Dear Serial Readers,
Did you find anything humorous at all, about this family Christmas tale? I think precisely its appearance in the Christmas issue seems delightfully ironic--especially with such scene settings as the final one on Xmas Eve in RT's Somerset house: "The scene in the drawing room represented the ideal of domestic comfort." Lovely "domestic comfort" indeed--with an underaged daughter secretly married to her sweetheart and planning to elope Xmas morning also her 16th birthday, with her officially betrothed plotting to murder her father in order to obtain necessary funds to rescue himself from financial fraud, just to name a few of the intrigues afoot! Would this be entertaining reading to offset any seasonal malaise at holiday time? Would it stir up any suspicions for parents or prompt some scheming by children? So different from Dickens's sentimental "Christmas Carol"!
And how would suspense work given that the entire story is contained in the one issue? Perhaps the scene divisions (and even the asterisks or other inscribed breaks) might offer pausing spots for a serially suspenseful reading experience. I did love the melodramatic flavor of the entire story--with the shifting scenes (s0 many! the sea, suburban Muswell Hill, West End London, the City, East End London, Somerset country estate--both exterior and interior sets) and the staging of exaggerated feelings. Just before the end of the ninth scene, after Turlington learns from Lady W's stepdaughter about Natalie's secret marriage, those rather "extra" stepdaughters have an outburst (via the narration) of anxiety: "The Graybrookes! Now he knew it, what would become of the Graybrookes? What would he do when he got back? ....What would happen? Oh, good God! what would happen...." These stepdaughters never appear on stage again, but I loved that melodramatic flair, in case readers need coaching about the suspense!
As for the the drunken East End accomplice, the eloping hero in disguise at the right time and place, and finally the jammed gun and the foolishness of fiddling with it as RT did, somehow all the machinations of the murder and elopement and whatnot plots reminded me of a Victorian version of "Law and Order" or "SVU" (what I prefer to call "SUV")--only a quick few minutes to wrap all this up, and the audience knows precisely what will or won't happen (the villain will be killed or apprehended, the damsel in distress and the hero saved)!
I'm very interested to read some of Gaskell's serialized short stories. I was hoping to find one that was only two installments due to my upcoming London trip two weeks from now. But Gaskell's are either one installment or three, or many more. For next week and the week after, let's read "The Grey Woman" which was serialized in three short installments in All the Year Round (Jan 5, 12, 19, 1861). We'll read the first installment ("portion 1") for next week, and then portions 2-3 for March 7th. Again, you can download Gaskell's stories from two different websites: Many Books or Project Gutenberg. See the links to these sites in the sidebar to the right.
After "The Grey Women" I'm not sure whether to continue with Gaskell's stories or to go to Eliot's three "Scenes of Clerical Life" or move on to a long serial novel--Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit interests me because of its transatlantic (American) sections. So--please vote early and often in the poll I've installed below! I'll announce just before my London flight where Serial Readers goes next!
Serially shorter,
Susan
POOR MISS FINCH by Wilkie Collins
21 February 2010
14 February 2010
Miss or Mrs? Scenes 1-6 (Christmas Number 1871, The Graphic)
Dear Serial Readers,
What a contrast to Gaskell's Wives and Daughters is this heavily-plotted Collins novella! Even in the first half, scenes one-six, I marveled over the compressed plot elements--presumed murder of foreigner on a boat, commercial fraud, arranged engagement vs. secret engagement, clandestine marriage, suspense that the clandestine marriage will be discovered in time, and the set-up for bigamy, even embedded in the title. By the way, I love titles of novels that are questions--such as Trollope's Can You Forgive Her? --because of the way they immediately engage the reader in the act of reading and judging. Can you think of other interrogative titles?
With all this suspense, it's interesting to note that the entire story was printed in one issue, the Christmas number of The Graphic, on Christmas Day 1871. And then, to emphasize this date, Natalie's birthday is Christmas Day, and of course the elopement plot is contingent on her sixteenth birthday, and her marriage to Turlington one week later on New Year's Day. I wanted to see the original Christmas Number online at least, but learned that the database for the Nineteenth Century British Periodicals (British Library) does not include Christmas Numbers! Still, I did see advertisements of this particular holiday gift volume, advertised as "A Christmas Story...equal in quantity to a one volume novel" with 12 illustrations and one large plate titled "Saved!"--all this for the price of a shilling. As you can see in the sidebar, I found one of the illustrations online, this one presumably of Natalie and Launce.
What did you make of the emphasis on "scenes" or places for each chapter, the melodramatic staging of this story? Unlike Gaskell's slow-paced serial, this story is about scenes and plot points, not much on character, here a list of "persons in the story" in the front matter. (By the way, why aren't the church clerk, the clergyman, and especially his wife who speaks in the story listed here?) Each setting is so different--the private yacht at sea, the London suburb, and the various locales of Victorian London. I was also intrigued by the attention to storytelling itself--the embedded tales told by Sir Joseph and his sister Lavinia, and their disagreements about the story, about how to tell it. I found all this amusing, and wondered even if Collins were offering a kind of parody of melodrama and sensation fiction (a form he is identified with creating). There is the damsel in distress here, Natalie the underage heiress, and two men battling to possess her via marriage, whether lawful or not--the one marked as villainous, namely Turlington, with his name very suggestive of Dickens' dastardly lawyer Tulkinghorn in Bleak House, and the other Launce, the doctor (maybe an allusion to Alan Woodcourt, also from Dickens' novel?) Yet (like sensation fiction) there is also attention to women not as hapless, passive victims (often the case in standard melodrama), but as entering actively into the intrigue--the second Lady Winwood (who is younger than her stepdaughters!) and the perspicacious clergyman's wife and perhaps even Lavinia.
So much conniving around marriage, and so much hilarity around different stock notions of marriage--the paper marriage of convenience (and the problem of a paper economy where value is mercurial at best--hence, Turlington's financial difficulties) and the love match (with a hero of the name "Launcelot"--is this a joke about the knight in shining armor who goes to some lengths to effect this clandestine marriage?)!! What do you make of Natalie's racial otherness, her ancestry associations to French Caribbean Martinique, not unlike Rochester's secret wife Bertha in Jane Eyre? One theory is that Natalie's "mixed blood" is to explain how a fifteen year old "girl could be sexually mature enough to attract these men, as if pure-blooded "English" girls could not be so erotically precocious. But it seems there's lots of emphasis on exploiting her youthful inexperience.
Eager for your responses! Next week we'll finish these scenes (7-12). Then I'd like to move on to Gaskell's magazine stories. But perhaps we can return to Collins later--perhaps even his novel Man and Wife. serialized in 1870 both in London and New York.
Scenically yours,
Serial Susan
What a contrast to Gaskell's Wives and Daughters is this heavily-plotted Collins novella! Even in the first half, scenes one-six, I marveled over the compressed plot elements--presumed murder of foreigner on a boat, commercial fraud, arranged engagement vs. secret engagement, clandestine marriage, suspense that the clandestine marriage will be discovered in time, and the set-up for bigamy, even embedded in the title. By the way, I love titles of novels that are questions--such as Trollope's Can You Forgive Her? --because of the way they immediately engage the reader in the act of reading and judging. Can you think of other interrogative titles?
With all this suspense, it's interesting to note that the entire story was printed in one issue, the Christmas number of The Graphic, on Christmas Day 1871. And then, to emphasize this date, Natalie's birthday is Christmas Day, and of course the elopement plot is contingent on her sixteenth birthday, and her marriage to Turlington one week later on New Year's Day. I wanted to see the original Christmas Number online at least, but learned that the database for the Nineteenth Century British Periodicals (British Library) does not include Christmas Numbers! Still, I did see advertisements of this particular holiday gift volume, advertised as "A Christmas Story...equal in quantity to a one volume novel" with 12 illustrations and one large plate titled "Saved!"--all this for the price of a shilling. As you can see in the sidebar, I found one of the illustrations online, this one presumably of Natalie and Launce.
What did you make of the emphasis on "scenes" or places for each chapter, the melodramatic staging of this story? Unlike Gaskell's slow-paced serial, this story is about scenes and plot points, not much on character, here a list of "persons in the story" in the front matter. (By the way, why aren't the church clerk, the clergyman, and especially his wife who speaks in the story listed here?) Each setting is so different--the private yacht at sea, the London suburb, and the various locales of Victorian London. I was also intrigued by the attention to storytelling itself--the embedded tales told by Sir Joseph and his sister Lavinia, and their disagreements about the story, about how to tell it. I found all this amusing, and wondered even if Collins were offering a kind of parody of melodrama and sensation fiction (a form he is identified with creating). There is the damsel in distress here, Natalie the underage heiress, and two men battling to possess her via marriage, whether lawful or not--the one marked as villainous, namely Turlington, with his name very suggestive of Dickens' dastardly lawyer Tulkinghorn in Bleak House, and the other Launce, the doctor (maybe an allusion to Alan Woodcourt, also from Dickens' novel?) Yet (like sensation fiction) there is also attention to women not as hapless, passive victims (often the case in standard melodrama), but as entering actively into the intrigue--the second Lady Winwood (who is younger than her stepdaughters!) and the perspicacious clergyman's wife and perhaps even Lavinia.
So much conniving around marriage, and so much hilarity around different stock notions of marriage--the paper marriage of convenience (and the problem of a paper economy where value is mercurial at best--hence, Turlington's financial difficulties) and the love match (with a hero of the name "Launcelot"--is this a joke about the knight in shining armor who goes to some lengths to effect this clandestine marriage?)!! What do you make of Natalie's racial otherness, her ancestry associations to French Caribbean Martinique, not unlike Rochester's secret wife Bertha in Jane Eyre? One theory is that Natalie's "mixed blood" is to explain how a fifteen year old "girl could be sexually mature enough to attract these men, as if pure-blooded "English" girls could not be so erotically precocious. But it seems there's lots of emphasis on exploiting her youthful inexperience.
Eager for your responses! Next week we'll finish these scenes (7-12). Then I'd like to move on to Gaskell's magazine stories. But perhaps we can return to Collins later--perhaps even his novel Man and Wife. serialized in 1870 both in London and New York.
Scenically yours,
Serial Susan
07 February 2010
Wives and Daughters: #18 (chap 60 + postscript)--Jan. 1866
Dear Serial Readers,
One thing for sure: Gaskell is a far superior writer, in my estimation, than Frederick Greenwood! The clash between their styles and voices made this closure especially jarring for me. Greenwood of course has nothing much to add to the plot--so our questions about the Gibson marriage, Lady Harriet, Mr. Preston, etc. are not addressed. After embellishing the predictable (Roger returns and marries Molly), Greenwood's postscript is more along the lines of a review. And here I was quite fascinated by his discussion of Cynthia--"one of the most difficult characters which have ever been attempted in our time"--and his comparison between her and Eliot's Tito! Greenwood credits Eliot with the finer "splendid achievement" over Gaskell's Cynthia, but then Lewes was the editor of *The Cornhill* while Greenwood was the sub-editor (and Eliot was Lewes's "wife"). All the attention Greenwood pays to Cynthia and Osborne both highlighted the novel's similarity to sensation fiction, and at the same time he begged to differ, to defend Gaskell's fiction from other popular novels that present "an abominable wicked world, crawling with selfishness and reeking with base passions."
Yet in a way I found what Gaskell had written, even to the last trivial words from Mrs. G who delights over news that her well-married daughter is bringing her a new shawl, is more compatible with Gaskell's usual mild closures, such as we have in *North and South* where the key marriage is merely on the horizon, and the closing words are not words of romance or future events. I did feel slightly uneasy at the repetition of Roger's farewell--complete with Molly (who has to compete with her stepmother at the window) watching his departure, and his "last turning." See the lovely rain-streaked illustration, his white handkerchief like a flag of romantic surrender, bright in the gloomy atmosphere--but Molly doesn't know this surrender for sure. Given the accentuated comparison with Roger's first leave-taking for Africa, and the assorted turn of events he found when he came home, this ending does seem to me rather suspended, unfinished, yet perhaps in keeping with a new kind of closure Gaskell explores. I couldn't help but think of the ending of Bronte's *Villette* too, the obligatory trip across the British Empire that defers the promised reunion of the lovers. For those of you who don't know this novel, Bronte supplied two possible outcomes: shipwreck and death during the homeward voyage, and a miraculous return.
As for Josh's interesting comment about external and internal obstacles to marriage plots: I did think there was one "external" issue regarding Molly and Roger--namely, money. And this seems to be addressed on both sides: Mr. G tells Roger that Molly does have an inheritance that he hasn't told her about; and in the postscript Greenwood tells us that Roger becomes a professor at a scientific institution (sounds more like Huxley here than Darwin) and "wins his way in the world handsomely." Money is that key external obstacle that rears its head in most every Victorian novel!
Perhaps the most satisfying element of closure was the arrangement for Aimee and the young heir to live so close to the squire, but in their own separate place--a different composition of a family here.
Now, for future reading, dear Serial Readers! I relish shorter fiction for a while, in part because I'll be in London during the month of March and have less time and access for blogging around. Here's my proposal for the next two items: Collins's story "Miss or Mrs?" over two weeks, and then Gaskell's "Cousin Phillis" and other Gaskell magazine stories. Collins's story is rather long for the one issue of *The Graphic* in which it appeared (the special Christmas issue of December 1871). It's arranged as a drama in 12 scenes, so for next week, scenes 1-6, and then the rest for Feb. 21. Again you can download this story from Project Gutenberg or from MANY BOOKS, a very user-friendly website of free books with many downloading formats available (for Kindle, for other devices, as pdfs etc).
Serially somewhat satisfied,
Susan
One thing for sure: Gaskell is a far superior writer, in my estimation, than Frederick Greenwood! The clash between their styles and voices made this closure especially jarring for me. Greenwood of course has nothing much to add to the plot--so our questions about the Gibson marriage, Lady Harriet, Mr. Preston, etc. are not addressed. After embellishing the predictable (Roger returns and marries Molly), Greenwood's postscript is more along the lines of a review. And here I was quite fascinated by his discussion of Cynthia--"one of the most difficult characters which have ever been attempted in our time"--and his comparison between her and Eliot's Tito! Greenwood credits Eliot with the finer "splendid achievement" over Gaskell's Cynthia, but then Lewes was the editor of *The Cornhill* while Greenwood was the sub-editor (and Eliot was Lewes's "wife"). All the attention Greenwood pays to Cynthia and Osborne both highlighted the novel's similarity to sensation fiction, and at the same time he begged to differ, to defend Gaskell's fiction from other popular novels that present "an abominable wicked world, crawling with selfishness and reeking with base passions."
Yet in a way I found what Gaskell had written, even to the last trivial words from Mrs. G who delights over news that her well-married daughter is bringing her a new shawl, is more compatible with Gaskell's usual mild closures, such as we have in *North and South* where the key marriage is merely on the horizon, and the closing words are not words of romance or future events. I did feel slightly uneasy at the repetition of Roger's farewell--complete with Molly (who has to compete with her stepmother at the window) watching his departure, and his "last turning." See the lovely rain-streaked illustration, his white handkerchief like a flag of romantic surrender, bright in the gloomy atmosphere--but Molly doesn't know this surrender for sure. Given the accentuated comparison with Roger's first leave-taking for Africa, and the assorted turn of events he found when he came home, this ending does seem to me rather suspended, unfinished, yet perhaps in keeping with a new kind of closure Gaskell explores. I couldn't help but think of the ending of Bronte's *Villette* too, the obligatory trip across the British Empire that defers the promised reunion of the lovers. For those of you who don't know this novel, Bronte supplied two possible outcomes: shipwreck and death during the homeward voyage, and a miraculous return.
As for Josh's interesting comment about external and internal obstacles to marriage plots: I did think there was one "external" issue regarding Molly and Roger--namely, money. And this seems to be addressed on both sides: Mr. G tells Roger that Molly does have an inheritance that he hasn't told her about; and in the postscript Greenwood tells us that Roger becomes a professor at a scientific institution (sounds more like Huxley here than Darwin) and "wins his way in the world handsomely." Money is that key external obstacle that rears its head in most every Victorian novel!
Perhaps the most satisfying element of closure was the arrangement for Aimee and the young heir to live so close to the squire, but in their own separate place--a different composition of a family here.
Now, for future reading, dear Serial Readers! I relish shorter fiction for a while, in part because I'll be in London during the month of March and have less time and access for blogging around. Here's my proposal for the next two items: Collins's story "Miss or Mrs?" over two weeks, and then Gaskell's "Cousin Phillis" and other Gaskell magazine stories. Collins's story is rather long for the one issue of *The Graphic* in which it appeared (the special Christmas issue of December 1871). It's arranged as a drama in 12 scenes, so for next week, scenes 1-6, and then the rest for Feb. 21. Again you can download this story from Project Gutenberg or from MANY BOOKS, a very user-friendly website of free books with many downloading formats available (for Kindle, for other devices, as pdfs etc).
Serially somewhat satisfied,
Susan
31 January 2010
Wives and Daughters: #17 (chaps 55-59): Dec. 1865
Dear Serial Readers,
I want to begin with Daun's comment about Molly as our most dependable close observer who at key moments seems to get swallowed up by event-ness and loses hold of the narrative focus. I loved too Daun's comparison with other Victorian heroines as would-be or partial narrators (like Esther in Bleak House). At this juncture in Wives and Daughters something else is going on which might account for Molly's falling away momentarily: Gaskell is preparing to establish Molly as the object of the culminating courtship plot.
Molly's transformation, or the transformation in her relationship with Roger, comes about in these chapters, so that the final page makes clear that Roger's "too late" has to do not with the condition of his jilted heart but his fears that Molly would not have him. Perhaps because I've been watching the Masterpiece Theatre "Emma," I've been mulling over this narrative challenge to convert a quasi- sibling attachment (like Emma and George Knightly) into a romantic one. Gaskell has several devices to get this transformation underway: first, Cynthia safely married away in London (see sidebar for this installment's illustration--Cynthia and Henderson in the garden, with Roger and Molly overhearing from the window) and Molly's illness have the double advantage of releasing Molly from Cynthia's train and removing her to the Towers, to a new scene for Roger to encounter Molly in a new way; second, Molly's advocate (and sharp-eyed matchmaker) Lady Harriet who brings her to the Towers to restore her to health, so that Molly sheds her duckling girlhood and takes on a swanish glow of womanhood in the eyes of the Towers society. I loved the veritable sexual selection scene (chap 58)when Roger's changing interest in Molly is piqued by his notice of the attentions of Sir Charles--the triangulation of desire, this is sometimes called!
As we approach the ending (such as Gaskell was able to complete and Greenwood was able to conjecture), I have a few questions. It's clear that Molly and Cynthia are matched with suitable men for each. But I'm curious about Preston and about Lady Harriet. At first I thought Lady Harriet is the perfect candidate for the revamped, recuperated spinster since she's clearly not of the same cliched mold as the Browning sisters (although Gaskell does try to give them some more complex traits than mere stereotype usually permits). But then, this character is entitled by class position: the "Lady" protects her from the ignominious "Miss" after all. Wealthy women can, Gaskell suggests, act with intelligence, independence, and pleasure.
I'm also curious about Preston. Is he simply a prop, a figure to complicate Molly's reputation via town gossip and to give more substance to Cynthia's dubious judgment? Or is he only the dangerous suitor in a moral tale about girls who attempt to make their own romantic arrangements without benefit of a reliable social vetting network (such as Cynthia has with Henderson)? I think there's more to this character; at one point, as estate agent, Preston seems to represent a different approach to land use reform. But if he drops out completely, then I'm not so sure. Maybe Gaskell just didn't pursue this character beyond the prop status.
Are there other characters for whom you're wanting closure? I suspect Hamley Hall will mean a reconstituted family: the grandfather, French daughter-in-law, grandson, and the prodigal son (once he returns from his six month expedition) and his new bride (our old and favorite Molly). Molly, as Roger's intended wife, will appease the squire sufficiently (he's dropped so many hints about how much he'd love Molly for his daughter in law) so that he'll presumably accept Aimee too.
There is still the problem of money in the Molly-Roger match on the horizon, since he isn't heir to Hamley Hall and Molly doesn't appear to have any assets to bring to the marriage. But perhaps a collective household of Hamleys will ease this problem, at least for the moment. So although there's little left, although we know Gaskell died before writing the full end of this novel, I think we'll be close.
Next time, just a short installment (for Jan. 1866), one chapter and Greenwood's postscript.
And here's the link to Project Gutenberg's pdf of Wilkie Collins's novella, "Miss or Mrs?"
You can download it to your screen (and print it out) or to a device like a Kindle or iPhone or (eventually) the iPad!
Serially submitted,
Susan
I want to begin with Daun's comment about Molly as our most dependable close observer who at key moments seems to get swallowed up by event-ness and loses hold of the narrative focus. I loved too Daun's comparison with other Victorian heroines as would-be or partial narrators (like Esther in Bleak House). At this juncture in Wives and Daughters something else is going on which might account for Molly's falling away momentarily: Gaskell is preparing to establish Molly as the object of the culminating courtship plot.
Molly's transformation, or the transformation in her relationship with Roger, comes about in these chapters, so that the final page makes clear that Roger's "too late" has to do not with the condition of his jilted heart but his fears that Molly would not have him. Perhaps because I've been watching the Masterpiece Theatre "Emma," I've been mulling over this narrative challenge to convert a quasi- sibling attachment (like Emma and George Knightly) into a romantic one. Gaskell has several devices to get this transformation underway: first, Cynthia safely married away in London (see sidebar for this installment's illustration--Cynthia and Henderson in the garden, with Roger and Molly overhearing from the window) and Molly's illness have the double advantage of releasing Molly from Cynthia's train and removing her to the Towers, to a new scene for Roger to encounter Molly in a new way; second, Molly's advocate (and sharp-eyed matchmaker) Lady Harriet who brings her to the Towers to restore her to health, so that Molly sheds her duckling girlhood and takes on a swanish glow of womanhood in the eyes of the Towers society. I loved the veritable sexual selection scene (chap 58)when Roger's changing interest in Molly is piqued by his notice of the attentions of Sir Charles--the triangulation of desire, this is sometimes called!
As we approach the ending (such as Gaskell was able to complete and Greenwood was able to conjecture), I have a few questions. It's clear that Molly and Cynthia are matched with suitable men for each. But I'm curious about Preston and about Lady Harriet. At first I thought Lady Harriet is the perfect candidate for the revamped, recuperated spinster since she's clearly not of the same cliched mold as the Browning sisters (although Gaskell does try to give them some more complex traits than mere stereotype usually permits). But then, this character is entitled by class position: the "Lady" protects her from the ignominious "Miss" after all. Wealthy women can, Gaskell suggests, act with intelligence, independence, and pleasure.
I'm also curious about Preston. Is he simply a prop, a figure to complicate Molly's reputation via town gossip and to give more substance to Cynthia's dubious judgment? Or is he only the dangerous suitor in a moral tale about girls who attempt to make their own romantic arrangements without benefit of a reliable social vetting network (such as Cynthia has with Henderson)? I think there's more to this character; at one point, as estate agent, Preston seems to represent a different approach to land use reform. But if he drops out completely, then I'm not so sure. Maybe Gaskell just didn't pursue this character beyond the prop status.
Are there other characters for whom you're wanting closure? I suspect Hamley Hall will mean a reconstituted family: the grandfather, French daughter-in-law, grandson, and the prodigal son (once he returns from his six month expedition) and his new bride (our old and favorite Molly). Molly, as Roger's intended wife, will appease the squire sufficiently (he's dropped so many hints about how much he'd love Molly for his daughter in law) so that he'll presumably accept Aimee too.
There is still the problem of money in the Molly-Roger match on the horizon, since he isn't heir to Hamley Hall and Molly doesn't appear to have any assets to bring to the marriage. But perhaps a collective household of Hamleys will ease this problem, at least for the moment. So although there's little left, although we know Gaskell died before writing the full end of this novel, I think we'll be close.
Next time, just a short installment (for Jan. 1866), one chapter and Greenwood's postscript.
And here's the link to Project Gutenberg's pdf of Wilkie Collins's novella, "Miss or Mrs?"
You can download it to your screen (and print it out) or to a device like a Kindle or iPhone or (eventually) the iPad!
Serially submitted,
Susan
24 January 2010
Wives and Daughters: #16 (chaps 51-54): Nov. 1865
Dear Serial Readers,
Gaskell and death: this installment features Osborne's (anticipated) death and its rippling effects, including the squire's intense sorrow along with his retreat from the pit of grief through the charm of an unexpected (to him) grandchild. Here is du Maurier's illustration (see above) with the caption "Maman, maman!" when baby Roger Stephen Osborne Hamley cries out as his mother swoons with the apprehension that Osborne has died. And of course there's Molly, always quick to offer solace.
I liked Gaskell's recognition of the limits of and harm to Molly as caregiver extraordinaire. After all, her father routinely turns to her to convey unpleasant news to others, and here she's back at Hamley Hall tending to a bereft father and daughter-in-law. Molly's mental and physical exhaustion isn't surprising, and it's through the wonderful Lady Harriet's letter that Cynthia promptly returns from London to her step-sister's side. As Josh mentioned, Cynthia's affection for Molly and recognition of her worth has the added benefit of elevating Cynthia in our eyes. In addition, her assertion, "Molly, Roger will marry you!" attests to her perceptive abilities and the romantic logic that's been clear to us for a while now. Also, Cynthia's evident concern for Molly helps to balance her violent rejection (as Julia mentioned) at the end of the last installment. What will become of Cynthia? Do you suppose she'll end up married to Henderson of London rather than Preston, or not married at all? That last option, the "old maid" she finds herself most suited for, somehow seems unlikely to me because marriage is what ultimately redeems and rewards young female characters of novels of this era. And Cynthia, while erring, does have redeeming qualities too.
I think the squire is a wonderful character too, his gruffness in human relations clearly not due to hardness, but to clumsiness around emotions. By the way, if any of you happened to watch the Masterpiece Theatre "Emma," the actor Michael Gambon, who plays Emma's father, also has the role of Squire Hamley in the BBC adaptation (he also plays Dumbledore for you Harry Potter fans). Mr. Gibson is a similar portrait of this masculine emotional awkwardness (Eliot's "emotional elephant" for her doctor character, Lydgate). Do any of the younger men suggest an improvement in this department? Roger's early sensitivity to Molly's distress over her father's remarriage might be one such indication. Others?
I've mentioned in an earlier comment how Gaskell often treated death in more detail and complexity than I find in many other Victorian novels. This November 1865 installment is especially poignant on the subject since Gaskell died suddenly on November 12th while at tea with family members in a new home she had purchased with her income as a writer. At that point, she had already written the December installment, and had a chapter finished of the final installment, to appear in January 1866. I hope you all have an edition of the novel that includes Frederick Greenwood's (editor of the The Cornhill) postscript. I'll be interested to hear whether you also find the novel's conclusion rather evident, despite its unfinished state. We'll have a very very short installment in two weeks.
Next time, chaps 55-59, for December 1865. Then the last chapter Gaskell wrote, along with Greenwood's postscript for the week after (Feb. 7th). If you don't have the postscript handy, just email me and I'll send it to you. Then we'll take a couple of weeks to read Wilkie Collins's "Miss or Mrs?" novella. You can download this from Project Gutenberg. If you happen to have a Kindle or Sony Reader you can download/upload for free onto such a device! Or else you can just print it out (or read on your screen). I'm looking forward to reading the story on my Kindle, so that I can blend our latest reading technology with the Victorian corollary--paper periodical literature that allowed for cheaper, easier, more rapid circulation.
Until next time,
Serial Susan
Gaskell and death: this installment features Osborne's (anticipated) death and its rippling effects, including the squire's intense sorrow along with his retreat from the pit of grief through the charm of an unexpected (to him) grandchild. Here is du Maurier's illustration (see above) with the caption "Maman, maman!" when baby Roger Stephen Osborne Hamley cries out as his mother swoons with the apprehension that Osborne has died. And of course there's Molly, always quick to offer solace.
I liked Gaskell's recognition of the limits of and harm to Molly as caregiver extraordinaire. After all, her father routinely turns to her to convey unpleasant news to others, and here she's back at Hamley Hall tending to a bereft father and daughter-in-law. Molly's mental and physical exhaustion isn't surprising, and it's through the wonderful Lady Harriet's letter that Cynthia promptly returns from London to her step-sister's side. As Josh mentioned, Cynthia's affection for Molly and recognition of her worth has the added benefit of elevating Cynthia in our eyes. In addition, her assertion, "Molly, Roger will marry you!" attests to her perceptive abilities and the romantic logic that's been clear to us for a while now. Also, Cynthia's evident concern for Molly helps to balance her violent rejection (as Julia mentioned) at the end of the last installment. What will become of Cynthia? Do you suppose she'll end up married to Henderson of London rather than Preston, or not married at all? That last option, the "old maid" she finds herself most suited for, somehow seems unlikely to me because marriage is what ultimately redeems and rewards young female characters of novels of this era. And Cynthia, while erring, does have redeeming qualities too.
I think the squire is a wonderful character too, his gruffness in human relations clearly not due to hardness, but to clumsiness around emotions. By the way, if any of you happened to watch the Masterpiece Theatre "Emma," the actor Michael Gambon, who plays Emma's father, also has the role of Squire Hamley in the BBC adaptation (he also plays Dumbledore for you Harry Potter fans). Mr. Gibson is a similar portrait of this masculine emotional awkwardness (Eliot's "emotional elephant" for her doctor character, Lydgate). Do any of the younger men suggest an improvement in this department? Roger's early sensitivity to Molly's distress over her father's remarriage might be one such indication. Others?
I've mentioned in an earlier comment how Gaskell often treated death in more detail and complexity than I find in many other Victorian novels. This November 1865 installment is especially poignant on the subject since Gaskell died suddenly on November 12th while at tea with family members in a new home she had purchased with her income as a writer. At that point, she had already written the December installment, and had a chapter finished of the final installment, to appear in January 1866. I hope you all have an edition of the novel that includes Frederick Greenwood's (editor of the The Cornhill) postscript. I'll be interested to hear whether you also find the novel's conclusion rather evident, despite its unfinished state. We'll have a very very short installment in two weeks.
Next time, chaps 55-59, for December 1865. Then the last chapter Gaskell wrote, along with Greenwood's postscript for the week after (Feb. 7th). If you don't have the postscript handy, just email me and I'll send it to you. Then we'll take a couple of weeks to read Wilkie Collins's "Miss or Mrs?" novella. You can download this from Project Gutenberg. If you happen to have a Kindle or Sony Reader you can download/upload for free onto such a device! Or else you can just print it out (or read on your screen). I'm looking forward to reading the story on my Kindle, so that I can blend our latest reading technology with the Victorian corollary--paper periodical literature that allowed for cheaper, easier, more rapid circulation.
Until next time,
Serial Susan
12 January 2010
Wives and Daughters: #15 (chaps 46-50): Oct. 1865
Dear Serial Readers,
Kari wrote last week that she was disappointed there's no sex, quite a surprise for a novel laced with sensational plot elements (secret marriages, multiple engagements, blackmail). I was amused because to me, perhaps over-seasoned in the codes of Victorian language, there's sex aplenty! True, no graphic accounts of bodies naked and entwined and in spasms. But I suspect that Gaskell's contemporary readers would've understood the depths of Cynthia's transgressions by those repeated solitary encounters in the woods (which Du Maurier's illustration spotlights), the exchange of the promise of her body in marriage for money (and the sideways allusion to prostitution, the commerce of sex that was a big big topic in Victorian culture), her rather careless enjoyment of many men (Roger, Mr. Coxe, Preston, and now the marriage offer from Mr. Henderson) drawn to her (sensation heroines as bigamists or as having clandestine affairs), and then her education in France--a culture symbolizing to British Victorians a hotbed of sexual license for women!
This episode especially focuses on Cynthia's propensity to attract men in the form of FOUR proposals, as well as her "Jilting Jessy" behavior. One comment I found especially intriguing is when Cynthia replies to her mother's warning that she'll end up old maid, she says, "I sometimes think I am the kind of person of which old maids are made!" Typically the Victorian "old maid" or spinster stereotype is sexlessness, but I think Cynthia is suggesting otherwise--her inability to love someone despite her evident sexual attraction. In any case, Gaskell casts a different light on spinsterhood cliches, especially through the character of Lady Harriet, Molly's great champion in the slander scandal of this installment. I suspect that Cynthia can only redeem herself by marrying Preston in the end, that her behaviors suggest that she has has as good as shared a bed with him! But alas, as Kari notes, no obvious sex here. But you have to imagine something beyond those layers of clothing, or the gaps between the surreptitious trysts in the lonely lane! That Molly's reputation is tainted for those two brief encounters with Preston adds more fuel to the signifying fire of Cynthia's clandestine meetings with and engagement to Preston.
The illustration for this installment is, alas, sideways in the margin here--it shows Lady Harriet asking Preston a few questions as she determines that Molly has taken the heat for Cynthia's indiscretions. Lady Harriet is a gem--and delightfully portrayed in the BBC adaptation. The small drawing inserted into the text of the installment's first chapter shows the moment when Mr. Gibson grabs Molly's arms and hurts her as he demands to know why those rumors have been circulating about her. I thought the moment was disturbing--the suggestion of Mr. Gibson's physical violence--and it's highlighted in the magazine image. I vaguely recall a moment in Gaskell's first novel Mary Barton that suggests a father's physical abuse of his daughter.
In this issue of the magazine, there's also an article in this Oct. 1865 issue titled "Maori Sketches" by "Miss Morris." I had just read some fascinating scholarship on Charlotte Yonge's The Daisy Chain (1856) and learned that some of that novel is set in New Zealand. Perhaps "Maori Sketches" might have formed a provocative travel piece alongside Mrs. Gibson's brief mention of Roger in "unhealthy" and "savage" and "cannibal" Africa.
Maybe because "Serial Readers" is a kind of digital book club, I was especially interested in the brief mention of the Hollingford Book Society at the start of the installment. This local book society is an attempt to circumvent the higher subscription fees and selection of books (a form of censorship, some writers complained) of the large scale circulating libraries like Mudie's in London (with subscribers all over England). Grinstead, the Hollingford bookseller, acts as the local agent and manager for the society. It's also interesting that Gaskell makes clear that some members of this society do not actually read books, but are members for the social prestige, "a test of gentility" rather than desire for education or love of literature. Once again, Gaskell shows that books have multiple uses. As the town's "centre of news and gossip" the book society members are implicated in the spreading of the scandal about Molly and Preston, gossip that makes clear the harm of hasty or careless reading of events.
Please take a moment to vote again for our next selection, and then I'll announce that decision next week! Only two more episodes left of this delicious novel! Next week: chapters 51-54. What will happen? Will Osborne rally or die? Will his secret wife and child be disclosed as Cynthia's secret has come out? I suspect we'll be getting more of the Hamleys soon. And will Molly's steadfastness be rewarded when Roger returns (if he does)? Will Cynthia marry Preston or Henderson, or neither one?
Serially yours,
Susan
Kari wrote last week that she was disappointed there's no sex, quite a surprise for a novel laced with sensational plot elements (secret marriages, multiple engagements, blackmail). I was amused because to me, perhaps over-seasoned in the codes of Victorian language, there's sex aplenty! True, no graphic accounts of bodies naked and entwined and in spasms. But I suspect that Gaskell's contemporary readers would've understood the depths of Cynthia's transgressions by those repeated solitary encounters in the woods (which Du Maurier's illustration spotlights), the exchange of the promise of her body in marriage for money (and the sideways allusion to prostitution, the commerce of sex that was a big big topic in Victorian culture), her rather careless enjoyment of many men (Roger, Mr. Coxe, Preston, and now the marriage offer from Mr. Henderson) drawn to her (sensation heroines as bigamists or as having clandestine affairs), and then her education in France--a culture symbolizing to British Victorians a hotbed of sexual license for women!
This episode especially focuses on Cynthia's propensity to attract men in the form of FOUR proposals, as well as her "Jilting Jessy" behavior. One comment I found especially intriguing is when Cynthia replies to her mother's warning that she'll end up old maid, she says, "I sometimes think I am the kind of person of which old maids are made!" Typically the Victorian "old maid" or spinster stereotype is sexlessness, but I think Cynthia is suggesting otherwise--her inability to love someone despite her evident sexual attraction. In any case, Gaskell casts a different light on spinsterhood cliches, especially through the character of Lady Harriet, Molly's great champion in the slander scandal of this installment. I suspect that Cynthia can only redeem herself by marrying Preston in the end, that her behaviors suggest that she has has as good as shared a bed with him! But alas, as Kari notes, no obvious sex here. But you have to imagine something beyond those layers of clothing, or the gaps between the surreptitious trysts in the lonely lane! That Molly's reputation is tainted for those two brief encounters with Preston adds more fuel to the signifying fire of Cynthia's clandestine meetings with and engagement to Preston.
The illustration for this installment is, alas, sideways in the margin here--it shows Lady Harriet asking Preston a few questions as she determines that Molly has taken the heat for Cynthia's indiscretions. Lady Harriet is a gem--and delightfully portrayed in the BBC adaptation. The small drawing inserted into the text of the installment's first chapter shows the moment when Mr. Gibson grabs Molly's arms and hurts her as he demands to know why those rumors have been circulating about her. I thought the moment was disturbing--the suggestion of Mr. Gibson's physical violence--and it's highlighted in the magazine image. I vaguely recall a moment in Gaskell's first novel Mary Barton that suggests a father's physical abuse of his daughter.
In this issue of the magazine, there's also an article in this Oct. 1865 issue titled "Maori Sketches" by "Miss Morris." I had just read some fascinating scholarship on Charlotte Yonge's The Daisy Chain (1856) and learned that some of that novel is set in New Zealand. Perhaps "Maori Sketches" might have formed a provocative travel piece alongside Mrs. Gibson's brief mention of Roger in "unhealthy" and "savage" and "cannibal" Africa.
Maybe because "Serial Readers" is a kind of digital book club, I was especially interested in the brief mention of the Hollingford Book Society at the start of the installment. This local book society is an attempt to circumvent the higher subscription fees and selection of books (a form of censorship, some writers complained) of the large scale circulating libraries like Mudie's in London (with subscribers all over England). Grinstead, the Hollingford bookseller, acts as the local agent and manager for the society. It's also interesting that Gaskell makes clear that some members of this society do not actually read books, but are members for the social prestige, "a test of gentility" rather than desire for education or love of literature. Once again, Gaskell shows that books have multiple uses. As the town's "centre of news and gossip" the book society members are implicated in the spreading of the scandal about Molly and Preston, gossip that makes clear the harm of hasty or careless reading of events.
Please take a moment to vote again for our next selection, and then I'll announce that decision next week! Only two more episodes left of this delicious novel! Next week: chapters 51-54. What will happen? Will Osborne rally or die? Will his secret wife and child be disclosed as Cynthia's secret has come out? I suspect we'll be getting more of the Hamleys soon. And will Molly's steadfastness be rewarded when Roger returns (if he does)? Will Cynthia marry Preston or Henderson, or neither one?
Serially yours,
Susan
10 January 2010
Wives and Daughters: #14 (chaps 41-45): Sept. 1865
Dear Serial Readers,
I made this installment's full-page illustration (by George Du Maurier) especially visible, as you can see, because it captures the moment when Molly comes upon Cynthia and Preston in the "lonely path" in the wood! The pair does appear rather uneasy with Molly's appearance, while we don't quite see her face--note that she's dressed in a light-colored dress, those unruly tresses (according to Mrs. G) lying on her cape. Your thoughts about this illustration? It appeared just before the start of this September 1865 installment.
This episode (the five chapters together) does align the two sensation plots, as Julia mentioned last time, Cynthia's secret engagement (a wink at the infamous "bigamy plots" of Mary E. Braddon's sensation heroines like Lady Audley and Aurora Floyd) and Osborne's secret marriage, which he briefly tells Molly about at the end of the installment. When I found this illustration in the magazine, I also came across the installment of the Wilkie Collins sensation novel that was simultaneously running at the time--Armadale.
But what do you make of Cynthia's story of her engagement to Preston? Schoolgirl folly? We also have Preston's brief account to Molly. I like the ambiguity, the range of possible explanations or excuses--Cynthia again pleads she really had no motherly guidance as a young girl should, yet of course neither does Molly, and it's impossible to imagine Molly in such straits. Even Cynthia notes that Molly's "grain is different" (when Molly tries to say she would've behaved in the same way)--so that it's not all nurture or training or maternal influence that entirely explains their difference.
I once wrote a book on confession scenes in Victorian novels (but not this one), so I was especially interested in the chapter, "Cynthia's Confession." Imagine how her tale of this secret engagement (in exchange for £25 for clothes!) would've been received by Mr. Gibson or by one of the Hamley men (although perhaps Osborne would've been more sympathetic--)!
But what struck me most in this installment were letters--how Cynthia is so letter-ladden (or has so many letters attached to her) with the ones she received from Roger, but Molly longs to read, and her own letters to Preston which he threatens to use as blackmail. Molly is relatively "letterless"--a word Gaskell actually uses to describe her one day after the post arrives. I just came across an interesting article on a new scholarly book by Catherine Golden titled Posting It: The Victorian Revolution in Letter Writing. Golden points out that before the introduction of the penny post in 1840, recipients rather than senders had to pay for the postage (which was more expensive). There are multiple references to letters throughout the novel (perhaps not so unusual for its day), but in this particular set of chapters the possession of letters matters to the blackmail plot and Preston's power over Cynthia. Yet with Roger's letters from Africa, it's Cynthia who has control, and Gaskell makes this very evident by showing how much Molly craves to know the contents of the letters while Cynthia seems hardly interested! It occurs to me that letters are serial texts too, written and read over time in installments, so in a way correspond to the very form that this novel takes.
On the poll for our next reading (only THREE more portions left of this novel!)--so far, the three (unlinked) Collins stories are the favorite pick. We could read Armadale instead, although I did like the idea of stories for a change. Please vote early and vote often! I'll announce the next selection in TWO weeks. And then I'd like to take one week to write about book clubs--to hear what your experience of books clubs have been, or what you hear about them from friends and family--maybe even some testimonials? This blog is an e-book club. And I should mention here that "Serial Readers" had a nice shout out from my friend Ellen, on her blog Elenabella. I'm hoping we'll have more voters and readers as a result--thanks, Ellen!
Next week: chaps. 46-50.
Yours in serial secrets,
Susan
I made this installment's full-page illustration (by George Du Maurier) especially visible, as you can see, because it captures the moment when Molly comes upon Cynthia and Preston in the "lonely path" in the wood! The pair does appear rather uneasy with Molly's appearance, while we don't quite see her face--note that she's dressed in a light-colored dress, those unruly tresses (according to Mrs. G) lying on her cape. Your thoughts about this illustration? It appeared just before the start of this September 1865 installment.
This episode (the five chapters together) does align the two sensation plots, as Julia mentioned last time, Cynthia's secret engagement (a wink at the infamous "bigamy plots" of Mary E. Braddon's sensation heroines like Lady Audley and Aurora Floyd) and Osborne's secret marriage, which he briefly tells Molly about at the end of the installment. When I found this illustration in the magazine, I also came across the installment of the Wilkie Collins sensation novel that was simultaneously running at the time--Armadale.
But what do you make of Cynthia's story of her engagement to Preston? Schoolgirl folly? We also have Preston's brief account to Molly. I like the ambiguity, the range of possible explanations or excuses--Cynthia again pleads she really had no motherly guidance as a young girl should, yet of course neither does Molly, and it's impossible to imagine Molly in such straits. Even Cynthia notes that Molly's "grain is different" (when Molly tries to say she would've behaved in the same way)--so that it's not all nurture or training or maternal influence that entirely explains their difference.
I once wrote a book on confession scenes in Victorian novels (but not this one), so I was especially interested in the chapter, "Cynthia's Confession." Imagine how her tale of this secret engagement (in exchange for £25 for clothes!) would've been received by Mr. Gibson or by one of the Hamley men (although perhaps Osborne would've been more sympathetic--)!
But what struck me most in this installment were letters--how Cynthia is so letter-ladden (or has so many letters attached to her) with the ones she received from Roger, but Molly longs to read, and her own letters to Preston which he threatens to use as blackmail. Molly is relatively "letterless"--a word Gaskell actually uses to describe her one day after the post arrives. I just came across an interesting article on a new scholarly book by Catherine Golden titled Posting It: The Victorian Revolution in Letter Writing. Golden points out that before the introduction of the penny post in 1840, recipients rather than senders had to pay for the postage (which was more expensive). There are multiple references to letters throughout the novel (perhaps not so unusual for its day), but in this particular set of chapters the possession of letters matters to the blackmail plot and Preston's power over Cynthia. Yet with Roger's letters from Africa, it's Cynthia who has control, and Gaskell makes this very evident by showing how much Molly craves to know the contents of the letters while Cynthia seems hardly interested! It occurs to me that letters are serial texts too, written and read over time in installments, so in a way correspond to the very form that this novel takes.
On the poll for our next reading (only THREE more portions left of this novel!)--so far, the three (unlinked) Collins stories are the favorite pick. We could read Armadale instead, although I did like the idea of stories for a change. Please vote early and vote often! I'll announce the next selection in TWO weeks. And then I'd like to take one week to write about book clubs--to hear what your experience of books clubs have been, or what you hear about them from friends and family--maybe even some testimonials? This blog is an e-book club. And I should mention here that "Serial Readers" had a nice shout out from my friend Ellen, on her blog Elenabella. I'm hoping we'll have more voters and readers as a result--thanks, Ellen!
Next week: chaps. 46-50.
Yours in serial secrets,
Susan
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