Country of the Pointed Firs

I feel inadequate to the task of writing about Country of the Pointed Firs and Other Stories by Sarah Orne Jewett. Can I just say everyone needs to read this book and have that be enough? Of course it is not enough because you are like me and have a TBR pile big enough to last you a lifetime, so why should you add one more book?

Country of the Pointed Firs is a novella. A woman from the city is lodging with Mrs. Todd in Dunnett Landing, a small coastal town in Maine. The woman who never has a name is a writer and has come to Dunnett Landing to get away and work and get some fresh air. Over the course of the summer she becomes a friend to Mrs. Todd and all the other residents of Dunnett Landing. And as she becomes part of the community the reader feels as though they are becoming part of it too. The stories that follow the novella take place in and around the same area with a few venturing as far away as Vermont. Some of the characters in these other stories are familiar, some not. But they only serve to make the reader feel as though that neat little house with the garden in bloom just up ahead is the reader's house and you've only just been out for a visit or to gather some wild herbs and are now returning home for a cup of tea and a simple supper followed by a quiet evening of knitting next to the stove.

The people are independent Yankee folks. Most of the stories center around women and most of those women are middle-aged or older. They are women who have never married because they had spent their youth caring for elderly parents or they are widows whose husbands died at sea. But these women are strong and take care of themselves. They do not fish like the men but they can handle a sailboat just as well and when it comes to farming often manage the fields better than their husbands did. Or, in the case of Mrs. Todd, she sells cures and remedies to people made from the herbs she grows in her garden or gathers wild from the woods or one of the many small islands just off the coast.

Because it is a small community everyone knows everyone and everyone must get along even if they don't really like each other. This does not mean they can't gossip about the people they don't get along with, but there is a certain level of civility and appearances that must be kept up. And it helps to have a good sense of humor too. But even while laughing at someone it is not mocking or derisive but often gentle. Like when Mrs. Todd, her mother Mrs. Blackett, and the unnamed writer go to the Bowden family reunion, Mrs. Todd assesses the singing that had gone on there:

'There was good singers there; yes, there was excellent singers,' she agreed heartily, putting down her teacup, 'but I chanced to drift alongside Mis' Peter Bowden o' Great Bay, an' I couldn't help thinkin' if she was as far out o' town as she was out o' tune, she wouldn't get back in a day.'

I love that! The book was filled with moments that made me laugh. There were some that made me cry too and others that were so beautiful they took my breath away.

One story I especially liked was "A White Heron." Maybe it stood out because the protagonist is a nine-year-old girl. Or maybe because the girl, Sylvia, climbed the tallest tree around in order to see where the white heron lived but in the process saw the sunrise and the ocean and discovered something about herself too. She climbed the tree because a man who was studying birds was staying at Sylvia and her aunt's cabin. He asked Sylvia if she knew where the white heron lived because they were rare birds and he wanted to kill it so he could study it. He would give her ten dollars-- a lot of money to her--if she could tell him where the heron lived. But she cannot tell:

No, she must keep silence! What is it that suddenly forbids her and makes her dumb? Has she been nine years growing and now, when the great world for the first time puts out a hand to her, must she thrust it aside for the bird's sake? The murmur of the pine's green branches is in her ears, she remembers how the white heron came flying through the golden air and how they watched the sea and the morning together, and Sylvia cannot speak; she cannot tell the heron's secret and give its life away.

I wanted to hug her for keeping silent. And I think that's why I enjoyed this book so much. I liked the people in it. I felt as though I knew them. I've sat by fires when I was a kid listening to the adults tell stories and this book brought that all back. The warmth, the safety, the comfort, the feeling that sure, bad things happen, but we get through them and everything is really alright or will be alright as long as we can stick together and watch out for each other. I think the unnamed writer says it perfectly in the story "William's Wedding"

Santa Teresa says that the true proficiency of the soul is not in much thinking, but in much loving, and sometimes I believed that I have never found love in its simplicity as I had found at Dunnett Landing in the various hearts of Mrs. Blackett and Mrs. Todd and William. It is only because one came to know them, these three, loving and wise and true, in their own habitations. Their counterparts are in every village in the world, thank heaven, and the gift to one's life is only in its discernment...'The happiness of life is in its recognitions. It seems that we are not ignorant of these truths, and even that we believe them; but we are so little accustomed to think of them, they are so strange to us--'

Country of the Pointed Firs will get you to thinking about those recognitions. When I closed the book I was sad because I felt like I was leaving home. But all I have to do to return is open the book, or look around. I know these people. I think I met one of them just the other day...

Cross-posted at So Many Books

The Death of the Heart, by Elizabeth Bowen

I thought I might fall in love with this book, and it turns out I didn’t, but I don’t want to hold that against it. It is a very good novel; I’m glad I read it, and I’d like to read more Bowen. There’s something cold about the book, though, that made me admire more than love it. Its subject matter is rather depressing, and although I generally like depressing books, this one … well, it left me sad and didn’t dazzle me in a way that would make me feel better. But, really, I do admire it, and I believe I don’t need to fall in love with a book to recognize that it’s quite good.

It’s a story of lost innocence; Portia, a 16-year-old girl who is newly-orphaned comes to live with her much older half-brother Thomas and his wife Anna, and while she is there she learns some harsh lessons about the world. Her new family doesn’t really want here there; they took her in because it was Portia’s dying father’s request and because it seemed like the right thing to do. But Anna particularly resents having Portia in her home — the opening scene reveals that Anna has secretly read Portia’s diary and found that Portia has written some unflattering things about her and her friends. It’s as though Anna feels like she is competing with Portia; we learn that Anna had a love affair when she was much younger that ended disappointingly and it’s implied that Anna has never really recovered — now she sees Portia with her youth and beauty and attractiveness and resents the life she has ahead of her.

Portia meets a young friend of Anna’s named Eddie and the plot gets more complicated from there. The two quickly begin a relationship, but this relationship means something quite different for each of them. Portia in all her innocence believes she has fallen in love, but it’s clear that Eddie is merely interested in having some fun.

Poor Portia. She doesn’t fit in anywhere, and she clings to Eddie as the one she feels she can trust the most. She attends what sounds like a dreadful school and makes one friend there, but this friend doesn’t really satisfy, and she only gets in trouble while trying to make it through the school day. In the book’s second section, Anna and Thomas head off to France and leave Portia behind at the house of Anna’s old governess. Here, too, Portia feels like an outsider, and when she invites Eddie to visit her there, events head in a direction she never anticipated.

It’s Portia’s innocence that causes so much trouble, or, rather, it’s the world around her that causes the trouble, not knowing what to do with her innocence. Portia isn’t trained to deal with proper London society or with boys who make rash promises or with the isolation she endures. Anna and Thomas live dull, sterile lives; they have carefully cordoned themselves off from any real interaction with other people or even with each other:

Callers were unheard of at Windsor Terrace. They had been eliminated; they simply did not occur. The Quaynes’ [Thomas and Anna’s] home life was as much their private life as though their marriage had been illicit. Their privacy was surrounded by an electric fence — friends who did not first telephone did not come.

In this atmosphere Portia dries up; it’s no wonder she turns to other people, even harmful people, to try to find some liveliness and love.

Bowen is very much interested in psychological states. The back cover describes her style as Jamesian, and I think that claim holds true; Bowen describes her characters’ inner lives in depth, capturing the ebb and flow of their feelings and responses. It’s a thoughtful book, one that moves slowly — although not in a way that might bore — and tells its story with pleasing thoroughness. If you like books with emotional and psychological insight — ones that capture the complexity of character, then you may like this book.

Cross-posted here.

Lunatic Villas by Marian Engel

In a recent review of The Honeyman Festival by Marian Engel, I wrote that Lunatic Villas is a joyous book. And, after a re-read, and despite its detailing of vicissitudes of the death-and-taxes variety, I still find it so. Harriet, harassed mother and collector of innumerable children, is Engel's most indomitable heroine. After the death of her first love, Tom, a Vietnam draft dodger, she adopts three children: Simeon, the son of his ex-girlfriend and his own two daughter, Melanie and Ainslie, to grow up beside Harriet and Tom's own son, Mickle. An unfortunate marriage brings twins Peter and Patsy, children of inveterate sponger and wastrel, Michael Littlemore, while Harriet's disturbed niece Sidonia joins the family when her mother is unable to cope with her. Harriet supports her disparate brood by writing a magazine column under the byline "Depressed Housewife". Into this menagerie comes Mrs Adeline Saxe, an unexpected English visitor who is the distant cousin of someone Harriet once stayed with in England.

Lunatic Villas is a cul de sac in Toronto, inhabited by a community of neighbours who all know each other, and thus until now almost an island in the city, but soon to be integrated with the demolition of the factory at the end of the street. The inhabitants are in and out of each other's houses and know each other's business, although this doesn't preclude tensions and disputes, and occasional surprises, such as when Harriet's friend Roger's ex-partner presents Roger with their baby to bring up. Much of Harriet's past (and her present anxieties) emerges as it is explained to Mrs Saxe, while children are ushered out after breakfast: Sidonia to her psychiatrist, Mick to his speech therapist, the Littlemores to be taken by their father to the dentist (in fact, to McDonalds); only Simeon, seriously studying for university, Melanie, who is sensible, and Ainslie (who is absent visiting rich maternal grandparents) are not a constant source of worry. Constant demands are also made on Harriet by her two older sisters, Madge, eccentric and tyrannical (and very keen on proper leather shoes) and Babs, an alcoholic with money difficulties because Madge controls the family money.

Yet, throughout this book there is a sense of hope, and much to amuse. The eldest son, Simeon, is a warm and likeable character, Mrs Saxe is endearingly eccentric in her evident amusement at family events, and her obsession with bicycles – shared by Mick, which gives him common ground with someone at last – and, while there is betrayal amongst the family, there is also love, affection and a degree of reconciliation. Engel's delicious sense of humour shines through the story, the writing has an easy flow and engages at once. If the events might seem at times bizarre to the childless, every parent knows that the weird and ridiculous are part and parcel of the process of bringing up children and, the more you have, the truer that will be. I warmly commend this entertaining book to readers of Outmoded Authors and, because if you haven't you should certainly read it, to all those partaking in the Canadian Reading Challenge.

Cross-posted at Geranium Cat's Bookshelf

Of Human Bondage

After Letty Fox: Her Luck, it was a relief to read some clear and reader-friendly prose. Of Human Bondage may not have the most likable characters you've ever seen, but within a paragraph or two of their introduction, they are unforgettable. Among them are Philip's love-starved aunt, his dour uncle and Mildred, the cheap, grasping waitress that Philip inexplicably falls for, and Philip himself, who manages to overcome his self-consciousness about his clubfoot and finds out through trial and error, where his talents lie.

Since Maugham was also a playwright, he seemed to have a tendency to write situations overlarge: Mildred is not only a bad girlfriend, she's monstrous, complete with green-tinged skin that Maugham alludes to on several occasions. Philip not only hits a rough patch; he nearly starves to death. His divorcee girlfriend and the young woman he subsequently falls for are not only agreeable, they're practically earth goddesses. Luckily, Maugham wrote so well that the reader is wrapped up in these characters and carried along.

Of Human Bondage whetted my appetite for more Maugham; I'm definitely a fan of his now. I want to read another of his novels to complete this challenge, but can't decide on which one. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Gentle Reader wrote a much better, more in-depth review of this novel at this blog on January 2. If you haven't read it yet, scroll down and see for yourself You can also view it at her enjoyable blog, Shelf Life.

Cross-posted at Naked Without Books!

The Spoilt City by Olivia Manning

The Spoilt City was first published in 1962, published by Arrow Books in 2004. 295 pages.

It is the second in Olivia Manning’s Balkan Trilogy. (I wrote about the first book The Great Fortune here.) It continues the story of Guy and Harriet Pringle’s life in Bucharest during 1940. The ‘Phoney War’ is now over and the invasion by the Germans is ominously threatened causing much unrest and uncertainty.

Harriet and Guy’s ideas clash; with Harriet longing to return to England and Guy determined to stay in Bucharest. The difference in their characters is also developed. Harriet is more critical of people than Guy, who prefers to like people, knowing this is the basis of his influence over them. Her criticism troubles him, but he recognises that she is stronger than him in some ways and he is influenced by her. Harriet takes a more general view than Guy and has “rejected the faith which gave his own life purpose.”

Guy is however, pragmatic and sees religion as “part of the conspiracy to keep the rich powerful and the poor docile”. He is not interested in “fantasy” but in “practical improvement in mankind’s condition." Harriet is not so practical, but she comes to appreciate that Guy is right: “Wonders were born of ignorance and superstition. Do away with ignorance and superstition and there would be no more wonders, only a universe of unresponsive matter in which Guy was at home, though she was not. Even if she could not accept this diminution of her horizon, she had to feel a bleak appreciation of Guy, who was often proved right.”

Guy’s generosity to everyone frustrates Harriet in her attempts to survive and indeed to leave the country. They are ordered to leave but he persists in staying put as the escape routes were being blocked. As Guy argues the case for staying “ … we represent all that is left of western culture and democratic ideas”, Harriet begins to think that even though they have only been married for one year that the bonds between them are loosening.

Once again Yakimov comes to the fore, providing some comic relief. He is one of the people that Guy tries to help. He visits Von Flugel, a Nazi and an old friend in Cluj. Von Flugel thinks Yaki is a British spy, but even so he gives him 25,000 lei to return to Bucharest to buy an Ottoman rug for him. When he gets to Bucharest he finds everything has changed for the worse, the army has been called out and an attack on the palace is expected. He quickly packs up and leaves on the Orient Express for Istanbul using the money from Von Flugel.

As the blitz on London begins Harriet increases her efforts to leave the country but Guy still wants to stay. They go for a short “holiday” in Predeal in the mountains and Harriet becomes increasingly critical of Guy and feels bored in his company. As both their relationship and the situation in Rumania deteriorate Guy persuades Harriet to leave without him after their flat is raided and ransacked.

This is a bleak story and as I was reading it I thought it was not as good as the first book in the trilogy, The Great Fortune, but thinking about it now, that maybe because it is set in such an adverse situation set against the backdrop of war. I became increasingly critical of Guy and impatient for him to agree with Harriet. Perhaps that is the measure by which I should consider the book – it certainly seemed real to me and conveyed the tension and fears of living in Rumania at that time as well as chronicling the Pringles’ marriage. As with The Great Fortune there is a great deal of information about the political situation, which was new to me and at times I did find that difficult to follow, which didn’t help with my enjoyment of the book. What I did enjoy was the character development and their realtionships. I also enjoyed Olivia Manning's descriptive writing eg:

"The air was furred with heat. On the pavement the Guardist youths with their banners and pamphlets, were still trying to rouse revolt. Although a sense of revolt agitated the nerves like an electric storm that would not break, the city was lethargic, the palace dormant, its white blinds drawn down against the tedium of the afternoon. ... The height of summer was past. The dahlias were ablaze in the Cismigiu. Up the Chaussee, the trees were parched, their few leaves dangling like burnt paper, as they had been the first time she saw them. The brilliant months had gone down in fear and expectation of departure."

The story is continued in Friends and Heroes, the third book in the trilogy. The Outmoded Authors Challenge finishes at the end of this month and it's not looking as though I'll read the third book before then, but I will definitely read it before long.

The Wisdom of Father Brown

Better late than never! I read this short story collection about a month ago, and mentioned it a little on my blog, but I never got around to doing an actual write-up.

This was my first experience with Father Brown, and Chesterton for that matter. The collection starts off with a great story, "The Absence of Mr. Glass" that basically mocks Holmes-style detective fiction. It opens with Dr. Orion Hood, "an eminent criminologist," in his study. His study is described in great detail, and every sentence reinforces Dr. Hood's extreme orderliness. I thought you guys would appreciate this passage:

Poetry was there: the left-hand corner of the room was lined with as complete a set of English classics as the right hand could show of English and foreign physiologists. But if one took a volume of Chaucer or Shelley from that rank, its absence irritated the mind like a gap in a man's front teeth. One could not say the books were never read; probably they were, but there was a sense of their being chained to ther places, like the Bibles in the old churches.

Then, into this eminent Doctor's day, "there shumbled into the room a shapeless little figure, which seemed to find its own hat and umbrella as unmanageable as a mass of luggage. The umbrella was a black and prosaic bundle long past repair; the hat was a broad-curved black hat, clerical but not common in England; the man was the very embodiment of all that is homely and helpless." Needless to say, this is our erstwhile hero Father Brown. The two go on to try to solve a mystery; a boarder who has fallen in love with the landlady's daughter has been found tied up in his room, with everything in disarray. Meanwhile, before this the landlady overheard the boarder arguing with a mysterious Mr. Glass, who seems to come from the sea. Whatever is going on? As Dr. Hood provides his thoroughly scientific and rational answer, Father Brown seems to be trying not to laugh. And eventually he sees through the heart of the matter.

There are twelve stories, and my other favourites was "The Perishing of the Pendragons," which deals with an old family curse that keeps causing Pendragons to be shipwrecked. It's difficult to choose however-all but one of the stories were perfect gems! Throughout the collection, Father Brown is traveling: we see him in Scarborough, Italy, Paris, London, Chicago, Devonshire, Cornwall, Essex, and Germany. I don't know if that's usual of Father Brown stories, but I found the constant change of scenery quite refreshing! I do wish I could have gotten to know Father Brown a bit better, though...there isn't much character development in this collection.

I did alude to one story that I did not like at all: "The God of Gongs." It's the ninth story, so I was quite used to Chesterton's style, when all of a sudden this story appeared and through everything out of joint. It got very muddled very quickly, and Father Brown got in a violent altercation (which is quite unlike him), and it talks a lot about "negros," (and a much nastier n-word) and uses adjectives like "insolent" when referring to them. In fact, Father Brown's friend says, "Sometimes...I'm not surprised that they lynch them." The 'solution' is very confusing and talks about Voodoo, and I'm still quite annoyed that such a racist, garbage-y story is in the middle of an otherwise perfect collection. I realise the book was published in 1913, but it just didn't seem to fit any of the other stories. Oh well!

Other than that one story, I highly, highly recommend this collection to anyone who enjoys mystery stories. I know I'll be searching out the other Father Brown stories!

Of Human Bondage, by Somerset Maugham

My first book for the Outmoded Authors Challenge was Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage (Signet Classics), a semi-autobiographical novel about a young man’s long road to emotional maturity. I really enjoyed Maugham’s straightforward writing style, and I was drawn into the story by Maugham’s finely detailed characterization of Philip Carey, a young man stigmatized by a clubfoot, and looking for the love he never received as an orphaned boy.

I found the book truly compelling, mostly because Maugham creates a main character that is so completely human. His failings are so easy to relate to. I found him likeable even when I was mentally urging him not to make this or that self-destructive decision. And even when I was annoyed with Philip’s choices, they were such great examples of the choices all humans are faced with, the lessons all humans learn or don’t learn over their lifetimes, that I could easily relate to them.

It is fascinating to watch a young man struggle against the conventions and expectations of his time. Philip is a sensitive young man who finds the empty piety of his native religion unbearable, and cannot find a comfortable way to be an English "gentleman". He tries to break away from these conventions of society, but cannot easily find a philosophy or way of living that works for him, or fills the spiritual void he has. And the physical world betrays him, too. He cannot find work that is meaningful to him, and at one point in the book, he nearly starves.

Philip's disastrous relationship with the cruel and vulgar Mildred shows Philip that happiness in love is not the answer to the meaning of life, either. He lets go of that expectation (as a good Buddhist would) and though it doesn't solve all his problems, he comes that much closer to a measure of freedom. In fact, I felt Maugham's presence at my shoulder at times, saying, "Let go, my child, let go." Okay, I added that for effect, but you get what I mean.

Over the course of reading it, I nicknamed this novel “Of Human Frailty”, because all of its characters are so very deeply flawed. Maugham gives us a version of humanity with no sugar coating. As I thought back over the female characters in the novel, and realized they were all either vain, simpletons, fools, cruel or just completely self-centered, I wanted to accuse Maugham of misogyny, but then I surveyed the male characters, and realized I would have to call Maugham a misanthrope instead. But as much as most of the characters were wretched human beings, when Philip does get aid and succor from decent human beings, it is as truly surprising to the reader as it is to Philip, and that makes it all the more satisfying.

With that said, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Though Maugham’s portrayal of the fallibility and frailties of human beings is rather bleak, he made me truly care about his substitute, Philip Carey. Philip’s journey is mesmerizing—I found myself deeply involved in this book, and thinking about my own ideas about free will and emotional bondage. And though the ending is ostensibly a happy one, this book raises more questions than it answers, which makes it a classic and one that I will read again.

Cross-posted at Shelf Life.