Winter Tales - Isak Dinesen

Isak Dinesen (1885-1962)

Originally published in 1942, this collection of 11 hauntingly surreal stories share an undercurrent of heartache, loneliness and the never ending quest to find ones soul mate.  Her characters are often drifters or a diaspora in and of themselves, constantly searching the earth for a kinsman or the place they can call home. Sometimes they meet these kindred spirits in the shape of a lover or friend or even a falcon that changes form and repays a kind deed.

Her protagonists occupy worlds impenetrable by those around them, hidden dream worlds, inaccessible to the uninitiated "as the world of music is to the tone-deaf." These worlds encompass the natural and the supernatural, they are worlds of reality and the incorporeal, a blend of the mystical and fantasy.

In the case of Rosa, the heroine in the  short story "Peter and Rosa," nobody could tell where her world lay; "neither did the substance of it lend itself to words, the others would never understand her, were she to tell them that it was both infinite and secluded, playful and very grave, safe and dangerous. She could not explain, either how she herself...was very likely the loveliest, mightiest and most dangerous person on earth. Sometimes, she felt, she was expressing the nature of the dream world in her movements and her voice, but she was then speaking a language of which they had no knowledge."

Rosa has grown up alongside her cousin Peter, who although once was a kindred spirit and rugged playfellow, over the last few years as they have both grown older has become preoccupied with his own hopes and dreams and has left Rosa to fend for herself in her own enigmatic dream world and whether or not she resents this, she casts him as the clumsy, dirty, scratched-kneed boy unrecognizable to her playfellow of old.

"She could no longer, she felt be sure of her dreamworld. Peter might find the "Sesame" which opened it, and encroach upon it, and she might meet him there any day."

She fantasizes about him going to sea and there meeting a dreadful but purely accidental death, although this scheme is unlikely, she sighs to herself, one can always hope.

And then one day Peter sneaks up to her room as he used to do as a child, sits at the end of her bed and unburdens his soul with his hopes and dreams. A creator can only be proud of what he has created when it has fulfilled its purpose. A maker of flutes must wait to hear his flute played before he can say "yes, I created that, and it is good." Peter has been waiting to fulfill his destiny, but he has been trapped here, promising to submerge himself in his studies and pursue learning with Rosa's father, he feel like he is suffocating and ultimately that God, his maker, can not be satisfied with his creation. He pauses, the air is pregnant with the expectations of infinite possibility, finally, he says, in order to chase my destiny and fulfill my purpose I must go to sea! I was created to be a sailor and every day that I'm away from the sea a small piece of my soul dies...

Rosa, for the first time, speaks: "I have often wished that you would go to sea..." (Failing to mention the rest of her wish...)And at this unexpected and amazing expression of sympathy, Peter for a moment recognizes in Rosa the friend and ally that for a long time he had failed to value...and all the while she had "been faithful, she had thought of him and had guessed his needs and his hopes." As he climbs back out of her room he is filled with the joy and excitement of the promise of the sea, and simultaneously the surprise of Rosa, that she has begun to fill his soul. "The sea had become a female deity, and Rosa herself as powerful, foamy, salt and universal as the sea."

The next day, word that the ice in the sound has begun to break up reaches them and Peter and Rosa decide to run down to the harbor to have a look, they get to the water and the ice has begun to thin dangerously along the shore, but they manage to scramble on, their feet getting wet as they climb over the sheets of ice. Rosa realizes this is the last day she will have with Peter, and after years being unappreciative of his camaraderie, the thought of losing him now is devastating.  "Since she had only this hour of life left to her, she must, within it, enjoy, experience and suffer to the utmost of her capacity. She bounded onto the ice as swift as a boy..."   As they stand as far out as they have dared to go and look around them, they are lost in the world of hopes, dreams and the immortality of youth, only to realize the ice floe they are standing on has separated and they are drifting out to sea. As the slow realization of their fate dawns on them, the flow cracks and they are flung together into an electrifying embrace, their souls and bodies aching to be touched, they sink beneath the icy sea. 

Out of all the short stories that I've read thus far, this one seemed to be the most autobiographical. After a disastrous marriage to the unfaithful Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke, Karen Blixen is left on their coffee plantation in Africa, as she attempts to put her life back together she develops a friendship with Denys Finch Hatton, an African safari guide. Perhaps they slowly realize they are both dreamers? Perhaps they realize they occupy a world, which few have access to...slowly their friendship becomes a love affair and then one day in a terrible plane crash he dies.

Blixen gives Peter and Rosa the only gift she wishes she could have had, the opportunity to die next to your loved one, the moment of looking into their eyes and realizing the next incomprehensible journey into an unknown world, is ultimately an adventure you make together.

Lazarus Laughed - Eugene O'Neill

Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953)

So, I'm not the biggest fan of plays...there are few play that's I've read and thought "wow...I bet that would have been amazing to see!" This was definitely not one of them. In fact I can hardly think of anything that would be worse to see on stage than this play, this is mostly due to the fact that act laughing is rather difficult to pull off, but O'Neill doesn't stop there he wants his actors to "laugh snivelingly" or "laugh while simpering and feeling afraid for your life" ect. I can't imagine sitting in a crowd of hot bodies, having probably paid an arm and a leg for a ticket, only to be forced to listen to multiple people laughing while sniveling.

(For the record, I though Long Day's Journey Into Night was infinitely better.)

Like many of O'Neill's plays there is an underlying current that cries "We are tragedy" or as Harold Bloom prefers, "We are farce." O'Neill often wrote of the despair of American illusions and our inability to achieve a spiritual reality because to choose hope is more precarious that to choose despair. Written in 1925, Lazarus Laughed follows the resurrection of Lazarus and the subsequent effect this has on the rest of his life and the lives of those around him.  As Lazarus is the first person to return from the realm of the dead, the response from the crowd slowly evolves from disbelief to adoration.

Although Lazarus has been miraculously resurrected, the fact that Jesus, the Nazarene, is calling himself Lord is causing extreme dissension. As the crowd huddles around Lazarus to hear what being dead for three days was like they observe the curious fact that he is laughing. Over and over again he declares there is no death, only God's laughter and the crowd begins to intently listen to his words, hailing him as Dionysus, the savior and conqueror of death.

By the second act, Lazarus is rumored to be a god, a deity of laughter and he is rumored to heal the sick by his laughter. He has also begun to get noticeably younger. Caligula's response to the adoration of the crowd is to say that man is basically the same everywhere, willing to worship any new charlatan. There are also whispers throughout that Lazarus has discovered immortality, and Caligula, hoping to become the next Caesar, disdainfully hopes this is not true, saying:

"You lie! Whatever you are! I say there must be death! You have murdered my only friend, Lazarus! Death would have become my slave when I am Caesar - he would have been my jester and made me laugh at fear!"

Lazarus responds by telling him to be his own jester and that "men call life death and fear it. They hide from it in horror. Their lives are spent in hiding. Their fear becomes their living." Slowly as time passes, the story becomes that Lazarus raised himself from the dead, assisted by his pawn Jesus. As Lazarus continues to grow younger his wife Miriam grows older, aging quickly and becoming more cast down, she is a figure of a sad, resigned mother of the dead.

In Act 3, Lazarus and Miriam are presented to Caesar who is immediately murdered by Caligula. Without taking more than a nanosecond to mourn, the mistress of Caesar, Pompeia, makes a play for Lazarus, who is now shimmering with youth and vitality. Caligula assures Pompeia that Lazarus will remain faithful to his wife, and Pompeia quickly crafts a malicious plan to get rid of Miriam and increase her odds. She picks up on the boredom of the crowd and suggests they demand another miracle of Lazarus, she convinces the new Caesar, Tiberius, to poison Miriam and test Lazarus' ability to bring back another from the dead.

As Miriam takes the poisoned peach, Lazarus raises his hand as if to stop her and the crowd wildly jeers "He is afraid of death!" Miriam eats the peach and slowly, like a wilting flower becomes weaker and more confused until she lies still. As Lazarus bends over to kiss her he quietly weeps, for a moment being shaken in his anti-death stance. And then in one last spontaneous spasm, Miriam laughs and tells Lazarus that he is right, there is no death, only laughter...and then she breathes her final breath.

Act 4 opens with Tiberius post-rationalizing what various life experiences have caused him to become a lecherous old man. Caligula, growing tired of the never ending monologue kills him and finally has claimed Caeserhood for himself, crying "Do not take pain away from us! It is our only truth! Without pain there is nothing!"

Caesar demands than Lazarus be burned at the stake to prove once and for all that there really is death, and while Lazarus is burnt alive he laughs, spitting out "The hope of God is eternal laughter..." At the last second, Pompeia, who is now completely infatuated with Lazarus throws herself into the flames.

Seven Gothic Tales - Isak Dinesen (Part 3)

Isak Dinesen (1885-1962)

"The Road Around Pisa" is the forth short story in the collection and like its name the story weaves around, each character passing the narrative batten to the next, creating a chain of events that is almost incomprehensible. It is ultimately the story of misunderstanding and as the pieces of the puzzle slowly are fit together and the characters are confronted with the extent of their mistake, the reader is finally able to glimpse the entire spectrum of the narrative.

An old impotent prince is about to marry a young beautiful woman, afraid that she will run away with her cousin Mario and demand an annulment, he asks his friend Count Nino to take his place in the marital bed and impregnate his wife. Unbeknownst to the prince, his wife has asked her hand maiden to do the same, leaving her to occupy the marital bed while she runs to find Mario and have one final night to say her goodbyes.

When the prince's young wife fails to become pregnant (obviously not understanding the complication involved with the birds and the bees making little birds and bees) the prince challenges his now ex-friend to a duel. At the last second, the wife's handmaiden, who has been dressed as a young boy and following the chain of events from afar runs up to the prince before they begin to take aim and quickly mentions that is was she in the bed that night and not her mistress, the old prince has a stroke and as he gasps, clutching his heart he says "Always we fail because we are too small...Too small I have been, too small for the ways of God." As he dies in one last impotent gesture his gun misfires, shooting skyward and he takes his last breath.

Next in the collection is "The Supper at Elsinore," the story of three siblings struggling to hold onto their grasp of fate. Morten, the only brother, jilts his bride and runs away to become a pirate and live a life in the shadows of adventure and debauchery, alleged to have five wives in different ports around the world. Slowly the family resigns themselves to quietly paying penance for his behavior, and his two sisters dote over his jilted fiance until she is finally betrothed and married to another man.

Madam Baek, who looked after the girls when they were children, and who now tends to the estate when the family is away for the season, makes her way one evening through the snow to the sister's winter estate. She tells them she has seen the ghost of their brother and that he would like to have one last conversation with them. The sisters at first reeling in shock and horror, finally consent and head back to the family estate for one final confrontation.

The sisters are torn between resenting Morten for his irresponsibility and at the same time envying his liberty and freedom. While Morten has lived a full life in defiance of any and all societal norms, the sisters have stayed home, choosing to remain unmarried, perhaps the only decision they have to direct their destiny, yet ultimately resulting in a lonely and dreary existence.

Next, is "The Dreamers," this story, although told through a series of narrations, was much more engaging then some of the previous more complicatedly woven tales. The story opens on a boat with a few men sitting around the mast exchanging stories of their lives under the moonlight.

"The waves looked solid, as if one might safely have walked upon them, while it was into the vertiginous sky that one might sink and fall, into the turbulent and unfathomable depths of silvery worlds, of bright silver or dull and tarnished silver, forever silver reflected within silver, moving and changing, towering up, slowly and weightless."

Lincoln and Mira sit and contemplate the art of storytelling and the meaning of life."What is life, Mira, when you come to think upon it, but a most excellent, accurately set, infinitely complicated machine for turning fat playful puppies into old mangy blind dogs, and proud war horses into skinny nags, and succulent young boys, to whom the world holds great delights and terrors, into old weak men, with running eyes, who drink ground rhino-horn."

Lincoln tells his story, he once fell in love with a prostitute in Rome. He finally persuades her to come away with him and when he shows up the next day to embark on a new life together she has vanished without a trace. He searches and searches for her to no avail and then one night while at a hotel he meets an insecure non-entity of a friend of his, who has stopped along with a self absorbed companion. As the three sit and exchange stories, slowly his friend begins to tell of a recent tragedy that has befallen him. In a comedy of errors, this a-political friend ends up joining a band of militant revolutionaries and shooting and old priest, all at the behest of a beautiful milliner. He is wounded and the milliner ends up nursing him back to health...and then she too disappears. The cocky self absorbed acquaintance at this point is overcome with boredom, being uninterested in anything but himself and begins his story which he is sure will trump the others. He had been impressed with a young virginal nun, and one day on a dare to travel to three cities, drink three bottles of wine and bed three women attempts to take the innocence of this young nun...

Lincoln has a strange suspicion that these two women that have just been described are none other than his precious Olalla. As he ponders this coincidence, who should hurry by in a long cloak with barely a glimpse of her face visible, but this mysterious women that all three men have had chance encounters with. As the three men realize she is the heroine of each of their personal tales, they jump up and head out into the snowy night to follow their muse.

Ultimately the woman they each chase does exist for each of them as they remember. She has become a chameleon of a person, masking her identity to cope with an intense personal tragedy. She has taken on different roles, become different people, constantly donning her endless masks. By living in a world of dreams, fueled by her imagination she is enabled to escape the pain and heartache of life's troubles. "For really, dreaming is the well-mannered people's way of committing suicide."  Finally when she is able to face the reality of who she is, she dies, her last breath solidifying her reconciliation with self.

"The Poet" is the last of the short stories, and describes one man's attempt to direct fate, believing he has the power over destiny. An old councilor has adopted a young couple, the man a young poet and the woman a young widow. As he playfully toys with them, realizing he has them both in his power he realizes that he will marry the young widow and the young man will remain faithful to his master while he pines away. He gleefully unfolds his demands and pleasure, thinking to himself how like an author he is of the lives of those around him, he the protagonist of this small play.

Ultimately his playthings turn against him and the foils of his matchmaking inadvertently murder him, the young man drunkenly shooting him and the young women afraid for the life of her young lover grabbing a rock and ending what little life the councilor has left. Before he is fatally crushed he cries:

"My poor girl, my dove...listen. Everything is good. All, all! Sacred Fransine," he said, "Sacred puppets."

There is more to say, but no time to say it and as he dies he realizes that this story is better than the one he was creating himself, and that although we have volition, we are not wholly the authors of our fate.

Seven Gothic Tales - Isak Dinesen (Part 2)

Isak Dinesen (1885-1962)

The third story in the Seven Gothic Tales is "The Monkey," and perhaps one of my favorites. The plot is relatively simple and easy to follow, allowing the reader to sit back and enjoy the unpredictability of the events as they unwind.

A young boy, Boris, is on the verge of moral decline and whether this prompts him to pursue a new fate or the fact that he has run out of things to do, he decides to seek out his old Aunt, the Virgin Prioress of Closter Seven in northern Europe and seek her advice. He would like to marry and hope his aunt can provide a good match for him.

The aunt, overjoyed at this prospect, quickly dashes off a letter to an old Count and friend of hers, the father of Athena. And as Boris, gets ready for his visit to the Count and his future bride, he is impressed with the strength and cunning of his Aunt and women in general.

"Women, he thought, when they are old enough to have done with the business of being women, and can loose their strength, must be the most powerful creatures in the whole world..."

Similar to the protagonist of "The Old Chevalier," Boris has a fascination with women, in a sense they exist for his pleasure and to do his bidding. He sets in motion his desire and sits back as his aunt weaves her web. When he asks if there's a chance Athena might not have him, his aunt quickly dismisses the idea. Athena, she says, has no other options, probably has never been within close proximity of eligible men of any kind, and would be a fool to deny such a brilliant match. She goes so far as to say if Athena won't have him then she'll marry him herself!

Athena though, like her namesake, has no desire to consort with a lover or marry, and like the goddess proves to be a formidable challenge, choosing to fight and proclaim war rather than consent to marry Boris. She is a tall, strong, burly woman and Boris is completely shocked when she refuses his proposal, just as he is beginning to warm to the idea and envision their future stocky children.

The aunt proposes to lure Athena into a trap by getting her drunk on champagne in the guise of a quite dinner party and then leaving her to hash out her differences with Boris. Athena, slightly drunk but still able to reason, decides she needs to go to bed, and Boris eventually follows her to her room, where he figures the best course of action would be to profess his undying love, which he has just recently tried on for size and found that he is particularly adept at playing the role of unrequited lover.

"Athena, he said, "I have loved you all my life. You know that without you I shall dry up and shrink, there shall be nothing left of me. Stoop to me, throw me back in the deep. Have mercy on me."

Athena's response to his profession of love is to strike him, knocking out two of his teeth, as they wrestle each other, fighting tooth and nail for the right to impose their will on the other. As they fight, Boris thinks that nothing happier in all the world could have happened to him, and his soul is overjoyed like the the souls of the old Teutons, "to whom the lust of anger was in itself the highest voluptuousness, and who demanded nothing better of their paradise than the capacity for being killed once a day."

His mouth dripping blood, as he dodges punches and kicks, Boris somehow manages to kiss Athena and in a moment emerges the victor of their physical dispute. Athena, having never been kissed before, receives the kiss like the deadliest blow and sinks to the floor like a stone effigy.

The nest morning after taking further advantage of Athena's innocence and naivete, the prioress and Boris extract a promise of marriage from Athena. After she consents to marry Boris, she includes in her oath a further promise to kill Boris the first chance she gets, and then before she can finish speaking a monkey comes shrieking in through the window and dishevels the old aunt.

Although this short story seemed more random and chaotic then the previous two in the collection, I think the moral of what we desire most often has the propensity to kill us, is a relevant one. Boris defines Athena not as a person with her one volition and preferences, but almost as a continuation of his desires, there only to conform to his will. Boris wants to be married and the person to fill the role of spouse is veritably inconsequential. Women, in the world of Isak Dinesen are often misunderstood and unrepresented, but in Athena we are given one woman who is a true warrior of her own independence who manages ultimately to emerge the victor.

Seven Gothic Tales - Isak Dinesen (Part 1)

Isak Dinesen, (1885-1962)

Karen Blixen, a  Dutch baroness, began writing under the pen name Isak Dinesen in the early 1930's. Among the most well known and highly regarded of all her works, Seven Gothic Tales, has become enshrined in the archives of modern literature. Her tales hearken toward the grotesque and unexpected and have at times an almost magical quality about them. Dinesen is primarily concerned with the nature of fate and destiny, emphasizing the story rather than the characters and searching a deeper understanding of personal identity.

The first story in the collection is "The Deluge at Norderney," a tale of a flood that takes place along the Atlantic coast of Holstein in 1835. Four people are trapped in the loft of a barn and as the story opens they look at their compatriots and ask themselves "How will these people do to die with?" The castaways are comprised of a rabidly virginal old maiden of great wealth and of an old illustrious race, Miss Malin and with her a young, perpetually quivering and perhaps somewhat mousy girl of 16, the Countess Calypso van Platen. The third person, Cardinal Hamilcar, bandaged and bruised from his escape from the whirling maelstrom of the sea and lastly Jonathan Maersk, a young Dane suffering from an extreme bout of melancholia.

As they make themselves comfortable in the hay they begin to tell each other their stories. Miss Malin starts, she was once, despite her fanatical virginity, still a favorite in society. She took the biblical passage "whoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath already committed adultery with her in his hearth" quite seriously and made it her moral imperative to avoid being looked at as much as possible. Despite her somewhat extreme views, a young prince falls in love with her, having already attained everything in life there was to attain and that rather cheaply. Because she poses a challenge he becomes charmed and eventually impressed.

"About Miss Malin there was nothing striking but price. That this thin, big nosed, penniless girl, two years older than he, would demand not only his princely name and a full share in his brilliant future, but also his prostrate adoration, his life-long fidelity, and subjection in life and death and could be had for nothing less,-this impressed the young Prince."

Eventually her would be lover is killed within a fortnight of his proposal on the battle field of Jena, leaving Miss Malin now more than ever married to the promise she had made him, prepared to pursue a life of fidelity and honor and slightly mad. Having assumed that a multitude of men had indeed committed adultery with her, she devoted  the rest of her life to paying penance for being an accomplice in their sins.

After Cardinal Hamilcar tells his story, Jonathan tells his. He is basically too popular and despite his loathing of the aristocracy has somehow become their poster-child. Even while standing on a bridge, contemplating suicide, he knows if he carries out his plan it will become all the rage, with young people wandering around in black, sick with melancholia and jumping off bridges just to keep up with the veritable Joneses.

As his story finishes Miss Malin says,"You complain of people looking at you. But what if you were bent down by the opposite misfortune? What if nobody could or would see you, although you were, yourself, firmly convinced of your own existence?"

She then tell the story of Calypso, a young woman whom no one has taken the time to see, who has grown up under the impression that only men were valuable members of society and if the unfortunate fate of being a woman befell one, the best remedy was to shroud all traces of womanhood and try your best to disappear. Calypso's uncle, who has charge of her, does his best to remove all traces of the feminine, hoping to salvage her spirit. "But when he lectured to her upon the infinite loveliness of the circle, she asked him : if it were really so fair, what color was it - was it not blue? Ah, no, he said, it had no color at all. And from that moment he began to fear that she would not become a boy."

The Cardinal and Miss Malin decide the young people should not have to die alone and quickly put together an impromptu wedding and as the dusk fades and the water rises, the young, now married couple shyly fall asleep in the hay, just the tips of their fingers touching, leaving the elders to finish drinking their gin and waiting for the continually rising flood to engulf them.

Each character tells a story, opening themselves up to a vulnerability that allows them to step back and ascertain who they really are. As each of them discover, we are more than our stories would lead us to believe and even our stories can sometimes deceive us.

As the water makes it's way to their feet, swirling about their shoes, the Cardinal removes his bandages and reveals that he is not actually the Cardinal, but the valet and actor Kasparson. He has killed the Cardinal and it was in this instance that "mated his soul with destiny." And the destiny granted him was to play one more role, and perhaps the finest role left to play.

Although momentarily shocked, Miss Malin realizes that none of us are truly who we pretend to be and she accepts the solipsistic Kasparson for who he is. As the water reaches the hem of her skirt he kisses her and the "proud old maid" does not go to the grave unkissed.

The next story in the collection is "The Old Chevalier," and it tells the story of a young man who after just parting from a lady he adores who attempted to poison him, wanders through the rainy streets  and meets a woman, equally as wet and extremely beautiful. He somehow convinces her to go back to his room with him, unable to believe his good luck! Truly this innocent young woman must have stepped down from heaven, sent by the gods for his good pleasure!

"I thought it after all only reasonable, only to be expected that the great friendly power of the universe should manifest itself again, and send me, out of the night, as a help and consolation, this naked and drunk young girl, a miracle of gracefulness."

He blushingly undresses her by the fire and they proceed to have champagne, half clothed sitting by the warmth of the hearth. Eventually after sharing their souls, he realizes all other relationships, all other loves truly pale in comparison to what they have shared, they make their way to the bed, where he takes away her presumed innocence and breaths a satisfied sigh, there is or rather must be a sort of karma. He has deserved this woman! And as he sits mulling over his good fortune, the woman rises and as she gets dressed says "Maria said that- she said that I should get twenty francs."

Again the theme is that life is unexpected and that we can never truly anticipate what fate will bring. After he realizes this woman is a prostitute he tries to rationalize what could have driven such a young innocent woman to such a dire lifestyle. For the first time he recognizes her as a human being, with an "existence of her own, not as a gift for me." The play is over.

Two of my favorite quotes from this short story are: "most women, when they feel free to experiment with life, will go straight to the witches' Sabbath. I myself respect them for it, and do not think that I could ever really love a woman who had not, at some time or other, been up on a broomstick." The implication is that for all truly interesting and original women, they must be willing to think for themselves and be willing to defy the expectation of society.

"I remember that she told me, rather sadly to begin with, a story of a very old monkey which could do tricks, and had belonged to an Armenian organ-grinder. Its master had died, and now it wanted to do its tricks and was always waiting for the catchword, but nobody knew it."

I feel like I can totally empathize with the monkey, I have tricks and talents just waiting to be appreciated, but they go perpetually undiscovered. Perhaps, since I have been given the gift of language I can someday teach someone the catchword.

Joe Turner's Come and Gone - August Wilson

August Wilson (1945-2005)

I'm not the hugest fan of August Wilson's work. I think his plays oversimplify the issue of the African American diaspora and try to distill a comprehensive subject into issues of racism and discrimination. His characters are often one dimensional, reminiscent of the made for TV series "Roots," out of the jungle operating on primitive animalistic impulses and a moral code of survival of the fittest.

While William Dean Howells believes we all have personal responsibility for our actions, not just for our own benefit but for the foundation of society, Wilson's characters haven't quite figured out where they fit into a society that until recently bought and sold them like chattel and continues to keep them in a form of purgatory where the only responsibility they can have is to survive. Although by 1911, when this play takes place slavery is technically illegal, Joe Turner has captured Herald Loomis making him and the other black men and women he's captured work for 7 years on his plantation in order to earn their freedom.

When Loomis finally does earn his freedom 7 years later and returns to his home his wife is missing and only his small daughter remains. Loomis begins a 4 year search for his wife that brings him to a boardinghouse owned by Seth and Bertha Holly. Upon arrival, Loomis strikes the Holly's as being somewhat crazy and a little scary, but after negotiating rent he becomes one of the many boarders and joins a motley cast of characters.

We first meet Jeremy, one of the other boarders, coming back to the boardinghouse after an evening spent in the city jail. When asked how he ended up in the jail he says a couple of officers asked him what he was doing and finding out that it was payday and that he and a compatriot were planning on splitting a pint, decided to preemptively arrest him. There is a collective sigh, and Bertha says "Leave the boy alone Seth. You know they do that. Figure there's too many people out on the street they take some of them off. You know that."

So our first impression is that obviously Jeremy is just another casualty in an irrevocably flawed system. But as the play progresses and he's willing to jump into bed with the first and next attractive broad he sees, his moral aptitude comes into question and we decide that maybe he could have done something to deserve a night in the slammer. He's seems hopeful and passionate at first, but after he's wooing the second unattached woman boarder, while already having lured another woman to share his room...he definitely begins to fall under the reprobate category.

Is society responsible for the degenerative system of morals for the African American? While Howells characters are too nervous to even consider marrying a divorced woman and instead pine secretly away for the rest of their dreary lives, Wilson's characters don't even discuss marriage. Rather they discuss the difference between jumping into bed with a woman vs. "grabbing a hold of a woman."

"Now you take a fellow go out there, grab hold to a woman and think he got something 'cause she sweet and soft to the touch. All right...Touching's part of life...But when you grab hold to a woman, you got something there. You got a hold world there. You got a way of life kicking up under your hand. That woman can take and make you feel like something. I ain't talking about in the way of jumping off into bed together and rolling around with each other. Anybody can do that. When you grab hold to that woman and look at the whole thing and see what you got....why, she can take and make something out of you."

After listening to this provocative lecture, a woman enters looking for a room and Jeremy decides to skip the grabbing hold to part and get straight to the jumping into bed part.

A Modern Instance - William Dean Howells

William Dean Howells (1837-1920)

A Modern Instance was Howells first major novel, published in 1882, and beginning a prolific career that would span over 22 years.

His thesis is an exploration of causality. "The effects follow their causes. In some sort they chose misery for themselves - we make our own hell in this life and the next..."

Unlike The Rise of Silas Lapham, which jumps right into the story pulling the reader into the caverns of Lapham's inner sanctum, A Modern Instance, comparatively has a bit of a rough start. The beginning pages of description had almost a House of Seven Gables feel to it...and I have basically no idea what that book was about because I kept getting lost in rooms filled with clutter, each item needing an endless individual description.

Finally we meet Bartley Hubbard, taking some liberties with Marcia Gaylord, after both have come in from a long ride through the snowy dusk. Bartley, besides being the most loathsome character I have come across in early realist literature, is also a bit of a flirt. And when I say a bit of a flirt, I mean an unabashed, avaricious, entitled pig.

As he makes his departure, he kisses Marcia, an act I'm assuming bordered on a level of promiscuity in the 1880's. Marcia, filled with and evening of flattery and romance heads up to her room encountering her father on the stairs, who has observed the shameful performance below and asks if they are engaged. Marcia, filled with shame runs to her room to wallow in the grief only uncertainty of requited love can bring.

The next evening when Bartley makes his appearance for another "sleigh ride" Marcia quickly proposes, remedying the immediate problem and throwing herself headlong into a far greater abyss. Although seemingly requited (Although I'm sure Bartley just wanted to get into her pants) Marcia carries the weight of their love. "The spectacle of a love affair in which the woman gives more of her heart than the man gives of his is so pitiable that we are apt to attribute a kind of merit to her (umm...nope) as if it were a voluntary self-sacrifice for her to love more than her share."

I'm not sure I entirely agree with Howells on the above point, but it certainly makes for a pitiable heroine and within 2 minutes of Marcia's proposal Bartley is off flirting with Hannah Morrison,and  a new, scarier character trait of Marcia's is revealed. She is a tinder box of self-engulfing jealousy, needing only the slightest provocation to erupt into soul crippling flames. 

So our hero is a rakish lout and our heroine is a proud, jealous, equally entitled adolescent. "She's proud, and when a proud girl makes a fool of herself about a fellow, it's a matter of life and death with her. She can't help herself. She lets go of everything."

This does not bode well.

The first few hundred pages felt like being time warped back into all the things I miss most about high school. (And by miss I mean not miss.) The 4 popular guys (it was a small high school) strutting themselves off like Peafowl, flirting with anyone with two legs and certain preferred anatomy. It was somewhat sickening to watch in high school and it was pretty painful to sit through 200 pages of.

Bartely, knows he's good looking, smart and has the sense of ability and immortality only the young and semi privileged can truly know. Although he was an orphan, because of his good looks aptitude for learning, he was petted and taken care of better than if he had been raised by his parents.

Marcia is also a beauty, but her looks are somewhat diminished my the fact that she's stark raving mad.    She only has eyes for Bartley, and despite his constant abuse and endless flirtations, she manages to take on the responsibility for his actions apologizing quickly for driving him to do whatever base and reprobate thing he comes up with next.

Yet - as a realist, Howells believes we all have personal responsibility for our actions. And although Marcia eventually begins to realize the disfigured relationship her marriage has become, her self realization doesn't bring forth pity but rather a strange type of loathing. She is purposefully naive - buttressing her naivete about her so that she might continue to live in a dream. A dream where she is loved. A dream where Bartely is everything she proselytized him to be. A dream where despite disagreements, commitment is stronger than the emotions of love.

Eventually the hell they build for themselves spills into the lives of those around them. And the reader is left to ponder the ethics and morality of contemporary civilization.