The Lover - Marguerite Duras

Surprisingly, despite the fact that Duras is a prolific writer and has profoundly impacted modern cinema, this is the first time I have come across any of her work. In a way, I think this is the best way to be introduced to her, with a clean slate and impressionable palette.

Described on the cover as "the hypnotic bestseller" I braced myself for the unknown while traveling back from the states on my own, with a toddler in tow. I needed something to become fully absorbed in and drown out the chronic fatigue that was only momentarily held at bay. Despite the daydreamer quality of the writing (each paragraph jumps to another subject and another time) I found this small novel to be the perfect portal into another world.

We are introduced to our unnamed protagonist as she makes her way, alone, on a ferry, crossing the Mekong River. She is fifteen and as way of introduction has briefly discussed the temporal nature of the face. Perhaps there was a time when she was beautiful, perhaps her face has always been the mask she wears that she neither belongs to nor truly represents who she is.

"I often think of the image only I can see now, and of which I've never spoken. It's always there, in the same silence, amazing. Its the only image of myself I like, the only one in which I recognize myself, in which I delight."

Her manic-depressive mother has dragged our heroine and her two older brothers to pre-war Indochina, where the mother teaches at a girls school and the family scrimps along on their meagerly earnings. Here in this world, despite their destitution, the fact that they are French, or rather white, allows them to socially outrank just about everyone. So they live a life of impoverished arrogance filled with disturbing familial chaos. The older brother is a gambler and slowly item by item, mortgage by mortgage takes what little the family has and reduces them even further into the dregs of poverty.

As we meet our heroine on the ferry, she is trying to come to terms with her place, in society, as a young woman, and as a form of diaspora. As she makes her way down the gangplank she notices a limousine parked at the docks and seemingly waiting for her. She brazenly makes eyes at the Chinese man, 12 years her senior and she can tell she unnerves him. Even though he is the son of a business magnate and infamous millionaire, she outranks him by the color of her skin and the shape of her eyes.

Perhaps she is initially curious about how far this will go, maybe she feels claustrophobic in her world of familial instability, maybe she hopes the rabbit trail will lead to a hot meal, whatever the initial reason she quickly begins an affair with the Chinese man. It is within these moments alone that they are both distilled into the simplicity of time and place, two bodies using each other "unto death."

At first their affair is kept hidden, but eventually they realize they are invisible. The boarding school prefers to have a few white faces to keep the prestige established, so our heroine is allowed to come and go as she pleases with hardly even a lecture, in fact her mother defends her freedoms, saying that if they put too much restrictions on her she'll just run away. She is alone, forced to be captain of a small rudderless ship, taken here and there along the flotsam of fate.

Jennifer Wicke, who was an associate professor of comparative literature at New York University, describes the French writing sensibility that Duras exemplifies in an article for the New York Times ("The Life and Loves of Marguerite Duras" Oct.20, 1991):

"Duras's writing is always at an extremity, and that is quite French, " she said. "I see her as carrying on the tradition of l'amour fou, the crazed love. It's a bleak world view, the opposite of a lyrical text. It proposes a tragic end, because desire can't be sustained. It will either turn into obsession and, thus, ultimately destroy its object, or it will see itself be deflated by the very cruel contingencies of history, or death."

It is interesting to compare  The Princess of Cleaves, the seminal "French Novel" to this equally influential work. While the The Princess of Cleaves deals with two very desirable people, both "gifts of nature" in both beauty and intellect, and caught in the purgatory of unfulfilled desire yet chained there by a sense of compulsive duty and virtue, The Lovers inhabits the exact opposite side of the spectrum. Instead of the girl and the Chinese man being desirable, both are representations of "unnatural love", the girl because she is just that, a girl of fifteen, fatherless and defenseless against even her own base nature, and the man because in an xenophobic culture, there can be little worse than having an affair with someone barely deemed human. Yet, in both cases love can not be sustained, either because unfulfilled desire is requisite for love to exist as the Princess of Cleaves would suggest, or because the act of love exists in another realm from the soul and without a sense of self and a knowledge of one's face - there can be no true intimacy of the soul.

Rather than a narrative of two souls that missed each other by mere seconds and now must spend the rest of their lives paying penance for their inability to anticipate the future, our subjects in The Lovers were always destined to miss each other even while holding each other in the moonlight and sharing secret intimacies- rather than being seen, they are distilled into bodies wrestling for place and supremacy in a world on the cusp of war and heartache.

"My brothers never will say a word to him, it's as if he were invisible to them, as if for them he weren't solid enough to be perceived, seen or heard. This is because he adores me, but it's taken for granted I don't love him, that I'm with him for the money, that I can't love him, it's impossible, that he could take any sort of treatment from me and still go on loving me. This is because he's a Chinese, because he's not a white man. "

The family decides to condescend to meet the man and they pick an expensive restaurant to gorge themselves at while he quietly and deferentially picks up the bill.  In these moments with her family, the girl falls into the expected pattern of intentional blindness and requisite silence.

Eventually both the girl and the man must go their separate ways. The man's father has arranged a marriage for his son years in advance and his inheritance is contingent on him accepting his fate. The girl slowly grows up, jaded and disappointed with her inability to truly see herself, as her face ages and continues to take on an unrecognizable form.  Separate from her outer shell her soul hovers about the surface of lost memories and unfulfilled hope. Our heroine is destined to experience a loneliness that eats at the soul and leaves it's impression, like tendrils of sorrow, across the face.

After a little research into Duras, I found myself liking this semi-autobiographic work much less. Written when Duras was 70 and already an iconic French author, all the xenophobia and racism I was surprised by the lack of, actually exists in the real subject and makes the storytelling feel forced and self congratulatory. While for the young girl of the novel this tryst is little more than a physical experiment, behind the facade of impenetrability one wonders if she is capable of returning the love. There is no question of requited love with the real Duras. While there may be power shifts and consuming infatuation, it always ends flatteringly with the girl (i.e. Duras) being the one with the unflinching control.

In the last line of the book, years later, after wars and broken marriages, the Chinese man calls the girl and once more, these many years later, professes his love.

"Then he didn't know what to say. And then he told her. Told her that it was as before, that he still loved her, he could never stop loving her, that he'd love her until death."

The Princess of Cleaves and the Birth of FOMO

Recently, I had attributed the fear of missing out (FOMO) to the millennials’ inability to commit and an incapacitating fear of failure. In Alex Williams' New York Times article "The End of Courtship" (Jan, 11. 2013) Williams attributes part of this failure to commit to a relationship, and the subsequent relaxed dating etiquette, to the fear that while you're wasting your time over cocktails your potential soul mate is waiting for you to find her just around the corner.

Yet, this problem is far from new. Social media only serves to exacerbate a fear that stems from mankind's ability to perceive and desire relationship. The Princess of Cleaves, written in 1678 and attributed to Marie-Madeleine De Lafayette, rather than discussing this fear of missing out creates the petri dish for this fear to germinate. 400 years later this fear has blossomed into an invasive species that entwines it's tendrils around our hearts and cripples our ability to commit to love. 

The novel opens with an immediate thrust at the contemporary court of Louis XIV setting the stage that what is to follow is more a parable of the human dilemma than an historical account of the court of Henri II:

"There never was in France so brilliant a display of magnificence and gallantry as during the last years of the reign of Henri II. The monarch was gallant, handsome, and amorous; although his love for Diane de Poitiers, Duchess of Valentinois, had lasted twenty years, its ardor had not diminished, as his conduct testified.”  

We are then quickly introduced to the court in what feels more like a guest list than a narrative, a flurry of descriptions leaving the reader feeling lost and ill-informed of the contemporary names and mores. We are not alone. Our heroine suffers the same fate, for while she has been well educated she has the provincial naiveté of a 16 year old being presented for the first time at court. The little preparation her mother has given her for the dog-eat-dog world of social politics is a short lecture of virtue:

“Most mothers imagine that it is enough never to speak of gallantry to their daughters to guard them from it forever. Madame de Chartres was of a very different opinion.; she often pictured love for her daughter, showing her it’s fascinations, in order to give her a better understanding of its perils. She told her how insincere men are, how false and deceitful; she described the domestic miseries which illicit love-affairs entail, and, on the other hand, pictured to her the peaceful happiness of a virtuous woman’s life, as well as the distinction and elevation which virtue gives to a woman of rank and beauty. She taught her, too, how hard it was to preserve this virtue without extreme care, and without that one sure means of securing a wife’s happiness, which is to love her husband and to be loved by him.” 

Thus armed with her pursuit of virtue, Mademoiselle de Chartres make her way into the narrative, first stopping at a jewel shop to pick out gems for her upcoming presentation at court, a detail that Madame Lafayette’s contemporaries found to be as ridiculous as comparing the court of Henri II to Louis XIV. In a letter from Jean-Baptiste-Henry Du Trousset De Valincour to the Marquise about The Princess of Cleaves, he says that even the most perfect of things have there shortcomings, and in detail discusses the shortcomings of this sensational novel that had provided so much controversy at court.  He finds this opening scene to lack verisimilitude, why would a 16 year old girl be left to pick out gems by herself? Where is her mother? 

“Practical minded women say that no one ever let a 16 year old girl choose gems and that all a girl can manage at that age is to choose ribbons and trimmings.”

But it is here, in this little shop picking out ribbons, that Mademoiselle de Chartes meets our hero, the dashing and stalwart Prince of Cleaves, who is at once completely in love with this blushing vision of a girl. She leaves before he catches her name and spends the next few pages wandering around telling everyone at court he has seen a vision of beauty. 

Just to set the stage, the Prince of Cleaves is not some anemic poet with a nice personality. He’s the whole package. “He was brave and grand, and was endowed with a prudence rare in the young…he was handsome, brave, generous; all his good qualities were distinct and striking - in short he was the only man fit to be compared, if such a comparison be possible, with the Duke of Nemours. This nobleman was a masterpiece of nature…” 

So the Prince of Cleaves is a pretty good catch. Eventually he discovers who the vision in the gem shop was, Mademoiselle de Chartes, a young woman of considerable fortune and good standing. After a bit of confusing court politics all the young suitors have been demurred from their pursuit of the young woman, all but the Prince of Cleaves. He proposes at the moment when all other suitors have vanished into the wood work and Madame de Chartes recommends that her daughter except his offer. The problem is that our young heroine isn’t in love with her Prince and believes herself incapable of such an emotion. The Prince is obviously very steadfast and determined, so she accepts his proposal with the hope that maybe someday she’ll learn to love her spouse. 

A nanosecond after they are married, who should finally get back to court from his long journey abroad trying to woo the new Queen Elizabeth, but the masterpiece of nature himself, the Duke of Nemours. They catch glances of each other at a ball and both are overcome with the other’s perfect and harmonious beauty.  

If only the new Princess of Cleaves had held out just a little longer, maybe she would have met the Duke unattached and this whole book of missed opportunities and relational frustration would be moot. But no. She took the first opportunity offered and now has missed out on her true soulmate and one true love. 

Which brings us to page 40. While other loose women of the court would have begun an affair posthaste, our Princess is steeped in the lessons of virtue, and so every time her heart flutters or she finds herself aware of the Duke’s presence at an almost cellular level, she catches her breath and reminds herself of her vows. The Duke, on the other hand, at once smitten by this vision of beauty, interprets her reluctance to acknowledge his presence as playing hard to get.

And thus begins the annoying part of the book. Instead of being satisfied with the man that genuinely loves her, the Princess is infatuated with the man she can never have. Like Phaedra, she is caught in a trap laid by Venus and now a plaything of her feral emotions and untamed heart. She decides the only way to truly keep herself in check is through a certain level of accountability. And what better accountability partner than her husband? After making excuses to be absent from court they make there way to their country house, where at dusk, in the garden, the Princess reveals a somewhat redacted version of her problem. She tells the Prince she is in love, but refuses to say how far this love affair has gone or who the lucky man is, ending her monologue with:

“Whatever the dangers of the course I take, I pursue it with pleasure, in order to keep myself worthy of you. I beg your pardon a thousand times if my feelings offend you; at any rate I shall never offend you by my actions. Remember that to do what I am now doing requires more friendship and esteem for a husband than anyone has ever had. Guide me, take pity on me, love me, if you can.”

As one would expect, this is devastating for the Prince. Not once has he abated in his desire or actions to pursue his wife. He has known from the beginning that her heart was always out of reach, but now he fears it might forever be out of his grasp. While the Princess defends her virtue, he fears it is not long before her temptations might prove to be too great.

In a moment only constructed in works of fiction, who should have snuck through the garden and heard this profession of love? Why the Duke of Nemours! So now he can confidently interpret every action, every hasty retreat as a symptom of a greater cause. “In a word, he felt a hundred times happier and unhappier.” Having proof of her love is one thing, but will she be able to quench it and remain faithful? The chase is more than half the fun and the Duke decides he will pursue ever diligently. 

She mentioned she likes yellow, he wears yellow in the jousting competition. She makes excuses to leave the court and he makes excuses to find her. Eventually the game of cat and mouse culminates in some peeping tom behavior by our Duke. As he once again creeps through the bushes to look in on the Princess, hoping to have an opportunity to talk with her since she has avoided him. This time he is followed by one of the Prince’s guardsmen who watches the Duke creep into the garden. 

As the Duke sees the Princess in her sun room, she is preoccupied with tying yellow ribbons onto the Duke’s walking stick, and is gazing longingly at a portrait of him at the victorious defeat of Metz. What could be more incriminating! As he moves toward the window the sudden movement catches the eye of the Princess and she hurries away fearing that she has recognized the Duke in the bushes. She immediately goes to her room and shuts all the windows and doors and thus remains for the rest of the night. The Duke waits patiently, but at last at dawn, makes his way back. The report the Prince’s man has to give, ie. the Duke snuck into the garden and emerged at dawn…is incriminating to say the least.

The Prince immediately falls ill, his wife’s brazen unfaithfulness the salt rubbed into the open wound of his heart. He has no desire to recover. He has been vanquished by an assumption and no matter what the Princess says she has lost his respect. 

Eventually the Prince dies. But instead of waiting the appropriate amount of time designated for mourning and then marrying her one true love, the Princess is overcome with guilt. She decides she will live a life of celibacy, even as the Duke promises he will pursue her to her dying day. 

Is this genuine remorse? Or simply FOMO in a different color? What if after she complies he grows bored? What if the lack of a chase and conquest removes the buttresses of their intimacy? The Princess admits that Monsieur de Cleves was perhaps “the only man in the world capable of keeping his love after marriage”. She is certain if she were to marry the Duke she would always be suspicious of infidelity. If he could pursue a married woman so diligently and one with an unprecedented amount of self control, what would he do when his flirtations were reciprocated. Perhaps her actions are dictated by the fear that the only way love can remain alive is by being unsatisfied.

Millennials aren’t the first to be crippled by the fear of missing out, rather this fear has been alive and well and diligently tended to by books like this. Why would anyone choose the super great guy that is the full package and happens to pursue you and love you and be devoted to you…when there might be a vision of nature right around the corner that is your one true soul mate. 

I have always held the myth of the “illusive soul mate” somewhat reprehensible and destructive, feeding the FOMO flames rather than providing any semblance of reality. This theory, fed by the Hollywood world of misconception and unreality, keeps perfectly compatible people waiting for the “spark” or the moment their soul windows open and they reach across the void to embrace. Blah. I’ve always been more of a fan of Claude Lévi-Strauss and his theory of structuralism. Relationships are primarily based on proximity and secondarily based on need thus creating a system of reciprocity or teamwork, that if done right can cement even the unlikeliest of pairs. It is through this work, alongside another, that one begins to appreciate all the myriad of qualities not immediately apparent on match.com etc. 

The tragedy of The Princess of Cleaves is that at 16 she was supposed to know what she wanted without having a construct of what that was. She didn’t know she was looking for someone, but rather thought she was frigid and incapable of affection. I thought that too at 16. A lot can be said for not rushing into things, taking your time, getting to know people in groups, playing a little ultimate frisbee, unfortunately for the Princess, time to grow up wasn’t an option. For today’s young people “growing up” has become almost as illusive as the mythical soulmate. My advice? Find the hardest worker you know and go for it. And then take a warning from the Princess and learn to love whoever that person is, that person is fundamentally more alive and intriguing then the hope that the Duke of Nemours exists and is waiting just around the corner.

The fact that I found and then married my own vision of Nature is besides the point…

Mozart's Journey to Prague - Eduard Mörike

Mörike's career as a poet began in 1824 with the publication of On a Winter Morning before Sunrise and would span more than four decades. While his poetry is well known in Germany, chiefly as the texts of songs, he is virtually unheard of in the English speaking world. In an unfortunate way, he owes most of his recognition to others, such as the composers that set his stanzas to music, and even his most well acclaimed novella, Mozart's Journey to Prague, has become a footnote to a musical folklore.

Perhaps one of the reasons his work remains largely unread by the English speaking world is that it is a tad inaccessible. Written in the 'Biedermeier' style this narrative poem feels like an opaque dream in which the dreamer is searching for clarity without success.

"It was appropriate to an epoch of extreme political conservatism, the Metternich police state, in which the intellectual middle classes could do little but retire, so to speak, to their respective provinces. If there was a 'Biedermeier' attitude, it is one of disillusioned withdrawal from political engagement of any kind, as well as from passionate love and anything else that might disturb the resigned tranquility, the aurea mediocritas of life."

The introduction, by David Luke, is helpful, and I probably should have read it first, but I found myself pining away for John Reddick. I would have appreciated a few more foot notes to pull me into this otherwise floating realm of poetic realism, something like "Mörike alludes to Mozart's extreme almost maniacal affinity for collecting pinecones..." instead I was given an appendix that simply identified leading characters or people mentioned in passing and a brief sentence of their lifespan and geographical region.

Knowing next to nothing about Mozart was also not to my benefit. I felt perpetually left out of a good inside joke. Also, knowing next to nothing about the climate of 1787 was to my disadvantage because I was unable to hear the distant rumblings of civil discord that were allegedly alluded to.

The poem opens with a brief summation:

"In the autumn of 1787 Mozart, accompanied by his wife, travelled to Prague, where he was to stage the first production of Don Giovanni."

In the carriage, as husband and wife make their way through the German countryside, the tension is almost palpable. Will this play be a success? After years of pecuniary hardship and poor remunerations, will this be enough to finally pay their creditors? Written thirty years after this poem takes place, the readers would have been aware of the opera's wild success. Almost one-hundred and forty years later Don Giovanni is currently tenth on the Operabase list of the most-performed operas worldwide, but despite Don Giovanni's success Mozart would never fully emerge from his financial hardships.

Mozart seems to have developed socially only slightly beyond that of a toddler. By page two we realize he has accidentally spilt an entire bottle of expensive cologne on himself and while the carriage may have benefitted from this catastrophe, Mrs. Mozart is far from pleased and is a second away from a full fledged lecture, when Mozart decides now would be a perfect moment to take a walk through the beautiful country side.

"Arm in arm, they stepped over the ditch at the side of the road, plunging at once into the shade of the pine-trees...The refreshing chill, suddenly contrasting with the heat outside, might have proved dangerous to the carefree traveller had his prudent companion not induced him, with some difficulty, to put on the coat which she was holding in readiness."

As Mozart pockets an assortment of pinecones, they climb back into the carriage to finally make their way to their lodgings after a long day of travel.

Besides being somewhat infantile, Mozart also seems incredibly humble and genuine; character traits that seem shockingly rare in the run-of-the-mill socially awkward child prodigy.

"That black-faced lad by his charcoal kiln, he knows exactly as much as I do about a whole lot of things, even though I too have a wish and a fancy to take a look at many matters that just don't happen to be in my line of business."

While refreshingly transparent and humble, I'm sure Mrs. Mozart would have wished her husband to have taken a minute or too to acquaint himself with family finances and other such practical matters. Mozart, instead seems to live in a fantasy word of sonatas and etudes, lost in the lyricism of a new chord while his wife scurries around building the physical world they inhabit.

As the journey progresses, Mozart's childish delight at finding pinecones and breathing fresh air takes a turn for the somber. A little black cloud hovers over our protagonist as he ruminates on the transitory nature of life.

"And meanwhile life goes by, it runs and rushes past - Oh God, once you start on such thoughts, what a sweat of fear you break into!"

Now it is Mrs. Mozart's job to fabricate stories of their reception in Prague, about the wealth and fame that will follow them home and about the new tapestries and decor their now modern and updated house will luxuriate in. Her tales of their imagined successes do seem to rouse Mozart from his momentary apathy, but like a twitch, a premonition of an early death haunts him. Each second is filled with an intensity, knowing his last could be just around the corner, and to each moment he brings his full attention; happily enraptured by a perfectly ripe orange and ready to invest all of himself at a moments notice in a strangers celebration.

While Mozart absent-mindedly picks an orange setting in motion an interview with the Lord and Lady of the estate, he finds himself first mistaken as a thief and then embraced as the brilliant composer. The festivities underway are the wedding preparations of Eugenie, the daughter of the manor and a kindred spirit to our protagonist.

The rest of the poem feels like an acquaintance free associating for an endless eternity, the narrative is frequently put on hiatus and another adorable story or narrative introduced. Of course Mozart must explain/defend his actions/criminal orange picking, and so a long story about the spring of 1770 and a sea performance in Naples. Then Mrs. Mozart tells a story of their financial hardships combined with Mozart's adorable need to defend rural maidens. Then another story of the moment Mozart composed the final acts of Don Giovanni...

It seems like Mozart would be the perfect dinner party guest, filled with an exhaustive supply of stories mixing in range from hilarious to sombre and if that doesn't fit the mood why not saunter over to the salon where he can entertain your guest endlessly with his musical genius! His hosts extend their hospitality and demand the Mozarts stay at their house and then upon their departure they give them a carriage!

As they drive away, Eugenie is left with a premonition of Mozart's impending death. Her friends and family brush her off, but she has read between the lines and seen the heartache and despondency quietly festering in our protagonists soul.

The narrative ends with one of Mörike's own poem:

In the woods, who know where,
Stands a green fir-tree;
A rosebush, who can tell,
Blooms in what garden?
Already they have been chosen-
Oh soul, remember!-
To take root on your grave,
For they must grow there.

Out on the meadow two
Black steeds are grazing,
And homewards to the town
They trot so sprightly.
They will be walking when
They draw your coffin;
Who knows but that may be
Even before they shed
That iron on their hooves
That glints so brightly.

The Devil’s Elixirs - E.T.A. Hoffmann

There were moments while reading this book where I almost began to enjoy myself. The narrative while at times obscure and hazy is at least fast paced and the constant barrage of new characters provide the reader with a never ending cornucopia of beautiful but sinister people. True, some of the characters were a bit Dickensian, a little too outlandish; but they seemed to provide a cattle prod that zapped the narrative forward in stutters and starts, which is preferable to a total lack of motion. It’s never a good sign when there’s an archaic family tree hidden in the back of the book…

The messy incestuous family tree reminded me of 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez. While the characters are almost secondary to the plot in Marquez’ book, we are carefully urged to memorize the messy family zen diagram by the “editor” that occasionally pops up and cuts off the narrative at the most intense and important parts. (The first time felt like “WHAT! Oh no he didn’t just “lose the manuscript”…but by the second or third time the “manuscript became illegible” I wanted to punch the fictitious editor in the face…a part of my joy died and I felt somewhat used and jaded.) 

After a list of names the editor says: “Everything will become clear to you, good reader, if you remember these names and their relations to each other. What follows is the continuation of that family history.” 

Obviously the genre of “the family tree” is not really my favorite. 

Our protagonist is the monk Medardus, who from a young age has devoted himself to the church. His background is a bit murky, but he is led to believe that his Father died not long after his birth, and while his mother never mentions his occupation, he assumes he was a man uncommonly gifted and well educated. 

As Medardus begins his memoirs it is clear that he isn’t going to selectively remember anything with rose colored glasses. As he grows into a healthy and boisterous youth he encounters his first temptation in the form of the choirmaster’s sister who he accidentally walks in on as she’s dressing. He is deeply mortified and in an instant his innocence is lost and a small toe hold has been carved out for the devil. While he struggles to resist his congenitally lascivious nature, it is a struggle he is not equipped for and one wishes a prior would sit him down and have a discussion about the nature of puberty. 

Instead, as the choirmaster’s sister shamelessly flirts, Medardus is caught in a vortex of all consuming passion:

“She had been sitting by the grand piano for some time, until she finally stood up and stopped at a chair, leaving a glove behind. I seized this glove and in madness stuffed it into my mouth.” 

Within a paragraph, the shame from this glove ingesting incident is enough to provide a form of penance, and he devotes himself to a life of monastic chastity, promising himself that no temptation will ever divert him from his now confirmed true calling. 

His constancy lasts until his next temptation, which occurs on the next page. He is a youth and lives the consequential ebb and flow of mixed emotions and raging hormones. He feels suspicious of the authenticity of the ancient relics and is gently reminded that “unbelief is the worst superstition of all,” a lesson he is destined to learn the hard way. When cautioned not to drink the little bottle filled with an ominous elixir, we must suffer along with Medardus as he wages war against a pinprick of temptation that turns into a never ending gale of voices encouraging and prompting him to drink the elixir. Like the snake in the garden, craftily misconstruing the admonishment, he is convinced that knowledge is more powerful than obedience. He finds himself drinking the sacred liquid only to find instead of a curse a deep and powerful feeling of joy and immortality rising within him. 

It is not long before he finds himself a renowned orator and believes himself a step away from sainthood, but as his motives become saturated with pride and impurity he finds his hold on lucidity shaken. The devil has stepped into his life and what follows will be a contest between sin and virtue fought to the death. 

The first 30 pages described above set the stage for what is to follow, a feedback loop of growing strength, power and vitality only to be shaken and pitched back into a teeming sea of madness. 

This book has been described as a Gothic romance…and while I totally see the Gothic element in the figurative gargoyles that litter every page…the romance is a little harder to get on board with. When a women, dressed as Saint Rosalia confesses her love for Medardus and then quickly leaves before he can ascertain her identity, he decides he must escape his monastery and track this vision of a woman down. In a strange turn of events that involve Medardus accidentally pushing off a cliff his doppleganger/cousin Viktorin and then assuming his identity he spends the next 200 pages lost in a world of multiple personalities, each personality becoming more believable to him and less so to the reader. 

Since he has given reign of his soul to the devil he transforms from a pubescent youth eating gloves to a degenerate womanizer. He is preoccupied with deflowering his love interest Aurelie, which occasionally provides a spasm of regret at what he has become…but only a spasm and he quickly rights himself and continues Operation Seduction, while he takes up a liaison with Aurelie’s stepmother who is under the impression that he is Viktorin, her secret lover. Thankfully his plot to seduce Aurelie is poorly conceived and involves a lot of tutoring sessions dressed in his Capuchin monk garb, and an occasional “accidental” profession of love and man-handling. 

In a series of unfortunate events Euphemie, the step-mother and Hermogen, Aurelie’s brother, end up dead/murdered making the tally of collateral damage three. As the dust settles and the estate is alive with the search for the obvious suspect, Medardus, our hero finds himself in dwelt with the spirit of the murdered Viktorin.

As Medardus in the guise of Viktorin makes his way through the forest to a place he can lie low and practice his assumed identity he ponders what went wrong with his fleetingly short and unsuccessful courtship of Aurelie.

“Her destiny seemed so inextricably linked with my own, and we were both so magically joined by some irresistible force or some unbreakable bond that, in the end, she could not fail to be mine.” 

“Aurelie lived, and that was enough to encourage my hopes of possessing her in the end! And better still, it was certain that she would be mine. Fate was sure to prevail, and even she would be unable to resist fate. For surely fate was just another word for my own actions.” 

Medardus has confused creepy stalking with true love and while the reader can hope that’s the last we see of Aurelie…there is no doubting that some inextricable force will undoubtably bring them together again and again.

Throughout his misadventures, Medardus has been given an obscure task that involves going to Rome, and like Jonah and his call to Nineveh, despite his obstinance Medardus continues to find himself moving along a trajectory that brings him closer to his preordained destination. 

Now deeply shrouded in the persona of Viktorin, he seems to be followed by an insane Capuchin monk and his reality becomes a muddied pool of interwoven narratives combining the life of Viktorin and Medardus into a singular being. 

Eventually Medardus/Viktorin ends up at the court of Prince P. and there assumes yet another identity, this time as a member of the Polish gentry Leonard/ Leonardus Kwiecziczewo. For a while everything seems to be going well for Medarus/Viktorin/Leonardus. He is embraced by Prince P. and they have many proficient discussions that range from architecture to gambling. One day the physician at court sits down and discusses all the intimate family secrets of the life of Prince P. revealing that the father of Medardus murdered the prince’s brother and was a diabolical wretch among other things, and as he pauses to ingest this piece of horrific news who walks into the door with the Princess as a new member of the ladies in waiting, but Aurelie. 

Aurelie is of course disconcerted to see the man that has murdered her brother at court, but since he’s wearing different clothes and has a different haircut it’s enough to persuade her that maybe she’s mistaken about his identity. Medardus, who at this point is on the brink of insanity and driven wild by his creepy licentious lusts briefly manages to convince everyone he is not a murderer, until they decide to throw him into prison just to make sure, where he sifts through his murky self conscious and tries to figure out who he is. 

Eventually he is annoyingly let out of prison and goes through the process of convincing everyone he’s the Pole Leonardus, so convincingly that Aurelie agrees to marry him. All seems to be going well, despite his tenuous hold on sanity and the never abating taunts from his sinister doppleganger…until Medardus and Aurelie make their way to the altar and in a fit of passion Medardus attempts to murder Aurelie and then runs into the forest where he has a midnight wrestling match with his doppleganger/satan/his un-dead cousin Viktorin. 

He awakes 3 months later and this time the reader is too jaded by the cyclical storyline to hope for anything but a swift and painful death for our hero…but alas there’s more to come for our little chrysalis Medardus has now transformed into a truly penitent sinner, who for once seems to be a singular person. As he self flagellates and lives off of crumbs and water he lives a life of penance for his many sins. 

Then there is a long discussion about his family history with the take away being: his father was such a reprobate born of a line of reprobates destined to give themselves to the devil…that how much sin is he responsible for? Wouldn’t one expect the son of a murderer to murder almost as a hereditary trait? Medardus seems to be given an out, while it is true he committed the crimes, in a way he was merely an automaton doing the perfunctory bidding of the devil. 

Eventually we get to the thesis: “…for you were given the strength to defeat Satan, no matter how fierce the struggle with him. What man does not have evil raging in his heart, striving to overthrow the good that also resides there? But without this conflict there can be no virtue, for what is virtue unless it is the victory of the principles of good over those of evil; and sin is what arises when the outcome of battle is reversed.”

Medardus struggles against temptation until his death. And while he is victorious, it is never a landslide victory but one that must be fought again and again with only creeping strides and minuscule advancements. Medardus must hold the burdens of his predecessors’ sins on his shoulders and while their repetitive histories intertwine and dilute his lucidity, he must struggle against not only his demons but a generation of demons that perch around him screaming cat calls as he stands precariously on the edge of damnation. 

In its most distilled summation this book is about the struggle for virtue amidst a barrage of temptation when the scales have been unevenly measured and failure is a requisite element of redemption. Ultimately we can have victory, like Medardus when our “giant of consciousness and choice” struggle with the beast of temptation and sin. When the giant wins there is virtue: when the beast wins there is sin. 

Woyzeck - Georg Büchner

I'm going to try very hard not to make this an ode to John Reddick, but it will be difficult because I can not fathom Büchner without him. (Also he dedicates this book to Sarah, who missed out last time by not yet existing...need I say more? Obviously he's the man.)

But to get back to Woyzeck, here is a play that is barely 30 pages long, with even more of Büchner's trademark brevity than usual. Before his play could be finished, while in Zurich, Büchner had contracted typhus and became a statistic in what had become an epidemic. What he left behind was a fragmented play in four folios without chronology or even a cast of characters. While this is an editor's nightmare, it is also the perfect opportunity to shine and Reddick brings to life the skeleton that Büchner left behind.

In a nutshell, Woyzeck is a play about a crime of passion; Woyzeck, suspecting his mistress is cheating on him, murders her in cold blood.  But of course, it is not that simple. Büchner is interested in a specific question: "Are people truly in control of their actions and therefore accountable for them? Or are they driven willy-nilly by inner compulsions and/or outer circumstance - by their elemental natures, by visions and illusions, by ambition or convention, by poverty and exploitations?" (Notes, pg.251)

Reddick cautions the reader to avoid the trap of viewing Woyzeck as a victim, but this is extremely hard to do for a variety of reasons.

The play opens with Woyzeck and his friend Andres cutting canes, presumably for corporal punishment. Both are the lowest ranking soldier and as such make up the dregs of society. Woyzeck supplements his minimal income by shaving his officers and taking part in a medical trial that involves exclusively eating peas.

Immediately we are aware that all is not right with our hero, he obviously suffers from paranoid delusions; his conversation is peppered with the fear of Freemasons and obscure biblical references. The opening line sets the tone:

Woyzeck: Yes, Andres: that streak there over the grass, that's where the head rolls in the evenings; someone picked it up once, thought it was a hedgehog. Three days and three nights, and he was lying in his coffin. Andres, it was the Freemasons, that's it, the Freemasons - quiet!

Reddick mentions in his notes that not all versions start with this scene, but rather start with the shaving scene which Reddick places at scene 6. The brilliance of opening the play with this scene is the foreshadowing of heads rolling and the streak of blood in the grass, a more sinister beginning and one that allows the viewer to appreciate Woyzeck on his own merit. Despite Woyzeck's many flaws, he is a requisite worker and faithful provider for his girlfriend and their small boy. As Andres and Woyzeck run off for role call we are subsequently introduced to the girlfriend, Marie.

Marie is brazenly leaning out the window making eyes at the good looking, strapping and more importantly sane drum-major who happens to be marching by. She's a self professed tart, but when the neighbor woman calls her out on her ogling, she screams "Bitch!" and slams the window closed and comforts her poor misunderstood victimhood by monologging with her young son before she delves into a poetry recitation on the joys of imbibing.

Marie: Don't fret little 'un....You're just a poor little tart's kid, and you makes your mum happy with your bastard face...

Poignant. While she is lost in her poetry recitation, Woyzeck knocks on the window, spouts a bunch of illegible paranoid mumbo-jumbo and then races away. Clearly she has picked a winner. But while Reddick posits that Marie is more of a victim in this story than Woyzeck...I find this hard to believe. She is a passive victim, if anything, sitting around making eyes at whoever walks by and whining to her toddler about how alcohol is the only palliate.

In the next scene, Woyzeck seems to be taking Marie out for a stroll, they pass an old man and his beggarly child dancing and perhaps (the stage directions are far from clear) singing in unison: "In this world shall none abide, All of us we have to die, And well we know it too!"

Another glimmer of what's to come. Another harsh juxtaposition between what's being said and the action taking place on the stage. As they meander through the stalls and street vendors, a man pontificates: "Observe the forward march of civilization. Everything is making giant strides. A horse, a monkey, a canary. The monkey's already a soldier, though that's not saying much - the bottom-most species of human kind!"

A preoccupation with Büchner is the frustrating lack of societal progress. While "giant strides" are made, often they are in no particular direction. As discussed in Danton's Death, the forward march of civilization is more akin to a tsunami at times than a precisely ordered drill command. And while this showman spouts off his philosophical treatise, Woyzeck and Marie seem oblivious to his insults and the scene itself becomes a foil for the drum-major to walk by and make reciprocal eyes at Marie.

Drum-Major: Hell's teeth! Spawn whole regiments of cavalry she could, breed drum-majors by the dozen!

I'm not going to recreate every scene here, as much as I'm tempted to....but I do want to peripherally comment on the fact that Marie is a terrible mother. And I think this is important because it's part of her character, a lazy, apathetic, self professed whore. She has virtually no good qualities besides the theoretical ability to breed drum-majors. As evidence I present 'the bedtime ritual':

Marie: Sleep lad, sleep! Shut your eyes tight, go on, tighter, keep 'em like that and stay quiet or the bogeyman'll get yer. [sings] Hey lass now shut up the house, A gypsy boy's coming at last, To lead you away by the hand, Off into gypsy land.

Obviously not a parenting style to emulate. But is this perhaps more foreshadowing? Is Woyzeck none other than the bogeyman, come to lead Marie rather than the child "off into gypsy land"?

Marie: Quiet child, shut your eyes, the sandman's coming! See him run along the wall? [She dazzles him with her mirror.] Keep 'em shut or he'll look in your eyes and turn you blind.

The second she finishes her version of a lullaby, who appears, like an aberration (or the sandman) but good old Woyzeck to drop of some of his pea money (we'll get to this later,) he notices the poor boy is hunched over and sweating and although he doesn't do anything, at least he comments on his son in a somewhat caring way, which is more than we can say for Marie, who is obviously suffering from depression. As Woyzeck leaves, Marie calls out "God bless you Franz," and then quietly monologues about the futility of suicide.

Scene 6. I said I wasn't going to do this, but it's just too good to not comment on absolutely everything. I think the reason that this scene would be a logical choice for the beginning scene is that we are given more context into Woyzeck's world, and as the curtain is pulled aside, it is a dreary, humiliating existence. While Woyzeck carefully shaves the face of his officer, his superior prattles away with one insulting comment after another, "God, you're so stupid, so abysmally stupid...", leads into a discussion on the regrettable choice of having a child out of wedlock.  Woyzeck defends himself by saying that without money, morality is a luxury. And the officer as an echo of Robespierre expounds on the benefits of virtue:

Officer:...But Woyzeck, virtue, virtue! How else could I ever cope with time?

The officer, manic and delusional pats Woyzeck on the back, tells him to run along and pays him his fee, which Woyzeck dutifully brings to Marie.

Ok, summarizing: Scene 7: the drum-major and Marie continue their flirtation with more explicit discussion of breeding little drum-majors like rabbits. Our drum-major is obviously a one trick pony, and while perhaps his lucidity and 'beard like a lion' are enough of a red-herring to make her believe she's found someone to hitch her lucky star to, in reality he is little more than a John looking for a fix. When he asks her if the devil is in her eyes, her response is: "Don't care if it is. What the hell." Marie lacks agency in a big way. While Marion at least was given a monologue to present her case, ie her nature ordained decent into prostitution, arguing that fidelity was an incommensurable paradigm for those euphemistically like an ocean, insatiably devouring everything only to demand more...Marie can't work up enough gumption to care one way or another.

Eventually the officer decides to up his game and openly goads Woyzeck by insinuating that Marie is being unfaithful. While Woyzeck is willing to endure one humiliation after another, this is going too far.  Marie is the only thing that he clings to and the seed that is sown finds itself germinating in rich paranoid soil.  When Woyzeck confront Marie, granted, in his crazed sort of oblique way, she shrugs and cockily responds "And what if I did?"

The next scene is an exhibit of the humiliation Woyzeck must continue to endure. Brought before a panel of doctors initially there to examine a cat which he is holding, he finds himself the object of observation after the cat runs away. The doctors poke and prod, observing what a diet exclusively comprised of peas can do to one's complexion.

Doctor: You animal, do you want me to waggle your ears? Are you trying the cat's trick? There gentlemen; what we have here is throw back to the ass, often brought about by excessive childhood exposure to women and a vulgar mother tongue. How much hair did your tender loving mother tear out for a keepsake then? Your hair has gone so thin these last few days; yes, gentlemen, it's the peas.

Goaded by his officer, goaded by Marie, and insulted by his circumstances, he has no solid footing to fall back on. As he clutches at the straws of his lucidity he is finally goaded by his insanity as the many voices in his head demand he kill Marie.

Even thus goaded, he still has the composure to make sure one last time that his suspicions are well founded. He asks around about the drum-major and finally confronts him only to be beaten and further humiliated. He buys the cheapest knife he can find, for two groschen, the same price he earns from his pea enterprise and hastens to away perform the act he is destined to carry out.

Reddick suggests Marie is the victim because she is the one "being done unto" rather than doing. But I find myself on the fence with this line of reasoning. For a man who talks about how the poor have no need for morality or virtue, when the woman he refuses to marry is unfaithful all of a sudden he demands justice for her lack of morality. This seems disingenuous. He is not a hero enacting justice, but rather a crazy man able to assuage all the voices that whisper epithets except that of rage. He can be humiliated by his superiors, but not his mistress, even the poor have standards and so like Phaedra or Theseus, he takes his place among the many felled by Venus.

Clarissa - Samuel Richardson

One of the most engaging books I've read recently (obviously not on the Canon) was Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl. At first I thought it was a treatise on marriage and found myself looking at the crumbling marriage with sympathy, occasionally uttering a "too true..." Until Nick's phone rings and he doesn't answer it and we realize we have an unreliable narrator. Then everything is turned upside down and the reader must attempt to parse reality from the sticky web of lies, fencing one's emotions and allegiances. Of course Amy is crazy - but the craziness stems from a desire to teach Nick a lesson. In a way, our villain, wrestles with the same objective, only instead of teaching a singular person a lesson, his vendetta is against women as a whole with Clarissa acting as resident scapegoat.

Clarissa in a way follows the same formula that Flynn takes in Gone Girl, or Nabokov takes in Lolita...can a reader be persuaded to sympathize with a reprobate?

Clarissa's plight is that she is too good, too dutiful and a touch spineless. Bequeathed a considerable fortune from her grandfather's death, she has the potential to be independent from the beginning, making this whole 1500 page book a moot point. Yet because she has such veracity and would rather offer olive branches than pursue her independence, the history of this young lady becomes a long drawn out tragedy of "what ifs".

Told in epistolary from, the first letter from Miss Anna Howe begins thus: "I am extremely concerned, my dearest friend, for the disturbances that have happened in your family." And we are thrown into the plot immediately. Robert Lovelace, after briefly courting Clarissa's sister Arabella, while Clarissa was out of town, upon her arrival home does a one-eighty in his affections and chooses to pursue the younger more beautiful Clarissa.

Obviously this does not go over well with Arabella and after a pretense of any kind is discovered, James the brother and up-and-coming patriarch of the family decides he must force Lovelace to duel. Lovelace is a much better swordsmen and the duel does not go according to plan although it is ended prematurely as Lovelace shouts something about valuing his little sister enough not to run him through, and James is left defeated emotionally and without honor. If Clarissa is what Lovelace wants, James will do everything in his power to make sure this does not happen.

The fortune left to her by her grandfather, and the favor of her two uncles only adds to estrange her further from her siblings who in turn hate and despise her. Their solution is to marry her off to the most illiterate, repugnant, gouty hag (can men be hags?) Mr. Solmes. Clarissa has begged to be allowed to live a life of celibacy, throwing into the bargain becoming her brother's housekeeper with the understanding that he will treat her little better than a servant. This is her preference. But out of spite, the brother rallies the family around him and they demand that Clarissa cede her preference out of obligation to the family.

An obligatory description of Solmes: "It was, however, [Solmes] laugh; for his first in three years, at least, I imagine, must have been one continual fit of crying; and his muscles have never yet been able to recover a risible tone. His very smile...is so little natural to his features, that it appears in him as hideous as the grin of a man in malice."

So Solmes is awkward, unattractive and a little dense, but is he really that bad? Clarissa profusely objects to this match and says repeatedly that she would choose death over this man. Unbeknownst to her is how close she comes to the truth.

Eventually (over the course of 400 painful pages) she has become a prisoner in her own room and her family demands that she cease all letter writing. Much to the chagrin of the reader this does not happen. Instead she writes letter after letter to Miss Howe and now Lovelace. Most of her letters to Lovelace are about how "this is the last letter she is going to write him and she would appreciate it if he respects this request."  Her letters to Miss Howe are more along the lines of "I hate Solmes, and Lovelace is a rake...I wish everyone would let me live alone in peace or join a convent...but it looks like I may be forced into the protection of one of these horrible options."

Lovelace at first seems justified in his pursuit, obviously who wouldn't want Clarissa? She's gorgeous, well established, relentlessly pursues charity and even has an account of her time budgeted in a way that would make even a compulsive salivate. Is he really all that bad? In letter 4 (50 pages in) Clarissa describes him to Miss Howe for the readers benefit as follows:

"...always noted for his vivacity and courage; and no less, it seems for the swift and surprising progress he made in all parts of literature; for diligence in his studies, in the hours of study, he had hardly an equal..."

Clarissa blames her brother's overt hatred on the fact that he recognizes his superior in Lovelace, and for about 400 pages there is a bit of consideration whether or not Lovelace is really all that bad. Sure he has a reputation of a degenerate rake, but he's young and wealthy...who doesn't? Sure there's an aura of disquiet that seems somewhat sinister...but at least he's up on all the classics? While Miss Howe prompts and teases that perhaps Clarissa is lying to herself, perhaps there is no one other than Lovelace she could even consider, Clarissa herself is almost convinced.

And then she is pushed into a corner. Her parents demand she marry the hated Solmes ASAP, as in Wednesday, and after bartering her time and submission, she has no other cards to play besides basic hope. She writes Lovelace a letter telling him she'll meet him outside the gate so that he can take her to a respectably safe distance where she can then, from her copious and persuasive letter writing, convince her family that she would like to join a convent, or live a life of charity and peace secluded in the country. But then after another 100 pages, she changes her mind and decides not to go with Lovelace at all and writes another letter saying basically that, leaving it in the little crack in the wall where it remains untouched and unread. So then of course when Lovelace comes to take her way, she is obligated to go outside the gate and say "just kidding- I'm not coming after all...bye?!" To which he replies by falling down on his knees and frothing at the mouth professing his undying love, until a servant comes running at them shouting "get your arms! Clarissa has eloped with the reprobate!!"

Clarissa is duly terrified and Lovelace works the terror and adrenaline into his favor and whisks her away.

Her fear, and greatest hesitation about actually eloping with Lovelace is that she thinks him a "vain man, capable of triumphing, secretly at least, over a person whose heart he thinks he has engaged." (page 72) Sadly, this is the actual plot of the book.

150 pages in we finally hear from Lovelace for the first time: "I have boasted that I was once in love before: and indeed I thought I was. It was in my early manhood - with that quality-jilt, whose infidelity I have vowed to revenge upon as many of the sex as shall come into my power. I believe, in different climes, I have already sacrificed a hecatomb to my Nemesis in pursuance of this vow."

That's Lovelace in a nutshell. Bent on avenging himself on all women. Later while defending himself to his friend John Belford, he essentially says "I don't know what all the fuss is about, each time I knock someone up I always provide a good midwife for the birth and make sure to provide enough to meagerly get by on until I can find a suitable spouse to pawn her off to...isn't that the gentlemanly thing to do?

Slowly, the narrative spirals down hill in a truly modern way. For a book published in 1747 there is an element of vindictive meanness that is somewhat surprising. Like Nick and Amy, able to anticipate each others next move and notice the malicious subtleties that might pass by the unsuspecting, Clarissa and Lovelace are the only two people destined to cause one another the most possible pain and heartache.  Although Clarissa is unable to anticipate the next move in the intricate web of deceit Lovelace is always gloating over, she is capable of instantly recognizing his motives.

Lovelace has decided there's no such thing as a virtuous woman and has made it his life's purpose to try Clarissa's virtue with all the intrigue and web of lies he can skillfully weave. Test after test proves Clarissa to be only more admirable, more chaste and ultimately more virtuous. What? This can not be! Lovelace decides this plan is boring and may take forever...why not date rape her (minus the date but with plenty of drugs so she is requisitely unconscious!) and then see how she'll behave. If he can a) further induce her to forgive him and decide to live with him as a mistress that would be sweet or b) decide maybe it's not all that bad - but she needs to be married ASAP and then he can put up a wedding farce so that she thinks they are married and he can live with her as a mistress.

Throughout this whole book Anna Howe is far from helpful. While she's always offering to come for a visit (to the brothel where Clarissa is imprisoned) and send her money or do anything of value she always ends her offer with "let me just check with my mom." Which of course then turns into "mom and I had a huge fight about the whole thing, mom thinks you're probably enjoying yourself and you definitely did not listen to your parents (a big no no!) so at this point all that help I just offered is a no go." While Clarissa finds herself in one trying disastrous catastrophe after another, Miss Howe's responses are akin to "wow, that is so horrible for you! Yikes! Maybe I will pursue a life of celibacy after all...or I could marry Mr. Hickman who's such a bore...but I think I'll just think about everything for a few months until all decisions are moot and void...Love ya!"

Eventually Clarissa escapes from the brothel that Lovelace has brought her to/imprisoned her in and after an accidental stint in prison becomes increasingly sickly.

So begins the test: Lovelace becomes increasingly distraught over what he has done and the fear of losing his one true blah blah blah...he vows a life of virtue and integrity and even suffers a bout of illness himself that takes him to the cusp of insanity.  Throughout his brief if yet not entirely disingenuous reformation, John Belford writes him letters saying "How could you try such a virtuous angel of a woman like Clarissa? She is so near perfection she's barely human, um I think you basically date raped an angel! You had better feel seriously bad about this and change your way of life stat. I am disgusted at who you are as a person, but since I never stopped you when you appraised me of your very detailed plan of mortification I also feel slightly complicit in this poor angels downfall...therefore I have just enough spine to write you endless letters...but not enough to be actually helpful. Get well soon!"

Eventually, even Samuel Richardson is annoyed/tired with Lovelace and decides that despite that fact that dueling is considered poor form, and despite the fact that Clarissa explicitly "forgives everyone and demands they all live in perfect harmony..." he can not let this villainous rake get away with it by simply "reforming" and devoting his life to charity. Instead after about a nanosecond of almost genuine remorse, he decides he has a gift, and that is being a rake! He's so good at what he does! So he skips off the island (Great Britain) for a bit to galavant around, presumably looking for more maidens to defile until Colonel Morden finally shows up (only after waiting for him for 1000 pages) and decides as much as he loves Clarissa and as much as he mostly honors all of her wishes...he can not let Lovelace get away with defiling the gem and pride of humanity. They duel. Lovelace is caught off guard. The End

In the end there is nothing even close to sympathy for Lovelace. He is pure unadulterated evil to Clarissa's pure unadulterated goodness. While evil may prevail in this life, life is not the end for the righteous and we're left to recognize that he will live an eternity in hell-stone and fire, an eternity of regret and remorse with small breaks in-between for gnashing of teeth; while Clarissa floats to heaven in peace and joy, enraptured by her ability to forgive and for God's grace.

Still, for the third longest book in the English language, the end feels sort of rushed. I wish that Lovelace had to suffer a few more tangible humiliations...like being put into the stocks naked in the town square and having rats chew off his appendages...or something.

I can not say that I enjoyed this book. There were moments that were actually really engaging and all I wanted to do was hide in a hole (from my 2 year old) and read for hours...but eventually that feeling would subside and I would realize I still had 1000 pages to go. The thing that is interesting about this book though is how it anticipates all books in which a villain carefully and intricately plots the hero's demise. That being said it probably would have been better as a novella.

Danton's Death - Georg Büchner

This is one of the most complex plays I have read. Published in 1835, Büchner was a modernist decades before that movement garnered traction; his writing style is a mosaic of ideas and themes, the sacred and profane harshly juxtaposed within the same space. While the plot is somewhat straightforward, Danton, a hero of the French Revolution has outworn his welcome and the masses (goaded by Robespierre) demand his beheading, what gives the play its substance is the political maelstrom these characters find themselves drowning in.

Historically, this play takes place over the course of thirteen days during the last violent shuddering of the Revolution, March 24 - April 5 of 1794. At this point the Revolution is steeped in failure; the carnage of a broken system is evident in every scene.

Georges Danton was a brilliant lawyer and orator and for three months the leader of the revolutionary government. Being exhausted by the never ending bloodshed, he has turned his position to one favoring negotiation and seeking governmental stabilization, which immediately labels him as an indulgent. It is not long before a ruse is invented to get him out of the way. As the play opens, he has become disillusioned and jaded by the incessant and now seemingly trivial bloodletting and has fallen into a stupor of nihilism.

 Scene 1: An unidentified room of ill repute. Herault is at a gambling table surrounded by prostitutes, while Danton and his wife Julie site nearby discussing philosophy.

Danton: Look at the pretty lady: handles her cards like a real little angel! She certainly knows how to play her suits: shows her heart to her husband, so they say - and her 'diamond' to her lovers. You women, you could make a man fall in love with lies.

Julie: Do you believe in me?

Danton: How should I know? We know damn all about each other. Thick-skinned elephants, that's what we are; we stretch out our hands to each other, but it's a waste of time, hide grating on hide, that's all- we're on our own, completely on our own.

Danton is described as a mastiff of a man, energetic, and mercurial. He enjoyed the sensual pleasures life had to offer and the first two times we see him he is in the presence of prostitutes, the first time incidentally.

In the first scene, it is left to Danton's friend Herault, to lay out the contentious ideology of the Dantonists:

Herault:...The revolution must end and the Republic must begin. The basic principles of the state must change: instead of duties - rights; instead of virtue - well-being; instead of punishment - protection. Everyone must be able to come fully into their own and assert their own nature. No matter whether they're reasonable or unreasonable, educated or uneducated, good or bad: that's no business of the state's. We're all idiots and no one else has the right to inflict his own particular idiocy on anyone else....

This statement is in direct opposition to Robespierre's dogmatic stance, and so we are introduced to the contention: is the basic principle of the state rights, well-being and protection or is it to ensure a higher system of values and morals by which all citizens must abide.

Robespierre's version of things is closer to "There are only two kinds of citizens: the good and the bad. The Republic owes to the good its protection and to the bad it owes only death." (note 101)

As Herault finishes pontificating in the brothel, Danton asks who will champion this cause? How will such policy be put into action? The answer he is given is: "why us and the honest folk of France!" To which Danton responds without much enthusiasm: "Your 'and' is a very long word..."

Within seconds we are introduced to these 'honest folk of France' in the form of a husband and wife in the middle of a marital dispute brought on by a bought of drinking. A crowd forms around them asking what's wrong. The daughter has become a prostitute, seemingly at the behest of the mother, in order to provide for the family. This incites the already fomenting crowd into a rage. Of course mothers and daughter must whore themselves to survive, but they are not to be blamed, rather blame must be on the lecherous men taking advantage of their destitution:

1st Citizen:...Ergo, you work and they do nothing; ergo, you earned it and they have stolen it; ergo, if you want to get back a few pence of your stolen property, you have to go whoring and begging; ergo, they're rats and must be destroyed!

And within seconds they have attempted to string up an innocent bystander that happened to have a handkerchief.  Are his fingers not good enough? Is he putting on airs? Will he be raping our wives and daughters next? Hang him!

1st Citizen: We are the people and we want no law, ergo our will is law, ergo in the name of the law there is no law, ergo kill the lot of them!

These are the masses in whom so much faith and hope has been placed, they are protean in their wants and insatiable in their demands.

Büchner then dives even deeper into the fray; what if you're a prostitute because that's your nature? What if this is who you are and the life you have chosen? As a case study, in scene 5 we are introduced to Marion, a prostitute that interrupts her other duties to tell Danton her life story, one of longing and misunderstood desire. As she and Danton wrestle with ontology and predestination they are interrupted by the news of a rumor that Danton will be tried and beheaded. Danton has been discussing the benefit of death, somewhat passively and romantically, but this news is jarring even for a philosopher.

After a discussion with Robespierre on the demand for 'virtue' and the need for conscience, Danton rejects both contentions by saying "Our conscience is a mirror! - only idiots are bothered by what they see there..." Is it anyone's business to be the moral police for others? If they don't mind the filth they live in why clean it for them? "Everyone behaves according to his nature: we do what we do because it's what does us good."  Danton believes that a person is a body, first and foremost, intrinsically destined to follow the ebb and flow of desires and impulses, a thesis which Robespierre rejects whole heartedly:

Robespierre: ...The mind enacts more deeds in a single hour than our lumbering bodies can achieve in the space of years. The sin is in the thought. Whether thoughts become deeds, acted out by the body, is a matter of chance.

Robespierre sees himself in the role of a sort of messiah, while not sacrificing himself, he will make sure to sacrifice others until all shall be redeemed, the blood of the damned the propitiation for the just.

A few nights later, before his arrest, Danton enacts his own version of Lady Macbeth, wringing his hands and crying out 'September' in his sleep. There is blood on his hands and he must wrestle with the conscience he denied. During the September massacres, Danton was Minister of Justice and while not orchestrating the butchery that took place, he was aware of it and did nothing to prevent it. Despite or perhaps because of his apathy, he has been complicit in the murders of the innocent. As he lies awake, ruminating over how the murders happened, his wife comes to his aide by post rationalizing his actions. His country needed him, he had to do what he did. In moments his conscience is assuaged and as he makes peace with his demons the crowd comes for his arrest.

Danton's arrest is shocking. If he can be arrested, the hero of the Revolution, the man whose 'sheer energy made him France's savior in 1792', if this man can be arrested, then no one is safe. At first he resists defending himself, but as he discusses his fate and the fate of those imprisoned with him, he decides he must defend himself from the slander that has been thrown against him, if only to educate the people about what this revolution has become.

Mercier:...'The guillotine is the crucible of the Republic!' The spectators cheer, the Romans rub their hands with glee, but none of them realize that every word is the blood-choked scream of another victim. Just follow your slogan through to the point where they turn into flesh and blood. Look around you: what you see is what you've said - a precise translation of all your words. These miserable wretches, their executioners, the guillotine: they are your speeches come to life. Like Bayezid with his pyramids, you've built your grandiose schemes out of human heads.

Danton does his best to rouse in the people a sense of frustration at what they have become. They ask for bread and are given heads of the guilty. They ask for wine and are given the blood of the damned. But where has this gotten them? Their streets are paved with bones and still there is no end to the murders. As he finishes his defense the people are momentarily on his side. They cry "Long live Danton! Down with the Decemvirate!" But this support lasts barely a page and it is not long before the crowd is festering once again over their indignation at their lack of equality. Why does Danton live in a nice house, with a nice wife and bathes in burgundy? Where did his riches come from if not from plundering the people? Within seconds the crowd has been easily handled and with it's cry now changed it shouts through it's frothing rage: "Long live Robespierre! Down with Danton! Down with the traitor!"

The irony is that Robespierre will eventually fall prey to this same crowd and make the same pilgrimage to face his own executioner. Putting one's faith in the masses is always a dangerous game; there is no innate goodwill and morality, but only a fetid cesspool of villainy and lust.

While the play is shocking and dissociative at times, the fact that having lived through modernism and post-modernism this play still has the capacity to shock is kind of incredible. It was vulgar and profane, but in a way that illuminated the hopelessness of the masses. This play was absolutely fascinating and made more so by the extensive notes and historical background by John Reddick. He made the translation come to life in an incredibly beautiful and accessible way and half way through I ordered Simon Schama's "Citizens: A chronicle of the French Revolution" as he suggested, (it's a good thing that's all he suggested because I fear I am completely in his power.)