Feminism

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Happy Afternoons for Pauper Lunatics

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The Story of a Modern Woman, Ella Hepworth Dixon, 1894

I am trying to remember why I added this book to my list and I am guessing that my past-self was hooked by the idea of a New Woman roman a clef. Dixon wrote about her own experience as a woman in a changing, Late Victorian World. Yeah, girl. Tell me what that was like. I am listening. I am ready to know how you define modern womanhood.

I know you are never going to read this obscure book, so here is a summary. Mary Erle is the daughter of a prominent scientist. When he dies, little orphan Mary must earn enough money to support herself and her younger brother. She tries to make it as an artist, but the painting that she works on for six months (six months!) is rejected from the Royal British Academy of Art or Whatever. Poor Mary. Fortunately, one of her more successful painter friends asks her to write a story to accompany a piece of his. Thus begins her career as a starving writer.

Meanwhile, her wealthier friend Alison takes an interest in helping less fortunate women. She wants to lead a more useful life than that of a London deb. Alison, who is far more interesting than Mary, seriously considers marrying the prominent doctor Dunlop Strange. I am not kidding. His name is Dr. Strange. Dunlop Strange. However, she encounters a dying woman in a hospital who turns out to be Strange’s abandoned mistress. Even though most Victorian women were expected to and did look past this type of masculine misbehavior, Alison cares about other women and is not about to marry a man who would toss someone aside like garbage.

Sadly, Alison catches a cold that, in combination with the mental shock of discovering her beau’s dying mistress, proves fatal. I know. That seems a bit too delicate, but they didn’t have antibiotics then. So, I suppose a thorough wetting and some bad news could. . .kill an otherwise healthy young woman? On her deathbed, Alison implores Mary to “Promise me you will never, never do anything to hurt another woman” because “there comes a time in our lives when we can do a great deal of harm or a great deal of good, or an incalculable amount of harm. If women only used their power in the right way! If we were only united we could lead the world.”

The implication is that if society women refused to marry men who ruin poor women’s lives and leave them to die in the gutter, men would have to stop doing that. It is tempting to think that female solidarity alone could generate a brave new world. It is a solution to the problem of male misbehavior that I have contemplated myself. It’s tough though, because, as Thomas Hardy wrote “Of all the ingenious and cruel satires that from the beginning till now have been stuck like knives into womankind, surely there is not one so lacerating to them, and to us who love them, as the trite old fact, that the most wretched of men can, in the twinkling of an eye, find a wife ready to be more wretched for the sake of his company.” Alison did not marry Dr. Strange, but someone will. He certainly wasn’t worth dying over, honey. Side note: How perfect is Thomas Hardy. So perfect.

Alison’s dying wish sets us up for the great crisis in Mary’s life. After stringing her along for years, her worthless lover marries a much wealthier woman, because he thinks her fortune can advance his political career. Later he has the audacity to come knocking at Mary’s door complaining about his unsatisfying marriage and begging her to runaway to France with him and live as his mistress. Of course, Mary tells him to jog on; she is a modern woman and modern women don’t bang each other’s husbands. I mean. . .it is certainly not the strongest feminist statement I have ever heard, but I will take it.

I appreciate that while the novel contains a strong dose of self-pity, Hepworth Dixon spends ample time acknowledging that other women have it much worse. She was well-connected, after all. One of her connections was Oscar Wilde, who appears in the book split into several different characters. He offers Mary writing work, but she still disdains his company, finding him too acerbic.

 

Here’s a quote:

“‘Oh, dear Miss Erle,’ said a shrill voice at the door, ‘do come in. It’s such a nice party. I wonder,’ continued Mr. Beaufort Flower, who entertained a good deal himself, ‘why other people’s parties are so much nicer than one’s own? I suppose it is because one always knows so many more people at other people’s houses?’

‘Who is here?’ said Mary, who never troubled herself to laugh at his small witticisms.”

Um, excuse me, Ella. You had the privilege of being in Oscar Wilde’s presence and you never troubled yourself to laugh. I don’t know what you are trying to prove with that attitude, but you’ve only shown that your bad taste. Also, don’t try to write something witty that Oscar Wilde might have said. You are not up to the task. He was much funnier than you. Anyway, I will try to forgive her. Oscar Wilde did enough mocking of others that he deserved to be mocked a little.

Final thoughts: Not bad. I am glad I read it. If you are interested, give it a try. It is quite brief and fairly well-written. I enjoyed it. Not a masterpiece, but worthwhile if it appeals to you. I can’t end this post without telling you about “Happy Afternoons for Pauper Lunatics” which is a charity one of the characters in this book organizes. Feel free to use that for your next album title.

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Tess! Probably the Best Novel Ever Written

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Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy, 1891

CW: sexual assault

Stop! Go read Tess of the D’Urbervilles. Or reread it if it has been a few years since your last visit to Marlott, Tantridge, Flintcomb Ash and Talbothays. You don’t need to be here. You need to be reading Tess. This book is a masterpiece. A sad, frustrating, beautiful masterpiece that will rip your heart out. I just finished rereading it and I am feeling very forlorn, but the journey was aesthetically enriching and spiritually fulfilling. When I read a particularly beautiful phrase that I want to remember and return to, I dogear the page. If you just cringed, get over it; they are my books and I can crease the pages if I want to. Tess is probably my most dogeared book. Go read it. Please.

Ok, now that we have all read Tess, let us proceed to discuss its splendor. What makes this book so great?

Style Of course, the paramount reason for loving Thomas Hardy is simply his skill as a writer. He turns a beautiful phrase. Even his lesser works have exquisite moments for the lover of a great sentence. In Tess, though, you can feel that he is more emotionally invested in the characters and the message. His skill is put to its highest use. Pretty much. I do like Far from the Madding Crowd more than Tess, but not necessarily because I think it is a better book. Simply a matter of preference. I will say, that if there is any flaw in the novel, it is that the style is not quite consistent. The segment when Angel Clare visits his parents seems like it came from a different book. But we will forgive Hardy this tiny failing, because as a whole, the novel is divine. If you have already read the book (and you have, right, or you would have stopped reading this post) you can open to a random page and read a random sentence and just marvel at how lovely it is and how perfectly it propels the reader toward Hardy’s ultimate vision.

Mood Big mood in this one. Later in life Hardy’s cynicism, atheism and bitterness at the injustice of the world took center stage in his writing. You could argue that Jude the Obscure is the more bitter and cynical text and you might be right. However, as much as I love Jude, Hardy’s tough kernel of existential despair is woven into the narrative, the characters and the plot more effectively in Tess. From the beginning he builds the feeling that Tess did not ask for or call the tragedies of her life down upon herself. For example, this description her childhood “If the heads of the Durbeyfield household chose to sail into difficulty, disaster, starvation, disease, degradation, death, thither were these half-dozen little captives under hatches compelled to sail with them—six hapless creatures, who had never been asked if they wished for life on any terms, much less if they wished for it on such hard conditions as were involved in being of the shiftless house of Durbeyfield.” Tess’ experiences are so harsh that she comes to “hear a penal sentence in the fiat, ‘You shall be born.’” Like I said, big mood.

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Themes There are a number working together, including my favorite Brit Lit theme: paganism versus Christianity. He introduces Tess performing a May Day dance. Profligate Angel sees the women of Marlott dancing and the minister’s son cannot resist the chance to whirl about with the maidens. Later, denied the opportunity to baptize her bastard child, Tess wakes her little mystic siblings from their slumber and performs a ritual more sacred, because it is not sanctified by any judgmental, patriarchal church. That moment makes me so proud of her. Mystic, precious Tess. I am also proud of her when she writes that letter to Angel asking him “Oh why have you treated me so monstrously, Angel! I do not deserve it!” Of course you don’t, you pure and perfect soul! And when she murders Alec. I know, blee blah, murder is wrong. But, he’s just a character, not a real guy. He had it coming, and I am proud of her for doing it. Fight me. There are a lot of women in Victorian novels who should have murdered evil, controlling men who they couldn’t escape from, but their authors weren’t bold enough. Hardy and Tess are bold enough and I love them for it. I have strayed away from the point of this paragraph, which is paganism. When Tess and Angel make their sweet, babes-in-the-woods-style, attempt to flee from the law and end up sleeping on a slab at Stonehenge. . .is that not the best, most romantic place for those two characters to end up? It is. Perfection. If I had a time machine, I would go hug Thomas Hardy for providing me this and other moments of pure artistic pleasure.

The original title was Tess of the D’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman and I wish publishers would print the entire title. At this point in his career Hardy could find publishers willing to print his blatant attacks on Victorian sexual mores. He could even call a fallen woman “pure” right in the title. This man was doing the work of divorcing women’s spiritual value from their so-called sexual purity. In the 19th century! What a mensch.

When Alec reappears in Tess’s life and starts imploring her not to “tempt” him, as if her very existence is a sin, Hardy writes that “there was revived in her the wretched sentiment that had come to her often before, that in inhabiting the fleshy tabernacle with which Nature had endowed her, she was somehow doing something wrong.” Did you think you would hear an anti-body/slut-shaming PSA from a Victorian man? I never expected such a thing, but here you have it. Hardy makes it clear that Tess is just out in these fields trying to survive when along come these men accusing her of sin just for inhabiting the body and face she happened to be born into. You didn’t do anything wrong Tess! You never did one wrong thing.

Consent Since Tess was first published readers have questioned whether the sexual encounter between Alec and Tess was consensual. It is a bit confounding. In my opinion most of the textual evidence points to rape. However, I am not sure how to square that with the smaller amount of contrary evidence. Also, Thomas Hardy wrote in a letter to a friend that “it was a seduction, pure and simple.” He may have seen it as consensual, but by 2019 standards, it certainly was not. Tess denied consent for his sexual advances on many precious occasions, and there is no true consent between an employer and the employee who very much depends on him for her livelihood and the survival of her family. Anyway, even if she had enthusiastically consented, Angel Clare would still by hypocritical trash for treating her like tainted goods. I hate him so much. Let’s talk about that.

Angel Fucking Clare Least favorite literary character, no contest. I am so angry at this man. I know, there are far more evil and destructive characters in the canon, but it is in the name: Angel was supposed to be better. His fascination with Tess’s country maidenhood, her supposed virginity, her sexual purity is repulsive. When she reveals her past, he says she is not the same person that he married. To him, her virginity is her identity. What a piece of absolute trash this man is. What kind of bullshit, worthless love could be shaken by her story? Obviously, she is the same person, you giant douche. Oh, I get so mad. I want to push him down a long, steep hill studded with rocks and cow plops. I really love Thomas Hardy, though, for shaping Angel’s past to illustrate what a cruel hypocrite he is for deserting Tess. Angel is no virgin. More importantly he has some objection to the teachings of the Anglican church (I can’t be bothered with figuring out/remembering what he objects to, because I hate him, and he is not worth my time) that prevent him from becoming ordained. When it comes to the Church, he is capable of rejecting conventional wisdom to the detriment of his prospects. But, when it comes to trivia like Tess’s sexual history, he can’t see past his bullshit social conditioning. Angel Clare is the worst. Also, he clearly didn’t love her for her own dear self, because he never bothered to learn about her family. If he had done so, he would have known better than to abandon her to share their ill-fortune. I hate him so much.

Hardy tries to redeem Angel at the end of the story, which is a mistake, in my opinion. He should have just killed that asshole off. I do appreciate that Angel stays by Tess even though she is a murderer, but I cannot stomach the thought of him marrying Tess’s little sister. He does not deserve Tess. He does not deserve an approximation of Tess. You might be thinking that we cannot know that Liza-Lu and Angel end up together, but I have read enough Hardy novels to know that marrying a man to the younger sister of the woman he first loved is absolutely something he would do. Yuck.

Pastoral Perfection Hardy stands out among Victorian authors because he wrote about country living from experience. His descriptions of life on a rural farm have an authenticity that George Eliot never approached. The atmosphere in Tess and the setting . . . absolute perfection. Just read this description of Tess trying to get closer to Angel’s harp playing: She went stealthily as a cat through this profusion of growth, gathering cuckoo-spittle on her skirts, cracking snails that were underfoot, staining her hands with thistle-milk and slug-slime, and rubbing off upon her naked arms sticky blights, which, though snow-white on the apple-tree trunks, made madder stains on her skin; thus she drew quite near to Clare, still unobserved by him. Ah! You should be crying. From pure artistic pleasure. That is the most perfect sentence. I love the snails beneath your feet, Tess. I do. And the cuckoo-spittle on your skirts. Angel never deserved you. I need to stop. This story is so sad. Tess! Why did you have to do this to my emotions, Thomas Hardy?

Final thoughts: It’s a masterpiece. Obviously. Read it. I am still crying. Because of Tess. And because of the cuckoo-spittle.

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Retro-Futuristic Feminist Nonsense!

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Anno Domini 2000, or, Woman’s Destiny, Julius Vogel, 1889

The 8th Premier of New Zealand wrote a feminist science fiction novel. I read it, so you don’t have to. You are welcome. Get ready to enter the wild and wacky world of Julius Vogel’s imagining.

It is the year 2000. The slow, but steady grind of progress has transformed society. Everyone realizes that women are smarter than men. Most world leaders are women. The leaders of the Commonwealth decided that “every human being was entitled to a position of the world’s good things” and enacted Universal Basic Income. Luxury is the new normal. The United Britain is the most powerful empire on the globe. The colonies are wealthier than Mother England. Together, England and her colonies are more powerful than the rest of the world combined.

He started off well, but swung hard into imperialist propaganda, huh?

Vogel very sweetly predicted that in the year 2000, transportation technology would be so advanced that the Emperor of United Britain could “go from one end to the other of his dominions in 12 days.” Cute.

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That’s the gist of the setup. Now he launches into the story and oh, boy; it is the silliest story. Vogel’s vision of female advancement does not extend beyond lifting them into positions of power. Once so elevated, they behave exactly like stereotypical heroines in bad Victorian novels. The heroine at hand is Hilda Fitzherbert who is Under-Secretary of State for Home Affairs for the British Empire. Also, she is 22 and has “a face artistically perfect.” Barf. The trend of very young political leaders in sci-fi/fantasy is so obviously based on the assumption that people must be young and hot to be interesting. As if people, especially women, stop developing mentally or experiencing life-altering events after 27. Why does she have to be young and “perfect” looking? Why? Oh, because this is a goddamn love story. Sure, the love story has vast geo-political ramifications, but it’s a love story. Geez. But still, people finding love in their 90s is still romantic. She didn’t have to be 22, Julius.

We begin with a conversation between the Under Secretary and the Assistant Under Secretary. What do they discuss? Important home affairs? Nope. A man. A man who is in love with Hilda. She’s not interested in him and he’s an ass; so he proceeds to try to ruin her political career out of spite. Yep. That’s the plot of the novel. Hilda versus the scorned lover. How disappointing that Vogel couldn’t imagine Hilda versus the famine. Hilda versus the rise of fascism. Hilda versus anything other than a goddamn man who is mad because she won’t bang him.

Next Hilda consults the Prime Minister of Britain. . .about this goddamn man. By the way, the Prime Minister is also beautiful even though she has the audacity to be 40. Yikes. Also, Hilda calls her “dear mamma” because they are such close friends. Yikes again. So unprofessional, Hilda.

I could go on at length about the many problems with the book, but it would get repetitive and honestly, it’s not worth our time. So, I will just let you know that

  • the Emperor of England is considering whether to marry the daughter of the President of the United States of America as part of a political deal. Hi, we are the United States? Have you met us? That is literally not how we negotiate international politics. Also, he doesn’t want to marry her, because she has red hair. I’m serious.
  • He refuses to marry her, so the U.S. invades Canada out of spite. Really. This gives Britain an excuse to take back their lost colony, which Vogel describes as “weak as water compared to the parent country they abandoned.” He loves the British Empire so much that he is still sad, more than a hundred years later, about that war they lost. Boohoo. It takes the Empire about half a day to retake their former territory “a triumph which amply redeemed the humiliation of centuries back.” Oh, and the 4th of July is abolished. That is some next level imperial fervor, dude. Chill.
  • Hilda’s love life has caused a world war, but Britain triumphs. Her scorned lover dies. She marries the Emperor of course, because why not?

Final Thoughts: This book is very silly nonsense. It’s sweet that Julius Vogel was so committed to women’s rights that he wrote an entire novel to promote the cause, but he should have stuck to politics. And all that imperialist pride. . .what the hell, Julius?

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Henry James Was Essentially a Men’s Rights Activist

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The Bostonians, Henry James, 1886

I don’t know why Henry James thought satirizing late Victorian feminism would be a good idea. It wasn’t. The Bostonians, the result of this misguided endeavor, is a truly worthless book. I don’t know who he imagined would want to read it. Maybe Men’s Right’s Activists. I stumbled across a review of this book on what turned out to be an MRA website. That’s the type of book this is.

The plot concerns two cousins who get into a fight over a young woman. Olive Chancellor is a well-to-do Bostonian and very active in the Women’s Movement. She invites her Southern cousin, Basil Ransom to visit. At one of Olive’s meetings they are both introduced to a beautiful young woman named Verena Tarrant who is a talented speaker. They didn’t have Netflix in the 1880s, so the ability to deliver some stirring oration was quite a talent. Olive and Basil become locked in a battle for lovely Verena’s soul.

James depicts Olive as cold and joyless. He shows her the type of disrespect that activists are often shown by assuming that her efforts are more a result of her personality than her convictions. She tries to change people’s behavior because she is an egotistical, controlling nag, not because these behaviors are harmful. She is obsessed with the suffering of women, not because women have truly suffered, but because the more downtrodden they are the greater her glory in lifting them up to a higher life. James continually indicates that he sees no merit in Olive’s cause, equal rights for women, by depicting Olive as someone who believes “whatever is—is wrong” and who would “reform the solar system if she could get a hold of it.” Barf. That attitude is so dismissive. James draws feminists as meddlers who want to reform for reformation’s sake. At no point does he demonstrate respect for the idea that all people should be equal.

That disrespect got him in trouble with the literary community. Nobody was interested in his backwards, even for the time, opinions. One doddering old feminist character, Miss Birdseye, was clearly based on Eliza Peabody, a relative of Nathaniel Hawthorne and friend of the Alcotts. Here’s a segment of James’ description of Ms. Birdseye “she belonged to the Short-Skirts League, as a matter of course; for she belonged to any and every league that had been founded for almost any purpose whatsoever.” Cuz, you know, all these loud women talking about feminism don’t even care about equality, they just like being in a club together. To continue with the quote “this did not prevent her being a confused, entangled, inconsequent, discursive old woman whose charity began at home and ended nowhere, whose credulity kept pace with it, and who knew less about her fellow-creatures, if possible, after fifty years of humanitary zeal, than on the day she had gone into the field to testify against the iniquity of most arrangements.” Also, she’s ugly. Yep, Henry James did just depict humanitarianism as inconsequential. I want that on the record. The scorn in that phrase “iniquity of most arrangements” is at the heart of what makes this book worthless. Who the hell is James talking to? Who does he think his audience is? Society had already acknowledged that arrangements were iniquitous. Mocking that idea will appeal to no one except for reactionary assholes like Basil Ransom.

I’m getting ahead of myself. I haven’t gotten to the worst part of Ms. Birdseye’s characterization. James states that she is less busy since the end of the Civil Wa, “before that her best hours had been spent in fancying that she was helping some Southern slave to escape. It would have been a nice question whether, in her heart of hearts, for the sake of this excitement, she did not sometimes wish the blacks back in bondage.” Uhhhhhhhhhhh. Where to even start with this one. Yet again, James sees no sincerity in activism. Abolitionists were just in it for the thrills. Now, it is hard to know if James is being dismissive of the efforts of everyone involved in the Underground Railroad or if Ms. Birdseye really did only fancy that she helped slaves escape. Potentially, he could mean that she was so ineffective that she couldn’t bring about an escape. However, he doesn’t have much benefit of the doubt left. So, probably not? The idea that she might wish for the reinstatement of slavery smacks of that dumb philosophical argument that there is no true altruism, because if you feel pleasure when you help someone, you aren’t being truly selfless. I believe it was John Stewart Mill who rolled his eyes hard and said “Wtf do you care if someone who does a good deed feels pleasure? Someone was helped. Someone else felt happy. These are both good things. Shut up, Henry James. What part of feeling good about doing good is objectionable to you, you twisted ratbag?”

This is not to say that feminists and abolitionists are too sacred to be criticized or even mocked. You don’t have to do much digging to find objectionable behavior in either camp. But this is not an instance of one humanitarian holding other humanitarians to a higher standard. This is just one twisted ratbag making fun of people for promoting equality. Yes, the people that these characters are based on were not the intersectional heroes we wish for. However, that’s not what James is lampooning. He’s not mocking them for doing a bad job of striving for equality. He’s just mocking them. The Bostonians was published serially. James’ depiction of Ms. Birdseye was so poorly received that he had to change direction and write a touching death scene for her near the end of the novel.

Woof. 1,000 words already. I’ve covered the first 5% of the book. We need to talk about Basil. He is a Southern gentleman who lost his family fortune when his slaves were freed. Basil has such reactionary political opinions that he cannot get them published. A newspaper editor rejects his “paper on the rights of minorities” because his “doctrines were about three hundred years behind the age; doubtless some magazine of the sixteenth century would have been very happy to print them.” So, Olive and Basil are both ideologues. Basil has the upper hand in their fight for Verena, because he is charming and persuasive, while Olive is the incarnation of an MRAer’s mental picture of a feminist. Basil falls in love with Verena and wants to rescue her from the taint of public life, because women should be hidden away at home. Doing some baking.

Long story short, Verena chooses Basil, because I don’t know, the innate superiority of men? James depicts her as young and impressionable. She only became involved in the Women’s Movement, because of her father’s influence. She sways from one influence to another. James cannot conceive of a young woman who genuinely believes in equal rights or has any convictions whatsoever that won’t fly out of her silly little head as soon as someone mildly persuasive starts talking to her. Verena is clay to be molded by the stronger characters; “it was in her nature to be easily submissive, to like being overborn.”  Which describes exactly zero of the young advocates I know. Although, I can’t claim that a prominent feminist falling in love with an anti-feminist troll and losing her way is absolutely unrealistic. Remember Laci Green, the feminist, sex-positive youtuber who “reached out to the other side,” started dating an anti-feminist troll and immediately started tweeting transphobia? It can happen.

But do we need a novel about it? No.

We have to talk about the book’s queerness. There is an obvious implication that Olive is in love with Verena. They live together, an arrangement that lead to the coining of the term “Boston marriage” meaning a same-sex couple that live together ostensibly as platonic friends, but who are really romantically involved. I can understand how even a tacit acknowledgement of the existence of same-sex relationships during this era is significant, but this book is not the queer classic you deserve. Not by any stretch. James promotes the stereotype of homosexual love as the corruption of malleable young person by a misguided older lover. I don’t need it. You don’t need it. It’s trash and I don’t want to think about it anymore.

You might like The Bostonians if:

  • You’re a Men’s Rights Activist or whatever they’re calling themselves now.

You might not like The Bostonians if:

  • See above.

Final thoughts: Barf.

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Betrayed by my Favorite Author: Women Who Hate Women

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Adam Bede, George Eliot, 1859

Before I started this project, I considered George Eliot my favorite Victorian author on the strength of Middlemarch alone. She dethroned herself with the rest of her body of work. Yes, she. If you’re not familiar, George Eliot is the nom-de-plume of Mary Ann Evans. When I was assigned to read Middlemarch for a college course, I loved it. I will discuss that special novel when we come to it in this endeavor. Just know that there’s one metaphor that compares women’s native passions and energies to a river whose force diminishes as it breaks upon the rocks of all the other crap people expect from us.

Having read only Middlemarch, I saw Eliot as a feminist author who fought back against the stereotype of female characters whose only concerns are hair ribbons and marrying rich. A Mill on the Floss mostly confirmed this opinion. Then I came to Adam Bede.

Let me tell you how Eliot betrayed me and all women in Adam Bede. There is a character, Bartle Massey, who exists only to spew misogynist nonsense. Every line of his dialogue cut me. Not because a male character hates women, but because my beloved George Eliot wrote and published those lines. She put those horrible thoughts into the world for others to chuckle at. I will not comb through the text to find his most egregiously hateful statements, because reading even one makes my shoulders tense up. So, here’s the first one I could find:

“I must give [my dog] her supper too, confound her! Though she’ll do nothing with it but nourish those unnecessary babbies. That’s the way with these women—they’ve got no head-pieces to nourish, and so their food all runs either to fat or to brats.”

Do you not feel betrayed? How could George Eliot write that? I mean, fuck. I like to think I’m a pretty savvy reader, and I found no evidence that his dialogue was meant to be satirical. What’s worse, he serves no purpose in the novel other than as a mouthpiece for hate. Really. His only other role is moral support for the title character, a function which could easily have been served by at least two other characters. Seriously, if I were to draw you a diagram of the plot, and I’d be happy to do so, this joker’s name would appear nowhere, because he’s inconsequential.

Her portrayal of female characters is problematic as well. First we have Hetty Sorrel, a pretty young girl who is so astoundingly vain and empty headed that she manages to ruin or nearly ruin the lives of everyone near her. Then there’s Lizbeth Bede who destroys the happiness of the men around her by constantly whinging about trifles. And there’s Mrs. Poyser who also cannot stop complaining. Lastly, we have Dinah Morris, a Methodist preacher. Now, that’s pretty cool. A lady doing manstuff. Well, until she gets married and the Methodist church decides women shouldn’t preach because they’re dumb dumbs who do more harm than good. So, George Eliot provided us with stereotypes of female vanity and shrewishness elevated to the point of ruinous destruction.

Why? Why would she do this to me? I loved her so much and she stabbed me right in the feminism. I can’t help but think that Eliot was trying to throw her audience off the scent of her true identity or assert her membership in some male club by bashing women. Which sucks. That just sucks. Just don’t do that “I am a woman, but I’m not like other women. They’re the worst,” crap. Hey, George Eliot, are you a woman? Yes. Are you awesome? Yes. Therefore women are awesome. You’re not a special miracle; you’re evidence that all women have the ability to be insightful, eloquent artists, given the chance.

Listen, I am going to forgive George Eliot. What she did to me as a female reader of female authors really stings. But, every feminist takes a tumble at some point. We all screw up. Standing up to existing powers is exhausting and tricky. She redeemed herself with Middlemarch and I will apply its soothing balm to my psyche.

I don’t forgive Adam Bede, though. I have more problems with it. I find the characters flat, either wholly good or wholly sinful.

Victorians loved descriptions of quaint rustic scenes. Eliot provided them. Her tone in doing so comes off as extremely condescending to me. I slogged through her descriptions of country dinners with a grimace on my face. Then there’s this thing that happened that I just can’t stomach. Spoilers coming in the next paragraph.

Ok. Adam Bede is this strong, sexy carpenter. He’s tall, handsome, hardworking, good at everything, and wise in a quaint rustic way. Everybody in his whole town loves him. His younger brother, Seth, is a less awesome version of Adam. He’s a great guy, but no one really cares about him, because they’re too busy being impressed by Adam. Seth is in love with Dinah Morris. She looks like an angel. She’s so good and pure. She’s just so much better than other women that he could never love anyone but her. But Dinah only loves Jesus. She tells Seth that he’s just the kind of guy she would marry if she was going to marry anyone, but God wants her to blah blah blah not get married and help people yadda yadda.  (When people talk about Christianity, it sounds like the adults in Charlie Brown to me.) The plot proceeds. It’s a doozy. Hardships are endured. Christiany whomp-whomp sounds are made. Dinah falls in love with Adam. Adam finds that he loves her too.

Now, that all seems believable to me. I’m sure brothers have both fallen in love with the same woman. No doubt, a man has married a woman who rejected the proposal of his brother. What I don’t believe is Seth’s attitude about it. Seth, the poor dear, tells Adam that he loves being around Dinah so much that if he can’t marry her, he’s happy to be a bachelor forever and have her near him as a sister. Nope! Zero. That has never happened. If Seth had moved on and married someone else and regarded his feelings for Dinah as misguided puppy love, I would believe that he would condone the marriage. But, I cannot believe that any person would ever be ok with their brother marrying the one person they feel they could ever love. Just no. The last person to be ok with their brother marrying their one true love would be a younger brother who has spent his whole life in his brother’s shadow.

Let’s look at a parallel fictional example. Lady Edith and Lady Mary. Edith lives in Mary’s shadow. Edith was in love with cousin Whatshisface, the one who died on the Titanic. Mary was supposed to marry him to save the family fortune. Was Edith ok with this? No. She was resentful and so desperate for this dude’s affection that she thought a burnt-faced conman was said dead cousin and kind of fell in love with that weirdo. That was a stupid plot element, but it illustrates my point. Also, Edith fell for other people, because it is unnatural to just never seek out human affection again when the first person you’re into doesn’t feel the same way about you. Unnatural.

I do not generally need faithful realism in a work of fiction. However, I just could not buy into the ending of Adam Bede. George Eliot wants me to believe that Adam marrying Dinah and Seth living as their sad bachelor brother is a happy ending. Nope. My gut churned when Dinah and Adam fell in love. Everybody in that situation needed to find someone else to love. I get that these characters don’t often get out of their small town, but…. Just don’t marry the one person your little brother has ever loved. Just don’t. Please. Don’t.

I should mention that something very controversial happens in this book. Not just Victorian controversial, every time period controversial. Well, I can’t speak to what offended cavepeople, but if anything did, probably this thing would. So, it’s not exactly boring. Also, Eliot is a great writer. Every unlikable element of Adam Bede is beautifully written.

You might like Adam Bede if:

  • you are not a feminist
  • you’re a feminist who’s pretty good at shaking off misogynist statements
  • you like George Eliot’s other novels
  • I mean, it’s a well-written book. If the stuff I mentioned wouldn’t bother you and you generally like Victorian fiction, it’s a pretty darn good book. I hope you do read it and like it. It’s not for me, but I’d be perfectly happy to hear that someone else enjoyed it.

You might not like Adam Bede if:

  • the Bartle Massey quote above made your gorge rise.

Final Thoughts: My final thought is a message for Bartle Massey:

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The First Mystery Novel: Is Spectacular. You Should Read It.

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The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins, 1859

Well, mystery novels sure got off to a whiz-bang start with this genre-starting book. I mean, dang, is The Woman in White ever a startling departure from the literature that came before it? Yes. The answer to that question is yes.

The Good

  • Multiple perspectives. The premise of The Woman in White is that an earnest young drawing teacher, Walter Hartwright (get it, his heart is, you know, in the right place), has a crime to document and expose, so he has gathered the testimony of all persons who can shed light on the mystery. The novel consists of the narratives he gathered from these persons. This narrative structure turns the reader into a lawyer reading transcripts of depositions and trying to piece together a coherent idea of the events. Fun!
  • Multiple styles! I find texts written from multiple perspectives either incredibly enjoyable or incredibly frustrating. When Mary Shelley switches from Robert Walton to Victor Frankenstein to the monster without once varying her writing style, because, you know, different people express themselves differently, I want to throw the book across the room. C’mon, Shelley, get it together. However, when the author varies their style to suit the quirks, personalities and agendas of the various narrators: fun, fun fun. Collins does this. Hooray! I loved hopping between perspectives. Every part of the novel is written in first person, so there is much more stylistic range than, say, Game of Thrones.
  • Psychological intimacy. It’s addictive. These lengthy Victorian novels allow the reader to really get to know the characters. Even though Frederick Fairly dictates only one relatively short interval in the book, I know him. I’ve got his number. I have a nuanced knowledge of the motivations, fears and desires of Marian Halcolme and Walter Hartright among others. Detailed novels provide an intimacy with the thoughts of other (fictional) human beings that goes beyond the intimacy we have with our co-workers, most of our relatives, some of our good friends. I get to go inside their (fictional) brains and think their thoughts. If “I think therefore I am” than “I read Jane Eyre, therefore I think Jane Eyre’s thoughts” and “I read therefore I am Jane Eyre.” Reading is magic.

The Bad

  • That length is problematic. Or is it? I don’t know anymore. Bring on the long, Victorian novels! 700 pages seems daunting when I turn the first thirty pages. However, somewhere around page 300 I become so immersed in the world of the book that I never want to leave. Around page 500, I start to feel anxious, because I know I will reach the end and the period of my life when I am well-acquainted with and deeply concerned about the affairs of Blackthorne Park will end and I will be unceremoniously booted from the lives of the characters I have grown to know so well. Can you tell that I’m feeling a bit emotional about finishing this book? You know what, I should take length out of the bad category, because it’s goddamn patronizing of me  to assume that you won’t read a long book. The Woman in White is underrated and you’re a fool if you don’t read it. I’m not going to tell you that it’s too long to be worth reading, because that’s a idiotic thing for me to say. You’re a grown adult.You’re more than capable of sticking with a long novel.

The Ugly.

  • I really thought that I was going to hate this book based on the first few lines. There’s some problematic stuff when it comes to gender relations. But, I’m going to give Wilkie Collins a  break. I have a relatively uncommon concept of gender relations, because I went to Oberlin and Obies don’t believe in gender. I can hardly expect a mid-19th century novelist to have the concept of gender roles that I have. (They don’t exist. They’re a harmful societal construct. It doesn’t matter what genitalia you have, you can do, be, think, like and act any type of thing and any type of way. You’re not a boy or a girl, you’re a human being with a nebulous identity that no one can classify with a silly little word like boy/girl/man/woman/male/female. You’re not a dude/lady, you’re a rainbow.) So, yeah. Wilkie Collins probably didn’t feel that way about stuff. It grinds my gears to hear one of the only strong women in pre-1900s literature hate on herself for being female and think that her femininity and her strength can’t go together. (wait, just to be clear, femininity isn’t a thing.) Redo: think that her body and her moral fortitude can’t go together. Marian Halcolme is a badass and she dislikes herself for being female and constantly talks trash  about her gender and generally feels like she was born in the wrong body. She wasn’t born in the wrong body. Just because every female in literature before her fainted at the first sign of danger (ok, not Lady Macbeth), doesn’t mean that her resolute perseverance, her cool-headed tenacity and her indomitable courage are in some way not female/feminine. If a woman is brave she is not acting like a man. She’s a woman who is brave, because women can be anything and men can be anything. Please just let your children be themselves and discipline your children when they don’t let other children be themselves.

You might like The Woman in White if:

  • you dig mysteries.
  • you enjoy books with multiple narrators.

You might not like The Woman in White if:

  • you don’t have the attention span for long novels. But you do. Don’t wuss out on a book because of length. You’re better than that.

Final thoughts: This is an incredibly fun novel. Adventurous readers will enjoy it. I found it gripping and I can’t wait to read it again.

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North and South, or Love and Capitalism, or Obedience and Hell No, Not Gonna

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North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell, 1855

If you read my recent review of Ruth, you already know that Elizabeth Gaskell has no time for correct, moral Victorian thinking. True to form, in North and South, Gaskell depicts characters who refuse to conform. Rascally rebels with hearts of gold. They do the right thing by their own moral standards. Yay! Fun! No, not fun. Social scorn, loss of status, risk to self and family. But, fun for the reader!

Can we talk for a minute about Elizabeth Gaskell’s treatment within the canon? Do you read the introductions to classic novels? I’ll be honest, I usually read the first couple of paragraphs and skim the rest. Some fool named Alan Sutton wrote these sentences for his introduction to the Pocket Classics edition of Lois the Witch and Other Stories “Mrs. Gaskell (1810-1865) was first and foremost a woman of her time, a lady of Victorian expansiveness. She was not a brilliant, nor a passionate novelist like George Eliot or Charlotte Bronte, but an intelligent, compassionate and enthusiastic woman, whose life centered around her family.” Barf. Barf. Barf. Just barfed in my mouth a little. Excuse me Alan Sutton, but did you really create a dichotomy between women with families and brilliant authors? Really? Bronte and Eliot are passionate, but Gaskell is only enthusiastic? Probably because she was spending all her emotions on her children and husband. Ugh. Pardon me, I need to pause to roll my eyes several times.

Elizabeth Gaskell published under the name Mrs. Gaskell. Bronte and Eliot published under male pseudonyms. Bronte and Eliot did not have conventional families. Does it not seem like this is why Mr. Sutton chooses to relegate Gaskell to some lower tier of writer? Dickens had about 27 children, but judging by his grand position in the canon, had plenty of brilliance and passion left over for his novels. I could write pages about the utter worthlessness of those two sentences. Instead I will say this: I have now read all of Gaskell’s major works and all but one by her contemporary, George Eliot. Middlemarch by Eliot is perhaps my favorite Victorian novel, but I generally prefer Gaskell to Eliot. Yeah, I said it. In Ruth and North and South Gaskell bravely and PASSIONATELY skewers conventional Victorian morality. Meanwhile, Eliot wastes pages upon page of Adam Bede and Silas Marner in affectionate, but incredibly patronizing depictions of charming, rural, simple, superstitious country folk. Her condescending tone rubs my fur the wrong way and is frankly tiresome. I really never thought I would find a Victorian author I preferred to Eliot, but I did and it’s Elizabeth Gaskell.

That being said, Sally Shuttleworth wrote an introduction to the Oxford World’s Classics edition of North and South that gives Gaskell her due. Shuttleworth examines the complexity of the gender, class, and community tensions depicted in the book. It’s a great introduction written by a person capable of seeing past the “Mrs” in Mrs. Gaskell. Shuttleworth is worth a million Suttons. Honestly, if you are interested in the 1,000 merits of Elizabeth Gaskell or North and South, you should pick up a copy and read Shuttleworth’s intro. It’s better than anything that I am about to write.

Let’s get back to business. The heroine of North and South is Margaret Hale. The daughter of a clergyman, Margaret is used to being about the highest ranking person in her tiny town in the south of England. Her father, the novel’s first rebel, resigns from his job, because he objects to some point of doctrine that the Church of England insists he must preach. His little family cannot understand why Mr. Hale must take this stand against the Church, but he feels he must. So, the Hales relocate from the green and sunny South to the smoky, industrial northern town of Milton. Margaret hates it. In fact, she’s a bit haughty and repulsed by the squalid environment and filthy, unmannered masses. Accustomed to deferential treatment, Margaret is frightened by the loud, boisterous crowds in Milton. She actually gets catcalled, “You may well smile, my lass; many a one would smile to have such a bonny face.” Yep, telling scared women to smile is at least as old as the 1850s.

Despite her initial revulsion, Margaret’s heart warms to the workers. She makes friends with a particular family and sees that their wages do not meet their basic needs. Margaret starts feeling very socialist and pro-union when she sees sick and starving Milton families. This feeling creates complications for M, because she must interact socially with the mill owner, Mr. Thornton. Sparks fly. Thornton is a self-made capitalist fatcat. Margaret is an uppity wannabe aristocrat who scorns trade. They really dislike each other, in a classic romcom way where they can’t stop thinking about each other and despite their better judgment feel certain tingles in certain unspeakable regions.

I really love Margaret, partially because she speaks angrily to capitalists at dinner parties just like me. The romance with Thornton is imperfect to me. He’s extra manly, somewhat scary, and uncompassionate. But, the heart wants what it wants. The romance is extra complicated, because Margaret sides with the workers who go on strike, wanting better wages from Thornton. As you can imagine, this drives Thornton crazy, in a sexy way.

You might like North and South if:

  • you loath capitalism.
  • you ruin social events by loudly loathing capitalism.
  • you secretly want to stop loathing capitalism and marry a petrochemical engineer. (Is that a type of engineer?)

You might not like North and South if:

  • you love Ayn Rand.

Final Thoughts: I loved it. The more I think about it, the more I love it. All hail Margaret Hale! Speak truth to power, Victorian heroines, speak truth to power.

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A Victorian Defense of Unwed Mothers

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Ruth, Elizabeth Gaskell, 1953

 Today’s blog post comes with a real life embarrassing story!

I am with my mother and her friend enjoying the wild wonder of our cabin in West Virginia. Watching birds, looking at trees, tubing down the beautiful Cacapon River. Short of taking a trip to Wales, this is the perfect spot to get a picture for Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell.

Poor Ruth, an unwed mother abandoned by her lover, tries to kill herself by jumping into a Welsh river. To get the shot, I need to position myself on the opposite bank from the photographer, so he can get both me and the river in the frame. So, I put my Victorian dress and shawl in my backpack and, against Mom’s protests that the current is too strong, start the arduous process of wading across the shallow part of our rocky little river.

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Arriving safely on the other side, I scramble around the banks until I get as close to both the rapids and the photographer as possible. I put the dress and shawl on over my summer clothes and start trying to look forlorn and suicidal. A few minutes later, I am pretty confident I have something usable. Time to take some risk, try something different. “What else should I do?” I shout across the river to my Mom and her friend.

“Bend your knees!  Look at the water!” Mom shouts back, her voice just barely reaching me over the rushing river.

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Ever ready to oblige, I bend down as if poised to jump. As I stare intently into the churning current, I feel my left foot start to slip on the wet, algae-coated rock. “No! Don’t slip. You can get your balance back,” I tell myself, but my foot slides down the back of the rock into the water and my body inevitably follows. In my desperate attempt to stay grounded, I have fallen in a pike position, butt nestled in a me-sized cradle of rock, hands and feet poking out of the water.

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Hauling myself out, I truly feel the discomfort of sopping wet Victorian garb, including many feet of knitted shawl.

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Seeing my genuinely forlorn expression, my mom tells her friend to keep taking pictures.

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And that is the story of how I fell in the river in Victorian clothing.

Ruth, the eponymous anti-heroine, also survived her aquatic misadventure. Her benefactor, Thurston, finds her and takes her away from the river before she can fulfill her plan. He and his sister continue to care for Ruth. They help her to see her baby as her chance for redemption and grace. They even convince her to join them in their provincial home, disguised as a widow.

Gaskell chose to write Thurston as a dissenting minister with a physical disability. She characterizes him a man of strong religious and moral conviction, an outsider whose perspective enables him to recognize the folly of conventional thinking. He convinces his sister that while lying is sinful, shutting an erring human out from all human sympathy and (Christian?) kindness is the greater evil.

Writing at a time when women lost “respectability” by even mentioning the name of a “fallen woman,” when unwed mothers were turned out of their family homes to languish and die in poorhouses, Gaskell skewers prejudiced behavior towards unwed mothers. She shows poor Ruth as an orphaned young woman working in harsh conditions as a seamstress, with no one to guide her into adulthood. No one to explain what female behavior was acceptable and what lead to ruin. As Gaskell states “she was too young when her mother died to have received any cautions or words of advice concerning the subject of a woman’s life.”

Lonely, she accepts the friendship of a handsome young gentleman, Mr. Bellingham. Desperate for a glimpse of the familiar spot where she was once so happy, she agrees to accompany him to her old family home. Ruth’s employer happens to see her and Mr. Bellingham together and casts Ruth out with absolutely no one to turn to but…Mr. Bellingham.

(Sometimes I have a glass of wine while I write posts. This post is long, so right about here I had two.)

Innocent little Ruth ends up living with Bellingham as a fallen woman, because what the hell else was she supposed to do at that point? They go on vacation in Wales, where they won’t be recognized. Eventually, B’s mother shows up and does what any good mother would do: convinces her son to abandon his now pregnant lover. Now, Bellingham has a life of luxury and hedonism ahead of him and is free to marry any damn Miss Darcy he happens to run across (but he stays in love with Ruth forever, because she’s perfect). Meanwhile, Ruth is doomed to live as an impoverished pariah with no hope of providing a life worth living to her unborn child. Because, misogyny. This is when she starts to think that the bottom of the river might be the best place for her.

Fortunately for Ruth, kindhearted, farsighted, wonderful Thurston prevents her suicide and slowly persuades her that God will forgive her and she can still lead a meaningful life full of whatever kind of approval it is that Christians seek.

Ruth lives for her child, and loves him with the same love as married women. Cuz love doesn’t know what documents are down at the courthouse, y’all.

Later in the novel, a friend of Ruth’s finds out Ruth’s secret. She is tempted to tell, because she is jealous of the attention her suitor pays to beautiful Ruth. But, she realizes that she had advantages in life that Ruth didn’t have and the same thing could have easily happened to her if their positions were reversed. That’s right, a Victorian character checked her privilege. Compassion triumphed over jealousy, because Elizabeth Gaskell is a queen.

Ruth becomes celebrated in her tiny town for bravely tending to very sick patients, with no concern for her own safety from infection. Wait, I was just going to tell you the ending, but no! You should read it! The ending is fucked up, though. You will cry.

You might like Ruth if:

  • a human heart beats inside your chest.
  • you love a tale of redemption.
  • you like Tyrion Lannister, but wish he didn’t have to exist in a miserable, sadistic world. Seriously, Thurston reminds me of Tyrion, if Tyrion wasn’t subjected to a world of shit.
  • you love social criticism.

You might not like Ruth if:

  • you hate unwed mothers.

Final thoughts:

Ultimately, this book is a vindication of individual morality and forgiveness over hive-mind prejudice and hate. Yes! The kind of book that makes my heart contract with sympathy, empathy and envy. Sympathy for women, because it takes two to make an unwed mother, but only one pays the price. Sympathy because the price was so disproportionately harsh. Empathy with the author who saw a deep, searing flaw in society cause unnecessary suffering and sought to express the iniquity in the form of a novel. Envy because she did it so well and I will never write such a book as Ruth. This book makes me want to SWF Elizabeth Gaskell. I want to go back in time and become her. This book. Sometimes I just rub the pages on my cheek; that’s how much affection I have for this book. Totally worth falling in a river for. I love you, Ruth.