Dear Serial Readers,
Yes, I can see how Darwin's theory of natural selection resonates with Lucilla's fitness and the variety of weaknesses we get, from Barbara Lake to Cavendish and his sister (if she is his sister). And then, going along with this, the occasional remark that suggests 'Nature red in tooth and claw' (apologies Tennyson) aggression, like the Archdeacon "lying in wait to crunch his [Cavendish's] bones."
I loved Lucilla's compelling command of the episode where she dispatches with the Lake sisters in succession and appropriates the feckless Cavendish--such ordinary suspense, now, to find out in the next installment what Lucilla manages to extract from him about his secret life! I also enjoyed the attention to the scene as a performance--highlighted by the little Preraphaelite's awareness of its "pictorial qualities" like Millais's paintings--I wonder which Millais?
I was also amused by the places where Lucilla's genius for plotting all the threads of lives around her hits an unanticipated snag--the very possibility that her father may be too attentive to Mrs. Mortimer; the narrator remarks that "it was doubtful whether even Miss Marjoribanks's magnanimity could have got over any ridiculous exhibition of interest on the part of her father, who certainly was old enough to know better." Lucilla does seem to have a very pragmatic view of affairs of the heart (and attractions of the body). She likes some flirtation and matchmaking, but within social bounds set by herself.
She does seem to be tending toward cousin Tom, yet it's hard to reconcile how this "woman of genius" could find him a suitable match. Perhaps that's the point.
Next week: chapters 29-32.
Serially yours,
Susan
5 comments:
In this section I’m struck by the ways in which Lucilla and Rose are amusingly similar, though at distant, if not opposite, ends of the social spectrum. Rose’s profession that artists are “not like other people” and “can do many things others can’t,” is as firm as Lucilla’s heroic belief in herself. The young women both have a tepid regard for men. Rose dismisses her father’s ability to understand certain things—“he is only a man.” Though her prettiness captivates the General, she thinks no more of him than if he were “a piece of furniture,” poor chap, and Lucilla, the not-so-comely in the General’s eyes, looks at him as she would Mr. Holden, the upholsterer. While continuing to rue the absence of men who know how to flirt, Lucilla warms to Tom, of all people, as Susan notes, because of his faith in her. Can’t imagine how this is all going to play out.
I found this installment to be almost slapstick in its developments. I can just imagine a comic stage performance, where all these men, who have been prepped to find Lucilla the answer to their prayers, find love-at-first-sight with someone else. As the number of men who do not choose Lucilla increases, we also get a sense from the narrator of some interior processing (Susan mentioned Lucilla's disapproval of her father's flirtations, and here, about Cavendish's choosing of Barbara: "it was impossible that pity itself should not be mingled with a certain disdain"). And yes, it does seem like the thoughts of Tom are coming to stand in for any more in-depth processing by Lucilla of Carlingford matchmaking. Though I think the most important line in this installment has nothing to do with Lucilla's rejection by/manipulation of various suitors. The narrator describes her as having "four distinct aims" when she goes to the Lakes for tea. The fourth is "of being, as always, in harmony with herself." I'm very charmed by this centered, useful (in the political economy sense, of course!), managerial heroine, whose seemingly absent interior life can also seem, at times like in this quote, like a wonderful lack of neurosis.
Add to the slapstick poor Rose, who thinks Lucilla could be--couldn't be?--the answer to her prayers, now up, now down, now trusting, now not.
I also enjoyed the pictorial representation, especially the "middle distance."
And I was quite struck in the previous section about how Lucilla is actually like the Archdeacon, who is so certain that the world ought to be the way he imagines it. He's less aware than Lucilla that some may have other desires that might be at least understandable, but they both want to direct the plots. She's just much better at it than he is! I was struck, too, at how the plot isn't really about her, although she is at the center of it.
I'm anxiously awaiting the next installment -- this one left me wondering just how this mess with Cavendish, Barbara, Lucilla, and the Archdeacon will be resolved. Could this be a moment when Lucilla learns that her confidence might be a little excessive?
Mostly what I wanted to share, though, is some outsourced Oliphant commentary from someone far smarter than me: Henry James, reviewing an Oliphant novel called "Whiteladies," in an article called "New Novels," published in 1875 (it's in the Library of America volume of his literary criticism, pgs. 26-33):
"There are doubtless now living many well-informed people who have never heard of Mrs. Oliphant, but we can assure them that Mrs. Oliphant and her writings are among the most extraordinary literary phenomena of the day. This lady's fertility has long been a familiar source of amazement to us; she turns off, if we are not mistaken, her half-dozen works a year. The most singular part of it is that they are very good; it is not mere speed; it is speed and safety too ... Practice makes perfect; Mrs. Oliphant has prodigious fertility and fluency, and, considering the quantity, the quality is quite remarkable."
Not wholly enthusiastic, perhaps, but still interesting!
I must admit that, when I compare this novel to so many of the others that I'm used to reading and teaching, I feel disoriented--in a good way! No doubt some of this effect is coming from a new material experience of reading: in addition to restricting myself to the assigned serial parts each week, I'm reading on a Kindle for the first time, and thus have a strange sense of not quite knowing where my "place" is.
But I also think my response may result from what many of you have mentioned: a persistent disconnect between plot conflicts/ difficulties (including how we as readers react to them) and Lucilla's remarkable calm, control, and resourcefulness in the face of these challenges. I keep looking for moments of affective tension, conflict, or unreliability in *her*, and find myself put off every time. Despite her initial concern about her father's fancy for Mrs Mortimer she "r[ises] up again in new strength from the momentary downfall," in a "sublime moment." She manages the Lakes and Mr Cavendish beautifully, and even calmly neutralizes any uncontrolled gossip or social embarrassment involving her and Mr Cavendish found out together on the street (in an intriguing reversal of Barbara's own motives in displaying herself and Mr C alone earlier).
What will be next, I wonder!
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