Why Am I Doing This?

This is a pure reversion site, a means to cope with various disappointments and resignations of middle age that can impinge upon one's ability to live contentedly. While it is true that this page's mother site (bourgeoissurrender.blogspot.com) was wrenched into being six years ago for largely these same reasons, and has been on the whole unsuccessful in its purpose, this sideline is much more modest about what it is and can be expected to be, and is intended to be a place where such unburdening as must go on can be indulged in as minimalist and prosaic a manner as can be mustered.

The main disappointment that this site particularly addresses is my failure to become in any meaningful way a lettered person, the attainment of which would also imply cosmopolitanism and acceptable intelligence and a number of other desirable qualities that I actually once took for granted I would be identifiable as possessing regardless of what heights I should have scaled in the field of literature. It seems now that the appeal of this calling to me was emotional and romanticized only; if I had any understanding of the real nature of the skill and intelligence and spirit involved in the production of literature or history or geography, let alone any of the 'hard' areas of learning and achievement, it was a flimsy one. So now, at age forty-two, flummoxed by a lack of development and progression that seems impossible to effectively counteract, I am retreating into the comfort of adolescent nostalgia, for my earliest experiences of books, and especially literature, as a component of one's sensibility or worldview, so I can try to figure out why it struck me that this was to be my life's path; which it still has been, however unobservable the influence is from almost any distance.

I was thirteen or fourteen when my parents brought home, on a whim, a full set of the 1966 edition of the Illustrated World's Encyclopedia that they must have picked up cheaply. The writing level of the body of this reference book was in many respects almost babyish, and of course it was already nearly twenty years out of date, but: I had always wanted a set of encyclopedias, even at the age of thirteen I did not think it a great loss that the advancements of knowledge and history of the two last decades should be missing, there were a number of features in it such as explanations of the rules of various card games which I had not previously realized I had wanted, and the photographs and illustrations seemed to me to depict a more optimistic, happier and educationally exciting world than that with which I was familiar. That it was (probably) a particularly insidious lie did not have any effect on my feelings; I liked and welcomed it. The main attraction of this set of books, located in the rear of every volume, were short blurbs, plot summaries and amusing line drawings of scenes from their selections of the World's Greatest Literature, the books--mostly novels of the most recent one hundred years--that could form the foundation of a decent middle class American education, which the presentation made seem to be something worth having. The genius of this list's conception was in having popular--and either legitimately or plausibly good--American and British literature of the 1900-1950 period, which even at that time held a great appeal for me, as its anchor, though it only accounted for 30-40% of the total books selected. The rest was filled in by a good but not overbearing scattering of Greek and Roman authors, most of Shakespeare, 17th and 18th century classics, the Regency and Victorian novelists, a broad sampling of the classic, and once thought to be possibly classic, French writers, the Russians of course, more German novels than would be common on such a list today, a substantial selection of currently almost unknown Scandinavians, a smattering of Italians and even a few Spaniards. Given the nature of the encyclopedia, many children's classics are cited,  though these share their place with Dostoevsky and Hardy and Proust. Of course there are multitudes of worthy books, and many authors, left off, and many dubious and even embarrassing choices that were included, though I have read a few of the more forgotten titles and in certain instances found them good enough that in combination with their evocation of a sliver of the past, and their present obscurity, gave them a highly poignant quality. I am not here going to concern myself with who or what was left off, but my intention is to revisit the effect upon my imagination and relation to the entire world that this rather stupid list had upon me.  

So I read from this list rather haphazardly--I cut strips of paper, each bearing the title of one of the 300-400 books, which I kept in a plastic cup on my desk, which I shook up and drew a winning ticket from whenever I needed a new book--for close to ten years, though the most dedicated and prolific years of reading were the first two or three, from ages fourteen to sixteen. I was not a complete fanatic at this time. There were several books--I remember off the top of my head Diana of the Crossways, All the King's Men, and Nana being among them--that I found completely impenetrable and had to abandon to keep my momentum up, and there were many others--pretty much all of them that weren't middlebrow 20th American works probably--that I was able to get through but understood very little of. Still, I found a great deal that I enjoyed and took inspiration from in these efforts. During the later high school years my dedication fell off and there was a two year period from about eighteen to twenty when, despite not even being in school at the time, I read nothing at all, most of my energies at that time being devoted to wandering around anywhere there might be a hope of my encountering any kind of social life (there was none). I did spend a lot of time in libraries in these years but my reading consisted mostly of newspapers and magazines and skimming easily readable books--I evidently could not concentrate on anything very long at this period. Eventually I did make it back to school, and on occasion, in the summer especially, I would dip back into the old list again, and after I finished/graduated I thought I would perhaps continue on with it. But about six months after leaving school, with my life in considerable disarray with regard to finances and employment, having gotten through about one and a half books, completely unable to undertake any writing, and my literary needs with regard to quality and high historical importance having at that time been raised quite a bit as a result of my time in college (this stringency of taste has abated some in recent years as it becomes rarer for anything to affect me intensely), I determined, curiously, that the first thing I had to do to restore some sense of order and purpose and self-respect to my life was to start on a new, and better, reading list. And to a great extent this did work, and although I have never made much advancement in my economic or career status--while I have some sense of how to organize and build a foundation, I have, sadly, little of how to advance from there--I have largely avoided experiencing again the total emptiness and self-hatred I felt when I was on no such regular plan.

I am not returning to the old list in order to read through it, not yet anyway. I do however feel that in my writing, and doubtless by extension in my thinking also, I have gotten away in recent years from some of the things I do, if not well, at least more characteristic of my best self than what has passed for those exercises with me lately. I think that entering again more frequently into the slower, blithe, almost heartbreakingly innocent milieu of my earliest introduction to the world of literature may restore some of my lost optimism about not only it but the whole of life as well as mitigate some of the agitation and distractedness that have affected my ability to write, which is the only real adult activity I can plausibly see myself engaging in with any degree of competency enthusiasm during the remainder of my life. There are references to literary tourism throughout the site, which are primarily amusements though I do believe these excursions can contribute to one's general education if indulged in earnestly enough. Travel is still best undertaken I think as a long immersion constituting a distinct epoch of one's experience--probably a full year at least--in order to approach being serious.

As noted in one of the initial posts, after I go through and do write-ups on all the authors, I may go back and make similar notes on various of the subjects, people and places and events, I am not sure yet what the criteria would be. After that I may undertake similar reports on such of the authors of the Britannica Great Books set who were not included here, as I would like to have their destinations in my travel lists; but these undertakings, should I ever get to them, would be years in the future.

James Barrie

Will probably be remembered, as long as he is remembered, as the author of Peter Pan, though I do not have the sense that many people, either adults or children, read the original play anymore (I must admit, I have never read it myself). In addition to Pan (1904), two of Barrie's other plays were chosen for the 1958 list: The Admirable Crichton (1902), and Dear Brutus (1917) [ his ages at the publication of these books: 42, 44, & 57]. Much like Lewis Carroll, such reputation of him as survives is as a children's author who in private life had issues with emotional immaturity and dysfunctional sexual problems, though in fact he was a major figure in the adult literary, theatrical and social worlds of his time, achieving a high measure of fame and esteem during his lifetime. As such his biography is well-chronicled. His stature as an important literary figure seems to have been gradually, but steadily fading, since the 1920s. However he does remain a name, to the point that there was even a film (Finding Neverland) within the last decade based loosely on his life in which he was played by Johnny Depp; I have not seen this movie, though the previews do not strike me as particularly capturing the interesting essence either of James Barrie's life and work or of his era. But I am basing this on my own reading from and about this time, which is doubtless itself grotesquely flawed.

This is the only James Barrie book I own, a copy of his 1891 novel The Little Minister. I have not read it, either. It belongs to a set of "The World's Popular Classics" which my wife found set out in several boxes by the side of one of our country roads a few years and brought home, knowing I have a fondness for such collections. The set sits currently on the whatnot in the living room. The Little Minister is regarded as sentimental Victorian junk by most professional readers, but it was a best seller in its time.

I should pick up a copy of Peter Pan if I ever run across one. It still is a classic, and it is the kind of thing one of my children might pick up and read someday if they find it on the shelf. Modern children are obviously busier, or at least have more things other than books to distract them, than their forbears, so my sense actually was that this would never happen; however my oldest son has taken up and read (at fairly long intervals) Frankenstein, The Prince and the Pauper, and A Christmas Carol in this manner and he is only ten, so maybe some minor good--but here I am still assuming that reading tired old books produces some kind of valuable result, when my entire life had been one long refutation of this once widely-believed tenet..  

I have not read anything of Barrie's, though he does interest me a little, because he did manage to produce a minor classic after a sort, and because his generation of writers represent a curious time in literary as well as British history. This period when Barrie was solidly ensconced in the literary establishment, roughly 1900-1920, is among my least favorite in English literary history, as far as the writing goes; but the earnestness, the assumptions regarding the value and permanence of literature and the arts and religion and much of what might be called the entire English way of life--even if, as I believe, these were frequently unconscious and internalized--and these characteristics proving largely unable to survive World War I and the onset of modernity, nonetheless hold a high amount of fascination for me.

The Admirable Crichton is the story, now become somewhat of a cliche, of some typical English aristocrats who get shipwrecked on a desert island during a disastrous yachting outing, in which circumstances the butler Crichton is revealed to be a naturally superior man to his masters--the effect sounds like Jeeves and Wooster meet Gilligan's Island. Also like Jeeves, Crichton is assiduous in his efforts to maintain the relations proper to everyone's social positions. To believe in the necessity of this so thoroughly even when one is perfectly capable of occupying a higher station than one is born into, and to actively promote its preservation, would not seem to be logically consistent to anyone who did not grow up in a society with such a strictly delineated hierarchy. The supposed contradiction is almost always presented in these British works with the implication of being comedy, and, unlike some of the even more aristocratic cultures on the continent, which do not even seem to allow for the possibility of such a reversal of parts between master and man, it does not seem to be considered matter for concern with regard to the general health of society; at the same time, even while highlighting some of the absurdities of society as currently constituted, the idea that it should be fundamentally reorganized is never very strongly pressed either.

The (original) film version of The Admirable Crichton, made in 1919, was called Male and Female. Among its stars was Gloria Swanson of Sunset Boulevard fame. Here is a clip of it (embedding is not allowed). To those of us who lived in the days when public screenings of silent movies usually meant an ancient, filthy print of actual celluloid being run through a actual film projector, these modern restorations are so good that they barely even look real.

With regard to Peter Pan, the IWE observes that "Many reviewers have read into Peter Pan all kinds of deep symbolic intents and perhaps they are right, but also there is the possibility that its author intended it simply as a clever fairy tale for children". That's my kind of summary. While the 1953 Disney interpretation is probably the iconic one, film versions of the story are legion, and the title role has been a signature part for many legendary actresses, including the original, the great and beautiful Maude Adams, of whose performances there does not seem to be a film record however.

Many people consider the 1924 version the best of them all (Barrie was still living at this time--he died in 1937). This selection from it at nearly five minutes is a little long, but it is worth it for the dog (who comes in around the 2:50 mark), which is hilarious. I am not previously familiar with this Betty Bronson person who played Peter, but she was a babe. The girl who plays Wendy (Mary Brian) is cute too. The smaller of the boys--I can never keep Michael and John straight--has a strong resemblance, in facial expression and texture and wave, if not color, of hair, to my five year old son. Another unbelievable restoration:

Mary Martin is one of the famous actresses identified with the Peter Pan role, which she first played in her 50s. Below is the "We Can Fly" scene from her 1960 television version, which was very popular and well-received at the time.

And of course, I cannot leave out the Disney version of the same part, though even upon its original release, before a critical mass of the public realized how offensive its racist depiction of Indians was, I don't think it was considered one of their best movies. I do like the cartoon depiction of Edwardian London here. It really is the primary London of my imagination; Walt Disney was doubtless reared on all the same books I was. Cartoon Wendy has it going on too. Whoever does her voice has the Teresa Wright/Eva Marie Saint thing going on which was apparently a common way of speaking at the time, and which we can only hope might return in some form someday.

Dear Brutus was a work of Barrie's mature years, and was apparently very successful despite making its appearance in the darkest depths of World War I and being a fantasy set in a country house during Midsummer's Week (life goes on, wherever it is not completely overturned, I guess). Even in 1958 the encyclopedists noted that "it is seldom revived, perhaps because it has no one part that is sufficiently outstanding." I am always intrigued by the idea that writing and art of this sort still exists, is still welcomed, and needed, in times of grave crisis and societal upheaval, when most people's attention is directed upon grimly serious matters. I am curious about this play. The only video clip of it I can find is from a college theater production, and a recent one at that; the actors and direction I found too affected however to make it worthwhile to put up here.

Barrie was a Scot, from the town of Kirriemuir, in Angus (Forfarshire from 1700-1929), which is farther north in Scotland than most of her famous authors hail from. His birthplace, at 9 Brechin Road, is now a National Trust museum. He is buried with his parents in the cemetery here as well, though he lived continuously in London after he was 24. The closest railroad station to the town appears to be Dundee, which is about 20 miles away.

In London the statue of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, where Barrie, who lived in the neighborhood, used to walk his dog, is famous. Lancaster Gate and Queensway on the Central Line look to be the closest subway stops.

Here is footage of Barrie, who comes across as genuinely eccentric in this short clip, at the dedication of what appears to be the well-known Thomas Hardy statue in Dorchester in 1931.

Barrie was a degree holder (M.A.) from  the University of Edinburgh
     

Places I Have Already Been To

1. United States...…........................29

2. England...…...............................28

3. Ireland....................................6
    Italy........................................6

5. Norway..................................4
6. France.....................................2

George Eliot

The George Eliot titles selected for the NIE World's Greatest Literature canon were Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss, and Silas Marner, published in back-to-back-to-back years (1859-60-61) when the author was 40, 41 & 42 years old, right at the peak age for writers I have frequently identified (ed.--and which I am passing through right now, this being of interest to myself as I had long anticipated that the years 2010-2012 would mark the pinnacle both of my mental vitality and my career. This did not prove to be the case).  Middlemarch, which appeared a decade after these books and at present seems to be almost unanimously accepted as George Eliot's masterpiece (including by me) was not chosen for this 1958 list, which was aimed at adolescents (and perhaps literary adolescents of all ages), and maybe the travails of Causabon and Dorothea and Fred Vincy and Will Ladislaw was a little too relentlessly mature and serious; or, as seems more likely to me, the literary world at the time was for various reasons unable to appreciate its outstanding and substantial qualities with an enthusiasm equivalent to ours. Many critical assessments of George Eliot from the 1920-1960 period, while they acknowledge her importance, especially in her own time, express at best a lukewarm affection towards her work. She was frequently tarred by the damning label 'sentimental' which may have been a more distasteful term among the literati at that time than it is today (because I think we affect a repulsion that they really felt) . Apart from some of her endings, which, at least in her earlier efforts, was probably her weakest point as a writer, she does not I think immediately strike the modern reader, who has come of age in a culture nearly drowned in treacle, as particularly given over to sentiment, though I suppose I can see what these of our forebears in reading were getting at.         

My personal, and somewhat spare George Eliot library, consisting of two 90s era Penguins, a 90s Modern Library, and turn-of-the-21st century Everyman's. The hardcover Middlemarch is my wife's. It was a St John's book in our era at least, hence the two copies. These are the only three George Eliot books I have read, though Silas Marner at least is on the reading list I have been following since 1994, assuming I live long enough to get to it. There will have been a long lacuna between George Eliot books, as I read the others within a fairly close time:

Mill on the Floss: started September 16, 1995
Middlemarch: March, 1993, in school, finished about half; started again May 26,1998
Adam Bede: December 30, 2000

George Eliot seems to be obviously one of the greatest novelists of all time, yet traditionally this has not always been acknowledged with what is called real feeling. The Mill on the Floss and Silas Marner especially were required school readings for many years and developed the reputation among nearly everyone who was not an overeager English major as the sine qua non of boring literature. This impression was so ingrained in me that I was really quite surprised when I took up The Mill on the Floss myself that it was not merely readable but one of the most moving and deeply conceived novels, apart from the ending, that I had ever read. It is very much like a mini-Middlemarch, the protagonist and many of the major characters being children and young people, and the limitations of their activities and concerns which that necessitates, but the detail and expansiveness within the confines of the story and the fine rendering of a very precise literary world are in common with the other book. Adam Bede partakes of these same excellencies of literary technique and vision. I would rank it slightly behind the other two because its characters are not as interesting or humorous, though they are drawn with no less care and detail than those in the other books. 19th century rural England must in general rate among the more vivid and familiar of all literary locales, though I am aware that its character differs according to author, time period, region, and so forth, i.e. Hardy, Emily Bronte, D.H. Lawrence and so on; but George Eliot may be the single most important figure in bestowing upon the Victorian Middle England countryside its essential immortal character. I think so at least.

The NIE editor(s), in the very brief introduction to Adam Bede such as accompanies all the plot summaries in the collection, appeared not to have read the book any time recently, as he describes it as "quite short". Say what? The Everyman's edition above runs 613 pages. And it is not big type.

For Silas Marner, our guide advises, "One should not avoid reading it even if his school permits him to."

George Eliot was born in a house called South Farm on the Arbury Estate, two miles SW of Nuneaton in Warwickshire. The house appears to still stand. It is not clear to me whether it is ever open to the public or not. The doors of the main Arbury Hall, or some of them, look as if they are thrown open on bank holiday weekends in summer. Nuneaton, which seems to have been village in George's day, is now a large suburb of 70,000 nine miles from Coventry and twenty from Birmingham. Griff House, where she lived for most of her first 21 years, also still stands. It  now houses a hotel and tavern. The Nuneaton Museum and Art Gallery, if nothing else, has a collection of some George Eliot memorabilia.  

George Eliot was buried in the east section of Highgate Cemetery, somewhat celebrated as a decently-preserved patch of Victoriana, in Highgate, London. These photos and the ticket stub below are from my visit of September 8, 1996.

There is a statue of George Eliot in the center of Nuneaton, and a separate garden and obelisk in the same city. I offered some views on why it is worthwhile to seek out memorial statuary in the William Faulkner article. She is also commemorated by a stone in Westminster Abbey.

The neighborhood of Highgate in 1996 at least still looked recognizably like what a person whose ideas of London are mainly derived from reading novels of the 1920s and 30s would expect it to look like. Brick walls, leafy squares closed in by cast iron fences, long vistas of Edwardian era housefronts, quiet. But it was a long time ago, and my memory may be deceiving me. Probably most people of intellect would have found numerous things about it that repulsed them, but sentiment obviously is too strong in me. Since nothing interesting ever happens to me wherever I go I find a great pleasure in feeling like I could be in the setting of one of the kinds of books I like, where something important at least happened in someone's imagination at one time. This is what life gets reduced to when you lack the capacity to be one of the people pushing it forward.

I don't have any idea what this film version of Mill on the Floss is. It does not appear to be the 1937 British effort whose cast included James Mason as Tom Tulliver. The various modern versions are probably better (I see one of them starred Emily Watson, whom I like, sometimes as maybe more than just a friend, as Maggie) than this, but there is a kind of literate irreverence in these older adaptations that is amusing in small doses.