Miss MacIntosh, My Darling discussion
Reading Miss MacIntosh
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1 -- The bus-driver was whistling...
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I just finished Chapter 1...and have the sense of having embarked on a ghost ship. Half hesitant to continue such a shrouded journey while finding myself irresistibly drawn into the mists.I had visions of a tragic contemporary impoverished American Marie Antoinette in the young sleeping pregnant woman drawn in such a layered painterly fashion.
Her head was big on a narrow stem, her bleached yellow hair spirally built upward to a skein crowned with a spiral net and a hat which was a woven nest of dark and dusty funeral blossoms and ivory twigs with a pink enameled branch on which was perched, precariously at that high altitude in the cold air current, one stuffed yellow canary with a moth-eaten wing, a glassy eye." MMMD, HBJ, p3
An impression enhanced by..."I had feared that we might veer off into a ditch, that himself [the bus driver] and his three passengers would be killed, our dismembered heads rolling in a corn field of withered corn stalks." MMMD, HBJ, p1
Since as reader I am a passenger on the bus, at one with the narrator, I cannot help but wonder at the thrill, the mystery and the danger of this ride."The bus-windows had turned to a cold, steaming greyness as if only the ghost of the world were crying outside, as if the known world of familiar associations had disappeared, and that which remained must seem but the conspiracy of memories and dreams floating without purpose, without limitation." MMMD, HBJ, p3
All my life I had been reaching for the tangible, and it had evaded me, much like the myth of Tantalus, much as if the tangible itself were an illusion." MMMD, HBJ, p4Tantalus (Ancient Greek: Τάνταλος, Tántalos) was a Greek mythological figure, most famous for his eternal punishment in Tartarus. He was made to stand in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree with low branches, with the fruit ever eluding his grasp, and the water always receding before he could take a drink. He was...a son of Zeus[1] and the nymph Plouto. Thus, like other heroes in Greek mythology such as Theseus and the Dioskouroi, Tantalus had both a hidden, divine parent and a mortal one. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantalus)
Tantalus, Willi Glasauer, pencil drawing, 1864
"In the beam of our anarchic head lights which barely cut through mist and darkness, there stood, by the side of the road, a tall man with a child perched on his lean shoulders, a double-headed man, staring at nothingness or beyond it." MMMD, HBJ, p4Janus?
In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus (Latin: Ianus, pronounced [ˈiaː.nus]) is the god of beginnings and transitions,[1] thence also of gates, doors, passages, endings and time. He is usually depicted as having two faces, since he looks to the future and to the past. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus
Romanesque high-relief stone sculpture, in the Museo del Duomo, Ferrara, Italy
Very nice with the updates. Many thanks.I especially like the bus = ghost-ship.
Ce Ce, I've finally found my way here and I can see you've already been decorating Miss Mac's space with your trademark style!
Helloooooo Fio! I look forward to reading this bit of magic & mystery with you.
Ce Ce wrote: "Since as reader I am a passenger on the bus, at one with the narrator, I cannot help but wonder at the thrill, the mystery and the danger of this ride."The bus-windows had turned to a cold, steam..."
There's a loneliness about bus journeys, especially night trips, when the windows are blind except for the odd flashes of light, and the only thing we can make out is the reflection of our own ghost-like faces in the glass. Bus journeys are the journeys of the young and the poor and M Y has captured all of that very well. But she is choosing carefully what she is offering us - I'm trying to picture Vera Cartwheel (and what a name) but, for all the words about her years of wandering, it's hard to get even a glimpse.
Perhaps in chapter two...
American road trip:"We had passed on this journey, many curious pieces of rural architecture, an enormous coffee urn with its lid opened against the sky, a wigwam nightclub where, under a denuded oak, a melancholy buffalo was tethered, incongruous as the faded washing on the line. We had passed a windmill, a leaning tower, Noah's Ark, the old woman who lived in the shoe..." Miss Mac, HBJ, p3
Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe (1948) Pennsylvania
http://vagabondglovers.blogspot.com/2...
Coffee Pot building (1932) outside Bremen, Indiana (no longer exists)
http://fansinaflashbulb.wordpress.com...
Wigwam Cafe...there was a Wigwam nightclub/casino/restaurant...now demolished
Noah's Ark Restaurant...Missouri (recently demolished)
The Windmill Restaurant...1955...Seneca, New York
Leaning Tower (1934) Niles, Illinois
Fionnuala wrote: "But she (M Y) is choosing carefully what she is offering us - I'm trying to picture Vera Cartwheel (and what a name) but, for all the words about her years of wandering, it's hard to get even a glimpse."Very carefully. We know of her flight and search...but Vera is as a dream. Not tangible or identifiable. I was astonished to learn her name.
Fionnuala wrote: "There's a loneliness about bus journeys, especially night trips, when the windows are blind except for the odd flashes of light, and the only thing we can make out is the reflection of our own ghost-like faces in the glass."I made notes as M Y moved from the watery greyness of the Midwest plains to the ocean with ambiguous waters as boundary line with no shore and no horizon to the landscape of the soul.
There was now no landscape but the soul's... Miss Mac, HBJ, p4
The cold grey condensation on the windows of the bus leaves the passengers with only the reflection of their faces and soul.
And a driver careening in an altered state. Swigging whiskey. Whistling to the birds. Calling the angels.
So beautifully portrayed.
Miss MacIntosh is introduced. I looked up her family name when I encountered a reference to Inverness in Ch 2 in the description of another character.MacIntosh
Mhic an Toisich
Scottish Gaelic toisech translates to leader
MacIntosh clan from Inverness
Clan slogan: Don't touch the cat without a glove
Great photos of the collection of odd landmarks she mentions, Ce Ce. Yes, MacIntosh. The name is an interesting choice both for its origins and its association with rainy weather. An umbrella is mentioned more than once and, flippant as it may sound, this governess reminded me a little, not of any Greek or Roman figure, but of...Mary Poppins.
Fionnuala wrote: "An umbrella is mentioned more than once and, flippant as it may sound, this governess reminded me a little, not of any Greek or Roman figure, but of...Mary Poppins."YES...blown in by the East wind...
Ce Ce wrote: "I had visions of a tragic contemporary impoverished American Marie Antoinette in the young sleeping pregnant woman drawn in such a layered painterly fashion."In pure stream of consciousness fashion..."fragilistic" and mention of Mary Poppins brought to mind the reference to the dark side of a fairy tale. Our young pregnant girl is not destined to a Cinderella life...in stark contrast to her sleeping prince of a carefree single paragraph.
The glass heels of the young pregnant woman on the bus..."her velvet slippers spiked with glass heels which should not carry her..." Miss Mac, HBJ, p2
Ce Ce wrote: "Miss MacIntosh is introduced. I looked up her family name when I encountered a reference to Inverness in Ch 2 in the description of another character.MacIntosh
Mhic an Toisich
Scottish Gaelic to..."
And Miss MacIntosh..."a poor old nursemaid walking along the seashore, taking her constitutional, the salt crystals beading her cheeks and pointed chin... Miss Mac, HBJ, p7
Miss MacIntosh...salt of the earth OR woman born of the sea?
Curiouser and curiouser!(Like Alice, I sometimes forget how to speak good English)
Fionnuala wrote: "Curiouser and curiouser!(Like Alice, I sometimes forget how to speak good English)"
LOL Fio...
"In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.
The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well.
Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was going to happen next."
Sort of like reading Miss Mac... ;-)
Ce Ce wrote: "Sort of like reading Miss Mac... ;-) "Yes, this well is very, very deep and I'm falling very, very slowly.
Ce Ce wrote: "Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe (1948) Pennsylvania"I used to drive by that shoe on my way to school! Never did stop in to say Hello!
Nathan "N.R." wrote: "Ce Ce wrote: "Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe (1948) Pennsylvania"I used to drive by that shoe on my way to school! Never did stop in to say Hello!"
Very early into Miss Mac, I am enjoying the eccentricity of our American landscape...that which we travel physically through as well as our psyche.
The description of the deteriorating garden and its plethora of statuary...was equally evocative.
A fluid exuberance...even in our under world.
"...I [Vera] must find my way from the darkness to the ultimate light.""When shall the light, Peter, enter my soul? His eyes had been withered in their sockets - the bare light bulb glaring only three livid inches away from those burned-out hollows as he had groped from thick white coffee cup, asking his plaintive, remorseless question - When shall the light, Peter, enter my soul again? Should he never again be as in the old days, the world's greatest juggler, performing for the Lord's sake and glory, keeping six coffee cups mid-air simultaneously as he skipped rope or rode on a bicycle, a sleight-of-hand artist who could pluck the playing cards off any man's sleeve, produce a rabbit out of any man's hat, make the invisible world visible, as if an angel should be revealed." MMMD, HBJ, pp 8&9
"Peter is...the exemplar of "little faith" in Matthew 14, will soon have Jesus say to him, 'O you of little faith, why did you doubt?'" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Peter
"St. Peter freed by an angel" -by Jusepe de Ribera, 1639 (the apostle Peter, who denied Jesus, and was forgiven)
And by describing the thick white coffee cup, the juggler, the magician and sleight of hand evoked images of evangelism and faith healing in the American revivalist tradition.
Much could be said about the water references, and the wave-like rhythm of the writing (with its repetition and almost-repetition) - there is also a connection to (a development of/from) Woolf here (particularly The Waves) - from being stood on the beach watching, we are now submerged and gently wafted back and forth and back and forth...There is also a very strong sense of place and of person - I know where I am much more than anticipated
Wonderful to see a Miss Mac post. She is sitting on my table beckoning. I'm currently reading James Joyce, "Ulysses". I wonder how that will influence my continued reading of Miss Mac.I like your reference to Woolf's "The Waves".
Being, likely, a kind of prose poem, I will name each chapter thread with the first few words of each chapter, as is customary in the world of poetry.