14 thoughts on “The Time in Between Lacks Agency

    1. Candelaria, is a rather old-fashion spanish name strongly linked to catholicism… It’s the name of one of the our “traditional” Virgin Mary’s. It’s a silly sounding name, but if you have a story, set in any year between 1700 -aprox- and 1980, and you have a character that is the old or middle age spinster and religious, you name her Candelaria.

        1. I knew it! and I haven’t even seen the show or read the book. It’s kind of a trope around here :)

  1. I read the book and it didn’t seem that Sira was passive in the book. More like she was knocked off course over and over by events and people she was too young or naive or powerless to effect, and then made the best of the situation. In the book she has plenty of ideas and ambition, as I recall.

    1. Good to know the book is better! Bec. the story sounds great in concept — but the way the series is done, Sira sleep-walks thru everything. I don’t want to pin it on the actress, bec. it feels like she just isn’t given much to do other than sew; those are most fully realized scenes. Like when she figures out how to recreate a Fortuny-pleated gown. But the gun-running & spying scenes are so sparsely written, the lead-up is all dependent on the secondary characters, & Sira’s actions are minor.

  2. It sounds a bit like the Ana de Pombo (Spanish designer, close friend of Chanel, head designer at Paquin) story, but with a much more passive lead and less crazy/bonkers (there’s not much out there about Ana de Pombo but what there currently is, is bloody astonishing, she sounds like a heck of a character)

  3. The novel on which this tv adaptation is based is good and I’ve read it several times. I actually enjoyed the tv series too, but maybe partly because I knew the original story. Obviously the tv version has eliminated a lot of the intricacies of the story and the connections that lead to different events and make Sira act in a certain way. I think her naivete and the one bad choice made when she was very young, that eventually decides the course of her life, are well portrayed. After all she learns from her mistakes, she finds her way, shows that she has guts and intelligence, and she survives despite her indiscretions and the II WW. Read the book, you won’t be sorry! :)

  4. After she leaves Morocco in the tv series, her spying intensifies, and she is a less passive character. It’s tempting to want to impose modern feminism on top of historical characters, but Sira is living in a time where she has few choices, imposed both by society and history, and her evolution is gradual. Her character strengthens until she is confident enough to take risks she never would have taken when she was younger. I haven’t read the book, just seen the series, which I have been recommending to my friends. Plus: dressmaking!

    1. She’s living in the 1930s! Compared to many women’s characters in contemporary movies filmed in the 1930s, Sira is very passive & inactive. For example, Claudette Colbert in “It Happened One Night” (1934) is a runaway heiress who does whatever she pleases!

      Also, any series that takes 10 episodes/hours to make its main character interesting has failed. That’s poor writing. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

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