Catching up on posts - classics and not-so-classics

It's been almost a month since my last post--but work has been busy, life has been busy, and...you know the drill.

I'm rounding out my Back to the Classics 2019 challenge with two books - bringing me to 11 out of the 12 I committed to. The only category I missed was Classic Tragic Novel--I had picked Mayor of Casterbridge to read, but never could find the spirit to deal with a Hardy tragedy.

Daniel Deronda, by George Eliot - the last complete novel by George Eliot (Maryann Evans) and one I've been wanting to read for years. Except for Felix Holt, which I tried and failed to read, I've now read all of Eliot's novels. I still consider Middlemarch her masterpiece, but Daniel Deronda was an interesting, multi-faceted novel and it was so enjoyable to spend time with Eliot's narrator, who is kind and gentle and forgiving. Daniel is an orphan, raised by a guardian (Sir Hugo Mallinger), whom everyone assumes is his natural father. The majority of the novel actually focuses on another character, Gwendolen Harleth, a beautiful, spirited young woman, much like Emma Woodhouse at the beginning of Jane Austen's Emma. The novel is about finding not only one's identity but one's moral compass--Daniel's journey is one of finding his parentage and family history and embracing it, but he serves as a conscience for many of the characters and a moral support for virtually all of them. That's a lot for one man to bear, but Daniel does it with grace, beauty, and a generous spirit. Published in 1876, it is contemporary to its time and I found myself looking up political and world issues that provided the setting for the novel.

Saint Joan, by George Bernard Shaw - I read this for the Classic Play category. I chose it because I visited Rouen in 2017, and learned a fair amount about Joan D'Arc in the city where she was burned as a witch in in 1431 at age 19. I also chose this play because I was planning to see Mother of the Maid at the Marin Theatre Company in late November and actually finished reading the play on the plane to SFO. I've only read Pygmalion by Shaw, so I was expecting something biting and witty, sharp and memorable. Instead, I found the play terribly dull. Perhaps on stage it would have shone brighter, but the only bright spot was Joan's interactions with the Dauphin. The play premiered in 1923, three years after Joan was canonized by the Catholic Church. I can only think that her elevation to sainthood was the inspiration for the play, but I really didn't find a theme to latch onto. It seemed more of a history lesson than anything else.

Non-classic recent reading included the following:

Save Me the Plums, by Ruth Reichl - loved, loved, loved this memoir by the last editor of Gourmet magazine. Well written, compelling, chock-full of anecdotes about notable foodies, New York, Conde Nast, chefs, and restaurants...and recipes. There are a few that I absolutely have to try. Now I'm eager to read some of her other books, notably about her life as a restaurant critic.

Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen, by Sarah Bird - I really wanted to love this book--absolutely fabulous premise--but the story arc just frustrated me so much I ended up really not liking it at all. The novel is a fictionalized account of a slave woman who became a member of an African-American unit in the U.S. Army after the Civil War. There are virtually no known facts about Cathy Williams and so the author was at liberty to invent a way for her to become a soldier. I actually liked the part that took place during the Civil War--Cathy's journey from slave to cook's helper in the Union Army was plausible and interesting. Her drive to be a soldier was also plausible, and even when she donned men's clothing and enlisted was plausible. Where I really started to dislike the story was when Cathy had to have a love interest--and not only a love interest, but an entirely goofy, quasi-mystical attachment to her commanding officer who was also the guy she saved early in the story....but I'm committing spoilers and you might actually want to read this book. Suffice it say, I found the second half of the book to be frustrating, implausible, and a waste of a good story.

Ranger Confidential: Living, Working, and Dying in the National Parks, by Andrea Lankford - I love National Parks. I love hiking in them, visiting historical sites, enjoying nature, and I love the idea of National Parks - setting aside places that can be protected and where the native flora and fauna are given a chance to live as well. This was an interesting memoir of a former NP ranger - I found the stories she told to be fascinating and a little dispiriting. Any time you peel back the cover of an organization, you will find some less than ideal stuff. There's a reason Landford is no longer working as a NP ranger - it's a stressful job, and so often rangers have to act as police officers, dealing with all sorts of issues that the general public bring to these national treasures. I'm glad I read the book, and it hasn't changed my mind about supporting the NPS as much as I can. Bottom line - when you visit a NP, give the ranger a break -- follow the rules, don't chide them for having a cushy job, and respect the work they do to search and rescue people who need their help.

Middlemarch...redux

I've been wanting to reread George Eliot's masterpiece, Middlemarch, for awhile now, so decided to read it along with the GoodReads Victorians group.  They provided a nice easy reading schedule that spanned six weeks, and it was a very enjoyable way to revisit an absolute favorite.

Here's what I wrote for my summation on the group chat (SPOILERS BELOW).

This is my 4th or 5th time reading this wonderful book, and I absolutely love it. It's been probably ten years since I last read it, and it's so rich and dense and beautiful that it was still fresh and endlessly interesting. 

I liked how you [Frances, a GoodReads moderator] summed up the three threads as comedy, tragedy, and drama.  Fred and Mary were comic, Rosamond and Lydgate were tragic, and Dorothea and Will were romantic.

I adore Fred and Mary also--I know there is a big contingent out there that say that Mary should have married Farebrother because he "deserved" her, but Fred earned her respect and always had her love. I loved the glimpse the narrator gave us of their life together, growing older, comfortable and happy.

Lydgate and Rosamond are a tragic couple. His big, tender heart could never touch her tiny, cold one, but in the end, he did the right thing and sacrificed his ideals and ambitions to fulfill his end of the marriage contract.

Dorothea and Will are such a romantic couple, and Dorothea is one of my all-time favorite characters. In her sorrow and trouble, she never stopped trying to help others. Going to see Rosamond after witnessing the scene between Will and Rosamond was heroic and selfless and so admirable.

And that closing paragraph--it is magnificent and neatly encapsulates what Eliot was going for in Dorothea, her modern St Teresa:

But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

Things are not so ill with you and me because people like Dorothea quietly and persistently try to make the world a better place.Finally, I think the narrator is one of the kindest, most sympathetic in all of literature. She is sort of like Mr. Garth himself--admiring those who work and are busy with business, but forgiving and tender-hearted and willing to help her poor, dear characters find their way in the world despite their weaknesses and follies. Everyone has a story, and those stories have light as well as shadows, and everyone's story is worth telling.



This brings my Back to the Classics reading challenge for 2016 up to seven completed.  Not great, but not bad either.

Romola & Shakespeare

I've just started Romola, by George Eliot.  It's the last of my Classics Challenge books for 2013, and I'll be hard pressed to finish it by the end of the year.  It's slow going and the temptation to put it down and read something easier is strong, but I'm determined to read all of George Eliot's novels and novellas and so I press on.  Just to give you a feel for its density, the editor felt the need to provide 177 notes for the first seven chapters and the Proem (i.e., prologue).  It's full of Latin phrases, references to Renaissance Italian figures, ancient texts, and Mediterrean geography, most of which is "Greek to me."

So how does this relate to Shakespeare?  The basic plot thus far could have easily been that of a Shakespearean comedy.  A stunningly gorgeous young Greek man, Tito Melema, is shipwrecked and makes his way to Florence on the day after Lorenzo d'Medici has died, leaving Florence all in uproar.  A locuacious and philosophical barber, Nello, finds him sleeping in a street or alley or parkbench, I can't remember, and takes him under his wing.  All that Tito has left after the shipwreck are some gems but he is also (so he says) of good family and well-educated.  Nello introduces him to Bardo de' Bardi, a blind scholar currently in disgrace because of his philosophies, who also happens to have a beautiful and devoted daughter, Romola.  Romola and Tito find each other irresistable, and Bardi sees in Tito all that his own prodigal son was not.  However, before Tito meets Romola, he happens upon a sleeping milkmaid, Tessa, a kisses her awake.  This is not a good sign of things to come, methinks.

There's a lot of The Tempest in the plot thus far, some Twelfth Night, some Comedy of Errors, some As You Like It. Hopefully, alls well that ends well, but I have a feeling there's some tragedy ahead for Romola.

Silas Marner and A Simple Twist of Fate

I read George Eliot's Silas Marner as my first classic of 2012 and as part of my mission to read all of Eliot in order. Silas Marner is quite a short book, with fairytale qualities--a lonely miser finds his way back to humanity and community when a little child adopts him--not very subtle symbolism (the gold of the child's hair is mistaken for the miser's gold on numerous occasions) and breathtakingly beautiful prose. Every time I read it, I enjoy it more. Eliot really mastered her craft with this work, and transcended to the artistic level.

That said, I've been eager to watch the highly acclaimed 1985 BBC version starring Ben Kingsley as Silas. It was utterly faithful to the novel, in plot, in tone, in dialogue (much of it I recognized from the novel), and in feeling. I absolutely loved it and was thrilled with Kingsley's performance. I also thought the Cass brothers (Godfrey the heir and Dunstan the ne'er do well) were perfectly cast, as was Nancy Lammeter, played by Jenny Agutter. It was a thoroughly enjoyable adaptation and one that I look forward to watching again.

When I posted about Silas Marner, Lisa from Lit And Life recommended A Simple Twist of Fate, a modern adaptation starring Steven Martin from 1994. So after I finished the BBC faithful adaptation, I watched A Simple Twist of Fate and am now a fan of it as well.

The modern movie is remarkably faithful to the original story, and Martin makes an understandable and sympathetic misanthropist who is redeemed by the love of the child. I absolutely loved the Dolly Winthrop character, this time named April and played superbly by Catherine O'Hara. Gabriel Byrne as the Godfrey Cass character, this time named John Newland, was excellent, and Laura Linney was Nancy, his gentle, practical wife.

The major difference in the modern version is that the discovery of the child's parentage is made much earlier in her life than in the original. In the original story, Eppie doesn't learn who her real father is until she is 18, at which point she is given the choice of whose daughter she wants to be and there the story ends. In the modern film version, the child (this time named Matilda) learns who her real father is when she is 12, and a custody battle ensues.

My only issue with the movie is some ambiguity about why the judge changes his mind about who to award custody to at the very end. I think that part could have been made clearer, and I had to read up on the film on Wikipedia to get it. Apart from that little hiccup, it's a wonderful modern retelling of a fabulous story created by one of literature's greatest artists, and whom I believed truly entered the canon with this work.

Classics Challenge: George Eliot's Silas Marner

Katherine at November's Autumn is hosting the Classics Challenge and is posting prompts the 4th of every month. This month she is focusing on classic authors. Turns out she and I both are reading George Eliot. Here's a link to Katherine's post on Eliot, aka Maryann Evans.

Now it's my turn.

My first classic of the year is Silas Marner, by George Eliot. I first read this in tenth grade and didn't really warm up to it. What's to warm up to from the perspective of a 15-year-old girl? The hero of the story is unattractive in form and spirit--he has protruding eyes, is elderly (well, mid-30's, but that's elderly to a teenager, just ask Marianne Dashwood!), miserly, naive, and easily duped. We also read Ethan Frome the same semester and I saw Silas Marner and Ethan Frome as twin losers. Needless to say, Silas Marner was got through and quickly shelved and mostly forgotten.

A few years ago, I picked up the audio version from the library and thoroughly enjoyed it. Most of the details I hadn't remembered, and I found the story of the rebirth of Marner's soul and humanity to be moving, beautiful, and enobling. It didn't hurt that I had discovered Middlemarch in college and counted it among my favorite books when I reread Silas Marner. My admiration for George Eliot predisposed me to give Silas Marner a second chance, and I'm so glad I did.

Now, I'm rereading it again, as part of my George Eliot project (i.e., to read her books in order whilst reading a bio of her life), and it's interesting to see where it fits in the evolution of George Eliot as a novelist. I must say that with Silas Marner, she did set out to tell the story of a most challenging protagonist--even at my more mature vantage point, I have to say that he's still a pretty unattractive person at the outset. I have to believe that Eliot consciously picked an unattractive person for this story--I think the reader has to look on Marner with a certain amount of contempt in order for his redemption at the hand of a child to mean so much and to reflect so well the "man in the mirror," which I think Eliot strives to do.

I've only read the first two chapters, but the backstory has been fully told and Silas is a miserly misanthrope whose life is about to be transformed by grace. I'm really looking forward to reading lit crit about this book as well as what Eliot was trying to do with the story. It's much shorter than the two novels that preceded it (i.e., Adam Bede and The Mill on the Floss), and it's very tightly focused on one man, his soul and the child who saves him from himself rather than being about a family or a village or a way of life.

The Mill on the Floss

I've been looking forward to reading The Mill on the Floss for years, and finally got to it during my current project to read all of George Eliot's novels and stories in the order they were written. I've heard for years about what a wonderful character Maggie Tulliver is, and I knew it was a tragedy and had a rough idea of how it ended.

As with so many long anticipated treats, I was a bit disappointed but extremely glad I have read the book and do plan to reread it at some point. Maggie was an interesting character. The afterword to the edition I read made the point that in Eliot's previous novel, Adam Bede, she contrasts two female protagonists, Dinah and Hettie, but in The Mill on the Floss, she provides contrasting forces that struggle within a single female character. I like this way of looking at Maggie, but I think for me her single overriding characteristic is her impulsiveness. It seems she has no filter between what she feels and how she acts, whether it be high or low, manic or depressive. Even near the end, when she is in a stupor, lulled beyond the point of no return by the river and Steven, there is an impulsive, careless quality to her willingness to remain torpid.



I had expected to identify more with Maggie, and perhaps I might have if I had read this book when I was high school or college-aged. I appreciated her mind and thirst for education and knowledge, but her devotion to her churlish brother Tom I found irritating. I admired her friendship with Philip Wakem and understood her passion for Steven Guest and sympathized with her relationship to her cousin Lucy, but I couldn't reconcile all this with her continued role as doormat for Tom.

It's been interesting to see Eliot's progress as a novelist. In a way, Philip Wakem is another take on the physically debilitated hero with an unfortunate keenly developed sense of self and destiny that she introduced in Latimer in The Lifted Veil, the work immediately preceding The Mill on the Floss. In The Mill on the Floss she has written a true tragedy, something she approached with Adam Bede but backed away from in the end.

And then there is the river. While I appreciate a good metaphor, I think that Eliot is far too overt with the symbolism she infuses into the river Floss. Throughout the book she talks of Maggie being swept away on currents of thought and feeling, the inevitability of time rushing on, as well as the ebb and flow of current, the unchangeability of people and society over the long haul, the force contained within the movement of the water. I really felt she was hitting the reader over the head with all this. At times the writing was poetic and true and beautiful, and at times it became melodramatic and banal. That said, I did glimpse from time to time the kind, sympathetic, and just narrator that I so love in Middlemarch.

Now, on to Silas Marner, though it will be a bit before I can tackle it as I signed up to review Hard Times for the Classic Circuit's Dueling Authors (Austen vs Dickens) Tour on May 19, and have a couple of books to finish up before I even start that one. However, I am eager to read Hard Times and compare it to Gaskell's North and South, which were written at about the same time and with the basically subject matter.

Final note, I usually watch an adaptation or two after finishing a classic, but I'm not sure whether I will go this route this time. Netflix has two versions--a 1997 90-minute version with Emma Watson as Maggie, and a 1998 212-minute version with Pippa Guard as Maggie. I'm open to input on which is best or if either is worth watching.

The Lifted Veil

Between writing Adam Bede and The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot wrote a short story, The Lifted Veil, that is quite different from anything else of hers that I have read thus far.

In The Lifted Veil, Eliot dabbles in the supernatural. Known for her devotion to realism, I can't help but wonder what motivated Eliot to write this story in which a rather sickly and not very likeable young man, Latimer, is suddenly struck with the ability to access the thoughts and motivations of other people and to perceive future events, including the time and circumstances of his own death.

The story is very grim--it opens with Latimer anticipating the death he had seen in a vision off and on for years, and as death approaches he tells his life story, which is one of loneliness, heartbreak, and betrayal. He tells of his mother's early death, which robbed him of the only unconditional love he ever experienced, his father's disdain, his brother's contempt, and his wife's attempts to murder him after she stops loving him. The key to this last twist is that he knows when he woos and marries her that she will turn against him eventually, but he still wants her and takes her as his wife with his eyes wide open.

Absent from this story is Eliot's eloquence as well as her realism. Perhaps it is the first person narrative, which means that we are locked into Latimer's point of view and so do not have a sympathetic narrator who can soften or explain Latimer's situation, circumstances, actions, and motivations. Instead, he is left to fend for himself, and I was quite relieved when I finished the story and could wash my hands of him.

On the other hand, I really enjoyed reading Jenny Uglow's discussion of the story in her bio of Eliot--actually, I confess to enjoying the discussion more than the story itself. Here is my favorite passage:

In this Faustian story the hero chooses what he wants now, even though he knows the price will be later misery; for his visions are not of some absolutely determined future, but the future set in motion by the choices he makes. Eliot elaborates the moral by suggesting that what piques our desire most is the unknown; we prefer to live in suspense. Like readers of a novel, even if we know the end we try to forget it and concentrate on the intervening uncertainties of the plot...Foresight is irrelevant. It is not what we can foresee which is important, but how we live the intervening hours in the light of that knowledge.

I loved the notion that this is a Faustian story and looking at it in this way helped me see how it did fit in with other Eliot stories and themes. In some ways, Dr. Lydgate of Eliot's later novel Middlemarch is akin to Latimer in that he chooses to marry Rosamund despite knowing her severe limitations and even glimpsing, in those rare moments when he is truly honest with himself, the misery that marrying her will bring. All he can focus on is that he wants her.

I also loved the idea that "it is not what we can foresee which is important, but how we live the intervening hours in the light of that knowledge." Latimer dies unloved by the reader because he does nothing productive with his knowledge of what is on the other side of the veil. I can't help but think the gift of fore-knowledge was completely squandered on Latimer, and perhaps that was Eliot's point. It is better not to know. Knowing the hour and circumstances of one's death robs a person of the ability to focus on living, fully and in the moment.

I feel that The Lifted Veil was an experiment; as if Eliot wanted to see if she could deal with the themes that shaped her fiction on a supernatural canvas as well as the more comfortable realistic canvas. Given that I don't think she ventured this way again, I have to conclude the results were not satisfactory to her...but that will take another bio or letters to ferret out. All in good time, now I'm looking forward to a first-time reading of The Mill on the Floss.

Adam Bede: now that's the way to do an adaptation!

I watched the 1991 BBC adaptation of George Eliot's Adam Bede last night and was blown away by how good it was. It only took 1 hour and 45 minutes to tell the story of Adam, Hetty, Dinah and Arthur, but I was thrilled that the story was told precisely as Eliot formulated it.

The screenwriter, Maggie Wadey, resisted the urge to invent new motivations for the characters, and I cannot think of a single plot point that wasn't included. Masterfully done. Coming off my recent disappointment with The Woman in White, where wholesale changes were deemed necessary, I was giddy with relief, hence my lavish praise. IMDB lists Wadey's other screenwriting credits and I shouldn't have been surprised at the quality of the writing--she was also responsible for Wharton's The Buccaneers, which I have simply got to find time to read and then rewatch, and my absolute favorite dark horse, Precious Bane, which is not available in any form as far as I can tell. She was also responsible for the latest BBC attempt at Mansfield Park. I hated Billie Piper so much in the role that I can't even recall whether the script was decent or not.

Back to Adam Bede, my only nitpick was that Iain Glen looked too much like Richard Chamberlain when he was in The Thornbirds, but I thought he did a fine job of capturing the interesting combination of arrogance and naivete that is Adam. Patsy Kensit was excellent as sulky, sultry Hetty Sorrel, and Susannah Harker was terrific as Dinah. James Wilby did a good job portraying the weak but well-intentioned Arthur Donnithorne. Visually the movie was a pleasure, staying true to Eliot's pastoral vision as well as showing a realistic view of farm life surrounding country gentry, and the gulf between the classes.

The only real deviation from Eliot's novel was that the movie started with the trial/conviction of Hetty, and then most of the movie was a flashback. This was fine with me, especially since I already knew the story and it cast a pall of doom over frivolous Hetty from the outset, which is really what Eliot also did in her novel.

If only all adaptations could be this true and this good.

Adam Bede

Last year I decided that George Eliot was going to be my new focus, having spent several years reading works by and about Elizabeth Gaskell. I started with Jenny Uglow’s bio of George Eliot, which was the penname of Maryann Evans. I confess I’m slightly disappointed with the bio—I was expecting the same depth and breadth that Uglow provided in her bio of Gaskell, but her bio of Eliot is much briefer and lighter. Nevertheless, I am sticking to my guns and reading Eliot’s works chronologically as I encounter them in the biography, although my pace is much slower than I had hoped having gotten bogged down in her early works.

Adam Bede is Eliot’s first novel. She transitioned from non-fiction to fiction with her set of three short stories that she published under the title Scenes of Clerical Life, which I found very slow going despite being fairly short. Adam Bede clearly grew out of her work with these earlier fictional scenes in that she explores issues of morality, community, familial relationships, and religious calling, particularly Methodism, but her characters in Adam Bede are much more fully developed and complex and her storytelling improved immensely between Scenes of Clerical Life and Adam Bede. The former I had to force myself to continue reading and the latter I had to force myself to put down.

Although the three stories in Scenes of Clerical Life are written in Eliot’s clear prose and provide her characteristic compelling word images—she really is masterful at depicting realistic scenes without becoming pedantic with her level of details- I never really felt a warmth or interest in the characters in Scenes, whereas with Adam Bede, I was able to get to know and care deeply about the fate of Adam, his brother Seth, their mother, their neighbors, the Poysers, and the Poyser’s two nieces, Dinah Morris and Hetty Sorrel. The novel passed the acid test in being able to move me to tears at several points near its end, which is always a good sign.

Back when The Common Reader catalog was still a going concern, I remember reading the blurb on Eliot’s Middlemarch, my all-time favorite novel, and nodding in agreement with the description of the book as being “the wisest book I’ve ever read.” One of the aspects of Eliot’s style that I love is her willingness to articulate the points on her moral compass, and I was happy to see that aspect of Middlemarch in Adam Bede as well. She toyed with it a bit in Scenes, but with Adam Bede her narrative voice comes into its own.

She does a superb job of using her characters and their story to explore issues, but she does what so many authors, especially modern authors, don’t do, namely use her power as a narrator to reflect on the human condition, and she does this with such compassion and understanding for human frailty that I always come away from Middlemarch, and now Adam Bede, with a sense of fortified optimism despite the sorrow and tragedy that tempers the pastoral world Eliot portrays so well.

It seems to me I’ve read critics complain a bit about the unrealistic perfection of Adam himself, but I found him to be a flawed and therefore an interesting character. It’ s true that he is handsome, strong, and noble, but he is also willfully naïve when it comes to Hetty Sorrel to the point you want to shake him. Likewise, Arthur Donnithorne, his rival and counterpart, is truly a tragic figure because he has so many good qualities. I couldn’t help but compare the story of Hetty Sorrel to both Gaskell’s Ruth that preceded it and Hardy’s Tess that came after it. I think Eliot’s Arthur Donnithorne is a more complex and sympathetic villain than either Gaskell’s Bellingham or Hardy’s Alec d’Uberville.



Now for the BBC adaptation from 1991. I will give it a try, though I was shocked and appalled by the Woman in White travesty I tried to watch after completing that book so I’m not holding out a lot of hope that this will wow me…but you never know! Susannah Harker played the divine Methodist preaching woman, Dinah Morris, before she became Jane Bennet in BBC’s masterpiece Pride and Prejudice. Dinah is actually my favorite character in the book, and I found in her more than a little bit of Middlemarch’s Dorothea Brooke, one of my favorite heroines, particularly in how she ultimately lets herself live within the passionate love that she cannot disown.

I cannot imagine not rereading Adam Bede again in the not too distant future. It's a wonderful book by a brilliant novelist that has given me a lot to think about.

Mr Gilfil's Love-Story

Mr. Gilfil's Love Storyis the second of three short stories that make up George Eliot's first attempt at fiction, Scenes of Clerical Life. I mentioned in my post on The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton that it sort of struck me as a writing exercise. Well, this one does too. It's almost as if Eliot said, "okay, this time I'm going to write about the gentry, now that I've tackled the poorer end of the clergy."

During most of the story, I was wondering why it was titled as it was because the main character is not Mr Maynard Gilfil but Caterina, an Italian orphan who was adopted by Lord and Lady Cheverel, patrons of Mr Gilfil. Caterina is a tiny surrogate daughter to the Cheverel with the voice of an angel and the passions of a Carmen. She is fatally attracted to Captain Anthony Wybrow, the nephew and heir of the Cheverels, a pompous, empty-headed Greek God who breaks her heart. Mr Gilfil, makes up the third player in this lovers triangle, having devoted his life to worshipping Caterina, or Tina as everyone calls her. His heart is true, he is strong and noble and long-suffering, and Caterina is foolish, headstrong, and blind. I think the most interesting characters are actually Lord and Lady Cheverel, who transcend stereotype and are truly interesting, complex, realistic people.

My only criticism of these first two stories of Eliot's is that as a narrator she seems to keep both her characters and the reader at arms length. She describes what her characters are thinking and feeling, but unlike Austen, for example, with her use of free indirect discourse, I never feel like I can get inside any character's head, hence I can find their stories interesting but I have no real empathy for them.

On the other hand, the stories are replete with Eliot's articulate, compassionate prose, which makes her one of my favorite authors. Here are a couple of passages that I particularly liked.

I, at least. hardly ever look at a bent old man, or a wizened old woman, but I see also, with my mind's eye, that Past of which they are the shrunken remnant, and the unfinished romance of rosy cheeks and bright eyes seems sometimes of feeble interest and significance, compared with that drama of hope and love which has long ago reached its catastrophe, and left the poor soul, like a dim and dusty stage, with all its sweet garden-scenes and fair perspectives overturned and thrust out of sight.

(Chapter 1)

In both The Sad Fortunes of Rev. Amos Barton and Mr Gilfil's Love-Story, Eliot's narrator tells a story that took place a good fifty years, and I think the quote above illustrates Eliot's interest in this type of story.

In this way - in these broken confessions and answering words of comfort - the hours wore on, from the deep black night to the chill early twilight, and from early twilight to the first yellow streak of morning parting the purple cloud. Mr Gilfil felt as if in the long hours of that night the bond that united his love for ever and alone to Caterina had acquired fresh strength and sanctity. It is so with the human relations that rest on the deep emotional sympathy of affection: every new day and night of joy or sorrow is a new ground, a new consecration, for the love that is nourished by memories as well as hopes - the love to which perpetual repetition is not a weariness but a want, and to which a separated joy is the beginning of pain.

(Chapter 19)

I like Eliot's equating love (i.e., "human relations that res on the deep emotional sympathy of affection") with sanctity, and that love is consecrated continually.

Contented speckled hens, industriously scratching for the rarely-found corn, may sometimes do more for a sick heart than a grove of nightingales; there is something irresistibly calming in the unsentimental cheeriness of top-knotted pullets, unpetted sheep-dogs, and patient cart-horses enjoying a drink of muddy water.

(Chapter 20)

I love how Eliot describes how the ordinariness of life being lived can soothe and heal a distressed soul. She is definitely more Elinor than Marianne here!

The Sad Fortunes of Rev. Amos Barton

The Sad Fortunes of Rev. Amos Barton is the first of three short stories that constitute George Eliot's first fiction work, Scenes of Clerical Life. I think both the short story and the longer work suffer from overly pedantic titles. I have been looking forward to and talking about reading the bulk of Eliot's work this year, but I have to admit that I was a bit hesitant to dive into Scenes of Clerical Life because, frankly, it sounded a bit dull. Perhaps I was expecting something like Mr. Collins reading Fordyce's Sermons, but I have great faith in George Eliot, so plunged in last week.

Eliot did not let me down, and I enjoyed the story of Rev. Amos Barton very much, though his fortunes are, indeed, very sad. From the little bit I've read about Eliot (aka Marian Evans) thus far, this work was not only her first attempt at fiction, but also served as the laboratory in which she put into practice her theories about realism in fiction. To achieve realism, virtually every character in each of the three stories in Scenes of Clerical Life is closely modeled on people she knew whilst growing up in Coventry and Nuneaton in Warwickshire. The work was initially published anonymously, and apparently another former resident of these towns didn't contradict others who attributed the work to him, so Eliot decided to come forward and acknowledge that she had written stories.

Like so many Victorian stories, The Sad Fortunes of Rev. Amos Barton is a framed story, with the narrator telling the story of Rev. Barton, who was curate of Shepperton Church twenty years earlier when he/she lived there. Shepperton is a village akin to Eliot's Middlemarch and Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford, and is peopled by not only the unfortunate Barton family but a plethora of gossips who inhabit both the great houses as well as the small ones and who are only too happy to tell the visiting narrator what they think of Rev. Barton.

After I finished the story, I was struck by how similar the Barton family was to the Bronte family--the leader of the family, a clergyman in both cases, loves his wife dearly, and shows his love by getting her pregnant almost continually from the time of their marriage. Like Mrs. Bronte, Mrs. Barton dies in her mid-30's, completely worn out from continuous childbearing, leaving behind a house full of motherless children, the oldest of which takes on the role of housekeeper and companion for the sad black-clad father. The twist to the story is that of the Countess, who scholars believe was a complete invention of Eliot's and my favorite character in the story. She is pretty, young widow who befriends the Bartons to the point where the inhabitants of Shepperton believe that Rev. Barton is having an affair with the Countess. Being moral, upright, hypocritical types, they shun the Barton family, although they all feel sorry for the ever-weakening Mrs. Barton. Shunning the Rev. means being tight when it comes to paying the curate for his services, and with a growing family, the Bartons sink further and further into debt. Of course, Rev. Barton is too proud to tell his congregation that they are mistaken about him and the Countess, and the good people of Shepperton don't realize that they have irreparably damaged the good Reverend and his angelic wife until it's too late.

The interesting thing about this story is the character sketch of Rev. Amos Barton--he is startling in his ordinariness. Characters like Jane Eyre and Molly Gibson, while their creators/narrators insist that they are ordinary, rise above the common herd because of their grit, integrity, compassion, or some other ennobling attribute. Amos Barton does not--he is a bit vain, a bit self-deluded, of average looks and capabilities but with a good heart. He has found a good woman who truly loves him, and he values her. His is an ordinary life, and Eliot's talent lies in her ability to make us care about him and his family despite his mundane story.

Having read and loved Middlemarch, Eliot's masterpiece, for years, it's interesting to see Eliot as she embarks on her voyage as a writer of fiction. She strikes me as methodical in her approach to her work. First she was an editor; then she was a translator; then she wrote non-fiction pieces on philosophy, art, literature, and politics. When she decided to write fiction, she started with vignettes of a way of life she knew intimately. I'll be interested to see whether the other two stories in Scenes of Clerical Life also read as a writing exercise--I'm expecting them to.

Despite reading like a writing exercise, Eliot's lovely precise yet sympathetic prose shines through--she seems to me a careful surgeon as she dissects and exposes the lives that inhabit her fictional world.

Here is her description of Amos Barton's oratorical skills in Chapter 2:

We read, indeed, that the walls of Jericho fell down before the sound of trumpets; but we nowhere hear that those trumpets were hoarse and feeble. Doubtless they were trumpets that gave forth clear ringing tones, and sent a mighty vibration through brick and mortar. But the oratory of the Rev. Amos resembled rather a Belgian railway-horn, which shows praiseworthy intentions inadequately fulfilled.

Here's my favorite line from the book, which I've already tweeted, I loved it so much:

Every man who is not a monster, mathematician or a mad philosopher, is the slave of some woman or other.

I may have to get t-shirts done up with this line on them!

With regards to striving for realism, a term that some scholars say Eliot was the first to use, her narrator says in Chapter 7:

For not having a lofty imagination, as you perceive, and being unable to invent thrilling incidents for your amusement, my only merit must lie in the truth with which I represent to you the humble experience of an ordinary fellow-mortal. I wish to stir your sympathy with commonplace troubles—to win your tears for real sorrow: sorrow such as may live next door to you—such as walks neither in rags nor in velvet, but in very ordinary decent apparel.

It will be interesting to see how Eliot's narrators evolve throughout the body of her work. The narrator in Amos Barton is very intrusive--telling us when we are going to leave one conversation and go eavesdrop on another.

From Maryann Evans to Marian Evans to George Eliot

I started the Jenny Uglow bio of George Eliot, who was christened Maryann Evans and subsequently assumed various pennames before settling on George Eliot. She is a daunting person, no doubt about it, not nearly as approachable as either Elizabeth Gaskell or Charlotte Bronte, and with a much deeper record of non-fiction works that reflect her intimidating intellect than has Austen. I've enjoyed Middlemarch immensely in the past, and am looking forward to rereading Silas Marner, Adam Bede and reading for the first time the rest of her novels and stories. I'm also planning on reading some of her essays, reviews, and poems as well in the course of reading the bio.

I had thought I might actually start by reading her translation of David Frederich Strauss's Das Leben Jesu, which was first published in 1846 under the title The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined. I did manage to get a copy through interlibrary loan, but reading the introduction, hefting the tome a few times, and scanning the chapter headings convinced me that I simply did have the time, motivation, staying power, or background to tackle it. I will have to take the assertion by both Uglow and A.S. Byatt, editor of the collection of Selected Essays, Poems and Other Writings, that it was "one of the most influential in changing attitudes to Christian belief and interpretation" in the nineteenth century.



I had visions of reading this translation because it was the first major work that she produced, and it seems to have had a profound impact on her life and work as a novelist. She took on the translation task at the urging of uber intellectual friends and immersed herself in it (i.e., translating over 1500 pages from German to English) for two years, beginning at the ripe old age of 23. During this time, she was nursing her father, who died in 1848. The stress of this time in her life is compounded when you realize that her father, a devout Evangelical, deeply resented her decision in 1841 to no longer attend church with him because she had ceased to believe in the doctrine and rituals.

Fortunately, Selected Essays, Poems and Other Writings did contain a few excerpts that I did manage to read, and I think I might have gotten a germ of what it meant to her in the excerpt from 'Concluding Dissertation: The Dogmatic Import of the Life of Jesus' in which Strauss/Evans equates Jesus as divine to humanity (collectively) as divine, with Jesus as an allegory for humanity.

I have no wish to turn this blog into a place for theological debate. What I want to get to is an understanding of Eliot's point-of-view. In this case, I think authorial point-of-view matters because it clearly mattered to her. More than other authors, at least those I have studied, Eliot saw her work as art and she consciously tried to create the highest form of art that she could and understanding what she considered the highest form of art and what she considered divine is important, at least for me, when reading her novels this time around.

Now I think I can move on, return The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined to the library (whew!), and relax.

Now I think I'll go find a cup of tea and read some more of Diana Gabaldon's The Fiery Cross before I fall through the Looking Glass. That I can understand!

Potpourri

How did a week go by without a post? Oh, yeah, it was Thanksgiving week here in the U.S.

What have I been doing? Well, for starters, we invited my parents up for the holiday. They live about 100 miles south of us--just 1.5 hours or so if the traffic is light. They are 86 and 88 and since our house is full of stairs, we all decided that a Courtyard Marriott would be sleeping quarters for them. Between picking them up Wednesday, cooking a wonderful dinner Wednesday night, shuttling them back and forth between our house and the Marriott for much needed naps while they were visiting, cooking a fabulous Thanksgiving feast on Thursday, teaching my mom how to make coffee in the hotel room, teaching my mom how to deal with those new-fangled plastic key cards, watching several episodes of Animal Planet, catching up on all the family doings, taking them back home on Friday, I'm just glad we have leftovers to last for awhile!

On the reading front, I have started and given up on Bronteby Glyn Hughes. It was better than The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Bronte, but on the whole rather flat really little more than dramatizing well-worn tales from Bronte lore. I'm not quite sure what I expected but I found myself growing impatient and rolling my eyes, so I figured this book wasn't a good way to spend my precious reading time.

I've also been plowing my way through the Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne mystery series by Julia Spencer-Fleming. I reached book five, All Mortal Flesh yesterday and was shocked to find that the series had jumped the shark! ****SPOILERS**** skip to the next paragraph if you don't want to learn that Spencer-Fleming did a cardinal no-no in my opinion. She killed off Russ's wife, Linda. Maybe some day I will read the novel and find out why, but I was so ticked off that Spencer-Fleming betrayed my trust as a reader that I returned the book to the library and will Clare and Russ a rest for awhile. Maybe I was irked because book four, To Darkness and to Death, was so terrific--the whole novel took place in one day and it was really well-written and interesting in that the mystery wasn't figuring out which dastardly arch villain was orchestrating the mayhem but instead was a study in how ordinary people can find themselves going down very dark psychological alleys when pushed hard enough. I was thinking how marvelous Spencer-Fleming was developing as an author, and then she pulled that cheap trick in book five.

So, I started Paul Collins's The Book of William: How Shakespeare's First Folio Conquered the World. So far so good. Collins is an excellent writer--I've learned three new words and I've only read the first 50 pages--and the subject matter is compelling. Learning tons about the publishing industry in the early 1600s in London right now, and anticipating learning even more about Shakespeare, his colleagues, life in London, and how the First Folio conquered the world. BTW, I did finish A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare and need to find time to do my last blog on it...Hamlet. This was definitely my favorite book of 2009.

I also just started Jenny Uglow's bio of George Eliot. I enjoyed her bio of Gaskell so much that I have decided to read about Eliot while reading her works.

I did read another Henry James story--The Romance of Certain Old Clothes--and was again disappointed in James and the story. Nothing particularly wonderful in the way it was written, and the subject matter has been done to death. Sisters who are jealous rivals, and one haunts the other. Grim, misogynistic, uninspired. I am going to have to read Daisy Miller so I can give James his due.

Finally, I did read the first installment of The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. I am on the email list for the installments, following the same publication schedule as the serialization of the novel 150 years ago. This is a reread for me, but I read the original so fast for plot years ago that I don't remember a lot of it.




On the adaptation front, I am on episode 11 of the first season of The House of Elliot. Evie and Bea are friends again, Jack is courting Bea, and Lydia is desperate to get back into London society. So much has happened in the first 10 episodes that it almost seems like several seasons worth of plot. I wonder whether this season was actually cancelled or if the producers simply ran out of steam after running so hard so fast. I'm still loving it, thinking about bobbing my hair, and dressing exclusively in 1920's fashions, including the hats! V. chic.

Ironic reversal....comedy, tragedy and Austen

I'm just about to start rereading Gaskell's last, unfinished novel, Wives and Daughters (Penguin Classics), and so last night started the Introduction in my Penguin Classics version by Pam Norris. In this Introduction, Norris presents a completely wonderful idea that delineates W&D from Middlemarch, another one of my favorite novels.

Both novels turn on what Norris terms "ironic reversals." For example, in W&D "Osborne Hamley's plan to reconcile his father to his secret marriage is, in the event, effected by his untimely death, not by literary immortaility as he had dreamed. This ironic reversal is deeply sad, but on the whole the persistent upsetting of human scheming imbues the novel with an optimistic spirit of comic regeneration...This makes a striking contrast to George Eliot's Middlemarch, in which the determining minutiae of social mischances imperceptibly bear down with tragic force upon human hopes and aspirations. In Wives and Daughters many seemingly arbitrary circumstances form the chain of cause and effect that lead Mr Gibson into his ill-judged proposal, but the resulting marriage is represented by Gaskell in a predominantly comic light of human fraility, compromise and self-deceptions. The result is survival not destruction."

Many lovers of Austen's novels have found another author to love in Gaskell, particularly W&D, which many say is closest to Austen. And in this aspect of ironic reversals leading to a comedic world view rather than a tragic one, I have to wonder whether this might be the nugget in Gaskell that grabs Janeites and holds them fast.

Bits and Bobs

Observations on both books that I'm currently reading.

I'm sailing through Daphne, and am nearing the end. It is still as fascinating at this point and getting more impressive. I love how Picardie is able to keep the three voices balanced, and I truly love how the stories of Branwell and the Brontes, Syminton, Daphne du Maurier and her pathetic husband, his Snow Queen, and, of course, her Rebecca, parallel and weave with the modern unnamed heroine and her Paul and his Rachel and Menabilly/Manderley. I have just got to read the recent bio of du Maurier.

In reading about Symington and his futile attempts to bring order and articulation to his life's work (and theft, er, borrowing) with regards to Branwell, I am reminded of Casaubon in George Eliot's Middlemarch. Much as I love and identify with Dorothea, I truly feel sorry for Casaubon. He has what I have come to call the Amadeus complex--he recognizes genius, appreciates genius, and is tormented because as close as he gets to the sublime in art, as much as he is moved by it, he can never produce a work that approaches greatness. For him, it's not enough to appreciate and enjoy. He wants to create, and his efforts can never be more than pedantic, and he knows it in his heart. For me, that is Symington.

I am also still slowly working my way through Rebecca Dickson's A Jane Austen Treasury. One of the gems in this book is her micro essay regarding why anyone should watch the Laurence Olivier/Greer Garson Pride and Prejudice movie from 1940. I've always enjoyed the campiness of it, as well as the cinematic sexiness of Olivier. But, Dickson's sidebar talks about how this movie actually was part of Britain's propaganda to bring the U.S. into WWII on the side of the Allies, showing how Darcy wasn't really against the middle classes (aka the American Dream). According to Dickson, this movie demonstrates, by having Lady Catherine conspiring with Darcy to confirm that Elizabeth will love him as much if he's a poor man, that if the U.S. joins the war effort it "isn't going to war to help save an aristocracy--they're going to war to help the adorable Lizzie Bennet and her soon-to-be aunt-in-law, the chummy Cathy Bourgh." I give Dickson 10 gold stars for this analysis. I love it!