Dear Serial Readers,
Welcome back Serial Readers!
So much humor (ironic? sardonic? something else?) here in this opening installment that brings us the remarkable Lucilla Marjoribanks. Of course I'm intrigued by Q. D. Leavis's connection between this heroine and Jane Austen's Emma and George Eliot's Dorothea, but I see far more of Rosamond Vincy than Dorothea. What's an ambitious, capable, intelligent young woman to do, given the limited sphere of domesticity in which she has the opportunity to reign, especially if she wants to be a social reformer of sorts? And given her formal education at Mount Pleasant, where her "active mind" has been "condemned over again to verbs and chromatic scales"? Oliphant's opening chapters almost read like a riff on Ruskin's "Of Queens' Gardens"--even with some garden imagery. Yes, Lucilla seems the consummate arranger, with her light-speed renovations of the drawing-room space which she illuminates. She is "Lucilla" for a reason.
Lucilla has the makings of a strong-minded domestic goddess with a hint of the sensation heroine lurking beneath her determination. In the pages of the same journal, a few years later, Oliphant had this to say about sensation novels: "What is held up to us as the story of the feminine soul as it really exists underneath its conventional coverings, is a very fleshy and unlovely record." I gather Lucilla is a different creature from the sensation heroine who "waits now for flesh and muscles, for strong arms that seize her, and warm breath that thrills her through" (this also from Oliphant's review "Novels"). Perhaps all this libidinal energy is displaced or sublimated through her passion for managing the home. She clearly doesn't relish the prospective visit of her cousin Tom who probably lacks the suitable flesh and muscles Oliphant claims female readers yearn for. Lucilla seems instead to recoil from flesh (about meat on the plate, I'm not sure yet--but I love all the details about Nancy's sauces--gravy-beef and all).
I can't resist a link to a serial novel we've read in these blog pages--Gaskell's WIVES AND DAUGHTERS (the words "wives and daughters" appear in chapter two here). By Feb. 1865 when this novel was launched in Blackwood's, Gaskell's novel, also about a widower doctor and his young daughter, was in its sixth monthly installment. Gaskell's "Hollingford" seems close to Oliphant's "Carlingford," although here Gaskell was echoing Oliphant who'd already published novels, like SALEM CHAPEL, in her Carlingford series.
So the suspense of sorts--will Miss M's Thursday evenings prove "a revolution in the taste and ideas of Carlingford"? We must wait for next time, chapters 5-8.
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Serially started again,
Susan
5 comments:
Miss M. comes home to conquer, Dr. M. unwittingly abdicates his reign, and poor Nancy, uncertain whether she’s “valleyable,” knows exactly how she feels about change. Thus the lines in the sand are draw. I think the iron my prove to be in Miss M’s oft-repeated desire “to be a comfort to dear Papa.”
The language of the protracted metaphor of the conqueror (reins of state, sovereign, young dictator, commanding, etc.), well suited to a war epic, gains steam in Chapter 4, and, accompanying the image of the tawny-curled young woman, “an accomplished warrior,” makes me laugh. I love being privy to Miss M.’s strategy and watching her pr-battle maneuvers—her change of rooms (never having been sentimental about dimity!), and the seating at the dining table. I also enjoy how the duties of women and the role of men of the time and place and classes are woven into this pre-battle narrative.
It’s a good thing Dr. M. has a “keen perception of the ridiculous.” I think he’s going to need it.
I really admire the narrative voice Oliphant uses in this novel -- the metaphors of conqueror and ruler that readerann points out are lots of fun. There's something very interesting about the gentle sort of irony we get in the narration; it's very Trollopian in some ways, but not quite as insistent in commenting on all the action whenever a chance comes up. Oliphant deflates some of Lucilla's self-confidence without making her seem deluded or foolish -- she acknowledges Lucilla's many virtues even while having some good-natured fun with her ego.
I'm also interested in how Lucilla understands her roles ("comforting" her father, taking charge of the Carlingford social scene) to be a sort of duty. Right now I'm also reading Oliphant's novel The Perpetual Curate, written just before this one (though I think it might actually be set after Miss Marjoribanks -- not sure, though), and it's also very concerned with duty and ethical obligations. But it's much more serious about the responsibilities facing its protagonist; as we see with Dr. Marjoribanks, this novel has some fun with Lucilla's desire to take on "obligations" that other characters don't particularly need her to adopt.
What did everyone think about the death of Mrs. Marjoribanks? I was a little surprised to see just how unsentimental this passage was ...
The martial language is fun, and an interesting commentary on women's sphere--though exactly what commentary, I don't know yet. I do get irritated with the footnotes in my text that keep calling this a mock epic, since I expect the epic conventions a la "Rape of the Lock" then.
I am fascinated that as Lucilla stays on (and on) at her boarding school, she starts to study political economy. I also like that she is not an egotist, rather an egoist, and that there is something partly charming about that--it will be interesting to see how (whether) her character changes. As Joshuataft says, the tone both deflates and appreciates Lucilla.
I also loved the specific details of how the ladies of Carlingford respond to Nancy's (expensive) cooking. So far to me, that sort of specificity makes this book distinctive from much other Victorian literature I've read.
When Lucilla referred in passing to her cousin Tom with a school mate, I at first thought Lucilla was boosting herself up; hinting that she is desired among men. But as the section came to a close and Tom is on his way for a visit, I started to think that he may actually be interested in Lucilla, and Lucilla is clearly *not* interested in marriage. She instead wants her own success, which includes taking "the reins of state" at her father's home. She seems to be aware that a husband's home could possibly give her far less room for control.
Hello Serial Readers! I apologize for my "Professor Reitz" tag: I have blogs on Blogspot for my classes and am the administrator of my sons' blog, where I am "Mom." Of the two, "Professor Reitz" seems more appropriate...
I was also struck by the conversation with Ruskin and "Of Queens' Gardens" that the first installment seems to be having. Admittedly, I have this on the brain having just given a paper on evolutionary nostalgia in "OQG" (and the evolutionary images in Chapter 3 work perfectly for my argument!). But I think the first installment raises the same questions raised by that essay: is being queen of a domestic kingdom an obstacle to or occasion for real social power?
This brings me to Susan's other point about the tone of the narrator towards the female protagonist -- is Lucilla more in the Dorothea or the Rosamond model? This is what is so great about reading in installments: we just don't know yet. On the one hand, the "mock epic" point locates Lucilla clearly in the middle of those two characters. My first impression is that there will not be the cruelty that sometimes haunts Eliot's characterization of Rosamond. The tone of this novel so far seems more good-natured. But even tones are hard to maintain over so many pages.
My comment will have to be brief this time, since I'm in the midst of reading end-of-semester papers! My initial reaction to Oliphant's narrative voice is that it does resemble Austen's. Lucilla is so humorously portrayed, yet not in a mean spirited way at all. At this point, I'm finding it hard to see her becoming much like a Dorothea Brooke! One of the aspects of Lucilla's character that I find most charming is her ability to find personal triumphs in even the most failed "plan" (constructed, of course, on the models she obtains from novel reading). My favorite example is her satisfaction in obtaining "long" mourning clothes--a sign of womanhood--even though her plan to take over housekeeping and "be a comfort" to her widowed father is a dismal failure. Lucilla seems to be a force that can indeed shape her environment, even if it is in small ways.
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