The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade

Vivid and colorful Renaissance Odyssey

A century ago, if you asked an educated reader to name the greatest works of literature in the English language, chances are The Cloister and the Hearth would have made the shortlist. This novel by English author Charles Reade, published in 1861, enjoyed high regard in the Victorian Era. In his reading memoir Through the Magic Door, Arthur Conan Doyle named The Cloister and the Hearth as his favorite novel. Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Wolfe, and Walter Besant also highly praised the novel as one of the greatest works of English literature.

The story takes place in the mid-15th century. Gerard Eliassoen is one of nine children born to a shopkeeping couple in the town of Tergou. Gerard’s parents destine him to become a member of the clergy, which is fine by him because he loves reading and writing. He enters his religious studies as a novice and works his way up to the rank of exorcist. He also becomes a scribe with a notable talent for calligraphy and illuminating manuscripts. On the verge of being ordained into the priesthood, however, Gerard meets and falls in love with a young woman, Margaret Brandt. He wants to withdraw from the clergy and marry her, but his parents forbid it. To prevent an elopement, his father, having every legal right to do so, sends the local authorities to arrest and imprison Gerard, who eludes his pursuers and flees the Netherlands. This forces a separation between the two young lovers, but they steadfastly retain hope of being united in the future.

At the time The Cloister and the Hearth was published, Sir Walter Scott was considered the gold standard of English novelists. To the 21st century reader, however, Scott’s historical novels aren’t entirely user-friendly. He uses a lot of antiquated language and clunky syntax, and he takes it for granted that his readers know the entire history of Britain and its monarchy by heart. The Cloister and the Hearth, on the other hand, delivers all the good aspects of a Scott historical epic without any of its faults. You don’t need to know anything about European history to enjoy this book. Only a few real-life historical characters are mentioned, and whatever details you need to know are accessibly provided by Reade. What I really like about this Renaissance novel is that it’s not about kings or queens or wealthy aristocrats. It’s about plain working people: artisans, musicians, parsons, shopkeepers, soldiers, farmers, and so on. This grounded perspective really brings this bygone world to life for the reader.

Reade is a superb master of the English language. His prose is lively and smooth-flowing. The writing always sounds as if its appropriate to the period but without any archaic words to stumble over. The dialogue in this book is the best faux-medieval speech I’ve ever read. It really puts you in the mindset of these characters and the world they live in. Any author of European historical novels or Dungeons & Dragons-genre lit could learn a lot from reading Reade’s expertly crafted phrasings. On the downside, this book is much longer than it needs to be. I’m not against long books if the length is necessary. Alexander Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers, for example, are both very long novels, but each scene is integral to the story. Reade, however, has put a lot of filler in the 100 chapters of The Cloister and the Hearth. There are some lengthy digressions that don’t really forward the plot at all, and the ending is so needlessly drawn out. Plotting may not be Reade’s strong suit, but with this book it’s the atmosphere that really gives you your money’s worth.

Like many a book of English literature from this time, the novel’s main message is one of Christian piety. Given that the main character is a member of the clergy, religious matters figure into this narrative more than most. Gerard and Margaret also draw obvious parallels to Odysseus and Penelope of The Odyssey, embodying the virtues of fidelity and devotion. Regardless of the morals this novel imparts, however, it’s just an enjoyable escape into another time with likable and memorable characters. It may not make many all-time top ten lists these days, but’s it’s still worth a read for those who like classic literature.

Lee Krasner: A Life by Gail Levin

A workmanlike accumulation of facts

Lee Krasner: A Life, published in 2011, is a biography written by art historian Gail Levin. Krasner (1908-1984) was an American abstract painter and also the wife of painter Jackson Pollock. Both were part of the abstract expressionist movement in New York City, and they also started a satellite hub of artists on Long Island. While this book doesn’t shy away from her marriage to Pollock, its definite purpose is to focus on Krasner’s own artistic accomplishments. Levin was a longtime acquaintance of Krasner’s, and her high regard for her subject sometimes calls into question her objectivity, but she includes enough oral history from Krasner’s friends and colleagues—testimony both flattering and unflattering—to convince you this isn’t just an exercise in hero worship.

There’s a myth or a misconception that Pollock held back Krasner’s artistic career. Levin sets the record straight, at least as far as what Krasner had to say about the couple’s relationship. Pollock peaked about a decade earlier than Krasner, and his meteoric success allowed enough financial security for both of them to paint full time. Pollock’s alcoholism was certainly no help to Krasner, but Pollock supported her painting and vice versa. Krasner’s career was not held back by Pollock but rather by sexist American society and its chauvinist artists and critics. Pollock’s career was certainly aided by Krasner’s tireless boosterism of his art, and she also elevated his posthumous stature through her shrewd stewardship of his legacy.

Given that Levin has a curatorial background rather than a journalistic background, it probably shouldn’t be a surprise that this book reads less like a biography and more like an exhibition catalogue or a master’s thesis. The main intention here is not to tell a story but to accumulate facts to support an argument. A typical sentence like “According to the 1930 federal census, Krasner apparently still lived at home at 594 Jerome Street with her parents,” is indicative of the research-paper style of the prose. Levin feels the need to summarize every letter Krasner ever sent or received, whether the contents are relevant to the lives of Krasner and Pollock or not. At one point, she unnecessarily quotes an advertisement for the brand of stereo system that Willem de Kooning owned. Levin’s constant reminding that she searched through a bunch of documents, and this is what she found, removes the reader from any emotional involvement in the narrative or any visceral or vicarious experience of Krasner and Pollock’s lives.

The best part of this book is its insight into how Krasner and other New York artists lived, worked, and survived during the Great Depression. This isn’t just another art history exposé that trumpets the hallowed names of abstract expressionism. Levin’s coverage of this era mixes the experiences of A-list, B-list, and C-list painters in Krasner’s circle, an approach that really provides an authentic and informative look into the New York art scene and the lives of its artists during this period. After Pollock dies, on the other hand, the book gets really boring. The last four chapters are mostly just a series of Krasner gallery exhibitions, with details about what paintings were shown and excerpts from critical reviews, both positive and negative. Like many an exhibition catalogue, it becomes a glorified curriculum vitae. Two points are beaten like a dead horse: 1) Krasner was not just Pollock’s wife but an important artist in her own right; and 2) Her career was held back by sexism in the ‘40s, ‘50s, and ‘60s, but finally in the 1970s she’s got the recognition she deserves. These points are repeated over and over and over again, ad nauseam, until the reader is ready to say enough, I get it, can we get to her deathbed already?

HIn general I prefer Krasner’s painting to Pollock’s, but only her later, mature work. She certainly deserves recognition as a pioneering abstract expressionist, as Levin asserts in this book. For those wanting to learn about Krasner’s art, this is not a lavishly illustrated art book. There are two photo inserts, one of people photos and one of Krasner’s art. About 32 artworks are depicted. As a biography, it puts more emphasis on biographical photographs that chronicle Krasner’s life.

Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books by Michael Dirda

Ephemeral woolgathering loosely related to books

Michael Dirda is a literary critic who has published several books, but he’s mostly known as a book reviewer for various periodicals, most notably The Washington Post Book World. From February 2012 to February 2013, Dirda wrote a weekly column, entitled Browsings, for the website of The American Scholar magazine. The book Browsings, published in 2015, collects the 52 posts Dirda wrote for that blog over the course of those twelve months.

What sets Dirda apart from most book reviewers these days is his love for old books by dead guys. He’s not one of those critics who thinks that literature was invented in 1950. Dirda is particularly interested in books published from 1860 to 1930, what he calls “The Great Age of Storytelling.” He often celebrates forgotten fiction in the genres of science fiction, horror, and mystery. Dirda is a professed Anglophile who doesn’t seem to have any interest in literature that’s not of British or American origin. Dirda is also a book collector and asserts that books aren’t really books unless they’re printed on paper, which is where he and I differ. I think the content is more important than the packaging, but Dirda admits he’ll buy three editions of the same book just because he likes the different bindings.

The Browsings columns were not intended to be book reviews in the standard sense, but rather more personal reflections from a book lover. The only stipulation set for the column was that the articles be somehow book-related, but in the writings collected here, Dirda often wanders outside even those wide parameters. The reason I would read a book about books is to learn about unfamiliar books that I might be interested in reading. Given Dirda’s profession as a book reviewer and literary critic, that’s not an unreasonable expectation, but Browsings really doesn’t yield much enlightenment of that sort. Instead, Dirda wanders farther afield to deliver articles about penmanship, paper stock, and grading papers (Dirda teaches college courses). In one column, he rants about a bad experience he had visiting Rocky Mountain National Park. In another, he complains about the poor service he gets from his local electricity provider. Who wants to read about that, and why would The American Scholar publish it? A typical chapter in this book, however, proceeds thusly: Dirda travels to a literary conference of some kind. While there, he visits three or four used bookstores, and here is a list of what he bought. Then you get a rapid fire stream of obscure author names and book titles, with almost no information on what those books are about or why Dirda likes them. The fact that Dirda likes them is supposed to be enough to satisfy you.

As the author of the Old Books by Dead Guys blog, I see Dirda as me taken to extremes. We both write about old books in the hopes of inspiring readers to give them a try. In my case, it’s a casual hobby. Dirda, however, eats, breathes, and sleeps this stuff 24/7, and somehow manages to make a living off of doing it. He even won a Pulitzer Prize for his lit-crit, but there’s nothing in these columns that would merit such accolades. For me, reading Browsings was a kind of warning cry of what I might become if I take this book habit too seriously: an annoying know-it-all who comes across as pretentious even when writing about so-called “lowbrow” popular literature that’s supposed to be fun. Maybe Dirda writes great reviews for The Washington Post or The New York Review of Books, but I found little of value to be gleaned from his Browsings.

The French Mind: 400 Years of Romance, Revolution and Renewal by Peter Watson

A feminine emphasis on France’s intellectual history

British historian Peter Watson has been my favorite nonfiction author since I discovered his books a couple years ago. Though he also writes fiction, Watson is better known for his sweeping intellectual histories, or histories of ideas. Watson’s book The French Mind was published in 2022. In this book, Watson tries to answer the question: What’s so special about the French? To do that, as the subtitle indicates, he examines 400 years of French history, from the early 17th century to the present. Watson’s histories are generally not about kings, queens, and wars (although the Bourbons, Orléans, and Napoleons do make prominent appearances here) but rather about important developments in literature, philosophy, the arts, and culture. In The French Mind, Watson also looks beyond such highbrow disciplines and discusses how the French came to be renowned for perfecting some enjoyable aspects of life and leisure, such as fashion, food, furniture, and sex. Unlike some of Watson’s other intellectual histories, science is not part of the discussion here (Marie Curie isn’t even mentioned), except the social sciences.

Though the USA has always had its anti-intellectual tendencies (some might say now more than ever), France has always presented a decidedly pro-intellectual attitude. High culture is fashionable among the French, and one is expected to be well-read. When I visited France, I recall being amazed at how many streets they named after philosophers, scientists, and men of letters. France has always seen it as their duty to civilize the world through its refined culture, even if that means showing a disdain for capitalism, hard science, and technological progress. A crucial aspect of French intellectual life, Watson asserts, is “sociability,” which is manifested in the long tradition of the French salon and the café culture that followed. Watson also pursues a thesis (borrowed from historian Wolfgang Schivelbusch) of France’s “culture of defeat.” Even after losing the Franco-Prussian War and undergoing Nazi occupation, the French zeitgeist still managed to turn those losses into morally righteous victories.

Another element Watson really wants to emphasize is the role that women played in the development of French culture. I knew that salons would be an important part of this story, but I didn’t expect they would be the focus of the bulk of the book. Salons, in this case, were weekly gatherings, usually hosted by aristocrats in their homes, at which intellectuals and artists would gather and exchange ideas. Watson makes much of the women who hosted these salons and the influence they wielded. Many, probably most, of the chapters in the book focus on one of these salonnières—her life story, who she married, with whom she had affairs, and which luminaries she included among the regulars at her salon. France may have been less chauvinistic and misogynistic than the rest of Western Civilization, but it was still an unfairly male-dominated world. Despite his efforts to praise these unsung women, Watson’s feminist assertions feel forced. If the best thing he can say about many of these women is that they hosted a bunch of important men in their home, that’s not much of a feminist revelation. When these salonnières wrote published literature or wielded real political power, however, Watson does give credit where it’s due. At the point when the salons fade away, so does Watson’s feminist focus. Surprisingly, once this book moves past World War I, there’s barely a female mentioned other than Simone de Beauvoir.

Watson is a master of summary and synthesis, showing how ideas and movements spawn, influence, and interconnect one another. A master generalist, he draws the big picture in a sufficiently detailed and lively narrative that inspires the reader to want to learn more. If you really want to know what Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Jean Paul Sartre, or Michel Foucault were all about, you’re going to have to read their books, but with the help of an erudite survey such as Watson provides here, maybe you won’t have to read everything that came before and after those thinkers in order to understand their work. Similar to The French Mind, Watson has written other books in which he strives to encapsulate a nation’s intellectual and cultural spirit: The German Genius and The British Imagination. What’s next? The Dutch Mystique? The Scandinavian Psyche? The Polish Persuasion? Whatever Watson comes up with, I’m looking forward to it.   

Aku-Aku by Thor Heyerdahl

Chasing secrets on Easter Island

Thor Heyerdahl was an explorer who achieved worldwide fame in the 1950s and ‘60s—not quite as famous as Jacques Cousteau, perhaps, but close. The Norwegian adventurer and experimental archaeologist is best-known for riding a raft across the Pacific Ocean from Peru to French Polynesia, a journey he recounted in his book and Oscar-winning documentary film, both entitled Kon-Tiki. His follow-up to this much-celebrated achievement was an expedition to Easter Island in 1955 and 1956, which is recounted in his book Aku-Aku, published in 1957.

Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, is known for its giant stone heads carved out of lava rock. At the time of Heyerdahl’s trip, little was known about who made them, how they were made, and how the incredibly heavy rocks were transported to and erected at their various locations around the island. The thesis that Heyerdahl spent his life trying to prove is that Polynesian islanders are of American origin, essentially descendants of seafaring Inca or other Indigenous Peruvians. On Easter Island, he looked for evidence to support that theory and did find some correspondence between the artworks of Easter Island and those of the Inca. Heyerdahl was not an academic scientist, which opens him up to criticism by those with PhDs who regard him as merely an adventurer and pseudoscientst, so on this expedition he invited three professional archaeologists along on this expedition.

What amazed me the most about this book was learning that when Heyerdahl’s team arrived on Easter Island, all of the famed statues had been toppled face down in the dirt. This happened during a civil war on the island a couple centuries earlier. Heyerdahl, with the help of Indigenous workers, used traditional non-mechanical techniques to raise one of the statues upright. This was the first of such modern re-raisings. When you see photographs of a dozen monolithic heads lined up along the coast of Easter Island, all of those were raised after Heyerdahl, most of them not until the 1990s, when major restoration efforts were undertaken to encourage tourism. Heyerdahl was really the spark that set that flame of tourism alight, for better or for worse. On the one hand he brought attention to the cultural heritage of Rapa Nui; on the other hand his tactics trained the Natives to exploit that heritage for commerce.

While the giant stone heads, or moai, are quite fascinating, most of the book is not about that. It’s about Heyerdahl trying to convince the islanders to grant him access to their secret caves or hand over to him the artifacts that are contained therein. Heyerdahl’s methods of persuasion were not entirely ethical by today’s standards, nor is what ultimately happened to the artifacts (I think he just took them away on his boat). He starts out by bartering cloth and knives for small statues. He then moves up to chicanery in the form of exploiting the Natives’ superstitions to his advantage. Not only is this disturbing, it’s also rather boring. Long chapters go by in which Heyerdahl is just conning his way into these families’ caves, then not much is really said about the artifacts themselves and what they reveal about the island’s cultural history.

Heyerdahl’s theories on the Peruvian colonization of Polynesia have not stood up well to scientific scrutiny. Still, he’s usually very good at writing the adventure stories of his expeditions. Kon-Tiki is an excellent read, and I also enjoyed Fatu-Hiva, his account of roughing it in the Marquesas. Aku-Aku, however, is not as engrossing as those other books. It gets dull and repetitive, and Heyerdahl doesn’t talk much about the discoveries of the archaeologists who accompanied him. Other than collecting a lot of statuettes that aren’t thoroughly described to the reader, it’s unclear what exactly Heyerdahl and his team accomplished on Easter Island. Perhaps more is revealed in his more scientific publications, such as Archeology of Easter Island (2 volumes), published in 1965.

Forty Lashes Less One by Elmore Leonard

Smart and suspenseful Western prison thriller

Forty Lashes Less One, published in 1972, is a novel by American author Elmore Leonard. Nowadays he’s best known for his crime fiction, which has spawned many recent film adaptations, but in the early days of his career, Westerns were Leonard’s bread and butter. Forty Lashes Less One is included in the Library of America’s volume Elmore Leonard: Westerns, but it’s really only a Western because it takes place in Arizona. Yeah, it’s got some horses, but it’s got some motor cars too. This novel is really a prison drama—a thriller with comedic elements, more Cool Hand Luke than Butch & Sundance. The title Forty Lashes Less One is taken from a Bible quote and is in no way a literal indication of happenings in the story.

The novel is set in 1909 at Yuma Territorial Prison, a penitentiary on the verge of closing. A new prison is being built in Florence, Arizona, and when it’s completed, the prisoners will be moved to the new facility. While the old prison is still functioning, however, a Mr. Manly has been appointed acting warden at Yuma. Manley has no prior experience in the penal system; his background is in Christian ministry. Contrary to the fictional stereotype of prison wardens as sadistic dictators, Manly is depicted as lenient, benevolent, and naive. He sometimes calls to mind Father Mulcahy from M*A*S*H.

As the novel opens, prisoner Harold Jackson arrives at the Yuma prison, having been transferred from Ft. Leavenworth. Jackson is the only Black prisoner at Yuma, and he is singled out for abuse by some of the meaner guards and prisoners, led by Yuma’s resident alpha convict Frank Shelby. Raymond San Carlos, an Apache-Mexican prisoner, is sent by Shelby to pick a fight with Jackson, and the two prisoners of color soon develop an animosity for one another. Warden Manly, however, takes a special interest in these two prisoners and singles them out for his own private motivational ministry. As Jackson and San Carlos are repeatedly thrust together into work assignments and solitary confinement, they develop a friendship and begin to realize that they don’t have to play by Shelby’s rules, nor Manly’s.

I have expressed admiration for Leonard’s Westerns before, and Forty Lashes Less One is every bit as good as Hombre, Valdez Is Coming, and Last Stand at Sabre River. I’m not even a habitual fan of the Western genre, but what a run of novels! Leonard’s prose is about as perfect as it gets. Not a word is wasted. Every sentence develops the characters or propels the story forward. Every line of dialogue is sharp, smart, and often quite funny. There are some ridiculous elements to this story, but Leonard manages to make them come across as realistic, yet without denying their ridiculousness. This ain’t your everyday prison Western. It’s quirky but not silly, and it’s an entertaining and exciting ride.

Quentin Tarantino purchased the rights to Forty Lashes Less One back in the 1990s, but he never made a movie from it, and he probably never will. That’s a shame, because a film adapted from this novel surely would have been better than The Hateful Eight. The well-drawn characters and engrossing plot of this novel are ripe for a cinematic adaptation and would yield some great roles for its cast of actors. Regardless of whether that will ever come to fruition, this book is a great read, whether you’re a fan of Westerns or not.

The Complete Tales of Edgar Allan Poe, Part 1: 1832–1839

Off to a slow start

Unlike other A-list names in the history of American literature, Edgar Allan Poe is not known for his novels. He only published one: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838), and it wasn’t a hit. Other than his poem “The Raven,” we know Poe primarily for his short stories. Counts vary, based on what’s considered a short story, but I’m going to go with Wikipedia and the Delphi Classics and say he published 65 stories, plus one unfinished at the time of his death. These stories, or “tales” as they are often called in Poe’s case, have been selected and shuffled like a deck of cards into thousands of published volumes. I’m going to review these 65 and a half stories in chronological order, in three chunks of about 20 stories each.

Poe’s first published story, “Metzengerstein,” happens to be a horror story, and a pretty good one, but very few of the tales published in these first seven or eight years of his career could be considered classic Poe horror stories. Another early entry, the nautical ghost story “MS. Found in a Bottle,” is also a step in the right direction. “Ligeia,” from 1838, seems like a turning point in Poe’s career. This is the first story to really epitomize the mix of gothic romance and terrifying horror that we usually think of when we think of Poe. “William Wilson,” a horror story about a man tormented by his doppelganger, is another strong entry from this period. The only selection from this chunk of stories that can truly be considered a Poe masterpiece, however, is “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Poe is also remembered for mystery stories and, to a lesser extent, science fiction. None of the former category are here, but sci-fi is represented by the postapocalyptic “The Conversation Between Eiros and Charmion,” and “The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall,” which shows us Poe operating in Jules Verne mode, with only partial success.

In this first act of Poe’s career, he wrote just as many humor stories as horror stories. In most cases, the humor has not survived the past nine decades very well. A couple of these comedic efforts remain moderately funny, however, like “Devil in the Belfry” and “A Predicament.” In “How to Write a Blackwood Article,” Poe satirizes the typical fare from the English literary periodical Blackwood’s Magazine. Many of the literary pretensions Poe pokes fun at in this piece, however, are sins he is frequently guilty of committing himself. In these early writings, his biggest fault as a writer is his uncontrollable desire to show of his erudition by loading his prose with gratuitous references to classical poetry, mythology, opera, or other high-brow literature. He also loves to throw in untranslated phrases in French, Latin, Greek, and maybe even German. There’s no need for any of this, and it’s just Poe showing off how well-read he is. In this regard, he’s more pretentious than Melville or Hawthorne. Thankfully, Poe seems to gradually cure himself of this annoying habit towards the end of the 1830s.

I had read “greatest hits” collections of Poe’s horror stories in the past and liked them well enough, but I have to admit that this first foray into his complete works was a disappointment. As previously mentioned, there’s just too much laughless humor and too much effort to impress with high-falutin allusions. His writing did improve over the course of these years, however, and I am confident that the second round of his stories that I dive into will be superior to the first.

Stories in this collection

Metzengerstein

The Duc de l’Omelette

A Tale of Jerusalem

Loss of Breath

Bon-Bon

MS. Found in a Bottle

The Assignation

Berenice

Morella

Lionizing

The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall

King Pest

Shadow

Four Beasts in One

Mystification

Silence

Ligeia

How to Write a Blackwood Article

A Predicament

The Devil in the Belfry

The Man That Was Used Up

The Fall of the House of Usher

William Wilson

The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion