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.

Genres: Fiction

182 pages, Paperback

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.