Dear Serial Readers,
It occurred to me that original readers might have needed to review an installment given the one month break in publishing this novel. I reread this installment and enjoyed it so much more the second time around! I love the gradual revelation of the monumental Eustacia Vye who communicates with her lapsed lover Damon Wildeve by bonfire and carries around a telescope and an hour glass (because she takes "a peculiar pleasure" in seeing time "glide away"). Hardy describes within Eustacia's brain "were juxtaposed the strangest assortment of ideas, from old and from new"--and he also compares her to various figures from the past, Marie Antoinette and Mrs. Siddons (which Hardy changed in a later edition of this novel to Sappho), the Witch of Endor, and the Sphinx.
Since the novel opens on Guy Fawkes' Night (with bonfire celebrations), I suppose we should expect the volatile treason of Damon throwing off Thomasin for Eustacia in the next installments. But are we to see Eustacia as a revolutionary female Guy Fawkes? I don't, and Hardy says as much-- how this environment "made a rebellious woman saturnine." Still, I'm intrigued with her a heterogeneous character of diverse parts (like a serial, almost).
The way this installment ends makes me understand how some readers have linked Flaubert's Emma Bovary with Eustacia as a depressive type, languishing from boredom and half-baked romantic fantasies. Like Emma, she's reduced to the meager materials in her world for giving life to those dreams--or "idealising Wildeve for want of a better object."
I promise to pick up the pace of our serial reading--next time the last four chapters (chaps. 8-11) of
this first book "The Three Women" (presumably Thomasina, her aunt Mrs. Yeobright, and Eustacia).
I'll post within a week!
Serially yours,
Susan
6 comments:
It strikes me how much this book is about raising teenagers. Although instead of choosing the right college and the right major, it focuses on marriage. Try as she might, no one listens to the wise Mrs. Yeobright.
I also had a question about all of the classical references. are they simply deployed as a sign of the author's erudition or do they contribute to the overall meaning of the plot? I was wondering whether a distinction between pagan and Christian is being made. Eustacia frequently gets compared to a goddess and other classical figures, for instance, and seems to lack the Christian virtues.
The abundance of classical references is interesting--but there are also biblical references as well. I think all these references might be unusual among the Victorians. Certainly, Dickens doesn't do this (or does it minimally), but I haven't read the others recently enough to remember if they do it--Susan?
This installment seemed to be concerned with delays. The narrative delays the action of the story through description and imagery, very detailed imagery, where the narrator even witholds a complete image. One example of this is when the image of Eustacia's face is obscured despite the light of the fire: "a momentary irradiatiin of flesh was all that it had disclosed of her face. That consisted of two matchless lips and a cheek only, her head still being enveloped" (p. 57). Eustacia's bonfire seems to be a manifestation of delay, partly because of how long it takes for the narrator to explain why her fire is left burning so long, and what she is waiting for (and she does seem to be waiting for something because she keeps checking back with the little boy for "a sign of rain"), and the fact that the other characters keep noticing and commenting on the fact that her fire is still burning. Eustacia delays the the little boy's return home, with a promise to compensate him with a "crooked sixpence", but she also delays the gift of the sixpence. The marriage was delayed until Mrs. Yeobright consented, then mistake (?) Damon makes with the license delays the wedding. Again, when the neighbors from the heath go to the Inn to congratulate Damon on his nuptials, Thomasin and Mrs. Yeobright are delayed in leaving, and eventually the ladies sneak out through a window.
I also noticed the huge amount of delay we get in this installment! Thinking in terms of both of the installments we've read so far, this delay seems to be typical of the novel. We're delayed in the first installment in several ways: the long description in the first chapter about the heath delays our introduction to the characters while also forcing the reader to meditate on the heath itself before we get to Thomasin in the carriage and the men in the fields (where we experience delay in several other ways).
In regards to reading serially, I had an interesting experience this week. When I read the first installment, I was not necessarily excited to continue the novel (I'm not sure how the experience would have been for contemporary readers, but the loooong description of the heath turned me off as a modern reader used to exciting and attention-grabbing opening chapters). When I opened the book to read the second installment, however, I suddenly found myself fondly remembering the picture of the heath I'd been exposed to before. Ruminating on it for a week apparently allowed me to really set the scene for the novel--because of the extensive, slow-moving description of the first installment I think I was able to retain more details about the surroundings until the next installment came around. So in this case, it seems the delay worked to cement the image of the heath in my mind; it reminds me of hand-drawn animated movies, where they paint the background out and draw the characters on transparent sheets that are exchanged while the background remains constant.
I'm having difficulty getting settled into this. The long descriptive passages (three paragraphs on the wind in the heath!) contrast strongly with the mercurial representation of the characters: I love you, I hate you, I can do without you, I'll marry you. It feels a bit like a new driver, hitting both the brake and the accelerator too hard. I'm jerked back and forth too quickly for comfort. I also experience some discomfort in that despite all of the descriptive text (about both people and place) I still am unable to form a picture of either in my mind. The slow start, my inability to fix the characters or place in my mind (Ok, it's dark--I got that much), and the crazy swings in the dialogue are, at this point, shutting me out rather than drawing me in. If I wasn't committed to continuing, I would probably abandon the story here.
As we delve further in to the first book, I wonder if we might reconsider its title "The Three Woman." Susan assumes - as most reader would - that Hardy here refers to Thomasin, Eustacia, and Mrs. Yeobright. But there is another "woman" who is an important player in this issue (and throughout the duration of the novel) - the Quiet Woman Inn. The decapitated female figure depicted on its sign seems to be commenting that 'the only quiet woman is a dead woman.' Does this misogynistic imagery in some way reflect on the pub's owner, Wildeve? Mediating between the highway and Egdon, the pub serves as a hub wherein both villagers and strangers congregate. We see an array of characters move though here in chapter five; and even Eustacia, who removes herself from the community, cannot ignore the distant light of its windows that glow late into the night. Using her telescope, she bridges the gap between the social center and her isolated spot on the heath. In "Return of the Native," it seems, all roads lead to the Quiet Woman.
Since Susan mentioned the Flauberian qualities of Eustacia, it might be interesting to note that Hardy's novel was serialized in the magazine Belgravia, the editor of which was none other than Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Do you think she had any influence over the Isabel-esque portrait of Miss Vye?
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