The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910 discussion
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The Expedition of Humphry Clinker
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Humphry Clinker Week 5: Beginning of Volume 3, starting with a letter to Dr Lewis from Matt. Bramble (Edr. Aug 8), to page 297, the end of a letter from Matt. Bramble to Dr Lewis (Sept 30)
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The thing that most struck me in this section was how the characters described Glasgow as being so beautiful. I had always thought of Edinburgh as the more beautiful of the two with Glasgow as the more commercially lively city, More rock bands are from Glasgow, but then rock bands often thrive in more industrial cities such as Manchester. Having just finished the book Shuggie Bain reinforces that Glasgow image in my mind. While I presumed that portrayal was the reflection of the more Glaswegian-centered Smollett's provincial pride, I realize that this story was set 250 years ago when Glasgow may actually have been the real beauty of the two. And beauty is in the eye of the beholder anyway, isn't it?
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Smollett does have more positive things to say about Scotland, especially when you consider his opinions of London and Bath.
Smollett's partiality for Scotland was quite obvious here. But that's natural. After all, who won't be partial of their own birth country?In this section, Smollett took me right through a cultural trip to Scotland. Some of the places I've visited (though centuries later :) ) were mentioned bringing back nostalgic memories. I just loved learning how those cities were centuries ago and mentally contrasting them with how they are today. I wasn't surprised as to why the characters thought Glasgow is beautiful. Although I've seen it centuries later, I can think back in time and agree with them.
I've not done with all the letters of this section and hope there will be some to shed light on Liddy and that mysterious Mr. Gordon who looks identical to Wilson. :)
I think that Glasgow has come through the savage industrial times when it did indeed become as dark and Satanic as Manchester and Birmingham. Today its remnants of pre-industrial life as well as Victorian and more modern splendours are admirably presented in what is a vibrant city.In 1990 Glasgow was named the ‘European City of Culture’ and since then it has gone from strength to strength as demonstrated by these two articles below.
https://www.scotsman.com/heritage-and...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotlan...
The tour of Scotland was fascinating. One of my favourite places is Loch Lomond where the family stayed. I enjoyed Winifred’s amusing potted folklore about the Loch in her letter……’and then we went to a gentleman’s house at Loff-Loming, which is a wonderful sea of fresh water, with a power of hylands in the midst on’t.—They say as how it has n’er a bottom, and was made by a musician and, truly, I believe it; for it is not in the coarse of nature.—It has got waves without wind, fish without fins, and a floating hyland; and one of them is a crutch-yard, where the dead are buried; and always before the person dies, a bell rings of itself to give warning.’
It seems I was wrong about Wilson pretending to be a Mr. Gordon (or was I?) I have been disappointed that Liddy has featured so little in the story so far, with the other two women (Tabby and Winifred) mainly being used by Smollett as the butt of his jokes. Even if Wilson does turn up now, he and Liddy will have to do something amazing to rescue my interest in their part of the plot.
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What a contrast to our current impression of the dour and abstaining Scots Presbyterians (spoken as someone who was raised in a Presbyterian church)!
Trev wrote: ".I have been disappointed that Liddy has featured so little in the story so far, with the other two women (Tabby and Winifred) mainly being used by Smollett as the butt of his jokes..."From how the book started, I too thought that her character would be developed more than it did. I share your disappointment as the book could use a woman character with a bit more intelligence and sense than those two.
As Dickens was a great admirer of Smollett, the inability to create such a well-developed female character may be one of the things Dickens got from Smollett - or liked about Smollett.
I enjoyed the Scottish section more than any other part of the book so far. It was interesting to read this portrait of the area in the 18th century, both physical and social, and the traditional customs that still survived alongside modernization. As to Glasgow being a handsomer city than Edinburgh, a large part of what is admired today about Edinburgh is the Georgian part of the town, and it sounded as if that section was only starting to be constructed at this time.
Humphry Clinker continues to be a background figure, but descriptions of him are increasingly sexualized. I’d noticed some innuendo before but this passage made it impossible to ignore: “As for Win Jenkins, she has undergone a perfect metamurphysis, and is become a new creeper from the ammunition of Humphry Clinker, our new footman, a pious young man, who has labored exceedingly, that she may bring forth fruits of repentance. I make no doubt but he will take the same pains with that pert hussey Mary Jones, and all of you; and that he may have power given to penetrate and instill his goodness, even into your most inward parts . . .”
Speaking of the bawdy associations surrounding Humphry Clinker, I looked up definitions of “clinker” to see what Smollett might be intending by the name. I found two different meanings—(1) a hard lump left behind after coal is burned and (2) bits of dried excrement caught in anal hair, especially on long-haired animals. Considering the peculiar scene of his introduction when we met more of Mr. Clinker than was seemly, I wonder if 18th-century readers were supposed to get a snicker from the name.
As to Smollett's bawdiness, this is from a 1935 UMass Amherst Master's theses on Smollett's influence on Dickens, which also explains why Smollett is not as much read as others of his era:"It is unfortunate that the delightful qualities of Smollett have many times been blotted out by the indelicacy of his lines. Few people become acquainted with the robust humor and wide canvas of interesting characterizations with which his pages abound. Harsh as his satire may be, coarse as are many of his scenes, the most genial and lovable of the English novelists delighted in his writings and borrowed from them. This fact alone gives great significance to Smollett. Dickens, received directly from Smollett."
A few things Dickens borrowed from Smollett in his early novels include:
1) creating caricatures rather than characters;
2) alliterative titles: Roderick Ransom and Peregrine Pickle to Pickwick Papers and Nicholas Nickleby; (Pickle, Pick-wick, Nickle-by)
This is the article in its glorious vintage-typed totality:
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/vi...
Abigail, thanks for the explanation that Edinburgh's beauty was enhanced by post-Smollett Georgian era architecture.
Two things struck me in these last sections. Before the family entered Scotland they saw quite a bit of hostility towards the Scots. The English people at the Scottish border seem to have hated the Scottish people quite a bit.Then we get a picture of Scotland that is much more agreeable than the one we got from previous sections in England. Local patriotism certainly played a role, but Smollett seemed to fall also into the category of people having typical enmities of the time.
The other thing is the description of women in many sections. It seems to me that Smollett has not much good to say about the characters of most women in this story. In the last letter of this section Bramble offers us the specter of the downfall of several families because of the vanities of women. Not very endearing.
I still don’t get why Humphry Clinker is featured prominently in the title of this book. He hasn’t had much to say in these lasts sections.
Brian wrote: "As to Smollett's bawdiness, this is from a 1935 UMass Amherst Master's theses on Smollett's influence on Dickens, which also explains why Smollett is not as much read as others of his era:"It is ..."
Thanks for that treatise Brian. I didn’t know much about Dickens’ links with Smollett.
I have only read the first few pages of the thesis and will definitely read it all. The type written pages remind me of some of my efforts from the seventies produced on a Gestetner or a ‘banda’ with the fumes of the machine affecting everyone in the production room as it churned out the pages.
I don’t think that Smollett is any more bawdy than Fielding, or more explicit than Richardson. His jokes or satire seem to lack the subtlety of other writers but this was before the Victorians covered up the table legs with long draperies and only expected naughty goings-on to be hinted at.
Abigail’s perceptive quote from one of Tabby’s letters made me wonder who the target audience for this work might be. Would it be in all the fashionable drawing rooms or consigned to gentlemen’s clubs or other male orientated environments?
Interesting contributions, all! Regarding your final question, Trev, I can only suggest that there was at this time a widespread view that novels were inappropriate for female readers, for a variety of reasons depending on the type of novel. Satire in particular was principally a male domain (hence perhaps Jane Austen’s defensiveness as an author in Northanger Abbey?), so it is probable that Smollett assumed a male audience. It would be a bit problematic in a lending library! The era was indeed more forthright for both sexes and you can see some bawdiness in the stories Jane Austen wrote as a child in the 1780s and early 1790s, but as a grown-up young unmarried lady she would have been expected to be unaware of such jokes.That said, it’s likely that many women did read books like this. Reverend Austen, Jane’s father, gave her the run of his library, and though I haven’t heard that she read Smollett she certainly read Fielding. And in discussing literature of the period we often overlook the fact that people of both sexes regularly attended the theater, where comedies had a lot of bawdiness and sexual innuendo as well as broad physical comedy.
Mod
re: Bawdiness-we are so used to thinking that each successive generation is more liberated and allows greater license than the previous one, we forget sometimes that the Victorians were much more repressed, at least in their writings and what was allowed in conversation and dress and behaviour, than earlier eras.
Austen’s descendants found even her works too forthright for their Victorian tastes and conducted a decades-long campaign to pretty her up! Thank heavens, it was ultimately a losing effort.
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The overall impression of Scotland is very favourable, perhaps because Smollett himself was born and raised near Dumbarton, Scotland, and attended University in Glasgow and later trained as a surgeon there. This section opens with the suggestion that the Scots should learn to speak without using their own idioms and pronunciation to avoid sounding rustic or clownish. (My Canadian ear certainly enjoys a Scottish accent and thinks it in fact makes the speaker sound more intelligent, not less!)
For those of you without an edition with notes, it appears that many of the minor characters in this travelogue are based on real people, sometimes named, sometimes represented by their initials only, but certainly recognizable to the readers of the time.
There are again many descriptions of and commentary on some of the different customs and foods, as well as anecdotes about many of the people met along the way, some new friends and some longstanding acquaintances. We also meet Lismahago again and poor Mrs Tabitha does finally seem to be about to find a husband, and Mr Bramble to be able to free himself from his sister.
Again, please share your thoughts on this section, and let us know what parts you found particularly interesting or amusing.