Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson

     There are so many books that have been made into movies, and it is such a pleasure to see characters that you've read come alive on the screen. I saw the movie version of this book many months before I finally read the actual story by Winifred Watson. She wrote Miss Pettigrew in 1938 and her little story was made into a movie starring the adorable Amy Adams in 2008.

    Which is better? Well, I tend to think that a person likes best the version he or she encountered first--if you see the movie first, you'll tend to like it better than the book and vice versa. I saw the movie first and I do indeed like the movie better than the book, but I also thought the book was cute as well.

     However, I do have some mixed feelings about the book. Had it been written in the 21st century, it would be pretty racy, with Delysia and her multiple lovers, her possible illegitimate children, her boyfriend's gifts of cocaine, drunken luncheons, rows in the night club, Miss Pettigrew's fall from exact virtue (although not yet all the way into depravity), the cold comfort of the "righteous" and the warm and charitable welcome from the "wicked" (and on and on)...all these elements are pretty unsavory to me. But this softened version is a sweet, ugly tale glamorized and made uplifting. So it's a Cinderella tale with a fast, dissipated setting yet told in a heart-warming way. Hm. Delysia is a lovely effervescent character and her friends are endearingly accepting of our poor Miss Pettigrew, who has fallen to such a low in her undistinguished and difficult life. Miss Pettigrew finds happiness in vice, which seems wrong, but we can't help but hope that she finds her fairy-tale ending, however unlikely that might seem. (Can she really be happy with the philandering and superficial set of folks that have gathered her in? Will she find love and security with Joe?)

     So. Although the movie is lovely and the book is charming, the story at the bottom of it all is one of finding happiness in vice and I just don't think that is really possible. The book is much more explicitly this way. The movie softens it and makes the happy endings more conventional (maybe that's another reason that I prefer the movie?). So I recommend it with reservations.

Sex: Lots, but no descriptions at all
Bad language: none
Drugs: Delysia has cocaine, but doesn't take it (Miss Pettigrew throws it away in horror). There's plenty of alcohol and Miss Pettigrew gets drunk. She also smokes a cigar to protect Delysia.