A little Dickinson

Selected poems from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson
US, various – 19th century
Thomas H. Johnson, editor, 1976 ed.

I really don’t read much lyric poetry, but for April poetry month, the organizers of my in-person classic book club made sure that I would.

The poems were all selections from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, as edited and arranged by Thomas H. Johnson. It is a massive book—Dickinson wrote well over 1,700 poems—from which we were only assigned thirty-five, as well as some “compare tos” and a handful of “bonus” poems. Or however many you felt like reading.

There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry—
This Traverse may the poorest take
Without opress of Toll—
How frugal is the Chariot
That bears the Human soul

(#1263 in Johnson)

Some of Dickinson’s most famous poems were included—“Hope is the thing with feathers,” “Success is counted sweetest”—as well as poems that, to me at least, were less familiar. The selected poems had a variety of themes and voices—one, even, “My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun – ” from the point-of-view of a shotgun. But with such a proliferation of poems to choose from, they could only ever serve as a “taster” of Dickinson.

A narrow Fellow in the Grass
Occasionally rides —
You may have met him? Did you not
His notice instant is —

The Grass divides as with a Comb,
A spotted Shaft is seen,
And then it closes at your Feet
And opens further on —

He likes a Boggy Acre —
A Floor too cool for Corn —
But when a Boy and Barefoot
I more than once at Noon

Have passed I thought a Whip Lash
Unbraiding in the Sun
When stooping to secure it
It wrinkled And was gone —

Several of Nature’s People
I know, and they know me
I feel for them a transport
Of Cordiality

But never met this Fellow
Attended or alone
Without a tighter Breathing
And Zero at the Bone.

(#986 in Johnson)

Dickinson’s poems do not quite follow all the “rules” of poetry that were accepted in the 19th century. Her punctuation was unusual, her rhymes often “slant,” that is, not quite a perfect match. These little rebellions are perhaps why I appreciate her poems more than those of some of her contemporaries. So often lyric poetry can seem “sing-songy” to me, but even though she often has a consistent rhythm pattern, there’s something less nursery-rhyme like to me and more nebulous, more mature. That so often her poems take multiple readings and thought to understand probably contributes to this as well!

In our book club discussion, we also touched on how many meanings a single poem can contain. The peculiarities of punctuation and capitalization, the metaphors, the inversion of syntax (Yoda may have been referenced!) all contribute to an openness of interpretation.

Although I still don’t see myself as a poetry person, reading some on occasion is a nice change of pace from my usual fare. And sometimes, a poem says something just right, in an economy of words that narrative forms do not have.

As imperceptibly as Grief
The Summer lapsed away —
Too imperceptible, at last
To seem like Perfidy —

A Quietness distilled
As Twilight long begun
Or Nature spending with herself
Sequestered Afternoon —

The Dusk drew earlier in —
The Morning foreign shone —
A courteous, yet harrowing Grace
As Guest that would be gone —

And thus without a Wing
Or service of a Keel
Our Summer made her light escape
Into the Beautiful

(#1540 in Johnson)

Dubliners – James Joyce

Dubliners
James Joyce
Ireland, 1914

I’m pushing the time, but I did want to write some thoughts on James Joyce’s Dubliners before the end of March. This is my first real experience with Joyce—for book club, of course—and while I can’t say that I’ve found a new favorite (as one of the book club members suggested, perhaps we struggle with Joyce’s realism/naturalism because it hits too close to home), I do appreciate the collection Joyce put together early in his career.

The collection is comprised of fifteen stories, ranging from just a few pages to the nearly novella-length “The Dead.” They are centered primarily on working class Dubliners at the turn of the 19th – 20th century and explore different aspects of everyday life, from youth through adolescence into older age. Some stories dip in and out of seemingly mundane days or events, in which little seems to happen, although sometimes there is more going on under the surface than at first appears.

This is what makes Dubliners, in its way, difficult. The stories themselves are not difficult to read, save perhaps for an archaic turn of phrase or reference here and there (all of which were annotated, and then some in the Norton edition I read), but that is only surface. Joyce leaves out or delays information, making the reader work at times to understand what is going on or what the meaning is. Context is important: Dublin in early 1900s is still under British Imperial rule and the politics and events of the day underline the story throughout. I feel my biggest mistake in reading this collection was not reading up on Dublin and Joyce beforehand, as to do so, would, I think, have both made Joyce’s intentions more intelligible, but also provided an added layer of richness to the stories.

Although seeming disparate stories, a few characters make cameo appearances in a second story, and several themes predominate. Religion, as might be expected for stories from a very Catholic country, pops up again and again, and many characters are heavy drinkers—several implied to be alcoholic. But perhaps the most intriguing is the idea of “paralysis,” which is evidenced throughout. In story after story, characters seem on the edge of change—an opportunity for escape, literal or metaphorical presents itself—but then they don’t take it, seemingly unable to make that decision.

As you might guess from this paralysis, these are not upbeat stories, but there is nevertheless something engaging about them, something that grabs hold. It is perhaps the relatability—the experience of being so close to change only to be frustrated, or of things not quite working out as hoped or expected that we all experience at some point—that both makes it difficult for me to like the stories while also feeling that I’m not done with Joyce, or perhaps even with Dubliners.

Selections from The Collected Stories – Eudora Welty

Collected Stories, selections
Eudora Welty
(US, 1941-1963)

I don’t often read much in the way of short stories—though perhaps I should rectify that—but my in-person book club read a selection of the American Southern writer Eudora Welty’s short stories for our January meeting. The stories were a mix—some more humorous, some more tragic, often a mix of both. They were almost all very “southern” in tone, texture, characterization, and setting. “The Bride of Innisfallen” is a notable exception, with a cast of characters bound via train and then ferry en route from London to Cork, Ireland, as is “Circe,” a retelling of one of the episodes from The Odyssey, but from the woman’s perspective.

Place was clearly an important element. The stories were never set in just a generic US South, but in specific locations—towns, streets, buildings, trails—and mostly in Welty’s home state of Mississippi. Characters ranged across economic and racial spectrums. Clearly, Welty was an acute observer of human nature, and the stories she told feel grounded in a solid reality. She manifested an incredible ability in her stories to represent so many different viewpoints and perspectives, be it an elderly impoverished and nearly blind black grandmother, navigating her way through the equally treacherous waters of the forested path she must take and her dealings with local white folk who may be more dangers still (“A Worn Path”), or a bigoted white man who takes it into his head that he needs to kill a local civil rights leader (“Where is the Voice Coming From?”).

My particular favorites were “Why I Live at the P.O.,” “Powerhouse,” “A Worn Path,” “The Wide Net,” and “Moon Lake,” however, on reflection—both in this writing, and on attending book club—I realize that I have only scratched the surface of Welty’s writing, both in quantity, but, perhaps more importantly, in my understanding of the reading, skimming the surface without diving beneath. Clearly, I have more to explore.

Stories read:
“Petrified Man”
“Why I Live at the P.O.”
“The Hitch-Hikers”
“A Curtain of Green”
“Death of a Traveling Salesman”
“Powerhouse”
“A Worn Path”
“The Wide Net”
“The Purple Hat”
“Livvie”
“Moon Lake”
“The Bride of Innisfallen”
“Circe”
“Where is the Voice Coming From?”

Some Christmas Texts

Happy New Year and Merry Christmas!

Though it may seem odd to place it in that order, in truth we are still in the midst of the traditional Twelve Days of Christmas and so a greeting of “Merry Christmas!” may still be apropos, if only we still followed that old tradition.*

This is a recurrent lament throughout a number of Washington Irving’s short sketches in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., though perhaps nowhere so much as in those centered on the Yuletide holiday.

One of the least pleasing effects of modern refinement is the havoc it has made among the hearty old holyday customs. It has completely taken off the sharp touchings and spirited reliefs of these embellishments of life, and has worn down society into a more smooth and polished, but certainly less characteristic surface.

“Christmas”

I’d been very slowly working my way through Irving’s Sketch Book since early October, and completely by chance arrived at “Christmas” on December 24th. It seemed too good a chance to pass up, so I doled out “Christmas,” “The Stage Coach,” and “Christmas Eve” on the 24th and “Christmas Day” and “The Christmas Dinner” on Christmas day itself.

There was now a pause, as if something was expected, when suddenly the Butler entered the hall, with some degree of bustle: he was attended by a servant on each side with a large wax light, and bore a silver dish, on which was an enormous pig’s head, decorated with rosemary, with a lemon in its mouth, which was placed with great formality at the head of the table. The moment this pageant made its appearance, the harper struck up a flourish; at the conclusion of which the young Oxonian, on receiving a hint from the Squire, gave, with an air of the most comic gravity; an old carol, the first verse of which was as follows:

  Caput apri defero
  Reddens laudes Domino.
The boar’s head in hand bring I,
With garlands gay and rosemary.
I pray you all synge merily
  Qui estis in convivio.

Though prepared to witness many of these little eccentricities, from being apprized of the peculiar hobby of mine host; yet, I confess, the parade with which so odd a dish was introduced, somewhat perplexed me, until I gathered from the conversation of the Squire and the parson, that it was meant to represent the bringing in of the boar’s head, a dish formerly served up with much ceremony, and the sound of minstrelsy and song, at great tables on Christmas day.

“The Christmas Dinner”

The table was literally loaded with good cheer, and presented an epitome of country abundance, in this season of overflowing larders. A distinguished post was allotted to “ancient sirloin,” as mine host termed it, being, as he added, “the standard of old English hospitality, and a joint of goodly presence, and full of expectation.” There were several dishes quaintly decorated, and which had evidently something traditionary in their embellishments, but about which, as I did not like to appear over curious, I asked no questions. I could not, however, but notice a pie, magnificently decorated with peacock’s feathers, in imitation of the tail of that bird, which overshadowed a considerable track of the table. This the Squire confessed, with some little hesitation, was a pheasant pie, though a peacock pie was certainly the most authentical; but there had been such a mortality among the peacocks this season, that he could not prevail upon himself to have one killed.

“The Christmas Dinner”

Though not so well-known–or perhaps so engaging, though reader response may vary–as Irving’s fictional tales, his sketches of an old fashioned English Christmas have nostalgic charm of their own. His host, Squire Bracebridge, the father of an acquaintance, seeks to preserve the old ways himself, mourning that things are not as they once were while endeavoring to recreate what he can. There is decor and feasting, religious services and holyday games, and good fellowship with friends and family alike. It is a charming picture of a bygone age–if Irving is to be believed, a lost era even at the time of his 1810s writing.

On the morn when every man remembers the time
that our dear Lord for our doom to die was born,
in every home wakes happiness on earth for His sake.
So did it there on that day with the dearest delights:
at each meal and at dinner marvellous dishes
men set on the dais, the daintiest meats.
The old ancient woman was highest at table,
meetly to her side the master he took him;
Gawain and the gay lady together were seated
in the centre, where as was seemly the service began,
and so on through the hall as honour directed.
When each good man in his degree without grudge had been served,
there was food, there was festival, there was fullness of joy;
and to tell all the tale of it I should tedious find,
though pains I might take every point to detail.
[…]

  Drums beat, and trumps men wind,
  many pipers play their airs;
  each man his needs did mind,
  and they two minded theirs.

With much feasting they fared the first and the next day,
and as heartily the third day came hastening after;
the gaity of Saint John’s day was glorious to hear;
with the cheer of the choicest Childermas followed,
and that finished their revels, as folk there intended,
for there were guests who must go in the grey morning.
So a wondrous wake they held, and the wind they drank,
and they danced and danced on, and dearly they carolled.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Stanzas 41-42

The nostalgia that Irving and his host have for a perhaps mythological English past of feasting and festival and lords of the manor brings to mind the 14th century legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, another autumn (re)read. If I understand its publication history correctly, the text of Gawain itself was not available to the general reader until some years after Irving’s Christmas visit, but there seems to be a kinship between the Squire’s desired celebration and that depicted in the legend. Perhaps in Squire Bracebridge we are already anticipating the Pre-Raphaelite fascination with the medieval? Regardless, the connecting thread from the era of Arthur to the early 19th century holds: food, feasting, fellowship.

It was his own room. There was no doubt about that. But it had undergone a surprising transformation. The walls and ceiling were so hung with living green that it looked a perfect grove; from every part of which bright gleaming berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had been scattered there; and such a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney as that dull petrifaction of a hearth had never known in Scrooge’s time, or Marley’s, or for many and many a winter season gone. Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, suckling-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum puddings, barrels of oysters, red-ho chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam.

A Christmas Carol, Stave Three

And then we arrive at Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. I reread this as part of Adam’s Contemplative Reading project. It proved fortuitous timing to coincide with the Irving. Although Dickens’s primary interests are at least in part different than Irving’s–that of the redemption of a man and the succor of the impoverished–he nevertheless has an interest in the traditions of English Christmas past and Irving was a likely influence on his famous tale. It is perhaps appropriate that the novella is a ghost story–the Christmas past is thus not merely Ebeneezer Scrooge’s but also England’s. Certainly, the charity that Irving romanticizes in the generous Squire would have been dear to Dickens’s heart.

Traditions change–they come and go–and to read these now perhaps evokes greater nostalgia than for readers of Irving’s and Dickens’s day. Yet there is within them a kernel of good feeling and fellowship and goodwill to our fellow humankind that is worth rescuing and returning to in our troubled times.

Books read:

Washington Irving
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.
1819-1820, revised
1988 Penguin Edition: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories with an Introduction and Notes by William L. Hedges

Anonymous
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
c. 14th Century
Translated, J.R.R. Tolkien, 1975

Charles Dickens
A Christmas Carol
1843

*As do the Amish, who celebrate “Old Christmas” on the 6th.

The Phantom of the Opera – Gaston Leroux

The Phantom of the Opera
(Le Fantôme de l’Opéra)
Gaston Leroux
France, 1909
unknown translator

Watercolor by André Castaigne from the first American edition of the Phantom of the Opera (1911)

My reread of The Phantom of the Opera was one of my summer reads, and this post was drafted then but never uploaded (life…). It does seem appropriate to share now as we enter the Halloween to Christmas ghost story season.

To how much The Phantom of the Opera owes its continued presence in the canon of gothic horror romance to the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, I do not know, but the latter was certainly the reason I first picked up the novel many eons ago—the summer after eighth grade, if I remember correctly. The middle school choir I was in had taken a trip to Toronto to see the sights, and more importantly, the musical. It was the first time I’d ever been to such a large city and the first time I’d seen a professionally produced musical, and it certainly made an impression. Like the true book nerd I was, the original had to be read.

On a whim, some weeks ago, I thought, I want to read that again. Not for the grand romance of the stage musical, but for the gothic horror. (Perhaps a subconscious expression of my anticipation of autumn?) For that is what Leroux’s novel is; a thriller in the vein of the Gothic romances of the 18th century. There is the helpless young heroine (Christine), her handsome young lover (Raoul), and the sinister forces that plot against them (the Phantom), all in an atmosphere of supernatural superstition: the Opera Garnier is haunted, or so many believe.

Much like the plot of the stage show (which is perhaps surprisingly remarkably faithful to the plot, although perhaps not so much to the personalities), the story circles around the young soprano, Christine Daaé, who makes her astounding debut as the story opens. Her childhood friend, Raoul de Chagny, witnesses her triumph and seeks to renew their acquaintance before she vanishes. Although Raoul seeks her out and several times succeeds in brief conversations, she remains elusive. In the meantime, the new managers of the Opera-house, MM Moncharmin and Richard, receive a series of notes from OG, the Opera Ghost, demanding payment as well as exclusive access to Box 5. An ever-more-mysterious series of events propels the action forward, the hint of the supernatural ever-present.

The Opera Ghost really existed. He was not, as was long believed, a creature of the imagination of the artists, the superstition of the managers, or the absurd and impressionable brains of the young ladies of the ballet, their mothers, the box-keepers, the cloak-room attendants, or the concierge. No, he existed in flesh and blood, though he assumed all the outward characteristics of a real phantom, that is to say, of a shade.

Opening line

But this is set in the 19^th century, not the 18^th, and the story is written in the early 20^th. There is also scientific skepticism, and at times the superstition is played for laughs. MM Moncharmin and Richard each believe the Opera Ghost a myth, and the mysterious occurrences to be pranks, perhaps played on Moncharmin by Richard and on Richard by Moncharmin. Even when the circumstances turn deadly, they are explained away: a suicide, a faulty rope. That a mysterious phantom hiding in the belly of the Opera could be playing all these “tricks” is never contemplated, no more than a supernatural ghost.

As I read The Phantom of the Opera this time around, I was struck less by the similarities to the Gothic novels of the 18^th and early 19th centuries (although I may at times have equated Raoul with a Gothic heroine; he seems such a wimp at times as to be frustrating) than by a comparison with the thrillers of the middle and late 19^th century, particularly those of Wilkie Collins. And in this comparison, Leroux falters. What was most irksome to me was his handling of the conceit of telling a real event based on his investigations into the disappearance of Christine Daaé and Raoul de Chagny. The conceit is not the problem; other stories have had a similar frame. But here, after making it clear that this story comes from letters and diaries and interviews with a handful of those present, he presents the narrative in a more novelistic format: we are in the room with Christine and Raoul, we know what they are thinking or feeling. At times we are told that this comes from the diary of so-and-so or from an interview with such-and-such, but at other times it seems that we are presented information that only Christine or Raoul could have known with no indication that they shared it with anyone. It is an inconsistency that rankled me throughout; I would have preferred to read a narrative made up of found evidence: the diary entries, the letters, the transcript of an interview.

That said, it remains an engaging novel, even without the suspense of not knowing the end. It is fast-paced and carefully unspools each of its many narrative threads until they neatly tie together in the end. While not among my favorite classic thrillers, The Phantom of the Opera is an enjoyable diversion—though perhaps I should have saved it for Halloween!