1995, updated from 1994 edition, from Vintage Books
Katha Pollitt
Reasonable Creatures: Essays on Women and Feminism
Bought new for $11.00
Worn paperback
A-
I only had to get as far as the preface to this edition and the more upbeat introduction to the hardcover edition to remember how much I loved Pollitt's writing. She was my favorite contributor when I had a '90s subscription to The Nation, and the essays here (from roughly '86 to '93) are some of her best. If anything, I agree with her more, particularly on her questioning of difference feminism, than I did two decades ago. (The "Carol Gilligan's Island" joke is still great.)
Pollitt is intelligent, witty, snarky when she has to be, compassionate, and, yes, as reasonable as Wollstonecraft could ask for. I was really struck by the similarities to Susan J. Douglas this time, although media critic Douglas of course has a different focus. The two women are roughly the same age (Pollitt born in late '49, Douglas within a year later) and have daughters of roughly the same age (Pollitt's in '87, Douglas's I think the next year) who in their early childhood were clever and feisty but fond of playing Wedding and Disney Princess. (Both women see Ariel as an improvement over Sleeping Beauty.) The writers' personalities seem similar as well, although Pollitt comes across as more concerned with issues of class and race.
Douglas doesn't address the 1993 Bobbitt case till her 2010 book, but one of Pollitt's essays here is on how ordinary women seemed to sympathize more with Lorena Bobbitt than feminist leaders did. One thing Pollitt is very good at is putting controversial news stories in context, contrasting them with what else was covered, or ignored, at that time, as with the media treatment of the plaintiff in the William Kennedy Smith rape trial vs. not only how Smith was treated, but also against the coverage of the Central Park jogger's case. If I had to pick a favorite essay, it's the one on Baby M, so much good common sense mixed with empathy.
But, really, I love it all, from "The Smurfette Principle" (tokenism in children's entertainment) to "That Survey" ("...they interviewed no college-educated single women, and thus have no idea how many want to marry, think they want to marry but only fall in love with Greek sponge divers, are contentedly cohabiting in nonmarital bliss, are gay, hate the very thought of marriage or just don't care one way or the other") to the more serious essays, like the ones on abortion. I tried to think of a flaw, why this is a B+ rather than an A-, and just couldn't.
I probably never will give out A's or A+s. Unless Pollitt and Douglas collaborated? Meantime, we'll see how Pollitt's Subject to Debate stacks up when we get to 2001....
Showing posts with label A-. Show all posts
Showing posts with label A-. Show all posts
Friday, September 27, 2013
Monday, August 26, 2013
Where the Girls Are: Growing up Female with the Mass Media
1994, 1995 Times Books edition
Susan J. Douglas
Where the Girls Are: Growing up Female with the Mass Media
Bought new for $14.00
Slightly worn paperback
A-
As you might guess from the condition, I haven't read this book very often, so I was very pleasantly surprised by how fantastic it is. It's intelligent, witty, snarky, sometimes crude, sometimes sophisticated, and always aware of ambiguity and contradiction. In fact, ambiguity is as much the subject as what it was like for Douglas, born white, middle-class, and American around 1950, to grow up watching TV and movies, listening to rock music, reading magazines. It is her story (without being a biography as such), but it is also about other Baby Boom women. I think there are things that others can relate to-- women my age and younger, women of other classes and colors, and some men-- but that is her focus. She is the daughter of a woman who struggled with 1950s messages about work and home, and the mother of a girl who loved Disney princesses yet made Douglas change all the pronouns to female during bedtime reading. She is also a professor of media studies, which she both takes seriously enough that she thinks it should be studied, and as irreverently as she takes everything else.
There's so much here that's quotable, but I'll try to narrow it down:
As you might guess from that last quote, Douglas is building in part on Wolf's Beauty Myth, and of course Faludi's Backlash, although she sees the media as offering both pro-female and anti-female messages, sometimes at the same time, as with The Mary Tyler Moore Show. She argues that living with the contradictions is part of what being a modern American woman and/or a feminist is.
This is the best book I've reread since Adamson's 1973 Marx Brothers book. (Sorry, fiction just wasn't as good in the 20th century as in the 19th.) Like that whimsical, cynical work of media criticism, this isn't perfect. (I don't think I noted it, but Adamson was a bit sexist and homophobic, if not obnoxiously so.) This book does spend much more time on the '50s and '60s than on the '70s, '80s, or '90s. I do appreciate that it's the first book to actually get what was great about Roseanne. (Even Roseanne's My Life as a Woman didn't, but then at the time that first biography came out, her show hadn't yet hit its stride.) Yet there were so many other shows and movies Douglas could've talked about, even if this is her story.
The copyright page has 1994 and 1995, but I went with the earlier date because the main change from the hardcover first edition seems to be the addition of media contacts, and you can get much more up-to-date information on the Internet. Yes, wouldn't it be great if this book went up to the Internet, not to mention the Spice Girls, Hermione Granger*, and Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign? Well, as it happens, in 2010 Douglas published Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message that Feminism's Work Is Done. I've got it on order and I'll let you know what I think of it when we get up to '10. And no, I don't know what it includes, but this is one case where I am willing to buy the sequel without knowing the details.
*Douglas says of then-recent kids' movies, "Gutsy, smart, enterprising, and sassy little girls remain, after all this time, absent, invisible, denied."
Susan J. Douglas
Where the Girls Are: Growing up Female with the Mass Media
Bought new for $14.00
Slightly worn paperback
A-
As you might guess from the condition, I haven't read this book very often, so I was very pleasantly surprised by how fantastic it is. It's intelligent, witty, snarky, sometimes crude, sometimes sophisticated, and always aware of ambiguity and contradiction. In fact, ambiguity is as much the subject as what it was like for Douglas, born white, middle-class, and American around 1950, to grow up watching TV and movies, listening to rock music, reading magazines. It is her story (without being a biography as such), but it is also about other Baby Boom women. I think there are things that others can relate to-- women my age and younger, women of other classes and colors, and some men-- but that is her focus. She is the daughter of a woman who struggled with 1950s messages about work and home, and the mother of a girl who loved Disney princesses yet made Douglas change all the pronouns to female during bedtime reading. She is also a professor of media studies, which she both takes seriously enough that she thinks it should be studied, and as irreverently as she takes everything else.
There's so much here that's quotable, but I'll try to narrow it down:
- "'Woman's bone structure and bodily proportions overwhelmingly lead her toward more passive interests and an inward life,' which I guess explains why American moms always sat on their asses, drinking beer and watching ball games, while our naturally more active dads chased the kids around the house, and drove them to scout meetings and Little League."
- "Now, since Lisa [on Green Acres] spent much of her time flouncing around in chiffon, ostrich feathers, and gemstones the size of Fig Newtons, completely unable to cook or manage the household, the viewer saw immediately that feminist generalizations about domestic life certainly didn't apply here, and therefore, they might not apply elsewhere."
- "In copy sounding as if it had been written by Alexander Haig, our skin was put in a bunker, or better yet, behind Reagan's version of Star Wars, as 'protective barriers' and 'invisible shields' deflected 'external aggressors.'"
As you might guess from that last quote, Douglas is building in part on Wolf's Beauty Myth, and of course Faludi's Backlash, although she sees the media as offering both pro-female and anti-female messages, sometimes at the same time, as with The Mary Tyler Moore Show. She argues that living with the contradictions is part of what being a modern American woman and/or a feminist is.
This is the best book I've reread since Adamson's 1973 Marx Brothers book. (Sorry, fiction just wasn't as good in the 20th century as in the 19th.) Like that whimsical, cynical work of media criticism, this isn't perfect. (I don't think I noted it, but Adamson was a bit sexist and homophobic, if not obnoxiously so.) This book does spend much more time on the '50s and '60s than on the '70s, '80s, or '90s. I do appreciate that it's the first book to actually get what was great about Roseanne. (Even Roseanne's My Life as a Woman didn't, but then at the time that first biography came out, her show hadn't yet hit its stride.) Yet there were so many other shows and movies Douglas could've talked about, even if this is her story.
The copyright page has 1994 and 1995, but I went with the earlier date because the main change from the hardcover first edition seems to be the addition of media contacts, and you can get much more up-to-date information on the Internet. Yes, wouldn't it be great if this book went up to the Internet, not to mention the Spice Girls, Hermione Granger*, and Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign? Well, as it happens, in 2010 Douglas published Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message that Feminism's Work Is Done. I've got it on order and I'll let you know what I think of it when we get up to '10. And no, I don't know what it includes, but this is one case where I am willing to buy the sequel without knowing the details.
*Douglas says of then-recent kids' movies, "Gutsy, smart, enterprising, and sassy little girls remain, after all this time, absent, invisible, denied."
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Sometimes Zeppo
1973, undated Simon and Schuster edition
Joe Adamson
Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Sometimes Zeppo: A Celebration of the Marx Brothers (alternate subtitle A History of the Marx Brothers and a Satire on the Rest of the World)
Original price $10.00, purchase price unknown
Hardcover with stains and broken spine but no way am I getting rid of it
A-
The last A- I read was from 1934, so long ago that the Marx Brothers were transitioning from Paramount to MGM. In fact, I almost made this the first A, but the section on the two Thalberg movies went on too long. Adamson has written an appreciation of the Marxes that is as funny as they are, no small feat. I got this book as a teenager, and it not only shaped my evaluation of the movies (roughly a rise to Duck Soup and a gradual fall for the next eight), but I picked up a couple of his writing tics. One is the heavy use of self-interruption, particularly parentheses. The other is sometimes tortured wordplay. (He states at one point that a pun isn't funny; it's the audacity of telling a pun that's funny.)
I think Adamson was the first to get the Marxes' birth years right, and you know he's writing in the 1970s because he mentions the astrological signs. (Chico was a "restless Aries.") He also sorted out what he calls "Antiquity," their vaudeville roots on through to the first two movies, both based on successful stageplays. He discusses the contradictory stories in various earlier books, including Arthur Marx's books on Groucho, as well as the anecdotes of the people he interviewed. I'm especially pleased that he spoke with the screenwriters. In particular, erudite S. J. Perelman (Monkey Business, Horse Feathers) would be dead six years later, and Harry Ruby (music for Animal Crackers, Horse Feathers, and Duck Soup, as well as close friendship with Groucho) would be gone the February after this book came out.
Chico died in 1961 (of the eulogy, "He did not have an evil or a mischievous thought in his soul," Adamson comments, "It must have seemed like a nice thing to say"), Harpo in 1964 (Adamson says his soul can't be resting, "at peace, of course, always. But at rest, never"), but Groucho was still around and even read this book in manuscript. As the title implies, Adamson acknowledges Zeppo, and Gummo, but they're understandably not a huge part of the book. Funniest is "(Figure 1) Nausea Rating," which assesses the appeal or lack of the various male romantic leads that clutter the movies, with The Big Store's Tony Martin "just about tops," while in last place is "Zeppo Marx (you remember)."
The third chapter is about what Adamson considers the three "real" Marx Bros movies, the very movies that other books to that point "brush off...in one subordinate clause." He goes into detail about how these movies were made and what resulted. (He spends at least as much time on Night at the Opera and Day at the Races in the fourth chapter, but like I said, I don't care as much.) Somehow he can explain the logic of illogicality, without killing the humor, like how when Harpo literally cuts the cards with an axe in Horse Feathers, the players are annoyed, not scared. The extras in Monkey Business become "the faceless they," and Groucho is having an existential crisis in Duck Soup (where he isn't actually anywhere, so maybe he and Chico never meet), and Adamson pulls this all off, don't ask me how.
He not tells what works, he tells what doesn't work, particularly in chapter six, "Joy Becomes Laughter." (The short fifth chapter, "Intermission," explains why Room Service doesn't meet the Webster's definition of a Marx Brothers movie.) He not only points out why the last five movies aren't very funny, but how Groucho, Harpo, and Chico have been character-assassinated by then. Not that he's wowed by their first movie either. (He thinks Animal Crackers is "approximately five times the better film.") Whether I'm reading about The Cocoanuts [sic] or watching the movie, I still burst into giggles for the jail-break scene:
"The limit is reached when Chico completely forgets his lines....Chico is trying to tell Bob Adams that Polly Potter is going to get married if he doesn't hurry up and break out of jail. When Bob Adams asks him who is going to get married to her, all Chico can say is 'Polly' again. Finally, Oscar Shaw, who is doing his best to play Bob Adams, realizes that Chico is never going to get the line right and blurts out, 'Do you mean that Polly is going to marry Harvey Yates?' (Chico has said nothing to give him that impression.) 'Yeah,' says Chico. 'That's right.'"
Before I had this book, I would watch the Marx Bros movies and not really notice anything except what was obviously funny. After that, I became a more observant viewer, and sure enough, that scene became hilarious for the wrong reasons. (Chico even says, "Polly. Engaged to Polly.")
And for some reason, maybe better quote selections, I could "hear" the Marxes' inflections on the lines better than I could with Anobile's book. Not that Adamson neglects Harpo. He salutes Harpo's magical ability to bring anything (like a candle lit at both ends) out of his ratty old raincoat and to exaggerate normal emotions to a cartoonish level. Adamson offers a blank page to "represent ghostly, unreal silence" for the mirror scene in Duck Soup, a Tristam-Shandy-ish touch, but then he actually does analyze this dialogueless classic scene. (I just wish he hadn't omitted what I think of as the "ta-da moment," where Harpo cheats and doesn't spin.) He says, "The mirror scene is everything it should be. It is more, in fact, than it seems it could ever in the world be able to be. We even feel a sense of outrage that it should be allowed to be all that, without anybody stopping it."
And that's how I feel about this book, which I could quote till the cows come home. Or I could quote the cows till you come home.
Joe Adamson
Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Sometimes Zeppo: A Celebration of the Marx Brothers (alternate subtitle A History of the Marx Brothers and a Satire on the Rest of the World)
Original price $10.00, purchase price unknown
Hardcover with stains and broken spine but no way am I getting rid of it
A-
The last A- I read was from 1934, so long ago that the Marx Brothers were transitioning from Paramount to MGM. In fact, I almost made this the first A, but the section on the two Thalberg movies went on too long. Adamson has written an appreciation of the Marxes that is as funny as they are, no small feat. I got this book as a teenager, and it not only shaped my evaluation of the movies (roughly a rise to Duck Soup and a gradual fall for the next eight), but I picked up a couple of his writing tics. One is the heavy use of self-interruption, particularly parentheses. The other is sometimes tortured wordplay. (He states at one point that a pun isn't funny; it's the audacity of telling a pun that's funny.)
I think Adamson was the first to get the Marxes' birth years right, and you know he's writing in the 1970s because he mentions the astrological signs. (Chico was a "restless Aries.") He also sorted out what he calls "Antiquity," their vaudeville roots on through to the first two movies, both based on successful stageplays. He discusses the contradictory stories in various earlier books, including Arthur Marx's books on Groucho, as well as the anecdotes of the people he interviewed. I'm especially pleased that he spoke with the screenwriters. In particular, erudite S. J. Perelman (Monkey Business, Horse Feathers) would be dead six years later, and Harry Ruby (music for Animal Crackers, Horse Feathers, and Duck Soup, as well as close friendship with Groucho) would be gone the February after this book came out.
Chico died in 1961 (of the eulogy, "He did not have an evil or a mischievous thought in his soul," Adamson comments, "It must have seemed like a nice thing to say"), Harpo in 1964 (Adamson says his soul can't be resting, "at peace, of course, always. But at rest, never"), but Groucho was still around and even read this book in manuscript. As the title implies, Adamson acknowledges Zeppo, and Gummo, but they're understandably not a huge part of the book. Funniest is "(Figure 1) Nausea Rating," which assesses the appeal or lack of the various male romantic leads that clutter the movies, with The Big Store's Tony Martin "just about tops," while in last place is "Zeppo Marx (you remember)."
The third chapter is about what Adamson considers the three "real" Marx Bros movies, the very movies that other books to that point "brush off...in one subordinate clause." He goes into detail about how these movies were made and what resulted. (He spends at least as much time on Night at the Opera and Day at the Races in the fourth chapter, but like I said, I don't care as much.) Somehow he can explain the logic of illogicality, without killing the humor, like how when Harpo literally cuts the cards with an axe in Horse Feathers, the players are annoyed, not scared. The extras in Monkey Business become "the faceless they," and Groucho is having an existential crisis in Duck Soup (where he isn't actually anywhere, so maybe he and Chico never meet), and Adamson pulls this all off, don't ask me how.
He not tells what works, he tells what doesn't work, particularly in chapter six, "Joy Becomes Laughter." (The short fifth chapter, "Intermission," explains why Room Service doesn't meet the Webster's definition of a Marx Brothers movie.) He not only points out why the last five movies aren't very funny, but how Groucho, Harpo, and Chico have been character-assassinated by then. Not that he's wowed by their first movie either. (He thinks Animal Crackers is "approximately five times the better film.") Whether I'm reading about The Cocoanuts [sic] or watching the movie, I still burst into giggles for the jail-break scene:
"The limit is reached when Chico completely forgets his lines....Chico is trying to tell Bob Adams that Polly Potter is going to get married if he doesn't hurry up and break out of jail. When Bob Adams asks him who is going to get married to her, all Chico can say is 'Polly' again. Finally, Oscar Shaw, who is doing his best to play Bob Adams, realizes that Chico is never going to get the line right and blurts out, 'Do you mean that Polly is going to marry Harvey Yates?' (Chico has said nothing to give him that impression.) 'Yeah,' says Chico. 'That's right.'"
Before I had this book, I would watch the Marx Bros movies and not really notice anything except what was obviously funny. After that, I became a more observant viewer, and sure enough, that scene became hilarious for the wrong reasons. (Chico even says, "Polly. Engaged to Polly.")
And for some reason, maybe better quote selections, I could "hear" the Marxes' inflections on the lines better than I could with Anobile's book. Not that Adamson neglects Harpo. He salutes Harpo's magical ability to bring anything (like a candle lit at both ends) out of his ratty old raincoat and to exaggerate normal emotions to a cartoonish level. Adamson offers a blank page to "represent ghostly, unreal silence" for the mirror scene in Duck Soup, a Tristam-Shandy-ish touch, but then he actually does analyze this dialogueless classic scene. (I just wish he hadn't omitted what I think of as the "ta-da moment," where Harpo cheats and doesn't spin.) He says, "The mirror scene is everything it should be. It is more, in fact, than it seems it could ever in the world be able to be. We even feel a sense of outrage that it should be allowed to be all that, without anybody stopping it."
And that's how I feel about this book, which I could quote till the cows come home. Or I could quote the cows till you come home.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Right Ho, Jeeves
1934, 1985 Penguin edition
P. G. Wodehouse
Right Ho, Jeeves
Original price $3.95, purchase price unknown
Very worn paperback
A-
This came out the same year as Thank You, Jeeves, but it can't be set the same year because it takes place in late July, early August, shortly after the return of Bertie, his Aunt Dahlia, and his cousin Angela from two months in Cannes. It's set after both "Clustering Round Young Bingo" and "Jeeves and the Yule-Tide Spirit," but since several summers are spoken for, I'll put it in 1932. Actually, I think the novel is also set after "The Ordeal of Young Tuppy," since I believe that's the one where Tuppy's Pekinese-hat insult first crops up, and I put that short story in 1931. So, yeah, the summer of 1932.
Whenever it's set, it's a great story, the first Wodehouse I read and in many ways still my favorite. There is a joke about Uncle Tom (Dahlia's husband) turning black and playing the banjo, but the novel is much less racist than its predecessor. And it's much funnier, particularly Bertie's turns of phrase. If I have to narrow it down, I love the plate of well-kicked sandwiches, anything about tigers, and Gussie's drunken prize-giving speech. The Fry & Laurie television version does justice to these and so much of the book.
Bertie, resenting people's preference of Jeeves's advice to his, takes it upon himself to mend two romances, that between Tuppy & Angela, and that between two new characters. He of course bungles it, but once again Jeeves saves the day. The newbies are not the typical couple who pass through and then disappear (e.g. Sippy and Elizabeth), but they actually return to complicate Bertie's life in future novels. They are two geeks, Gussie Fink-Nottle the newt-fancier and Madeline Bassett the amateur poet. Madeline thinks Bertie is in love with her, while he thinks she's incredibly soppy.
"'Every time a fairy sheds a tear, a wee bit star is born in the Milky Way.' Have you ever thought that, Mr. Wooster?'"
I never had. Most improbable, I considered, and it didn't seem to me to check up with her statement that the stars were God's daisy chain. I mean, you can't have it both ways.
Add in Anatole the French chef who speaks American and British slang, Uncle Tom griping about paying his taxes, and of course the fuss about Bertie's white mess jacket, and so much else, and, well, it's one of my favorite books by anyone, not just Wodehouse.
P. G. Wodehouse
Right Ho, Jeeves
Original price $3.95, purchase price unknown
Very worn paperback
A-
This came out the same year as Thank You, Jeeves, but it can't be set the same year because it takes place in late July, early August, shortly after the return of Bertie, his Aunt Dahlia, and his cousin Angela from two months in Cannes. It's set after both "Clustering Round Young Bingo" and "Jeeves and the Yule-Tide Spirit," but since several summers are spoken for, I'll put it in 1932. Actually, I think the novel is also set after "The Ordeal of Young Tuppy," since I believe that's the one where Tuppy's Pekinese-hat insult first crops up, and I put that short story in 1931. So, yeah, the summer of 1932.
Whenever it's set, it's a great story, the first Wodehouse I read and in many ways still my favorite. There is a joke about Uncle Tom (Dahlia's husband) turning black and playing the banjo, but the novel is much less racist than its predecessor. And it's much funnier, particularly Bertie's turns of phrase. If I have to narrow it down, I love the plate of well-kicked sandwiches, anything about tigers, and Gussie's drunken prize-giving speech. The Fry & Laurie television version does justice to these and so much of the book.
Bertie, resenting people's preference of Jeeves's advice to his, takes it upon himself to mend two romances, that between Tuppy & Angela, and that between two new characters. He of course bungles it, but once again Jeeves saves the day. The newbies are not the typical couple who pass through and then disappear (e.g. Sippy and Elizabeth), but they actually return to complicate Bertie's life in future novels. They are two geeks, Gussie Fink-Nottle the newt-fancier and Madeline Bassett the amateur poet. Madeline thinks Bertie is in love with her, while he thinks she's incredibly soppy.
"'Every time a fairy sheds a tear, a wee bit star is born in the Milky Way.' Have you ever thought that, Mr. Wooster?'"
I never had. Most improbable, I considered, and it didn't seem to me to check up with her statement that the stars were God's daisy chain. I mean, you can't have it both ways.
Add in Anatole the French chef who speaks American and British slang, Uncle Tom griping about paying his taxes, and of course the fuss about Bertie's white mess jacket, and so much else, and, well, it's one of my favorite books by anyone, not just Wodehouse.
Monday, March 12, 2012
The Land of Oz
1904, mid-1970s Reilly & Lee edition
L. Frank Baum
Illustrated by John R. Neill
The Land of Oz
Original and purchase price unknown
Hardcover with stains
A-
While rereading this book, I kept thinking how awesome and fun it is, in a way I didn't for Wizard. Part of it that Neill's drawings trump Denslow's, particularly in his debut. Whether it's a picture that makes me pore over the details, as the ones involving magic do, or the action-packed sequences, like the three pictures that show what happens when the Sawhorse jumps over a river, with a silent movie feel, every illustration enhances the story. And such a good story! Tip is a fine hero: mischievous but good-hearted, practical, occasionally clever, and very human. I got this book at such a young age-- for Easter, from the aunt who'd got me Wizard the previous Christmas-- I don't know if it ever seemed weird to me that he turns into not just a girl but a princess at the end. I think I was more confused by the changing hair color. (Tip is brunet, Ozma has "tresses of ruddy gold," but from the third book on she's back to black hair.)
I think I missed Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion, but they came back for the next book, so that was OK. (It would be a longer wait for Toto.) The new characters, particularly the pedantic yet pun-obsessed Wogglebug, are worthy additions. I always had a soft spot for the Saw-horse, because he's so down-to-earth. And this was years before Forest Gump, but I soon learned that the Gump took its name from turn-of-the-century slang for a "foolish person." As I mentioned in my post on Wizard, I loved how amazing Glinda is in this book. Her Crowning Moment of Awesome is when she jumps on the Saw-horse and chases Mombi (disguised as a Griffin) to the edge of the Deadly Desert.
I suppose there's a paper to be written, if it hasn't been done already, about the nature of gender in this book, particularly with the satire of the suffragette movement, as embodied in General Jinjur and her Army of Revolt. I never really saw the story as sexist, or anti-sexist. When Baum is racist, it's very obvious. But his feelings about men and women, boys and girls, are more complex. Certainly, Mombi is one of his great villainesses, and a lot scarier than the Nome King would ever be. (More on that later.)
As the second Oz book, this is less retconny than I expected. Tip's version of the Wizard's balloon escape doesn't match canon, but it may be how he heard it way up in the Gillikin Country, particularly if his source was the biased Mombi. This is pretty much Oz as we saw it four years earlier. (Except that less time has passed in Oz than in the real world, since Dorothy definitely won't be seven years older when she returns.) It does look different, thanks to Neill's characteristic "grinning houses." But it's still a land where money is important and witches have a lot of power. (Mombi is secretly breaking the law that the still nameless Good Witch of the North has passed about forbidding other witches in her region.) Once Ozma takes the throne, things will gradually change, but we're still in old-school Oz, literally in the case of the Wogglebug.
He's H.M., Highly Magnified, permanently, after Professor Nowitall uses a magnifying-glass and projects him on a screen. No one questions the logistics of this. It's a less Carrollian book than Mo, but I think the part about counting to 17 by twos is worthy of Carroll, both as math and as absurdity. The scene where Jellia Jamb, one of my favorite minor characters, "interprets" for the Scarecrow and Jack Pumpkinhead is also very absurd. If the story is better than Alice in Wonderland, it's probably because there's more at risk here. The lives of Tip and his friends are at stake, as is the future of Oz. It's definitely not a dream. And yet, there's time for wordplay and bickering and bonding and a reunion with the Queen of the Mice. No wonder that Tip wants to stay a boy and travel with his friends. His life as Ozma will become less adventurous. But first, there's going to be an experiment in interventionism....
L. Frank Baum
Illustrated by John R. Neill
The Land of Oz
Original and purchase price unknown
Hardcover with stains
A-
While rereading this book, I kept thinking how awesome and fun it is, in a way I didn't for Wizard. Part of it that Neill's drawings trump Denslow's, particularly in his debut. Whether it's a picture that makes me pore over the details, as the ones involving magic do, or the action-packed sequences, like the three pictures that show what happens when the Sawhorse jumps over a river, with a silent movie feel, every illustration enhances the story. And such a good story! Tip is a fine hero: mischievous but good-hearted, practical, occasionally clever, and very human. I got this book at such a young age-- for Easter, from the aunt who'd got me Wizard the previous Christmas-- I don't know if it ever seemed weird to me that he turns into not just a girl but a princess at the end. I think I was more confused by the changing hair color. (Tip is brunet, Ozma has "tresses of ruddy gold," but from the third book on she's back to black hair.)
I think I missed Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion, but they came back for the next book, so that was OK. (It would be a longer wait for Toto.) The new characters, particularly the pedantic yet pun-obsessed Wogglebug, are worthy additions. I always had a soft spot for the Saw-horse, because he's so down-to-earth. And this was years before Forest Gump, but I soon learned that the Gump took its name from turn-of-the-century slang for a "foolish person." As I mentioned in my post on Wizard, I loved how amazing Glinda is in this book. Her Crowning Moment of Awesome is when she jumps on the Saw-horse and chases Mombi (disguised as a Griffin) to the edge of the Deadly Desert.
I suppose there's a paper to be written, if it hasn't been done already, about the nature of gender in this book, particularly with the satire of the suffragette movement, as embodied in General Jinjur and her Army of Revolt. I never really saw the story as sexist, or anti-sexist. When Baum is racist, it's very obvious. But his feelings about men and women, boys and girls, are more complex. Certainly, Mombi is one of his great villainesses, and a lot scarier than the Nome King would ever be. (More on that later.)
As the second Oz book, this is less retconny than I expected. Tip's version of the Wizard's balloon escape doesn't match canon, but it may be how he heard it way up in the Gillikin Country, particularly if his source was the biased Mombi. This is pretty much Oz as we saw it four years earlier. (Except that less time has passed in Oz than in the real world, since Dorothy definitely won't be seven years older when she returns.) It does look different, thanks to Neill's characteristic "grinning houses." But it's still a land where money is important and witches have a lot of power. (Mombi is secretly breaking the law that the still nameless Good Witch of the North has passed about forbidding other witches in her region.) Once Ozma takes the throne, things will gradually change, but we're still in old-school Oz, literally in the case of the Wogglebug.
He's H.M., Highly Magnified, permanently, after Professor Nowitall uses a magnifying-glass and projects him on a screen. No one questions the logistics of this. It's a less Carrollian book than Mo, but I think the part about counting to 17 by twos is worthy of Carroll, both as math and as absurdity. The scene where Jellia Jamb, one of my favorite minor characters, "interprets" for the Scarecrow and Jack Pumpkinhead is also very absurd. If the story is better than Alice in Wonderland, it's probably because there's more at risk here. The lives of Tip and his friends are at stake, as is the future of Oz. It's definitely not a dream. And yet, there's time for wordplay and bickering and bonding and a reunion with the Queen of the Mice. No wonder that Tip wants to stay a boy and travel with his friends. His life as Ozma will become less adventurous. But first, there's going to be an experiment in interventionism....
Monday, March 5, 2012
The Importance of Being Earnest
1895
Oscar Wilde
The Importance of Being Earnest
A-
Not just Wilde's best play, but my all time favorite play, this remains laugh-out-loud hilarious, whether on page or stage. (The collection of plays averages out to C+, thanks to Salome.) The 1952 film is also a lot of fun, although I loathe the 2002 version. This play has only nine characters, and everybody but Merriman (Jack's butler) gets funny lines. (Algernon's manservant Lane not only insults him politely but later says that cucumbers were unavailable, "not even for ready money.") Nearly every line in this play is quotable, and some of the best are about economic class, like the one about the "charity sermon on behalf of the Society for the Prevention of Discontent among the Upper Orders," and the one about the middle class failing to be good role models. Wilde's wit also weighs in on love, marriage, widowhood, and family, as well as education, literature, art, music, and fashion, among other things.
While the first two society plays examined the double standard, Jack here defends his supposed unwed mother, Miss Prism, and demands, "Why should there be one law for men, and another for women?" Yet, she isn't his mother, so he looks ridiculous in his earnestness. The play is about the impotence of being earnest; it's a serious plea against seriousness.
In the end, Jack turns out to have accidentally been telling the truth about being called Ernest and having a younger brother. Gwendolen promises to forgive him, "for I feel that you are sure to change." But what of poor Cecily? She's not given any lines about her opinion of the situation. Algernon is still Algernon. And it's unlikely that he's going to give up Bunbury, exploded or not.
In its reversals of cliches, of both plot and phrasing, this play reminds me of P.G. Wodehouse. As Bertie Wooster would say, "Aunts aren't gentlemen," and that's particularly true of Algy's (and Jack's) Aunt Augusta. I also think of Alice in Wonderland, because Algy's line about not being able to eat muffins in an agitated manner, because the butter would get on his cuffs, reminds me of the argument at the tea party about butter in the watch. The play definitely is in the proud tradition of British absurdity delivered with a straight face.
I have to say that the line I appreciate more than ever, after surviving so many long Victorian novels, is "I believe that Memory is responsible for nearly all the three-volume novels that Mudie sends us." With the exception of a few nonfiction works, the books of the 1900s are going to be a lot shorter than Middlemarch and Anna Karenina. Well, until we hit the 1980s anyway. (Mists of Avalon, I'm looking at you.) On the other hand, there are going to be a lot of 20th-century works. So from here on out, I'll be labeling the books by decade rather than century.
We'll start with a couple books from 1900, technically the 19th century, technically the Victorian period. (The queen died 22 January 1901.) But since they both shaped my identity, I'm going to count them as honorary 20th-century novels.
Oscar Wilde
The Importance of Being Earnest
A-
Not just Wilde's best play, but my all time favorite play, this remains laugh-out-loud hilarious, whether on page or stage. (The collection of plays averages out to C+, thanks to Salome.) The 1952 film is also a lot of fun, although I loathe the 2002 version. This play has only nine characters, and everybody but Merriman (Jack's butler) gets funny lines. (Algernon's manservant Lane not only insults him politely but later says that cucumbers were unavailable, "not even for ready money.") Nearly every line in this play is quotable, and some of the best are about economic class, like the one about the "charity sermon on behalf of the Society for the Prevention of Discontent among the Upper Orders," and the one about the middle class failing to be good role models. Wilde's wit also weighs in on love, marriage, widowhood, and family, as well as education, literature, art, music, and fashion, among other things.
While the first two society plays examined the double standard, Jack here defends his supposed unwed mother, Miss Prism, and demands, "Why should there be one law for men, and another for women?" Yet, she isn't his mother, so he looks ridiculous in his earnestness. The play is about the impotence of being earnest; it's a serious plea against seriousness.
In the end, Jack turns out to have accidentally been telling the truth about being called Ernest and having a younger brother. Gwendolen promises to forgive him, "for I feel that you are sure to change." But what of poor Cecily? She's not given any lines about her opinion of the situation. Algernon is still Algernon. And it's unlikely that he's going to give up Bunbury, exploded or not.
In its reversals of cliches, of both plot and phrasing, this play reminds me of P.G. Wodehouse. As Bertie Wooster would say, "Aunts aren't gentlemen," and that's particularly true of Algy's (and Jack's) Aunt Augusta. I also think of Alice in Wonderland, because Algy's line about not being able to eat muffins in an agitated manner, because the butter would get on his cuffs, reminds me of the argument at the tea party about butter in the watch. The play definitely is in the proud tradition of British absurdity delivered with a straight face.
I have to say that the line I appreciate more than ever, after surviving so many long Victorian novels, is "I believe that Memory is responsible for nearly all the three-volume novels that Mudie sends us." With the exception of a few nonfiction works, the books of the 1900s are going to be a lot shorter than Middlemarch and Anna Karenina. Well, until we hit the 1980s anyway. (Mists of Avalon, I'm looking at you.) On the other hand, there are going to be a lot of 20th-century works. So from here on out, I'll be labeling the books by decade rather than century.
We'll start with a couple books from 1900, technically the 19th century, technically the Victorian period. (The queen died 22 January 1901.) But since they both shaped my identity, I'm going to count them as honorary 20th-century novels.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Little Women
1868, 1990 Dell Yearling Classic edition
Louisa May Alcott
Little Women
Bought new for $3.99
Worn paperback with spine starting to break
A-
Reading Little Women right after Alcott's weak "adult" novel, I appreciate this story more than ever. Amusingly, there's a passage about the various ethnicities in Nice, including "ugly Russians, meek Jews, free-and-easy Americans," that's lifted right out of A Long Fatal Love Chase. There's also a servant named Baptiste, although presumably not one who helps his master stalk his estranged "wife."
It is weird to see how Jo is scolded, by her future husband and by the narrator, for writing "sensation stories." Was Alcott feeling guilty for her own sensation stories? (Some of them, unlike LFLC, were published at the time.) Or is this part of the moralizing of what she herself called "moral pap for the young"? The thing is, Little Women, despite the overt Christianity and the constant urging to be submissive (to God, to your parents, to your husband, to your temper), is a fun, lively, and complex novel. Alcott and Jo shouldn't have wasted their time on sensation stories when they're so good at the children's fiction.
This is a children's book, despite taking the "little women" from adolescence into adulthood. There is death (more on that below), but there's nothing inappropriate for a reader above say nine or ten. The exact number of years covered is fuzzy, because Alcott suddenly loses control of her math skills in Part Second. Is Amy really away in Europe for three years? How is Laurie a 21-year-old college graduate a few months before he's 23? How is it that 6-month-old Demi can walk downstairs and speak in complete (if cutesy) sentences? Why is Jo suddenly pushing 25 when by my math she's 22? Of course, Part First has the will that Amy dates 20 November 1861, even though the previous Christmas her father had gone away to the war, and the Civil War broke out in April 1861.
Math aside, there's a realism to this novel that continues to startle. With Jo in particular, these are believable girls. Jo uses slang, loses her temper, and is clumsy. Even saintly Beth (actually called an "angel in the house," which has strong Victorian resonance) has faults. Heck, even Marmee is "angry every day of her life."
Yet, yes, she urges submission. To some extent, this makes sense. There are things you can't change, particularly if you're a girl in the 1860s. But it does hurt to see all the March girls, and Laurie, give up their dreams. Even Beth, who wants to just stay at home, do housework, and take care of her pets and dolls, has to give up what she wants because, well, she dies.
Apparently, it has always been a great shock to readers to get up to the part where Beth dies. That is, unless they got spoiled like I did when I was 12 and read an article on dyslexia, where the writer tells of how her sister accidentally spoiled that plot twist. This isn't like (forgive me if you didn't know) hearing that Rosebed was the sled. You can enjoy Citizen Kane with having that McGuffin ruined for you. But Beth dying, and all the things related to her death, before and after, is central to Little Women. And yet, I decided to read Little Women anyway. And here I am reading it for the umpteenth time more than 30 years later. I know what happens to these characters, but I still care.
The other thing about many readers and this story is that starting at the time the first part was published, Jo/Laurie shippers came into being, much to Alcott's annoyance. I can't remember ever shipping them myself. (And remember, I shipped grown-up Heidi/Peter, so it doesn't take much.) Jo seemed asexual or maybe lesbian, and she didn't love Laurie the right way. I sort of hoped for Beth/Laurie, if she hadn't died I mean. They both like music, and he's sweet to her. But Amy/Laurie, shrug, I don't mind it. I used to think Mr. Bhaer was too old for Jo, but I guess it's not any worse than Emma/Knightley.
I do remember thinking it weird on the first reading that Laurie doesn't like to be called Theodore, because the fellows call him Dora, so he goes by Laurie Laurence. Um, Laurie is a girls' name, like Laurie Partridge. Maybe it wasn't in the 19th century, like Shirley.
There have been several adaptations of Little Women over the years of course. I like the Katherine Hepburn 1933 one best, although I still need to see the Winona Ryder version. As far as I know, none of the adaptations has included my favorite sequence, where Amy makes Jo pay calls on the neighbors, and Jo acts inappropriately, including doing a spot-on imitation of a girl they just visited. Jo's disastrous dinner party is also good but omitted, although the "salt for sugar" mistake has definitely passed into cliche, if it hadn't already at the time.
Since today is Dickens's 200th birthday, I should note that the March girls adore Dickens, and he's referred to as a celebrity that Amy sees in Nice. I think Alcott owes an equal debt to Austen, conscious or not. Austen had paved the way in portraying sets of very different but loving sisters, as well as in showing that young women needed to cultivate their hearts and minds. There are some interesting cultural differences between 1810s England and 1860s America, such as that handshaking is still considered masculine but in a much more negative way. (It's part of Jo's gauche boyishness, rather than Marianne's gesture of friendship.) There's more acceptance of women working for a living, even if it's still considered as inferior to keeping the homefires burning. I was pleased in reading the sequels to see that, even after becoming a wife and mother, Jo didn't give up her writing. And yes, Little Men and Jo's Boys are on their way, along with less well-known Alcottian pap for the young....
Louisa May Alcott
Little Women
Bought new for $3.99
Worn paperback with spine starting to break
A-
Reading Little Women right after Alcott's weak "adult" novel, I appreciate this story more than ever. Amusingly, there's a passage about the various ethnicities in Nice, including "ugly Russians, meek Jews, free-and-easy Americans," that's lifted right out of A Long Fatal Love Chase. There's also a servant named Baptiste, although presumably not one who helps his master stalk his estranged "wife."
It is weird to see how Jo is scolded, by her future husband and by the narrator, for writing "sensation stories." Was Alcott feeling guilty for her own sensation stories? (Some of them, unlike LFLC, were published at the time.) Or is this part of the moralizing of what she herself called "moral pap for the young"? The thing is, Little Women, despite the overt Christianity and the constant urging to be submissive (to God, to your parents, to your husband, to your temper), is a fun, lively, and complex novel. Alcott and Jo shouldn't have wasted their time on sensation stories when they're so good at the children's fiction.
This is a children's book, despite taking the "little women" from adolescence into adulthood. There is death (more on that below), but there's nothing inappropriate for a reader above say nine or ten. The exact number of years covered is fuzzy, because Alcott suddenly loses control of her math skills in Part Second. Is Amy really away in Europe for three years? How is Laurie a 21-year-old college graduate a few months before he's 23? How is it that 6-month-old Demi can walk downstairs and speak in complete (if cutesy) sentences? Why is Jo suddenly pushing 25 when by my math she's 22? Of course, Part First has the will that Amy dates 20 November 1861, even though the previous Christmas her father had gone away to the war, and the Civil War broke out in April 1861.
Math aside, there's a realism to this novel that continues to startle. With Jo in particular, these are believable girls. Jo uses slang, loses her temper, and is clumsy. Even saintly Beth (actually called an "angel in the house," which has strong Victorian resonance) has faults. Heck, even Marmee is "angry every day of her life."
Yet, yes, she urges submission. To some extent, this makes sense. There are things you can't change, particularly if you're a girl in the 1860s. But it does hurt to see all the March girls, and Laurie, give up their dreams. Even Beth, who wants to just stay at home, do housework, and take care of her pets and dolls, has to give up what she wants because, well, she dies.
Apparently, it has always been a great shock to readers to get up to the part where Beth dies. That is, unless they got spoiled like I did when I was 12 and read an article on dyslexia, where the writer tells of how her sister accidentally spoiled that plot twist. This isn't like (forgive me if you didn't know) hearing that Rosebed was the sled. You can enjoy Citizen Kane with having that McGuffin ruined for you. But Beth dying, and all the things related to her death, before and after, is central to Little Women. And yet, I decided to read Little Women anyway. And here I am reading it for the umpteenth time more than 30 years later. I know what happens to these characters, but I still care.
The other thing about many readers and this story is that starting at the time the first part was published, Jo/Laurie shippers came into being, much to Alcott's annoyance. I can't remember ever shipping them myself. (And remember, I shipped grown-up Heidi/Peter, so it doesn't take much.) Jo seemed asexual or maybe lesbian, and she didn't love Laurie the right way. I sort of hoped for Beth/Laurie, if she hadn't died I mean. They both like music, and he's sweet to her. But Amy/Laurie, shrug, I don't mind it. I used to think Mr. Bhaer was too old for Jo, but I guess it's not any worse than Emma/Knightley.
I do remember thinking it weird on the first reading that Laurie doesn't like to be called Theodore, because the fellows call him Dora, so he goes by Laurie Laurence. Um, Laurie is a girls' name, like Laurie Partridge. Maybe it wasn't in the 19th century, like Shirley.
There have been several adaptations of Little Women over the years of course. I like the Katherine Hepburn 1933 one best, although I still need to see the Winona Ryder version. As far as I know, none of the adaptations has included my favorite sequence, where Amy makes Jo pay calls on the neighbors, and Jo acts inappropriately, including doing a spot-on imitation of a girl they just visited. Jo's disastrous dinner party is also good but omitted, although the "salt for sugar" mistake has definitely passed into cliche, if it hadn't already at the time.
Since today is Dickens's 200th birthday, I should note that the March girls adore Dickens, and he's referred to as a celebrity that Amy sees in Nice. I think Alcott owes an equal debt to Austen, conscious or not. Austen had paved the way in portraying sets of very different but loving sisters, as well as in showing that young women needed to cultivate their hearts and minds. There are some interesting cultural differences between 1810s England and 1860s America, such as that handshaking is still considered masculine but in a much more negative way. (It's part of Jo's gauche boyishness, rather than Marianne's gesture of friendship.) There's more acceptance of women working for a living, even if it's still considered as inferior to keeping the homefires burning. I was pleased in reading the sequels to see that, even after becoming a wife and mother, Jo didn't give up her writing. And yes, Little Men and Jo's Boys are on their way, along with less well-known Alcottian pap for the young....
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Emma
1816, 1980 New American Library edition
Jane Austen
Emma
Original price $1.95, bought used for $1.99
Very ratty paperback
A-
Austen on Emma: "I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like." Little did she guess that snobbish, manipulative self-centred Emma Woodhouse would age better than sweet, sincere Fanny Price. This is partly that the 20th and 21st centuries have more women like Emma than Fanny and partly that Emma is not just a self-centred, manipulative snob. Like all Austen heroines, she has a good heart and head, although the latter is stronger in her than the former. Emma is not just a gleeful bitch like Lady Susan. She really does mean well. She just has to learn that one, most people don't want their lives managed; and two, she's far too inexperienced to know how to manage anyone's life except perhaps her father's.
Twenty-one-year-old Emma is not at the beginning of the novel, when she's just said goodbye to her former governess, ready to manage her own life. Yes, she has a great deal of freedom, but she has not yet learned responsibility. Life, including love, is just a game to her, but not one she's mastered. The experiences she has in the year-long story teach her enough that she is an adult by the end. Oh, she'll always be snobbish, manipulative, and self-centred, but less so.
Mr. Knightley, who's probably number two on my "Austen hunks" list, often gets credit for teaching Emma, through his lectures. He's sixteen years older and the only character in the book who's at her intellectual level. (Mrs. Weston comes close but she's too indulgent to challenge Emma.) Certainly, he has a great deal of both common sense and wisdom, but he has his own blind spots. When Emma puts down Robert Martin, Knightley puts down Harriet. When Emma is unfair to Jane Fairfax, Knightley is unfair to Frank Churchill. He also can be a bit tactless, ironically most often to Miss Bates. Knightley's big lecture is of course the one at Box Hill, when Emma mocks the kind but ludicrous spinster. It's cathartic to have Emma called on for her insensitivity, and yet she is not so callous that she isn't affected by his scolding. She makes a genuine effort to be nicer to Miss Bates, and others, from then on.
As with Lizzy & Darcy, they challenge each other, bring out the best in each other. More than with the P & P couple, this is done with bantering on both sides, as they are both very witty. (Darcy is well-spoken, but too serious to be witty most of the time, except when he's snarking back at Caroline Bingley.) Even though Knightley has known Emma for ages, and "fell in love with her when she was thirteen," the age difference actually seems to matter less than in Sense and Sensibility. They've long admired each other but their feelings don't turn romantic until jealousy comes along. And yet this is handled much more expertly and realistically than in most romantic comedies.
There's a realism about Emma that most of Austen doesn't reach. More than ever, these characters feel real, not just in their time but ours. Amusingly, I think it's the work that most talks about "modern" times, like the part about the comfort of modern carriages, and the modern table Emma has managed to get her father to use. Like Humphry Clinker, it's a snapshot of its times, but with characters who feel more developed than archetypes.
Let's talk about Miss Bates. Austen parodies herself when Emma remarks, "A single woman, with a very narrow income, must be a ridiculous, disagreeable old maid!" (It's as if Emma has just finished reading P & P and adored it.) However, even Emma concedes that Miss Bates isn't a stereotypical old maid. Miss Bates is cheerful and open-hearted, liked by everyone. I suppose she might be annoying in real life, but she's delightful on the page, not unlike Mrs. Bennet. Within the story, she not only provides amusement and a lesson for Emma, but clues for the mystery.
J.K. Rowling said, "I have never set up a surprise ending in a Harry Potter book without knowing I can never, and will never, do it anywhere near as well as Austen did in Emma." On the umpteenth reading, the Jane & Frank subplot seems pretty obvious, but it took me completely by surprise the first time. True, I tend not to be able to solve mysteries, but usually I at least know that that's the genre I'm reading. I thought this was a village comedy, and then Austen pulled the carpet out from under me by introducing a romance where I suspected nothing. Oh, I might've thought, once Mr. Knightley pointed it out to me, that Frank was flirting with both Emma and Jane, but who knew they were engaged! Fanny Price might've guessed it, but I imagine that Lizzy Bennet would've been as hoodwinked as Emma and everyone in Highbury.
Another character who serves multiple purposes is Mrs. Elton. I was rereading Sinclair Lewis's Main Street (1920) a few months ago, and it struck me this time with Emma that Carol Kennicott has a very similar situation to Mrs. Elton. Each lady is a pretty and talented (but not too talented) newlywed who hopes to expose her husband's small town to sophisticated city ways. Of course, Carol is our heroine in Main Street and meant to be more sympathetic, but I did understand Mrs. Elton's situation better. Of course, Mrs. Elton is in the novel to throw Emma's faults into relief. Everything Emma dislikes about Mrs. Elton is an exaggeration of Emma's own faults. Even Mrs. Elton choosing Jane as her protegee is similar to Emma's near adoption of Harriet. The main difference is Emma, and Carol, would never deliberately hurt someone's feelings in the way that Mrs. Elton does, and encourages Mr. Elton to do. As with young Mr. Dashwood in S & S, a man with serious faults has married a woman who amplifies these faults.
The simplest of the major characters in the novel is Mr. Woodhouse. Like Mary Elliot in Persuasion, he's a hypochondriac, but he's not as grating. There's an interesting theme in the book of how stupid = nice, as seen in Mr. W, his daughter Isabella, Miss Bates, and of course Harriet Smith. This isn't true of course, even in the world of the novel, but many of the characters act as if it is. Of course, there are also not very bright characters who are not nice, like the Eltons, and on the other side bright, nice folks like the Westons. Emma herself has to learn that her intelligence does not allow her to be thoughtless.
A few words about the movies. The best adaptation is Clueless, a wonderfully fun movie on its own terms that does capture the Austen spirit in a truly modern (well, mid 1990s) way. Of the two more literal adaptations that came out in the year after, I prefer the Kate Beckinsdale one ("What about little Henry???"), although the Paltrow version has the more attractive Knightley.
So do I like this novel more than Pride and Prejudice? Maybe a shade better. It's equally quotable, with my favorite line being Emma's reply to her father's confusion about why his little grandsons like their uncle to toss them up in the air, "One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other." And that quote explains why I'd be more likely to recommend a reader start with P & P, like I did. Emma and Emma are not for everyone.
Jane Austen
Emma
Original price $1.95, bought used for $1.99
Very ratty paperback
A-
Austen on Emma: "I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like." Little did she guess that snobbish, manipulative self-centred Emma Woodhouse would age better than sweet, sincere Fanny Price. This is partly that the 20th and 21st centuries have more women like Emma than Fanny and partly that Emma is not just a self-centred, manipulative snob. Like all Austen heroines, she has a good heart and head, although the latter is stronger in her than the former. Emma is not just a gleeful bitch like Lady Susan. She really does mean well. She just has to learn that one, most people don't want their lives managed; and two, she's far too inexperienced to know how to manage anyone's life except perhaps her father's.
Twenty-one-year-old Emma is not at the beginning of the novel, when she's just said goodbye to her former governess, ready to manage her own life. Yes, she has a great deal of freedom, but she has not yet learned responsibility. Life, including love, is just a game to her, but not one she's mastered. The experiences she has in the year-long story teach her enough that she is an adult by the end. Oh, she'll always be snobbish, manipulative, and self-centred, but less so.
Mr. Knightley, who's probably number two on my "Austen hunks" list, often gets credit for teaching Emma, through his lectures. He's sixteen years older and the only character in the book who's at her intellectual level. (Mrs. Weston comes close but she's too indulgent to challenge Emma.) Certainly, he has a great deal of both common sense and wisdom, but he has his own blind spots. When Emma puts down Robert Martin, Knightley puts down Harriet. When Emma is unfair to Jane Fairfax, Knightley is unfair to Frank Churchill. He also can be a bit tactless, ironically most often to Miss Bates. Knightley's big lecture is of course the one at Box Hill, when Emma mocks the kind but ludicrous spinster. It's cathartic to have Emma called on for her insensitivity, and yet she is not so callous that she isn't affected by his scolding. She makes a genuine effort to be nicer to Miss Bates, and others, from then on.
As with Lizzy & Darcy, they challenge each other, bring out the best in each other. More than with the P & P couple, this is done with bantering on both sides, as they are both very witty. (Darcy is well-spoken, but too serious to be witty most of the time, except when he's snarking back at Caroline Bingley.) Even though Knightley has known Emma for ages, and "fell in love with her when she was thirteen," the age difference actually seems to matter less than in Sense and Sensibility. They've long admired each other but their feelings don't turn romantic until jealousy comes along. And yet this is handled much more expertly and realistically than in most romantic comedies.
There's a realism about Emma that most of Austen doesn't reach. More than ever, these characters feel real, not just in their time but ours. Amusingly, I think it's the work that most talks about "modern" times, like the part about the comfort of modern carriages, and the modern table Emma has managed to get her father to use. Like Humphry Clinker, it's a snapshot of its times, but with characters who feel more developed than archetypes.
Let's talk about Miss Bates. Austen parodies herself when Emma remarks, "A single woman, with a very narrow income, must be a ridiculous, disagreeable old maid!" (It's as if Emma has just finished reading P & P and adored it.) However, even Emma concedes that Miss Bates isn't a stereotypical old maid. Miss Bates is cheerful and open-hearted, liked by everyone. I suppose she might be annoying in real life, but she's delightful on the page, not unlike Mrs. Bennet. Within the story, she not only provides amusement and a lesson for Emma, but clues for the mystery.
J.K. Rowling said, "I have never set up a surprise ending in a Harry Potter book without knowing I can never, and will never, do it anywhere near as well as Austen did in Emma." On the umpteenth reading, the Jane & Frank subplot seems pretty obvious, but it took me completely by surprise the first time. True, I tend not to be able to solve mysteries, but usually I at least know that that's the genre I'm reading. I thought this was a village comedy, and then Austen pulled the carpet out from under me by introducing a romance where I suspected nothing. Oh, I might've thought, once Mr. Knightley pointed it out to me, that Frank was flirting with both Emma and Jane, but who knew they were engaged! Fanny Price might've guessed it, but I imagine that Lizzy Bennet would've been as hoodwinked as Emma and everyone in Highbury.
Another character who serves multiple purposes is Mrs. Elton. I was rereading Sinclair Lewis's Main Street (1920) a few months ago, and it struck me this time with Emma that Carol Kennicott has a very similar situation to Mrs. Elton. Each lady is a pretty and talented (but not too talented) newlywed who hopes to expose her husband's small town to sophisticated city ways. Of course, Carol is our heroine in Main Street and meant to be more sympathetic, but I did understand Mrs. Elton's situation better. Of course, Mrs. Elton is in the novel to throw Emma's faults into relief. Everything Emma dislikes about Mrs. Elton is an exaggeration of Emma's own faults. Even Mrs. Elton choosing Jane as her protegee is similar to Emma's near adoption of Harriet. The main difference is Emma, and Carol, would never deliberately hurt someone's feelings in the way that Mrs. Elton does, and encourages Mr. Elton to do. As with young Mr. Dashwood in S & S, a man with serious faults has married a woman who amplifies these faults.
The simplest of the major characters in the novel is Mr. Woodhouse. Like Mary Elliot in Persuasion, he's a hypochondriac, but he's not as grating. There's an interesting theme in the book of how stupid = nice, as seen in Mr. W, his daughter Isabella, Miss Bates, and of course Harriet Smith. This isn't true of course, even in the world of the novel, but many of the characters act as if it is. Of course, there are also not very bright characters who are not nice, like the Eltons, and on the other side bright, nice folks like the Westons. Emma herself has to learn that her intelligence does not allow her to be thoughtless.
A few words about the movies. The best adaptation is Clueless, a wonderfully fun movie on its own terms that does capture the Austen spirit in a truly modern (well, mid 1990s) way. Of the two more literal adaptations that came out in the year after, I prefer the Kate Beckinsdale one ("What about little Henry???"), although the Paltrow version has the more attractive Knightley.
So do I like this novel more than Pride and Prejudice? Maybe a shade better. It's equally quotable, with my favorite line being Emma's reply to her father's confusion about why his little grandsons like their uncle to toss them up in the air, "One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other." And that quote explains why I'd be more likely to recommend a reader start with P & P, like I did. Emma and Emma are not for everyone.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Pride and Prejudice
1813, 1966 Norton Critical edition
Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice
Price unknown
Falling apart paperback
A-
I dropped out of college when I was 19. My boyfriend hung in a bit longer before he dropped out, too. We eventually married and divorced. During that time when he was in college and I wasn't, he was assigned Pride and Prejudice. He couldn't get through it, but I'd heard good things about Jane Austen, so I borrowed his book. I've been borrowing it for 24 years, rereading it at least a dozen times, and it obviously wasn't even a new copy at the time.
What is it about Pride & Prejudice that stays with me, and so many other readers? The shortest answer is Lizzy. Austen's, perhaps British literature's, best heroine is witty but sometimes clueless, kind but occasionally misanthropic. She loves her family and she's ashamed of them (except for dear Jane of course). She can fall for the smooth talk of Wickham (like Elinor trusting Willoughby), and yet analyse a letter like a scholar. Lizzy is not my absolute favorite Austen protagonist (that's Emma Woodhouse, as I'll explain for that novel), partly because she's so many people's favorite, but she never ceases to delight me.
P & P is a novel full of fun characters. There are ones that you'd never want to live with or even visit-- Mr. Collins, Mrs. Bennet, and Lady Catherine springing immediately to mind-- but at the safe distance of fiction they endlessly amuse with their self-centredness and idiocy. (Even Lady C is a bit of a dolt, with things like her claim that she and her daughter would've been very talented musicians if they'd only ever taken lessons.) And there are characters that aren't necessary to the plot, like Sir Lucas and Mr. Hurst, that still entertain when they show up.
In my review of Sense and Sensibility, I said that this novel is more insightful. For example, Lizzy herself admits that she enjoys "hating" Mr. Darcy and hopes she won't find dancing with him enjoyable. And there's the line about how when, after an anticipated event fails to live up to expectations, the only thing to do is to start looking forward to another event. Lizzy and the other characters, even the exaggerated ones, feel real and sometimes relatable.
My ex-husband did eventually come round to this novel, I think mostly due to the very good 1995 Firth & Ehle TV version. I think Jennifer Ehle is perfect, from her voice to her "fine eyes." I actually like Colin Firth better in some of his other roles, but then I'm not as enamored of Darcy as some people are. I've grown used to Darcy, including his snobbishness, but he'd be about fifth on my "Austen hunks" list. (Ahead of Col. Brandon and Capt. Wentworth anyway.) I think partly due to Firth's "wet shirt" scene, Darcy is regarded as very swoonworthy, and not coincidentally most Austen spin-off fiction (in the sense of professionally published fanfic) seems to be Pemberley-centric. I've read one Darcy & Lizzy later-years novel, but I can't remember anything about it.
As the 1813 Critical Review critic noted, Lizzy & Darcy are like Beatrice & Benedick, and the "love-hate" here has probably influenced even more romantic comedies than Much Ado About Nothing. The thing about MAAN, and some rom-coms, is that the hate changes to love for no other reason than that interfering friends (and the authors) decide it should. At least here, both characters go through changes, not only from their prejudiced views of each other (and Darcy's disparagement of Lizzy at a ball is borrowed from Evelina) but from their original selves. By the time they reconcile, months have passed and they've both grown into better people, mainly from knowing each other. Their arguments aren't just "battles of the sexes" but clashes of world views. Each is shaken up by meeting such a different person, and it's a broadening experience. And yet, they aren't total opposites, because they have shared values, as with the Lydia crisis.
A few words about Lydia. In the hands of most writers, she'd be just irritating, but Austen makes her funny and believable as well. Whether she's loudly yawning and saying, "Lord, I'm tired!" or chasing after soldiers, she is a recognisable fifteen-year-old of a certain type that still exists. She is both a scene-stealer and someone that the reader gets sick of. And, as with Lucy in S & S, Austen feels no need to punish her, beyond giving her the shallow husband she wants and deserves.
P & P isn't a perfect book (I'm not sure I've ever read a perfect book), and if I had to pick one flaw, it'd be that too many of the conversations are indirect quotations. I understand that in some cases this is to save time, but how can Darcy's first proposal go completely paraphrased, particularly after we get to see all of Mr. Collins's? I love Austen's ironic distance, but there are times when she should bring the reader closer to the action.
Because this is a critical edition, another student used this copy before my ex, and there are a few notes written in an unfamiliar hand, mostly about the impact of money on love.
Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice
Price unknown
Falling apart paperback
A-
I dropped out of college when I was 19. My boyfriend hung in a bit longer before he dropped out, too. We eventually married and divorced. During that time when he was in college and I wasn't, he was assigned Pride and Prejudice. He couldn't get through it, but I'd heard good things about Jane Austen, so I borrowed his book. I've been borrowing it for 24 years, rereading it at least a dozen times, and it obviously wasn't even a new copy at the time.
What is it about Pride & Prejudice that stays with me, and so many other readers? The shortest answer is Lizzy. Austen's, perhaps British literature's, best heroine is witty but sometimes clueless, kind but occasionally misanthropic. She loves her family and she's ashamed of them (except for dear Jane of course). She can fall for the smooth talk of Wickham (like Elinor trusting Willoughby), and yet analyse a letter like a scholar. Lizzy is not my absolute favorite Austen protagonist (that's Emma Woodhouse, as I'll explain for that novel), partly because she's so many people's favorite, but she never ceases to delight me.
P & P is a novel full of fun characters. There are ones that you'd never want to live with or even visit-- Mr. Collins, Mrs. Bennet, and Lady Catherine springing immediately to mind-- but at the safe distance of fiction they endlessly amuse with their self-centredness and idiocy. (Even Lady C is a bit of a dolt, with things like her claim that she and her daughter would've been very talented musicians if they'd only ever taken lessons.) And there are characters that aren't necessary to the plot, like Sir Lucas and Mr. Hurst, that still entertain when they show up.
In my review of Sense and Sensibility, I said that this novel is more insightful. For example, Lizzy herself admits that she enjoys "hating" Mr. Darcy and hopes she won't find dancing with him enjoyable. And there's the line about how when, after an anticipated event fails to live up to expectations, the only thing to do is to start looking forward to another event. Lizzy and the other characters, even the exaggerated ones, feel real and sometimes relatable.
My ex-husband did eventually come round to this novel, I think mostly due to the very good 1995 Firth & Ehle TV version. I think Jennifer Ehle is perfect, from her voice to her "fine eyes." I actually like Colin Firth better in some of his other roles, but then I'm not as enamored of Darcy as some people are. I've grown used to Darcy, including his snobbishness, but he'd be about fifth on my "Austen hunks" list. (Ahead of Col. Brandon and Capt. Wentworth anyway.) I think partly due to Firth's "wet shirt" scene, Darcy is regarded as very swoonworthy, and not coincidentally most Austen spin-off fiction (in the sense of professionally published fanfic) seems to be Pemberley-centric. I've read one Darcy & Lizzy later-years novel, but I can't remember anything about it.
As the 1813 Critical Review critic noted, Lizzy & Darcy are like Beatrice & Benedick, and the "love-hate" here has probably influenced even more romantic comedies than Much Ado About Nothing. The thing about MAAN, and some rom-coms, is that the hate changes to love for no other reason than that interfering friends (and the authors) decide it should. At least here, both characters go through changes, not only from their prejudiced views of each other (and Darcy's disparagement of Lizzy at a ball is borrowed from Evelina) but from their original selves. By the time they reconcile, months have passed and they've both grown into better people, mainly from knowing each other. Their arguments aren't just "battles of the sexes" but clashes of world views. Each is shaken up by meeting such a different person, and it's a broadening experience. And yet, they aren't total opposites, because they have shared values, as with the Lydia crisis.
A few words about Lydia. In the hands of most writers, she'd be just irritating, but Austen makes her funny and believable as well. Whether she's loudly yawning and saying, "Lord, I'm tired!" or chasing after soldiers, she is a recognisable fifteen-year-old of a certain type that still exists. She is both a scene-stealer and someone that the reader gets sick of. And, as with Lucy in S & S, Austen feels no need to punish her, beyond giving her the shallow husband she wants and deserves.
P & P isn't a perfect book (I'm not sure I've ever read a perfect book), and if I had to pick one flaw, it'd be that too many of the conversations are indirect quotations. I understand that in some cases this is to save time, but how can Darcy's first proposal go completely paraphrased, particularly after we get to see all of Mr. Collins's? I love Austen's ironic distance, but there are times when she should bring the reader closer to the action.
Because this is a critical edition, another student used this copy before my ex, and there are a few notes written in an unfamiliar hand, mostly about the impact of money on love.
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