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The Modern American Literature Project, thus far
-George Eliot, Middlemarch
-Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady
I know Middlemarch is not American, but I'd heard enough that it was the novel I absolutely had to read that I decided I might as well hit it now while shoring up my literary knowledge. I'm very glad I did, because it's an excellent novel. That kind of wise-omniscient point of view isn't something you can get away with unless your narrator manages to be full of compassion for everybody, or almost everybody, and also understands a great number of things that aren't trivially obvious, and Middlemarch is quite possibly the only book I've ever read to get that aspect so right -- in that there were a dozen points where I was nodding along thinking, "Yes, that's it exactly, but I couldn't have said it in those words."
The interesting thing about Middlemarch in the context of this project, though, is that it's essentially the same plot as Portrait of a Lady: a young woman, beautiful and smart and kind and fairly rich, refuses the suitors it would be sensible for her to expect, and chooses instead to marry someone she thinks she loves, only to find out she isn't nearly as respected or cared about as she imagined. Middlemarch resolves the situation perhaps too happily (although I really can't complain -- Dorothea deserved it and I was delighted to have things end happily), Portrait of a Lady not at all.
The plots were so similar that I was intrigued to find that Middlemarch may have inspired Portrait of a Lady; I don't think that James should have tried to improve on the book, and I find Portrait awfully draggy (she doesn't even get married until most of the way through the book) and not nearly as full of psychological insight.
-Stephen Crane, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
-Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage
I guess most people read The Red Badge of Courage in school; I didn't. I'm glad I didn't, because I can only guess I would have complained about the angst:shooting ratio being too high. (You call this a war novel?) I could appreciate it better now, I think. There are some gorgeously rendered scenes of grime and terror, and Henry's emoting and rationalizations and defensiveness and more emoting feel realistic and pretty genuine (although I don't buy an un-ironic reading of that ending. I don't think Crane would either, from what I know of him). But I will admit there is a thing that got up my nose, and that is that I'd read Maggie: A Girl of the Streets a week earlier. And Maggie does not get a tenth of the agency that Henry has. If you say that it's naturalism and no one has any agency anyway, Henry at least gets interiority; he gets to rationalize and defend his own choices, however badly. Maggie is victimized not just by her life but by the narrative itself, which just kind of bulldozes over her.
-Sarah Orne Jewett, The Country of the Pointed Firs
Charming plotless vignettes about coastal rural maine. I liked the portrayal of William, who seems to have some sort of social anxiety disorder.
That'll all so far. I'm almost out of the 19th century!
-Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady
I know Middlemarch is not American, but I'd heard enough that it was the novel I absolutely had to read that I decided I might as well hit it now while shoring up my literary knowledge. I'm very glad I did, because it's an excellent novel. That kind of wise-omniscient point of view isn't something you can get away with unless your narrator manages to be full of compassion for everybody, or almost everybody, and also understands a great number of things that aren't trivially obvious, and Middlemarch is quite possibly the only book I've ever read to get that aspect so right -- in that there were a dozen points where I was nodding along thinking, "Yes, that's it exactly, but I couldn't have said it in those words."
The interesting thing about Middlemarch in the context of this project, though, is that it's essentially the same plot as Portrait of a Lady: a young woman, beautiful and smart and kind and fairly rich, refuses the suitors it would be sensible for her to expect, and chooses instead to marry someone she thinks she loves, only to find out she isn't nearly as respected or cared about as she imagined. Middlemarch resolves the situation perhaps too happily (although I really can't complain -- Dorothea deserved it and I was delighted to have things end happily), Portrait of a Lady not at all.
The plots were so similar that I was intrigued to find that Middlemarch may have inspired Portrait of a Lady; I don't think that James should have tried to improve on the book, and I find Portrait awfully draggy (she doesn't even get married until most of the way through the book) and not nearly as full of psychological insight.
-Stephen Crane, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
-Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage
I guess most people read The Red Badge of Courage in school; I didn't. I'm glad I didn't, because I can only guess I would have complained about the angst:shooting ratio being too high. (You call this a war novel?) I could appreciate it better now, I think. There are some gorgeously rendered scenes of grime and terror, and Henry's emoting and rationalizations and defensiveness and more emoting feel realistic and pretty genuine (although I don't buy an un-ironic reading of that ending. I don't think Crane would either, from what I know of him). But I will admit there is a thing that got up my nose, and that is that I'd read Maggie: A Girl of the Streets a week earlier. And Maggie does not get a tenth of the agency that Henry has. If you say that it's naturalism and no one has any agency anyway, Henry at least gets interiority; he gets to rationalize and defend his own choices, however badly. Maggie is victimized not just by her life but by the narrative itself, which just kind of bulldozes over her.
-Sarah Orne Jewett, The Country of the Pointed Firs
Charming plotless vignettes about coastal rural maine. I liked the portrayal of William, who seems to have some sort of social anxiety disorder.
That'll all so far. I'm almost out of the 19th century!