death at Victoria Dock, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries

From Murder and the Maiden

In June this year, I wrote an entry in which I discussed the similarities between Phryne and the girls Astrid Lindgren (She would have turned 109 yesterday, 14th of November, by the way.) wrote about. The Astrid Lindgren parallel actually fits very well for Jack as well. He is more or less like a typical "Astrid boy". He is somewhat lonely, introverted and brooding and like them he needs to show himself worthy of the super hero title Phryne (and the "Astrid girls") have from the very beginning. The series is also extremely good at not showing all of him at once. This might be because the show is so focused on Phryne (Which it should be. It is her show!) and we get to know the other characters through her.

At first I thought he would be like so many male detectives in murder mystery franchises. Aloof and haughty and having trouble with their bosses and their women and using violence as a mean to enhance their position. But Jack is not at all like that. I actually appreciate how the series depicts him. He deals with his experiences both from his life as a policeman and from the war in a way that is quite unusual in pop-culture of today. Especially for a male character. He desperately wants to hide his emotions, but they more or less run straight off of him anyway. Nathan Page is also extremely good at showing them without saying a word. You see it in his face, usually in less than a second so you miss it if you blink. (Essie Davis, who plays Phryne, is just as good at this.)

From Dead Air

While Phryne is the super hero, Jack is totally human. He really feels compassion for both the victims and the criminals, not least shown through his special relationship with Elsie Tizzard that is revealed in Blood and Circuses. His way of dealing with violence is similarly refreshing. He does not, like for example the character Gunvald Larsson from the Swedish police film series Beck, do it to enhance his position at all. He limits it to when it is inevitable to use it to save himself or someone else and even then he seems to be unwilling to use it to kill someone.

From what I have gathered from fan discussions and fanfictions on the Internet, Jack is generally understood as "broken", but I do not really see that. I think he might have been broken when he got back to Australia after the war. He says the war changed him and he probably has suffered depression and/or PTSD. However, he is not broken when we meet him and this is actually where I think the vemod comes in because there really is a sad longing to him which is positive in nature and makes him a rather unique character. He is definitely the best depiction of how someone who has gone through a depression really is. There will always be a sadness left, but that sadness is not exactly negative and does not prevent you from having fun. I know. I have suffered from depression myself. Besides, the word vemod itself is poetic and beautiful. Just like Jack!

Jack and Phryne

Cocaine Blues - TV vs Book

"Considering your last employers were a drug baroness and a rapist, surely you'd find me a moderst improvement"

~ Phryne Fisher, Cocaine Blues, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries

I just realised that the two latest books I have read have had titles related to songs. Mördar-Anders is a song by Cornelis Vreeswijk. and Cocaine Blues a song by Johnny Cash. However, it is not the songs I want to talk about in this entry, but the differences between the book Cocaine Blues by Kerry Greenwood and the TV adaptation by Every Cloud Production. There are some differences and I found myself enjoying it since the book seemed fresh even for someone who has watched the TV episode a couple of times.
There are certain basic parts of the plot that are similar. Phryne goes back to Australia after having spent some time living in the United Kingdom. Her reasons for returning is somewhat different though. On TV she comes back to prevent the man who was charged with the kidnapping of her sister to get out of jail (a plot line running through the entire first season of the TV series). In the book, she is being sent to Australia by a Colonel and his wife to find out why their daughter Lydia (married Andrews) is sick so often. Lydia Andrews also appear in the TV adaptation, but seems to be an old friend of Phryne. She, her husband John and Phryne's aunt Prudence (who does not appear at all in the book unfortunately) invite Phryne to a luncheon that is cancelled because of the murder of John.

Dr Elizabeth Macmillan (On TV usually called Mac) is another of Phryne's old friends. In the book, she travels on the boat together with Phryne, but on TV she is already in Australia, meeting Phryne when she arrives. After the abortion who nearly kills Alice (Greenham in the book. Hartley on TV) Bert and Cec brings her to Mac and alerts Phryne to her condition.

On TV Alice works as the Andrews maid together with Dorothy "Dot" Williams (who has a slightly different background and the last name Bryant in the book) and John Andrews forces himself upon her and she ends up getting pregnant. In the books the background is somewhat different and even though it feels like "the situation" still seems to have arisen through a somewhat forced sexual encounter, she does not work for John Andrews and he is not the father of her child.

There are indications that John Andrews is a rapist even in the books however. His wife seems to have trouble with sex because of this, thinking Sasha is going to rape her when he and Phryne capture her.

"(---) She finds sex loathsome, that is plain. Dirty. Disgusting. Her husband has mistreated her; no woman is born icy..."

~ Sasha De Lisse, Cocaine Blues

Actually I have to say that I do enjoy Lydia's character better in the book. On TV, she succeeds in killing her husband and that is the main plot of the episode. In the book she just plans to poison her husband and we get a little more background to her being the King of Snow. Actually I found the description of the King of Snow interesting. The character was throughout the book up until it was revealed to be Lydia described as a male. Lydia even admits to taking over the role from a woman in Paris, so it seems like the title has been used of a woman for quite some time.

Because I do so much enjoy the character of Detective Inspector Jack Robinson in the TV series, I was sad to see he was quite passive in this book. While rewatching the episode however, I realised that he is not really so much in that one either. Phryne encounters him more there than in the book, but they still does not interact as much as they do in later episodes. I have heard that his character and relations to Phryne are rather different in the books than on TV, but I do not want to have any prejudice towards his book persona until I have got to know him. As we have seen there are some differences in pretty much all characters between book and TV and the book introduces a couple of other characters as well while others are left out. One character I would have loved to see on TV is the female police working with Jack, WPC Jones.

I have to say that I do enjoy both the book and the TV episode and I think there are things they both do better and worse than each other. I prefer how both the abortion, the murder and the drug dealing plotlines are all entwined in the TV episode. It gave a better structure to the story. However, I love that Phryne's social commitment is so much stronger in the book. You see her going to dinner with the socialites of Melbourne and reacting to them trash talking the poor.

'I hope that you did not give him anything, Mr Sanderson!' 
'Of course I did, ma'am.'
'But he would only spend it on drink! You know what the working class are!'
'Indeed, ma'am, and why should he not spend it on drink? Would you deprive the poor, whose lives are band and miserable and comfortless enough, of the solace of a little relief from grinding poverty? A sordid, sodden relief perhaps, but would you be so heartless as to deny the poor even that pleasure in which all of us indulge at your generous expense?'

~ Cocaine Blues

One of the things I also prefer with the book is the solution of the mystery. On TV, Phryne kind of needs to be "rescued" by Jack and it is very unclear if they are able to catch Lydia and finish the cocaine trade. In the book Phryne saves herself! Together with Sasha, she manages to capture Lydia and it is clear that Lydia's helpers also get caught by the police. I find that ending more satisfying seeing as Phryne is no damsel in distress. (To be fair, it is one of a rather few episodes in which Jack needs to come help her out of trouble though.)

(I also would have loved for the scenes in which Phryne kisses Bert to have been in the TV episode as well, but I guess you cannot have everything you want...)


Pictures from here and here.