Custom made

“The Custom of the Country” by Edith Wharton (1913)

Edith Wharton, if she was ever out of vogue, is now very much ‘in’ again – talked and written about, her stories adapted to screen. Not so long ago I wrote about House of Mirth, and have recently been prompted (see the embedded video) to read her 1913 novel The Custom of the Country; and, unlike the aforesaid and The Age of Innocence both of which I know well, for the first time.

A conversation with Claire Messud about Edith Wharton & “The Custom of the Country”

Written a dozen or so years after House of Mirth, the general contours of The Custom of the Country remain the same – powerful female heroines (are they?) and splendid (or splendidly despicable?) supporting characters; embedded in that particular East Coast milieu of the Gilded Age into which one is either born or gains admittance at great cost, and a graceful exit doomed to fail. But, however overtly similar, it would be wrong to suggest that Wharton is limited in her vision, locked within the same familiar template; for this later novel very well demonstrates how her own path in the ensuing years, culminating in a divorce and self-decreed exile on the other side of the Atlantic, informed her writing life. And despite affinities shared, Wharton’s heroines in these two novels are in opposite trajectories – in House of Mirth, Lily Bart’s once promising outlook is hurtling towards a tragic end, whilst in The Custom of the Country, the irrepressible Undine Spragg is on the ascendant – life as a series of career moves.

Undine is an anti-heroine I would say, a protagonist without virtue – beyond her beauty, feted by some and envied by all – and ruthless in her pursuit of advancement in society; resolute she is for sure, but vacuous and amoral. In a young nation, a hierarchy has already been established – between old money and new, inherited and earned. And though Undine may slip up or miss a step as she ascends the social ladder, when all seems lost, she (unlike Lily Bart) always manages to regain control and live for another day.

The title of the book is not peripheral, and does suggest one of the novel’s main themes – how class structures and behavioral norms operate in different countries. (A Wikipedia entry gives another interpretation, the veracity of which I can not confirm.) Customs are to be adhered to, or challenged, or simply ignored, and Undine successfully adapts each as befits a situation. Abiding to custom, often means deception, improvisation, manipulation; all wiles to which she is adept. Undine marries when she will, and divorces likewise; she keeps company that she shouldn’t for all to see or closeted from the prying eye; when in one place she pines for another, and then another. And that money grows on trees, is for her not an adage, but a wife’s expectation. More generally, there is a way of recognising her actions as a product of the custom of man (and country); as proffered by a Mr. Charles Bowen in a conversation with Mrs. Fairford (Undine’s sister-in-law), which I quote in length because it says so much:

“[…]you say his wife’s extravagance forces him to work too hard; but that’s not what’s wrong. It’s normal for a man to work hard for a woman—what’s abnormal is his not caring to tell her anything about it.”

“…But why? Because it’s against the custom of the country. And whose fault is that? The man’s again—I don’t mean Ralph I mean the genus he belongs to: homo sapiens, Americanus. Why haven’t we taught our women to take an interest in our work? Simply because we don’t take enough interest in THEM […]

“Why does the European woman interest herself so much more in what the men are doing? Because she’s so important to them that they make it worth her while! She’s not a parenthesis, as she is here—she’s in the very middle of the picture. I’m not implying that Ralph isn’t interested in his wife—he’s a passionate, a pathetic exception. But even he has to conform to an environment where all the romantic values are reversed. Where does the real life of most American men lie? In some woman’s drawing-room or in their offices? The answer’s obvious, isn’t it? The emotional centre of gravity’s not the same in the two hemispheres. In the effete societies it’s love, in our new one it’s business…”

The Custom of the Country, Chapter XV, Kindle Edition (location 1856-65)
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The American Civil War & Reconstruction

The Battle of Antietam, by Kurz & Allison (1878), depicting the scene of action at Burnside's Bridge

Over the last year or so I have been diligently, albeit intermittently, following through with a series of edX courses on the American Civil War and the years of Reconstruction in its aftermath; the consequences of which resound to this day.

Delivered by Columbia University and Prof. Eric Foner; a lengthy but incredibly enlightening intellectual pursuit that I can highly recommended to anyone interested in this defining period of US history – I only realise now how very much that is so (not to mention how ignorant I was!).

The Battle of Antietam 1862, by Kurz & Allison (1878)

My course notes are here on the Downloads page (and also accessible from the main menu).

Here’s to you Toni Morrison…

Born February 18th, 1931 in Lorain, Ohio, Toni Morrison would have celebrated her 90th birthday today. She won’t be doing that of course, but very many far and wide will give pause for thought this day and raise a glass in her honour, and remember a most remarkable writer and woman.

And that is what The New York Times does with their “Essential Toni Morrison” today, from which I quote.

…The questions [posed in a 2002 lecture] seem wholly relevant : “To what do we pay greatest allegiance? Family, language group, culture, country, gender? Religion, race? And if none of these matter, are we urbane, cosmopolitan, or simply lonely? In other words, how do we decide where we belong? What convinces us that we do?”

In everything Morrison wrote, she offered narratives that revealed the journeys of characters, specific but universal, flawed and imperfect, with a deeply American desire for freedom and adventure. One might say that because her characters were almost exclusively African-American, the quest to be free — in mind, body and spirit — was the consistent adventure. She was also a masterful crafter of windows; when you opened a book of hers, the worlds you entered were so rich with detail, you could feel the molecules around you change as if you’d just taken a long flight and were descending onto the tarmac in a town or city where you’d never been…

Veronica Chambers, The New York Times, Feb. 18 2021

The fine introduction by Veronica Chambers leads on to a selection of works, each accompanied by equally thoughtful text. For those, especially younger people who are encountering Toni Morrison for the first time, perhaps at college or of their own volition, the piece offers some guidance as to where to start, and for us others a reminder to return to Morrison again and again, and find in one of her stories or essays that which we only now “get” with the passing of time and an accumulation of knowledge and experience.

Klein writ large

To continue the thread. Carol King was born Carol Joan Klein. Such is the train of my thoughts: the squint of an eye to thread through another. To where does this lead, what awaits at eye’s other end? Another Klein has been on my mind.

Off the top of my head, I can’t quite remember when and where I first encountered stuff from the young Ezra Klein; but it was certainly pre-Obama, therefore before he migrated to The American Prospect at the end of 2008, and he was most certainly one of the most interesting (and youngest!) of the first generation of political bloggers. Always on my radar, through his tenure at the Washington Post to the founding (with others) of Vox, and last November brought news of his hiring by The New York Times.

And so it is that I have a new must read to add to my fluctuating (some have been known to fall out of favour!) list, and to date it has absolutely not disappointed. Already, some really excellent pieces focusing on the dangers ahead; from Covid-19 variants, for the Democrats should they rest on their laurels, should the failing political system and specifically the Senate not be reformed. Klein’s critical reflection on the problems (and liberal failings) crippling his home state of California is a highlight. Beyond the weekly opinion pieces, there is a twice weekly podcast (with full transcripts) that appear to be related and, after only a few weeks a wonderful mix of guests; including his Opinion desk colleague, Paul Krugman. Unafraid to go beyond his comfort zone, his talk with Yuval Levin about the future of the GOP is a master-class in intelligent, respectful conversation with those not of one’s own political persuasion. You may say they are peddling their wares (both have newly released, and big-time talked about books), but I could have listened all day to what Elizabeth Kolbert and Heather McGhee had to say. Only because it is the most recent, below is the conversation with the latter on Spotify, from whence the earlier episodes can be navigated to.

Ezra Klein talks with Heather McGhee on his NYT podcast

Returning to where I began, Ezra’s Typepad blog from the mid-noughties is still to be found out there on everyone’s favourite “forget nothing” machine (not to mention this foodie blog that he participated in – I even remember that!), and now I am fairly sure it was there that I began reading his earnest, geeky, political junkie commentary (and that of others – the Blogroll is like a blast from the past!), and which comes to an end in the year 2008 and Klein’s move to The American Prospect. What followed from then on seems to have been a career mostly in the ascendant. Half his luck, I say. The “good life” well earned. I’ve always found Ezra (everyone calls him Ezra!) to be an extraordinarily intelligent and thoughtful young man, and will enjoy accompanying him into his middle-age at NYT, just as I slink into the much older version. (Though I do note he doesn’t seem to stay in one place for too long!)

“Oh, what a tangled web we weave …

…when first we practice to deceive!” (Sir Walter Scott, 1808)

From Carol King to “Emerson, Lake & Palmer” is not as far as one would think. In the same year as Tapestry, “Emerson, Lake & Palmer” released their second studio album, Tarkus, from which the following track titled “Mass” is pulled. And, it too, lends itself to an extended metaphor of the power of the weave.

The song’s relevance on this, the day after Trump got a second (and expected) reprieve in the Senate in the wake of his second impeachment is obvious. To emphasise my point, I have transcribed the lyrics.

“Mass”, Keith Emerson & Greg Lake
Mass - Emerson Lake & Palmer (Tarkus,1971)

The preacher said a prayer
Save every single hair on his head
He's dead

The minister of hate had just arrived too late to be spared
Who cared?
The weaver in the web that he made

The pilgrim wandered in
Commiting every sin that he could
So good

The cardinal of grief was set in his belief he'd be saved
From the grave
The weaver in the web that he made

The high priest took a blade
To bless the ones that prayed
And all obeyed

The messenger of fear is slowly growing, nearer to the time
A sign
The weaver in the web that he made

A bishops rings a bell
A cloak of darkness fell across the ground
Without a sound

The silent choir sing and in their silence
Bring jaded sound, harmonic ground
The weaver in the web that he made


- "Mass" - music and lyrics by Keith Emerson & Greg Lake

A stitch in time

Elsewhere I have waxed lyrical about the working of thread into fine material as a most appropriate metaphor for the creative process. A finely crafted tapestry may be the outcome. Fifty years ago another tapestry was stitched, one of word and music; fine threads with names like “Will you love me tomorrow”, “It’s too late”, “I feel the earth move”, “You’ve got a friend”; all brought together to produce a work of beauty – Carol King’s “Tapestry”. Reluctantly I give away my years, when I say how much this album meant to me as a young thing. May I say very young! And to mitigate more, perhaps my recollections are from a time just a little after its first release.

In the above linked tribute in The Guardian, beyond the artistry of the music and lyrics, Rickie Lee Jones mentions the cover (here’s a Wiki link, as the copyright on the artwork seems unclear), and I too have it etched upon my brain – barefooted, jeans clad, long locks, the direct gaze that seems to say politely but firmly “I have to get back to my work!”. A window seat seemed to me one of the higher forms of luxury. Looking at it again, the vinyl of days gone by replaced with a CD picked up along the way, I see my memory deceived just a little because for some reason I remember a guitar and not a cat. King’s cat was named Telemachus. Penelope it was who weaved and weaved as she awaited Odysseus’ return, defending with her wits and industry the honour of her son and family.

Carole King – It’s Too Late (BBC In Concert, February 10, 1971)

Carole King’s work is on Spotify and most every other platform, and here is her official website with, amongst other things, announcements around and about the anniversary – which includes the release on YouTube of videos (see above) from the BBC studio concert given shortly after “Tapestry” came out.

A life being lived

“Tom Stoppard – A Life” by Hermione Lee, pub. Knopf, 2021

I would not necessarily seek out a biography of Tom Stoppard, renowned as he may be and as interesting as his life has been and is (and tragically more so than even he realised for a long time); but when the biographer is Hermione Lee one’s curiosity must be piqued, and for reasons as noted in this very good piece in The New York Times in anticipation of the forthcoming release of Tom Stoppard – A Life in the United States. Firstly, while she has previously brought her craft only to women and secondly, only to the dead; Stoppard doesn’t fit the bill on either of those counts. It should also be said Stoppard pointedly sought out Lee, and not just because she is the best, but because he wanted it to be read – which sort of suggests he may have been thinking of a reader like me.

The NYT piece is about the Stoppard work to be sure, but more generally it is also very enlightening about Hermione Lee’s way of telling a life – ways (pl.) really, because for each she works at adopting a voice particular to that of her subject. The book has actually been out for some time in the UK, and this review in The Guardian is well worth a read.

Virginia & Vita

A pre-publication extract in The Guardian drawn from Alison Bechdel’s introduction, alerts me to Love Letters: Vita and Virginia by Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West, published by Vintage (Penguin) on 4 February.

“Love Letters: Vita and Virginia”,
Vintage Classics, 2021

As things will have it, I am deep in Volume Three of Woolf’s diary, and therefore in the period when Virginia’s first tentative interest in Vita is beginning to evolve into something more. And though I have read some of these letters in the past in other collections, brought together and standing alone, this very affordable little tome is a must have!