Dear Serial Readers,
In the August 1863 issue of The Cornhill, in which these three chapters appeared, was the final installment of George Eliot's Romola, her only novel serialized in a magazine. Since we're beyond the midpoint of Small House, my thoughts are turning toward the next serial, starting in May. How about Romola, or if that doesn't suit, either Eliot's first published fiction, the three stories that make up Scenes from Clerical Life (all published in Blackwood's) or Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford stories which were serialized in Dickens's Household Words? Or, we could read the sequel to Small House, The Last Chronicle of Barset (which appeared in 32 installments, so you can judge how much longer than this 20-part Small House). Or another Dickens? I'd be up for Curiosity Shop or Martin Chuzzlewit or Little Dorrit. Please feel free to propose another title, or express your interest in one of these! So many people tell me, Oh, if I could find out a month or two ahead of time, I'd join the serial reading! We'll see!
This installment seemed a tight package, all about the boys, and the fulfillment of the anticipated thrashing of Crosbie. For all the talk about marriages and about domesticity and women, there seems to be a fair amount of segregated scenery of men plotting or women trying to survive. Like Kari, I'm beginning to think that Bell, and Mrs Dale (we had such hopes for her character to sally forth!), and maybe eventually Lily, all seem to recede into their private spheres or that "Small House" while we see more and more of Crosbie and Eames and their affiliates. In the end, there's little gender mixing, is there? Ironically, given the title of the novel, there seems less attention to domestic scenery and certainly domesticity isn't a safe or comforting space at all, whether the "small" or "great" or even boarding houses.
One line that jumped out at me this time was the allusion to Crosbie's "floating castle in the air" (ch 35) as he envisions himself begging Lily's forgiveness. Earlier "castles in the air" were the territory of Johnny Eames's dreams of Lily Dale! What does it mean that both men share these dreams, another way (like their clerkhoods) the men seem more closely aligned with each other than with any woman. And then their coming together in the first-class train carriage which leads to the physical altercation at Paddington station, and more precisely, into "Mr. Smith's book-stall...among the newspapers," the very items that publish and misconstrue this ungentlemanly (clerky?) "combat" the next day!
This publicity surely won't sit well with Lily who has had difficulty enough with her house servants's knowledge of her jilting. Now, how about the reaches of the London newspaper? The episode ends, ominously, I think, with talk about whether Lily will forgive Johnny for his punching Crosbie. Meanwhile, we know that Amelia (Roper, not Gazebee--although both choice surnames!) has the breach of promise in mind, yet another potential embarrassment for Eames. So, things aren't looking terrifically hopeful for Johnny and Lily.
Crosbie's sensitivity over his exposed body and public humiliation parallels Lily's private version. Crosbie does have some finer moments even in this installment--when visiting his soon-to-be in laws in St. John's Wood, he tells an amusing story about his ancestor "Cookey" who "came over with William the Conqueror," a choice morsel about his vulgar antecedents and about the porous borders between cooks and nobles. Castles in the air, indeed.
Next time, chapters 37-39, along with your (anyone reading this post, spread the word) votes for the next serial!
Suspiciously serial,
Susan
2 comments:
I'm writing this after emailing mindless administrative emails for hours, so I am taking a special fun break to contemplate The Small House, even though I don't have my book with me.
I think Romola or something else by Eliot of Gaskell would be fun! I also would be up for Curiosity Shop or Martin C. I *do* want to read more Trollope, but I feel like I want to read it more quickly!
I really enjoyed reading Susan's post and the way she finds the connections in this section, among the different newspapers and the different bodily/emotional forms of humiliation. I really enjoy the emotional power of Lily feeling that she's the one who is humiliated--or more precisely, her protectors feeling she is the one who is humiliated--as meanwhile Crosbie is the one who is, and not by his black eye, as he thinks. I enjoyed the violence much less than I enjoyed his boss's silent ethical critique.
On the other hand, while I was happy to hear of Crosbie's pain at Courcy Castle, I also was happy to see Crosbie stand up to his in-laws when visiting the Gazebees--who are much more horrified by the possible slur that such a low man as Eames would court their Alexandrina than by Crosbie's jilting of Lily.
The "castles in the air" metaphor is intriguing as Crosbie starts to realize he's not so interested in castles (as you imply, Susan).
I feel a tiny bit of anxiety that Crosbie will get Lily back, but it seems just too unlikely to get too worried about--and I know that if it did, an appropriate change in Crosbie would occur first. I now understand why readers wrote to Trollope pleading Eames's case! And to think I was so hardhearted against him before!
I read "The Traffic in Women" today with a student and a colleague, and the connections to this book are immense, and this section and Susan's analysis of it in particular! Trollope gives so many varied examples of how marriage is wrapped up in political and economic practices, and how women, while kept in the domestic space, are such an important part of all of the exchanges among men.
And, might I add, I do hope to see Mr. Cradell somehow receive narrative retribution for his foolish self-satisfaction at his affair with Mrs. Lupex. She seems perhaps too trivial for me to care what happens to her--it seems the only woman character so far who I actively want to be upset in her aims is Amelia. Just as I think Mrs. Lupex creates her own pain, I think all the Courcy women do and need no more external disappointments to be permanently unhappy.
I would really like to read Eliot's Romola. I couldn't handle the suspense of Trollope and ended up finishing it within days of starting it - effectively stopping my serial reading.
I would also be interested in reading Martin Chuzzlewit or the Old Curiosity Shop
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