Category: 2019 Classics Challenge

2019’s Reading Wrap-Up (or It’s Better Late than Never)

 

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New Year’s Eve in Dogville (1903) by Cassius Marcellus Coolidge (a/k/a Kash Coolidge)

 

Well, dear readers, here you are, well into the new year while Janakay is still piddling around with the old!  Time just seemed to gallop away from me, there at the old year’s end, what with the “Big Book Sort,” the holidays and a (very) little recreational travel.  One day it was early December and I rather unrealistically thought I might actually catch up with my 2019 Challenges; then I blinked and it was mid-January!  No matter how many times this has happened to Janakay, she’s always surprised!  I suppose it’s that child-like sense of wonder that keeps her going!

2019 was a big year for me as far as bookish matters are concerned.  After literally years of thinking it would be fun to write about some of the great books I was reading, and to connect with others who shared my passions, I (finally) launched my blog and — gasp — participated in not one, but two Challenges! (the first was Karen’s “Back to the Classics” Challenge; the second was the TBR Challenge hosted by Roof Beam Reader).  Now, a year later, what do I think of the whole enterprise?

The blog itself has been rewarding, even if it’s been on life support at times;  my “launch year” unfortunately coincided with a final, rather intensive year of academic work on my art history degree.  As for the Challenges, well . . . . Janakay isn’t always into completion!  It’s a kind of  glass half–empty, glass half-full thing and, since Janakay has a naturally sunny disposition she regards both her Challenges as having been very worthwhile exercises.  Even if the total number of reviews and books read were somewhat less than ideal, the Challenges ensured that reading in 2019 was quite stimulating and definitely more challenging than the previous year’s when, sad to say, I was in a bit of a science fiction-fantasy rut.  Regrettably, however, around midyear my reviews fell far short of my reading; so much so that I didn’t see the point of a final linkup post for either my TBR or Classics Challenge.  Because this is the month named for the god who gazes into the past as much as the future, however, and I haven’t posted in quite some time, I thought it would be interesting, at least to me (you, dear reader, can always click elsewhere for entertainment!) to do a sort of informal tally of the results of my Challenge participation.

I’ll begin with the “Back to the Classics Challenge,” as the books I selected were generally more of a stretch for me to complete than my TBR selections.  The final sum of my posted reviews — five — was pretty bad.  The number of books (eight) I read for the Challenge, however, wasn’t too horrible, particularly when I consider that the Challenge required me to read books from genres (such as translated literature) that I normally avoid because they’re too much work!  Here’s my thumbnail tally by category:

19th century classic:  For this category I rather ambitiously selected Henry James’ 1890 The Tragic Muse, written right before HJ’s disastrous stint as a playwright.  Although Muse displays the realism so characteristic of 19th century literature in general, it’s also quite philosophical in a sense; James uses his characters to debate various opinions regarding the nature of dramatic art and the plot turns on the conflict between pursuing art and meeting the expectations and obligations imposed by society.  One plot strand centers around Nick Dormer and his decision to pursue painting rather than the political career expected by his family, while the other revolves around Miriam Rooth, a fiercely dedicated actress who rejects a conventional life in favor of the stage.  Since Muse is mid-period James, its syntax is much more manageable than HJ’s late masterpieces (Wings of the Dove, for example).  As with any novel by HJ, one shouldn’t expect thrills and chills.  Although Muse does have some extended discussions on the nature of art, particularly dramatic art (one senses that James is working through his ideas regarding his upcoming career switch), the major characters’ choices, along with their resulting complications, do create a bit of tension in the plot.  Like the great artist he is, James creates complicated and subtle characters.  While I found Nick a bit bland, James does wonderful female characters and Miriam is one of the great creations of 19th century English literature.  How many novels of this era portray a strong and supremely gifted woman who navigates considerable practical obstacles and arranges her life to allow the full exercise of her talents?  Miriam is not only unusual, she and her choices are fully believable.  Although I liked this novel very much, it’s not one of HJ’s masterpieces and I’d hesitate to recommend it to someone who only intended to read one or two of HJ’s novels.  I obviously love James’ work and actually managed to review Muse in some (well, too much) detail; if you’re interested you may check out my post.

20th century classic:  Decisions, decisions!  So much to choose from!  I finally settled on Elizabeth Bowen’s debut novel, Friends and Relations (another one of my rather rare reviews; you may find it here.)  Friends is a deceptively brief but stylistically rather complex novel involving the secrets and shifting relationships of two very different sisters and their respective husbands.  Although I found some of the novel’s characters rather two dimensional and its ultimate plot twist unnecessarily melodramatic, it also contained moments of real emotional insight and tenderness, as well as some wonderful comedy.  A detailed and seemingly believable depiction of upper class English life between the wars is an added bonus.  And, of course, the novel is beautifully written.  Friends is definitely worth reading, if not quite equal to Bowen’s later work, such as The Last September or The Death of the Heart.

Classic Tragic Novel:  For this category, I read Paul Bowles’ The Sheltering Sky, published in 1949, but, alas, failed to post a review.  I found this category quite interesting because it made me question the very definition of a “tragic” protagonist.  Must s/he be Aristotle’s person of noble qualities, subject to adverse circumstances and brought low by an inner flaw?  Or can our tragic protagonist be some poor schlub in the wrong place at the wrong time?  Or a couple of rich, educated, culturally blind Americans who traipse around Algeria, carrying too much emotional baggage and descending into their own hell of utter darkness?  If you answered my third question affirmatively, well, Sky is the very defintion of a tragic novel.  Kit and Port Moresby, the couple in question, are the ultimate adventure tourists, scorning the mundane; Port is intent on seeking out the increasingly remote and isolated while Kit becomes more terrified as they leave “civilization” further and further behind.  Neither Port nor Kit understands or is interested in understanding anything about the people or cultures they encounter, and both are totally unsympathetic characters; if you want warm and fuzzy, this is not your novel.  The couple’s journey is bleak, the north African landscape is tortured and the prose is gorgeous, as Bowles describes a terrifying and empty universe in which civilization does not triumph.  This novel is bleak, bleak, bleak.  Janakay loved it and wants to read more Paul Bowles, but is afraid to; she has also vowed to travel exclusively with guided tour groups in the future.  Sky has been my “jinx” book for ages; without the Classics Challenge it would have continued languishing unread and I would have missed a great read (many thanks, BooksandChocolate!).

Classic from a Place You’ve Lived:  One of the more interesting places I’ve lived is New Orleans, Louisiana.  From the abundance of myth, legend and literature associated with this oh-so-special city I picked The Moviegoer by Walker Percy, a white, male, southern novelist I had successful avoided for most of my life.  Percy was quite the flavor, back in the day; did you know The Moviegoer won the 1962 National Book Award over such contenders as J.D. Salinger (Franny and Zooey), Joseph Heller (Catch-22), William Maxwell (The Chateau) and Isaac Bashevis Singer (The Spinoza of Market Street)?  Although Percy’s luster has faded a bit in subsequent years, Moviegoer continues to be regarded as one of the greatest U.S. novels of the 20th century; early last year The New Yorker made a persuasive argument that it continues to remain as relevant as ever.

The novel’s non-linear plot centers on the travails of Binx Bolling, a well-connected New Orleans stockbroker with a knack for making money, who occasionally (please forgive Janakay’s snark) attends an afternoon movie, which he finds more “real” than his quotidian routine.  In addition to (occasionally) watching movies, making money and seducing his secretaries, Binx wanders around New Orleans, the Gulf Coast and Chicago seeking god and spouting thinnly disguised existentialist philosophy.  By novel’s end, Binx accepts reality, marries the neurotic rich girl and decides to attend medical school, which he will have no trouble getting into and which his family will pay for.  Despite Percy’s skill with dialogue and description, his frequently lovely prose and his sincerity, Janakay did not like Moviegoer, which she considers enormously overrated (lots of guilt here!  When I lived in New Orleans, I patronized a nice little bookshop that had a candid photo of Percy browsing its stacks and I heard, first hand, that he was a very nice guy!).  Are any of you cyberspace wanderers familiar with Moviegoer?  If so, I’d love to hear your thoughts, as I’m afraid my own cultural bias may be blinding me to the novel’s virtues (I’m highly resistant to the woes of privileged southern white boys).  It’s worth noting that Moviegoer reflects the racial and sexual attitudes of its time and place, which have thankfully improved somewhat over the fifty-odd years since its publication.  Also, before I forget — this is one of the novels I read but never got around to reviewing.

Very Long Classic:  I’m afraid I totally bombed out in this category.  I had originally intended to read Miklòs Bánfly’s They Were Counted, volume I of his Transylvanian Trilogy, an unsung classic from eastern Europe.  Last July and fifty pages in, I realized this was not going to happen (at least not in this lifetime); I opted instead for a nature walk in Corkscrew Swamp, a wonderful nature preserve located in the western portion of Florida’s Everglades (boardwalks! birds! river otters! ghost orchids!)  Of course, I could have switched selections, made Tragic Muse my “very long classic” and reviewed Jane Eyre or Great Expectations (both of which I re-read last spring) for my 19th century category.  Oh, well …………………. those river otters at Corkscrew were wonderful!

Classic Comic Novel:  Another bomb!  I intended to read something by Ivy Compton-Burnett, who’s a favorite author of mine (her humor is so very black and her dialogue is so very, very funny) but kept saving it as a treat.  Then — it was December and I decided to read a couple of contemporary detective novels instead!  (If you haven’t yet met detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep, devout Buddhist cop and half-caste son of a Thai bar girl, stop now and read John Burdett’s Bangkok 8 immediately!  Provided, that is, you’re not offended by an unflinching look at Bangkok’s sex trade).  Remember what Janakay said about her addiction to non-completion?

Classic in Translation:  The Challenge was just what I needed to get me reading some of those wonderful translations out there, particularly as I tend to confine myself to anglophone writers.  Thanks to the NYRB Classics, I had several novels by Guy de Maupassant gathering dust on the shelf so I took this opportunity to read Like Death.  Set in Belle Epoch Paris, it involves a simple but piquant situation:  noted society painter Olivier Bertin is beginning to feel his age when the lovely young daughter of Anne de Gilleroy, his longtime mistress, appears in his life.  The novel follows the growing realization of both Bertine and Anne that the former is subsuming his love for Anne into a passion for her daughter.  Although I thought the story might work better as a novella than a full-length novel, it was psychologically quite acute and offered a wonderful look at the aristocratic Paris of the late 19th century.  I did manage to review this one; follow the link if you want details.

Classic novella:  I literally have hundreds of these in a very special, very neglected corner of a very large book case and hardly ever read one!  2019 and a Challenge — here I come!  I really, really meant to read one in 2019 — one little afternoon in December would have done it — but Bangkok 8 was so exciting I simply had to follow it with Bankgok Tattoo, the second book in the series!  And, after all, there’s always 2020 . . . .  I did read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein last spring, which technically qualifies (it’s less than 250 pages) but just didn’t feel like writing about it!  Janakay has to wait for inspiration!

Classic from the Americas:  This was a category in which I did the reading but didn’t do a review, primarily because it took me so long to make my selection.  After several months of dithering I finally settled on Zama, a 1956 novel by the Argentinian writer Antonio Di Benedetto.  Di Benedetto (died in 1986) was a contemporary of Borges and Cortázar who never achieved their international fame; Zama has only recently been translated into English and made readily available through the NYRB Classics.  As the novel opens, it is circa 1790 and Don Diego de Zama, a midlevel functionary of the Spanish empire, is stuck in a dead end posting in what is now Asunción, Paraguay.  Zama longs for everything he doesn’t have:  the bright lights of Buenos Aires; promotion (as a Spaniard born in the colonies he faces considerable discrimination in this respect); the wife and children whom he’s too poor to have with him and for a remote, fantasy Europe that he has never seen.  The novel falls into three chronological sections (1790, 1794 and 1799); in each period Zama faces, respectively, a serious sexual, financial and existential problem.  In each period Zama over-analyzes and misinterprets his situation; essentially he’s so busy presenting his life to an imaginary audience he misses, or is unable to face, the reality in front of him.  Zama’s tragedy, perhaps, is that he’s never quite able to lose himself in his fantasies; he retains a neurotic self-awareness that ensures he’s continually disappointed by the realities of his situation.  It’s all very existential (Di Benedetto was a great admirer of Dostoevsky) and Janakay isn’t at all sure she grasped everything there was to grasp; in fact, after I finished Zama I was tempted to settle in for a re-read (it’s quite brief).  Zama is a challenging, but very worthwhile novel.  And, did I mention it’s quite funny at times?

Classic Play:  I’ve been meaning to read Ben Johnson’s The Duchess of Malfi  for years.  I’m still meaning to!  Another category where I dropped the ball.

Classic from Africa, Asia or Oceania (including Australia):  Thanks to NYRB Classics, I had long possessed a copy of Maria Dermôut’s The Ten Thousand Things (1955) sitting unread on my shelf.  This highly autobiographical account of life on the remnants of a Dutch spice plantation in Indonesia was one of my favorite reads of the year.  Ostensibly the story of a young woman who returns to her grandmother’s garden to raise her child and grow old, the story moves backwards and forwards in time to encompass hundreds of beings, the living and dead, the supernatural and natural, to show in the most subtle way possible the interconnectedness of all things.  I reviewed this novel in great detail in a prior post(I’m afraid I became a little carried away with the visuals, having just completed a couple of courses in Dutch art!); there’s a wonderful essay that explains the novel far better than does my review in Lost Classics (edited by Michael Ondaatje), a fascinating little book which is in itself worth tracking down.

Classic by a Woman Author:  For this category I read and reviewed The Blackmailer, the first of a number of novels by Isabel Colegate, a wonderful English novelist who’s a favorite of mine.  Blackmailer, which is set in the post-war London of the 1950s, is a surprisingly subtle look at the relationship between the blackmailer and his/her prey, and the intricate cat and mouse game in which they indulge.  The novel offers crisp dialogue, a great depiction of post-war London’s publishing world and some wonderful supporting characters (including a hilarious old nightmare of a nanny and Bertie the spaniel, portrayed with great vividness and not an ounce of sentimentality).  Perhaps best avoided by those demanding a great deal of action in their novels.

I did a bit better with my TBR than with my Classics challenge, completing ten of the twelve books I selected from my enormous TBR pile.  Alas, however, I only reviewed four.  Regardless of numbers, however, the Challenge really motivated me actually to read some of those very interesting books I’ve been accumulating all these years and was, more importantly, a lot of fun (I’m very sorry to see that the Challenge won’t be offered in 2020).  The real standouts for me were Tom Drury’s The Driftless Area, a wonderful noir thriller with supernatural elements, which I reviewed, and Ester Freud’s Summer at Gaglow, which I did not.  My real regret is that, once again, I’ve evaded Jane Gardam’s The Man in the Wooden Hat, which has been on my TBR list for years!

Regarding my choice of illustrations — have you ever wondered where those nauseatingly cute paintings of anthropomorphic dogs playing poker and so on came from?  For better or worse, we owe them to Kash Coolidge, a graphic artist who created them as part of an advertising campaign in the early part of the 20th century.  In the illustration I choose, the canines all look like they’re having a doggedly good time on New Year’s Eve, don’t they?

 

 

Monday Miscellany: One Barrier Island, Eight Books and Exciting News for Austen Lovers

If  you’re a visitor to my blog, you may have noticed that my postings have been a little, ahem, erratic in the last month or so.  What I have posted has perhaps been more visual and nature oriented than literary or bookish, which isn’t to say that my interests have shifted.  As much as I love my nature viewing and museum visiting (I’ve at least two very nice regional museums to share with you, so watch out!) my life remains centered on books and the printed word, as it has been since I learned to read around the usual age of six or so.  While I’ve been nature viewing, I’ve also been reading as much as ever (perhaps even more so) but — I hide nothing from you, dear reader — Janakay is just a teensy-weensy bit lazy!  And it’s so much easier to read the wonderful books than to organize my thoughts and string them together in coherent sentences!  Although I’m actually on track as far as the reading goes to meet my two challenges (Roofbeam Reader’s TBR, and Books and Chocolate’s Back to the Classics), I’m woefully behind in writing and posting the reviews of all that I’ve read.  Monday is “Miscellany Day,” however, so I’m doing a hodgepodge of related topics; because the relationship is a rather loose one, feel free to skip around!

My first Miscellany is —  Anna Maria, a barrier island off Florida’s Gulf Coast, and its nearby areas (I’m just back from a visit and sorting through photos).

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This certainly isn’t the tourist board’s presentation of Florida, is it?  I love summer visits to the Gulf Coast, partially for the opportunity to see drama such as this.
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A favorite activity for many visitors is simply watching the sunset, which can be truly spectacular.
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These large pink birds are Roseate Spoonbills, which are generally not seen in large numbers. Finding this little flock on an early morning walk at a nearby nature preserve was quite a treat; catching the reflections made the view even better.
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Anna Maria’s Rod & Reel Pier, a community gathering spot.  Do you see the line waiting to get into the yellow building, which is a restaurant?  If you look closely, you can see everyone is facing in the same direction because they’re watching a couple of dolphins hunt fish.  EVERYONE goes to dinner at the Rod & Reel Pier!
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A roosting tree, loaded with White Ibises waking up for the day . . . . .
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In keeping with my interest in food, I couldn’t resist a shot of Minnie’s Beach Cafe!  You’d never guess it was in a small shopping center would you?  Anna Maria frequently throws visitors this kind of curve ball!

While I was visiting Anna Maria, I did lots and lots of reading, which brings me to my second Miscellany:  books that I started, stopped or finished during my time there:

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One of my TBR Challenge books, which I FINALLY finished!  An absolutely stunning read by Esther Freud, a British novelist I like very much.  I honestly can’t understand why it took me EIGHT years to get around to this book.
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One of my Back to Classics selections (category: novel from a place where you’ve lived) and my first novel by Walker Percy. I’m still mulling over my rather complicated reaction . . . .
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A debut novel, sitting on my shelf since 2012.  Can you guess it’s part of my TBR Challenge?  A truly searing tale of a transgressive relationship, not for the faint of heart.
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Harrison’s beautifully written but intensely troubling memoir; a non-fictional treatment of a relationship similar to that depicted in Peile’s novel.
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Although I love science fiction and fantasy novels, I’m not reading many these days.  This tale of operatives Red and Blue, locked in a centuries old struggle through time, is a wild mix of genres rendered in beautifully poetic language.
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One of my TBR challenge books, reprinted in a beautiful new edition as part of the NYRB Classics series.  A blackly funny look at Cassandra’s descent to chaos at her twin sister’s wedding, with some serious thoughts about sibling bonds and “unconventional” life styles (my review will come, eventually!)
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Bánffy’s “They Were Counted” was my “very long classic” Challenge read.  One chapter in and I know I’m in trouble — I need Plan B!  I will not be reading this book in 2019!
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Some times (and a stressful travel day is one) NO ONE but Georgette Heyer will do! This one isn’t my favorite of her regency romances (that honor probably goes to “These Old Shades”) but it’s still wonderful!

And since I’m doing books, make sure your visit to Anna Maria includes a side excursion to nearby St. Petersburg (the drive is lovely) and the wonderful:

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Are you surprised to learn that I’ve added to my TBR pile?

My third and final miscellany: Jane Austen’s Sanditon, the novel left unfinished at her death.  Has anyone read this?  Or, unlike myself, realized the importance in Austen’s fiction of seaside resorts and beach villages?  Today’s Guardian has a wonderful article discussing Austen’s use of seaside resorts — a key scene in Persuasion occurs in Lime Regis; Lydia Bennet elopes from Brighton and Austen herself may have enjoyed a seaside romance.  The article suggests that in Sanditon, Austen may have written the first seaside novel; at any rate, she certainly anticipated “what the seaside has come to represent in later modern fiction,” such as Chopin’s The Awakening, Woolf’s To the Lighthouse or Banville’s The Sea.   

The exciting news?  Sanditon is being adapted for an eight part series on ITV, which will air this autumn! Thoughts anyone, about Anna Maria Island, Sanditon or any of my other reads?

Delicious Decadence in Belle Epoch Paris: Guy du Maupassant’s “Like Death”

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Gustave Cailebotte’s “Paris Street: Rainy Day” (1877)

Are there any Guy du Maupassant fans out there?  If so, I’d certainly welcome your thoughts on his work.  I’ve just finished one of his novels, Like Death, and don’t know quite what to think.  I, dear reader, also have a confession to make that does not speak well for myself, namely that despite du Maupassant’s international reputation as a master of the short stoy, I was barely acquainted with his work.  And, my heavens, there’s certainly a lot of it to meet!

Although dying at age 42, Maupassant was an incredibly prolific writer who produced over 300 short stories, six novels, several travel books and lots of journalism in his brief writing career.  Of all that treasure trove I had read, prior to this time, one short story — “The Necklace” — and that only because I was required to do so in a literature class I was taking oh, so many, many years ago.  Despite enjoying the story (more than many of the others I was required to read), I had no interest at the time in further exploring Maupassant’s work.  Well, dear reader, a few years ago I purchased a copy of Maupassant’s Like Death (reissued by NYRB Classics in one of those gorgeous paperbacks that it does so well, i.e., acid free paper, tasteful cover art and introductions written by well-known folks), with the idea that his time for me had finally come at last!  And yet, and yet — the book has sat on my shelves, gathering dust for, oh, at least a couple of years.  All I can say is “thank heavens for reading challenges,” particularly ones that require me to stretch myself a bit.  Because I needed a selection for the “Classic in Translation” category for the 2019 Back to the Classics Challenge hosted by Books and Chocolate, I’ve actually, finally gotten around to reading a second work, and a novel, no less, by Guy du Maupassant.

Like Death revolves around a simple but piquant situation.  Olivier Bertin is a wildly successful society painter, acclaimed by the critics and beloved by the haute monde of late 19th century Paris.  As though to prove that life never seems to distribute its gifts fairly, Bertin is also good-looking, witty, athletic and, on the whole, not a bad guy.  The novel implies, without telling us his precise age, that Bertin is somewhat past the midpoint of life; although he is beginning to feel his age, Bertin is still vigorous  and eager to enjoy all the good things that life has to offer.

Included among the good things is Bertin’s long-standing relationship with Anne, Countess de Gilleroy, who has been Bertin’s mistress for over twelve years; the two began their passionate affair when Anne’s politician husband retained Bertin to paint his wife’s portrait.  Anne, a beautiful and intelligent woman, is quite adept at maintaining a delicate equilibrium between husband and lover; when as a young woman Anne was first presented with her husband-to-be, she quickly realized that “one cannot have everything” but must seek a balance between the good and the bad aspects present in every situation.  The countess is a successful society hostess, a devoted wife who listens with apparent interest to her husband’s accounts of his legislative triumphs (monsieur le comte particularly enjoys discussing agricultural issues) and a tender mother to her only child, her daughter Annette.  The chatelaine of  an elegant establishment (designed principally to appeal to her lover Bertin), the countess has structured her entire emotional life around her relationship with Bertin.  She is, in short, as passionately in love with the artist as she was as a young girl while Bertin, on the hand, regards their long-standing affair as more of an amitié amoureuse — a loving and irreplaceable friendship that is, nevertheless, lacking the magic and intensity of its earliest days.

The lovers’ delicate equilibrium is upset by the entry onto the scene of Annette, who has returned to Paris after a country upbringing to make her debut and to marry the excellent young aristocrat whom her father has selected for her.  Annette, whom the painter has not seen since she was a child, is the very image of her beautiful mother minus twenty years or so.  The aging Bertin is immediately and inevitably attracted; with great psychological acuity Maupassant charts Bertin’s emotions as he transfers his love from the aging countess to her young and unsophisticated daughter on the cusp of marriage and adulthood.  Bertin initially justifies his feelings for Annette by conflating his love for the two woman; his attraction for Annette, he (falsely) tells himself, is due simply to the fact that she is in some ways a reincarnation of her mother; his love for one inevitably includes his love for the other.  Ultimately, however, Bertin realizes that his passion for the countess has been totally subsumed by his love for her daughter.  The countess, of course, realizes far sooner than Bertin what is happening; while the novel focuses on Bertin it also presents a masterful and sympathetic portrayal of a strong and intelligent woman who is facing her emotional death and physical mortality with both dignity and courage.

Plot-wise, that’s it!  The “action” in this novel — the countess gives a dinner; she and Bertin meet their friends at the opera; Annette and Bertin walk through the park and so on — is a dull affair to us barbaric 21st century types.  There is, nevertheless, a great deal going on in this novel, albeit on an emotional and psychological level.  Although I did not find Like Death to be an altogether successful novel (more below), I have nothing but admiration for Maupassant’s grasp of psychology.  Based on the vast knowledge obtained from reading a single short story (please understand, I’m being sarcastic here) I had expected a well drawn, realistic description of late 19th century life among the well to do, as well as a twisty ending.  I was totally unprepared, however, for the subtlety of Maupassant’s psychological insight and the skill with which it was presented.  To give just one example, Maupassant sets a key scene in which Bertin realizes both his mortality and the hopelessness of his passion for the young Annette at the opera, where Bertin is listening to Faust, a story in which an aging scholar sells his soul for eternal youth and the love of a much younger woman.  Time and again Maupassant uses a small but convincing detail to expose a character’s state of mind, or sketches a scene of utterly convincing psychological realism.

So what’s my overall assessment of the novel, both positive and negative?  In addition to the positive points that I’ve already discussed it’s worth noting that various critics (who, unlike myself, can actually read French) have found the NYRB translation to be extremely well done and lively (apparently stiff and artificial translations have in the past hampered Maupassant’s popularity with anglophones).  On the negative side, however, I thought the interior nature of the story was perhaps better suited to a short story than a novel and that certain melodramatic plot devices rather undercut the subtle psychology that was elsewhere so evident.

There are a number of equally successful ways for a modern reader to approach this novel.  The easiest, and the most fun, is to regard it simply as a wonderful period piece.   If you choose this approach, pretend that a maid has just dusted your reading space (this requires a lively imagination if you’re reading in my living room), imagine that those wilting flowers from the farmer’s market are a fresh bouquet of ivory-colored roses in a crystal vase, pour yourself a glass of champagne (make this part real, not imaginary), put some Debussy on the stereo (or, better, Fauré) and settle in to enjoy the wealthy and well-connected life of 19th century Paris.  If you’re a bit more of a literary scholar, read the introduction by the novel’s talented translator, who makes a very cogent argument that Maupassant’s techniques influenced the latter work of Marcel Proust.  If you’re attracted to issues of gender, well, focus on the countess, the societal constraints dictating her choices and how a strong and determined personality can nevertheless fashion her own life.  Finally, the novel’s treatment of aging and mortality, and of how we all face both, give it a universal appeal.

Although I’ve already gone on for far too long, I simply must ask whether anyone else loves the painting I used at the beginning of this post?  Although a good deal of 19th century art leaves me cold, Cailebotte’s Rainy Day is one of my favorite paintings in the entire universe (and just think — we’re lucky enough to have it in the U.S., in Chicago!).  I cheated a bit to use it here, as Bertin, an academic painter, would have been horrified by Cailebotte’s new-fangled Impressionist style, with its cropped figures and unusual geometry.

Isabel Colegate’s “The Blackmailer:” What would YOU pay to have YOUR secrets kept?

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Has anyone out there read Isabel Colegate?  I don’t intend my question to be either cruel or facetious — I adore Isobel Colgate and think (I hope incorrectly — after all, I’m not a professional literary type and I base my opinion on absolutely nothing objective) that her work deserves more readers than it gets.  I’ve been a big Colegate fan since I first read her novel Winter’s Journey a number of years ago; I liked it so much I immediately bought copies of several of her other books with the idea that I’d work my way through the eight remaining novels that I hadn’t yet read.  These books have rested, peacefully, undisturbed and unread, on my shelves for quite some time now!  What can I say, except that life and more current writers intervened?

The 2019 Back To The Classics Challenge hosted by Books and Chocolate provided me with a dual incentive — I could not only discover whether I continued to regard Colegate’s writing so highly but I’d also dust off at least one pretty grungy bookshelf and the novels it contained.  After a great deal of thought (I love going through all my unread books) I decided to read Colegate’s debut nove, The Blackmailer (published in 1958), as my selection for the “Classics by a Woman Author” category.  I think I chose it over Colegate’s far better known novel, The Shooting Party, because I was intrigued by its title (I confess that I’ve also purchased books on the basis of their cover art!  I love book covers and have been known to purchase a second copy of a book simply because I liked the cover of a different edition!).  I also passed over, with some reluctance, Colegate’s A Pelican in the Wilderness, a well regarded non-fiction work in which she examines the value of solitude and the lives of certain individuals, ancient and modern, St. Anthony to Howard Hughes, who have chosen to live apart from others.  In other words, I took a gamble on choosing a much less well known and very early work.  You’ll have to read my post to the end (or skip to the last two paragraphs) to see whether I think my gamble paid off!

The Blackmailer is set in 1950s London and revolves around the relationship between Judith, the young widow of Anthony Lane, and Baldwin Reeves, an up-by-his bootstraps barrister who aspires to a political career, financial success and social acceptance by the landed gentry.  Judith’s deceased husband Anthony was not only handsome, intelligent and charming, but also endowed with fortune and birth, being the heir to an large estate and the son of a prominent family.  To top it off, Anthony was a renowned war hero, taken prisoner and executed by the enemy during the Korean War.  Could any mortal man possess more virtues?

Ah, but there’s a secret, you see!  In the parlance of a bygone era, Anthony was actually a bit of a bounder — or is it a rotter or maybe pigeon-hearted?  (It’s so difficult for us Americans to get the slang right; I’d welcome a correction if anyone from the U.K. ventures by!)  It seems that while commanding his company in Korea, Anthony bungled a retreat order; thinking it was a command to advance, which he didn’t want to do because he might get wounded or killed, he kept it to himself.  By the time his mistake was discovered, Anthony and his men were in a hopeless position and were taken prisoner by the North Koreans.  As if that wasn’t enough, in the prisoner of war camp Anthony collaborated to the extent of betraying his men’s escape plan, getting one of them shot.  This being too much for even the famed stoicism of the British soldier, Anthony’s justly exasperated subordinates executed him by hanging after holding an informal trial among themselves (during the Vietnam war, American soldiers used the term “fragging” to describe their own version of this activity vis à vis their officers).  None of this is ever disclosed, however, and after the war Anthony Lane is regarded by the British public as a national hero (one of Colegate’s nice touches is her brief allusion, towards the end of her novel, to an “upcoming film project” about Anthony’s heroic life).  For anyone ready to attack me for spoilers, hold your fire — Colegate tells you all about Anthony and his disreputable military career in the first page or two.  Rather than being about Anthony, Colgate is interested in the effect of his “secret” on his survivors and how they handle the truth.  For Baldwin Reeves, you see, was Anthony’s second in command; and although he has remained silent he knows all about the bungled order, the betrayal and Anthony’s trial and execution by his men.

The novel begins a few years after Anthony’s death, when Judith has established herself as a partner in a (very) small publishing house; she’s successful, maintains close ties with her deceased husband’s mother and grandfather and is reasonably content with her life.  While ignorant of the true facts of Anthony’s death, Judith is an intelligent and pragmatic woman who is well aware that Anthony was not what others perceived him to be; although she loved him, her marriage (unbeknowst to others) was less than happy.  Reeves by contrast is scrambling to make ends meet; although he’s justly confident of his ultimate success, he’s in the early stages of getting there and he needs money.  He also has a lingering resentment of Anthony Lane, war hero and golden boy, who had everything — money, family, social position — that Reeves is struggling so hard to get for himself.  So far, so predictable, right?  Reeves approaches Judith, threatens to tell all and begins extorting money from her.  What isn’t predictable is where Colegate takes the story, setting up an intricate game of cat and mouse, where Judith and Reeves exchange roles as victim and each gets off on the power he or she has over the other.

I’ve made The Blackmailer sound terribly grim and serious but it isn’t at all — the dialogue is crisp and witty, it has some incredibly funny passages and Colegate has a wonderful knack for creating marvelous supporting characters (if you like dogs, the novel’s worth reading just for Bertie, Judith’s pet spaniel, whose personality is depicted as vividly as that of the human actors.  If you don’t, read it to enjoy Anthony’s hilarious old nightmare of a Nanny, or Feliks, Judith’s very funny friend, publishing partner and social climber extraordinaire).  As I hope I’ve made clear, The Blackmailer is primarily a book for those who enjoy dialogue and relationships; readers who demand a lot of action in their novels will most probably find it a bit dull.  Keep in mind, as well, that The Blackmailer is a debut effort and, although I was satisfied with Colegate’s depiction of Reeves and Judith, I did wish she’d given a bit more space to their inner psychology.  I have a few other quibbles not worth mentioning, none of which detracted from my enjoyment of the book.

Because I don’t have a lot of time right now, I’m sticking mostly to Challenge books for my pleasure reading, so I’ve gone through a lot of mid-century British fiction in my recent postings (Maugham’s Cakes and Ale, Bowen’s Friends and Relations and Kate O’Brien’s The Last of Summer; when you add to these my reading for my class in the 19th century English novel I really feel it’s time to return to my native land for a book or two.  Perhaps a gangster novel set in New Jersey?)  Of these, I believe The Blackmailer has aged the best, perhaps because the “secret” that propels the action — the falsity of a “war hero’s” glorious reputation — is one that a person of our own era might still wish to conceal.  There’s also something very modern about the psychological struggle between Reeves and Judith; she, as much as he, is intent on exerting power in their relationship. Add in the fact that the novel is extremely well written and contains a very rare portrayal of an independent woman, in the 1950s, who works at a real job and actually enjoys doing so and, well, I’d say you have a gem.

Several years after it was originally published, Penguin reissued The Blackmailer in an omnibus volume with two other of Colgate’s early novels, A Man of Power and The Great Occasion (you can pick up a used copy on Amazon for $2 or less; although it’s delightful to get such a bargain, it’s sad that work of such quality appears to be so little read or valued).  Although it will have to wait for a month of two, I look forward eagerly to reading them both.  Who knows, maybe I’ll continue to keep the dust off the shelf holding my Colgate novels . . . . . .

 

 

“Friends & Relations”: Are yours like Elizabeth Bowen’s?

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Or are they like this?
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Or more like this?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Family relationships, even the best of them, can be unsettling, can’t they?  Some families go for the “let’s share everything and do a group hug approach,” while others ignore (frequently for years)  that huge emotional elephant in the middle of the room that is dominating their lives.  Still others steer a midway course between disclosure and concealment that still, inevitably, leads to disaster.  In short, isn’t it amazing how very difficult, not to say problematical, family life and friendships can become?  These observations are particularly fitting  for my review of Elizabeth Bowen’s Friends & Relations, as Bowen is a novelist with whom I’ve had a long and unsettling, not to say problematical relationship.  Since I have a weakness for subtle, skilled, mid-20th century female British novelists, Bowen has been on my radar, and heavily represented on my bookshelves, for quite some time.  And yet …. my reaction to her work is, quite frequently, “hmmm, I’m not really sure that she merits her rep (glowing assestments from Harold Bloom, no less) and I’m really not sure that I liked what I just read.”  And yet, there’s undeniably something there, as far as I’m concerned; Bowen published ten novels and this makes the seventh one that I’ve read!  Moreover, when I decided to participate in the 2019 Classics Challenge hosted by Karen K. at Books and Chocolate my only question about Bowen was “which novel will I read and what category will I put it in?”  I ultimately selected Friends & Relations, published in 1931 and one of Bowen’s very early works of fiction, to satisfy the Challenge’s 20th Century Classic category.

Bowen, who was pretty upper crust herself (being an Anglo Irish aristocrat with an inherited ancestral home in Ireland) drew the “friends and relations” of her title from four upper class English families in the decade or two before the second World War.  In a brief 160 odd pages of masterly prose Bowen shows you in some detail the orderly, elegant structure of her characters’ lives.  The novel opens (in a section titled “Edward and Rodney”) with the wedding of pretty, conventional Laurel Studdart to Edward Tilney, followed shortly afterwards by the engagement of her younger, more introverted sister Janet to Rodney Meggatt, an even better match as Rodney’s the heir to a landed estate.  “The Fine Week,” the novel’s second section, covers a brief period that occurs roughly ten years after the sisters’ weddings.  At this time both couples have settled into the easy domestic routine of their time and class — servants (mostly off stage and doing the heavy lifting), kids (one for Janet, two for Laurel), life in the country (Janet and Rodney), a London routine (Laurel and Edward, who works in a government ministry) — all amid friends and connections from two other English families much like themselves.  Included among the latter is Lady Elfrida, Edward’s slightly disreputable mother, Considine Meggatt, Rodney’s uncle and Lady Elfrida’s former lover, and Theodora Thirdman, a family “friend” who’s one of Bowen’s great comic creations.  It is Theodora’s insatiable taste for drama and her monstrous narcissism  (hopefully, none of your friends and relations include anyone like her.  If they do, you’re in trouble) that leads to the seemingly trivial act disrupting the careful structure of the others’ lives.  The resulting consequences, which occur on a single day, are covered in the novel’s third section (“Wednesday”).  The novel’s plot, setting and characters are all very “Downton Abbey with a bit of a twist” and, if you care for that sort of thing (I do, to some extent, particularly when it’s as well written as this) reason enough to read this novel.

Reading Friends for its plot and character, however, largely misses its point.  Bowen is a greatt stylist and her novel’s complexity (and, for all its brevity, this novel is very complex) lies in its style.  Very gradually and elliptically, so gradually and elliptically that I wasn’t sure at first that I was drawing the right inferences (it turns out that I was),  Bowen reveals the emotinal secret that governs her couples’ lives.  The subtlety of Bowen’s prose, her time shifts, her elliptical and sometime incomplete dialogue, place definite demands on the reader, who sometimes has to use the prose to infer key information rather than being told it directly.  To be blunt, this is not a novel to skim quickly while eating dinner and watching TV; it requires attention, care and, at times, a re-read of certain key passages.  A subplot of the novel involving Lady Elfrida bears mentioning, as her ladyship’s very public sexual escapades have reverberated in the following generation, contributing to her son Edward’s rather uptight and priggish nature and at one point threatening Janet’s marriage to Rodney.  Whether Bowen intends the reader to draw a moral from this is unclear; I didn’t myself and don’t feel I lost anything by failing to do so.

I fear I’ve made Friends & Relations sound terribly serious, haven’t I?  If so, I’ve done both Bowen and her novel a disservice.  Although it’s a bit too bittersweet to be a comedy, Bowen’s dialogue and descriptions can be very, very funny; morevoer, Lady Elfrida and especially Theodora are wonderful, comedic characters.  Although I didn’t think that Janet in particular was fully fleshed out and Rodney was never more to me than a cipher,  Bowen has moments of real emotional insight and tenderness, such as her description towards the end of the novel of Laurel and Janet’s aging parents:

They did not miss their daughters but they regretted them.  After dinner, pulling round arm-chairs to the fire, with backs to the empty room, she played patience, with the board over her knee; he finished a detective story a night.  If he died first, she would stay on here for the grandchildren; if she died first the house would be given up.  Once or twice in an evening their eyes met.

Would I recommend this novel? Definitely, with a few caveats.  Don’t be misled by its brevity and expect to read it quickly; have patience;  focus on its style and language and be tolerant of its rather pedestrian plot and the conventions of upperclass British life between the wars.  Friends & Relations is an early novel, considered by many to be unrepresentative of Bowen’s best work.  For this reason, I recommend, if you’ve never read Bowen or you only intend to read one of her ten books, that you begin with, or read, a different work, perhaps The Last September,  The Death of the Heart (my own favorite so far) or, if you want an atmospheric WWII “London in the Blitz” setting, The Heat of the Day.  Do I like Bowen’s work myself or do I merely appreciate her ability as a writer?  Do I think her glowing reputation is deserved?  So very, very difficult to decide the precise nature of my  problematical relationship with this writer ….. I think I’ll make up my mind after I read Eva Trout  …………. or perhaps The Hotel ……

The Tragic Muse (and How I came to love Henry James)

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Rachel Félix as The Tragic Muse (Jean-Leon Jerome, 1859)
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Mrs. Sarah Siddons as the Tragic Muse (Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1784)

Which do you prefer as James’ model for Miriam?

I’ve recently finished reading Henry James’ The Tragic Muse, my first book of the new year and the 19th century novel I selected for the Back to the Classics Challenge.  I feel quite a sense of accomplishment;  if I haven’t summited Everest, I feel like I’ve at least reached base camp!  My choice of a mountain climbing metaphor is quite deliberate.  I’ve at least gotten started on the Challenge (we all know what tends to happen to those good intentions, don’t we?).  Even more importantly, however, I’ve reacquainted myself with one of those “classic” writers whom I suspect is more admired than actually read.  Although I tremendously enjoyed The Tragic Muse, it was a lengthy novel that demanded time and a fair amount of attention.  No skimming or multitasking while I parsed those subtle Jamesian sentences!

In the brief life of this blog, I’ve referred to Henry James at least twice, both times in terms of adoration.  Despite my current high regard for James, however, I did not begin my reading life as an HJ fan.  After an unpleasant teenage encounter with his Portrait of a Lady  (my “mature” judgment at the time was that Portrait was tied with Eliot’s Silas Marner for the title of the most boring book ever written!), I consigned HJ to the category of writers who had little to offer me personally.  My opinion changed drastically about fifteen years later.  The catalyst for this transformation came when I casually purchased a paperback sales copy of  Leon Edel’s multi-volume biography of James.  Unbeknownst to me, Edel was the 20th century specialist in James studies.  Although later scholars (perhaps most notably Sheldon Novick) have attacked certain aspects of Edel’s work, his James biography continues be an indispensable source of knowledge about the author’s life.  Edel was a tremendous scholar and a marvelous writer who used great sensitivity in evaluating many areas of James’ life about which little is known (James, who was no admirer of the biographer’s art, deliberately destroyed certain personal writings before his death to preserve his privacy).  Because his work was a literary biography, Edel combined a factual account of James’ life with very perceptive discussions of James’ novels and major fictional works.  At that particular time in my life I had the great gift of an undemanding job that allowed me the spare time and mental energy to plough through Edel’s biography.  As I learned the details of James’ life, which included financial problems, a tortured sexuality and some very difficult family relationships, I began to see him as a far more sympathetic figure than I had previously considered him to be; increased knowledge about his life also made his work more interesting and accessible.  Perhaps more importantly, however, Edel’s biography was a wonderful introduction to James’ literary output.  As I read about James’ novels, I became interested in James’ novels, particularly as I saw how his literary work related to his own life and reflected the culture of which he was a part.  Although I read a lot of other things during this time in my life, I primarily focused on James’ novels and, to a much lesser extent, his shorter fiction (James was also a gifted travel writer and perceptive literary critic; alas I’ve read next to nothing of his output in either field).  Nineteenth and early 20th century literature, however, requires time and attention, and as both became increasingly scarce over the years (eventually I had to get a real job) I’m afraid I gave James’ novels more shelf space than attention.  I was in fact quite startled when I realized some time ago that for all my prattle regarding my love for James’ fiction it had literally been years since I had actually read any of it.  I decided to participate in the Classics Challenge this year in large part because it increased the likelihood that I’d actually re-read at least one novel by a writer whom I hold in such high regard.

Because James was a prolific author (he turned out a lot of writing as he was heavily dependent on the income it produced), I had a wide array of novels to choose from in making my selection for the Classics Challenge.  I settled on The Tragic Muse (Muse) largely because this was one of the novels I had never re-read (unlike, say, Portrait of a Lady) and so remembered few details about the plot.  Another important factor in my selection was style.  Although James’ writing is synonymous in the minds of many with subtle complexity, this idea is rather inaccurate when applied to his output as a whole.  While it is certainly true that the sentence structure and syntax of  his “late” novels (The Golden Bowl, Wings of the Dove and The Ambassadors) can be quite bewilderingly complex, his earlier novels (and even Muse, which dates from the  mid-period of his productivity) are often quite straightforward stylistically.  It’s also worth mentioning that Muse doesn’t fit a couple of other familiar tropes regarding James’ novels.  Rather than offering an intense psychological study of a few individuals (as in, for example, The Golden Bowl) it has a large, sprawling cast of characters.  Muse also doesn’t concern the theme, so prevalent in James’ early fiction (Portrait of a Lady; Daisy Miller) of naive American innocents forced to grapple with the sophisticated wiles of an older European culture.

Muse contains two separate but symmetrical narrative arcs, one centering on Nick Dormer, an upper class Englishman who rejects family and heritage to become a painter, and the other on Miriam Rooth, a penniless girl of partially Jewish ancestry (a point that matters to several of the other characters) who is determined to become a great actress.  James sets his novel in the Paris and London of his own day, i.e., the late 19th century, and depicts how the acts and attitudes of an interrelated group of English aristocrats affect the decisions, and fates, of Nick and Miriam.  His story begins in Paris, where we first meet the Dormer family.  The widowed Lady Agnes, attended by her daughters Grace and Biddy, has reluctantly accompanied her son Nick, who has insisted on attending the latest Paris exhibition of avant-garde art.  It’s easy to miss a certain dry humor that often turns up in James’ work; here, for example his description of the Dormer ladies’ reaction to the French avant-garde is quite funny (Lady Agnes observes that in London art is “much less unpleasant” than the Parisian “horrors” admired by her son).  Nick himself is a charming and devoted son, a quintessential golden boy, destined by birth and training to emulate his late father’s political career.  Although outwardly amenable to this plan for his future, Nick secretly cherishes an ambition to be a painter.

Also in Paris is Julia Dallow, a widowed cousin and friend of the Dormer family.  Rich, beautiful and talented,  Julia is indifferent to art and contemptuous of painting.  From the outset it is clear that Julia is not only in love with Nick but is also extremely eager to put her money and formidable talents behind his political career.  Her reasons for doing so are far from disinterested; unlike Nick, Julia is fascinated by politics and sees their marriage as a way for her to become a great political hostess.  As the novel progresses Nick becomes increasingly unable to hide his boredom and distaste for the political life in which he is engaged, while Julia increasingly reveals the full extent of  her antipathy and contempt for the life of an artist.  When Nick ultimately resigns from Parliament, he does so knowing that it will cost him his marriage to Julia as well as a large bequest from a family friend who is willing to back a political career but refuses to leave his money to a painter.  One constant in James’ novels is that choices have consequences and he never spares his characters the full weight of their decisions.

One of the most interesting and ambiguous characters in Muse is Gabriel Nash, whom James purportedly modeled on Oscar Wilde, an acquaintance and fellow writer.  Although Nash and Nick Dormer were friends at Oxford, they subsequently drifted apart and, when they meet by chance at that fateful art exhibition in Paris, have not seen each other for many years.  Nash, like his real-life counterpart Wilde, is a kind of 19th century performance artist.  After dabbling with literature in his Oxford days, Nash forswears any active engagement with the arts (or with anything else for that matter) in favor or simply enjoying beautiful sensations in whatever form they assume.  In Nash’s view, creating or producing a tangible work of art is a crude and imperfect expression of the ultimate art of simply living a “beautiful” life.  He and Nick quickly reestablish their old friendship, much to the dismay of Nick’s family.  In his subsequent struggle to balance the demands of his family and heritage against his urge to lead the life of an artist, Nick regards Gabriel Nash as a kind of “artistic conscience” or lodestone who constantly reminds him of the primacy of art over all other endeavors (while painting may be crude, it beats canvassing for votes!).  The other characters, however, view Nash as an irresponsible tempter or frivolous wastrel; essentially they see him as a Mephistopheles who leads Nick away from his duty to family and country.  Every reader of Muse will, of course, have his/her own interpretation of this equivocal character and the role he plays in Nick’s choice.  In addition to functioning as a symbol (good or bad) of the supreme value of a certain type of art, James uses Nash to advance the novel’s action and to link the symmetrical plots; it is Nash, for example, who effectively launches Miriam’s career by introducing her to Nick’s circle.

Miriam’s parallel narrative recounts her rise from an untrained “wannabe” to one of the great actresses on the English stage.  When the novel opens she is a penniless and awkward girl, who wanders Europe with her rather feckless mother, living hand to mouth in a series of cheap hotels and pensions.  Outwardly at least Miriam is distinguished by nothing except good looks and a fierce conviction that she is destined for theatrical greatness, an opinion unshared by those who view her informal “audition” before a retired great of the French stage.  Although she acknowledges her performance was bad, Miriam’s belief in herself as an artist remains unshaken.  She realizes, however, that she needs training and opportunities but lacks the financial means and social connections to secure them.  Her material situation changes when Gabriel Nash introduces her to Peter Sherringham, a relation of the Dormer family and a rising star in the British diplomatic service.  Extremely ambitious (he sees himself as a future ambassador), Sherringham’s one unprofessional passion is for the dramatic art of the classical theater.  He provides Miriam with the financial backing and emotional support she needs and becomes intensely involved with her expanding prospects.  Although Sherringham steers clear of a sexual entanglement, and prides himself on keeping his emotional distance, it is clear to his friends, to Miriam and to the reader that he is soon totally, hopelessly in love with her.  It is a measure of his passion that this cool, self-controlled man proposes marriage; because a diplomat of his stature can’t be married to an actress he conditions his proposal on Miriam’s leaving the stage.  The scene in which she refuses Sherringham’s proposal, and exposes his hypocrisy to himself and to the reader, is perhaps the most powerful in the novel.

As this brief (and, I hope, not too tedious) summary makes clear, there’s a lot going on, plot-wise, in this novel.  As was common in the 19th century, Muse was first published as an ongoing serial in The Atlantic Monthly, one of the fashionable magazines of his day; James was writing for a popular, albeit prosperous and literate, audience and knew what his readers expected for the $15 per printed page that he was ultimately paid.  In addition to the developments alluded to above, James also included at least two love triangles (one involving Nick’s young sister Biddy, who has nursed a passion for Peter Sherringham since she was a child; the other concerning Miriam’s incipient passion for Nick, which comes into play when he paints her portrait); an engaging and ironically humorous subplot involving the family friend who disinherited Nick and several very interesting supporting characters (for example, Basil Dashwood, the actor whom Miriam ultimately marries.  She does not leave the stage!).  The novel also includes some powerful and very emotionally gripping scenes and, as an extra bonus, has an ambiguous ending that leaves hope for Nick and Julia.  While I can’t speak for the reaction of James’ contemporaries, there was more than enough action and suspense to keep me turning the pages.

As with most great novels, moreover, Muse suggests a dimension extending beyond the quotidian actions of its characters.  Most obviously, James is offering his meditation on the demands that art places on its practitioners and the barriers, both tangible and psychological, that an artist must surmount to achieve his or her goal.  He also contrasts the visual and dramatic arts and the different demands, training and pitfalls that each places on the artist and actor.  Remember how, at the beginning of this far-too-long posting, I noted how the facts of James’ life often play into his fiction?  Muse was the last full length novel he wrote before turning to the stage; one could make a strong argument that the entire novel is James’ attempt to define the very nature of dramatic art, in all its tawdry glory (although Miriam is one of James’ great creations, HJ is tough on her at times).  As a sidenote for the historically inclined, James’ career as a playwright ended in public humiliation in 1895.  It’s a testament to his enormous talent and strength of will that he survived this ordeal and, in his 60s, went on to write what many regard as his greatest novels.

Finally — which of the two actresses whose likenesses are at the beginning of this post best fits your idea of Miriam?  French Rachel in red, so very classical, or English Sarah Siddons, so romantic and tasteful in Reynolds’ subdued palette?  Both women were the leading actresses of their day and both, I believe, have been suggested as models for Miriam.  My answer, a very Jamesian one, is both!  Miriam receives her earliest training in Paris, from a legendary French actress of the classical school; visits the Théâtre Français, where James places her in front of “Gêrome’s fine portrait of the pale Rachel, invested with the antique attributes of tragedy;” has her breakout performance in London as a romantic lead in a traditional English comedy and, as the novel closes, reaches the pinnacle of her art in the tragic role of Juliet.

 

Despite some feline roadblocks …. progress continues through The Tragic Muse

 

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Percy thinks I won’t notice that these are the wrong books ……..

So here we are, almost two weeks into our shiny new year!  Is everyone busy reading their challenges?  I’m in a lackadaisical kind of mood these days myself — not a bad mood but certainly not a high energy one.  I always think of mid-January as a time to re-group, to conserve resources after the excitement of the holidays; those extra minutes of daylight aren’t registering yet and spring seems far, far away.  Aside from an unwelcome bit of exercise this morning with a snow shovel, I’ve had a lovely day, wrapped up in a blanket, sipping the results of a new recipe for hot chocolate (it uses two different kinds of chocolate and real cream) and reading Henry James.  Oh, I did have a bit of a reading mishap — Percy has hidden my print volume of The Tragic Muse and substituted other James novels, thinking I’d never notice!  (Percy’s main interests are ornithological; as a literary philistine he thinks James’ novels are interchangeable.  They aren’t).  As a result, I’ve been following the adventures of Nick and Miriam by kindle clicking, rather than page turning.  Even so, it’s a wonderful read, with those long 19th century sentences and subtle, Jamesian delineations of thought and emotion.  It’s a slow read, very much suited to a slow time of year; it’s made even more leisurely by being punctuated every thirty minutes or so by dreamy interludes of staring into space (maybe I’ve been hanging with Percy too long).  Somehow, the day has just vanished.

Fortunately in light of my mental lassitude, following the novel’s action is not too difficult.  James’ plot is relatively straightforward (I defer to the experts on this point, but I wouldn’t read this novel for his plot, myself).  He follows two protagonists, Nick Dormer, an aristocratic young Englishman with a bright political future, and Miriam Rooth, a beautiful penniless young woman from a dubious background.  Nick is torn between painting and politics; although he’s elected as a member of the House of Commons in the early portions of the novel, he’s bored by the political life and only comes alive when he escapes to  his “horrid” (his fiancée’s  words, not mine) little studio to engage in his painting.  Everything in Nick’s life compels him to choose conventional, worldly success: his heritage and training; a promise to his dead father; an adored and adoring mother who has no doubts her boy belongs in Parliament; a beautiful, wealthy lover who will only marry a successful political guy; and a wealthy benefactor who won’t leave his money to an artistic loser.  James is interested in Nick’s choice between his passion for art and his world’s ideal of a successful life and of the personal sacrifices often required from those who persist in following a higher consciousness.  Spoiler alert here for those who demand suspense in reading an 1889 novel:  Nick rejects his political career to follow his art.  The decision costs him him his fiancée, a magnificent bequest from his benefactor and the regard of his family and friends.  Although James intimates that Nick has real talent, Nick also has little formal training and is beginning a career as a serious artist at a relatively late point in life.  Despite every inducement to turn his back on art, Nick becomes totally committed to being a painter, although his worldly success as an artist is (at least at this point in the novel) very much in doubt.

Miriam’s situation could not be more unlike Nick’s.  The daughter of a fantastical, ineffectual mother, Miriam’s businessman father is dead, and the modest income he provided his family is gone, leaving his daughter without worldly prospects or financial security.  Miriam and her mother eke out a paltry existence, moving from one European city to another, living in a succession of cheap boarding houses and pensiones, lingering in cafes to save money on fuel and frequently going without.  Miriam’s mother lives in the novels she reads (when she can get them.  Sound familiar, anyone?); Miriam lives in her imagination.  Surprisingly, she is neither dreamy nor indecisive.  James makes clear that Miriam is simply a born actress, so thoroughly consumed by her need to express herself through her art that nothing, but nothing, will deter her.  When we first meet Miriam in Paris in the opening pages of the novel she is an awkward, badly dressed (and remember, in James’ world manners and appearance matter) young girl.  Gabriel Nash, a English aesthete who will play a pivotal role in the novel, takes her up as an amusing divertissement.  Nash and Peter Sherringham, a young English diplomat who will also play an important part in James’ tale, enable Miriam to gain an audition with Madame Carre, a legendary French actress who serves as a type of acting coach/guide to a younger generation of thespians.  Madame Carre’s verdict, shared by Nash?  Miriam has no talent.  Miriam’s reaction?  She will be a great actress, opinions otherwise are irrelevant; she simply needs to learn her craft.  Despite generally agreeing with Madame Carre’s assessment, Sherringham thinks that, possibly, there may just be something to Miriam and almost on a whim provides her with the financial backing that allows her to perfect her dramatic skills.  As the novel progresses, so does Miriam’s talent and growing stature as an artist.  By the time Nick decides to chuck it all away for art, Miriam is experiencing her first success on the London stage.  Gabriel Nash is now a firm believer in her greatness (and, as an connoisseur and aesthete he’s well placed to spread the word) and Peter Sherringham?  Well, the discrete wisdom of the diplomat is on holiday!  Despite being the well-trained and rising young star of the Foreign Office, and knowing full well the career folly of his choice, Sherringham is hopelessly in love with Miriam; he’s even offered her marriage, providing she gives up the stage.

Well, that’s all for tonight folks.  Despite certain soap opera aspects of the plot, James presents us with a serious meditation on what it is to be an artist, of the demands and sacrifices of practicing the arts and of the elements comprising the dramatic art (James was very interested in the theater and thought about this subject a great deal).  In this novel he has given us two contrasting protagonists — golden boy and poor, beautiful and underrated girl — who must choose whether, and how, each will practice his/her art.  Although there’s a certain commonality in the barriers each faces, there are also significant differences; while Nick is more constrained by expectations of family and society, Miriam’s primary obstacles are money and opportunity (I find it interesting, but unsurprising in view of the time in which he wrote that James doesn’t explicitly discuss the constraints of gender to any notable degree).  Choices have been made and, because this is James, consequences must be faced …..

January beginnings: Henry James & The Tragic Muse

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Do you have any superstitions about the first book you begin in the new year?  I freely admit that I do, but then I’ve been known to go around the block to avoid a black cat.  I don’t usually make a big thing about selecting my first January book unless I finish one book on New Year’s Eve and I’m beginning a second book precisely on New Year’s Day.  This is a sort of “when Saturn returns to New York” kind of thing that doesn’t happen very often (every twenty-nine years, to be precise.  Sara Gran’s novel of that name, by the way, is a fun light read that’s perfect for an afternoon’s diversion). When it does I take it seriously!  By this point, I’m sure you can imagine what happened this year — at ten minutes to midnight on New Year’s Eve, I finished my first glass of champagne along with Elizabeth Savage’s Last Night at the Ritz (see my previous post, if you want a little info about the novel).  As a result, my first decision of the new year was “what do I read next?”  Since my choice could affect for good or ill my reading decisions for the next twelve months (I’m only half kidding), I really gave it some thought.

Fortunately, I had the Classics Challenge to help me out.  Realistically, I need to get started early on my challenge books to have any hope of success; once I resume classes near the end of the month (I’m doing a post-baccalaureate degree in art history, known less formally as “an old person’s program”) I’ll have much less time and energy for the more difficult reads on my list.  I’ve been a worshipper at the shrine of Henry James since my early 30s, when an undemanding job and a steady if small income gave me the leisure to explore his work.  Although I skipped all the essays and most of his short stories, I did manage several of the novellas and all of the novels, including this one. Over the many years since then, I’ve believed that period of immersion in James’ work automatically gave me the right to claim devoted fan status.  It was a bit of a shock when compiling my books for the Classics Challenge to realize that it has been a very, very long time since I’ve actually read any of James’ novels, which I have nicely arranged and prominently displayed on several bookshelves (you have to look pretty close to see the dust!)

Although most of my reading at one point was heavily tilted towards the 19th century, for several years now I’ve concentrated mostly on contemporary fiction.  Picking up James and settling in for an extended read has required an adjustment.  Am I the only one who feels a certain dislocation in turning from works of the present to those of the past?  I tend to read quickly and, quite honestly, I skim on a pretty frequent basis (especially if bloodshed is involved).  I wouldn’t dream of doing either, with a novel from James’ late period (say, Wings of the Dove or The Golden Bowl) but I had selected his Tragic Muse because I remembered it as being a fairly straightforward narrative from James’ mid-period, before his style developed into the baroque complexity of compound clause upon compound clause which makes his late novels such a challenge.  Well, my memory was correct but — while this may be relatively unadorned James it is nevertheless a serious 19th century novel, published in serial form over a period of months for an audience that expected to savor every word (and that wasn’t distracted by checking email every thirty seconds and who probably had “staff” to do the grocery shopping and feed the cats).  Several times I almost had to stop, slow down and take a deep breath; I did have to re-read the first few pages before my mind started the process of becoming accustomed to the pace of James’ writing and the ornate vocabulary and expressions he employs.  Although I haven’t seen any discussion of this phenomenon, I find that for me the mental agility required to switch gears, slow down and savor the reading process itself is a very valuable side benefit of reading 19th century works.

Although it’s early days yet, with The Tragic Muse, I’m already in Paris, where I’ve met Nick Dormer and his ambitious and conventional mother.  Nick is there to look at the art, Nick’s mother is there to pressure him into following the paternal footsteps by entering Parliament and forgetting his foolish desire to be a painter.  Julia Dallow, who’s going to immensely complicate Nick’s career choice, will shortly enter the scene and Miriam Rooth, whose aspirations to be a great actress equal Nick’s desire to paint, has just walked on and off the stage, so to speak.  In short, this novel is James’ meditation on the demands of art and how these do, or do not, accommodate themselves to the practicalities of “ordinary” life; Nick and Miriam are his case studies for the effect of family and society on the aspirations and accomplishments of the would-be artist.

In doing a little research for this post, I discovered the painting I inserted at the beginning.  It’s a portrait of the great Rachel, the French actress who was said to be the model for James’ Miriam.  The artist is Jean-Léon Gérôme, who has chosen to depict her as the Muse of Tragedy.  Although Gérôme exemplifies the type of painter the Impressionists loathed (the loathing was mutual.  Gerome was a vociferous critic of their work) he was extremely popular in his day if much less so in ours.  I personally find his paintings, in small doses, to be a lot of fun and I love, love, love this one.

If you happen to chance by, expect periodic reports about Nick, Julia and Miriam.  I suspect I’ll be following their progress for much of the coming year!

 

 

 

 

Beginnings require endings ….

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Do you get all introspective on New Year’s Eve or are you a “go out with the crowds and party” type?  Or, like most of us, a little of both?  Since I’m home working on this post, I guess my choice for this year at least is obvious!  Even in my more extroverted periods, however, I’ve always tried to make the end of the year a time for an informal taking stock, for reflecting and for remembering, even if it’s only for a few minutes here and there.  Since I’m incapable of sustained thought for more than a few minutes at a time, I stretch this out over a fairly long period, mentally marking out a few weeks, usually mid-December through early January, depending on how busy I am, to make an effort to remember and reflect here and there.  You can do this any time of year, of course, but it works best for me at the calendar’s end, the time of darkness and hope, of ends and beginnings.  As you can see from the photo of my New Year’s Eve outing, I love including nature in this process.  When one’s in a certain mood, there’s nothing to match the brooding and poetic melancholy of a winter’s day.

Since this is a book blog, I’ll confine my end of the year reflections to books.  I just finished looking at my “books read” list for 2018; when I become a bit more technologically adept (and have more time) I’ll add it to the blog.  I know we all say numbers don’t matter, but then — don’t we all count how many books we’ve read in a particular year?  In 2018 I completed about 51 books (I say “about” because I skimmed two very long books and compromised by counting them as one; similarly I squashed two lengthy, related novellas together for a single “count” and I’m about five pages from finishing my last book for 2018).  This is fewer than I usually read; also my list this year is much lighter in content and less challenging than in certain years past.  I’m a pretty ecletic reader, although these days I read far fewer non-fiction books and 19th century novels; my list includes literary fiction, a classic or two, historical fiction, mystery/thrillers and lots of fantasy & sci-fi (I grew up reading sci-fi & fantasy paperbacks poached from my dad’s collection and loved Asimov and Heinlein as much as I did classical mythology).

I took a bit of a trip down memory lane in 2018, re-reading several books that I first encountered in my teens and twenties, primarily to see how I’d react to them now.  These included Richard Powell’s Whom the Gods Would Destroy (a re-telling of the Tojan War; the book is now out of print but available in electronic format) and Judith Rossner’s His Little Women (Anyone remember Judith Rossner?  In this particular novel she “updated” Alcott’s Little Women to modern day Hollywood; Rossner’s little women are the daughters of an overbearing Hollywood producer); many years ago I thoroughly enjoyed both works.  A third re-read was Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived at the Castle, which I hadn’t much liked when I encountered it in my twenties, immediately after devouring Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House.  My 2018 verdict on these reads of yesteryear?  If you’re a Trojan War buff with a thing for Cassandra, you might check out Powell.  Make time for Jackson; if Castle isn’t her masterpiece it’s close and skip Rossner unless you’re a serious masochist (at the risk of losing your good opinion, on my re-read I actually did enjoy the first 40 percent of the novel but found everything after Jo –oops! I meant “Nell” — grows up to be a pretty tough slog).

My 2018 list also included two memoirs,  and one autobiography, genres that I have successfully avoided until now.  My reaction to these works was mixed.  Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air was everything it was cracked up to be — a moving, unsentimental look at how a brilliant, driven personality dealt with something that couldn’t be dealt with (Kalanithi died from cancer at age 37, just as he was completing his residency in neurosurgery).  J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy was — well — I’d have to write a separate post to explain my complicated reaction to J.D.’s hillbilly to tech mogul odyssey.  I’ll let it go for now by saying there was much in it I admired and identified with and much that I found intensely troubling.  My autobiographical read was Benvenuto Cellini’s My Life, which honesty compels me to disclose was required reading for a course in Renaissance art.  Although I found it tough going at times, I’m very glad I persevered and would highly recommend it for anyone interested in the Renaissance, the artistic process or colorful personalities (Cellini was a great artist who was also a self-confessed murderer of at least three people).

Although I felt my 2018 reading list was a bit blah, the year did contain some surprises and unexpected pleasures.  These did not always coincide with critical acclaim.  Two new authors who I thought did live up to their hype were Tommy Orange and Lisa Halliday.  I wouldn’t normally have read Orange’s There, There (it struck me as a bit too grim) but at some point I just surrendered to the buzz and pieced it in between classes; his tale of urban Indians, set in Oakland, and written with great skill, blew me away.  It also gave me a renewed sense of a certain side of American history which I’m all too prone to forget.  Orange is now on my radar, which means I’ll definitely read his second book whenever that should appear.  My reaction to Halliday’s Asymmetry was a bit more measured.  She’s an impressive talent and Asymmetry’s cleverly done; the “Madness” section centering on a young Iraqi-American detained by immigration officials at Heathrow was chilling, but my enjoyment of the whole was less than my admiration of its parts.  Daisy Johnson was another emerging light this year, with her debut novel Everything Under.  I found it an odd and interesting book, beautifully written; the complex time shifts were skillfully handled and the characters’ complicated relationships rendered quite believable, no mean feat for such a fantastical story.  Although I was less wowed by her novel than were the critics it’s definitely worth reading, especially if you’re interested in stories with an underpinning in Greek mythology.   My 2018 reaction to Michael Ondaatje, a long acknowledged literary lion, was unreservedly positive.  To date I haven’t read much of his work (I missed The English Patient) but that may change after Warlight, which I absolutely adored.  As far as I’m concerned Warlight had it all: wonderful writing, strong atmosphere (I’m a sucker for atmosphere & setting), a good plot and interesting characters.  Another veteran writer, Alan Hollinghurst, turned out a good if not great read in The Sparsholt Affair — I was definitely surprised when it didn’t make the Booker long list and thought that perhaps it should have.

On a less lofty plane, perhaps, I found several books in 2018 (not all of them published that year) that were very well written and fun to read but didn’t seem to make any “best of their year” lists.  Did anyone read Aja Gabel’s The Ensemble?  Since I like novels about tight little groups and how they do, or don’t cope with each other (Donna Tart’s Secret History is a fav of mine) and I also like string quartets, I was destined to love Gabel’s novel about four young classical musicians and how they develop as people and artists over a period of years.  Gregory Blake Smith’s The Maze at Windermere, one of my favorite reads of 2018, was a well written and absorbing story that wove back and forwards in time to tell the stories of a number of characters loosely associated with Newport, Rhode Island over a period of two centuries.  Think David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas in an American setting (well — sort of).  Daryl Gregory’s Spoonbenders was a light, enjoyable tale of a family of psychics; the plot was tightly woven, if a bit over the top, and the book as a whole funny and absorbing, with a slight underpining of melancholy.  For those of a slightly more Gothic turn of mind, I’d highly recommend Sarah Perry’s Melmoth, with its wonderfully atmospheric descriptions of snowy evenings in Prague or the stifling heat of a tropical Manila and its tale of the doomed Melmoth, destined to walk the earth until the day of Judgment.

It wouldn’t be a time of bookish reflection, would it, without noting the books that were abandoned, as well as completed?  I’m a firm believer that abandoning a book reflects less on a book’s quality than it does on one’s own readiness to read it.  With that standard in mind, 2018 was a year in which I wasn’t ready to read  several critically acclaimed novels.  Most notable, perhaps, was Meg Wolitzer’s The Female Persuasion, which I stopped reading about three-quarters of the way through (I must admit — I did skip to read the end!)  It was my first novel by Wolitzer and in many of the ways lived up to its hype, but for some reason it just didn’t hold my interest.  Perhaps it was just too topical, in these days of the me too movement.  Why read a novel when you can read the news?  Another discarded read was Rachel Kushner’s The Mars Room.  About two hours after reading a chunk and thinking “this is really quite good,” I put the novel aside and haven’t returned yet.  A third discard was Guy Gunaratne’s In Our Mad and Furious City, much hyped across the pond (a debut novel, long listed for the Booker), less glowingly received by our very own New York Times.  Halfway through and in the middle of the action, I just thought “I’ve had enough” and that was that for City.  Three good (City) to very good (Mars Room) novels, freely acknowledged as such by me and others, that I will probably never finish.  What can I say, except that the Book Gods are fickle?

In closing (and if anyone has lasted this long, I just bet you’re breathing a sigh of relief!), I really must comment on Elizabeth Savage’s Last Night at the Ritz.  Aside from its title, which ties in well with my mood of endings and reflection, Last Night also happens to be my last read of 2018 (I’ll finish it after I sign off, along with my very much anticipated glass of champagne!).   Long out of print, it was resuscitated as part of Nancy Pearl’s Book Lust Rediscoveries series for Amazon, where it has generally received a series of three star reviews (for those residents of the outer planets who have never purchased from Amazon, a five star review is the highest).  Last Night is a wonderful book, for the right reader and the right frame of mind; which is to say it should be avoided by teetotalers (Savage’s characters drink more than Mad Men), those who can’t stomach privileged, upper class protagonists and readers who want no part of a by-gone era whose social mores don’t correspond to our own.  The story is told in the first person, by a nameless female narrator who’s back in Boston and having a celebratory night with her college roommate from thirty years before; the two women are joined by the roommate’s husband and the (married) narrator’s ex-lover.  Although the time frame is confined to a single evening, Savage uses flashbacks, interior monologues and reminiscenses to very convincingly depict a lifetime of complicated relationships.  At the end of the evening, you really understand the title and appreciate that there’s more to the brash, breezy narrator than you first suppose.  As an added bonus, both women are fairly erudite readers and the novel is replete with references to books.  It’s also a treasure trove of quotable lines.  My own favorite?  “It is very dangerous to get caught without something to read.”

And on that note — good-night and happy New Year!  May you never be caught, in 2019 or ever, without something to read!

 

 

My First Blog Post

I love books and reading in all their manifestations — book reviews, book discussions, book recommendations and, of course, the actual books themselves.  As part of the bookish process, I’ve spent an increasing amount of time, and gotten a great deal of pleasure and useful information, from all those wonderful book blogs available on the internet (thank you so much, Danielle, for your A Work in Progress).  For several years now I’ve considered joining the bookish discussion, but taking a lesson from the Ents have been slow to rush into things (I believe my New Year’s Resolution for 2010 was to have my own blog up and running by the end of the year!).  Now, finally, I’m taking the plunge and I already feel a rush of adrenaline from the decision.  Let’s face it — even the most devoted reader experiences a bit of a lag at times; becomes paralyzed and anxious at the multiplicity of choices out there (so many, many new books and so many, many growing piles of unread volumes on the floor); commences one novel after another without finishing anything; and greets even the most exciting work of new fiction with a yawn.  In the last year, I’ve done an increasing amount of required reading for my art history courses; while I’ve enjoyed this reading immensely it’s inevitably affected the time and energy I have available for non-art history topics.  So, while (with apologies to Mr. Melville) a “dark and drizzling” November isn’t exactly permeating my reading, my book life could definitely use some jazzing up.  Hence, my infant blog.

Along with my first blog post comes my first acceptance of a bookish challenge!  The spark that got this book blog project up and going came last Friday, when I stumbled on the 2019 Classics Challenge hosted by Karen K. at Books and Chocolate (here’s where to get more information and sign up).  After reading the challenge, I spent a wonderful, exciting day thinking of books for the various categories and then realized — “hey!  I need somewhere to post my reviews!  Why not finally complete that 2010 New Year’s Resolution and set up a blog?”  I already had my blog name picked out (I told you — I’ve been thinking about this for a long time), so, aside from a technical glitch or two, I’m up and running even if the website is a bit unadorned.

Now, back to that challenge.  As I understand the rules, my selections have to be works published and/or written before 1969 that I must commence and complete reading between January 1 and December 31, 2019.  With no more ado, here are my tentative selections:

  1. 19th century classic (between 1800-1899):  Henry James, The Tragic Muse (published 1890).  Many years ago, thanks to a small but steady income and an undemanding job, I went through a major Henry James phase.  Most of the novels I read during that time, including this one, are now far distant blurs in my overflowing memory bin.  I’ve been thinking of revisiting James for some time, however, and this novel seems a good place to start, as it meets the challenge’s time parameters and, as I recall, is quite a bit more straightforward than, say, James’ The Golden Bowl.  Review: https://youmightaswellread.com/2019/01/24/the-tragic-muse-and-how-i-came-to-love-henry-james/
  2. 20th century classic (1900 to 1969):  The choice here is a toughie, as I have a real weakness for mid-century female writers, many of whom receive far less than their due in readership & critical acclaim.  After a lot of delightful soul searching, I’ve decided to go with Elizabeth Bowen’s debut novel, Friends & Relations (published in 1931).  I’ve read several Bowen novels and, while she’s not my ultimate favorite, I find her work interesting.  Besides, I’ve been meaning to read this one for ages and already have a copy.  Close runner up was Dorothy Baker’s Cassandra at the Wedding (1962); hopefully I’ll be able to squeeze it in anyway, either on its own or as a backup to several other categories.  My Review is found at: https://youmightaswellread.com/2019/04/04/are-your-friends-and-relations/
  3. Classic by a woman author:  I’ve selected an early work by Isabel Colegate, either The Blackmailer (1958), A Man of Power (1960) or The Great Occasion (1962).  I’ve loved Colegate since I read Winter Journey and always meant to explore her work a little more.  Although The Shooting Party is far and away Colegate’s best known novel (I believe it was even made into a movie) I’ve never been able to get past the descriptions of all those slaughtered animals (and, yes, I know there’s a parallel to the coming Great War, but still ….)
  4. Classic in Translation:  an easy one.  I’ve never read a novel by Guy de Maupassant despite having several on my shelf.  My choice?  Maupassant’s Like Death (published 1889).
  5. Classic comic novel:  She’s not one of your comforting laughs, but if you have a taste for elegant, elliptical, sometimes difficult dialogue and black humor, it’s hard to beat Ivy Compton-Burnett.  I haven’t read her in years (and never made it through all the novels) so here’s hoping 2019 is my “return to Ivy year.”  I’ll most probably re-read A Father and his Fate (1957) or read Manservant and Maidservant (1947) for the first time.
  6. Classic tragic novel:  This category really made me start thinking about what is a tragic novel, really?  A narrative that just has a sad ending?  Or must it, like classical drama, also have grand and noble characters, brought low by some internal flaw?  Well, whatever the definition — my choice in this category is Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky (1949).  The characters are pretty shallow according to various reviews but the end should be dismal enough to satisfy anyone.  The Classics Challenge is a good prompt to read Bowles, who is one of those writers I’ve never quite gotten around to.  If he’s just too, too not my thing, I’ll probably read The End of the Affair (1951) by Graham Greene, a second writer that I’ve never really gotten around to.
  7. Very long classic:  If you eliminate the Russians, which I do right now (I’ve waded through a few of the obvious Russian classics and just can’t do re-reads of them at this point in my life), I’m somewhat at a loss.  I’ve decided to attempt a book I purchased several years back in a fit of overwhelming intellectual ambition:  Miklòs Bánfly’s They Were Counted, volume I of his Transylvanian Trilogy.  Published originally in the 1930s and weighing in at 620 odd pages, it meets the Challenge’s criteria (the fact that I’ll be reading a modern translation is, as I understand them, allowable under the rules).
  8. Classic novella (less than 250 pages):  I had hoped to satisfy this category by reading J.L. Carr’s A Month in the Country, a work that’s been on my TBR list for a long, long time.  Alas, its 1980 publication date makes it ineligible for the Challenge.  Not to worry, however, as the world and my shelves overflow with unread possibilities, many of them in those adorable, brightly colored covers used by the Melville House publishing company (as one critic said, those covers make “you just want to own them all”!).  I’m torn between Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Beach at Falesa (1892), Edith Wharton’s The Touchstone (1900) and Heinrich von Kleist’s The Duel (1810, this being one of five novellas on the theme of dueling, re-printed and conveniently sold as a package by Melville House).  I’ll probably go with The Beach at Falesa but I really love Wharton and The Duel has a great opening …….. and there’s always Thornton Wilder’s The Bridge at San Luis Rey (1928), which I’ve been meaning to read for ages …..
  9. Classic from the Americas (includes the Caribbean):  I’ve done a fair amount of eco-tourist travel in Central and South America and have long been ashamed of how little I know of the culture and literature of those regions (on the other hand, I have seen lots of birds and animals!).  Because one of my long held goals has been to remedy that defect, I want to read something by a non-English author, set in a non-English speaking country.  This should be an easy category to make a selection from (there are so many great novelists writing in Spanish, French and Portuguese) but for me it isn’t — I don’t want to just read (or, more accurately, attempt) a standard classic by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and most of the other works I know about (I’ve long wanted to try Roberto Bolaño, for example) are too recent to meet the Challenge’s criteria.  Right now, I’m leaving this category blank until I do more research.
  10. Classic from Africa, Asia or Oceania (including Australia):  I just happen to have the NYRB edition of Maria Dermôut’s The Ten Thousand Things (1955) sitting unread on my shelf and taking up space on my TBR list!  The author is a Dutch woman born on Java, which is the setting of this semi-autobiographical novel.  Since I’ve just finished a course on the 17th century art of the Dutch empire, the time period when the Dutch established their hegemony over the Spice Islands of the East Indies, this selection was a no-brainer.  (see my review at https://youmightaswellread.com/2019/02/01/maria-dermouts-the-ten-thousand-things/ )
  11. Classic from a place you’ve lived or by a local author:  Although I’ve now been stationary for a good many years, in my younger days I lived in quite a few different locales, albeit all within the U.S.  One of the more interesting was New Orleans, in its pre-Katrina days in the mid-1980s.  There’s a lot of literature to choose from involving New Orleans.  My first pick would be Sheila Bosworth, a New Orleans writer with a strong sense of place and a lyrical style; she wrote only two novels back in the 1980s, both set in New Orleans and both of which I read sandwiched between novels during my Henry James binge.  Alas, her work is too recent for the Challenge, being published in the early 1980s.  Of the works I’m interested in, this leaves Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (1899), Truman Capote’s Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948) and Walker Percy’s The Movie Goer (1961).  Since I’ve always been curious about Percy’s work (he seems to have dropped somewhat out of the spotlight in recent decades) and I’ve read the other two (albeit long ago), The Moviegoer it is.  I remember Capote’s Other Voices very fondly, however; I was very young when I read it and it was so haunted, so decadent, so beautifully written ….. it would be interesting to measure my reaction to it now.  Depending on my reaction to Percy, I may switch my selection.
  12. Classic play:  I didn’t hesitate on this one — my choice is John Webster’s bloody revenge tradegy of 1612, The Duchess of Malfi.  Without actually reading any or seeing it performed, I’ve been fascinated by Jacobean drama since oh so many years ago when I skipped classes for a couple of days to read P.D. Jame’s Skull Beneath the Skin (P.D.’s title is also from Webster).  In that wonderful detective novel, the actress-murder victim is done away with while preparing for her starring role in Webster’s Duchess.  Besides, who can resist lines like “Cover her face.  Mine Eyes dazzle.  She died young”?

Well, that’s pretty much it, both for my Challenge selections and for my first post.  If you happen across my blog, tune in!