Master of Atlantis: Charles Portis and the Absurd

 As I’ve said before, I first read True Grit after I learned that the Coen Brothers had begun production on a film adaptation of the book.  I thought that if the Coen Brothers found the book interesting enough to adapt, it was worth a read. I loved the book. But when I finished it, I didn’t feel any need to seek out Charles Portis’s other endeavors.  On the True Grit DVD (of course I have all the Coen Brothers’ films on DVD), there is a feature on Charles Portis and his other books.  It was that feature that made me put Portis’s collection on my Christmas list that year.  I’ve been reading through the books at a leisurely pace in chronological order (as is my wont).  Masters of Atlantis, then, is Portis’s fourth novel, and the fourth one I’ve read.

Portis has always had elements of the absurd in his novels, but the absurdities have always existed at the fringes of the tale.  Certainly, there is some absurd feature to all his protagonists, some obsession, or some set way of looking at the world, but the protagonists are a kind of hard center the reader holds on to as we travel through the absurdities of the world and the other characters the protagonist bounces off of. In Masters of Atlantis, Portis leans fully into the absurd at every level of his storytelling.  The tale is full of ridiculous people wanting ridiculous things and behaving in ridiculous ways.

Published in 1985, Masters of Atlantis tells the story of the rise and fall of the Gnomon Society, a secret society (that is often anything but secret) claiming to hold the sacred truths of the world collected by and known to the Atlanteans.  Lamar Jimmerson, a young American soldier in France at the end of the Great War, meets what is to the reader obviously a con man taking advantage of Jimmerson’s naivete and desire for something important and sacred.  This encounter sends the believing Jimmerson to Italy where he believes he’ll meet up with other Gnomons to partake in their society.  Instead of feeling had when he finds no trace of the society there, he decided he was being tested and must wait to be contacted.  From there, he meets another man, Sydney Hen, an Englishman, who, when told about the society and the text Jimmerson had received from his first encounter, wants in.  The two men take the study of that text—the Codex Pappus—seriously and create a full interpretation of the scribblings there.  More men come to them and they essentially start up the Gnomon Society.  The book follows the organization from 1917 to what must be the late ‘70s or early ‘80s. At their finest moment, Jimmerson can afford to live in a grand home in Burnette, Indiana that doubled as a Gnomon Temple.  Jimmerson married Sydney Hen’s sister, Fanny, and had a son, Jerome.  There were Gnomon branches (called Pillars) across the US, and the news was obsessed with them as both possible heroes and possible villains of the age.  But the new grew tired of the Gnomons and people grew uninterested in secret societies.  The Pillars dissolved.  There was a schism in the order with Sydney Hen split off from Jimmerson in their interpretations of the Codex Pappus.  Fanny found a career and moved away from Jimmerson, and Jerome, who never felt comfortable with his father, went with her.  The Burnette temple fell into disarray and the elevated freeway that was built to connect Gary to Chicago went up around the temple itself, the peak of the tower showing through the divided roadway. The novel ends in Texas, where Jimmerson and Hen are brought together again in the compound of one Morehead Moaler, the last Master of the last standing Temple, which is really a doublewide trailer.  The three old men are content with their lot, and there’s always the possibility of the Gnomons rising once more with the new cycle.

There are of course a host of characters who all find a place within the Gnomon Society, or in the case of a few permanently outside the Society in tension with it.  The absurdities lie in the way these characters feel about and respond to the Society and its goings on.  Jimmerson is a true believer, and he has little interest in how the Gnomons fair, though he does have enough of an ego to be played upon by other characters, primarily the mover and shaker, Austin Popper.  He has decided the Codex Pappus is truth, and he spends his life interpreting and building upon that truth with books and papers.  But his pursuit is silliness in terms of the book, and clearly no one reads his writings as we learn that one book was published without every other page missing, and no one notices for decades even though the book has been reprinted several times.  In fact, it seems that everyone involved in the Society are equal believers even as they claim absurd revelations about their own past lives as leaders in the Society. 

So what seems like a nest of conmen is never confirmed to be such.  Portis never steps in and tells us what “the Truth” is even though we are left to infer much.  The man in the opening who gives Jimmerson the Codex Pappus is only presented to us by what he says and does.  What seems obviously a ruse is never laid out for us as a certainty.  And Austin Popper is another case.  We do know that some of his statements are lies, and his ambition is clear to us, but what does he really do with that ambition and those lies?  He is content to sit in the dilapidated Red Room without luxury.  And at the end of the novel, his grand scheme is to live in a doublewide trailer with three old men.  There is obviously a core belief in the Society and its teachings. The absurdity comes in these characters having grand ambitions and cunning social interactions for what are the most meager ends.

However, this approach can make reading the book difficult, in that you don’t have a solid character to hold on to.  Even if you’re interested in following the course of this Society, you aren’t in a position to root for anything—you are along for the ride.  If you’re the kind of reader who is cool with being along for the ride (and in the hands of a skilled writer—which Portis certainly is—I am), then the journey through this absurd world is fun.  But I can see a number of readers having a problem with the narrative, either dropping out some ways in or making it to the end only grudgingly.  Judging by some of the reviews I’ve seen of the book, that seems right.

To me, the absurdities are not offputting because they are so perfectly human.  The Gnomon Society is often seen in light of other secret societies and cults, but how is it really any different than major religions and their major texts.  The texts are written by people, often cobbled together by other people, and then declared by a third group to hold all the answers and knowledge we need.  The gentle mix of con artist and true believers is the exact combination necessary to fuel the expansion of such a religion.  And to be clear, Portis is not mocking people who embrace religions, because those who are critical of them are just as absurd.  I loved the scene of the Texas committee hearing in which Popper is grilled about Jimmerson and the Gnomons.  The committee members are every bit as ridiculous if not moreso.  The fact is, we are a ridiculous species and the more we insist on knowing the truth about anything the more ridiculous we are.  If there is not grand meaning in the mysteries around us, then there are only absurdities in our insistence on their being grand meanings.

What I think makes the book enjoyable to read instead of painful, is the gentleness with which Portis approaches his subject.  I could see the argument that Portis is almost loving toward his creations, laying their absurdities bare and open to critique, but doing so without malice.  If it’s not love, then there is at least a feeling of camaraderie, an acknowledgment that as ridiculous as these people are, they are not especially ridiculous, no more than the rest of us.

John Myers Myers's The Harp and the Blade

 

The Harp and the Blade was originally published serially in 1941, but my edition of the book is the 1985 Ace edition of the 1982 release of the novelized collection of the serial’s chapters.  Before 3 months ago, I had never heard of the novel or of John Myers Myers.  An artist friend of mine whom I’ve been coming to know through some online conversations listed it as one of his favorite books, and one that he occasionally reread.  I thought there might be no better way to get to know a person than be reading one of their favorite books.

 

I’m not big on reading pulp adventures, and this cover is about as pulpy as it gets.  It looks like a young David Spade and a jacked-up Judd Nelson modeled for the half-dressed figures on the cover.  Like, I was not comfortable carrying the book with me to jobs because I didn’t want to have to answer questions.  But I’m happy to report the literary content is much more rewarding than the cover art.

 

The story is told in the first person by the bard Finnian, who is wandering through a lawless part of France in an unspecified year.  Finnian is clever and self-assured, wanting only to make his way through the land.  Early in the novel, he trespasses on a druid’s sacred ground and gets cursed for his troubles.  The druidic man bemoans Finnian’s selfishness and condemns him to helping everyone in need whom he encounters.  From there, Finnian, through his cursed wanderings, introduces us to the four main forces struggling for power in the region.  He makes friends and enemies, encounters a love-interest, and manages to talk or fight his way out of every corner he gets shoved into.  By the end of the novel, the unsettled power dynamics have been sorted out with a sense of justice and rightness.

 

The idea of the curse is an interesting inciting incident, especially since it is unnecessary.  It’s never clear if sorcery is at work at all, since Finnian needs no curse to give aid to those in need.  The effect is that Finnian is a more careless and morally ambivalent person than he acts, wishing that he could give in to his selfish side to make things easy for himself.  It gives us the trope we are long used to seeing now, though I have no idea if it was a trope in 1940, of the tough guy who begrudgingly does right, whose cynicism we can enjoy and in whose triumphs we can rejoice.  I expected the druid to return at the end of the novel to gloat over the efficacy of his curse, but he never makes a second appearance. 

 

Finnian seems like the kind of guy I’d be perfectly happy staying far away from, but he does make for an interesting hero, in that he is as good at bargaining with people as fighting, as quick with his wit as with his sword.  I enjoyed the novel well enough, but I was especially impressed by the big rescue chapter, in which he has to help a captured friend escape from an enemy hold.  Nothing feels off by being too clever, but every turn is impressive and well done. 

 

There is a great sense of pacing throughout the novel, from the level of each chapter to the overarching story with adventure and meditation or friendship balancing back and forth.  And the language, which I expected to feel dated as 80-year-old stories tend to do, felt surprisingly modern.  I can only imagine it was on the cutting edge of hipness when it was released.

 

It’s a playful and dramatic romp of a read.  I think the book could stand up to an analysis about the time and place of its creation.  We have a war-torn country with unstable power centers and a character who would desperately like to stay neutral and out of the fighting but joins forces with reasonable power over power-hungry ambition that cares not for its subjects.  It takes all the race and cultural issues out to have the argument exist between a bunch of white dudes, but the structure seems relevant.  Beyond these matters of plotting and action, there was not a lot in the language itself to prompt me toward analysis or introspection.  Taking you inward is not what Myers is about in this book.

Tehanu and Power in Earthsea

 *As usual, this post is filled with spoilers and the assumption that you have read the novel already—proceed at your own risk.*

 

I have been excited to get to Tehanu ever since I learned that we would be reuniting with Tenar from The Tombs of Atuan.  I don’t know what I expected, but I most certainly could not have predicted the story Le Guin has created.  Of course, that’s one of the things I love about Le Guin as a storyteller.  In all the novels of hers I’ve read, I have never been able from the half-way point in the novel to predict where it was going.  She accomplishes this feat not through trickery and twists and turns of plot, but through having a desire to tell stories that lie outside conventional norms.

 

As I’ve said in some of my other posts, I often read books to my wife before we go to bed, and Tehanu was one of these nightly readings.  Unlike the other Earthsea books, however, this one made for difficult pre-sleep reading.  We begin with a child maliciously burned in a fire after being beaten nearly to death and raped.  Good jesus, that’s a sobering note to begin on and a clear signal that Le Guin will be dealing with an aspect of Earthsea’s that we have not hitherto seen.  Shortly thereafter, Tenar and Therru are menaced by a group of men on the trail to Ogion’s home.  This is a clever way to place the novel within the time frame of The Farthest Shore, but seeing our protagonist threatened is unnerving.  We most certainly have never seen Ged threatened like that, in a way that made us genuinely concerned for his safety.  The of course Ogion dies, and Ged comes home, not triumphantly, but in crisis over who he is now that he has been drained of his powers.

 

This is heavy stuff, and while it made for rocky bedtime reading, I loved it.  As Le Guin says in her afterward to my edition:

 

By the time I wrote this book I needed to look at heroics from outside and underneath, from the point of view of the people who are not included.  The ones who can’t do magic.  The ones who don’t have shining staffs or swords.  Women, kids, the poor, the old, the powerless.  Unheroes, ordinary people—my people.  I didn’t want to change Earthsea, but I needed to see what Earthsea looked like to us.

 

That theme of power and powerlessness are laced throughout the story, of course.  Tenar meditates many times on what it means to be a middle-aged woman beyond her child-bearing years.  She sees women’s power as residing in their sexual power and maternal power, and once they are beyond that, what power do they have left?  Like Ged, she has found her cup of power, what litter there was, emptied, and she was wondering how to define herself as well.  And this theme of power is directly related to why this story has to be violent and threatening as it is, in a way that none of the other Earthsea books before it have been.  How do you show powerlessness so you can discuss it?  To truly show the power lacking, you have to show her at the mercy of others’ powers, threatened by them, degraded by them, attacked by them, and terrified by them.

 

Looking back, it seems only fitting that this would be Le Guin’s focus once she turned her attention back to Tenar.  Tombs of Atuan is equally about power, and its crisis for Tenar lies in the moment she realizes that she is treated as though she has power when she in fact has none and is at the mercy of the other priestess who had no respect for the Nameless Ones.

 

The book questions the patriarchy and anti-feminism that lies at the foundations of Earthsea’s hierarchies and political structures.  In her long conversation with Ged about power over the winter, they speculate what just power might look like, and it might resemble parental power, in that the parent knows that their child is obedient only because they choose to be.  And they will only choose to be obedient for as long as they trust you.  I loved when Tenar wished that Ged had killed Hake with his pitchfork, because now the King’s justice would demand that hake be punished.  Tenar rebels against the idea of someone meting out punishment because punishment is an act of power, remember how Handy wanted to punish Therru and Tenar.  They both wish Ged had just killed Hake and both cannot stand idly by and let him die, even though they both want it.  That complication and impossible position is so relatable and achingly painful.  And everything then comes into stronger focus with the return of Spark, her son.  She realizes she has “failed” because she has repeated the sexism and hierarchy in him instead of using what influence and power she had to make him different, and in doing so make the world different.  Spark was once an underdog, struggling to survive, but he has returned home with a firm position of power, and nothing about his previous status has taught him how to wield that power, let alone to give it up.

 

In the other novels, I feel like Le Guin had philosophical positions about life and death and how one should live that she wrapped her narratives around.  Tehanu is not that.  There is searching and struggling in Tehanu.  There is an unresolved attitude, a wish that is at odds with the way we have experienced life so far.  There is a knowledge of right and wrong but still no easy answer to lay before.  Ged laid things bare for Tenar in Tombs of Atuan.  He explained the crisis clearly and succinctly to Arren in Farthest Shore.  But here, he’s got nothing.  Just some observations and feelings.  This Ged is not a mystic full of power.  He’s a mess of a man, and he’s lovelier for it, struggling with Tenar instead of leading her to safety.

 

I also love how names take on a different meaning in this book.  We know that names hold power in this world, that they name a reality that can be obscured by the world around us.  But here, Le Guin goes beyond the division of real names and use-names.  Tenar has a wealth of names: Arha, Tenar, Goha, Mother, and Wife.  At one point Tenar has a conversation with herself and Le Guin frames it as Goha talking to Tenar.  This isn’t a use-name talking to the real thing.  This is two different aspects of Tenar’s character and life debating with one another.  Likewise, Ged has become Hawk because he is a different person than his old use-name Sparrowhawk.  In the worlds of the powerless, everything is less clear, and even use-names have power.  The power of the mage is the power of reduction: reducing the world to what seems and what is.  Tehanu blurs those lines and asks if that division is even any good to begin with.  Such a division is only useful if we all stand on an equal footing, and the world of Earthsea, like our own, is anything but equal.  When Aspen has the power, he forgoes both Tenar’s real name and her use-names and assaults her afresh with the word Bitch.  We see evil in Aspen (good lord did I hate that motherfucker), but Tenar is also frustrated with the wizard on Lebannen’s boat who for all his knowledge is blind.

 

In my review of Farthest Shore, I said I’d leave analysis of the relationship between humans and dragons to someone else, and I’ll continue to pass the buck here, where Therru/Tehanu is concerned.  Ann believes that Therru’s dragon-personhood came about because she was pushed into that fire and it burned away her human part.  I suspect she was born that way, speaking the words of the Making as all dragons are.  The fact is, I don’t think Le Guin could answer that question if she were still here to have it posed to her.  One of Le Guin’s magical qualities is that she brings together intense intellectualism with fierce instincts and always seems to know when one should yield to the other.  When she decided that dragons were closely related to people in the Farthest Shore so that they were affected by Cob’s actions, she didn’t know why that was the case, she just knew it was right.  And here we can see her prodding those instincts farther, growing the legend and the connection out. There’s great analysis to be done about these dragon-people, but I’m not the one to do it.  I’m just here to gush about how cool it is.  How much did I love that fan detail?!  So much!

 

This is a book I will definitely revisit when we finish the next two books.  There’s a lot here to unpack and think about, and I don’t think I can do so fully without a full re-read.  For now, my love for this book rivals my love for Tombs of Atuan.  Something about Tenar pushes Le Guin to do her best work.

In Darkness, Death (Book 3 of the Samurai Detective Series)

In Darkness, Death is the third book in what the Hoobler’s are calling “The Samurai Detective Series.” This post is going to build off my posts about the first two books in the series, The Ghost in the Tokaido Inn and The Demon in the Teahouse, so if you’re interested you can check those out.  And while were at it, there will probably be spoilers ahead, so you’d probably do well to read the book first and come back here.  Seriously, it’s a short book and a good one.

First things first, I need to talk about the physical book.  This edition I have is different from the editions I have of books 2 and 4 in the series.  Those two books are published by Penguin under their Sleuth Puffin imprint.  Those two books have great covers, great dimensions, and great paper, that I never realized made such an impact on the reading experience.  This book, In Darkness, Death, is all different because it is printed by a vanity press.  Presumably the Hoobler’s didn’t like the deal they had with Penguin and decided the popularity of the series could profitably allow for some kind of self-publishing arrangement.  For that desire, I applaud them, but man do I miss the feel of the other books.  Not only is the cover unprofessional and amateurish, but the layout is non-existent.  I had no idea how important the feel of a book in the hands was to me.  Obviously, it’s one of the reasons I haven’t switched over to e-books, but I thought that was just about being able to feel the physical movement through the pages of the story.  But I had a hard time starting this book, and that difficulty had nothing to do with the writing and everything to do with the physical book itself.  How strange is that?

Now on to the story itself.

On the Hooblers’ tour through Edo Period Japan, we were bound to tangle with ninja at some point, and when I realized that’s what this book was doing, I admit I was nervous.  But in the end, I think they did a great job handling the topic, by giving some context for their existence while leaving a lot of mystique around them.  The world of magic and kamis has always been at the surface in these stories, and the Hooblers have adeptly handled their presence for intrigue and psychology while always resolving problems outside of them.  This is the first story to suggest something stronger, with Seikei’s journey on Miwayama, Kitsune’s literal fox footprints, and even with Tatsuno’s ability to make the horse disappear, though that last one can be seen as an expertly executed trick.  I’m a fan of the way the Hooblers walk that line of fantasy and reality in such a way that they elevate both aspects.

 

I have complained in the past about the books’ firm support for the shogun’s authoritative power and the deadly social ordering of the times.  This is the first book to question that order, even if it does so with a gentle hand.  The Hooblers have never flinched from the harsh realities of punishment and power, butting Seikei’s idealism up against the realities of how power is executed, but they go a step further in this book. Seikei gets a lot of people killed because of his idealism and his belief of what a Lord should be like.  Of course the Hoobler’s get to eat their cake and have it too by making Seikei’s idealism the thing that attracts people to him, so that Tatsuno, for example, saves Seikei’s life because of Seikei’s boneheaded determination to do what is “right” even though it is manifestly wrong.  It’s a clever way to solve the problem and lets them have a “young adult” novel without avoiding or sweeping harsh realities under the carpet.  When I think of all the things in this book that a conservative white parent would recoil from if they knew their child was reading it, it gives me heart.

 

There is still a horrible representation of women in the novels.  I was glad for the return of Michiko, but her stay was too brief and her admiration for Seikei too strong.  And that was it.  The only other woman in the story is Sada, and while she is a great character, she is but a blip on the page when all is said in done.  This is firmly a man’s world in the story, and it doesn’t need to be that way.  That and the physical book are the only disappointments with which I walk away from this reading.

The Demon in the Teahouse

I’ll keep this short as it builds off my thoughts on The Ghost in the Tokaido Inn.  As I did before, I’ll assume that you’ve read the book if you’re reading this.  If you don’t want anything spoiled, go read the book for yourself and come back.  It’s a great read.

This is another wonderfully told story, with great, clear writing; excellent world depiction; and compelling characters.  The mystery in this book is more like a classic whodunit than the first book, although it is still enriched by the setting choices.  One thing I love in particular is that Seikei and others readily believe in the existence of demons and will gladly attribute to them all the things that puzzle us.  It makes for an exciting element in the fiction.

My main thoughts now are about the politics of the book, and just as I was in my thinking about the last novel, I’m uncertain about where the book lands ideologically.  This book deals in many ways with the powerlessness of women in Edo period Japan.  That, I think, is a wonderful focus for the novel.  Young girls are sold by their fathers for an extended indentured servitude.  Geisha appear to have “power” over men, but they are clearly entirely dependent upon those same men.  Oba Koko has a place of business, and Tsune wishes to own a business for herself someday, but those options are plainly limited.  So the novel does an excellent job depicting those limitations.

At the same time, the women characters are set up rather unsympathetically.  Even as you understand that Umae is genuinely powerless in spite of her allure, we get Seikei observing that he “had never met anyone like Umae, so heartless, so calculating.  She was as much a demon as the person who set the files” (pgs 155-156).  That line slapped me in the face as a horrendous and unfounded line of judgment.  And since we as readers are aligned with Seikei, the authors don’t appear to question or undermine Seikei’s statement.  Nui begins as an interesting character, exploring her powers over Seikei, but by the end of the novel, she is a caricature, worried about Seikei getting blood on her robe even as she’s about to be burned alive in a fire.  Oba Koko is another character of comic relief in a lot of ways.  She has reasons to be a hard-nosed woman, and I like that she doesn’t take shit from anyone, but there is no real understanding thrown her way.

If anything, the presence of all the women in this novel draws attention to the fact that the first book was practically bereft of female characters.  Except for Machiko, all the women were played by Tomomi.  And what good are a series of educational books for an American audience about Edo period Japan if it is trapped in the perspective of masculinity and wealth.

I really like the series, and I wish I could really like its politics as well.  I will keep reading what has been published to see if my feelings topple in one direction or the other.

The Ghost in the Tokaido Inn

As usual, I spoil with abandon, so don’t read on if you haven’t read the book already and want to be able to just enjoy the ride.

I first read this book to my son sometime between 2008 and 2010, just a random selection from the local library.  He had been enthusiastically reading my Usagi Yojimbo comic books, so I looked for something that might dovetail with that interest, and this was a lucky find!  Now, some dozen years later, I am reading through the different Usagi Yojimbo RPGs and they put me in mind of this wonderful book, so I added it to my pandemic re-reading list.

This is a wonderful book.  The writing is solid and the Hooblers bring the world to life with color, energy, and ease.  But what makes the book so captivating, to my mind, are the characters.  From Seikei to Judge Ooka to Tomomi, all the characters are worth rooting for, perfect depictions of the archetypes they are drawn from.  Combining samurai ideals, kabuki theater, grand schemes of vengeance, and the social divisions of Edo period japan gives the book a set of interacting textures that make what is a pretty straightforward plot into a richly developed story.  And the mystery that compels the action is delicious, even when, as an adult reader, it becomes clearer and clearer what has happened.

Because I love the characters and the world, I have mostly avoided thinking of the unspoken politics of the book.  My hackles were raised slightly when we learn that Tomomi is a Kirishitan because I was afraid the Hooblers were going to centralize this European religion in the Japanese setting.  But I believe the religion was used merely as a plot device, an engine for action more than anything else.  I also feared that Seikei’s wholehearted embrace of the samurai tenets might serve to cover over the atrocities of the system.  To some extent, I think it does. Seikei does not end the novel questioning the social order or the ranked value of human life it imposes.  Tomomi may seem to question that order at first, but in the end he only reinforces it.  Lord Hakuseki is a villain primarily because he fails to live up to the samurai ideals more than anything else, even though the system grants him the power regardless of his worthlessness.  Instead of learning that what he loves about samurai has nothing to do with the social class and everything to do with personal ideas, ethics, and beliefs, Seikei has his beginning notions reinforced and rewarded by becoming the adopted son of Judge Ooka.

I think there is something to be said about the way the Hooblers themselves don’t over-romanticize the social ills even as they let Seikei (and potentially their readers) have most of their delusions.  The casual mention of seppuku every time Seikei makes a misstep feels tongue-in-cheek to me, an acknowledgment of the ridiculous standards.  Similarly, the shogun readily embraces torture and the wholesale killing of a religious minority, and the Hooblers don’t shy away from that, even as they clearly side with Judge Ooka’s positions on these matters. Nevertheless, the one scene with the shogun presents him on equal footing with Seikei and humanizes him even as he is a brutal military dictator.  That is certainly a questionable step.

In the end, the book tries to walk a fine line of romanticizing the history and questioning it, and I can’t say it was fully successful in that respect.  It does call into question the representation of samurai by presenting us with many opposing representations—Seikei’s imaginations, Judge Ooka, Tomomi, Lord Hakuseki, and the shogun—but when all is said and down, Seikei’s imagination remains untarnished.  We as readers can sit above Seikei and see his failings, but when all is said and done, the book counts on our embracing of his naivete and cheering for it.

All of that is to say that my reaction to the politics of the book is complicated.  I could see someone rejecting the politics wholesale and, in turn, rejecting the book, and I wouldn’t argue with that person for their position.  It would be a reasonable position.  Even knowing that, I think the art of the storytelling and writing are enough to win me over.

Revisiting Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre is the first novel I remember reading at college.  I was 19 years old, and I remember being struck by how enjoyable it was to read.  I made a concerted effort to engage with the text and underlined passages and made marginalia throughout the book.  I know this not only because I have specific memories of doing so but because I still have the book in my collection.  Even more enjoyable, Ann used the same book when she read the novel for a graduate school class, so we have her marginalia layered on top of my own.  Rereading the novel now, together, it is clear that she was the much more astute reader, not only because she was much older when she first read it but because she is just a smarter literary scholar than I.

It is ridiculous for me to give an analysis of the text, primarily because the book has been analyzed by scholars throughout the 20^th century, but secondarily because I have already read the essay that aligns with my own reading.  In this Norton Critical Edition is an essay by Adrienne Rich called “Jane Eyre: The Temptations of a Motherless Woman,” which was printed in Rich’s On Lies, Secrets, and Silence, Selected Prose, 1966-1978.  The unique and important thing Rich does in her essay is look at the entirety of the novel.  That sounds like something every reader should do, but she is right in her observations that most people only focus on Jane’s time at Thornfield when discussing the novel, but Bronte has nearly 150 pages that take place away from Thornfield, and it is only reasonable to assume that those 150 pages are just as important to Bronte as the rest of the novel.  Every movie adaptation I have seen runs through Eyre’s childhood as a quick overview, as though it were unimportant.  Helen Burns is given a bare appearance, Bessie is almost always elided, and Ms. Temple is more often than not overlooked.  And when Eyre gets to the heath, most movies focus on Eyre’s relationship with St. John, giving her relationship with Diane and Mary short shrift at best.  But all these relationships with other women are critical to the story Bronte told, and to reduce the narrative to a love story between Jane and Rochester is to only tell half the story. So if you’re looking for an essay to make sense of Bronte’s choices, seek out Rich’s essay and enjoy.

Instead I want to focus on a few things that struck me in this reading. 

I remember thinking that Rochester and Jane’s relationship was fucked up when I was 19.  I couldn’t understand why anyone would swoon over Rochester, Jane or Bronte or her readers.  But damn, did it make sense this time, but not because I found Rochester to be awesome.  What occurred to me on this read is that there is some soft domination pornography going on in this novel.  Ann and I kept saying, “#NotMyRochester” in reference to the #NotMyChristian that swelled up surrounding the film adaptations of Fifty Shades of Grey.  I imagine that Jane Eyre was passed around from reader to reader in part for the same reason Fifty Shades was.  If you were into the master-servant dynamic existing between Jane and Rochester, I imagine the charged interplay between them would ring with sexual energy and titillation.  That was a fun thing to realize reapproaching the novel as an adult.

I really like Jane as a character, even as there’s plenty about the novel and the character that I find maddening.  Jane doesn’t take shit from anybody, and to see her passionate and aggressive in defense of herself is incredibly satisfying.  Jane is no Helen Burns, even as she learns from Helen.  She will not lay down and be a martyr as Helen was.  It felt in fact like Helen was there to drive home that Jane is not that kind of character, whom we have met as a heroine in other educational novels about how women were to behave.  So in all those respects, Jane is awesome.  On the other hand, Jane is obnoxiously pleased with herself, her learning, and her behavior.  To listen to her attitudes about her students at the school in Morton is to strain my eyes with all the rolling.

More importantly, Bronte’s unending love for Britain’s colonial mission is an unpleasant pill to swallow.  Her admiration for St. John’s desire to bring Christ to the heathens in India (and to bring them liberty by getting rid of their caste system, no less) is offputting, and Rochester’s tale of his time in Jamaica is disgusting, especially when the thing that spurs him on is when the fresh European breeze blows upon him, uplifting him from the oppressive ways of the native Jamaican people.  I know criticizing Bronte for her belief in the colonial project is nothing new, but the lack of novelty does nothing to alleviate the displeasure I felt in moving through those passages.  Gypsy racism is not cool either.

But if Bronte is unquestioning in her love of colonialism, she is incredibly perceptive in the way we relate to each other as people.  One of the most stunning passages to me was Jane’s conversation in the moor with St. John when he proposes to her and asks her to come with him to India.  She analyses St. John’s desires and her own internal pressures so beautifully that it put into words the feelings I myself have felt when negotiating with a strong personality.  It’s wonderfully written and incredibly insightful.  And beyond that particular passage, I really like the way Charlotte Bronte writes.  It’s clear to me that she hears the music of her language because her sentences are really easy to read out loud, even given their 150-year-old sentence structure. 

I was excited to revisit this classic, and I was not disappointed.  And now I have the opportunity to reread Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, which I have done twice before, but never in proximity to Jane Eyre.  So yay for that.