Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

To Pemberley, therefore, they were to go.

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice has so many great lines but as I re-read it, I couldn’t help but enjoy the visit Elizabeth Bennett makes to Pemberley. Her nervousness that the wealthy owner Mr. Darcy, to whom she had refused a marriage proposal, might be there makes her endearing; however, her “this could all be mine” moment makes her even more endearing.

I find it very humorous that after Elizabeth’s awe-inspiring view of the estate she does meet Mr. Darcy unexpectedly – but now he is so much more kind and gentlemanly. I do realize that Austen develops Miss Bennett and Mr. Darcy beautifully and as readers, we know that they are on an introspective journey of personal growth as they learn about each other and get past first impressions. But the fact that the turning point comes for Elizabeth as she takes in all of the wealth around her at Pemberley puts so much depth (and I’ll say it again, humor) into the characters, it makes the story nothing short of delightful.

I’ve often half-joked with my family that, fictionally, I prefer romances in which the couple doesn’t end up together. If one or both die, even better. And I can make a case that some of the great love stories of all time follow this pattern. But I make a gigantic exception with Pride and Prejudice. In the case of this novel, wondering if they get together is half of the fun. The other half is when they actually do.

I’ve now read three Jane Austen novels: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion. So far, Pride and Prejudice is by far my favorite. Following James over at James Reads Books with his Jane Austen Read-All-Along, in September, I can look forward to Mansfield Park, a novel for which I’ve heard mixed reviews. But I’m looking forward to it anyway.

Elizabeth Hardwick: Shot: A New York Story (Deal Me In 2017 – Week 35)

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It was near the end of a nice autumn day when his doorbell rang. Lovely September air, and gather it while ye may, for tomorrow in New York a smoky heat could move across the two rivers and hang heavy as leather on your eyebrows.

In Elizabeth Hardwick’s short story “Shot: A New York Story”, Carlos goes door to door trying to get money to bury Zona, his aunt who worked as a maid. He’s requesting financial help from Zona’s employers. The majority of the the story is from the perspective of three of the employers. While Carlos gets the money he needs, its not without some serious asking. The employers all loved Zona but they don’t part easily with their money.

The three employers all have their own stories and their own tone. While no Biblical references are included in the story, the fact that Hardwick chooses to relay Zona’s story through them reminds me of the story of The Good Samaritan. The three employers are not quite as calloused as the three people who encounter the man who was robbed in the parable but they still find it difficult to muster up the courage to help Zona.

In some ways, this story also reminds me of Susan Sontag’s story “The Way We Live Now” – with significantly fewer characters, though. The interrelationships between the charaters weave a story of not just New York but the world itself.

This story is included in my copy of Wonderful Town: New York Stories from the New Yorker edited by David Remnick. I read it when I selected the Five of Hearts for Week 35 of my Deal Me In short story project. My Deal Me In list can be found here. Deal Me In is hosted by Jay at Bibliophilopolis.

Saul Bellow: A Father-To-Be (Deal Me In 2017 – Week 34)

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Thoughts very often grow fertile in the subway, because of the motion, the great company, the subtlety of the rider’s state as he rattles under streets and rivers, under the foundations of great buildings, and Rogin’s mind had already been strangely stimulated.

A couple years ago I read my first short story by Saul Bellow “A Silver Dish”   and its remained a favorite ever since. So for Week 34 of my Deal Me In 2017 short story project, I selected the Four of Hearts which corresponds to another Saul Bellow story “A Father-to Be”. And it lives up to the reputation of that first story.

Rogin is coming home from work deep in thought about his fiance, Joan, her family and friends, his work and life in general. This story is true stream of consiousness. As he makes his way on to the subway, his thoughts turn toward the other passengers until he sets his sight on a man he decides could be his son in forty years. His thoughts may not be funny in and of themselves but the reader can’t help but laugh at the in-depth, detailed ideas that Rogin has about this man while the man himself has absolutely no clue what Rogin is thinking. All of the thinking on Rogin’s part contrasted with what is actual silence between the two passengers makes for an amusing scene.

This story gives a new meaning to the term “people watching” and it also makes one wonder what others might be thinking as they watch you. There have probably been stranger thoughts than Rogin’s.

This story is included in my copy of Wonderful Town: New York Stories from The New Yorker edited by David Remnick. My Deal Me In list can be found here. Deal Me In is hosted by Jay at Bibliophilopolis.

Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

It took me longer than I anticipated to finish F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel Tender is the Night, but I finally did and maybe now I can get the Jackson Browne song of the same name out of my head.

Tender is the Night is Fitzgerald’s fourth and final completed novel and according to Maureen Corrigan in her book So We Read On, it has a passionate but small following of fans that consider it to be his best even though it typically gets overshadowed by The Great Gatsby. 

The novel’s central couple consist of psychiatrist Dick Diver and his wife, Nicole, who suffers from mental illness. Knowing the types of couples Fitzgerald tends to include in his novels, in addition to the fact that Nicole had once been Dick’s patient, it’s not surprising that this relationship is troubled.

It’s been said that this novel is considered “feminist” so, while reading, I was looking out for what might make one think that. There is gut-wrenching abuse suffered by Nicole as a child and then, her husband, fully aware of this abuse, occasionally wanders off to follow much younger girls. Does this make the novel feminist? I don’t know but it makes it depressing – until the end. And while the end may not be happy in the traditional sense, it was a breath of fresh air for Nicole. Maybe this is the feminist aspect of the novel? In fact, here is what I would consider one of the more hopeful endings from one of these post-World War I, American authors that suffers from disillusionment. I found myself very happy for Nicole.

And of course, we have Fitzgerald’s beautiful and ornate writing which doesn’t get much better than in this novel. I could choose from any number of paragraphs but here are two that give one a feel for the Divers:

She smiled at him, making sure that the smile gathered up everything inside her and directed it toward him, making him a profound promise of herself for so little, for the beat of a response, the assurance of a complimentary vibration in him. Minute by minute the sweetness drained down into her out of the willow trees, out of the dark world.

Many times he had tried unsuccessfully to let go his hold on her. They had many fine times together, fine talks between the loves of the white nights, but always when he turned away from her into himself he left her holding Nothing in her hands and staring at it, calling it many names, but knowing it was only the hope that he would come back soon.

Which is better? Tender is the Night or The Great Gatsby? From a literary perspective, I am sure that many could make a claim for either one. From my personal taste, I’ll go with Gatsby. While Tender may have the complex characters and an actual happy ending for one of them, I think the simplicity of Gatsby’s story makes it more universal.

 

 

 

 

 

Silas House: Total Immersion (Deal Me In 2017 – Week 33)

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Still she wants this. She wants a change, and in a town like Black Banks, this is the most you can change. There are only two kinds of people here: sinners and Christians. She wants to try a new crowd.

Referred to as “The Whore of Black Banks” by town’s people (and her daughter), Liz goes to church and gets saved in Silas House’s short story “Total Immersion”. Much of the story involves Liz telling her work friends who hang out at The Spot, the local honky-tonk, and Bruce, the married man with whom she is having an affair. The reactions range from disbelief to ridicule.

The story is best when Liz is sincerely contemplating her spiritual life – when she is actually honest with herself about her doubts about this whole church thing. House never makes fun of Liz’s ideas or decisions even while he presents them as something out of the ordinary, something unexpected.

The story ends with Liz’s baptism – hopeful but realistic. Well, I suppose this could be a spoiler alert, but it ends with part of a baptism. The pastor takes her under the water but the story ends before he brings her back up. Now, I believe there is every evidence that the pastor eventually (that may not be the right word) brings her back up. House just curiously chooses to end the story before he does:

She feels like she could lie there in that water from now on. She can hear the river moving beside her ears, like time, like death, like every bad thing she has done her whole life. She can taste the water (mossy, sandy- like the underside of a rock way up in the shadiest part of the mountains) that seeps in between the pastor’s big fingers.

She is under so long that she has time to open her eyes. And all she can see is light, slanting down onto the river’s surface.

Silas House is a well-known Kentucky author and often makes appearances at my local library. I’ve never had the chance to hear him speak and this is the first of his work that I’ve read. Based on this story, I would be interested in reading more of his work. This story is included in my copy of Degrees of Elevation: Short Stories of Contemporary Appalachia edited by Charles Dodd White and Page Seay. I read it when I selected the Ten of Clubs for Week 33 of my Deal Me In 2017 short story project. My Deal Me In list can be found here. Deal Me In is hosted by Jay at Bibliophilopolis.

 

Steven Millhauser: Eisenheim The Illusionist (Deal Me In 2017 – Week 32)

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Now, it is well known among magicians and mediums that a canvas of unbleached muslin may be painted with chemical solutions that appear invisible when dry; if sulphate of iron is used for blue, nitrate of bismuth for yellow, and copper sulphate for brown, the picture will appear if sprayed with a weak solution of prussiate of potash.

Only Steven Millhauser’s detailed wordsmithing could make the technical behind-the-scenes aspect of a magic trick seem, well, magical. Blending the natural and the supernatural is not uncommon in fiction but Millhauser does it exceptionally well in “Eisenheim the Illusionist” and he tops it all off by making it character driven:

Eisenheim’s nature was like that: he proceeded slowly and cautiously, step by step, and then as if he had earned the right to be daring, he would take a sudden leap.

As Eisenheim’s career and fame grow, the reader can’t help but ask the question from where are his increasingly dramatic illusions originating. Millhauser plants those seeds in the reader’s mind when he explains some of the tricks at the beginning of the illusionist’s career. There is always that thought that something natural is explaining what looks supernatural – even when the reader stops getting the explanations, even when the possibility of “higher powers” is introduced. At the same time, though, whether Eisenheim is simply an expert trickster or something more, Millhauser never brushes away the mystery:

All agreed that is was a sign of the times; and as precise memories faded, and the everyday world of coffee cups, doctors’ visits, and war rumors returned, a secret relief penetrated the souls of the faithful, who knew that the Master had passed safely out of the crumbling order of history into the indestructible realm of mystery and dream.

“Eisenheim the Illusionist” is included in Steven Millhauser’s collection The Barnum Museum. I read it when I selected my third Wild Card, the Two of Hearts, for Week 32 of my Deal Me In 2017 short story project. My Deal Me In list can be found here. Deal Me In is hosted by Jay at Bibliophilopolis.