Ken’s Comments (group member since Jan 21, 2020)

Ken’s comments from the The Obscure Reading Group group.

Diane wrote: "We also have to remember that this was a closed society in the sense that the only travel was to a nearby market town, and not even much of that for the women. So of course they all tended to sound..."

Agreed. The classic example being Twain's Huckleberry Finn when it is attacked as being racist.

But what I'm wondering is this: Did the upper class really talk like this in Victorian times? I mean real people in everyday life as opposed to people built by well-read and educated and talented writers like the Brontë girls.

Here, for example, is Gilbert, a 24-year-old landowner, talking to Helen on p. 97 of my text:

"How? You could not have given me less encouragement, or treated me with greater severity than you did! And if you think you have wronged me by giving me your friendship, and occasionally admitting me to the enjoyment of your company and conversation, when all hopes of closer intimacy were vain -- as indeed you always gave me to understand -- if you think you have wronged me by this, you are mistaken; for such favours in themselves alone, are not only delightful to my heart, but purifying, exalting, ennobling to my soul: and I would rather have your friendship than the love of any other woman in the world!

Granted, I don't know how people talked in everyday situations, but some of the diction here clangs off the ear. Did Victorian gentlemen insert asides (here within dashes) mid-sentence? Use a series of adjectives like "purifying, exalting, ennobling"? Talk about their souls?

I'm guessing (perhaps incorrectly) that what I'm reading is more a product of the literary times Brontë lived in and reflected than it is of the actual people's everyday speech.

Ginny and Carol,

Guilty as charged, I, too, am finding the extended aside that is Helen's diary a plow. I tend to do that as a reader, though. Grow impatient to get back to the main storyline. The fact that Brontë chose to divide her sections mid-aside doesn't help.

One thing that bothered me a bit was the writing style and the way the characters spoke so much alike. Maybe this is not a problem of the author but of her times, however.

It's a bit disconcerting, though, when the narrative and the dialogue sounds the same. Ditto the characters. With the slight exception of Fergus, who is painfully designed to be young (and in some ways refreshing), the rhythms and word choices and sentence constructions are all look-alikes. If you did not know the plot line and each character's prejudices and quirks, just looking at cut-outs of dialogue, you'd be hard-pressed to distinguish them.

Modern writers take cares to make differences in cadence and vocabularies part of the characterization. I didn't get that while reading this. Just a roll of Victorian wallpaper walling in anything in its path.

Yvonne, I think Walter Scott's legacy has lost some steam, much like, say, Longfellow, who used to be on every American middle-class shelf back in the first half of the 20th century.

Also, I noted the egg, too. My great-grandfather, still living in my first ten years, used to finish each day with a beer. Not just any beer, though. He cracked a raw egg and dropped it in the brewski, then downed it in a gulp.

Lived to his 90s (of course). Those of us who exercise and watch what we eat will probably be gone by our 70s (I can say this because I'm a young 64). I've said it once and I'll say it again: Ours is a God of Irony.

Well, think of it. How far is man's propensity for cliques from man's propensity for tribes? Tribalism came close to bringing this country down, and it's not done trying.

And Kathleen, did you really once angle for some bad boy you wanted to reform (like Helen thinks she can reform HUNTingdon)? You know, a James Dean type, or Marlon Brando in his thin days?

Another universal trope, both in literature and life (which literature reflects, if it's working).

Matthew wrote: "I found the child-raising discussion very interesting and ahead of its time too. Though I don't feel I'm in a position to comment, as I can't imagine I'll be having children, if ever, for many year..."

Never say never when it comes to children. Life deals different cards as the situation unfolds around you over the years.

Still, there's the generational thing. My daughter was astounded to hear that her parents married at age 25. "So young!" she said.

Young? My parents married at age 18, just out of high school, just before Dad went into the Navy.

And let's not forget Romeo (15) and Juliet (13). In medieval days, puberty was adulthood. Get to work. Contribute. You may be dead by 50.

Thus it's weird to see Gilbert (24) acting like a snooty version of Fergus (17). I guess in Victorian times people were growing up more slowly, though not as slowly as now, when you are still considered a "kid" until, say, 30 or 35. Then you might get married. And have kids in your 40s, Lord help you.

Diane wrote: "Regardless of what I think about the argument on raising boys vs girls in the book, (I fall on the side of letting kids have freedom to make bad choices and learn from them, male OR female), I was ..."

Thank you for using the word "melodrama." My God. By the time I pulled into the tavern at the end of Section One, I needed a beer. When I taught middle school, I began to notice that a lot of life -- even among adults -- is middle school.

You see it in Gilbert's treatment of Helen. You know, giving her the cold shoulder when he feels slighted. Hiding his emotions when speaking to her so he has the upper hand. Punching his opponent and leaving him the ditch, hoping he won't be caught and given a detention or something.

Then the politics of who sits where at that little dinner. Middle school lunch and the geo-political positions of claimed tables (including who sits next to whom) -- it all rushed back.

Did someone say catty? And is this really "manly," Mr. Markham?

OK. About that little tiff between the two "hams," Mrs. Markham (Gilbert's mum) and Mrs. Graham (Helen of Wildfell Hall). I think a lot rides on what each reader brings to the table in the way of, um, baggage.

Me, I'm old. Not old enough to be getting winter vaccinations, alas, but old. Growing up in the 60s, I learned the joys of a helicopter-free life (they were all in Vietnam, apparently). My parents shoved us boys out the door initially, and then we went out of our own accord, ranging far and wide with little if any parental contact for, oh, the entire day, say.

Meaning: My instinct is to side with Mrs. Markham. Quit coddling the kid, lest he grow into Little Lord Fauntleroy (not sure where Fauntleroy comes from, but I know he's a poster child for the soft sorts).

On the other hand, I agree that it isn't for Mrs. Markham to say. As the 21st century parent ahead of her time in the 19th, Mrs. Graham has the right to keep Arthur on a tight leash, to schedule play dates for him with Gilbert's dog, to grow indignant when a woman who has raised two sons (included one she is falling in love with) tells her how to grow manly-mans, as they call them.

See? Baggage. The old reader-writer contract, each with a set of rights we hold to be self-evident. My gut goes with the Markhams even while my cool-headed logic realizes Graham is within her rights.

Now I know why Jack Halford said, "I wish Twitter were invented sooner!!"

No. Just kidding. We are ALL Jack Halford, aren't we, and we have little choice but to respect our friend Gilbert's time and effort in writing these... letters? But, conveniently enough, Jack is said to "like long stories." Man, was he born in the right century!

Anyway, as a fan of Russian novels, I'll make this one observation for tonight. The fact that Gilbert was a rich man running a large estate that makes its income via agriculture made me think of Tolstoy, specifically Levin in Anna Karenina.

The comparison stops there, however, as Levin is a pretty sophisticated fill-in for Tolstoy himself who thinks too much. Or gets philosophical, maybe. Or mixes it up with the peasants by walking out into the field and working with them all day, just to see what it's like, just to show he is a "man of the people."

Can I imagine Gilbert doing as much? Ha-ha to that.

More tomorrow on the raising sons issue. I've raised a son and a daughter, but grew up in a family of four sons and have no sisters. Having a daughter was an education.

This first week of discussion is on events in Volume I of Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

To avoid spoilers that might ruin the reading experience of others, be sure to confine all comments to events in Volume I only.

Thanks -- and enjoy!

P.S. And yes, the book group police will not arrest you if you comment a day early. Completely up to you because, by God, it's February 1st somewhere!

I pulled over at the first stop sign (end of Section #1), but will pick it up again tomorrow.

The first discussion thread will go up tonight, then it's all in at the deep end of the dense writing style pool! ;-)

I am... ambivalent. And by "cleansing my reading palate," I simply meant a stark change in writing styles, from Victorian excess (as in novel writing) to contemporary compression (as in short story writing). As much an observation as a criticism, no?

Welcome, Genise. Hope you can quickly find a copy of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and jump in for the first week of Feb.

You only need read the first part, as Brontë herself divided the book, around 160 pp., by Feb. 1st. That should help!

Obscure! (She is, indeed.)

Just finished the first reading segment, so I'm ready to fly on Feb. 1st. I don't lack for opinions on it, but I'll keep chrysanthemum here.

Meantime, am reading some modern-day short stories as a reading palate cleanser. I'll return to Wild Thing Hall next week.

We are a Flog-Free book group. Rest assured, Jean.

Matthew -- For years and years rivers have been used as dumping grounds for industrial waste and even sewage. Oceans, too.

My father swam in the Connecticut River, which runs the course of all of New England, even when it was advised not to. Fished it, too.

Of course, in a category of its own, we have the Ganges.

Speaking of rabbit holes that lead to Alice, your last link takes us to a piece written by the late Eavan Boland. I just finished her last book, a quiet little gem that speaks loudly, called The Historians: Poems.

So thank you back, Kathleen. And I still have to read The Prelude, complete and unabridged over the Thames, the river name being pronounced "Tems" in England and "Thāmes" in Connecticut.

P.S. I still masquerade as a poet. My books were in masks WAY before the rest of us.

Hearing the name "Wordsworth" always reminds me that I have to read his "The Prelude," which is 500/600 pp. too (one hell of a long "prelude").

Apparently any poet who takes himself seriously must read the "The Prelude." Even goofy poets like St. Billy of Collins swear by it.

Damn.

By George, I've always wondered what a "Floss" is. Nothing dental, I hope.

Whenever I look at that behemoth, Middlemarch, I think of an overly long march that might not be worth the destination.

I know, I know. Readers say lovely things about it.

Yes, engines have started and are beginning to warm up!