Dear Serial Readers,
If the author weren't available to me, I might've thought this first of two installments of the story "The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton" was written by Oliphant! Not only the "clerical life" theme of a provincial English community seemed Oliphantine to me, but also the deliciously ironic humor about manners and style! When John the man-servant overturns the gravy tureen onto Milly Barton's dress, I thought--isn't there a parallel scene in MISS MARJORIBANKS? Although we read that novel first, this story predates O's novel by some 8 years, so the gravy mishap has Eliotic roots! Eliot published this series of stories in BLACKWOOD'S, the magazine Oliphant began as a regular reviewer for in 1859. More to the point is that both writers worked as review editors for monthly magazines before turning to fiction.
What intrigues me most about the installment (as Eliot's first venture into published fiction) is her narrator's presence. With so many appearances of "I" and "we" and "you" in these pages, Eliot foregrounds the networking of readers/narrator/character in a way that seems to recede in her later novels. In fact, I don't recall Eliot using "Reader!" as she does in the very first chapter: "Reader! *did* you ever taste such a cup of tea as Miss Gibbs is this moment handing to Mr Pilgrim?" Such interventions seem to point to (even if they attempt to bridge) realism's gap between outside and inside the story. The writing here also reminds me of Gaskell--and although MARY BARTON seems an obvious precursor because of the character name, I sometimes found Eliot's humor Crandfordian! The only other Eliot fiction that I've found this amusing is her underread story "Brother Jacob" (published in THE CORNHILL in 1864).
As for the title character, we have a curate who is very ordinary stuff--the perfect kind of realist material Eliot elaborates on in her essay "The Natural History of German Life." But I'm more interested in the women presented in this opening installment--Milly Barton, the intriguing Countess Czerlaski (nee Caroline Bridmain) who married the dancing-master of the family where she worked as governess, and even Janet Gibbs, the fifty-year old niece of Mrs. Patten. Perhaps I'm thinking this "Janet" will figure in the third SCENES story. I admit I'm on the look-out for possible connections across the three stories, and there is a brief allusion to Mr. Gilfil who had the good sense to preach short sermons, unlike Amos Barton.
For next week we'll finish this first story in the SCENES series with chapters 5-10. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this installment!
Serially scenic,
Susan
4 comments:
I was also reminded of Trollope because of the clerical theme, obviously, but also the gently ironic tone.
What I notice here is how from the start the narrator persuades me to trust her perspective on things. Through meticulous and selective observation, she sets up the old church building against the new, noting that the “well-regulated mind” prefers “improvement,” and confessing that hers is “not well-regulated,” but rather, has a “tenderness for old abuses, a fondness of nasal clerks and top-booted parsons, a sigh for the departed shades of vulgar errors.” There’s more than one way to view events to come, and she knows full well how to win readers over to hers. By the time she gets to describing people—her favor for Mr. Gilfil, his long pipe and short sermons—I’m ready tofollow her anywhere.
I'm embarrassed to say this, but I am feeling very impatient with the narrative here. The text is so heavy on description, and so meager on plot. Would Victorian serial readers be hooked by the descriptions, the humor, the narrator's tone? Might nineteenth-century plotaholics have given up after the first installment, or am I being too much a product of the 21st century in my insistence on narrative speed and excitement?
I hadn't even noticed that nothing really happens! I did notice that I don't care about any of the characters except Milly. I'm mildly interested in what happens to them, but she's the only one I have an active desire to see succeed, somehow.
I enjoyed some of the narrator's observations, but I found the narrator quite pedantic, for example, letting us know that Amos Barton is not up on his Greek, but quoting some Greek in the narrative. Also, I was struck by the extensive and unusual vocabulary and the large amount of alliteration. At one point with crossing alliteration on Ps and Cs, I wondered whether Eliot had been reading Old and Middle English alliterative poetry! Unlikely, I'd guess. But in any case, the narrator seems to be older with long memories of the town, and for some reason I got the strong impression of a male narrator with all that pedantry. I find it intriguing to think about how I"m so sure this is a male narrator, and yet there are no hints of gender, and I'm pretty sure a narrator's gender can not be known merely through choice of vocabulary and literary devices!
I don't remember the similar scene in Miss Marjoribanks! Remind me!
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