I finally finished this book, having found the last half a trial to get through.
The first half engaged me more. I admire Devoney Looser for her abilitI finally finished this book, having found the last half a trial to get through.
The first half engaged me more. I admire Devoney Looser for her ability to really dig in on the research, and turn up all kinds of quirky and interesting (or "wild") factoids. I also rolled my eyes hard at some of the conclusions she tossed off, mostly interpretations of various bits of Jane Austen's novels that seemed unsupported and even just dead wrong.
For example, in Northangr Abbey, when Catherine begs Isabella not to tell her what is behind the black veil in Mysteries of Udopho, Looser says, "We could interpret this line, wild to know yet not wanting to be told, as pointing to Catherine's desire to remain in a make-believe world. But we ould also interpret it as her admirably stubborn (and rather unfeminine) desire to learn on her own."
Which reads to me as a rather breathless, pearl-clutching way of saying, "Catherine didn't want spoilers."
Looser later quotes a portion of Austen's decidedly tongue-in-cheek ending for Northanger Abbey : "It is a new circumstance in romance, I acknowledge, and dreadfully derogatory of an heroine's dignity; but if it be as new in common life, the credit of a wild imagination will at least be all my own." But then Looser goes on to say, "As this conditional statement must lead us to conclude, although Austen's wild imagination is not an everyday sort of wild, it's wild in the pages of a novel."
Um, no, I don't see that conclusion at all. First of all, Northanger Abbey is no more "wild" than Jane Austen was, from what little we know of her life. She's being sarcastic here! Not wild!
There are other instances where Looser's attempt to hang "wildness" on Austen herself, or on her fictions, strain incredulity in order to keep the word squarely before the reader's eye. So rigorous is this determination that I began to flinch a little each time a new "wild" cropped up
So it took me a long time to finish the book. In conclusion, good points for me: diligent research, and some interesting early chapters. The last half could have been chopped as I have zero interest in tracking down Jane Austen erotic fanfiction (and there's tons more of it than Looser seems aware), nor in Austen films that never got made, or in obscure books that make up facts about Austen with zero support, or in a long list of famous people who loathed or loved Jane Austen's work. But those items might entertain another reader, and read less like they were there to pad out a text to book length, when it just as well could have been a lengthy paper for JSTOR....more
The title, the reader soon learns, is literal. The author explains why she decided to assemble a shelf of Jane Austen’s books—that is, the ones, writtThe title, the reader soon learns, is literal. The author explains why she decided to assemble a shelf of Jane Austen’s books—that is, the ones, written by women, that Austen read and mentioned in her letters.
The Jane Austen fan, or reader of Enlightenment Era books is aware that Austen undoubtedly read a lot more than we see named in the letters, which are a fraction of those she wrote. There is no mention of Aphra Behn, or Mary Davys, or even Eliza Heywood, whose great popularity a generation before Austen was born surely meant that her books were to be found in any library that included novels. But these are the names culled from the letters that Jane Austen’s sister Cassandra left for us.
In this book, Romney sets out to acquaint herself with not only the works of these female authors, but with the writers themselves. Most of these authors I’ve already encountered, but I find it fun to read others’ takes on their work. And I really enjoy a literary exploration that brings in the writer’s own experiences and perspective.
Romney is a rare book dealer, which shapes the structure of this book; though I did skim past descriptions of searches for specific copies, and the deets of auctions, as I have never had the discretionary income to spend on rare books, I comprehend cathexis, and agree that some of the satisfaction of reading a physical book is the feel of the book, the font, the illos—and the commentary inside from long-gone owners of the copy. Plus one’s memories of when one first encountered the book, and the emotions evoked by picking up that copy once again. I own a first edition of Chesterfield’s Letters. The pages were uncut, which meant it sat untouched on someone’s shelf for over two hundred years. It might be worth something, it might not. But I would have cherished it far more had this copy been worn from much reading, perhaps with notes and comments from Enlightenment-era or Victorian-era or even early twentieth century previous owners.
So once I skimmed past the auction parts of Romney’s searches, I really enjoyed her description of the physical books. The feel of them in her hands. Her delight in discovering writing on flyleaves.
Another aspect of this book that I relished was Romney’s awareness of the human being behind the printed pages. She gives the reader a quick and sympathetic history of each woman, even of Hannah More, whose work Romney finally gave up on. (Um, yes, so did I. If only there had been even a glimmer of humor…) This book is filled with insights, and also questions. Even when I disagree with Romney’s conclusions, I can see where she’s coming from—and can imagine sitting around a comfortable tea room, exchanging ideas.
She begins with Ann Radcliffe, whose work I don’t like any more than I like Hannah More’s, though for different reasons. I don’t care for Gothick suspense, and the thread of anti-Catholicism running through Radcliffe’s books doesn’t make it worth reading for the elegiac landscape descriptions, much less the creepy horrors and grues. But I appreciated Romney’s digging into the reviews of Radcliff’s books written in her lifetime, and I followed with interest Romney’s detective work tracing the gradual disappearance of Radcliff from popularity, to her present near-obscurity. Romney goes into the “explained supernatural” (in other words, all the supposed supernatural encounters in the books turn out to have rational explanations—unlike Horry Walpole’s ridiculous and flagrantly male-gazey The Castle of Otranto). Romney points out that in keeping her books firmly within the explained supernatural, Radcliffe was bringing logic to an emotional argument. She then traces through reviews and news reports about Radcliffe the false claims that Radcliffe stopped writing because she had sunk into madness.
In exploring this idea, Romney brings forth the seldom-acknowledged point that Catherine Morland, the teenage heroine of Northanger Abbey, who is so delighted by her discovery of Gothic novels that she brings the “emotional logic” of Gothics to imagining Mrs. Tilney being locked up before her death, learns from her mistakes, which are made in the ignorance of youth. Unlike General Tilney and his own quite Gothic, and ridiculous, assumptions about Catherine. He, an experienced man of middle years, has no excuse!
In wrestling with Hannah More’s determination that human beings are morally obliged to stay in their place (that includes women being subordinate to men), Romney states: “I found myself sitting for ten minutes at a time with a Hannah More biography in my lap, staring at nothing. This, too, is a part of reading. What we feel when we read does not remain on the page. We take it with us. We absorb it. It doesn’t have to change us, exactly (though it can, but it does affect us. It becomes a part of all the little moments that make up our lives.”
It's insights like this one, strewn through the book, that made it such a delicious read, as she goes on to give similar attention to Charlotte Lennox, Elizabeth Inchbald, Maria Edgeworth, and Hester Thrale Piozzi. And then traces how and why these women, once so famous, fell out of favor.
Did I agree with everything Romney brings up? No. She calls the unctuous, freckled Mrs. Clay from Persuasion a fraud, which I think is disingenuous; it’s true that Jane Austen’s narrator despises Mrs. Clay, but her situation, and her behavior at crucial points, isn’t a whole lot different from that of Mrs. Smith, who is better born, and who the narrator favors.
And again, Romney, in mentioning Mansfield Park seems to regard Fanny Price as humorless (wrong), and professes not to understand why Fanny disapproves of Inchbald’s play being mounted by the young people. She doesn’t seem to distinguish that it’s not the play Fanny objects to, it’s the flagrant disrespect for the missing Bertram paterfamilias—a disrespect that all the others are quite aware of when Sir Thomas comes unexpectedly home. But I blather at length about that in my review here on Goodreads.
And from specific instances to general points, Romney maintains that several of these authors’ books are great literature, and deserve rediscovery. This of course goes straight into subjective territory. My own feeling is that there are indeed terrific moments in all of these books, and one can see how they influenced Austen, but (to generalize drastically) they share one fault: unexamined tropes, or downright cliches, both in plot and in language. Whereas Austen was side-eyeing these tropes, and the threadbare figurative language common to all these writers (such as blazing eyes, and frequent faintings, etc etc), and either playing with the expectations or abjuring them altogether. Which is what elevates Austen from really entertaining writer to genius. But again, highly subjective.
My point is, even when Romney and I come to different conclusions, I enjoyed her description of how she got there, and why. I enjoyed this book to such an extent that I plan to buy a print copy once it comes out, and to recommend it to my face-to-face Jane Austen Discussion Group. We should have a blast exploring all its ideas....more
"Shakespear's Sisters" does not mean Shakespear's actual family, but we could say sisters in spirit, in other words, woman writers roughly of the same"Shakespear's Sisters" does not mean Shakespear's actual family, but we could say sisters in spirit, in other words, woman writers roughly of the same period. This engagingly written, at times vivid and image-rich academic work rewarded slow reading. Absolutely solid with primary source grounding and quotations, the book examines the lives and work of four women, and their impact on the evolving scene of English literature.
It's especially interesting to see these various ways the modern novel was beginning to bud. Fiction of course has been around for a long time. Chaucer being a fine example. But the evolution, particularly with respect to the twists and turns of English history--the puritan era--is an absorbing subject in itself.
It's all there: early publicity (coffee houses, broadsides) plays, women writing plays, fictional autobiography, education of women, translating across languages, balancing the inner life of the writer with that of a woman of the times, and her obligations. Targoff's book is well worth having in hardback, so that one can reference its stellar notes....more
I've enjoyed David Bratman's writing for many years. He's also a terrific presenter at conferences and conventions, and because I know his voice, I caI've enjoyed David Bratman's writing for many years. He's also a terrific presenter at conferences and conventions, and because I know his voice, I can hear it reading these essays--and that means I catch the little grin in his voice when he slides a pun in, or another clever bit.
But that's an aside. I liked the first half of this book more than I liked the second half, though I found most everything interesting. I would cheerfully have paid the full price for Essay 7, a succinct, even-handed, informative yet entertaining look at the Inklings--who they were, when they started, and how they regarded themselves. It takes some detective work to get into these questions since they were never a formal club, or rather, there was a brief club that vanished and then sort of reappeared, evolving over the years before, during, and after WW II.
Another essay that I loved for its surprises as well as the humor was "Top Ten Rejected Plot Twists from Lord of the Rings: A Textual Excursion into "The History of LOTR." This is made possible because Tolkien saved everything. And it seems that David Bratman has read it all.
Another really valuable essay is the first one, an introduction to JRRT's work.
Then there are the essays on Tolkien's other work, and also other writers. I enjoyed the one that posits "Smith of Wootton Major" as a perfect fairy story, though I don't agree. Or maybe it's that definition of fairy story. I've never been much interested in fairies or the fae. My own preference is for "Leaf by Niggle," which I consider a perfect short story--the perfect short story, in fact.
Bratman also writes interestingly about Gormenghast, which I never liked, and still don't, but I can almost see what he finds valuable there, besides skilled prose; ditto with his exploration of Roger Zelazny, whose work I can enjoy in part, but mostly leaves me indifferent. Ditto the essay on Lord Dunsany, who I've found uncompelling, especially his female characters. (Oh gawd, those paper-thin female characters!) The essay on LeGuin's Earthsea is quite enthusiastic, and so on.
I have to say that I enjoyed the "Squiggles" section of the essays more than the ones on other authors, but only because there was a lot of humor, for example "The Condensed Silmarillion." And a heartfelt, poignant appreciation of Paul Edwin Zimmer, who was a friend, and who died far too young.
I enjoyed this book enough to feel that though I bought the ebook, I might actually like to have this in print, for easier dipping into for rereads....more
The title, in retrospect, seems to be ironic as one of the things Puschak states is that he doesn't believe there is any meaning to anything. Except oThe title, in retrospect, seems to be ironic as one of the things Puschak states is that he doesn't believe there is any meaning to anything. Except of course what we might create ourselves.
Title aside, for the most part I found these rambles about popular culture, education, and other things to be engaging, even enthusiastic at times--such as his essay on Lord of the Rings--his having watched the films fifty times. (Which already sets us apart; I've probably read the books fifty times, but the films, no. I saw the first film three times, two of those with my son, and once with the spouse, and once each for the other two.) But what Pushak had to say was interesting as a contrast to my perceptions of the legendarium. And in some ways, we were totally on the same page.
I also enjoyed the first essay, which explores education vs. enthusiasm for learning. The rest of the essays varied, the one on Superman reading to me like a guy's take on Superman, and I didn't finish the one on Seinfeld--I tried twice to watch some of the show, but both times got to where this loud, boring guy mansplained at the top of his lungs to a captive audience and I flipped the channel both times. I tried reading the essay but nothing engaged me in the opening graphs, so I moved on.
Another "man's POV" essay was his look at "The Comforts of Cyberpunk." Bladerunner left me cold for the exact reasons he felt cut free--the total lack of relationships. I never made it all the way through the film back then or the redo, though the spouse loves it. I always fell asleep around the same spot. That said, the quotes were fine ones, and the essay articulated a lot of why the spouse likes it.
Altogether an interesting set of explorations of contemporary culture. ...more
If I did stars, this set of essays would get all the stars.
These well-written, well-researched essays by a variety of academics and writers examine thIf I did stars, this set of essays would get all the stars.
These well-written, well-researched essays by a variety of academics and writers examine the serious dearth of romance for people of color--while not overlooking the pioneers who published in spite of the hard push of accepted wisdom that only white people read. All through this book shout-outs for early romances aimed for the Black reader get air time. In fact, the list of books at the end, and the bibliography for further reading, are worth the price alone.
But first, enjoy the essays.
We all know that publishing has been, and is, all about book as "product" and what got published was what publishers assumed everyone wanted, everyone being the white book buyer. This generally accepted factoid, and how it is at last crumbling, is examined from all angles in the essays.
The selection is smartly chosen, ranging from academic to enthusiastic writers who talk about fan fiction as well as romance. Queer and trans perspectives are not overlooked, which furnishes a deeply appreciated window into how much Black readers in particular (many with reading tastes much like mine) had to go through to find even a modicum of representation.
For an excellent, in-depth review Goodreads reviewer Grace Tjan does a much better job than I would, hampered as I am by how few of Yong/Cha's works hFor an excellent, in-depth review Goodreads reviewer Grace Tjan does a much better job than I would, hampered as I am by how few of Yong/Cha's works have been translated into English.
An American without reading-level Mandarin trying to delve into the long history of wuxia and xianxia is very much like trying to view a panorama through a keyhole. This book was fascinating on so many levels, though it was slow going. It has the structure of a dissertation, with long, jargon-laden sentences, and some very peculiar neologisms (like "narratorial" instead of "narrative") but I found it worth working my way through it slowly over a period of weeks.
Impressions I came away with: Jin Yong had steeped himself in the wuxia tradition. From the one novel I've read translated, and several media interpretations of his work, I can see the bones of wuxia tradition in the highly picaresque nature of his stories. But also, it seems, he was quite conscious of using jianghu tales in order to comment on current events--something that could be quite dangerous during the volatile sixties and seventies in mainland China. But this, too, seems to be a characteristic of wuxia: the tales that lasted the longest contain oblique commentary on their times.
This book was also interesting in how it traced Yong's use of his publishing medium (basically a tabloid, one of many published in Hong Kong) to foster his work through commentary on it, and letters from fans (whether actual fans or sock puppetry). Hamm traces the beginnings of the literary and academic world, which has also undergone dramatic sea changes in China, as they begin to grapple with Yong's legacy. The only phenomenon I can think of to compare him with in American literary landscape is Stephen King....more
One of the reasons Shakespeare is still passionately read today is how extraordinarily sharp was his insight into the complexities of human nature—andOne of the reasons Shakespeare is still passionately read today is how extraordinarily sharp was his insight into the complexities of human nature—and how he managed to make poetry even of the muck of evil.
The opening chapters are worth the price of the book alone as Greenblatt gives the reader a precis of Tudor history and culture, focusing on playwrights, censorship, and the social as well as political climate.
The specifics are so enlightening. I had not known, for example, that a couple of would-be rebels against Queen Elizabeth paid for a private performance of Richard II (a play, one of them seemingly remembered, depicting the downfall of a monarch) not long before they were arrested and executed. The actors were briefly arrested, but released when they pointed out that they were paid to give their play, and knew nothing of politics. They were actors, and that was an old, out-of-fashion play.
But this and other instances of danger for artists apparently, Greenblatt feels, inspired Shakespeare to set his plays firmly in the past. Mixing geography and names and cultures didn’t matter. Bohemia could border the sea. The fanciful trappings enabled him to make his commentary on current life safely oblique (or, as Emily Dickinson wrote a few centuries after, “Tell it slant”).
Greenblatt first examines the histories, then other plays centered around tyrants, the corruption of their morals and manners, and the way they prey on the common people while using them. Slogans are so easy to create an us against them mentality: “rage generates insults, and insults generate outrageous actions, and outrageous actions, in turn, heighten the intensity of the rage.”
Sound familiar?
There is no doubt that Greenblatt had current American politics in mind when he wrote this book, which focuses on the psychotic, sociopathic, narcissistic and venal tyrants of the plays, and how and why they were defeated. He contrasts these tyrants, and the circumstances in which each rose, sending me paging through my Shakespeare time after time to reread passages with renewed insight.
Furthermore, Greenblatt incisively teases out Shakespeare’s most powerful observations on the irreparable cost of tyranny even after the tyrant is finally gotten rid of.
Shakespeare was aware, centuries ago, that the common folk cannot always be counted on as a bulwark against tyranny. Greenblatt writes, “They were, [Shakespeare] thought, too easily manipulated by slogans, cowed by threats, or bribed by trivial ‘gifts’ to serve as reliable defenders of freedom.” Shakespeare knew well that it was difficult to stand up for human decency if the threat (right now) is not directly relevant to you.
It is said that hard times make heroes, but what exactly is a hero? In examining Julius Caesar, Greenblatt pulls out Brutus’s chilling ruminations on why it was necessary to kill the tyrant.
His long soliloquy undermines any attempt to draw a clean line between abstract political principles and particular individuals, with their psychological peculiarities, their unpredictability, their only partially knowable, opaque inwardness. The verbs “would” and “might” shimmer and dance their ambiguous way through the twists and turns of a mind obsessed.
Further, Greenblatt comments on how, in this play, the violent act made in desperate attempt to save the republic destroyed it: with the death of Caesar, Caesarism emerged triumphant.
I found especially interesting Greenblatt’s commentary on that hot mess, Coriolanus. He begins the section by observing that societies, like individuals, generally protect themselves from sociopaths. But sometimes they can’t.
He goes on to talk about how, yet again, though Shakespeare sets the play safely in the distant past, it appears to be addressing urgent and immediate affairs such as food shortages and bad harvests, exacerbated by rich landlords practicing enclosure of common lands. This play begins with a food riot, and as it progresses, it underscores the scorn that the wealthy hold for the common people as they connive and fight for power and more wealth.
When they have to address the common folk, “Just lie.”
Master of the oblique angle, Greenblatt states, Shakespeare was—in an age in which you could be drawn and quartered for writing political pamphlets, or even speaking out in the wrong place at the wrong time—able to get someone on stage and tell the two thousand listeners, some of whom were government agents, that “a dog’s obeyed in office.”
Shakespeare was against violence, especially state-organized violence, and while acknowledging that tyrants will rise, his plays breathe the conviction that the best chance for the recovery of collective decency lies in the political action of ordinary citizens.
What you get here is Rodi summarizing three of Austen's novels while occasionally making pronouncements upon literature and Austen fans. UnfortunatelyWhat you get here is Rodi summarizing three of Austen's novels while occasionally making pronouncements upon literature and Austen fans. Unfortunately, I think most of these go astray: the fans he's making fun of aren't the readers of Austen (who aren't obsessed with Darcy's wet shirt; they know that Darcy never does anything so stupid as to take a dive in his lake while clothed), they're the Austen film fans, or they are fans of the sexy sequels and more modern-language-and-mores Regency romances, who are looking for romance, and not the social satire and comedy of manners that Austen actually wrote.
Likewise, his comments about Austen, for example, that P&P is the first romantic novel, go astray because he doesn't seem to have read well enough in the period to land those shots. P&P was not the first romantic novel by any means--most would probably say Pamela, but some would go even earlier.
That aside, he warms up with a relatively brief go at S&S, and then unleashes the salty hilarity with P&P. So many funny lines as he smacks his lips over the stupidities of Collins, and bows to the monstrous greatness of Lady Catherine de Bourgh! Though I think he misses the boat entirely with his sometimes funny but mostly one-note commentary about how stupid Jane is, without seeing Jane's place in the manners of the time, and also he doesn't seem to realize how innovative Charlotte Lucas was: a female character who got exactly what she wanted, and didn't have to pay for her temerity with a deathbed confession.
That is a warning for what is to come, a pretty much one-note rant through Mansfield Park about how great the Crawfords are, and how evil, noxious, and creepy-crawly Fanny is--while being an empty dress. I agree with Rodi that MP is problematical (I go on at length here about what I think is a magnificent failure), but we agree very little on why, especially as I think he shoots wide of the mark about literature of the period, and about Austen's intentions. That riff left me wishing for less rant and more funny....more
How to do engaging narrative voice . . . gross recipes for food you wouldn't want to eat . . . transnistrian infundibulatoPygmy mammoths!
Lost fandoms!
How to do engaging narrative voice . . . gross recipes for food you wouldn't want to eat . . . transnistrian infundibulators. Narcolepsy.
The thing about this collection of essays is that you can open the book to any page and fall into a witty, sharply observed, delightful bit of arcana, or wisdom. "Chaos is Not Your Friend" is disturbingly current, though it first appeared in 2004. Then there are glimpses of the fannish past--and that includes Lost Fandoms.
The essays on publishing are worth the price all alone. Cliches--a glimpse behind the production of a book--scam publishers--fan fiction.
Every one of these essays could start a great conversation at any gathering. The other set of essays that I enjoy as much--and that range so widely and so wittily--are Virginia Woolf's....more
In this golden age of young adult literature, there are two distinctive audiences: the young people the books are intenCopy provided by the publisher.
In this golden age of young adult literature, there are two distinctive audiences: the young people the books are intended to be read by, and the older generation who, perhaps beguiled by the excellence of the sub genre over the past couple of decades, have continued to read YA well into adulthood.
I am one of these. When I read a YA novel, I try to evaluate it on two levels: would I have enjoyed it as a kid reader, and do I enjoy it now? There have been a number of books that meet the first criteria while being problematical for the second.
This is not one of those books.
I can see my teenage self reading this book by the light of the streetlamp down the street, well after my parents had gone to bed, because I couldn't stand to stop until I reached the finish. Magic! History! History of places not usually written about! Mythology! A pirate ship! A girl navigating the pirate ship! A girl who feels like an outsider in her own family — her own troubled family — who has her own goals and enough smarts to go after them. And of course a cute guy or two, who do not overwhelm the story.
The adult me appreciated the vivid depictions of different cultures during various points in history, especially when overlaid with a palimpsest of mythological possibilities. I was fascinated by the glimpse of Hawaii in the 1880s, even knowing that the kingdom was doomed thanks to the greed of American entrepreneurs.
The author demonstrates the cost without hammering the point home, all while keeping the action brisk, and the threats real. Nix Song, half-Hawaiian daughter of an American man who discovered he could navigate to other times and places if he had the right maps, and Lin Song, a Hawaiian woman, is afraid she will be erased from history altogether if her father’s obsessive search for a map to take him back to Hawaii before Lin died, so he can rescue her, is successful.
In much YA these days, one of the most common tropes is what is now called the love triangle. This is not new. I remember rival guys in stories back when I was a teen reader. They seem to be part of the expected landscape now, but I liked what the author did here: Nix does not want to get involved. Having grown up with her father’s obsession, she is skeptical at best about the addiction of love. Very refreshing!
And I liked the guys: artistic Blake, who loves Hawaii in spite of his deeply troubled family, and insouciant, clever, funny, compassionate and passionate thief Kashmir. I like Nix’s wrestle with normal teen responses to cute guys, and her determination not to be suckered into surrendering her life to those responses.
And I really loved the plot. I think if I had one criticism, it would be (view spoiler)[That Nix unaccountably never tells her father her quite understandable fear though they had several very raw and real conversations toward the end (hide spoiler)] but that was small, as the overall unfolding of the story was so satisfying.
Full of insightful observations and deftly descriptive character moments, I enjoyed this book enough to put it on my keeper shelf, old as I am. And as a kid, I expect it would have been among those I checked out repeatedly. ...more
In The Company They Keep, Diana Pavlac Glyer established herself among the foremost Inklings scholars. ItCopy provided by Kent State University Press.
In The Company They Keep, Diana Pavlac Glyer established herself among the foremost Inklings scholars. It’s one of those rarities, a deeply academic book that is also immensely readable.
That book proved that the Inklings really were a collaborative group, and not a bunch of lone geniuses who got together regularly to read bits then retreated to their man caves for more solitary labor.
In Bandersnatch, she shows how they did it. To do so, Glyer uses that clear, accessible style to begin with her own search for the Inklings' process, and how long it took before she cracked the case. She then develops an overview of the Inklings’ various backgrounds, and how they came together to form the group. Next she explores—with an eye to writers today who may be looking for ways to form and run a successful writers’ group—how the Inklings worked, and what eventually broke the group.
What bound them together for so long was the question they all faced on arrival, “Well, has nobody got anything to read to us?” Everybody got their innings, whether the work was abstruse poetry, a linguistic paper, a history, or fiction.
Everyone was free to criticize, and according to Warren Lewis, it might have sounded like a battleground as all these articulate, trenchantly intellectual and rigorously trained men picked apart ideas, but there was no rancor nor striving to force others to one’s POV. They did get picky about who could join, sometimes getting irritated if a member brought a guest without consulting the rest. Though one or two of these guests eventually fit right in.
They despised the idea of a “mere butter bath”—nothing but praise, and Glyer makes it clear in a succession of chapters who influenced various famous works, and how. (And not always for the best: at least, I liked the ending for LOTR that Tolkien wanted better than the one we have, but he bowed to what he perceived as universal disapprobation for his own wishes.)
When JRRT began writing what became LOTR (it was called “the new Hobbit” for years) C.S. Lewis was excited by the idea, but he said the beginning bogged down in a lot of hobbit talk. This grieved Tolkien, as he loved his hobbits, and his idea of a good hobbit book included lots of hobbits gossiping, eating, gardening, and pottering about the Shire.
But JRRT got stuck early on—and couldn’t move on the book for several years, until he had lunch with Lewis, who pointed out that “hobbits are only amusing in unhobbit-like situations.”
Bang. That was exactly what Tolkien needed, and the book took off.
In another discussion, Glyer illustrates how Lewis was convinced that no good book can be good for kids unless it is also good for adults: “This is a children’s book only in the sense that the first of many readings can be undertaken in the nursery . . .Only years later, at a tenth or a twentieth read, will they begin to realize what deft scholarship and profound reflection have gone to make everything in it so ripe, so friendly, and in its own way so true.”
He plainly tried to put that to work in his Narnia series—which Tolkien loathed. Lewis gave up the idea until he got encouragement from Roger Lancelyn Green, who adored the first book—and Lewis went back to it. Narnia’s mishmash of mythologies and the overt religious symbolism were never going to appeal to Tolkien, whose religious convictions resonated tectonically in his work, the fictional landscape above shaped by a painstakingly consistent mythology. But Tolkien reined in his general objection, and either gave specific feedback or else just listened without comment.
Glyer also uses the Inklings to illustrate what can kill a group. Some of the Inklings, including Owen Barfield, didn’t care for Lord of the Rings, but kept silent when it was Tolkien’s turn to read. But Hugo Dyson, a man they all liked and respected, loathed LOTR so much he would complain loudly if Tolkien showed up with papers—now they were in for another load of elves.
His complaints were so loud and consistent that Tolkien stopped reading when Dyson showed up—and though none of them knew it at the time, that was the breaking point of the Inklings. Glyer illustrates the fundamental difference between keeping silence, and silencing someone.
At the end of each chapter is a concise set of suggestions for the writer either on process or as part of a writers’ group, and it ends with a terrific meditation on collaboration in the wider sense.
There’s an excellent quote from Dorothy Sayers: “Poets do not merely pass on the torch in a relay race; they toss the ball to one another, to and fro, across the centuries. Dante would have been different if Virgil had never been, but if Dante had never been, we should know Virgil differently; across both their heads Ezekiel calls to Blake, and Milton to Homer.”
The book ends with a list of sensible—and workable—suggestions for putting together a writers’ group.
I think this book would be ideal for any writer with sympathy or interest in at least one of the Inklings. It would also be an excellent text for a writers’ class, especially within the framework of Christian schools, as the Inklings were Christians, so there is necessarily discussion of Christian viewpoints. But I think there is a great deal of insight and practical suggestion for anybody here, unless you happen to be one of those who has to stick fingers in ears and shout La La La! when a discussion veers toward sympathy with religion.
The book is also handsomely illustrated by James A. Owen. ...more
Some interesting (and mildly entertaining) essays here, formed around Kieran's definition of camp. I think he misses more than he hits when summing upSome interesting (and mildly entertaining) essays here, formed around Kieran's definition of camp. I think he misses more than he hits when summing up literature older than, say, Edwardian, but his central idea is summed up here:
Camp invites a sophisticated, amoral mode of laughter that recognizes it might be critical but elects to be uncritically affectionate, not in a spirit of perversity, but for the psychic relief that such amorality and such release of affection afford.
So under that heading he gathers six authors who otherwise I would never have put together. I picked up this book for fifty cents at a used bookstore, because of the essays on E. F. Benson and P.G. Wodehouse.
Here, Kiernan does not disappoint. He clearly sees what is best in these two, and talks about why. And when he acknowledges that the Market Snodsbury Prize Giving scene from Right Ho, Jeeves is one of the best comic scenes ever, I mentally awarded him a campy high-five....more
A solid academic look at how the French consciousness of 'history' translated over into fiction through the next century, reflecting back on social, cA solid academic look at how the French consciousness of 'history' translated over into fiction through the next century, reflecting back on social, cultural, and political events.
I liked its awareness of how the French, during the Revolution, became aware (maybe even hyper-aware) of creating history in that moment, and how that translated over into the arts once the smoke drifted away, and life was restored (more or less) to normal. Of particular interest is how the mass destruction and futility of much of the Revolution was eventually romanticized to serve various purposes.
If I had any quibble, it would be that the taste for 'spectacle' is far older than a superficial reading might assume....more
This is an immensely readable combination of biography, literary analysis, and personal essay, both exasperatiReread, July 2023: no change of opinion.
This is an immensely readable combination of biography, literary analysis, and personal essay, both exasperating and enlightening.
It is at its most exasperating when Harman attempts to tell us what Austen or her contemporaries were thinking, or what they really meant; it is best at uncovering facts and patterns relating to Austen’s publication history, reviews, biographies, and mentions in wildly ranging contexts after Austen’s death.
Examples of the former: page 46, in quoting a letter between Jane and Cassandra, about losing her anonymity due to her brother Charles’ enthusiasm (and lack of ability to keep his lip zipped):
"The truth is that the Secret has spread so far as to be scarcely the Shadow of a secret now—& that I believe whenever the third [novel] appears, I shall not even attempt to tell Lies about it—I shall rather try to make all the Money than all the Mystery I can of it. People shall pay for their Knowledge if I can make them.”
Harmon goes on to say, This is a remarkably hard-nosed remark, a world away from the portrait later painted by Henry Austen and James Edward Austen-Leigh of the woman who ‘only wrote for her own amusement.’
I can’t help but regard that as a stupid remark—‘hard-nosed’—as if Harman is tone deaf to the joking irony with which Austen habitually wrote to her sister, as well as in the books! Then she goes on to say, with an equivalent total lack of proof, Critical success was gratifying, but Austen also coveted sales dearly. Where, in the scant data Jane Austen left behind, is the evidence of ‘coveting dearly’?
Another instance of bending over backwards (with three twists and a half-gainer) to prove Austen’s feet of clay is this example on pages 47-8: Mary Russel Mitford, a novelist whose long life barely overlapped with Austen, heard gossip through a friend who reported the words of another friend in 1815:
“A friend of mine, who visits her now, says that she has stiffened into the most perpendiculr, precise, taciturn piece of ‘single blessedness . . .’” And it goes on to basically castigate Austen for not talking much during calls.
From this third-hand gossip Harman posits that Austen was being “actively unpleasant to her admirers.” Where’s the proof that Austen was ‘actively unpleasant’ to anyone? Being silent during a call could mean any number of things—and deriving behavior patterns from the gossip of a third-hand party is not exactly predictive of patterns.
A third egregiously stupid remark comes in the chapter after Jane Austen died, when Harman reports on family letters. Cassandra, who held Jane until she died, wrote afterward to their niece Fanny.
Harmond reports it this way, in quoting Cassandra’s letter and commenting on it:
“I have lost such a treasure, such a Sister, such a friend as never can have been surpassed. She was the sun of my life, the gilder of every pleasure, the soother of every sorrow, I had not a thought concealed from her, and it is as if I had lost a part of myself.”
But this outpouring of feeling is instantly checked by the following consideration: “I loved her only too well, not better than she deserved, but I am conscious that my affection for her made me sometimes unjust to and negligent of others, and I can acknowledge, more than as a generl principle, the just of the hand which as struck this blow.”
The absolute Christian correctness of this seems too violent for sympathy.
What a fatuous, stupid remark. Cassandra is writing from the depths of grief, striving to make sense of life, death, and the universe in a very eighteenth-century Christian fashion, and Harman sneers about ‘Christian correctness being too violent for sympathy.’
But once Jane Austen is dead, Harman is safe from the horror of Christian faith as the years go on and Austen gradually goes from obscurity to fame. Her conclusions about Austen’s fame are nebulous, and many of the specifics of how Austen’s books have been refashioned in modern times are really not specific to Austen but could stand for remakings going clear back to the evolution of Arthuriana over centuries, but the discussion is interesting, especially the formidable range of material on which she sheds light.
Harman’s tracking of mentions in the letters and essays of a variety of famous people shows her at her best: as a detective.
The gradual changing of Jane Austen’s few portraits, deliberately made simperingly pretty, is recorded in the photo insets. (Not that this was at all new; Mary Shelley and her son and daughter-in-law did a similar makeover on Shelley, actively changing some of the existing drawings from Shelley’s rather louche demeanor to an angelic perfection) We also learn about a wide variety of people whose lives were touched by Austen’s work: the revolutionary Fenelon, who translated Austen in prison while awaiting trial for a bombing, Rudyard Kipling, who wrote about grizzled Janeite soldiers, Winston Churchill, who retired with Austen to bed when he was sick or weary.
It ends with an exploration of Austen being discovered by filmmakers and the romance world. Various questions are raised bout the remarkable sticking power of Austen’s fame—is it really all about the famous dip in the lake, which incident never appears in the book?
She offers a variety of reasons, never pinning down one. That’s okay—it’s part of the fun of reading and talking about Jane Austen. Basically, this book is a good read once Austen is dead, and an interesting if untrustworthy one during her too-short life, and so it joins the many, many Austen-related books on the shelf, after having commented on its predecessors....more
A short book, fizzing with Wood's enthusiasm for reading and books. A tad too male-gaze-as-arbiter-of-judgment to take too seriously, but he offers soA short book, fizzing with Wood's enthusiasm for reading and books. A tad too male-gaze-as-arbiter-of-judgment to take too seriously, but he offers some good discussion on narrative convention, style, voice, and what he calls free indirect style, which covers those liminal bits that seem to be character/narrator thoughts but may actually be auctorial fiat.
This is the kind of book that is good reading when one wants to look at narrative process from another slant altogether....more
I don't understand why this book isn't reprinted, at least in ebook form, given how huge the Jane Austen industry has grown.
Whatever. I was delighted I don't understand why this book isn't reprinted, at least in ebook form, given how huge the Jane Austen industry has grown.
Whatever. I was delighted to discover this book wherein G. B. Stern, whose delightful books I've only discovered in the last decade (they are very hard to find in Southern California) and Sheila Kaye-Smith, who I have not come across before, talk about their first discovery of Jane Austen, and then go on to discuss the books.
It was more than a hundred years ago that one of the authors discovered Austen (1905), which marks a rough halfway point between Austen's original publication and now. I think it's well to keep that in mind as one reads these delightful airings of opinion; I suspect that some of the conclusions they draw stem from the cultural milieu of a century ago.
And of course some is opinion, shared with many readers now. The book makes no attempt to masquerade as critical analysis. I think it's meant to be enjoyed a chapter at a time over tea, or before bed (which is how I read it), but I do think that to get the most out of it, it's probably best to have read Austen numerous times. Being able to instantly identify quotes, names, and situations from the novels lends itself to the pleasure.
The biggest take-away I got from this book was that delightful sense of a book discussion. Sometimes I spoke aloud, "No, no, you're totally wrong, how could you think that," and other times, "Yes, yes!" -- that gratifying feeling that comes of someone agreeing with you.
And there were things to learn, too, such as Sheila Kaye-Smith's chapter about how Austen's people were dressed. On the surface, one might think such a subject would take up about a paragraph, as Austen provides only the briefest clues to what anyone is wearing. We learn in Mansfield Park that Edmund liked Fanny's white gown with the glossy spots, and we learn more about muslins (and how they wash, or wear) in Northanger, through the absurdities of Mrs. Allen, but otherwise? However, Kaye-Smith teases out some of the hidden-to-us-modern meanings in Mrs. Elton's vulgarities, such as her preoccupation with trimmings (while denying that she ever thinks of dress).
They talk about characters they like, ones they don't, ones they don't believe Austen did justice to, and then they turn around and extrapolate entire lives for characters who are barely mentioned.
I was sorry to end the book; I would have liked so much to sit down and listen to these women talk forever about Austen, as we all drank tea....more
A solid introductory history of communication and media. I was especially interested in the early chapters about the development of writing.
I'd hoped A solid introductory history of communication and media. I was especially interested in the early chapters about the development of writing.
I'd hoped for more about linguistics, but that wasn't where the book was going, so I can't complain. The chapters on communication under the Soviets were another plus....more
A pleasant, articulate exploration of George Eliot's life and work, centering around Middlemarch, organized loosely around Mead's three major rereads A pleasant, articulate exploration of George Eliot's life and work, centering around Middlemarch, organized loosely around Mead's three major rereads over the course of her life. I think the book is best enjoyed by those who have read Middlemarch at least once, and possibly a biography and the letters, though I might be wrong in that.
There were interesting tidbits to learn: letters left out of the correspondence, and especially recorded impressions of Eliot in luminaries (and would-be luminaries) of the time. Probably the only eyebrow raiser was the author's confident assertion that Eliot's loss of faith was an intellectual achievement, because it matches her own paradigm. But Mead's empathetic explanation of meliorism, her attempts to see the countryside, and the more hapless of Eliot's contemporaries, though her eyes, is as much a treat as the nuggets of new information.
Another aspect that I enjoyed was Mead's descriptions of various locales that Eliot had visited or lived at, described so that I could see them. I think, in retrospect, that these are the bits that I appreciated most in this book....more
A quick, interesting read, even though I have never even seen, much less read, anything by two the four authors Auchmuty delves into in her study of tA quick, interesting read, even though I have never even seen, much less read, anything by two the four authors Auchmuty delves into in her study of the long school stories series. Her four authors are Elsie Jeanette Oxenham, Dorita Fairlie Bruce, Elinor Mary Brent-Dyer, and Enid Blyton. I have read a couple of the Chalet school stories, thanks to Hallie, and Blyton's Mallory Towers books, aged paperbacks carefully preserved by a friend here, who first encountered them in India as a kid.
So, though I haven't read many of the series, I found the book enjoyable for the general discussion of school stories, and the specific delving into patterns of female relationships as demonstrated in the books over the years. I have read pretty much everything of L.T. Meade's that has been scanned and put up at Gutenberg, including the book the title is taken from, A World of Girls, and a great many others as I could find them.
Until very recently, about the only references I ever saw to girls' school stories were derisive comments in other contexts, usually representing the bottom of a hierarchical scale of taste and intelligence. As always, boys' school stories have been treated more seriously, even if they, too, are not left unscorned.
The thing I found interesting about Meade, who wrote prolifically during the late Victorian era (she died in 1914) is that her most frequent story pattern is the wild girl come among other girls for schooling, and at least on the surface, civilizing. Her wild heroines don't die of consumption; they compromise to a greater or lesser degree.
In this book, Auchmuty acknowledges the surface urge toward conformity and domesticity in the school stories, while exploring other patterns, most significantly a world in which girls and women are complete unto themselves, not requiring to bend their lives around men. Even the husbands of the girls grown up in certain stories are conveniences, rather than characters; the stories are all about the women and their friendships, and loves. A couple chapters look at what that 'love' entails, and how it was differently represented before WW II and after, when the rising science of psychology was putting pressure on writers and educators to direct girls toward heterosexual love as well as domesticity. In the Victorian days, there wasn't any question, going right up to post-WW I stories, in which we find a great many spinsters in fiction as well as in life, due to a generation of English young men buried in foreign soil.
What Auchmuty doesn't address to any great degree is just why girls loved these stories so deeply. She talks about heroines being central to loyal fans--dissecting the characters--but I think there is at least a book in that question alone.
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