Books – Page 11 – My Own RE:public

Start the Week…

with Marilynne Robinson et al.

Always a very good listen, but I was especially delighted with Marilynne Robinson being a guest on Andrew Marr’s BBC Radio 4 program “Start the Week” this morning. Here it is at Spotify (also available as podcast at Apple.)

Andrew Marr talks to Marilynne Robinson and Rowan Williams September 28, 2020.

Robinson discusses her new novel in the context of her wider work and concerns in the modern world; both the sacred and the profane. Her co-guest is Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, who speaks on the 16th century Benedictine monastic tradition; subject of his recent book The Way of St. Benedict, and its relevance now.

With such a pairing one expects the sacred to win out, but Marr ensures the more profane does not come up short. For me, at least, a very nice start to the week.

Reading Reviews – on “Jack”

That’s a thing with pre-sale reviews: does oneread, or does one not? And that question arises especially when applied to a work long awaited, and, for me, that is the case with Marilynne Robinson’s Jack; her fourth novel in a series that started with Gilead in 2004, which is in stores, on shelves (or coming via one of those ubiquitous “distribution centres” or appearing on a screen out of thin air; named for a mythical tribe of female warriors, or for the tributaries of some mighty waters) next week.

Alas, the temptation can not be resisted, and all my resistance must be directed instead against undue influence. But I usually do this well enough.

Here, then, a selection from the last couple of days:

Jordan Kisner’s reading is the one with the most intellectual depth. It is clear she knows the place from where Robinson comes, metaphorically if not in a real sense. It may, or may not, be called “Gilead”, but I would guess it has the essence of nonetheless. An excellent essay, I think. Should I wonder that they – Kisner and Robinson – share a publisher? Well I could but I won’t – and her piece is certainly not uncritical, but it is written with admiration and serious intent. She really makes some quite profound observations, not the least her identification of “predestination” as a leitmotif in Robinson’s work:

…Robinson is a Calvinist, and over the course of these novels, Jack has stood out among her characters—troublesome, seductive, full of pathos—because he most represents a central theological question raised by the Calvinist doctrine of predestination: Can a person be damned to perdition? Or, to use non-Calvinist language: Can a person be irretrievably and miserably wrong, broken, no-good, unsalvageable? If he is, and he knows that he is, what is he then to do? Does he have anything he can hope for?
The Atlantic, October 2020 issue

A wonderful extension of this, is Kisner’s assertion that Robinson has “trapped Jack and Della in a kind of structural predestination….”. This can only really be understood having read the other novels of the Gilead series with their sometimes parallel and sometimes circular chronologies, being such that we do know how it ends for Jack and Della. (Though I could qualify that and say: well, up to a point – who knows!)

Now, Dwight Garner at the NYT approaches Robinson with a determinably non-religious attitude. Which is okay, because I did likewise (and in some ways still do). But her work – and I can’t imagine this new novel to be otherwise – can not be understood without reference to the inherent Calvinistic stance from which it comes. Don’t say it can’t be done – see James Wood’s 2004 NYT piece; and I shouldn’t have to tell anybody where Wood stands when it comes to religion! It is obvious Garner can’t see much beyond the obvious when it comes to Jack; a miscreant, a bum – slick, unsavoury. As true as the nouns may be, so the adjectives. It’s just that I would call him: the loneliest of men; a weary, tormented soul. And Della? Garner says: “…[she is] a fascinating character [who] should resonate far more than she does…”. How can she possibly fascinate if she does not resonate? He goes on to bemoan that neither character has an “independent life” because the author has placed them both in “halters” of her own making. All I can say here is – besides well, they are her (Robinson’s) characters after all – is that I will return to this after my own reading.

Am I wrong in thinking that Garner didn’t have much interest in reading this novel (he sort of admits as much, or at least his ambivelence!) let alone reviewing it? Did the NYT have nobody else doing books this week? Anything by Marilynne Robinson deserves more consideration than that granted in this review. Mr. Garner didn’t have to like it, but he could have accorded just a modicum of the effort granted by Ms. Kisner. (Should I be sounding peeved, may I say in my defence, I am a really fair in this regard. For example, earlier in the year Daniel Mendelsohn gave a rather unfavourable review of Hilary Mantel’s final Cromwell tome, a lot of which I was not in agreement, but it was so well written, original in thought, fair in criticism …and respectful! That’s important I think, and what I miss in Garner’s review.)

A “Booker” update

Well, Hilary Mantel will not be winning a third Booker prize; the short list confirms that my laws of probability held true, and the closest to home-grown, so to speak, in the all but final call of the United Kingdoms’s premier book award is a Glasgow-born American – Douglas Stuart. But it is a diverse and interesting group, with some new names, and I do declare if very few seem to have much appetite for scandal in this ‘stranger than fiction’ year!

An interesting additive: here is a really nice piece in The New York Times, giving a glimpse of a socially-distanced, long-distance literary judging process in days of Corona. By the way, my attention momentarily turned to the accompanying screen shot of the jury at work, and the caption: “Emily Wilson, she/her, judge” – and a memo to myself to seriously investigate pronouns!

Lily – as the flower, so the girl

The House of Mirth – by Edith Wharton

A passage or two on a novel I hadn’t read for a long time until last week. I don’t know what brought me to pick up Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth again after so many years, but I am pleased I did. Should I have harboured some notion that a reading now would be no more than a mannered sojourn in the fabled Gilded Age of American society of yore, I was wrong.

Poster for the serialized debut of *The House of Mirth* in *Scribner’s Magazine*(1905)

Wharton’s narrative style of a formal literary realism in the tradition of (her friend) Henry James, is all the more real for springing as it does from the society to which she was born and only too acquainted with. A society alien to most (of us, and certainly me!), it is remarkable the ease in which the reader finds oneself embedded in the scenery somewhere, observing the passing parade of characters; their social ambitions and insecurities, their frivolities and pretensions, and wondering at the ease in which they justify their (bad) behaviour and moral ambiguity.

The novel tells the tale of the young, though soon to be no-longer-so-young and her days of marriageability therefore diminishing (twenty-nine! god forbid!), Lily Bart – beautiful, clever (but only up to a point), without money of her own it is true but well enough situated through kinship and acquaintance – and her travails within the fabulously wealthy New York society at the end of the 19th century; her sense of entitlement and appetites, and the appetites of rapacious husbands, and the jealousies of bored wives, the chances dangled within her grasp and the moments of hesitation under which they evaporated, her sense that there always was something missing, that there would be a next time – until there wasn’t.

In this world, where a young woman’s opportunities are dependent on her possessing two attributes – an impeccable social status and financial means – and where appearances mean everything, it was inevitable that a girl like Lily who attracted attention would also attract greater scrutiny and be the subject of gossip. Such is “society” that her fall from favour may well have been preordained, but the depth of her fall was predicated on her own shortcomings – for too long did she play her role; pursue fashion and pleasures she could not afford, endure false friends and disregard those who were true.

A cracking end

Hilary Mantel’s Booker Prize nomination prompts me to finally write some words on The Mirror & the Light – inadequate as they may be. Whilst not exactly putting it off, I just felt, like I said, inadequate – unable to find a way in and unable to cohere my many thoughts. At the time of publication in March, I linked to some various degrees of flattering reviews and there are many more to easily be found around about, so I will only add mention here, and for my own devices, Daniel Mendelsohn’s review in The New Yorker. Firstly, because I always enjoy Mendelsohn’s writing, and secondly, because it errs from the absolutely positive resonance to be found elsewhere – “…bloated and only occasionally captivating…” is less than charitable! – but it is thought provoking anyway, placing as it does this end to the Cromwell saga in the context of the two preceding novels and Mantel’s other work. Also, it does offer a good starting point for me; suggesting some interesting aspects – and doing so sometimes in respect to that which I perceive to be absent.

My copy of “The Mirror & the Light”, Fourth Estate, UK hardback ed.

The New Yorker review is from way back at the beginning of March, and there is no need to get into why that seems now like almost another time – not exactly medieval, but still…! Perhaps, because Mendelsohn’s reading and writing came before the Corona pandemic fully insinuated itself upon us (and what we read, and what we read into that which we read), he doesn’t seem affected by, or least ways lend his criticism to, the pervading atmosphere of death and impending death that at times almost overwhelmed me; be it to come at the gallows, in child-bed – or, and especially, through plague and disease. When the King’s summer tour route has to be meticulously researched and planned to avoid outbreaks of plague [p.680 Fourth Estate ed.], I could do nothing but think of the here and now and thwarted summer holidays. Trivial comparison I know.

Death also finds its extension in the ghosts of the past; omnipresent in the novel and as Cromwell’s constant company – for him, the past is never past (to use Mendelsohn’s expression), nor the dead ever put to rest. Mendelsohn, interestingly, comments more generally in regard to the supernatural in Mantel’s larger body of work – alerting me to an unfortunate gap in my reading, that will be rectified.

Also not mentioned in the review, is the role of rumour and here-say in fuelling discontent amongst the people; the speed at which news and fake-news spreads into far counties (and beyond, to France and the Empire) is startling given the primitive trains of communication, and is eerily reminiscent of the power of social media in this day and age of conspiracies, disinformation and gossip galore. For instance, during the so-called Lincolnshire Rising that anticipated the Pilgrimage of Grace, the folk firmly believe Henry to be dead, a puppet laying in his bed with crown upon its head, and that (the surely to be damned) Th. Cromwell rules in spe, and connives without restraint to demolish the churches, de-frock their clergy, increase taxes and impose draconian levies [p.297].

Booker 2020

Literary awards stop not for this mean, increasingly unpredictable virus making lives miserable – and to various degrees, dependent upon circumstance. Here, then, providing a modicum of distraction, the just announced longlist for The Booker Prize 2020:

The New Wilderness by Diane Cook (Oneworld Publications)
This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga (Faber & Faber)
Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi (Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Random House)
Who They Was by Gabriel Krauze (4^th Estate, HarperCollins)
The Mirror & The Light by Hilary Mantel (4^th Estate, HarperCollins)
Apeirogon by Colum McCan (Bloomsbury Publishing)
The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste (Canongate Books)
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid (Bloomsbury Circus, Bloomsbury Publishing)
Real Life by Brandon Taylor (Originals, Daunt Books Publishing)
Redhead by The Side of The Road by Anne Tyler (Chatto & Windus, Vintage)
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart (Picador, Pan Macmillan)
Love and Other Thought Experiments by Sophie Ward (Corsair, Little, Brown)
How Much of These Hills is Gold by C Pam Zhang (Virago, Little, Brown)

I can only say that I have only read Mantel; and the daunting task of writing my thoughts on her remarkable work remains on my longlist (of things to do)! And, I can only say what I’ve said before, and that is: the United States has any number of major book awards (National, Pulitzer being foremost) why on earth the Brits allowed them in the Booker a few years ago I really don’t know. Well of course one does – $$$! In my opinion, it is becoming too top heavy stateside these days – no antipodean, only one resident (I think) of the African continent, none from southern Asia, or the Caribbean. In fact there are only three listed from the UK which means, the laws of probability being such as they are, one may very well end up with a shortlist without a British writer! I hear already the screams of “Scandal!” – but what would the Booker be without controversy? Rarely has there not been a loud gripe of some sort – in or out, sponsor, judge … What was it last year? Oh, I remember – against all the “unwritten” rules, it was awarded jointly to Bernadine Evaristo and Margaret Atwood.

And I will also say that I haven’t read Anne Tyler for donkey’s years, and she was a constant companion of … let me see… the third decade of my life. Can I read Tyler again without bemoaning my lost youth?

The jury is diverse which is good, and I also note with delight that Margaret Busby leads it and Emily Wilson is another of the judges. Of the latter I need say nought (see my never ending Odyssey project!), but Busby reminds me of The Daughters of Africa, which I would like to read after all these years and then their is last year’s follow up anthology.

The Booker Prize longlist July 28th 2020

Jack & Della

To tantalise and in anticipation of Marilynne Robinson’s continuation of the Gilead saga, The New Yorker has published a short story called “Jack and Della” adapted from the new novel, simply called Jack, which is due out at the end of September, and also a mini-interview with Robinson.

It is said the story is adapted, so I don’t understand it to be an extract, but what it is, is another telling of the meeting between Jack and Della in St. Louis; first related by Jack to Reverend Ames in Gilead and then again by Della to Jack’s sister Glory at the end of Home.

What is it about encounters in the rain? So often looms a sense of rescue and of chance; both redemptive and portentous at the same time. Reading “Jack & Della”, only now do I recognise a parallel between this first meeting and that of Reverend Ames and Lila – instigated too with an opening of the heavens, and opening of a door. As Della’s simple respectful “Thank you, Reverend” inspired by Jack’s funereal attire, so Lila’s “Good morning, Reverend”, are received as a promise, perhaps of salvation, and endure in both men’s memories long after. But, just who is saving whom is not plain, nor saint and sinner unambiguous – and that I suppose is the point.

More than tantalised, I positively ache to read Marilynne Robinson again. I have convinced myself that her words, the grace and wisdom she imparts with her words, make me just a little bit better a person.

“Ulysses” circa. 1922

Transatlantic reception

“Bloomsday” just gone reminded me to look again at what I knew to be Virginia Woolf’s complicated relationship with Joyce’s work, and in doing so an interest was sparked in general to the reaction to Ulysses on both sides of the Atlantic at the time. An encouraging gesture, if nothing else, towards sometime diving in and finally reading this classic of modernism myself!

Famously, with the exception of parts serialized in The Little Review between 1918 and 1920 (for instance, here is a link to Episode XI), Ulysses became the subject of scandal and extended obscenity trials, and was in fact banned in the United States and the UK until 1934 and 1936 respectively. Copies published and printed by Shakespeare & Co. in Paris did circulate, could be got to, and especially was so amongst the intelligentsia of the time, and consequently was reviewed by on both sides of the Atlantic.

And, that included by T.S. Eliot, with whom Woolf sparred with on the subject, and his November, 1923, review for The Dial can be read here that the British Library. Formally written and glowing in its praise, it is written as a refutation of an earlier review by Richard Aldington (English Review, 1921) – which I can not easily find, but does seem in tandem with the Eliot response a constant in the academic realm of Ulysses scholarship, and to that end this short article in the James Joyce Quaterly (Spring, 1973) that gives evidence that Aldington had in fact encouraged, or even initiated, a response from Eliot. (On another matter, I do know that this was all at a time when Aldington was, not only helping Eliot professionally, but also one of the initiators of a fund to help Eliot financially, a matter in which Woolf was also involved.)

This is a difficult to read facsimile, but unfortunately the best I can come up with, of the review by Gilbert Seldes that Leonard Woolf encouraged Virginia Woolf to read (upon which she decided she should temporarily stifle her verdict and take another look!). As I say, visually speaking, not an easy read, but it is to my mind at least a better read than Eliot’s. (May I say, Eliot may have few peers in twentieth century poetry, but his essay style is very highbrow to the point of pedanticism.)

And then there is this piece by the Irish critic, Mary Colum (who I don’t know, but do now!) in The Freeman on 19 July 1922. Perhaps lacking impartiality, due to an abiding friendship, but an excellent read just the same.