The Master

Colm Tóibín, 2004 (2015)

This is a masterful book about a masterful subject – Henry James and his writing. The book opens with an imagined nighttime awakening from which James thinks about his day and how it might go. In a few paragraphs, he condenses the tone and content that he then fills out and details in the rest of the book.

Though the book is called The Master, the title could almost be ironic. As portrayed by Tóibín, James is uncertain, often uncomprehending, self-doubting and self-deceiving. He misreads his support in London after his first and only play opens and fails on its first night, then flees to Ireland rather than face his friends. He allows a domineering acquaintance to push him into furnishing his home with items he doesn’t really want. He allows his servants to appear drunk and slovenly in front of guests rather than confront them. Most disastrously, he allows his closest friend, a woman, to fall in love with him, but rather than talk about it, he avoids her, leading or contributing to her recent suicide. (Following which, he manages to have himself appointed her literary executor, and secretly burns any compromising correspondence with her.) He has strong homoerotic feelings without even acknowledging them for what they are (understandable in the context of the times, when Oscar Wilde, whom James thinks shallow and clumsy, faces his own disgrace and imprisonment). Far from being a master, this view of James has him as a diffident, ineffectual stumbler.

Yet he observes and interprets what he sees around him as the basis for a lifetime of deeply sensitive, insightful literature. In spite of the frequent misunderstanding of his readers, his family and friends, he stays fixed to his conception of his writing. He thinks about style, themes, content for a variety of stories in the course of the novel (and it’s fascinating to see where well known stories like The Turn of the Screw come from – curious also to find out how much ghosts, both spectral and metaphorical, fit into his life and his writing). He pulls themes from his own complex relationships with his family and friends, and from what he understands, or is willing to admit, about them. Underlying much of the characterization of James is his repression of his homosexuality, which leads to his need to control and hide so much of his life from others and from himself. And yet, while struggling to repress, or at least control, his life, he somehow has enough awareness to use his observations as fodder for his stories. He is, in fact, a master in his writing. It is fitting that the book ends with James explaining to a friend that “the moral … is that life is a mystery and that only sentences are beautiful.” After which, he sends his friends home and returns to his writing.

Tóibín himself writes with a control and insight that seem equal to James’. As a skilled writer himself, and author of a previous book on James, I can see his fascination with the details of James’ life and writing process. He uses James’s own style, complex and internal, on James himself, a kind of homage to a literary master. He traces the development of James’ thinking, his development of story ideas, his resentment of other people’s misinformed views of his writing and his appreciation of the few who do understand him. In James’ interior monologues, Tóibín traces the shifting relationships and sense of control, just as James would do in his own writing. I wonder how much of this is Tóibín’s imagining of the literary process taken from his own insight as a masterful writer, and how much comes from his research into James’ thinking from James’ letters and other personal writing. I think it must be at least as much the former as the latter, for this is a work of imagination, not simply a knitting together of various stories from James. And, as always in fictions about real people, the stories are about the author’s characters, not the people they are modeled on.

In the end, the book gives me an insight, not only into James’ life, but also into his stories. It makes me want to read more James. But it also introduces me to Tóibín as a skilled novelist that I want to read more.

The Turn of the Screw

Henry James, 1898

  A compelling psychological novel with ghosts, this story is both creepy and intriguing. As always, James’ first interest is in the psychological relationships between his characters, in this case a naïve young governess, unnamed, and her two young pupils, Miles and Flora, at an isolated Essex mansion. The governess is charmed by the children’s apparent good natures and beauty, and ascribes to them an innocence that seems idealized, but completely typical of the late Victorian thinking about children. (And James himself had no children of his own to compare the ideal with.)

  The governess soon discovers that the children have a dark side, which seems to be associated with their previous governess, Miss Jessel, and her lover, the valet, Peter Quint. She and the children see these dead beings, although no one else in the house seems to do so. The housekeeper, Mrs. Grose, however, knows things are not right with the children. What is interesting is that the governess is unwilling to confront the children directly with her believe that they are happily communing with the evil dead for fear of finding out that they are not as innocent as they appear. Not only would this disturb her illusions about the children, but she would then have to deal with their choice, and she has no idea how to do so. As long as she can, she prefers to live with the illusion of goodness rather than have to deal with evil. That’s a situation that’s easy enough to identify with.

  But of course it leaves her vulnerable, and the children know it. They use her unwillingness to confront them to manipulate her into going along with their continuing relationship with their former guides. Because she won’t admit there is anything wrong, she cannot object to their play, even when they seem to be meeting with their evil partners. She tries to protect them, but they or the ghosts can see what she is doing and find ways around her care. When finally she is forced to act, she finds that the evil is more powerful than her attempt to overcome it.

  This all takes place in the first-person narrative of the governess, so she is describing what she sees and how she feels. She feels that she is being manipulated by the children, but she has no way to know what they are really thinking. She reads their looks and glances and reacts to them, but as readers we know only her interpretation of what she sees. She sees shadows and figures, and to her they appear as the ghosts of the Miss Jessel and Peter Quint. She thinks that the ghosts are manipulating the children, but it sometimes appears that the children are the manipulators. If it isn’t all in her own head.

  The picture of the innocence of the children, their good breeding, manners and charm as a mask hiding their corrupted true nature gives the story an extra layer of intrigue, one that James also explores in his other writing.

  What I like here is the psychology of the relationships and James’ ability to portray their shifting dynamics. At times, the governess tries to take charge, but loses control when one of the children shows that he or she knows that is going on, or suggests that the governess has shown bad judgement. The governess accepts the shifting power and loses it. This is a theme that James uses in other novels, and through it James illustrates how subtle social power is exercised. Of course, his characters could reject the social conventions that are at work, but that would be inconceivable to them. In this way, the ghosts are a bit of an excuse. They set up a situation in which the characters work out their relationships, and the extremity of the situation makes the dynamics unavoidable. But the relationship are created by the social situation and how the characters act in it. That, I think, is what interests James, and it’s what I read his books for.

The Prague Cemetary

Umberto Eco, 2010 (November 2014)

Eco here creates one of the most repellant protagonists that I have read, and puts him on display for examination. The thing that is worse is that, while his character, Simonini, is a fictional creation, the rest of the characters in the book are historical figures who share the hatreds that make Simonini so appalling.

Briefly, the novel is the story of the forger who created the so-called Protocols of the Elders of Zion for the Czarist secret service. A thorough-going anti-Semite who also hates women and just about everyone else, he is an amoral sociopath who grew up with his anti-Semitic grandfather in Turin, may have had some nationalistic ideals in the Italian Risorgimento, but found any ideals he might have had undermined by corrupt employers, secret service agents and politicians. In addition to creating several of the major forgeries of the nineteenth century (one reviewer cleverly calls him the Forest Gump of anti-Semitism), he commits several murders and mass-murders and has many people imprisoned in Devil’s Island. In all of this, he inhabits a historical world of duplicity, betrayal, opportunism and genuine nastiness.

  Eco shows all of this to illustrate the vile circumstances that produced the Protocols and other historical fictions. He warns the reader that this is a nasty character by introducing him with a long rant in chapter one against Jews, Germans, French, Italians, Jesuits, and women. And he ends the book with Simonini smirking that he has succeeded in setting in motion a campaign to exterminate Jews. The book points to important themes about the use of false stories to justify nationalist and ethnic campaigns, which are highly relevant today. The portrait of the underworld of nineteenth-century politics is as vivid and memorable as Dickens’ portraits of industrial England.

  Eco lightens things up with some black humour and cynical observations that have a crystal clarity about what people will believe.

  But the novel fails on some key points. First, the story doesn’t really hold together as a novel. The characters are grotesque caricatures, never humans with depth. I think that readers will feel nothing for them but revulsion. The story flits about briefly touching on many incidents but they remain sketchy. What details Eco presents are atmospheric, but only a background while the foreground remains vague.

  And I’m not sure how to interpret Simonini’s split personality. Clearly he has a diseased mind, which allows him to forget one part of himself and occupy another personality. When he realizes that this is happening, he writes his journals – the novel itself – and fills in details in his other personality. He finally sees what he is doing in a psychological crisis bringing together his fear of sex, his misogyny and his anti-Semitism. But this seems to let him off too easily. Are the horrors of history to be reduced to some shady operators taking advantage of one man’s psychological illness? Or does his internal antagonism somehow represent the opposing forces in historical fact and fiction?

  I think Eco wants to point to the difficulty of understanding history unless you recognize that historical documents are produced in circumstances where not even their creators really know what they are doing. All are suspect, and history must be seen as a matter of interpretation and point of view. The meaning of a document or a message lies not only on its surface, but also on its context. The Protocols (and who knows what other historical stories) are the product of a mentally ill forger working for secret agents with an agenda based on specific tactical objectives, often opposed to each other.

  So while the book creates a memorable picture of a historical past that is relevant today, it is weak as a novel. I don’t mind having to spend some time in this repugnant milieu, but I want it to work better as an engaging story.

Death Comes to Pemberley

P.D. James, 2011 (October 2014) 

Boring. Oddly enough, I was half way through this before I realized that I had read it before. It didn’t engage me the first time, and it still does not. I didn’t find the wit and social satire from Jane Austin, although James adopts a writing style and voice that mimic Austin’s. And nor did I find the gripping murder mystery that I expected from James. The style feels forced and the mystery seems contrived.

Okay, James shows that in the genteel social setting of the propertied classes of the nineteenth century, even the idea of being associated with a mystery was (as she would say) abhorrent. As a woman, Elizabeth must keep away from anything suggesting scandal, so much of the story has to be seen from Darcy’s point of view. And he is such a self-restrained and self-regarding individual that he focuses more on how the murder might affect his own family than on the perpetrator or the victim. This is a perspective that is difficult to relate to, and pushes the hints of social consciousness about the situation of the property-less and of women far to the background.

Perhaps the most interesting character, for example, is Mrs. Younge, who succeeds against all odds in creating for herself a degree of security and wealth by taking advantage of the social strictures imposed on wealthy society, but we see her only in glimpses through the eyes of observers who hate her. James hints at the costs that this imposed on her, but from the limited perspective she has chosen, she cannot give Mrs. Younge any depth or colour.

One of the few bits that had a sense of reality was the examination conducted by the nineteenth century medical men, and it was interesting to imagine what they actually knew and understood with limited forensic tools. Similarly, the inquiry and court procedures were interesting in illustrating the legal forms of the time. (Although it’s difficult to see how the entire examination, cross-examination, judgement and sentencing could have taken place in what appears to be one day, but I leave that to James’ actual legal knowledge and her authorial license.)

So who is the book written for? James apparently enjoyed the idea of writing in the voice of one of her (and her readers’) favourite writers. But instead of the sharp observations of Jane Austin, we get a look at the ongoing relationship of a romanticized couple, which reveals little except that they get along well, care for their children, and live up to the social expectations of their time and class. The tragedy is that Elizabeth’s vulgar sister and her husband might upset their quiet life and the marriage prospects of Darcy’s younger sister (although there’s no real danger of that either, since she is being courted by a young man who would be happy to marry her regardless of the potential scandal). Perhaps Austin could have made me care about the upset to the social equilibrium, but James does not.

Rob Roy

Walter Scott, 1817 (September 2014)

I was a little surprised in reading this novel at the perspectives reflected in the narrator’s story. Scott, writing in the early 18^th century, takes the voice of an English businessman writing a reminiscing letter to a friend about his adventures as a youth early in the 17^th century. Occasionally, the narrator reflects on his romanticism as a youth and his current settled life, so we are reminded that the perspective is that of a mature, successful and cultivated English gentleman.

  As the narrator, he portrays the Scots as foolish and bumbling thieves, canny but crass business men, or wild violent savages. The only exception is the title character, Rob Roy, or Red Rob, or Robert Campbell MacGregor, a wise but just outlaw, a Scottish Robin Hood, beloved by the country people, scourge of the wealthy city dwellers and especially of the English, fearless fighter and brilliant campaigner. For a Scots nationalist, this seems a peculiar way to portray the people he wants to inspire. While MacGregor is a heroic and mythic figure, the rest of the Scots come off as crude, backward and vicious, although good fighters as described by his English narrator. (And for balance, the English in relation to the Scots seem to come across as arbitrary oppressors and often not a lot brighter than the Scottish Highlanders.) Is Scott suggesting that Scots need to move ahead from their heroic but backward past and join the modern, if grubby, world of business?

  Perhaps so, but the life of business is not very appealing either. The businessmen here may be wealthy, but they seem to have a very limited perspective, whether Scottish or English. The narrator initially rebels against his father’s insistence on joining his business. But Scott, a successful businessman himself (until his publishing business went bankrupt later in his life), makes it clear that the narrator’s romantic youth is a diversion and that his later success came from the family business. So is Scott here telling us that Scots (and we readers) need to put aside romantic notions and do the hard work of creating wealth, after which we can perhaps enjoy a quiet, cultured life? Or, since the narrator does in the end get the woman he loved in his romantic youth, perhaps we can take some of that romance with us in to our more business-like life.

  Also interesting is the detached position of the narrator. Although the narrator tells the story in the first person, he is only an observer. But for the first 200 pages, Rob Roy has only a brief appearance using a pseudonym, and thereafter appears only in short passages (although always to save the day). The narrator’s only active role, to recover his father’s papers, ends when they are presented to him without a struggle. Someone else always intervenes before he has to act himself. In between are scenes that could pass for social satire and comic relief, often given in broad dialect. Is this Scott’s message – that the English are lucky to be saved always by someone else while they acquire wealth and power?

  Perhaps it’s not fair to put these post-modern questions in relation to an author who was creating the genre of the historical novel 200 years ago. Scott apparently wrote at great length with little editing, so maybe this is just where the story took him, and he didn’t concern himself with how the story might reflect on his nationalistic ideals. Perhaps he thought he was just writing a realistic description of the past. His descriptive language, for example, suggests that. He does not romanticize the bleakness of the lowland moors or the primitive Scottish inn where his narrator stays, but he does describe the beauty of the Scottish lakes and mountains. His descriptions of rural life and the role of women (highly prescribed, if not entirely passive) also reflect a realist point of view.

  So the points of view and the narrative style are peculiar to a modern reader, although in the end they make an interesting and picturesque read. The mix of social observation and tame adventure explain why Scott was such a popular writer in his time.

Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe: A Centennial Celebration. New Philip Marlowe Stories by Some of the World’s Leading Mystery Writers

Edited by Byron Preiss. 1988 (July 2014)

  This is an enjoyable collection of short stories involving Philip Marlowe. All the stories are quite readable and build on the atmosphere and character that Raymond Chandler created. One is by Chandler himself, previously unpublished. (I half suspect that this is a publisher’s project to create a new book on the basis of the rights to one story. But never mind that.) The stories suffer a little from the compressed format and the need to introduce and wrap up a crime in 15 to 20 pages, although I believe that was Chandler’s format in many cases.

  I like the chance to see so many contemporary writers interpreting Marlowe’s character in their own way. Some are a bit heavy-handed with the famous hard-boiled writing style, but some (such as Simon Brett) are quite clever and witty. A few downplay it entirely to focus on Marlowe’s character and situation. What they all do effectively is work with Marlowe’s character, placing him in different settings and times to see how he would resolve a problem. These Marlowes, like Chandler’s Marlowe, often make intuitive jumps without much real detective work, but that’s because they are not so much about working out a mystery, as working out a situation with toughness and honour.

  Also quite interesting are the comments in the author’s notes after their contribution. They describe how they see Chandler’s influence (or lack of influence) on them as writers of detective stories and what they think Chandler achieved. The diversity of their impressions builds a portrait of Chandler’s influence on writing that is quite revealing and diverse, from Sara Paretsky whose reaction was to try to find a more rounded role for a woman character to Paco Ignacio Taibo who adopted a gritty neorealism as an appropriate alternative to Latin magic realism.

  The overwhelming sense, of course, is one of futility in conflict with a deep personal honour. Coming out of the Depression, the world war and the Cold War, it’s easy to see how American (and other) readers would recognize the sense of darkness and futility. But against that is the belief in the individual standing up to whatever comes, even at the risk of great personal cost. As one writer, Robert Campbell, suggests, it’s the American frontier cowboy reset in the gritty urban scene.

The Hungry Ghosts

Shyam Selvadurai, 2013 (July 2014)

As a metaphor for the decades of conflict in Sri Lanka, this story is tragic in many aspects, although ultimately resolved. As a reflection on the immigrant experience in Canada, or queer relationships in the 1980s, it is not uplifting. It all turns out painfully bad, in spite of the narrator Shivan’s somewhat passive attempts to make a life for himself. He is overwhelmed by the circumstances of his early life in Sri Lanka, having to choose between poverty for his family and affluence with a selfish, controlling grandmother. He escapes by immigrating to Canada, but finds that life as a gay student offers him only limited options, in part because of the damage he carries from his early life in Sri Lanka. He tries to make things better by returning to Sri Lanka to accommodate his past, but things get worse. Returning to Canada, he tries a new start which seems to succeed, but he finds his attempt to bury his past fails, and his only recourse is to give up what he has achieved and return to face his nemesis with unconditional compassion. The simplified message seems to be that for Sri Lanka to overcome its murderous civil war past, everyone has to be prepared to give up what they have won and face each other with forgiveness and compassion. Simplified though this is (and I don’t see much in the story that offers a more nuanced reading), it’s pretty inadequate as a political solution for Sri Lanka’s past.
  What is really good about this book (and what I loved in his earlier books) is the beautiful writing, and Selvadurai’s ability to create a rich visual sense of the lush environment of Sri Lanka, and in this case its contrast with the dirty, grey, dusty, cold, barren Toronto suburbs (softened a bit by the scenes of UBC and the West End of Vancouver). And Selvadurai writes very effectively about their mental anguish. I can empathize with Shivan’s mother’s horror of life as an immigrant woman, and with Shivan’s wretchedness as a South Asian exotic object in the gay scene or his rage at his grandmother and everything she destroys for him. But this writing is undercut when Selvadurai repeatedly describes a character’s complicated reactions to words or events as if unable to make the characters understood without explanation. While it’s probably true that I would not get the complex interactions on a first reading, I found the repeated explanations intrusive.
  More problematic is the unrealistic nature of many of the relationships – I often did not buy into the decisions that many of the characters made, Shivan in particular with his back and forth changes from hating his grandmother and Sri Lanka to adopting them, then hating them again and finally adopting them again. Yes, his character is drawn in many directions by powerful feelings of home, family, love, greed. But Shivan seems to barely think about his sudden changes of direction, he just feels he has to do it. Similarly, other characters, his family and his partners, jump to extremes of feeling without any intrinsic change. It seems that they are driven more by the needs of the plot and the need to fully illustrate the theme of compassion than by any internal sense. They act as if they are puppets more than people (and to an extent they are, driven by the forces in their lives).
  So this raises a question of style and authorial intent. In places, I found the style clunky, awkward and repetitive, and I found myself wondering what happened to Selvadurai’s editor. But I know Selvadurai to be a careful and thoughtful stylist and I don’t remember these issues in his previous books. So are the intrusive explanations and repetitive style deliberate, an attempt to recreate in an English novel the ritualistic story telling of more traditional literatures? Selvadurai recounts a variety of Buddhist stories and aphorisms to illustrate the message of compassion. He shifts from Shivan’s present hostility to his emotive narration of the past and then his final resolution. And he frequently shows how books and stories are a key elements in Sivan’s youth and adult life. (Thank you buriedinprint for pointing that out.) I found the writing irritating in places, but if this is really supposed to work as a metaphor for something else, than perhaps it serves a purpose that the writing should call attention to itself, forcing the reader to step back and ask what’s going on here. I cannot say that it made me appreciate the story more, although perhaps it brought out its meaning. As someone else noted, readers care about the characters, not about a metaphor, so it’s the characters who have to work, not the metaphor.