Dear Serial Readers,
Julia's comment about the illustrations reminded me of a few I found on the internet. This one (see sidebar) comes with the caption, "The Beginning of Troubles," the title of Chapter 7. However, I thought the usual format for the installments in The Cornhill was a Millais illustration as a frontispiece at the start of the set of three chapters, but not necessarily for the chapter that opens the monthly segment. In any case, any thoughts about where this image (see sidebar) matches the narrative?
This week's portion makes me think of simultaneity--how the narrator points out the mental states of characters at the same time as their external behavior and as ongoing conditions that we readers are able to see, thanks to the narrator's reflections. But how well are characters able to comprehend the mental states of their companions? Trollope provides different instances of simultaneity here. To provide one of many examples: we learn about Crosbie's "melancholy fits" and his concern about his pinched finances given his impending marriage. Then the narrator shifts to Lily at the "Small House," with the question, "And what was the state of Lily's mind at the same moment...?" So we're primed to think of correspondences in this way too.
Then there are the narrator's interventions, his thoughts on the players and actions in the story he's unfolding. This narrator has such presence in the novel, as some of you have pointed out! He has no pity for the "Mrs Boyces," he lets us know, and he thinks there's some lurking aggression behind the polite phrase, "It is nice of you to come early," delivered by Lily to Mrs Eames before the other guests have arrived for the party. These too might be considered a kind of simultaneity, a running commentary on characters and their actions (whether internal or external) as they occur.
I was thinking of other kinds of simultaneities too even beyond the installment. In this issue (as well as the previous two) of The Cornhill, George Eliot's serial novel Romola was also appearing. How did readers juggle the simultaneity of different plot lines and casts of characters, one in a contemporary English country setting, the other in late 15th-century Florence?
What else are you reading now? What is the simultaneity of your reading practice these days?
For next week, chapters 10-12.
Simultaneously Serial,
Susan
POOR MISS FINCH by Wilkie Collins
Showing posts with label serial novel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label serial novel. Show all posts
18 January 2009
04 January 2009
Starting Soon: Trollope's Small House at Allington
Dear Serial Readers,
Anthony Trollope's The Small House at Allington appeared in three-chapter monthly installments in The Cornhill Magazine from September 1862 to April 1864. We'll read these serial parts weekly rather than monthly. On this schedule, we'll reach the last installment in May of this year. Reading three chapters a week might occupy you for about an hour, give or take, provided on how fast you read. But generally, Trollope is a quicker "read" than Dickens. The idea here is that this serial novel is your side-dish reading, not your main course fare, particularly if you like to immerse yourself in the world of a novel and read quickly. This serial reading is a different kind of experience. I like to reserve an evening a week for my serial portion, typically Sundays.
Besides your local library, you might secure a copy of this novel via Amazon--used copies for a dollar or so, plus shipping. As with the previous Dickens novels, I'll note which chapters for the upcoming installment: chapters one through three for this first time when you'll meet the Dale sisters, especially the very memorable (among Trollope fans) Lily. Once I post on the installment, please add your own comments. I'm also happy to have anyone else take the lead for a particular week--just contact me or post here that you'd like to write the first comment for the next three chapters.
So spread the word--forward this link! If you'd rather not have these posts forwarded to you each week, just email me. Or if you'd like an email reminder each week, let me know.
Yours until the imminent Trollope launch,
Serial Susan
Anthony Trollope's The Small House at Allington appeared in three-chapter monthly installments in The Cornhill Magazine from September 1862 to April 1864. We'll read these serial parts weekly rather than monthly. On this schedule, we'll reach the last installment in May of this year. Reading three chapters a week might occupy you for about an hour, give or take, provided on how fast you read. But generally, Trollope is a quicker "read" than Dickens. The idea here is that this serial novel is your side-dish reading, not your main course fare, particularly if you like to immerse yourself in the world of a novel and read quickly. This serial reading is a different kind of experience. I like to reserve an evening a week for my serial portion, typically Sundays.
Besides your local library, you might secure a copy of this novel via Amazon--used copies for a dollar or so, plus shipping. As with the previous Dickens novels, I'll note which chapters for the upcoming installment: chapters one through three for this first time when you'll meet the Dale sisters, especially the very memorable (among Trollope fans) Lily. Once I post on the installment, please add your own comments. I'm also happy to have anyone else take the lead for a particular week--just contact me or post here that you'd like to write the first comment for the next three chapters.
So spread the word--forward this link! If you'd rather not have these posts forwarded to you each week, just email me. Or if you'd like an email reminder each week, let me know.
Yours until the imminent Trollope launch,
Serial Susan
07 December 2008
Edwin Drood #4 (chaps 13-16) July 1870
Dear Serial Readers,
Is anyone out there in Serial Reading Land? I would love to know that you're reading along serially, either the novel or these entries, or both! For the next selection, how about branching out with a Trollope or Collins novel? Check the MOUSEHOLD WORDS catalogue which includes both Trollope's HE KNEW HE WAS RIGHT and Collins's THE EVIL GENIUS. Or Trollope's wonderful THE SMALL HOUSE AT ALLINGTON (a magazine serial) would be a nice change of pace. If you'd like to vote on one of these, or suggest another Victorian serial, please indicate your choice here or email me. We'll be ready to start the next novel in early January. And one more thing--I'd appreciate it if you'd email the link to SERIAL READERS to at least one other person, and encourage anyone to share this blog with book club readers. There was an article in the New York Times yesterday about book clubs including the online variety (Joanne Kaufman, "Fought Over Any Good Books Lately?") in which the mere suggestion of reading Trollope appears to prompt a violent reaction. I hope whoever wants to read Trollope joins THIS group!
This fourth (of six) installment of DROOD is superb! Rather than the "mystery of Edwin Drood" and his rather predictable disappearance at the hands of Jasper, we're prompted to pay close attention to the peripherals, especially the somersaulting mind and behaviors of Jasper, and the accumulation of clues, even circumstantial evidence that we know adds up to a false accusation against Neville.
Again, I marveled at all the allusions to time--the early reference to the "revolving year" (crucial to the serial form itself) as Miss Twinkleton's young ladies leave for the holiday season; the references to time of day as well as time of year in chapter 14 where Edwin's watch has stopped, the description of Edwin "surrounded by vestiges of old time and decay," the image of time torn asunder--the hands of the Cathedral clock destroyed by the night wind, and finally in chap 16 the discovery of Edwin's watch in the Weir, "run down, before being cast into the water." All these sundry references in the larger context of putting readers (both internal and external) on the watch--for the "mystery" of Edwin's disappearance, for signs of his body, for signs of Jack's guilt. The most melodramatic instance of this last item is Jasper fainting upon hearing that his motive for removing his nephew as an obstacle to his marriage plotting against Rosa no longer holds. And all this time I thought that illustration of the body on the floor *was* the Mystery of Edwin Drood!
Related to this halting of time is chapter fourteen, where Dickens employs that increasingly suspenseful present tense. I loved the staginess of this chapter which begins with sentence fragments without verbs at all, like stage directions to set the scene: "Christmas Eve in Cloisterham. A few strange faces in the streets..." Then the chapter divides into three parts, each following the key actors of the scene, all bound to converge at Jack's house for the fateful encounter, as each of these sections on, respectively, Neville, Edwin, John Jasper concludes with "And so *he* goes up the postern stair." Yet of course that pivotal scene is foreclosed from the narrative. We can only speculate and test our hunches against the narratives Neville and Jasper provide of last seeing Edwin.
The last point I want to mention is the treatment of Neville as suspect. Besides the heap of circumstantial evidence, all given with many large grains of salt, Dickens suggests the prejudice of racism--the mayor's assessment of Neville's guilt ("the case had a dark look") linked to Neville's "Un-English complexion," and then the passage about "the wildest frenzy and fatuity of evil report arose against" Neville. Here these rumors picture Neville as a ruthless imperious force who "had caused to be whipped to death sundry 'Natives.'" I found this passage especially double-edged, since on the one hand it seems to ridicule the ignorance of Cloisterham people about others across the globe, Neville included. On the other hand, Dickens seems to ridicule their ideas of "Natives" as "nomadic persons" who were "vaguely supposed in Cloisterham to be always black, always of great virtue..." Neville's "Un-English complexion" incriminates him in the eyes of these cloistered English people, yet the narrator sets the reader up as more worldly, less prejudiced, since we know--as much as we can for certain--who is responsible for Edwin's disappearance. And here I must mention the female opium eater Edwin encounters just before he goes to his uncle's house. He recognizes in her curious state the signs of opium usage he'd noted in Jack. But there is another mystery: how does this woman know that "Ned" is a "threatened name"? We know she must be the "haggard woman" of the opening of the novel in an opium den in London. But how does she make her way here with this remark about "Ned"? Although she's less a character than a suspense intensifier, I'm still intrigued by the female characters in this novel, and wish Helena had appeared in this installment!
I'm steeled for many unresolved pieces of this story, since I know Dickens had already died in July 1870 when these words were first read in the fourth number.
Serially devoted,
Susan
Is anyone out there in Serial Reading Land? I would love to know that you're reading along serially, either the novel or these entries, or both! For the next selection, how about branching out with a Trollope or Collins novel? Check the MOUSEHOLD WORDS catalogue which includes both Trollope's HE KNEW HE WAS RIGHT and Collins's THE EVIL GENIUS. Or Trollope's wonderful THE SMALL HOUSE AT ALLINGTON (a magazine serial) would be a nice change of pace. If you'd like to vote on one of these, or suggest another Victorian serial, please indicate your choice here or email me. We'll be ready to start the next novel in early January. And one more thing--I'd appreciate it if you'd email the link to SERIAL READERS to at least one other person, and encourage anyone to share this blog with book club readers. There was an article in the New York Times yesterday about book clubs including the online variety (Joanne Kaufman, "Fought Over Any Good Books Lately?") in which the mere suggestion of reading Trollope appears to prompt a violent reaction. I hope whoever wants to read Trollope joins THIS group!
This fourth (of six) installment of DROOD is superb! Rather than the "mystery of Edwin Drood" and his rather predictable disappearance at the hands of Jasper, we're prompted to pay close attention to the peripherals, especially the somersaulting mind and behaviors of Jasper, and the accumulation of clues, even circumstantial evidence that we know adds up to a false accusation against Neville.
Again, I marveled at all the allusions to time--the early reference to the "revolving year" (crucial to the serial form itself) as Miss Twinkleton's young ladies leave for the holiday season; the references to time of day as well as time of year in chapter 14 where Edwin's watch has stopped, the description of Edwin "surrounded by vestiges of old time and decay," the image of time torn asunder--the hands of the Cathedral clock destroyed by the night wind, and finally in chap 16 the discovery of Edwin's watch in the Weir, "run down, before being cast into the water." All these sundry references in the larger context of putting readers (both internal and external) on the watch--for the "mystery" of Edwin's disappearance, for signs of his body, for signs of Jack's guilt. The most melodramatic instance of this last item is Jasper fainting upon hearing that his motive for removing his nephew as an obstacle to his marriage plotting against Rosa no longer holds. And all this time I thought that illustration of the body on the floor *was* the Mystery of Edwin Drood!
Related to this halting of time is chapter fourteen, where Dickens employs that increasingly suspenseful present tense. I loved the staginess of this chapter which begins with sentence fragments without verbs at all, like stage directions to set the scene: "Christmas Eve in Cloisterham. A few strange faces in the streets..." Then the chapter divides into three parts, each following the key actors of the scene, all bound to converge at Jack's house for the fateful encounter, as each of these sections on, respectively, Neville, Edwin, John Jasper concludes with "And so *he* goes up the postern stair." Yet of course that pivotal scene is foreclosed from the narrative. We can only speculate and test our hunches against the narratives Neville and Jasper provide of last seeing Edwin.
The last point I want to mention is the treatment of Neville as suspect. Besides the heap of circumstantial evidence, all given with many large grains of salt, Dickens suggests the prejudice of racism--the mayor's assessment of Neville's guilt ("the case had a dark look") linked to Neville's "Un-English complexion," and then the passage about "the wildest frenzy and fatuity of evil report arose against" Neville. Here these rumors picture Neville as a ruthless imperious force who "had caused to be whipped to death sundry 'Natives.'" I found this passage especially double-edged, since on the one hand it seems to ridicule the ignorance of Cloisterham people about others across the globe, Neville included. On the other hand, Dickens seems to ridicule their ideas of "Natives" as "nomadic persons" who were "vaguely supposed in Cloisterham to be always black, always of great virtue..." Neville's "Un-English complexion" incriminates him in the eyes of these cloistered English people, yet the narrator sets the reader up as more worldly, less prejudiced, since we know--as much as we can for certain--who is responsible for Edwin's disappearance. And here I must mention the female opium eater Edwin encounters just before he goes to his uncle's house. He recognizes in her curious state the signs of opium usage he'd noted in Jack. But there is another mystery: how does this woman know that "Ned" is a "threatened name"? We know she must be the "haggard woman" of the opening of the novel in an opium den in London. But how does she make her way here with this remark about "Ned"? Although she's less a character than a suspense intensifier, I'm still intrigued by the female characters in this novel, and wish Helena had appeared in this installment!
I'm steeled for many unresolved pieces of this story, since I know Dickens had already died in July 1870 when these words were first read in the fourth number.
Serially devoted,
Susan
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