Java Head

by Joseph Hergesheimer

Very late indeed in May, but early in the morning, Laurel Ammidon lay in bed considering two widely different aspects of chairs. The day before she had been eleven, and the comparative maturity of that age had filled her with a moving disdain for certain fanciful thoughts which had given her extreme youth a decidedly novel if not an actually adventurous setting. Until yesterday, almost, she had regarded the various chairs of the house as beings endowed with life and character; she had held conversations with some, and, with a careless exterior not warranted by an inner dread, avoided others in gloomy dusks. All this, now, she contemptuously discarded. Chairs were--chairs, things to sit on, wood and stuffed cushions. Yet she was slightly melancholy at losing such a satisfactory lot of reliable familiars: unlike older people, victims of the most disconcerting moods and mysterious changes, chairs could always be counted on to remain secure in their individual peculiarities. She could see by her fireplace the elaborately carved teakwood chair that her grandfather had brought home from China, which had never varied from the state of a brown and rather benevolent dragon; its claws were always claws, the grinning fretted mouth was perpetually fixed for a cloud of smoke and a mild rumble of complaint. The severe waxed hickory beyond with the broad arm for writing, a source of special pride, had been an accommodating and precise old gentleman. The spindling gold chairs in the drawingroom were supercilious creatures at a king's ball; the graceful impressive formality of the Heppelwhites in the dining room belonged to the loveliest of Boston ladies. Those with difficult haircloth seats in the parlor were deacons; others in the breakfast room talkative and unpretentious; while the deep easy-chair before the library fire was a ship. There were mahogany stools, dwarfs of dark tricks; angry high-backed things in the hall below; and a terrifying shape of gleaming red that, without question, stirred hatefully and reached out curved and dripping hands. Anyhow, such they had all seemed. But lately she had felt a growing secrecy about it, an increasing dread of being laughed at; and now, definitely eleven, she recognized the necessity of dropping such pretense even with herself. They were just chairs, she rerepeated; there was an end of that. The tall clock with the brass face outside her door, after a premonitory whirring, loudly and firmly struck seven, and Laurel wondered whether her sisters, in the room open from hers, were awake. She listened attentively but there was no sound of movement. She made a noise in her throat, that might at once have appeared accidental and been successful in its purpose of arousing them; but there was no response. She would have gone in and frankly waked Janet, who was not yet thirteen and reasonable; but experience had shown her that Camilla, reposing in the eminence and security of two years more, would permit no such light freedom with her slumbers

Genres: Fiction

281 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1919

About the author

Joseph Hergesheimer was a prominent American writer of the early 20th century known for his naturalistic novels of decadent life amongst the very wealthy.

He established an early reputation with his first novel The Lay Anthony in 1914. Three Black Pennys, which followed in 1917, chronicled the fictional lives of three generations of Pennsylvania ironmasters and cemented the author's style of dealing with upperclass characters through a floridly descriptive style he referred to as "aestheticism." Hergesheimer also received critical recognition for his novels Java Head (1919), Linda Condon (1919), and Balisand (1924).

Reviews

[Frank · Rating 2 out of 5]

Curious, this novel by a novelist who has now been entirely forgotten. On the basis of this book, I'd have to say: justly so. It's not that it's a failed book so much as that it just fails to achieve greatness, or even distinction.

I'm not quite sure why. The construction is interesting. It's a portrait of two families of American merchants, the one successful, the other not. In 10 chapters we see events unfolding through the eyes of 10 different characters. However, the style of writing is the same throughout, and there's always a curious distance, whether caused by Hergesheimer's all too polished (but also rather bland) style or because he's simply not involved in his characters, it's hard to say.

And although the dramatic developments are plentiful (the son of one family brings home a Chinese wife, the son of another turns out to be an opium addict, a pater familias dies of rage, &c), in the end if feels more as if you've been watching a couple of episodes of Dallas or Dynasty, than as if you've witnessed a moving family tragedy of the kind Balzac, Mann or Faulkner could cook up. It's not drama so much as melodrama.

And what's with all the shipping terms? That's bad enough to have to plough through in a Conrad novel. Here we don't even get taken to sea with any of the characters, and still all that talk about the ships the merchants employ to get their goods from Asia to America.

So: interesting for the unexpected themes (a mixed marriage in the early years of the 20th century; a portrait of an opium junk in the days when opium was supposed to be the accepted drug of the upper classes), but not much more than that.

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came across this book after looking over the filmography of Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong, who starred in a 1934 film adaptation; it caught my eye due to the story -- an American sailor returns home to 1840s Salem, Mass., with a Chinese wife -- which naturally piqued my interest, given the year (1919) that book was originally published. The author, Joseph Hergesheimer, was a widely acclaimed author in the 1910s and 1920s, combining strong characterizations with considerable detail and quite a bit of irony. Java Head is reportedly considered to be his finest achievement; it's certainly a book that held my interest, both in terms of his plotting and his prose. I wasn't thrilled with the ending -- it seemed like he had to play into the conventions of his time -- but I would still highly recommend this forgotten novel.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

From the title, and from having read the author's Wild Oranges, I expected this to be a sea story. I read it because James Thurber commended it to his young daughter to read along with books by authors I like (Wharton, Tarkington) or revere (Cather). The book is set in Salem MA c. 1849 and is about seafaring merchants. It's a tragedy with parallels to Othello. A good, if wildly (for the times) unconventional marriage between a home-town person and an exotic foreigner is destroyed by (almost) motiveless malignity. An unsparing picture of regional dourness and clannishness that evokes E.A. Robinson's poem "New England." The author IMO deserves to be better known than he is now. I will try another of his books because I like early 20th C. American fiction in which he was no slouch.

[Beth Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Java Head homecoming.

This book was written at my Uncle's home in Milton, Ny.... The home named for the book... Java Head.
I had no high expectations of the book, even though I generally enjoy the work of Victorian era authors.
I loved this. It was exciting, down to earth, real, and mesmerizing. Excellent! , Java Head of Milton, NY was given a fine name.
Great summer reading for anyone who enjoys a good Victorian novel!

[Audiobook Heaven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book, I listened to the audiobook version on YouTube. I will leave the link below so that everyone can enjoy it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsQcU...

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

"As much of a shame it is that Java Head didn’t win the Pulitzer Prize in 1920, it’s even more of a shame that Joseph Hergesheimer’s legacy was cut short. Based on what I’ve read of him, it seems that while he was wildly popular during his heyday in the 1920’s, he had faded into obscurity by the time he died in the mid-1950’s. Could Java Head have been more expertly crafted? Sure. Could the story have been more engaging? Definitely. But the fact that it and its author have been, now, almost completely forgotten is unjust."

Read more at: https://thepulitzerblog.wordpress.com...

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two families of sea-faring captains in Salem, Mass. In 1849.


Working from a list of books I read years ago.