The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910 discussion
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So, What's On the Bedside Table these Days? -- Part 2
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Patrick
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Oct 21, 2024 07:18AM
George Crabbe (1754-1832) is famed for bringing a new realism and down-to-earthness to English poetry, on good display in The Borough (1810). The rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter give the book an easy readable “swing”. As usual, the sections about the religious controversies of the day are the least penetrable. The sections pertaining to the village and the seaside are wonderful, and the latter famously provides the basis for Britten’s opera Peter Grimes.
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I have been meaning to read Maria Edgeworth for years now, and really don’t know what took me so long, since Castle Rackrent (1800) is quite short and you can knock it off in a few hours. Anyway, I finally did read it and was quite entertained; I especially liked the fact that it is NOT about a romance, but about a family and a house, and how they run out of money, which is a theme that 19th Century writers became uncomfortable with and tended to avoid. Now on to the unfortunately titled Ennui, also included in the Penguin volume I picked up.
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Rosemarie wrote: "I enjoyed The Absentee by Maria Edgeworth. It does have some romance but that's not the main focus. It's a coming of age story."I don’t mind a romance, but it was refreshing to come across a book from that era that is not one. 😏
Loved The Absentee! Also, Castle Rackrent. But they’re very different. Maria Edgeworth does not get the appreciation she deserves these days.
Renee wrote: "Loved The Absentee! Also, Castle Rackrent. But they’re very different. Maria Edgeworth does not get the appreciation she deserves these days."I am definitely looking forward to reading more of her!
Cape Cod displays Thoreau in a genial mode, quite down-to-earth, less windy-philosophical than, say, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. The fact that he was writing at least some of the chapters for magazine publication possibly reined in his more high-flown tendencies; in any case, this is a really charming and companionable account of Thoreau’s walking tour on the Cape.[I’m a little under the weather with a mild flu, hence my reduced posting today. Not that anyone probably minds! 🙂 ]
Benjamin Disraeli’s Sybil interested me as a political novel, but like the other of his that I have read (his first, Vivian Gray, quite entertaining), it seems uncertain what it wants to be; the political, satirical, religious, gritty-realistic, and uplifting elements mix very uneasily. Supposedly they are all linked through the thesis of “The Two Nations”, the rich and the poor, but not too effectively in my view.Certainly however there is plenty of fascinating material for those well-versed in the era, and I do recommend the novel on that basis to readers of that type. My bigger problem is actually the titular heroine, who never seemed real or interesting to me. I try to be careful not to back-impose our gender politics on a different time, but drippy is drippy. I have the same problem with Lorna Doone, a novel that I like very much except for Lorna herself, oy vey. Too pretty and “perfect”. With Sybil, the descriptive word that seems to come up is “angelic”, a type of characterization that I dislike, but from the point of view of technique she is just way too obviously symbolic (purity, ennobled poverty, etc).
I won’t get into the novel’s resolution except to say that it is frightfully convenient and represents Disraeli trying to have his situation (things are horrible out there, true enough) and deny it too (but look at my happy ending!). Dickens was better at this.
A mixed bag altogether.
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Mbuye wrote: "Glad to see you back and full form!"Thank you! My fever broke overnight and my temperature was normal this morning, although I am still tired.
I actually finished Sybil quite a number of weeks ago, but sat on it before anything occurred to me to say. I try not to force reviews or blog posts, but when words come to me, I put them down.
Rosemarie wrote: "Patrick, regarding Lorna Doone-I couldn't agree with you more!"They say that nothing becomes more tiresome than the lover speaking of the beloved, and R.D. Blackmore might have kept that a little more in mind. 😏
I’ve read Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s short first novel Falkland twice (many years apart * ) and have been meaning to read more by him. While I was perusing Herbert W. Tompkins’ Highways and Byways in Hertfordshire (1902), I came across an extended reference to the scholar-murderer Eugene Aram and Bulwer’s novel about him. (Tompkins always brings up locally-related literature.) So I picked up the novel at Project Gutenberg and am several chapters in; it’s very promising. EBL gets a bum rap but was a consummately professional writer.*Now that I’m returning to many writers in retirement after long hiatuses, I usually first re-read what I had read by them before, in order to refresh my recollections and old impressions.
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Zanoni is fantastic. I have more Bulwer-Lytton on my list too.
Lori wrote: "Patrick wrote: "I’ve read Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s short first novel Falkland twice (many years apart * ) and have been meaning to read more by him. While I was perusing Herbert W. Tompkins’ Highways..."Zanoni DOES sound interesting! 🙂
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Robin P wrote: "Maybe this group should read something by Bulwer-Lytton. He gets a bad rap because of the contest named after him for over-the-top prose."I am much more inclined to suggest that we read one of the novels of Rosina Bulwer-Lytton, because of the appalling way her more famous husband treated her.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosina_...
To commit your wife to a mental asylum because she was exposing the truth ( including many infidelities) to the people he wanted to vote for him was disgraceful. Of course he wanted to shut her up, but to use such a callous and ruthless method to do it reveals the nature of the man, so I won’t be reading his novels.
Maybe we should also read Rosina’s ‘Cheveley (or a man of honour)’ or ‘A Blighted Life,’ to help redress the balance a little towards the woman who was buried in an unmarked grave whilst her husband was given the honour of a place in Westminster Abbey.
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Well, crap. I knew his jackassery extended to India, but I didn't know he had his wife locked up. Thanks for bringing that to our attention, and I'll have a look at her books.
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Well, since I wasn’t nominating EBL for any group reads, as I don’t do group reads, I don’t have to rescind my non-existent nomination. 😏It is always sticky and a little perilous for me to reply in these situations. I’m not one to stop reading an author because they were a bad person, because where would it stop? I “disapprove” of many writers’ personal behaviors once I read their biographies. If we are going to hone in on male writers’ appalling behavior towards their wives, I have some bad news for you about Dickens…
Anyway, there is plenty more that I could say on this subject, but probably to little point. However, when the aura of “cancel culture” (or other contemporary tendencies like presentism) comes up, I do feel beholden to distance myself, since silence might imply consent.
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Very true. I'm a huge fan of some of Lovecraft's stories, and he was a racist piece of work (though I've read that his views mellowed toward the end of his short life).
Lori wrote: "Patrick wrote: "t is always sticky and a little perilous for me to reply in these situations. I’m not one to stop reading an author because they were a bad person, because where would it stop?"Ve..."
Excellent example. HPL was a very unwell man, in ways that we can pity as well as disapprove, but if he wasn’t all that, we wouldn’t have any of his writings.
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I am much more inclined to suggest that w..."
Thanks, I didn't know anything about that! Of course Dickens was a jerk to his wife, saying awful things about her and leaving her for a young mistress, but he didn't go so far as to have her committed.
And I agree that if we don't read anyone whose views and behavior aren't totally acceptable today, that doesn't leave much!
EBL’s behavior towards his wife was certainly much worse than Dickens’ towards his, no argument about that. On the same spectrum, though. I like reading literary biographies very much, but I steel myself going in by reminding myself that I am probably going to respect the author as a PERSON much less after reading the bio. That is my experience reading about William Carlos Williams now, and it was emphatically my experience in reading Richard Ellmann’s Joyce biography - Jimmy was a horrible husband, father, and (OMG) brother (poor Stanislaus!).
One of the rare times that things did not work that way was Herbert R. Lottman’s Camus biography - I went in thinking well of Albert and came out thinking even more well of him, although his marital / relationship life was kind of weird (but, you know, France).
Patrick wrote: "Well, since I wasn’t nominating EBL for any group reads, as I don’t do group reads, I don’t have to rescind my non-existent nomination. 😏It is always sticky and a little perilous for me to reply ..."
I understand your argument about reading a ‘bad persons’ work, but I draw a line when more extreme behaviour, (such as sectioning your wife to keep her quiet about your scandalous activities so that unsuspecting people will vote for you) is involved.
There are plenty of little known writers of the Victorian/pre Victorian period who deserve more recognition. Not only were they good writers but, from all accounts available, they were decent people as well. A group like this should be seeking them out before someone like Bulwer-Lytton.
I am in the middle of a novel by James Payn, one time editor of the Cornhill magazine. It is the first novel I have read of his and I am enjoying it. The Talk of the Town. He wrote a number of other novels during the Victorian period and if this one continues to be enjoyable, it will open up for me a previously unknown treasure trove of literature.
However, I have not read Byron since my college days. Here is part of the reason why…….
‘The greatest falsehood propagated about Byron is that he loved women. On the contrary, his attitude towards those in his life was mainly a mixture of contempt, violence and lordly dismissal. In addition to the innumerable chambermaids, maidservants and acolytes who were, in Byron’s own words, ‘tooled in a post-chaise- in a hackney coach – in a gondola – against a wall – in a court carriage- in a vis a vis — on a table — and under it’, he had a series of mutually destructive relationships with a variety of women. Some of them, such as Lady Caroline Lamb and Annabella Milbanke, he was initially drawn to because of their status and wealth but soon grew tired of. Others, including his most tragic mistress Claire Clairmont and his mother Catherine Gordon, were treated with disdain and even anger. The two exceptions were his final lover, Teresa Guiccioli, who at least received a small measure of compassion; and his half-sister Augusta Leigh, who weathered the slings and arrows of a scandalous and incestuous affair with a dignity and good humour that makes one wonder why she has been regarded by posterity as little more than a brainless dupe. The answer, unfortunately, is a lazy misogyny that has permeated the Byron establishment for decades.
In a hurry to put their beloved lordly poet on a pedestal, scholars, critics and general readers alike have been all too keen to overlook the obvious faults that he had as a man…’
(Alexander Larman)
The extract above is from an informative article written by Alexander Larman, which references his book Byron's Women
https://wordsworth.org.uk/blog/2016/0...
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Trev wrote: "Patrick wrote: "Well, since I wasn’t nominating EBL for any group reads, as I don’t do group reads, I don’t have to rescind my non-existent nomination. 😏It is always sticky and a little perilous ..."
Since you insist on going on with this… 🙄
I am not interested in their faults as people as a litmus test for whether or not they should be read as writers. I’m just not. You obviously consider this to be important in some way, and I wish you well with it, but anything further I might say would be harsh, so don’t be looking for my approval. Be content that you have a system that works for you.
When you say what the group “should” do, I do consider that cancel culture, virtue signaling, all of it, and as a fellow group member, suggest you come down off your high horse.
Suppose some new damning info about an author is discovered - it happens - what do you do, change your strategy? But I better not go on with that line of analysis.
No one is more about rediscovering obscure authors than I am, but I don’t see any connection whatsoever between that and the sorts of judgments you are talking about. It’s mixing up a kind of cheap moralism with literary reading.
People are passionate about what is on their bedside table.
I really feel that I should leave the group at this point, because one thing I refuse to do is to research specific authors / books before I mention them to make sure that their lives / contents were sufficiently virtuous to rate discussion, knowing that otherwise Trev will play Gotcha with me. Not interested in that at all. I mean, if we are ruling Byron and Shelley out of court, I am out of here anyway. Whatever kind of woke that is, it is way too woke for me. And in an 18th / 19th Century group?
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I have reviewed the last 22 posts carefully. No one has suggested NOT reading any particular author, though some have suggested alternatives. There has been discussion of whether an artist's personal life or behaviours affects a person's decision to engage with their works or not. There is an argument to be made on both sides, and each individual can make that choice for themselves. I have seen no evidence of cancel culture or Gotcha's being played out here. One of the strengths of this group, for many of us, is that we try to share information about our authors' lives and settings, both the good and the bad. We will continue to allow members to express their own opinions, including when those opinions differ from those of other members, but draw the line at denigrating the opinions of others.
Frances wrote: ". I have reviewed the last 22 posts carefully. No one has suggested NOT reading any particular author, though some have suggested alternatives. There has been discussion of whether an artist's personal life or behaviours affects a person's decision to engage with their works or not. There is an argument to be made on both sides, and each individual can make that choice for themselves. I have seen no evidence of cancel culture or Gotcha's being played out here.."Thanks, Frances
I have only ever tried to provide members of the group with added information around a book/topic being discussed and never intentionally intended to criticise anyone else's personal choices of reading.
Diverse opinions within a discussion usually help towards a greater understanding and appreciation of a novel or an author. I hope I can continue contributing to this group in the same way in the future.
Trev wrote: "I hope I can continue contributing to this group in the same way in the future."yes, please do, Trev - here and elsewhere! Your comments are most welcome additions to group readings and other threads.
... on the other hand, Patrick has formulated a problem that I think we all have these days: to find our (personal) way of dealing with the discrepancies between authors' lives and authors' works.
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Well said, Frances! I agree with Patricks sentiments but believe that his words were incorrect and unsupported in this instance. It’s easy to find an argument but it’s hard to stop one. Well done.
I am familiar with this argument from the Science Fiction & Fantasy world (e.g. Marion Zimmer Bradley, posthumously accused of Very Bad things; Orson Scott Card said bad things against gay marriage; J.K. Rowling still saying bad things about trans women). There they are called "Problematic Authors."I was shocked this spring to find out the highly esteemed literary writer Alice Munro did bad things and is now problematic. Alice Munro!!
I didn't think this would be much of an issue in Readers Review group because the writers are long dead. I wouldn't be surprised if half of them back then mistreated their servants, beat their children, held stock in slave-owning corporations, bought bonds in slave-transporting shipping companies, were against women voting, were against women owning property.
We have lived to see better days in much of the world.
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Could somebody plz clarify: Are we cancelling Byron and Shelley in this group?
Neer wrote: "Could somebody plz clarify: Are we cancelling Byron and Shelley in this group?"I hope not. To cancel our past, whether literary or otherwise, is as preposterous as it is stupid.
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I agree that we should not cancel our past, but I also think that we should look at it honestly, and acknowledge that great wrong may have been perpetrated by apparently great men or societies or governments.
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Frances wrote: "Please see comment 438. No one is cancelling any author in this group. There has been a civil discussion about people's personal decisions around reading writers who's actions or behaviours do not ..."Well pointed out! Is important to acknowledge people's misdeeds, but by doing so we are not actually "cancelling" anyone. People are too sensitive when someone criticizes their tastes as if they were the ones being criticized. They fell exposed when someone does this.
Thanks for the clarification Frances and Robin. Got worried because of the cancel-culture that is so prevalent world wide nowadays.
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The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910
Books mentioned in this topic
Byron's Women (other topics)The Talk of the Town (other topics)
The Woman in White (other topics)
The Absentee (other topics)
The Absentee (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Alice Munro (other topics)Maria Edgeworth (other topics)
Maria Edgeworth (other topics)
Mark Twain (other topics)
Mark Twain (other topics)
More...
