9-11
The Voices of Men in Praise
Of Jane Austen
Messages
Beginning c. May 5, 2002
9-11
Dear Voices,
The July/August 2001 issue of The Atlantic Monthly has a newly discovered story by Mark Twain; namely, A Murder, A Mystery, and A Marriage. What I can link to, online, is an "Introduction" by Roy Blount Jr and an "Afterword" by the same.
The story itself is not online, so if you don't have time to read it (or can't get your hands on the July/August 2001 issue) here is a summary to facilitate your understanding of the "Afterword". Believe it or not, my Podunk library had a copy—they had only gotten a subscription last year. It was hard, but I restrained myself from hugging my librarian.
Summary: Poor Ambitious Farmer's (PAF) Sweet Innocent Daughter (SID) falls in love with Rich Guy (RG). PAF, who fell out with Rich Bachelor Brother (RBB) who hates RG, is delighted until he learns an untruth that RBB left everything to his SID. Well, if SID marries RG, then RBB might cut SID out of his will. Next, a supposedly rich Count literally drops out of the sky and makes the PAF more greedy and ambitious. The RBB gets killed, the innocent RG is blamed, the Count woos the bereaved SID, in the nick of time the Count's accomplice blabs all, breaks up the wedding, and the SID and the RG live happily ever after. The final chapter is the Count's confession where he explains how he fell out of the sky and murdered the RBB.
There is one sentence in the tale of particular interest to us Jane Austen fans. Upon discovering there is a rich Count in the neighborhood, the Father tells the Mother to not say a word about his title because "All the girls in forty miles around would be after him." Sounds like shades of the first sentence of Pride and Prejudice.
It is quite a tale, but Mr. Blount makes a lot of sense out of it. He goes so far as to label Huckleberry Finn the Great American Novel. He even says that Twain had a "Francophobic mind"—sounds more and more like our Cheryl! To make things worse, he said that Twain's The Gilded Age (1873) was "a satire on Reconstruction-era corruption". Cheryl, you could have a good conniption fit over that mess. In his opinion Twain was the champion of 'Innocence', and this particular, overlooked story was a turning point in his life.
Of particular interest to me are the final paragraphs (mine is an extremely abbreviated version). Blount says, "Many of his contemporaries achieved great popularity by writing nostalgically about the culture of slavery." Aha! This is what we have been spoon fed! Next we get a glimpse of Twain's reality where, at four years of age, he had been "kept awake by the groans of a runaway slave who had been captured, beaten, and tied up in a shack near his house." Later on as a boy, he witnessed "the mutilated body of another slave [that] rose to the surface [of the river] before his eyes." I personally know that such things affect one's sensitivities, because I was the one who found a young man who had hung himself right behind a privacy fence practically in my backyard. I will never forget the flies crawling around his mouth. Thereafter, I never cared for the witch effigies people used to hang at Halloween. You don't forget something like that. Blount's final sentence says a lot: He kept trying to reconstruct and deconstruct the smiting of innocence, and the shuddering silence that follows it.
Please consider the above as only a glimpse. There is much more to Mark
Twain than I ever thought.
Linda
From the Meister: But, but, what about
his
Defense of Harriet Shelley. You promised!
Dear Linda,
I'm going to start with the easy one: Mark Twain. (Responding to your Revolution Post is nearly another MWD post in itself.)
I will probably read the Atlantic Monthly article eventually. Mr. Blount's name sounds familiar; I believe his father was a pulp writer of the Golden Age of science fiction. I think as many critics try to "revise" Twain as Austen. A few years ago, there was a "pastiche" which is to fiction what "sampling" is to the music industry. In other words, a modern writer stole most of "Huckleberry Finn" word for word, but added some bad language, sex, and the stupidest ending in the history of literature: Jim getting lynched. (I know I would lynch $50,000 plus worth of property if I were a poor southerner.)
The one part of the article you quoted that I completely and utterly disagree with is that Twain was a champion of innocence. Twain was the champion of the self-aware man. In his youth, he fancied himself as the one man who could see the world and the humans in it as they truly are (in the Innocents Abroad he declares that if he met Diogenes, the old gentleman could put down his lamp and rest.) Unfortunately for Twain, that's only half the equation. To achieve true self-awareness one must be able to see the world as it truly is and not be destroyed by that knowledge. As Twain grew older, he found out the truth about the universe: that it is at best indifferent to humans and at worst, run by a malevolent Deity. No amount of prayer or good deeds or sacrifices could make him rich, or bring his wife or daughters back from the grave. And so his writing became increasingly bitter. The Mysterious Stranger is a good example of his private war with God.
One of my favorite books is The Warhound and The World's Pain by Michael Moorcock. In it, Lucifer wants to return to heaven and can do so only if the finds a cure for the world's pain (he thinks ... he can't communicate directly with God so he doesn't even know if hell is supposed to be about punishment or redemption) AKA the Holy Grail. He chooses our hero, Ulrick Von Bek; a soldier in the 30 years war who participated in the slaughter at Magdeburg. As the novel progresses, we find out that Satan has been trying to get the cup for years and has sent a succession of the Pure of Heart. All have failed—been destroyed in mind—because they reject outright the true nature of the Holy Grail. That it's a simple clay cup, guarded by a simple woman. No heavenly hosts singing. No MontyPython-like visitations from God. And no miraculous powers (except, as it turns out the power to bring peace and redemption.) Of course the truly innocent can't believe that they've suffered so much and so many great dangers for a plain cup that doesn't turn them into Superman.
One might be tempted to say Twain was one of the truly innocent himself, but
I don't really think so. I think he was a man who deep down, felt that
maybe if he hadn't said that one cuss word, or smoked that one cigar, that God
would have smiled on him and his. Having walked in the Holy Land, maybe he
felt that his life would be guided by Jesus the Redeemer; but instead his
footsteps were dogged by the God of Wrath.
Cheryl
P.S.
P.P.S. Does the author of the article name specifically what "...contemporaries achieved great popularity by writing nostalgically about the culture of slavery." ?? I seem to recall that Twain's main competition were Quo Vadis and Ben Hur both written by Civil War veterans and neither about modern slavery.
Dear Cheryl,
Now you have my curiosity up - who 'stole' Huck Finn?
As far as Twain being a 'champion of innocence', let me give two examples: his Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc and In Defense of Harriet Shelley.
You say, "To achieve true self-awareness one must be able to see the world as it truly is and not be destroyed by that knowledge." That's good! The only way I can keep from self-destruction is because of my faith. If I thought that THIS is all there is and never gets any better, well, why bother. (Please remember that I don't believe in "hell" either.)
I assume that he said this somewhere: "As Twain grew older, he found out the truth about the universe: that it is at best indifferent to humans and at worst, run by a malevolent Deity." In accordance with that statement, Blount said his writing did become bitter. The year 1896, when he wrote that novelette, was the turning point.
I don't think Twain was all that innocent either. He was a man - hee hee.
" guided by Jesus" and " dogged by the God of Wrath" - yes I can see where he would think so. Though he was very close friends with Twichell, a minister, their knowledge in those days was limited, as seeing "through a glass, darkly—now I know in part; but then ([in the future] shall I know even as also I am known." In other words in these 'latter days' we will know more. We are not all there yet but closer than they were. In his infamous letter to Twichell [re Jane Austen] Twain argued that "logic is logic" in his effort to understand what God was supposedly doing with the world. I wish I could have him with me for an hour to explain what little I do know now so that it would all make sense to him.
Whoever Lord Melchett is, he is probably speaking for the thoughts of lots of people. Good quote.
No, Blount does not say who those nostalgic writers are. That is a good question. I assumed (wrongly) that he knew what he was talking about without questioning it. Now I do wonder - who were they? You see, two heads are better than one. It is a good thing you are here to keep me in line and on track. I have learned in the past to check both sides of an idea, but lately 'time' seems to keep preventing me from doing the required checking up.
That said, I desperately want to read The Mysterious Stranger which I found online and printed out. Linked below are some others online. Now if I can get the kids to go away for Mother's day and leave me alone I can get some reading done. In addition to that I have to finish In Defense of Harriet Shelley and report on it. Oh, and did I mention finishing Caleb Williams too. It is such a shame I just sit around with nothing to do. Horrors!
Here are some links for your perusal
FOOT! I just went to post this and you are ahead of me already with more
posts to read. I never will catch up!
Linda
Dear Linda,
I will have to ask the spousal unit about the pastiche. To be honest, I paid more attention to his outrage than the actual book or author. It came out to much fanfare but died almost immediately because apparently, it just wasn't very good.
And speaking of not very good, there's Joan of Arc. Ashton will no doubt tell you that this gooey sentimental book is part of Twain's "Anglophobia" Actually I think it was just that Twain was traveling on the Continent when "Joanmania" hit France. The Napoleon of the Week was looking for a symbol to unite France and he dug up (sorry) Joan of Arc who had been languishing in obscurity for a few hundred years. I think she was canonized in 1920. (On the Francophobe side, Winston Churchill in his History of The English Speaking Peoples claims that she was indeed a poor, uneducated peasant girl but thoroughly coached by a French noble who may or may not have been working for the Dauphin.)
At any rate, I must disagree with you slightly. I don't think Twain's defense of Harriet Shelly or Joan of Arc indicates a defense of "innocence" in the general, philosophical sense, but rather defenses of two people who were innocent of the specific crimes with with they were charged. He defends Harriet against the charge that her child was fathered by someone other than her husband and he defends Joan of Arc against the charges of witchcraft and heresy. In his story Was It Heaven? Or Hell? he makes a strong case against innocence when two elderly spinsters must choose either to tell their dying niece that her daughter is also dying, or whether to lie and say she's fine (risking hell for their sins.) Twain comes down firmly on the side of lying and the spinsters' revelation that while one may steep oneself in the Good Book, we still have to live in the real world and deal with the weaknesses of mankind.
I'm enjoying the link to Twain's letters very much, thank you for the link. Roy has the Complete Authorized Version, with forward by the Author and original illustrations which he inherited from his mother and comprises approximately 30 volumes. (Approximate because they're never all on the shelf at one time.)
My advice is to do a bit of skipping over the last 1/3 of Caleb. You may miss the specific deus ex machina for each adventure, but you'll get the gist of things: "Caleb thinks he's escaped. Fate does unto him what God did unto the Sodomites." Repeat as often as needed until you get to the climax. Or better yet, just skip directly to the climax.
I'm going to try the John Halperin bio of Jane again. I got started,
but it's very thought provoking, something my tired old brain need to do in
small doses. We're also getting ready to go to Florida for a wedding and,
weather cooperating a shuttle launch!! So I'd better brush up on what the
mission is all about between now and then.
Cheryl
Dear Corned-Beef Hashton,
I am having a very verbal weekend, because I got all my class work done! Well, there is just one provocative point I am pondering during my billionth reading of P&P. Remember when Col. Fitzwilliam (Darcy's agreeable cousin) is strolling with Elizabeth around Rosings, and he mentions that Darcy had just saved a friend from an undesirable connection (he presumes the friend to be Bingley)? He says that Mr. Darcy wouldn't want this known to the lady's family, as it would be unpleasant. Wouldn't it be amusing to have followed up on Col. F. later, when he discovered who the "lady in question" was, and that he was spilling the beans to her closest sister? Back in school, we used to say in such cases "open mouth, insert foot"!
Dear Breezy,
Yes, that is interesting, but I cannot think that Colonel Fitzwilliam need ever be embarrassed because, by that time, he and Elizabeth were close friends. (Elizabeth seems to hope that they might become even closer.) If it had been me, I might have been glad that a friend had learned the full truth especially since I had acted innocently all the while. Also, notice that Jane Austen stops tantalizingly short of saying that Darcy had actually sworn Fitzwilliam to secrecy. The need for secrecy seems, instead, to have been a conjecture on Fitzwilliam's part. What say you? In fact, my impression is that Darcy was almost thinking out loud to his cousin; I say that because Darcy gave so few specifics. If I am right, then Jane Austen's intent might have been to show us in what way Darcy's mind was occupied - what was bothering him.
There is an even more interesting example of a Darcy wish to keep a secret from the Bennets. He carefully arranged with all involved in Lydia's marriage to keep his part in that affair unknown to everyone at Longbourn. Why do you think he did that? You can probably guess my interpretation because you know that I believe Jane Austen's intent was to paint a highly honorable character for the master of Pemberley.
Dear Bree,
As I said, it's been some time since I watched the '85 version. I suppose I'll just have to break down and add it to my Austen movie collection.
No, it didn't hurt to watch Colin Firth being all manly and showing off his abs, but the fact that those scenes were used instead of scenes actually written by Austen is both puzzling and annoying. Did the film maker really think his audience was too stupid to figure out for themselves that Mr. Darcy is the good guy? Illuminating the characters is one thing, but I don't feel the filmmaker illuminated Darcy or Elizabeth's characters with those silly scenes so much as force fed pre-digested pap to those too dim to figure out who the hero and heroine were supposed to be. How many "fear factor" fans are watching PBS on Saturday nights anyway?
Which sounds as if I didn't like the '95 version, but I did. I'm just frustrated by the fact that so much of the 6 hours was wasted with frivolous crap, while so much of the book remained untouched. Some day, perhaps we'll get a definitive version.
P.S. I think the definitive Miss Bingley was in Laurence Olivier's version
back in '41. I don't think the post-war actresses can quite do that "to
the manor born" attitude. There are some disadvantages to egalitarianism.
Cheryl
Dear Bree and Cheryl,
A crucial passage in the novel, for me, occurs rather early on:
"...[Bingley's sisters] were of a respectable family in the north of England; a circumstance more deeply impressed on their memories than that their brothers fortune and their own had been acquired by trade."
"Mr. Bingley inherited property to the amount of nearly a hundred thousand pounds from his father, who had intended to purchase an estate, but did not live to do it."
[Chapter IV]
In Jane Austen's time, a family did not become gentle until it owned land—until it owned an estate. The habits and attitudes of the later Victorian period can cause confusion to readers of Pride and Prejudice. We can forget that the England of Jane Austen's time accommodated upper mobility to a great extent. Bingley was at Netherfield in order to complete his family's rise to gentleman status. He was in the market for an estate, had been at Netherfield when a young boy, and had always wanted to revisit.
This status of the Bingley family explains much in the novel. We can better understand why Bingley is so peevish with Darcy at that first assembly; he did not want anyone in his party to offend the gentlemen and gentlewomen who might become his new neighbors. We can better understand the attitude and behavior of Miss Bingley to be typical habits of the "newly enriched" rather than of those "to the manor born". We can better understand that Darcy is quite comfortable with people from the exact same social class as Elizabeth's cousins in the Gardiner family.
You don't have to look beyond the Austen family itself in order to appreciate the extent of the upper mobility in the English society of those times. The Austen father was born into poverty but one warrior son was elevated to knighthood, another became the commander in chief of all naval forces in the waters of India and China, another achieved gentleman status, and one of his daughters was respectfully invited to a private, personal tour of the palace of the Prince of Wales solely in recognition of her intellectual talents and literary accomplishments.
It seems to me no accident that the American meritocracy, of which we are so proud, was initiated in Jane Austen's time. Our values are, after all, derived from England's. I strongly suspect that we would be a very different society—a lesser society if we had left our union with the old country during the reign of Queen Victoria. Perhaps we would have become another South Africa.
Let us turn to Sue Birtwistle's P&P-95. There are passages in the novel that were not included in the film. There was Aunt Gardiner's admonition to Elizabeth to not involve herself with Wickham. There was Elizabeth's complete and explicit realization of her father's failings. But most of all, I missed those wonderful conversations between Elizabeth and Darcy after their engagement. To not include those was a failure to bring out the complete nature of the novel as a love story—excuse me, I forget myself—as an L-word story. (My apology to all you feminists out there.) Ehle and Firth would have been dy-no-mite in those scenes had they been produced. Perhaps you can think of other deleted passages.
In place of those, there were a few—a very few—substitutions that did not offend me because they seemed cinematic enhancements of Jane Austen's vision. They were not part of Birtwistle's personal agenda grafted onto a great work of art. (Lord knows, we have seen too much of that in the productions of others.) For example, there are the little snippets of Elizabeth before her mirror. This is a direct adaptation of a device that Orson Welles invented for Citizen Kane, in which we are repeatedly shown the family at the breakfast table. The idea is to illustrate the changing moods and conditions in the story. This was done quite well in P&P-95; first there is the hilarious picture of Elizabeth practicing her facial expressions; ultimately, we are shown Elizabeth quickly turning away from the mirror to avoid her own expression of mourning over her imagined loss of Darcy's attention. Well done!
Dear Ashton,
You're right, Miss Bingley wasn't "TTMB" but she DID put on airs as if she was. The two more recent adaptations I think have played her obnoxiousness more as personal jealousy of Elizabeth than what's in the book. Publicly thinking oneself better than everyone else went out of style about 50 years ago, so modern actresses don't have any living examples to base their performances on.
By the way, I intend to watch P&P '95 again and make a note of everytime
Elizabeth gets weepy.
Cheryl
From the Meister: That's going to be a short note.
Dear Bree and Cheryl,
I agree that Miss Bingley in the Olivier version is exceptional and will add
Dame Edna Mae Oliver as the definitive Lady Catherine. She has that snooty
looking face that is my idea of Lady C. I agree also about some left-out
Austen in the '95 version. I particularly wished to see Mrs. Bennet get
her comeuppance when Elizabeth told her about her engagement to Darcy. The
look on Mrs. Bennet's face would have been priceless! If only we could do
the casting!
Linda
From the Meister: I guess I am the official Advocate of the Fools around here, but I can't imagine why the engagement might have been a "comeuppance" for Mrs. B. The only reason that Mrs. Bennet treated Darcy badly was because she was sure he had stiffed Elizabeth at that first assembly. Good for Mum says I. Actually, after she understood what Elizabeth was saying she was delighted, questioned Elizabeth about Darcy's favorite foods (as if she knew), and then began to go over the material rewards of 10,000 a year with her now favorite daughter.
I think if the French Presidential election and the British by-elections tell us anything it's that the American and European ideals of democracy are separated by an unbridgable gap. For the Europeans democracy is just the latest in a long series of political experiments, while it seems to be an integral part of the American psyche.
To my mind there are two main differences between how Americans and Europeans view government. First is that, perhaps due to their monarchist tradition, deep down Europeans believe that the government exists to rule its subjects. Here in the US we know that the government exists to serve it's citizens. Government, to us isn't good in and of itself, it's merely the means we use to compel law and order and get roads built. Our government can force its citizens to serve, but when we talk about our veterans, we honor them for defending democracy, not the Emperor. We see government as a tool, Europeans see it as a baby-sitter. (I know, we're trending toward the baby-sitting form of government, god help us.)
Secondly, and this has become clear from the Le Pen flap in France and the BNP flap in the UK, Europeans as a whole don't understand one of the most basic principles of democracy: that the individual outcome of any election isn't important. What's important is that the democratic ideals survive. (How much damage could Le Pen have done France other than bruised French egos, in a 5 year term with a hostile legislature? The only vaguely unpopular piece of legislation that George Bush has pushed through in two years has been a tax cut.) Our own recent contested election was remarkable in history because there weren't any tanks in the street, the two candidates weren't criss-crossing the country lining up military commanders who would enforce their presidency; there wasn't a general strike or rioting in the streets. And when the Supreme Court made its decision, Al Gore packed up and went home.
This is George Washington's legacy. He set the standard when he served
his terms and retired and we haven't let anyone lower the bar since. On the
other hand, France last week was discussing how to nullify the election should
Le Pen win, while the UK is discussing the possibility of not allowing people to
vote directly in mayoral elections because the BNP won a handful of
cities. That may be some kinda of democracy, but it ain't ours.
Cheryl
Dear Cheryl,
I cannot disagree with you! Yes, I know we have made some progressive
strides, but my problem is that I am looking for perfection. I am so ill
of it all that I don't even know who Le Pen is or the fact that - France is
having an election? Well, ask me about Jane Austen!
Linda
Dear Voices,
Imagine my surprise to open up the paper this evening and discover that
George F. Will was saying almost the exact same thing about the rise in
anti-Semitism among the left as I did a couple of days ago. That's twice
this year I've agreed with the Fwill-boy. This is getting scary.
Cheryl
Dear Cheryl,
Join the club! The best is yet to come!
Linda
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