Realistic critique of the Victorian marriage marketThe Irish author George Moore (1852–1933) was an open admirer of the writings of French novelist Emile Zola. Influenced by Zola’s school of Naturalism, Moore argued for more realism in Irish and British literature, and he practiced what he preached. His novel A Drama in Muslin was published in 1886. In later editions, Moore changed the title to simply Muslin. A type of cotton fabric, muslin is meant to symbolize the white dresses traditionally worn by young women at balls and parties as they “come out” into society. When actually describing women’s garments in the novel, however, Moore more frequently references silk and satin.
The Bartons are a well-to-do family of Galway. Mr. Barton is an absent-minded painter preoccupied by his own little artistic dream world, presumably living off of inherited wealth. His wife, Mrs. Barton, as they say, wears the pants in the family. The Bartons have two daughters. The eldest, Alice, is a very intelligent young woman, somewhat plain in appearance, who exhibits characteristics of what we today might call a feminist or at least an independent woman. Her younger sister Olive is a beautiful young girly-girl who embraces the traditional doll-like Victorian gender role of the feminine sex. Like all aristocratic young women of their time, the two young ladies’ primary goal in life is to find a suitable husband. Fortunately or not, Ireland had an established and regimented system for accomplishing this. For part of each winter, the girls and their mothers would relocate to Dublin where they would take part in a series of dances, dinners, and parties in which the prospective would associate with eligible prospective grooms. This was known as the “castle season” because some lucky ladies would be invited to balls at Dublin Castle. When the Barton women venture to Dublin for their coming out, the beautiful Olive is hailed as the belle of the season, with a possible royal title in her married future, while Alice is less enthusiastic about the whole process.
Meanwhile, back home in Galway, the Bartons and their set of land-owning aristocrats are having trouble with the Land League. The tenant farmers of Ireland have essentially unionized in an attempt to combat exorbitant rents charged by abusive landlords. Much mention is made of Griffith’s Valuation. This was a survey of land appraisal values in Ireland, in this case serving a purpose similar to today’s Blue Book of automotive values. The tenants demand to pay only the rent appropriate to Griffith’s Valuation, while of course the landlords want more. This class struggle has become violent, leading to murders and destruction of property.
While the inclusion of this social issue is in keeping with the naturalist ethos, the material on the Land League is really just background context in this novel. The main issue under consideration here is the commodification of young women in the marriage market. Moore’s coverage of the social maneuverings involved includes a fair amount of satirical humor. Mrs. Barton is depicted as a calculated schemer trying to pimp her daughters out to the highest bidder. There are, however, more serious aspects to Moore’s consideration of women’s roles. One of the young women is an atheist, another is a lesbian, and another undergoes an unwed pregnancy. While Emile Zola’s novels were more overtly scandalous, Moore does push the envelope of Victorian literature into a realm of realism that was no doubt controversial for its time. Unlike most of his British contemporaries, Moore writes women well. Alice is a commendably well-drawn and intelligent modern woman, but even Olive and her more traditionally feminine cronies come across as quite realistic in this novel. With A Drama in Muslin, Moore manages to deliver a story in which drama and suspense are generated by the question of who will marry whom, while also calling into question and satirizing the restrictively sexist emphasis that Irish society placed upon that very question.
A jolly, bedridden MaigretThe Madman of Bergerac is the 16th book in Georges Simenon’s series of Inspector Maigret detective novels. It was first published in 1932 as Le Fou de Bergerac. Traveling by train to visit his friend Leduc, who lives in the Dordogne region of southwestern France, Maigret spends the night in a sleeping car. He has trouble sleeping, partially due to the man in the berth above him, who won’t stop fidgeting and intermittently sobs. The stranger descends from his compartment, and Maigret sees him jump from the moving train. Without really knowing why—driven by a detective’s instinct I suppose—Maigret jumps off the train in pursuit. When the mystery man discovers he’s being followed, he fires a shot at Maigret, wounding him in the shoulder.
Maigret wakes up in a hospital in Bergerac, a small city in the Dordogne. He is soon moved to a hotel on the town square, where he receives outpatient medical treatment, as well as the loving care of Madame Maigret. Maigret spends the rest of the novel in bed, but still manages to conduct an investigation into the man who shot him. In addition, a serial killer is afoot in Bergerac. Two women were strangled to death and stabbed post mortem in the heart by some kind of needle-like instrument. From his bed, Maigret meets and questions various citizens of Bergerac. Despite being confined to his hotel room, he is able to form a picture of the town and uncover some of the hidden secrets of its citizens.
Although Sherlock Holmes or C. Auguste Dupin sometimes solved crimes without ever leaving their chairs, an immobile Maigret is an oddity in the series. His bedridden convalescence leads to a lot of second-hand action. Important events take place “offstage,” and Maigret and the reader only find out about them through indirect accounts. Also unusual is how uncharacteristically jolly Maigret is throughout this book. He seems to be having the time of his life solving crimes from his bed. He enjoys tormenting the suspects and making them squirm. The phrase “madman of Bergerac” is coined to refer to the killer, but some of the mystified Bergeraciens sometimes wonder if Maigret himself might have a screw or two loose.
I got hooked on this novel from the get-go, and it held my rapt attention for the first several chapters. I found the ending a little disappointing, however. In pursuing the case, Maigret is more interested in the private lives of his adversaries rather than the fact that people have been murdered, which is treated almost as an afterthought. As usual, Simenon has developed a compelling back story for his characters, a family drama drawn with psychological authenticity. It seems to me, however, that I’ve seen elements of this conclusion in other Maigret novels (Repetition between books, of course, would depend on the order in which you read them, which in my case has been kind of random). Also, the ending seems to materialize out of thin air. Simenon doesn’t leave a lot of bread comes for the reader to follow. There doesn’t seem to be much cause and effect between investigative work and final revelations. The bed-bound Maigret just seems somewhat omniscient.
Though The Madman of Bergerac is not the best Maigret, any Maigret is good Maigret. Compared to the consistent quality of the Maigret books, this one falls a little short, but it’s still better than the vast majority of detective fiction out there.
Interesting Freudian take on the haunted houseScottish author David Lindsay is best known for his 1920 debut novel A Voyage to Arcturus, a trippy work of science fiction that was years ahead of its time and influenced many later sci-fi writers. Lindsay published a half a dozen novels in his lifetime, none of which brought him any success, but over time Arcturus has developed somewhat of a cult following. Lindsay’s second novel, The Haunted Woman, was published in 1922. This story is more down to Earth, taking place in recognizable present-day England. As the title suggests, however, this novel belongs in the horror genre, and it also dabbles in a bit of science fiction as well.
Marshall Stokes and Isbel Loment are engaged to be married. Isbel, an adult orphan, lives with her wealthy aunt Mrs. Moor. Although all three are Londoners, Isbel and Mrs. Moor are temporarily residing in Brighton, Sussex, where Marshall frequently visits them. Mrs. Moor is in the market for a new home, and the trio decide to look at a country estate named Runhill Court in nearby Worthing. Marshall is acquainted with the owner of the house, a widower named Mr. Judge. Judge had previously consulted Marshall for his opinon regarding some strange occurrences that took place within the house. Marshall has yet to see the house, however, so he decides to kill two birds with one stone and turn his visit into a family outing. Judge is absent from the house at the time, but the visitors are granted entrance by the caretaker.
For years, rumors have circulated about strange happenings at Runhill, not necessarily ghost stories but tales of inexplicable sightings, such as a phantom staircase that appears on occasion. Such unusual phenomena, if any, seem to revolve around a certain upper chamber called the East Room. When visiting the house, Marshall and Mrs. Moor encounter nothing unusual, but Isbel hears a faint and persistent music that the others do not detect. Later, when left alone in a corridor, Isbel finds a mysterious staircase and feels compelled to ascend.
The Haunted Woman is a horror story more eerie than terrifying. It won’t scare the pants off of you, but it definitely delivers a creepy feeling. The story deals in psychological horror, and in fact, one of the things I like best about this book is the psychological authenticity with which Lindsay draws his characters. Unlike most British fiction of this time period, these characters aren’t the impeccable betrothed lovers with their stereotypical spinster aunt. They have flaws, quirks, and ulterior motives, just like real people, and their relationships are far from perfect. There is an undercurrent of sexual infidelity throughout the book, which is unusual for prim and proper English lit. Many of the characters, though in committed relationships, seem to have wandering eyes.
The horror elements of the story are more unexpected than typical haunted house fare. Lindsay’s story is quite original, I cared about his characters, and he kept me anticipating what would happen next. I was firmly gripped and involved for most of the book’s length. I wish it had more of an ending, however. The build-up of tension deserves a better payoff, and it almost feels as if a chapter were missing at the end of the book. I don’t demand total resolution, but I was not satisfied with the outstanding ambiguities of the conclusion. That’s a shame, because for the most part, this was quite an enjoyable read.
Early graphic representations of mathematical reasoningFor almost a quarter of a century, Martin Gardner (1914–2010) wrote a column in Scientific American magazine entitled Mathematical Games, in which he would present all sorts of math curiosities, puzzles, and brain teasers. These columns were assembled into many collected volumes that were popular with general math-curious readers. He also wrote plenty of books outside of that series on topics concerning math, science, and magic (card tricks and other forms of prestidigitation). Logic Machines and Diagrams, published in 1958, is one of Gardner’s earlier works, written when he had just started with Scientific American. In regards to its particular subject, the book has a sort of master’s-thesis feel to it, but it is still written very accessibly for curious non-mathematicians.
A logic diagram is a graph or chart that helps illustrate or prove the veracity and validity of a series of logical propositions. The most obvious and commonly known example of a logic diagram is the Venn diagram composed of interlocking circles, introduced by English mathematician John Venn in the 1880s. Gardner covers these as well as more complicated forms of logic diagrams. If one takes such diagrams and converts them into a three-dimensional analog—with levers and gears, for instance—then you have a logic machine. The structure of logical propositions can also be translated into electronic circuitry, thus creating an electric logic machine. From there, one naturally progresses to digital logic machines like the precursors to today’s computers. (In 1958 personal computers as we know them today did not exist, but there were giant industrial and military computers like ENIAC.) To solve problems and learn, the “AI” systems that we use today employ the same laws of logic that were explicated by Aristotle, George Boole, and others, just as human brains constantly use these same logical laws without consciously thinking about them.
Perhaps because I’m a graphic designer, the diagrams interested me far more than the machines. I found the first few chapters of this book really fascinating. First, Gardner introduces us to Ramón Lull (or Llull), a 13th century Spanish philosopher who devised a series of complicated diagrams with moving parts in the form of rotating paper wheels. These weren’t so useful for logic, as Gardner points out, but rather they amounted to a sort of Western European I Ching used to inspire philosophical contemplation and intellectual creativity. In Chapter 2, Gardner discusses Venn and other logical diagrammists like him, including the author/mathematician Lewis Carroll of Alice in Wonderland fame. In Chapter 3, Gardner presents his own system of logical diagrams designed to move beyond the computational capabilities of Venn diagrams.
At about the halfway point of the book, Gardner turns his attention to logic machines—mechanical, electronic, and digital. He ends up admitting, however, that none of these machines were as effective as a decent diagramming system, and they amounted to little more than experimental novelties perhaps useful as classroom learning tools. In his final chapter, Gardner speculates about the future of logic machines. Much of what he predicts about computing are things that we now take for granted every day with our desktop computers, tablets, smart phones, and other electronic devices.
For over half a century, Gardner was mathematics’ most charming and prolific ambassador to the general public. The subject matter of Logic Machines and Diagrams isn’t as deliberately fun as Gardner’s Mathematical Games columns, but it will still appeal to the same audience—anyone interested in mathematical “mental floss.”
Surprisingly preoccupied with business mattersThe Man Who Sold the Moon is a science-fiction novella by American author Robert A. Heinlein that was published in 1950. It is also the title of a collection of short fiction published that same year, in which that novella is included. It is this latter collection to which this review pertains. In addition to its title selection, the collection entitled The Man Who Sold the Moon also contains five short stories originally published from 1939 to 1940. All six pieces are works in Heinlein’s Future History series, a large assemblage of novels, novellas, and stories that all take place in the same fictional future. The works collected in this volume represent the beginning of that series; that is to say, they are the earliest narratives in the fictional chronology.
The Man Who Sold the Moon (the novella) is an extended prequel to the much shorter story entitled “Requiem.” With the exception of that pair, the stories in this volume are only loosely related to one another. Although all united by the Future History scheme, they feature different characters and are set in different decades. Occasionally a character or his technological achievements may be mentioned in a later story. The half dozen stories in The Man Who Sold the Moon don’t seem to be presented in any logical order—neither in order of publication nor in order of Heinlein’s fictional timeline. This book includes a chart, put together by Heinlein, outlining the chronological order of the series. These being the earliest stories in the timeline, they take place roughly from the present day (the time of publication being late 1930s) to the fictional 1980s.
Heinlein’s first published story, “Life-Line,” is about an inventor who creates a device that can predict the future by “reading” timelines. It has the fanciful and thought-provoking qualities of a good Twilight Zone episode. “Let There Be Light” is about two scientists who pursue a more efficient form of lighting, and it’s about as exciting as that sounds. In “The Roads Must Roll,” America’s highways have been replaced by a cockamamie system of conveyer belts—not Heinlein’s brightest idea. “Blowups Happen” is a speculative story about nuclear power, written before nuclear reactors were a reality.
The centerpiece of this collection, The Man Who Sold the Moon, chronicles the endeavours of D. D. Harriman, a successful businessman, high-dollar huckster, and big-time negotiator who takes it upon himself to spearhead mankind’s first trip to the moon. In order to bring this dream to reality, Harriman must employ some questionable ethics, navigate legal loopholes, and exercise much financial chicanery. The plot is a chronicle of all this wheeling and dealing and not so much about the actual space travel. Harriman has elements of P. T. Barnum, Donald Trump, and Elon Musk, but more likeable and sympathetic than the latter two. “Requiem,” the sequel, catches up with Harriman later in life.
Given Heinlein’s reputation as the greatest science fiction writer of the 20th century, or at least one of the big three (along with Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke), I expected more from this volume. Heinlein’s Future History series is highly acclaimed, but this is still very early in that history. Space travel is just getting started, and we haven’t yet gotten anywhere near the colonization of other worlds. The result is a book full of surprisingly down-to-earth stories that have more to do with prosaic matters of business and industry than with astrophysics or space exploration. I’m surprised that the readers of Astounding Science Fiction magazine would have found fascinating these stories about government regulation and bureaucratic red tape. In just about every story here, Heinlein pushes some kind of libertarian agenda. This is most evident in the title selection, in which space travel and exploration are best left to private interests, preferably unregulated. Governments are merely obstacles in Heinlein’s vision of the future.
Despite my tepid review, there is enough here to build a reasonably satisfying foundation for a fictional universe, and I’m sure as Heinlein ventures farther from Earth, his narratives will become more deserving of the adjective “astounding.” I’m intrigued enough to follow this future timeline into the next volume of collected stories.
Stories in this collection
“Let There Be Light”
The Roads Must Roll
The Man Who Sold the Moon
Requiem
Life-Line
Blowups Happen
Landmark space opera, corny but creativeThe Skylark of Space is a science fiction novel by E. E. Smith (1890–1965). Sometimes credited as Edward E. Smith, or referred to by his nickname “Doc,” Smith was born in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, but soon moved to the Pacific Northwest and eventually worked as a food chemist for a doughnut factory in Michigan before starting his literary career. Though he published over a dozen sci-fi novels, he never did give up his day job. The Skylark of Space was first published in serial form in three 1928 issues of Amazing Stories magazine. The novel inspired one of the most memorable covers ever to grace the front of Amazing Stories, illustrated by Frank R. Paul. Smith usually gets all the credit for The Skylark of Space, but he cowrote the first portion of the novel with Lee Hawkins Garby, who happens to be a woman. Smith penned the rest of the Skylark series himself. The Skylark of Space was first published in book form in 1946.
In his laboratory, the chemist Dick Seaton investigates the properties of a newly discovered and extremely rare element known only as “X.” Unexpectedly, a lab instrument, made of copper, is propelled through the window, flying at high speed on a straight trajectory into the unseen distance. Seaton discovers that X has unlocked the “intra-atomic” energy within the copper, thereby releasing a clean, extremely powerful, and optimally efficient form of energy. Seaton and his friend, the millionaire industrialist Martin Crane, envision this new energy source providing the propulsion necessary for space travel. With the intention of exploring the stars, they begin building a spacecraft dubbed the Skylark. Seaton’s scientific colleague Marc DuQuesne, however, wants to steal the X for himself and will stop at nothing to get his hands on it, even over Seaton and Crane’s dead bodies.
When it appeared in Amazing Stories, this novel had a profound influence on young readers like Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and John W. Campbell Jr., who would go on to become some of the most important names in science fiction. What likely appealed to those future authors were the “hard science fiction” elements of the story, rather than its less successful fantasy and romance aspects. In this novel, Smith, a true scientist himself, deliberately strives to explore various scientific phenomena, and he provides reasonable scientific explanations for the bizarre happenings in the book. Obviously, the Skylark’s copper-fission propulsion method is not a reality, for example, but it’s based on real scientific concepts and is treated with a respectably sound science-fiction logic. The chemical properties of metals and the technological and military applications of various wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum are also explored.
It’s in the human and alien characters where the novel becomes farfetched. The love stories are corny beyond all get-out, and the extraterrestrial beings are like something out of an Edgar Rice Burroughs fantasy. The novel starts out as a down-to-earth Thomas Edison pastiche, but it just gets sillier and sillier as it goes on. It’s comical that Seaton and Crane express absolutely no surprise or wonder at their experience of interstellar travel. They treat their space voyage and contact with an alien race as the most natural and expected occurrences. The irrational behavior of the villains is even sillier. Some elements of the story are merely kitschy with antiquity, like the idea of fur suits keeping one warm in the nearly absolute-zero vacuum of space.
The Skylark of Space reads like a literary bridge between the works of Jules Verne and Robert A. Heinlein. The story of space princes, warring alien races, and starship battles is clichéd space opera, but those same clichés have nevertheless proved successful in many subsequent sci-fi epics from Star Wars to Dune. Sporting cool tech and exciting battle scenes, The Skylark of Space was no doubt considered quite cool by sci-fi fans of 1928. In spite of its hokier aspects, it’s still quite fun to read today.
Tall tales of moviemaking dripping with testosteroneGrowing up in the 1970s, I enjoyed the movies directed by Hal Needham: Smokey and the Bandit, The Cannonball Run, and their sequels, for example. At the time, Burt Reynolds was the biggest box office star in the world. Needham’s films help make Reynolds a star, and vice versa. Before becoming a director, however, Needham had a long career as a sought-after stuntman and stunt coordinator for Hollywood productions, Westerns in particular. He even owned a ranch where stunt horses were trained. In 2011, two years before his death, Needham published his autobiography Stuntman! Not surprisingly, Needham’s memoir depicts a life not unlike those larger-than-life movies he made with Reynolds, full of fast cars, fast horses, fast women, and lots of booze.
Stuntman! is mostly a film-industry memoir, but the first chapter and a half do cover Needham’s life before making movies. He grew up dirt poor in Arkansas, literally the son of a sharecropper. As a youth, he and his brother often had to hunt and fish for the family dinner. After his family moved to St. Louis, he enlisted to fight in the Korean War but was never sent overseas. Following his discharge from the service, he moved out to Los Angeles on a whim. In a lucky stroke, he managed to parlay his work as a tree trimmer into a career as a stuntman.
Needham was best friends with Reynolds and lived in Burt’s house for a while. Don’t expect a lot of behind-the-scenes looks into the lives of celebrities from this book, however. Burt is a bit of a shadow figure in this narrative; Needham reveals more about the personalities of Richard Boone and John Wayne. Almost all of the stories in this book take place on movie sets. Needham relates the stunts he orchestrated and performed in various films. At times it reads like a how-to manual for stuntmen: This is how you flip a car. This is how you stage an epic fall. This is how you jump out of a low-flying airplane. In his free time, Needham, who’s known for his car chase films, engages in other automobile-related activities like attempting to break the speed of sound in a rocket car, racing across the country in the real cannonball run, and owning his own NASCAR team.
Needham is about as macho as they come. He’s basically the Burt Reynolds character from his movie Hooper. He’s likable enough as a storyteller, but he’s got some ego on him. Anything anyone can do, he can do it better, and every idea he has is genius. He never admits to making a mistake. Every woman wants him. The relentless self-aggrandizing becomes tiresome after a while. He’s the Baron Munchausen of redneck good-ol’-boys. Also, as a man’s man, Needham has to be the world’s greatest partyer. He drinks at every occasion, and often drives or operates other heavy machinery while drunk. Some of his drinking stories are funny, but you can’t help thinking he’s the drunken jackass who’s weaving all over the lane next to you while you’re just trying to make it home safe.
With the possible exception of the first Smokey and the Bandit, none of Needham’s films would be characterized as smart, and this book doesn’t come across as very smart either. But Needham’s movies were good dumb fun, and so is this book. One of the reasons I enjoy the action movies of 1960s and ‘70s is because of the authentic pre-digital stunts. There was no faking it back in Needham’s day, and by his account, safety was not priority one. This book is a good nostalgia trip through that era. In today’s movies, so many action scenes are digitally created or enhanced, and action movies have become tiresome as a result, which begs the question, Where’s the next Hal Needham when we need ‘im?
Finding his stride, but still all over the mapThis is the second of three posts reviewing the complete short stories of Edgar Allan Poe. Part I covered his career from 1832 to 1839. Part II looks at his stories published from 1840 through 1843. In this second batch of stories, Poe definitely shows improvement from his writings of the 1830s. Most noticeably, he no longer feels the need to fill his stories with gratuitous references to classical literature, romantic poetry, and untranslated quotes in various languages—at least not in his horror and mystery stories, which seem aimed at an intelligent general public. His humorous stories, however, still come across as pretentious, as if he were trying hard to show off his erudition. His comedic efforts are also not very funny, at least not 150+ years after the fact, anyway.
In the early 1840s, Poe wrote several of his best-known stories, tales that most readers would consider “classic Poe.” In his pioneering mystery story, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” Poe introduces the detective C. Auguste Dupin, an influential precursor to Sherlock Holmes and many other literary sleuths. Dupin makes a second appearance in “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt.” While “Rue Morgue” is a near-perfect classic, “Marie Rogêt” is merely good and suffers from a lack of conclusion. In the horror department, Poe made great strides with landmark offerings “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Masque of the Red Death,” “The Black Cat,” “A Descent into the Maelstrom,” and “The Pit and the Pendulum.” Upon rereading, the latter story feels a bit overrated—a Rube-Goldberg torture scenario that pulls its punches in the end—but the rest have held up well and deserve their acclaim as masterworks of the genre. “The Oval Portrait” and “The Colloquy of Monos and Una” are not great, but at least they’re in the right ballpark. “The Gold-Bug,” another of Poe’s best, is more of an adventure story in the same vein as many of Jules Verne’s adventures.
Outside of those genres for which he’s known, Poe is less successful. Humor stories like “Never Bet the Devil Your Head” and “Three Sundays in a Week” are lackluster comedic offerings in which Poe spends the entire story pointing out the absurdity of an idiom. “The Island of the Fay” is an inconsequential brief involving faeries. “The Man in the Crowd” consists of descriptive street scenes that never really lead anywhere. “The Landscape Garden” is not really a story at all but rather an essay on what makes a good garden.
Overall, this bunch of stories is better than his earlier work, but still the overall effect of Poe’s oeuvre is less than impressive. In reading his complete works, I’ve learned that one would be better off avoiding his humorous stories, which only serve to lessen one’s assessment of Poe as a writer. It would serve one better to look for a collection with a title such as Tales of Mystery and Terror, which is likely to contain most of his stories worth reading. Still, I’m going to stick it out for the last third of his career and will report back when I’ve finished.
Stories in this collection
Why the Little Frenchman Wears His Hand in a Sling
The Business Man
The Man of the Crowd
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
A Descent into the Maelström
The Island of the Fay
The Colloquy of Monos and Una
Never Bet the Devil Your Head
Eleonora
Three Sundays in a Week
The Oval Portrait
The Masque of the Red Death
The Landscape Garden
The Mystery of Marie Rogêt
The Pit and the Pendulum
The Tell-Tale Heart
The Gold-Bug
The Black Cat
Diddling
Vivid and colorful Renaissance OdysseyA 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.
Norwegian naturalismNorway’s Johan Bojer is known as one of that nation’s important realist authors of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Bojer garnered enough critical respect to be nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature five times. Several of his novels were translated into English in the 1910s, ‘20s, and ‘30s. He is known for writing novels about Norwegian immigrant life in America, but his novel The Great Hunger, published in 1916, takes place entirely within Norway.
Peer Troen is a typical boy growing up in a small town in Norway. Troen is not his birth name, however. Peer is the illegitimate child of a prosperous former military officer from Christiania (today’s Oslo), Captain Holm, who pays the Troen family to board and raise his son. Peer’s mother was a prostitute, so his father, though friendly enough, refuses to claim him as a son. In fact, Captain Holm has another, legitimate family, and admitting that Peer exists would be an embarrassment to them all. Though Peer is certainly not happy being disowned, he learns to come to terms with his lot in life. He dreams of becoming a priest, at that time an upper-class profession requiring higher education. When both his parents die, however, there is no one left to pay the Troen family for his upkeep. Peer finds out his father was not as wealthy as he thought, and his inheritance is paltry. Peer is dropped into a life of poverty, but he still manages to work his way through engineering school in hopes of succeeding in a career.
The title of the book is both literal and figurative. While there is no mass famine here, the story does deal with the poverty and hunger of one Norwegian family. The “hunger” in question, however, more pointedly refers to the desire of humans to create, accomplish, and/or conquer and to leave behind a legacy for posterity. Bojer asks the question is enough to simply enjoy life? Are love and happiness the purpose of our existence? Peer seems to think so, for a while anyway. But can a man, or mankind, be truly satisfied with blissful complacency? One of Peer’s close friends begs to differ, asserting that the irresistible force of evolution imparts to everyone a Promethean drive to create, build, and strive toward progress, even at the expense of comfort and joy. This novel is chiefly concerned with the conflict between these two attitudes toward human nature and the meaning of life.
The Great Hunger is strongest in its first act, when it adheres most strictly to the tenets of naturalist literature. Peer must deal with the hand that’s dealt him by his heritage, and through him Bojer realistically depicts the struggles of poor and working class life in Norway. At about the halfway point, the novel starts to get more didactic and preachy, as if Bojer were delivering a sermon. This sermon, however, is a secular one that appeals to my personal freethinking inclinations. Bojer makes many openly atheistic statements that are a breath of rationalistic fresh air. By the early 20th century, more Scandinavian writers were penning literature from an atheist viewpoint, such as Bojer in Norway and Jens Peter Jacobsen and Johannes V. Jensen in Denmark.
I was less impressed with the later chapters of the book. For a while, it seems like Bojer is going to follow up on Peer’s bastard upbringing. Peer becomes friends with his own half-brother, who is unaware that they share the same father. That plot thread is never followed through, however, and remains inconclusive. The ending of the book in general is rather week, but adhering to realism often means that expectations of closure remain unsatisfied, much like real life itself. Nevertheless, I found Bojer to be a writer certainly worth investigating further, and I’m sure this won’t be the last of his books that I’ll read.
Memoir of an industrious Black homesteaderOscar Micheaux is best known as a pioneering Black filmmaker. He produced, wrote, and directed at least 40 films—some silent, some talkies—from 1919 to 1948. Prior to embarking on his film career, however, Micheaux first expressed himself through literature, publishing three books in the decade of the 1910s. His first published volume, 1913’s The Conquest, is sometimes referred to as a novel, but it reads more like an autobiography of the first 30 years of Micheaux’s life. Micheaux published the book anonymously, and the narrator’s name has been changed to Oscar Devereaux, but the events depicted in the book closely parallel those of Micheaux’s life. The names of other persons in the book have been likewise slightly altered, and the names of towns and cities are sometimes changed or abbreviated (for example, M—pls equals Micheaux’s hometown of Metropolis, Illinois).
Micheaux/Devereaux was born on a farm in Illinois, where his parents eked out a poor living. His grandparents were slaves; his father illiterate. Oscar, however, believed that through hard work and education he could better himself. He refuses to accept that his race should disqualify him from success comparable to his White counterparts, and he sets his sights on being a landowning farmer. He works for a few years as a porter on Pullman railroad cars, bouncing all over the country and even through Mexico and as far as Argentina. Through his travels, he discovers an attractive land opportunity in South Dakota and files for a homestead claim. For a few years, Devereaux is the only Black farmer in this region of South Dakota. Through his hard work, he earns the respect of his neighbors and adds more parcels of land to his holdings.
Along with Micheaux’s ambition and success comes an arrogance that’s evident in his writing. He expresses contempt for many of his own race—rich and poor alike—for being, as he sees it, lazy, short-sighted, and frivolous. He declares himself a progressive in the mode of Booker T. Washington and considers the vast majority of Blacks to be reactionaries. Micheaux also seems to think he’s God’s gift to women. When he finally does settle down with a partner, he talks about the relationship as if it were a business deal and has some rather unfavorable things to say about his significant other. At one point in the book, Micheaux/Devereaux falls in love with a White woman of Scottish extraction. The relationship itself is not surprising, but the fact that he wrote about it so candidly, in 1913, is quite surprising. He discusses some instances of interracial marriage on the South Dakota prairie, but chooses not to go that route himself.
The Conquest may be a valuable document of the African American experience, but much of what Micheaux relates could apply to the experience of farmers and homesteaders of any race or ethnicity. If you’re expecting stories of racism or discrimination, there’s almost nothing of that here. Much of the book concerns the homesteading process and Westward expansion. Micheaux goes into great detail about land laws, the claims process, and financial dealings. He also chronicles at length how several small towns in South Dakota competed for a railroad line and economic dominance in the region. As a document of this era, this will likely prove a treasure trove of information for historians, but sometimes such real estate business can become boring to the general reader. In addition, a great deal of The Conquest is about Devereaux’s love life, through which we get realistic glimpses into different classes of Black Society, both rural and urban, during this time period. The conclusion of The Conquest makes you wonder if the only reason Micheaux wrote this book was to get the last word in a quarrel with his in-laws.
When Americans think about African American literature, we generally think about critically acclaimed modernist writers from the Harlem Renaissance or afterwards—Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright. Often forgotten, however, are the African American authors of the earlier realist, naturalist, and muckraking eras who documented Black life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Though film may be Micheaux’s claim to fame, The Conquest proves he deserves to be mentioned alongside pioneering African American literary luminaries like Charles W. Chesnutt and Paul Laurence Dunbar.
Dark Frisian fable of seawalls and spectersTheodor Storm (1817-1888) was a German writer, but he comes from a very specific area of Germany, North Frisia in Schlesweig-Holstein, that has a mixed cultural history of German, Dutch, and Danish influences. He was born on the coast of the Wadden Sea, which is presumably the setting of his novel The Rider on the White Horse, published in 1888. I don’t believe the word Frisia is ever used in the novel, but I assume this story is meant to take place on the German stretch of the coast. To an American reader unfamiliar with the region, however, this novel that’s largely about dike building will seem Dutcher than an orange tulip growing out of a wooden shoe.
An anonymous narrator traveling along the coast comes across a rider on a white horse. The rider has a crazed look with glowing eyes and an overall Headless Horseman vibe, but with head intact. The narrator then pulls into a nearby inn where he asks the locals about this fearsome apparition. There in the tavern, and later in his home, the town schoolmaster regales the traveler, and us, with the origin story of this mysterious horse and rider.
The schoolmasters’s tale flashes back to the 1740s and ‘50s. Hauke Haien is the son of a farmer and surveyor of middling means. Though born and raised on a farm, Hauke is not really cut out for farming, or at least his heart isn’t in it. He is more interested in book learning and has a head for engineering. In his teens, Hauke’s father manages to get him a position as an apprentice to the dike master, the official who is responsible for overseeing the dikes that protect the local farmers’ lands from the sea. An added bonus of this job is that Hauke gets to spend time with the dike master’s lovely daughter Elke, with whom he forms a close bond. Hauke would like to become dike master himself some day, but that position usually goes to the wealthiest landowner in town. If he wants the job, therefore, Hauke must strive to elevate himself above his modest status and financial means.
There’s a whole lot about dike building in this novel. This was at a time when all the work was done moving earth with shovels, carts, and horses. I sometimes found it difficult to understand exactly what Storm was saying in regard to the design, construction, and workings of the dikes, but it didn’t affect my appreciation of the human story. Although there are elements of this novel that make it feel like a fable or fairy tale, the book provides a realist view of the lives of the farming community in this time and place. After reading this novel, I find it amazing that anyone can live in these coastal lands reclaimed from the sea, with nothing but a handmade wall of dirt protecting their homes and crops from flooding and devastation.
Storm is regarded as one of the most important figures in German literary realism. Though this story is primarily realistic, it does have some supernatural elements, including the implication that God is expressing himself through nature to either benefit or punish the characters. One admirable aspect of the book is Storm’s sensitive portrayal of a child with a developmental disability. The characters here feel real, and it is easy to sympathize with them. If this is intended as a fable, the moral is not obvious. Is this merely a case of bad things happen to good people? I presume that we are supposed to find Hauke guilty of the sins of pride and ambition, which he pays for with the hardships that befall him, like Icarus flying too close to the sun. From the perspective of this 21st-century reader, however, his ambition just seems like hard-working industriousness, for which he should be rewarded, not castigated. More pious readers of the 1880s would have seen it differently. Nevertheless, I found this a compelling story, very well told by Storm, and I learned an interesting thing or two about North Frisia.
Ahead-of-its-time post-apocalyptic thrillerS. Fowler Wright (1874–1965) was a British author of genre fiction active from the 1920s through the 1950s. His science fiction novel Deluge was published in 1928. The book was an immediate bestseller and Wright’s first big commercial success. Deluge was adapted into a Hollywood movie in 1933.
The novel opens with a brief prelude that informs us that the Earth has been struck by a catastrophe of unusual seismic activity causing land masses to sink and sea levels to rise. This cataclysm is accompanied by fierce storms delivering pouring rain, stronger-than-hurricane winds, huge rogue waves, and fires caused by broken gas lines. After the prelude, the narrative backtracks to day one of this disaster and follows an English family as their daily life is disrupted by this apocalypse. As the novel progresses, other characters are introduced, their experiences related, and eventually all their storylines become intertwined. England, where this novel takes place, is reduced to a scattering of small islands separated by miles of water. A few buildings remain standing, and some livestock survives. The human survivors of these islands are rapidly forming themselves into gangs that may be the seeds of a new civilization, but the absence of government, law, and essential services has brought out the worst in humanity.
Considering it was published almost a hundred years ago, I was impressed by how bluntly realistic this novel is. Rather than a story from 1928, Deluge reads like it could have been a 21st-century post-apocalyptic thriller. In fact, I found this more intelligent and compelling than many recent movies about dystopian futures. There are no mutants or zombies in Deluge. Wright concentrates on what happens to human nature when mankind is thrust back into Iron Age living conditions. One consideration Wright explores very frankly is what would happen to women in such a situation. They are outnumbered by male survivors, who want to possess and use them like property. Wright doesn’t shy away from the distasteful aspects of this dilemma, but confronts it matter-of-factly. Women of the 1920s, I would assume, enjoyed less independence and had fewer opportunities to kick ass than women of today. Nevertheless, here Wright delivers a realistic female lead who is admirably intelligent, resourceful, athletic, and can hold her own in a battle against men.
The first half of Deluge is excellent as Wright unfolds his vision of what life would be like after such a doomsday scenario. At about the halfway point of the novel, however, Wright goes into some extended action sequences of siege, abduction, and escape that just go on way too long. Like a drawn-out chess game, he examines every facet of these encounters in minute detail. Where is each character standing at a given time? What happens if they move in this direction, or that? Whose carrying what gear on which horse? It’s just too much logistical minutiae. These chaotic action scenes distract from the larger issues of how human nature and morality change when survival becomes the primary motivator. The new society is ruled by might makes right, until a small community decides they want to adopt a form of government. Wright’s wishful-thinking solution to that problem—a variation on the benevolent autocracy of a philosopher/king—is neither believable nor attractive. The ending of the book is also a bit of a let-down in the too-convenient way in which potentially thorny issues are wrapped up neatly.
The story is told by an unnamed narrator of the post-apocalyptic future who occasionally offers up commentary on aspects of our present society: capitalism, women’s rights, capital punishment, environmental devastation, the frivolous entertainments on which we waste our time, and so on. This aspect of the book is very well done. Overall, the strengths of Deluge outweigh its disappointments. I was impressed by Wright’s writing; his sci-fi reads more like our contemporaries (2025) than his contemporaries (1928). A year after Deluge, Wright published a sequel entitled Dawn.
