Sunday, August 10, 2014

An extension of the idea of literary sympathy bounced off of the Phineas Finn chapters about politics.

The first Palliser novel, Can You Forgive Her?, had politics in it, just a little.  It is only minimally about politics.  A reader is not asked to be particularly interested in the political activities of the characters, in what a politician in Parliament in the 1860s actually does.  One prominent character, for example, when elected to Parliament does nothing at all.

This character runs for Parliament almost as an investment, or a gamble.  Phineas Finn, the hero of the second novel in the series, has not only ambitions but beliefs and even ideas.  The political side of the novel – remembering that 70% of the book is about the love troubles of Finn and his friends – is very much about what he does in Parliament:  how he speaks and votes, what it means to be a member of a party, and what it means to work in a ministry.  In the latter, Finn’s specialty turns out to be the financing of Canadian railroads.  Trollope does, happily, spare us too much detail about that.

But he does not spare us what we might now call the wonkery of the main issue that runs through the five years covered in the book, the issue of Reform, the issue that earns its generic name, since it is so purely concerned with the functioning of politics – who has the right to vote and how much does their vote count?  In other words, as tedious a political subject as I can imagine to a reader not especially interested in politics.

I began to wonder about those readers.  However much we might flatter or delude ourselves, we can’t be interested in everything, and political reform in mid-19th century England seems like one of many reasonable places to draw a line.  I Care; I am Interested; I am Curious; I Just Can’t Bring Myself To Care.

Personally, that last category has shrunk over time.  Classical music, dance, religious painting, abstract painting, wine, fashion – at some point, thankfully long ago for many of them, something I did care about finally got a hook into the subject I did not think I would ever care about.  Often learning the history of the field helped, but sometimes it was the luck of seeing a particular performance.

By definition, because I do not care about them, it is difficult to think of subjects that still belong in the category.  From experience, one I am sure of, from going to art fairs and museums, is jewelry.  I can look at pottery with active pleasure, billing and cooing over glazes and artistic flaws, but a case of jewelry is instantly exhausting.  I need to sit down, over there, where I can’t see the jewelry.

Some of the political chapters in Phineas Finn must be, for some readers, like cases of jewelry.

Literature has the curious effect of making us care about things we do not care about, if only – often for only – the length of the work.  I care because the heroine cares; I sympathize with her so I join in with her interests.  Or I care, temporarily, because I sympathize with the implied author and want to help him out with whatever he is trying to accomplish.

If there is a well-made novel that is actually about jewelry, with lots of descriptions of jewelry, I should try to read it, just to test this idea.  Can fiction make me care even about this?

22 comments:

  1. Well, it's not 'The Eustace Diamonds', put it that way...

    The politics is what makes this book one of my favourites as Finn allows us to see what, at the time, was the epitome of world politics. Even if you're not interested in the Reform Bill, by the end of the novel you probably will be :)

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  2. Maybe I am wrong, maybe everyone digs the Reform Bill. I mean, I liked it, but I was already interested.

    By the end, though, I was wondering about all of the political novels that have become period pieces. Not a huge genre, but still, there have been plenty. What's the difference, I wonder.

    Is Eustace Diamonds more free of political content? It must be.

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    1. Yes, it's more concerned with the 'theft' of the diamonds (or, more to the point, whether the diamonds needed to be stolen in the first place). Of the six, it's 'Phineas Finn', 'Phineas Redux' and 'The Prime Minister' which are most political, with the others just touching on Westminster in the background.

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  3. It's not about jewelry, but there's Against the Grain. "At first he had thought of some opals and hydrophanes; but these stones, interesting for their hesitating colors, for the evasions of their flames, are too refractory and faithless; the opal has a quite rheumatic sensitiveness; the play of its rays alters according to the humidity, the warmth or cold; as for the hydrophane, it only burns in water and only consents to kindle its embers when moistened." (Translated by John Howard.)

    There's -- who else -- there's Dorian Grey in his jewel phase. "He loved the red gold of the sunstone, and the moonstone's pearly whiteness, and the broken rainbow of the milky opal." But E.R. Eddison is the jeweliest "the body of each high seat was a single jewel of monstrous size: the lefthand seat a black opal, asparkle with steel-blue fire, the next a fire-opal, as it were a burning coal, the third seat an alexandrite, purple like wine by night but deep sea-green by day [...] here in wine-yellow topaz a flying fire-drake: there a cockatrice made of a single ruby: there a star sapphire the colour of moonlight, cut for a cyclops, so that the rays of the star trembled from his single eye: salamanders, mermaids, chimaeras, wild men o' the woods, leviathans, all hewn from faultless gems, thrice the bulk of a big man's body, velvet-dark sapphires, chrystolite, beryl, amethyst, and the yellow zircon that is like transparent gold --"

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  4. I think I can be temporarily interested in anything in a novel; I like it when the author crafts mini-essays about unusual topics, whether they're useful to the story or just to show off.

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  5. Yes, Dorian Grey - jewels, perfumes, rugs. I remember, in a book club, several good readers declaring that chapter unreadable. I've never tried the Huysman outside of Wilde's imitation. Perfume is probably a good challenge for me, too.

    The Eddison is a patience-tester, but tastily purple. Is it from Worm Ouroboros? The only thing I remember at all from that book is the scene where the heroes are attacked by a manticore while scaling a cliff. "thrice the bulk of a big man's body," why not four times bigger? Because of the attractive word "thrice."

    What else have I seen readers resist? War, and battles in particular, anything where lead soldiers or bits of cardboard or imaginary characters are pushed around on a map. Sports and athletic contests. I know of readers who have dismissed the domestic novel - romances, family and all - but I think something else may be going on there.

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    1. It is. He'd weaned himself off the jewels a bit by the time he reached the Zimiamvians. It was the "high presence chamber of the lords of Demonland" that killed Ouroboros for me when I tried reading the book for the first time, but I was only about fifteen and even Peake hadn't prepared me for that much interior decoration in a castle.

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    2. Peake has exactly the right amount of interior decoration.

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  6. So far, there hasn't been anything I couldn't be interested in at least for the length of a book. Sewers, for instance. Haymaking. How to clean a gun. Ecclesiastical precedence. Knots. Wrestling. Surrealists, or Beat poets, endlessly ranting at their groupies. Bring it on.

    I can't think of any books that do a lot of jewelry for the sake of jewelry, either. Maybe nobody really likes it.

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  7. That is the ideal, I think - "I'll try anything."

    There is another element, though, that I have barely mentioned, becaue I lumped it under "interest." Following Trollope and his Reform Bill requires some outside knowledge about English history and the functioning of Parliament. Without this knowledge, substantial passages will be incomprehensible. Trollope does not provide context - why would he? I am interested int eh subject, so I had at some point acquired at least some of the required knowledge.

    Readers who complain about battle scenes are not merely indifferent but often bored because they do not understand the text - all of the redoubts and enfilades and military ranks - and do not become curious enough to dispel the gibberish.

    Sea-faring literature has the same issue. You and I have persevered through all of the sails and decks. Many do not.

    Have you noticed any subject in particular that your students resist?

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  8. As far as battle-scenes (or sails and decks), I find that good writers find what is human in such scenes and make them interesting in that way. Tolstoy is a pretty good example, and the best spy writing is another. Come to think of it, a lot of genre writing is that way: many readers will be dead bored by the city of Qu'Umfla or the way a space suit functions or water-rights at the Mexican border. Knowledge, of a narrow sort.

    Political and historical knowledge is another beast. I've often looked up politics (history of the Wars of the Roses, most recently, to understand Crowley better). But I've never tried to acquire knowledge of specific battle maneuvers, any more than knowledge about jewelry.

    My students want to know social and cultural history without knowing dates or names -- no specifics, just what "people" did. They also resist very didactic literature (shame on you, everything before the late 19th century) and it's often a push to get them to find it as much fun as I do. Oddly, they often resist narratives outside cultural norms (see Therese Raquin or Liaisons Dangereuses or even Madame Bovary.) They aren't good enough readers to enjoy pottery but not knot-tying -- not good enough to have such specific preferences -- but one day they will be.

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  9. I must admit that one problem that I have with Trollope is my inability to become interested in marriages, and particularly in all the details of proposals and engagements. I try, but am overcome with lassitude. I would prefer jewelry, or the Reform Act, or something.

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  10. Eight proposal scenes in Phineas Finn! It's preposterous. Three between the same couple, including one after they have agreed to marry! Antonio, paisano, you are just messing with me now, right? A proposal scene every 80 pages.

    What I am trying to say is: fair point, Doug. More than fair.

    Jenny, I was going to maybe suggest that the youngsters resist history-as-such, but I did not want to bias your response. I will just say: I knew it! Your last point, though, I think is new to me. Hmm, interesting.

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    1. The one about cultural norms? That's about sympathy, mostly. "I don't like to read about bad people! Ick!" Since I radiate glee as I take apart a watchmaker's delight like Liaisons Dangereuses, sometimes it's contagious.

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    2. Oh,I see. I guess I knew that one, too. Bad people, poor people, rich people, people from the distant past, people who aren't real, annoying people, people who lack my many virtues.

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  11. I see you've riled up the pro-jewelry in literature crowd, Tom! All kidding aside, Pykk's reference to Huysmans' Against the Grain is prob. as good a starting point as you could have asked for: Des Esseintes', um, aesthetic concerns could make anything - even jewelry - interesting in a way that Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone could not. At least in my memory of those two works. By the way, what's the one Trollope I should try if I suspect I'm not cut out to be a Trollope completist?

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  12. Eh, it's all been gemstones so far. They're interesting - they're geology.

    You didn't like The Moonstone, really? Miss Clack? The title object is pure MacGuffin, of no interest at all.

    One Trollope: I am tempted to say Vanity Fair. But to stay with novels written by Trollope, I would go with The Warden and Barchester Towers, from back when the author was more restless and punchy, more hopped up on the fun of making a novel. The Warden is also, of course, short. You meet several of Trollope's best comic characters, one of his most beloved characters, you get his humor, his voice, his sense of ethics, a taste of how he uses the roman fleuve (which is why I have to recommend two books) - everything you need.

    Tony's read way more Trollope than I have. What's your vote, Tony?

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    1. I'm with you - those two are the ones I always recommend. 'The Warden' for an introduction to the world and voice of 'Barchester towers', and 'Barchester Towers' because it's just good :)

      For a longer, more complext (standalone-) novel, 'The Way We Live Now' and 'He Knew He Was Right' are excellent.

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    2. Thanks to you and Tony for the Trollope (and Thackeray!) suggestions--will count them as one suggestion each rather than roman fleuve recommendation trickery/piling on.

      Was half kidding about The Moonstone--thought it was OK but way more sleep-inducing than The Woman in White, but some of my negative reaction was prob. based on the novel's failure to live up to the hype entertainment wise for me (Wilkie fans, like Beatles fans w/their mop-headed gods, tend to wildly overrate his productions in my opinion).

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    3. I'll write about The Moonstone soon, saying pretty much what you said but at greater length.

      Tony, thanks!

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  13. This may be heresy for true Trollopites, but if you want to sample him in shorter form, you might try "The Golden Lion of Granpere" or "Kept in the Dark." They both show his particular style and sense of humor, and they're not 400 pages.

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  14. Thanks - some deep cuts, as I might say if we were talking about Al Green songs. Late in Trollope's career, a time I don't know at all.

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