Jane Austen: Six Best Novels

Although we've mourned Jane Austen for 200 years this month, she's an author who's been kept alive by readers, not by critics and academics. One of my happy fantasies is that Austen would have lived and written into the Victorian Era, producing a full dozen more books (I'm not greedy). As is, we have the six novels (or 6½ if one counts the epistolary novella Lady Susan, as I do). As far as I know, they were written in the following order: Lady Susan, Northanger Abbey, Sense & Sensibility, Pride & Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Persuasion. That's what and when, but how do they rank? My, I hate to be predictable, but right is right. First is Pride and Prejudice for its great characters, starting with Lizzy and Mr. Darcy: the romance works. And who can't help but feel for sweet, patient Jane? Plus there's the insufferable Lady Catherine and her toady, Mr. Collins, the foolish Mrs. Bennet and the beyond foolish Lydia. So many great characters stirred into the plot makes a great novel. Next is Northanger Abbey, which lacks the depth of the other novels, but it is just such good craic, such a rollicking good time that I love it to pieces. Third, Sense and Sensibility, the two sisters being the two sides of the shilling, and both being the complex Jane Austen. Emma, fourth, being both overlong and rarely eventful, depends entirely on the charm of Emma Woodhouse: she is unlikeable perhaps, but irresistible. Every bit of her conceit and vanity is still charming. She, in time, unlike so many, recognizes her failings. Lady Susan isn't quite as good as the film it inspired (Love and Friendship), but is still fascinating if only to see the resilient and resourceful Lady Susan herself, a stronger character than any other Austen ever wrote (perhaps an early incarnation of Mary Crawford?). Sixth, is Persuasion, as good and as well-written as any other Austen novel, even if its quiet excellence fails to have equally captivating characters. And my least favorite, Mansfield Park, although damaged by the judgmental, self-righteous prig Fanny Price (for whom no one in the world is an acceptable human being, and whose happily-ever-after depends on someone's death), is still redeemed by Mary Crawford, who is Jane Austen become print.

Austen's novels have been criticized (severely, see Twain, Mark) for being simple novels of manners, white women worrying about getting married (due to Britain's eternal wars the pool of men was small). And while sometimes Austen does seem blind to social conditions (so few servants ever have names), at others, even if she's no Dickens and it's hidden between the lines, the social and economic desperation is laid bare. Good family was still essential, even in the social norms were changing. Many young women were a sound marriage away from disaster, poverty or starvation. That's why Lizzy Bennet is so brave to reject Mr. Darcy. That's why Charlotte Lucas willingly marries the odious Mr. Collins: her options are few and security, a roof above and food on the table, is more valuable than love, than being an impoverished spinster. Austen herself was not as wealthy as her characters. Although Austen's works aren't the unrelieved satire her most fervent supporters would assert, her gentle satire (okay, sometimes vicious, though on the individual and personal level, skewering the rude, hypocritical, spineless, and yes, hypochondriac) was one of the sharpest tools in her belt. There's a pattern of twisting Austen's writing to suit personal objectives: she was conservative, she was radical, she would've supported suffrage, she would have opposed it, she would have pushed for Brexit ... . But what is best about Austen in that her stories are fairy tales, with a moral, with rules that have penalties, a world without sudden deaths, we know evil will not win, and there's always a happily-ever-after. Her novels are also intelligent, her characters having well-rounded interior and exterior lives, examining and knowing themselves and others. Reading her novels we do the same, living within her world and within ourselves, for just a little while.  🐢

Persuasion by Jane Austen (1817)

A still-young woman takes a second chance at love.

Book Review: Persuasion is Jane Austen's final novel, which was published (along with Northanger Abbey) posthumously. I don't know if Austen chose the title, but alternate titles could have been Pride & Persuasion, or Persuasion & Appearance. Once again the theme of being too proud to give in to love rears its ugly head in an Austen novel, but even more so, the subject of appearances is threaded throughout the book. The protagonist's appearance, her father's, inheritances, appearing appropriate for marriage, keeping up appearances ... actually just about every page has something related to appearances, as this was a major concern for the landed gentry of the early 19th Century. Which comes back full circle to the title, and characters being "persuaded" whether another "appears" appropriate for them. Our characters are so strongly and unfairly subject to others' views and society's opinion. So much weight is placed on wealth and how people appear, more so than their actual qualities, character, or worth (as human beings, not their pocket book). I also think this may be Austen's most autobiographical novel. Other than the recurring element, Persuasion is full of Austen's eternal manifest and myriad skills: her humor, satire, sharp eye, and careful writing are all as strong as ever. Vanity is winningly mocked. The book is replete with the usual types and "characters." She describes two friends talking about books as being, "as unable as any other two readers, to think exactly alike of the merits of" authors. She quietly notes social issues, as when a new occupant of the manor house assures "the poor of the best attention and relief." In a marriage, Austen notes that the "husband had not been what he ought, and the wife had been led among that part of mankind which made her think worse of the world," softly putting what Anne Bronte developed in cinematic detail in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. This is a softer, calmer, more subtly developed book, but it is so quietly good that any reader who enjoyed any of Austen's other novels is sure to enjoy this as well. The characters are subtly shaded and well developed, no one entirely good or bad. But beneath the gentle waves of the story in Persuasion, lies the treasure of Jane Austen's writing, as good as it ever was. [4★]

The Beats: A Graphic History by Pekar, Piskor, & Buhle (2009)

Yes, this is a graphic history of the Beat Movement.

Book Review: The Beats: A Graphic History is both good and bad, showing its good intentions, but badly failing in spots. Much like the Beat Movement itself. As is only to be expected, and as the authors note, this is not an in-depth study of the Beat Generation or its artistic offshoots. But it is generally wide ranging, including more names than I expected (DeFeo, Kupferberg, Patchen), and a tip of the hat for that. It is also more than just a cursory biography of the Beats mentioned, hitting a lot of the key moments in the artists' careers, and open to discussion of homosexuality among the Beats. Included are sections touching on related scenes such as art, jazz, and publishing.

There's even an acknowledgement of the well-known misogyny of the Beats (which was not unique to the Beats, the protest, Hippie, and Black Panther movements all had issues with sexism). To address this historical flaw, the book adds a section on "Beatnik Chicks" (focusing more on mates of the Beats, than artists), although the writer acknowledges that she "despised those ... women 'of the beat generation' because they had not liberated themselves." All well and good, and no one could say that any of the major Beats were women (sorry Diane di Prima, who is singled out here as the standard bearer for all women). Perhaps I'm self-indulgent, but in a book from 2009 it seems little to ask that a few other names that have been overlooked might be mentioned, perhaps Elise Cowen (mentioned here as a pathetic lesson rather than as an artist), Barbara Guest, Lenore Kandel, Joanne Kyger, Denise Levertov, Joanna McClure, Marie Ponsot, Anne Waldman ... just look through City Lights' publications. Well, that's my rant. Authors get to write the books they want. Just wish.

But I still like The Beats: A Graphic History, while not authoritative nor trying to be, it does a give a good quick overview of and introduction to the period. It's certainly a speedy and engaging read, as one might expect. With any luck the folks who read this will go on to seek out more, books of poetry, biographies, lengthier histories. More. [3★]

Memento Mori by Muriel Spark (1959)

A group of senior citizens, old friends, relatives, lovers, acquaintances, individually endure the coming of age as they are tormented by a anonymous caller.

Book Review: Memento Mori once again demonstrates that Scottish author Muriel Spark is many writers, all with the same name. No two of her books are alike, she has no template, there is no stereotypical Spark novel. Each time she blooms anew. Her great skill is working the interactions of a group of people, each member of the group playing an essential part, like a short play in novel form. She can juggle a dozen or more characters, keeping them all in the air and at the front of the reader's consciousness at the same time. But these characters are not relatable, likable, or even nice. Spark's books are not cozy, warm, comfy, sweet. If you want that grab a blanket, hot water bottle, box of Cadbury's, and an old chair by the fire. Her books are economical, creative, brilliantly written and structured, masterpieces. "Astringent" is a word I see sometimes. They can be an acquired taste, but for the right reader they are addictive and irresistible. Yes, that right reader is me. A memento mori is a warning or reminder of death (in Latin: remember you must die, or remember death), related to the practice of meditating on mortality and reflecting on the vanity and transient nature of life on earth. Which is what Memento Mori is, a meditation on death, provided through the lives, loves, hates, actions, memories, thoughts of a number of septuagenarians ("Being over seventy is like being engaged in a war. All our friends are going or gone and we survive amongst the dead and dying as on a battlefield"). All leavened with her needle pointed and razor sharp humor. Although still young when she wrote it, Spark captures aging perfectly, providing readers with their own memento mori. In the story a caller repeatedly says: "Remember you must die." A character observes a number of hospital patients with dementia and finds that they are her memento mori. Yet in all this contemplation of death, Spark is in perfect control, and not above a little trickery of her own, as a character, herself a novelist, notes: "The art of fiction is very like the practise of deception." Spark's novels may not be as soft and purring as a kitty, but they are very much like life. Spark's reflections on death are not shallow or simple, and neither is this book. [4½★]

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (1952)

A naive and hopeful young man leaves home, encounters life, and learns his place in the world.

Book Review: Invisible Man is a classic, a work of brilliance, and it's my huge loss (probably a crime in many states) that I didn't read it until now. I'm so glad I did.

This is a book about race, but also an existentialist novel. Part of Ellison's brilliance is how he intertwines the two to show how existentialism is peculiarly part of the African American experience, inextricably linked. For blacks especially, life in America is solely an existential experience. The treatment of, and therefore the life of, American blacks, has no rules, no morals, no meaning ("the same they we always mean, the white folks,  authority, the gods, fate, circumstances"). The rules are different for blacks and white, and the rules on which black Americans feel they can rely, may change in a second (there is no legal protection). The long history of the treatment of American blacks, has reached incredible levels of immorality, such that there is no morality ("the only way to please a white man is to tell him a lie!"). Even the religion in which many blacks so devoutly believe has a tragic history. In the end, life is meaningless, leaving the individual disoriented and confused, stunned ("I believed in nothing"). Dispossessed.

Our hero leaves his home in the South, hopeful and eager, determined to succeed, attends a "Negro" college, looks for work in upper Manhattan (white New York City -- leading to more absurdity), and then winds up working for the Communist Party in Harlem. The book ends in a mix of dark humor and a hellish vision of chaos. At the same time, philosophy crashes through the scene in a final moment of existential realization, after the many moments that preceded it.

While reading I kept feeling that somehow this book was Candide meets The Trial. Although our nameless protagonist is naive and gullible, he is not quite as unbelievably so as Voltaire's hero. And although The Trial, another great existentialist work, seemed surreal to me, fantastic, allegorical, Invisible Man stays just on the real side of reality; there are moments that may perhaps seem implausible, but always possible. As in The Trial, our hero faces a number of challenges that he cannot understand, that have no meaning, demonstrating that the world is not as he thought, and leaving him alone and lost. He becomes irresponsible, because there is no one to be responsible to: is the purpose of life to see or to blind us?

For those who enjoy unpeeling the layers of the ogre, this book includes symbolism on virtually every page. A leather briefcase, a glass eye, a metal coin bank, life insurance policies marked "void," and many more elements give innumerable levels of meaning to the book. For readers whose hobbies don't include decoding novels, Invisible Man is still an enthralling, engaging, exciting read, and the reader may safely ignore anything that resembles a symbol; the book will still be meaningful, and is still a work of comparative humanity. There are so many brilliant, emotional scenes. But for me the death and funeral scenes are overwhelming in their power. The repeated discussions and evocations of identity are another enlightening strength of this book (as in the hospital, when we meet Rinehart, etc.): "I was and yet I was invisible ... I was and yet I was unseen." He is not there in so many ways, as a student, friend, man, even as a lover.

A small note: early in the book Ellison mentions Ralph Waldo Emerson, and then again throughout the novel. If the reader doesn't realize it, the author's name is Ralph Waldo Ellison, named after the American essayist. This naming seemed to have troubled Ellison throughout his life. For grail hunters, Invisible Man is one of the novels that is in the running for the "Great American Novel." Meaningful, historical, profound, yet one of the most accessible classics I've ever read. No American should be allowed to graduate college without reading this book.  [5★]

White Tears by Hari Kunzru (2017)

A ghost story, about a haunting blues song conjured from long ago, and a lost promise at last fulfilled.

Book Review: White Tears tries to speak for a litany of historical crimes against African Americans, from slavery, the Jim Crow South, economic exploitation, and cultural appropriation, all the way up to white guilt and the Black Lives Matter movement. The story begins quietly enough, with two young, white men who love black music, collecting blues recordings on 78s from the Twenties and Thirties. But as they delve deeper into the music and the past, all hell breaks loose. Hari Kunzru has done his research into record collecting and blues artists, which mostly rings true. Anyone who's heard of Son House, John Hurt, or Skip James, Paramount or Black Patti records, will be right at home. As will anyone who wonders what happens to sound waves -- where do they go, do they ever disappear? And are the wealthy different than you and me? White Tears is born of good intentions, but to hang the history of racial injustice on a ghost story is too much. All the disparate elements, from America's original sins all the way down to descriptions of hipster cool and a clumsy, fumbling love story, don't quite come together, can't come together. The reader can't fault Kunzru for his reach exceeding his grasp, he mixes time and souls and more, but it didn't work. In the end, despite fine writing, a rolling plot, and striking scenes, White Tears is a novel in bits and pieces. Worth reading, but not nearly as good as it wanted to be. [3½★]

Ernest Hemingway: A Biography by Mary V. Dearborn (2017)

The life story of Nobel Prize winning American author, Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961).

Book Review: Ernest Hemingway: A Biography is touted as the first of Hemingway in 15 years, and the first by a woman. Here we have both access to new material and a more insightful and sympathetic view of Hemingway's mental illness. Mary Dearborn makes a strong case that he was both manic depressive, alcoholic, and gender dysphoric. Suicide and mental illness were prominent in his family. Dearborn is fair, thoughtful, sensitive, and a thorough researcher -- I had no complaints with this except for, at 700+ pages, the occasional cry of "too much!" But when a biographer is writing for the record, for scholars, the public, and posterity, she has to include even the tiny (but often telling) details. It's easy enough to breeze over those parts if the reader only wants the meat. There may not be many earth-shaking revelations here, but there is a good deal of setting the record straight based on new information, and it looks as if more may be trickling out over the coming years.

Ernest Hemingway: A Biography tries to focus on the creation of the writer: what made Hemingway, as an author, tick?There is no deep analysis of Hemingway's writings, nor does Dearborn dwell overlong on the semi-legendary events of his life. Instead she looks to see what influences formed him as a writer: his childhood, his newspaper work, the wives, the wars. Although Dearborn doesn't shy away from the sensational, even tawdry, parts of his life, she doesn't wallow in it either. There are, however, factors she mentions that I now won't be able to disregard as I read his books. The book gives especial attention to Hemingway's four wives, each new relationship starting before the previous one had ended: Hemingway hated to be alone. Dearborn lets us virtually see his life through the eyes and lives of his wives, showing how deep these relationships were. He also inspired great love and loyalty, even if he didn't always return it.

Hemingway was a serial monogamist, not a ladies' man. He was courageous. An alcoholic. He could be cruel to friends and those who helped him. Early in life he was often manic, but later in life his depression began to take over. Gertrude Stein was his son's godmother. Even early on acquaintances felt he was hiding a sensitive or vulnerable side by overacting the macho man. He was jealous of Fitzgerald's success. He had a lifelong tendency toward androgyny ("entangled with issues of gender, sexual identity, and sexuality."). Even in the 1930s (as today) critics attacked the man along with his work; as one said "Perhaps we really do know too much about Hemingway, or at least his public poses, to judge his work impartially." He probably suffered several traumatic brain injuries over his life, which were seriously aggravated by his alcoholism.

My negatives list for the book is short, minor, and typical of biographies these days. First, as about half of all biographers seem to do, Dearborn refers to her subject by his first name, as if he was a friend or family member. Second, she occasionally wildly speculates about events and motivations with no evidence whatsoever, as if sitting over coffee or perhaps chatting in a book club. Although neither of these are rare, neither do they seem suitable for an author attempting a definitive work. But quibbling aside, although a lengthy and detailed book, which required some dedicated pushing through, it was never dry or boring, just long. Mary Dearborn is equitable and unbiased, mixing the bad and the good in proper measure, and her analysis is perceptive and generally accurate. If you have the time, and are interested in a reappraisal of Hemingway, this is the book for you. I've been wanting to read Hemingway, and when I saw this I thought it might be a good place to start. We'll see. Given the the treasure chest of information I now have, I'm curious if Ernest Hemingway: A Biography will enrich my reading, or distract. [4½★]

Chinese Author Qiu Miaojin and What Might've Been

An author, a filmmaker, a passionate artist whose life may have been her art just as much as her words, who left us too soon and too little. Qiu Miaojin (1969-1995) was a Taiwanese writer who died by her own hand at 26 (Qiu is the family name, Miaojin her given name). She only published two novels, Notes of a Crocodile (1994) and Last Words from Montmartre (1996), both written in the first person. There exists, however, a novella-length story, "The Lonely Crowd," and a short story collection, The Revelries of Ghosts, neither of which appears to have been translated into English, so we can hope for more to come.

Notes of a Crocodile is the more conventional novel. An 18 year old university student, and her circle of misfit friends, trying to move through youth, sexuality, and first love, overthinking, feeling emotions too much, too proud, too weak, all the trappings of being a teenager, all complicated by a society in which these feelings by these people, are forbidden.

Last Words, the story of the dissolution of a love affair, is powerfully written, but overwhelming, it's just too much. There's no plot, no growth, no lesson learned. And it's too close to what I wrote in my diary at 17. It's more a tour de force, proof that one can write about a breakup for the length of a book, an endless howl of pain and desire. The narrator (Zoe) states that it "won't be a great work of art, but it could be a book of true purity." I agree, perhaps great almost as a work of performance art, but more so a pure book, pure in its unwavering commitment to her feelings. I could see it a perfect read for high school, maybe even university students, whose limited experience makes them more easily swayed by emotion. At one point in Last Words the narrator imagines writing a novel called Last Words to Those I Loved Deeply. That would've been an equally good title.

The actions of Zoe, the protagonist of Last Words, suggest that she may have histrionic personality disorder. The characteristics of that condition are constant attention-seeking, emotional overreaction, and suggestibility. A person with this condition tends to over-dramatize situations, which may impair relationships and lead to depression. That the author seems to find no fault in Zoe, makes it possible that Qiu herself may have had such feelings, with overreaction and depression assisting in her suicide.

In Last Words, Zoe states, "an artist's work only really moves me if the artist has suffered through profound tragedy and death -- only then can greatness be achieved." Putting aside how we know what an artist has suffered, this quote suggests that Qiu may have felt that she had to kill herself to legitimize her art. Or was it the same longing for death because of a broken love affair that possesses Zoe.

Given the number of Japanese writers, including Haruki Murakami, Yukio Mishima, and Kobe Abe who are mentioned in both her novels, Qiu seemed to be heavily influenced by the literary connection
between love, death, violence, and suicide. Perhaps reading the works of her Japanese novelist mentors also had an effect on her view of life. And all of this was distorted by the condemnation of homosexuality in the Taiwanese culture.

Lesbianism is too essential to her first novel not to be mentioned, but in her second book that the narrator is a lesbian is almost incidental, it's simply the story of human beings in pain. As noted in her second book, "The word 'lesbian' is a term that is really only meaningful in political contexts." In the first book the context is clear, in the second it is clear and present, but no longer essential to a writer who was no longer writing simply about a niche in society, but about the feelings of all people, about love, pain, desire, and who we all are. Where Qiu Miaojin might have gone with her next book, we can't imagine, it isn't for us to know. From the scant evidence of these two books (and the urgently needed additional writings mentioned above), I can say that Qiu future works would have commanded a diverse and inclusive audience, and been something we would have been the better for having read.  🐢

Last Words from Montmartre by Qiu Miaojin (1996)

A young Chinese woman in France suffers emotional torment during the failure of a relationship.

Book Review: Last Words from Montmartre can be read as several different books, all written by a single author. It's the turbulent story of a failed love affair; for anyone who doubts, an affirmation that lesbians too are human beings; an honest memoir; a 146 page cry (un grito) of despair; a 146 page suicide note; a textbook example of histrionic personality disorder; an intense, detailed analysis and over-analysis of the emotional ramifications of a couple uncoupling; a study of love and need become obsession and pain. No doubt there're more variations, but that should give you an idea of what's contained in here. I was enthralled by Qiu's first book, Notes of a Crocodile, less so by this "novel" (or memoir?). Last Words from Montmartre has the weaknesses of Notes, without its attendant virtues. Virtually every page of the book is a lament over being dumped by a lover. There's no growth, no change in tone, no self-awareness, no plot shift from page one to page 146. The tone consists of the same sorrow, regret, anger that we all suffered (usually in high school) the first time we were dumped by someone. Although in her mid-twenties, and after several adult relationships, it all seems like a teenage diatribe, as when we thought we would never love again, and worse, that no one would ever love us again. She loves, she hates, the lover is cruel, is perfect, she attacks, will never love again, will always love, she readily misunderstands, she longs for death. She stalks; hits her lover; she willfully injures herself. Our narrator is not only guilty of the same wrongs she attributes to her lover, but operates at a level of narcissism and emotional overreaction that is scarcely credible, certainly irrational: "Your inner life will never be complete with anyone but me," "to whom I prostrate myself in worship," "I can't understand why you would toss away the treasure that is my presence in your life." She admits that "everyone I've ever loved has treated me poorly," which makes one wonder, what is the common denominator here? All the characters, except for the narrator's French lover, are shadowy and vaguely sketched. But Qiu is passionately committed to the life of the artist. At one point the narrator describes the book: "It won't be a great work of art, but it could be a book of true purity; the detailed, thorough excavation of one very small field of a young person's life." She says, "I'm not brave enough to face every detail of the past three years of beauty and pain (the main plot of the novel). The beauty was too blinding, the pain too cruel." [parenthetical in the original] She also notes that "an artist's work only really moves me if the artist has suffered through profound tragedy and death -- only then can greatness be achieved." All of this is complicated by the biographical fact that Qiu Miaojin committed suicide in Paris the year after her first book was published, a year before Last Words from Montmartre was published. As an insight into the author, much like Sylvia Plath, additional levels of meaning have been placed on this book by Qiu's fans, apart from its worth as a novel alone. Those conversations are beyond this review. The translation seems uncertain, especially in Qiu's metaphors: "I've found my way through the labyrinth and left the jungle behind"; is that Qiu or the translation? This must've been quite difficult, however, to translate, though I'm curious how Bonnie Huie, the translator of Notes of a Crocodile might've done. If you're ready to read a book-length description of an open wound, to dig deep into emotion, this is the novel for you. I'm glad I read it, but wouldn't read it again. For me it needed something more.  [2½★]