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Book review: The Last Witchfinder: A Novel

words and images Posted on August 19, 2012 by dlschirfJanuary 17, 2019

The Last Witchfinder: A Novel by James Morrow. New York: Harper Perennial. 2007. 560 pages.

The last dodo. The last passenger pigeon. The last wilderness. The last fill-in-the-blank usually evokes a sense of sadness, loss, and finality. The Last Witchfinder, the over-the-top epic about a sister and brother dedicated to opposing world views in a time of rapid advancements, celebrates the last — we hope — of ignorance at a truly devilish level. Unlike the harmless dodo, the pretty passenger pigeon, or the soul-searing wilderness, the last witchfinder is an repulsively compelling creation, a stubborn holdover from an irrational time, when as much evil was committed in the name of the Good Lord as Satan could hope for.

Jennet Stearne and her brother Dunstan arrive on the scene in England just as the Age of Reason is taking root. Their story isn’t told by the standard omniscient human narrator. Instead, it’s recalled by a more lasting, if questionably reliable, witness to the Enlightenment and all that’s happened since — Newton’s Principia. That this novel requires a little more imagination and suspension of belief is obvious when a book takes the place of a human author, while the humans are the mere subjects. Sometimes Morrow’s odd device breathes a little academic vitality into the narration, but more often the Principia‘s interjections and commentaries are too intrusive, forced, awkward, and lengthy to be effective. The imagination carries one only so far.

Jennet and Dunstan are molded differently by their shared experiences. Their father, a witchfinder, makes his living by producing the proofs that condemn marginal or eccentric members of society, usually women, to gruesome state executions. His sister-in-law, a half-informed but intellectually curious devotee of Newton, becomes a threat to the beliefs of the past that fuel his existence. When she is condemned as a witch, Jennet makes it her mission to use Newton’s work to disprove the concept of demons and witches. Her brother, his father’s son and blinded by his lust for Abigail Williams (the star witness at the Salem witch trials) and religious ecstasy devoid of spirituality, clings aggressively to the past, seeking witches where there are no hints of any and becoming the last witchfinder even as the practice is dying in the shadows of the Englightenment.

Morrow uses some of the same devices found in early English novels like Tom Jones (Henry Fielding) and Tristram Shandy (Laurence Sterne), with chapter summaries and narrator intrusions and commentaries. At points, The Last Witchfinder is engaging, amusing, interesting, imaginative, and thought provoking. In his effort to emulate the likes of Fielding and Sterne, however, Morrow overdoes the diversions, ancillary incidents and characters, and irrelevant details. Never quite clearly defined, Jennet’s mission is too easily sidetracked by too many improbable adventures and events, and the center section bogs down in its lack of focus. It’s only when Dunstan, in his crazed unspiritual righteousness and deformity, returns to the scene that the plot picks up and the story comes back to life. The final meeting between Jennet and Dunstan is electrifying.

In a society that seems to be becoming more anti-intellectual, The Last Witchfinder is refreshing to the mind. Its premise and execution are flawed, but much of Jennet’s journey is at least disturbing, interesting, and fun.

18 August 2012
Copyright © 2012 Diane L. Schirf

Posted in Book Reviews, Books | Tagged fiction, historical fiction, novel | Leave a reply

Book review: The Rapture of Canaan

words and images Posted on December 3, 2011 by dlschirfDecember 17, 2018

The Rapture of Canaan by Sheri Reynolds. Highly recommended.

In The Rapture of Canaan, Sheri Reynolds creates two memorable characters, each of whom in turn creates God in his/her own image.

The first is Grandpa Herman Langston. After surviving a war that his companions didn’t and then losing his infant son, Herman founds his own “brand” of Christianity, The Church of Fire and Brimstone and God’s Almighty Baptizing Wind. Herman’s church is based on sin, suffering, and punishment — punishing everyone around for his sin of survival. When his granddaughter falls asleep and forgets to say prayers, she is put to bed with cockle burrs and sandspurs. When a member of the congregation imbibes, he must spend a night in his own grave. When the same man fornicates with a girl outside the church (a “backslidden Holiness” named Corinthian), he is starved and imprisoned in a cellar for 40 days — mostly to hide the severity of the punishment Herman has inflicted upon him.

Herman reserves the worst punishment of all for his own wife, who as a child lied to try to hide her mother’s murder of her father. Periodically, Herman trots out Leila’s decades-old transgression as much to punish her as to educate the flock. Recognising that the past is the past, and wise enough to know that God has forgiven her, Leila loves the man, or what he once was, and his strength too much to protest. His needs outweigh hers.

For Herman, religion is control. He decides what is acceptable and what is not; for example, the women must never cut their hair. He decides who and what is punished, and how. He decides what happens to any fines collected. In Herman’s world, the sinner gives up all control to God — the God in Herman’s image.

Lest the reader think that Herman is free from temptation and sin, the other memorable character, granddaughter Ninah Huff, carefully notes all the monetary punishments that are imposed on the members of the community but that never seem to be returned for its common good.

If Herman’s God is a vengeful, controlling one, Ninah’s God is loving and understanding. Ninah and her cousin by marriage, James, are at a dangerous times in their lives, when adolescents discover how powerless punishment can be against the power of passion and love. Unfortunately, James is torn by Herman’s God and by the Jesus he claims speaks through Ninah when they make love.

Ninah, however, continues the questioning they had begun about what it means to love God and one another, and what it means to be a Christian in a world where good people like her Hindu friend from school are non-believers. Is it about seeing a miracle messiah in Ninah and James’ baby Canaan, born with the skin of his hands bonding them in seemingly endless prayer? Or is it about seeing God as love, the love that drives Ninah to brutally cut Canaan’s hands apart so that he can be free to be a sinful and real human being?

Through her affection for James, Ninah discovers the love of God in her own heart. Her God is, by definition, beyond control. James and Ninah can’t and don’t control their natural feelings and urges. Ninah begins to understand the perpetual school truant, Corinthian, whose lack of control is expressed in an exuberant, “Whee, Jesus!”

Eventually, Herman starts to lose control over the community. Some of the congregation, his own family, stop attending services. Ninah starts twisting Pammy’s hair into forbidden French braids. Ninah cuts off her own hair and is followed by several of the women, young and old. When a stroke incapacitates him physically and mentally, Herman’s grip on the community is finally lost, enabling Ninah to take the final step of setting Canaan’s hands free.

Blood is the recurring theme of The Rapture of Canaan — the blood Leila’s mother shed when she killed her husband and the symbolic blood red Leila colours her paper dolls; the blood of menstruation that Ninah hides from everyone, even Leila (Nanna); the blood of James’ first deer kill that baptizes both him and Ninah; the blood of the mare that hemorrhages to death while giving birth; the blood that Canaan must sacrifice as Ninah transforms him from messiah to ordinary baby, conceived and born in the sin of love.

As Nanna recounts stories and Ninah weaves stories into rugs made from “rags and lies, rope and hair, fabric and love,” Reynolds captures the poetry of prose. “I weave in lies, and I weave in love, and in the end, it’s hard to know if one keeps me warmer than the other,” Ninah begins. She sees The Church of Fire and Brimstone and God’s Almighty Baptizing Wind’s community “like an island. Like an island sinking from the weight of fearful hearts.” Ninah says of James, “He brushed my back off each time, and his hands felt like a remedy to all the badness I’d ever known.” She spends her pregnancy making baby clothes. When she sees Canaan’s joined hands in church, she thinks for a moment, “I might have sewn him together by accident when I was making all those baby clothes.”

Poetic, thought provoking, and compelling, The Rapture of Canaan should make you question your own beliefs and where they originated — in the fear of man or in the love of God.

16 April 2005
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Posted in Book Reviews, Books | Tagged fiction, novel | Leave a reply

Book review: Portnoy’s Complaint

words and images Posted on November 16, 2011 by dlschirfJanuary 12, 2019

Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth. Recommended.

Combination lengthy kvetch and documentation of a fictional psychiatric disorder, Portnoy’s Complaint addresses the narrator’s life as a first-generation American Jew and an oversexed male. As both, Alexander Portnoy is unable to reconcile his desire for the American dream with his desire for compliant shikses.

Portnoy is at war with his parents, his Jewish heritage, goy society, women, and, of course, himself. He claims to despise his parents’ flair for the dramatic, yet his entire monologue is an exercise in self-centered comic hyperbole. As an atheist, he has no use for the Jewish faith, but he aspires to the camaraderie and sense of community experienced by the neighborhood Jewish men who play baseball on Sundays. The goyish middle class around him fascinates him with what he perceives to be the perfection of life that goes on behind their curtains and repels him with their religion and its imagery.

Portnoy refers to his girlfriends by nicknames such as The Monkey and The Pilgrim, which focus on what they represent to him rather than on who they are. When they are problematic, as The Monkey often is, they become individuals with greater mental issues than his own. When they are nearly perfect — upper middle-class shikses with centuries-long pedigrees, like The Pilgrim — they fail to satisfy Portnoy’s cravings for all that is not the sexual equivalent of white bread. He finally encounters a Jewish woman — in Israel — but he is not up to the challenge on any level. Mostly, Portnoy claims to want one thing while actively seeking its opposite. He is not so different from anyone else.

Part of Portnoy’s bemusement lies in how the world actually works. While he, a model student and citizen, lives a secret life that would indeed cause the headlines he fears if it were made public, he learns that two of his former schoolmates, unfettered by the type of parental attention that he finds so suffocating and free to pursue the degenerate lifestyle he desires, end up, not behind bars, but behind the curtained windows of American middle-class success, enjoying all that comes with it — including marriage. Portnoy is disturbed to discover that there is no guaranteed cause and effect. Anyone can achieve the American dream if they wish. His failure is another opportunity to blame his parents.

According to Roth, Portnoy has “strongly-felt ethical and altruistic impulses,” but there is not much in Portnoy’s character that is either ethical or altruistic. While his father sells life insurance to New Jersey’s poor blacks and his mother furtively disinfects the dishes and silverware used by the black housekeeper, Portnoy is on his way to becoming the assistant commissioner of human opportunity for New York City. In this position, he shows little genuine compassion or empathy for the poor minorities who seek his support. He has no more interest in the people he represents, other than as symbols of his liberal socialism, than he has in Rosh Hashanah or the other defining aspects of Jewish heritage and experience. His only interest in his lover’s threats of suicide are in the potential headlines — the possibility that his real persona will be exposed.

In a symbolic way, Portnoy resembles a man from his childhood whom he despised for his pretentious piety — Rabbi Warshaw, he of the “Pall Mall breath.” With his position as protector of the minority underclass and his apparent social liberalism, Portnoy is pious, or at least self-righteous, on the outside, but perhaps inside he, like the rabbi and his foul breath, is not so sweet or idealistic as he appears.

Despite the 289 pages of uninterrupted monologue, the reader never really knows Portnoy. The pages and pages of hyperbole make him an unreliable narrator. Because it is a monologue, he chooses what he tells — and doesn’t tell — the mysteriously silent and patient psychiatrist. The reader cannot know how much of this fiction is “true” within its context and how much is Portnoy putting into practice the flair for drama that so exasperates him in his parents — his father, whose bowels never move, and his mother, who believes that she nearly died from once tasting a prohibited delicacy and who can never let anyone forget it. Portnoy’s Complaint reads like a long, drawn-out wet dream; a long, drawn-out comic monologue; or an odd combination of both. I can envision an abbreviated version of this novel as a one-man stage show.

While not for the prudish or the conventional (Portnoy seems to say out loud the types of things most people prefer to repress, even to themselves), Portnoy’s Complaint is a funny, evocative, tactless look at the American experience. You do not have to be Jewish to appreciate Portnoy or his trials, trivial as they are. I suspect most male readers will recognize Alexander Portnoy in themselves, together with his confused and confusing desires for middle-class respectability and his need to push the bounds of sexual expression — although I cannot imagine that very many would admit it.

30 March 2006
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Posted in Blog, Book Reviews, Books | Tagged fiction, novel | Leave a reply

Book review: Memoir from Antproof Case: A Novel

words and images Posted on November 15, 2011 by dlschirfJanuary 1, 2019

Memoir from Antproof Case: A Novel by Mark Helprin. Recommended.

Like Winter’s Tale and A Soldier of the Great War, Memoir from Antproof Case is difficult to classify (although Helprin helpfully gives it the subtitle A Novel). It has elements of magical surrealism, but falls short on magic.

In this sprawling fictional memoir, Oscar Progresso (not his real name, as though he were a real person) slowly and circumspectly reveals the cause of his pathological aversion to coffee, but first distracts the reader with red herrings like coffee’s allegedly toxic chemistry, the over-the-top portrayal of addiction to it, and its amphetamine-like effect on its purported victims.

The real cause is tragic but, given the tone of the novel, it’s hard to feel deeply for Oscar, the son of poor parents, graduate of Harvard University (and a Swiss mental institution), globe-trotting partner in an investment banking firm, WWII flying ace, and husband of a billionaire. The details of few of his stories are probable — how he killed two men, his life in the mental institution or even as a pilot during the war, the redundancy of the opulence of his life with Constance (how many kitchens is even a mansion likely to have?) or how she came to leave him. Then there is the drawn-out fall from power as an investment banker, from deciding the future of entire nations to being relegated to a carved wooden school desk in an unlit janitor’s closet and then to pointlessly shifting gold in the vaults with a class of unquestioning troglodyte humans; the culmination of this work is the most improbably event of all.

If there is any doubt about Oscar’s sanity, his reaction to being unable to find a larger antproof case should resolve it.

There are only two areas in which Oscar seems somewhat trustworthy. The first is the underlying story of his aversion to coffee, the story that is slowly and painstakingly revealed, and the other is his love for his wife’s son by another man, the boy he once was for only a short time.

I found myself wanting less of the whimsy and surrealism, imaginative and fascinating as it is, and more of the heart and soul that must inspire some of Oscar’s interjected and concluding thoughts, for example:

“Though the world is constructed to serve glory, success, and strength, one loves one’s parents and one’s children despite their failings and weaknesses — sometimes even more on account of them. In this school, you learn the measure not of power, but of love; not of victory, but of grace; not of triumph, but of forgiveness . . . With it [love, devotion, life as an device for the exercise of faith], your heart, though broken, will be full, and you will stay in the fight unto the very last.”

As with Winter’s Tale and A Soldier of the Great War, the voice is poetic and unique and the characters etched, while the events purposely stretch the credulity of the reader (if not the narrator).Memoir from Antproof Case tries to appeal to both the imagination and the heart, but, like its predecessors, sacrifices the latter for the former. This is unfortunate, because it has the potential to be the most human of the three. Instead of feeling for Oscar Progresso and his losses and lessons, I am left thinking he is a madman and an unreliable narrator who cannot escape the obsession and fantasy he has created and now clings to; my empathy remains uncertain and unclaimed. I cannot even be sure that the one story Oscar tells that rings true really is — the one of his childhood tragedy.

Helprin is close to being a great novelist but there is something cold and intellectual in his approach and style that prevents him from breaking through as, for example, Toni Morrison has. Although he has experienced life, it is rarely clear that he has felt it. Like Oscar and some of his previous characters, Helprin seems more observer than participant, which ultimately detracts from the magic and surrealism. Part of what make something magical is a belief that it could be possible in some way or some world; much of Oscar’s narrative is possible only in a madman’s mind.

Memoir from Antproof Case is worth the read, especially for Helprin fans, but it is more fancy appetizer than satisfying main course.

Aside: My copy of Memoir from Antproof Case is stained with coffee.

7 August 2005
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Posted in Book Reviews, Books | Tagged fiction, novel | Leave a reply

Book review: Master and Commander

words and images Posted on November 15, 2011 by dlschirfJanuary 16, 2019

Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian. Not recommended.

Master and Commander is the first in a series of Jack Aubrey/Stephen Maturin novels, this one set in the early 1800s. After meeting Dr. Maturin at a concert by annoying him, Aubrey learns he has been promoted to master and commander (with honorary title of captain) of His Majesty’s sloop Sophie. How Aubrey earned this promotion is unclear, as his womanising ways seems to have irritated his commandant and everyone else, although women seem to have played a role in obtaining it.

There are several problems with Master and Commander. The first is O’Brian’s fixation on his knowledge of sailing and sailing terminology. At one point, he spends pages having a crew member explaining the rigging in painstaking — and painful — detail to Dr. Maturin. There is little purpose to this, as most laymen will find it difficult and tedious to follow, and a knowledgeable person will want to skip it altogether. It adds nothing but volume to the book and proof that O’Brian did his research.

O’Brian provides no historical context for the story. England is at war with France and Spain, but even Bonaparte is rarely mentioned. The characters reference naval actions like the battle of the Nile, but these incidents have meaning only to the characters since the reader is never privy to the context or greater strategy.

While Aubrey, Dr. Maturin, James Dillon, and the master are interesting characters, most of the rest of the crew is intentionally faceless. The men in key positions, like the bosun, are rarely referred to by name. Even Marshall is known primarily as “the master,” making the attempt to give him a personality by alluding to him as an apprehensive pederast futile.

There is neither much story nor much action here. It takes the first quarter of the novel for Sophie to leave port for the first time under Aubrey’s command. The novel’s big battle, during which Sophiemiraculously defeats a bigger, better-manned ship, is so hurried and poorly recounted that there is no tension or suspense about how the encounter will play out or end. The victory evokes no sense of exhilaration in the reader, so the ensuing letdown (no promotions, no cruise) loses its emotional impact.

Even the most intriguing aspect of the novel, the relationships between Aubrey and Dillon, Dillon and Dr. Maturin, and Aubrey and Dr. Maturin, are poorly drawn, partially because the point of view is inconsistent. As a clinician and researcher, Dr. Maturin is the relatively objective observer and link between Aubrey and Dillon. He knows Dillon’s secrets (as well as his own) and the thoughtless bias behind Aubrey’s anti-Papist rants, but is reduced to expressing his thoughts and feelings of affection, frustration and disgust mainly to his journal, as though he were documenting an illness.

Master and Commander has tremendous potential, but O’Brian doesn’t have the literary skills or ability to craft a great read. His prose is ordinary at best, and history, drama, suspense, plot, and even characterisation are given short shrift. For more compelling naval adventures set during the same period, read the Horatio Hornblower series, which is much better conceived and written and which is far more evocative.

Note: The colours of the movie tie-in edition cover are pastel blue and yellow — a very odd choice, given the subject matter and target audience.

20 March 2005
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Posted in Book Reviews, Books | Tagged fiction, historical fiction, novel | Leave a reply

Book review: The Return of the Native

words and images Posted on November 15, 2011 by dlschirfNovember 12, 2022

The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy. Recommended.

In Egdon Heath, Thomas Hardy creates an otherworld consisting of the elements earth, wind, fire, and water, populated by a witch condemned by a pious woman’s spell, a Christian ruled by pagan beliefs, an assortment of other odd characters, and the native of the title whose return precipitates a series of tragic events.

The Return of the Native is centered around Eustacia Vye, a beautiful outsider wrenched from the society she craves by orphanhood and exiled to live on Egdon Heath with her maternal grandfather. Spoiled, vain, fickle, and selfish, Eustacia is not a sympathetic heroine. Although she claims to belong to Damon Wildeve (“body and soul” in one uncensored version), she really belongs to whomever can grant her what she desires and, in her mind, deserves. While Wildeve is a step above the local rabble, Eustacia can never fully commit herself to him. Each time she considers it, she is held back by the thought that even he lacks something and that surely she can do better. “He’s not great enough for me to give myself to — he does not suffice for my desire! . . . If he had been a Saul or a Bonaparte — ah! But to break my marriage vow for him — it is too poor a luxury!”

In another place, like the Paris Eustacia longs for, she would have become a mistress or a courtesan — the consort of a powerful man or men. On Egdon Heath, however, there are neither powerful men nor courtesans. There is only Damon, an equally fickle young man who hotly desires that which he cannot have — sometimes Eustacia, sometimes the naïve Thomasin Yeobright. To complicate matters, Thomasin’s cousin Clym returns from Paris, where he has a financially rewarding and spiritually stifling career. In Eustacia’s eyes (blinded to what she doesn’t want to see, just as Clym’s sight becomes literally blurred to that which he does want to see), Clym appears to be the ideal replacement for Wildeve.

In his introduction to the “standard edition,” John Paterson, talks about the censorship of The Return of the Native and its anti-Christianity elements. The novel, at least in this form, appears to be more anti-Christian than anti-Christianity. Eustacia, with her beauty; aloof and lonely snobbishness; hold over men such as Wildeve and Clym and boys such as “the little slave” Johnny Nunsuch and the adolescent Charley; and habit of haunting Rainbarrow at all hours of the night, can easily appear to fit the role of the Egdon Heath witch. Yet it is the churchgoing Susan Nunsuch who falls prey to superstition, believing that Eustacia has afflicted her son with illness. She stabs Eustacia with a needle during one of the young lady’s rare church appearances. Ironically, in the end Susan is the witch, fashioning a likeness of Eustacia and practicing a homegrown form of obeah upon it.

Susan’s male counterpart, the ironically named Christian, is no better. Simple-minded, naïve, and condemned to perpetual bachelorhood, Christian is pious not for love of God but for fear of life. He is ruled by superstition, and it requires little effort for Wildeve to convince him he is lucky and that he should gamble (as it turns out, with money that isn’t his, adding theft to his sins).

Like Egdon Heath itself (“oozing lumps of fleshy fungi . . . like the rotten liver and lungs of some colossal animal”), the remainder of its inhabitants — the ones from whom Eustacia wishes to escape — are unflinchingly, unchangingly pagan, with Christian’s own reprobate father, Granfer Cantle, setting the example. They avoid inconveniences like church; they gleefully celebrate Guy Fawkes Day with fire and dance; they gossip without undue concern for good or bad. These are the folks from whom Mrs. Yeobright and the stoic pagan Diggory Venn (the reddleman) wish to save Thomasin’s reputation — as though it matters to them.

These are also the people among whom Eustacia is a queen. When she says, “How I have tried and tried to be a splendid woman and how destiny has been against me!” the reader is hard pressed to find Eustacia’s efforts to better herself, other than trying to determine which man will best launch her into society. With his Paris connections, Clym is the obvious choice, yet it is Wildeve who turns out to have better prospects — and the will to take advantage of them.

Queen among the heathens of the heath, Eustacia is blissfully unaware of the probability that, in the Parisian society she aspires to, she would be one among many and might find herself unable to compete with the elite courtesans, mistresses, and wives of Paris. “I was capable of much,” she claims. Hardy, however, never makes clear what this “much” might be exactly, as Eustacia’s intelligence, learning, and wit are incompletely and imperfectly portrayed, and one does not make a splash in society based on looks and pride alone. Eustacia hasn’t “tried and tried”; and her youthful, ambitious impatience has led her to miss the clues that Clym is not going to “try and try,” either. Perhaps she, like Sue in Jude the Obscure, represents the dilemma of the intelligent woman in the 1800s, who can shape her own destiny only through attachment to the right man in a socially acceptable way. When that fails (Eustacia), or if an alternative means is attempted (Sue), tragedy is inevitable.

While not Hardy’s best, The Return of the Native is a must read for his readers, incorporating a grim yet objective setting, memorable characters, and a tragic plot driven by human failings more so than the destiny at which Eustacia rails. Ignore the awkward, unconvincing happy ending, as Hardy’s censors forced him to tack it on.

31 October 2004
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Posted in Book Reviews, Books | Tagged fiction, literature, novel, Thomas Hardy | 2 Replies

Book review: The Count of Monte Cristo

words and images Posted on November 15, 2011 by dlschirfJanuary 11, 2019

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas père. Translated and with an introduction by Robin Buss. Highly recommended.

As translator Robin Buss points out in his introduction, many of those who haven’t read The Count of Monte Cristo assume it is a children’s adventure story, complete with daring prison escape culminating in a simple tale of revenge. There is very little for children in this very adult tale, however. Instead, the rich plot combines intrigue, betrayal, theft, drugs, adultery, presumed infanticide, torture, suicide, poisoning, murder, lesbianism, and unconventional revenge.

Although the plot is roughly linear beginning with Edmond Dantès’ return to Marseille, prenuptial celebration, and false imprisonment and ending with his somewhat qualified triumphant departure from Marseille and France, Dumas uses the technique of interspersing lengthy anecdotes throughout. The story of Cardinal Spada’s treasure, the origins of the Roman bandit Luigi Vampa (the least germane to the novel), Bertuccio’s tale of his vendetta, and the account of the betrayal and death of Ali Pasha are few of the more significant stories-within-the-novel. While Dumas devotes an entire chapter to bandit Luigi Vampa’s background, he cleverly makes only a few references to what will remain the plot’s chief mystery — how the youthful, intelligent, and naive sailor Edmond Dantès transforms himself into the worldly, jaded, mysterious Renaissance man and Eastern philosopher, the count of Monte Cristo, presumably sustained by his own advice of “wait” and “hope.”

This novel is not a simple tale of simple revenge. The count does not kill his enemies; he brilliantly uses their vices and weaknesses against them. Caderousse’s basic greed is turned against him, while Danglars loses the only thing that has any meaning for him. Fernand is deprived of the one thing that he had that he had never earned — his honour. In the process, he loses the source of his initial transgression, making his fate that much more poignant. The plot against Villefort is so complicated that even Monte Cristo loses control of it, resulting in doubt foreign to his nature and remorse that he will not outlive.

This long but generally fast-paced tale is set primarily in Marseille, Rome, and Paris. It begins with Dantès’ arrival in Marseille aboard the commercial vessel Pharaon and ends with his departure from Marseille aboard his private yacht, accompanied by the young, beautiful Greek princess Haydée. What gives The Count of Monte Cristo its life, however, are the times in which it is set — the Revolution, the Napoleonic era, the First and Second Restoration, and the Revolution of 1830. Life-and-death politics motivates many of the characters and keeps the plot moving. Dumas also uses real people in minor roles, such as Countess G — (Byron’s mistress) and the Roman hotelier Signor Pastrini, which adds to the novel’s sense of historical veracity.

The most troubling aspect of The Count of Monte Cristo is Edmond Dantès himself. His claim to represent a higher justice seems to justify actions and inactions that are as morally reprehensible as those that sent him to prison, for example, his account of how he acquired Ali and his loyalty. Had he not discovered young Morrel’s love for Valentine Villefort, she too might have become an innocent victim. As it is, there are at least two other innocents who die, although one clearly would not have been an innocent for long based on his behaviour in the novel. One wonders if Dantès’ two father figures, his own flower-loving father and fellow prisoner Abbé Faria, would have approved of the count.

The translation appears to be good, with a few slips into contemporary English idioms that sound out of place. In his introduction, Buss states that the later Danglars and Fernand have become unrecognizable and that Fernand in particular has been transformed “from the brave and honest Spaniard with a sharp sense of honour . . . to the Parisian aristocrat whose life seems to have been dedicated to a series of betrayals.” There is never anything honest or honourable about Fernand; his very betrayal of Edmond is merely the first we know of in his lifelong pattern.

What seems extreme and somewhat unrealistic about Fernand is his transformation from an uneducated Catalan fisherman into a “Parisian aristocrat,” hobnobbing with statesmen, the wealthy, and the noteworthy of society. This, however, is the result of the milieu that the novel inhabits. During these post-Revolution, post-Napoleonic years, Fernand could rise socially through his military and political accomplishments just as Danglars does through his financial acumen. Danglars is careful to note that the difference between them is that Fernand insists upon his title, while Danglars is openly indifferent to and dismissive of his; his viewpoint is the more aristocratic.

Countess G — is quick to point out that there is no old family name of Monte Cristo and that the count, like many other contemporaries, has purchased his title. It serves mainly to obscure his identity, nationality, and background and to add to the aura of mystery his persona and Eastern knowledge create. What is most telling is that his entrée into Parisian society is based primarily on his great wealth, not his name. Dumas reinforces this point with Andrea Cavalcanti, another mystery man of unknown name and reputed fortune.

I have read The Man in the Iron Mask and The Three Musketeers series, both of which surprised me with their dark aspects (the character and fate of Lady de Winter, for example) and which little resembled the adventure stories distilled from them for children and for film. When I overheard a college student who was reading The Count of Monte Cristo on the bus tell a friend that she couldn’t put it down, I was inspired to read it. I couldn’t put it down, either, with its nearly seamless plot, dark protagonist, human villains, turbulent historical setting, and larger-than-life sense of mystery. At 1,078 pages, it’s imposing, but don’t cheat yourself by settling for an abridged version. You’ll want to pick up every nuance.

12 September 2004
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Posted in Book Reviews, Books | Tagged fiction, literature, novel | 2 Replies

Book review: Lieutenant Hornblower

words and images Posted on November 15, 2011 by dlschirfNovember 12, 2022

Lieutenant Hornblower by C. S. Forester. Recommended.

Lieutenant Hornblower, set in the early 1800s during the Napoleonic Wars, is the second book chronologically in the 11-part Horatio Hornblower series. Forester is a master of combining exciting plots, recognizable characters, realistic naval and period information, and interesting historical detail. As you read Lieutenant Hornblower, you will see how even modern science fiction television and films, from Star Trek to Star Wars, owe a debt to Forester’s story-telling technique.

This time, Hornblower is seen from the perspective of a more senior lieutenant, Bush, as they serve aboard Renown. Bush, himself a decisive, strong, if unimaginative, leader, finds himself redefining and expanding his concepts of leadership and command as he observes Hornblower’s interactions with his junior and senior officers. Hornblower subtly guides them to the actions and decisions that he wants from them without overstepping the top-down chain-of-command structure of the 1800s British navy, in which the captain enjoys the omnipotence granted by the king over crew and officers alike. Hornblower’s approach even anticipates today’s most current thinking about the nature of corporate leadership.

As a character, Hornblower can be too perfect. His suggestions and his actions are always on target and successful, and it is he who saves Renown and her mission time and again. Even when he makes a rare mistake, for example, overheating the shot so that it will no longer fit in the cannons, the error does not affect the outcome of the venture.

Forester tries to humanize Hornblower, whom Bush notices carefully hiding his emotions and frailties-even hunger and poverty-lest anyone perceive his weakness. Interestingly, Hornblower survives the paranoia of a mad captain, the indecisiveness and incompetence of an inept first lieutenant, harrowing sea and land battles with the Spanish, and delicate diplomatic maneuverings with the Spanish and with the highest levels of naval representatives, only to succumb to an unattractive but smitten woman.

Throughout the novel, there is one recurring question that Hornblower avoids answering. Bush asks it, as does Buckland, the lackluster first lieutenant. Depending on how you perceive the underlying situation-and what you believe the real answer to be-you could see it as a positive reflection on Hornblower’s character, or a disturbing aspect of it. Forester deliberately raises this point repeatedly; it adds mystery and a human dimension to a character who could otherwise have become a stock hero, always correct and always victorious (at least in war and politics).

If you’re like me and love sea adventure, Lieutenant Hornblower is a must-read. Forester is able to explain the workings of a sailing vessel and the machines of war without sounding overly technical, mechanical, or tedious. He portrays the harsh discipline of the British navy so well that you will understand why sailors rapidly disappeared when the press gang was spotted; there was little question of patriotism, only one of self-preservation. Forester also plants in the imagination the horrors of war, where even lieutenants can be cut in two by cannonballs or tormented by mad captains, where decks become slippery with the blood and guts and limbs of the fallen.

Lieutenant Hornblower is an exciting, fast-paced read that may convince you to investigate the rest of the series.

30 June 2004
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Posted in Blog, Book Reviews, Books | Tagged fiction, historical fiction, novel | Leave a reply

Book review: The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

words and images Posted on November 15, 2011 by dlschirfDecember 30, 2018

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. Highly recommended.

Only 23 years old when she wrote The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers captures the restless energy of adolescence and the loneliness and isolation of those who choose not to fit into their world — Mick Kelly, an artistic teenager whose titles and graffiti reveal a darker side to her personality; Jake Blount, an itinerant socialist; Benedict Mady Copeland, a consumptive black physician; and Biff Brannon, sexually ambiguous owner of the New York Café.

Linking this disparate group of outsiders is the ironically named John Singer, a man who cannot talk (or sing). They are drawn to him, as lonely people are to someone they believe will listen and understand. They never step out of themselves to discover that Singer listens, but he doesn’t understand, nor do they realise that he, too, is lonely and isolated — or why.

Just as these four impose their concept of Singer upon him, he has his own idol — his companion of 10 years, Spiros Antonapoulos. While Singer’s lonely friends project upon him the character of a wise, knowing, understanding man, Singer in turn imposes a similar personality on Antonapoulos. His life revolves around his rare visits to the asylum to which Antonapoulos is eventually taken. As the reader’s awareness of Antonapoulos as a childish, greedy, and lazy man grows, so grows Singer’s faith in him as gentle and wise. As a fellow mute, Antonapoulos is all Singer has, so he both idealises and idolises him — in the same way that Mick, Blount, Copeland, and, to a lesser extent, Brannon idealise and idolise Singer.

Rarely do any of the four interact, except when Blount and Dr. Copeland engage in a circular argument about how best to help their peoples — victims of capitalism in Blount’s case, blacks in Dr. Copeland’s. These two groups have much in common, but just as Blount and Dr. Copeland remain in bitter conflict, so do their peoples — a conflict which is alluded to throughout and which culminates in a brawl at the carnival grounds where Jake works. Dr. Copeland and Jake never find common ground, nor do the poor white laborers and oppressed blacks they wish to enlighten. Dr. Copeland’s self-sacrificing but hopeless dedication and Jake’s self-destructive brutality could be seen as representing their time and place, the 1930s South.

Sexual ambiguity pervades the novel. It is never clear whether Singer and Antonapoulos are lovers, although it seems like that that is what lies behind Singer’s uncritical devotion. Even when Antonapoulos’s selfish, greedy, irrational behaviour drives away a third mute, Singer is merely disappointed at the loss of a potential friend — as long as he has Antonapoulos, he is content. After Antonapoulos leaves, “. . . in the spring a change came over Singer . . . his body was very restless . . . unable to work off a new feeling of energy.”

This sexual energy is shared by Mick, who is always restless. This isolates her even more from the rest of her family: her father, a disabled carpenter trying half-heartedly to make a living; her mother, for whom Mick acts as a substitute parent for her younger brothers Bubber (George) and Ralph; her older brother Bill, once close to her and now distant; and her older sisters Hazel and Etta, who have been forced from adolescence into adulthood through work and their own conventional interest in celebrity. (One could speculate about the nature of the “diseased ovary” Etta develops.)

Mick lives in an “inside room,” where she finds peace in music and in her perceptions of her friendship with Singer. Later, after her sexual initiation, she finds herself slyly manipulated into taking a job by her apparently solicitous family; at this point, she notices that, while the “inside room” is still important, she has less time and energy for it. McCullers exposition of Mick’s transition from inventive childhood to dulling adulthood is subtle and is one of the best aspects of the novel.

Of the four, Brannon is the most enigmatic. After his wife dies, he redecorates in what seems a distinctly unmasculine way (in contrast to his heavy, black beard, the subject of many comments). Even more interesting, he begins to wear his late wife’s perfume. While he observes, defends, and supports Jake, his sexual feelings are focused on Mick, to whom he seems distant and cold (in her naiveté, Mick attributes his attitude to the fact that she and Bubber shoplifted gum from the café). Not surprisingly, after Mick is sexually initiated, obtains a job, and begins to dress and behave more like a girl on the cusp of womanhood, Brannon loses interest and consequently warms up to her. She is now no more of a challenge to his impotence than his late wife was.

Not surprisingly, after Mick is sexually initiated, obtains a job, and begins to dress and behave more like a girl on the cusp of womanhood, Brannon loses interest and consequently warms up to her. She is now no more of a challenge to his impotence than his late wife was.

McCullers weaves a dense cloth of themes. First, there is the inward and selfish nature of loneliness. No one ever truly reaches out; in fact, Mick’s Jewish neighbor Harry, appalled by fascism and Hitler, and Brannon are the only characters who are interested in the greater world. The conditions of the working poor and the black experience are eloquently portrayed without much narrative or focus on details.

By the end, everything and nothing has changed. Mick is determined to escape fate through music, unlikely as it seems; a weakened Dr. Copeland becomes unable to carry on his “strong, true purpose.” Blount leaves town to find someone who will finally accept the basket of ideas that haunts his nightmares; Brannon, “suspended between bitter irony and faith,” faces the dawn exactly as he has for years.

McCullers’ portrayal of these disparate characters in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter is true to life and reveals a remarkable insight into people, no matter their age, gender, race, or background — an insight that is lacking in her self-absorbed characters. The heart is a lonely hunter, so it will find what it wishes to — love — in the most unlikely of places. It would take many re-readings to mine the richness here.

31 May 2004
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Posted in Blog, Book Reviews, Books | Tagged fiction, novel | Leave a reply

Book review: The Outlaws of Sherwood

words and images Posted on November 15, 2011 by dlschirfJanuary 16, 2019

The Outlaws of Sherwood by Robin McKinley. Not recommended.

As Robin McKinley hints in her Afterword, she has taken many elements associated with the Robin Hood legend to turn him into a hero for today — which makes him reluctant, pragmatic, and prosaic. As Marian tells him, “That’s why we need you. You’re a pessimist and a good planner.” While McKinley states that she tried to be “historically unembarrassing,” on occasion language fails her, as when one character mentions what Robin is “going through,” as though they are stock characters in a daytime drama.

The Robin Hood legend fascinates different people of different personalities, time periods, locations, and preferences for different reasons. For example, young boys may like the bravado of a fearless hero, while young girls may adore his courage and the romance implicit in the tale. Those who have felt oppressed (if only by an unlikable boss) may appreciate his initiative and his flouting of authority. To yet others, the outlaw band that steals from the rich and gives to the poor may serve as affirmation of justice in an unjust world. Others may simply enjoy the fantasy elements that many tales set in medieval times seem to have. For myself, I like the idea of an outdoor life, in the deep, truly untouched forest, away from the noise, crowding, stresses, and obligations of modern life.

That said, McKinley’s Robin Hood is none of the above. He becomes an outlaw accidentally and outlaw leader and legend only through the persuasive skills and stubbornness of Marian and Much. Physically, he is average. He is a good fletcher, an average fighter, and a poor archer. While his followers (like the reader, drawn to a character who doesn’t exist) boldly seek adventure and Norman purses, Robin is hesitant and fretful. He stays awake at night, watchful, worrying about practicalities such as feeding and sheltering the growing band, ensuring their Greentree haven deep in the heart of Sherwood is protected, and seeing to it that there are enough privy holes dug for the group’s needs. McKinley reduces Robin to what he really may have been at one time — a real human (or combination of humans) who, like a rock collects snow as it rolls downhill, has collected a variety of improbable elements as he passes through time. McKinley melts the snow until Robin could have been a real person — even if he was not. McKinley clearly feels this has appeal to modern sensibilities. She may be right, since this is a popular youth book. Perhaps, however, part of its popularity is due to the accessibility of its language to modern youth, for whom Pyle’s work is stilted and awkward.

Unfortunately, McKinley manages to rush through her plot while making it drag. While she elaborates about why the Chief Forester hates Robin, which indirectly leads to his crime, McKinley provides no context for the Norman oppression of the Saxons; it suddenly appears as a reason for Robin to lead a band of outlaws, but is not supported other than through a few tales of high taxes and lost holdings. In other words, the reader feels the villainy of the Chief Forester, the sheriff, and other select Normans, but not the cruelty of the people as a whole — yet the outlaws are fixated upon it. The reader is never brought in emotionally. The sheriff’s role is never defined; American readers will likely think he is simply a law enforcer rather than the king’s administrator (shire-reeve). Although the sheriff “is a cruel and greedy fool and lout,” it is never clear who appointed him — the absent and negligent Richard Lionheart or the Regent, vaguely alluded to a few times. It’s also not clear where Lionheart is — fighting the Saracens in Palestine or, as mentioned at one point, imprisoned in Germany.

Meanwhile, the plot plods along, with effort expended to build up a sense of danger around Marian relationship with Beatrix (a relation?) that falls flat and abruptly disappears. A gratuitous romance is introduced between members of the band for no apparent reason. Halfway through the novel, the perspective shifts inexplicably from that of Robin, Marian, and Much to that of Little John and Cecil — a shift necessary in one or two chapters to move the plot, but which detracts from the investment the reader has made in Robin and Marian.

One wonders how McKinley chose names for some of the lesser outlaws — are they hers, or do they come from previous retellings? While some (Rafe, Cecil) are English, others (Eva and Simon — Hebrew, Humphrey and Matilda — German, Marjorie — Greek, Sibyl (Cybill) — Latin, and the male Jocelin — French (female!) have non-English origins, which seems unlikely, nor have I encountered them in my medieval readings. Like the continual feminist approach, the names are so out of place that they detract from the sense of realism — as do the many wounds that never turn gangrenous and are well on their way to healing within a week.

Most of all, The Outlaws of Sherwood lacks suspense, perhaps because the plot is weak and disjointed. McKinley wastes opportunities, as with Marian and Beatrix as well as Robin’s uncertainty about the unknown Cecil. When Robin commits a crime particularly embarrassing to the sheriff, that official finally shows interest. After a climactic battle with Guy of Gisbourne told in anticlimactic detail (even Tuck feels time is endless) and a tedious focus on the weeklong aftermath (during which the sheriff is mysteriously absent), The Outlaws of Sherwood finally drags to an anticlimactic end, with Lionheart droning about fealty, the king’s whim, reward, and punishment and doling out judgments. Despite the attempt to make Robin realistic, he and Sherwood are even less alive and less vibrant than in the improbable legend. If you are a Robin Hood fan, as I am, by all means read The Outlaws of Sherwood; it has some interest, if only for the subject matter.

9 April 2004
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

 

Posted in Blog, Book Reviews, Books | Tagged fiction, novel, pastiche | Leave a reply

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