Reading William Wordsworth (II)

“I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud” continues the theme of what nature has to teach us. (The title is the first line, so you might see variations on what someone might title the poem.) That first line is so curious and provocative that you’ll hear people quote it as the meaning is layered. Sometimes it’s hard to shake off pondering its meaning. Is it a literal man who compares himself to a cloud? Or is he a literal cloud? What does it mean to be a cloud? Why is the cloud lonely? (Visually solitary, perhaps far from others.) He both is and is not a cloud. Perhaps his thoughts were elsewhere or maybe is surveying the scene below as a cloud: “high o’er hills and vales.” He’s playing this ambiguity up.

In reality, Wordsworth wasn’t alone but with his sister, but the line works for the poem. The loneliness is brought into contrast with a “crowd” or “host” of daffodils. Those words indicate a large number, but they also indicate grouping as well as meaning. At first the daffodils are a crowd, which people often feel left out of, but they soon become a “host” so that the speaker feels invited to join as a guest, which serves the poem. The daffodils dance in a manner that remains with him—long afterwards as he recalls as “wealth the show to had brought” since it transforms melancholy into joy at the recollection.

“My Heart Leaps up” not only aids “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood,” which borrows the last three lines but also his long narrative poem, “Ruth.” The opening of “My Heart Leaps up” mirrors “I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud” except at the wonder of rainbows this time. On this occasion, though, he is pointing out how the rainbow had an effect on him as a child (the effect he calls “natural piety” – a kind of religion or respect or reverence of nature—see also Genesis 9. Note the contrast of Nature combined with human intellectual practice of faith as if they belonged together as “natural”). It still affects him as a man and hopefully, as an elderly man, which begets the famous line “The Child is father of the Man.”

“Nuns Fret Not” is one Wordsworth’s best. He details how people can be happy living and working in small rooms at small jobs:

The Hermits are contented with their Cells....

the prison, unto which we doom

Ourselves, no prison is

The only problem—if it is a problem—is that it concludes upon itself: the sonnet. That there is solace in small things. It recommends itself and the form through looking at these other people, things and occasions. As if the sonnet or poetic form were a greater jar. Most would not claim a poem has greater worth than people. But of course a poem can attempt to contain people and this small poem stood in rebellion against previous ideas of what poetry should be. Or maybe it can be reversed or re-versed to suggest the opposite: that the sonnet can be satisfying as small, so can we be.

Cultural Ephemera: Mairzy Doates and the Sense of Nonsense

Don’t read past the song. Just listen to it as if experiencing it for the first time. Imagine turning on a 1940s radio, prominent before the living room couch as if it were a television set. You sit down with the newspaper, a book, homework spread across the floor, knitting in your lap, or the parts of a model airplane fighter, strewn out across the floor—the air redolent of glue.

And this song come on:

Thanks to The Merry Macs, this hit the number one slot in March 1944. People rushed out to be the sheet music—to play at home or for company.

Perhaps you heard scatting, or perhaps you picked up thelyrics. People who have heard the song before the lyrics are surprised there are lyrics:

Mares eat oats
and does eat oats
and little lambs eat ivy.
A kid'll eat ivy, too; wouldn't you?

I unfortunately read the lyrics first, expecting a secondary sentence to arise from the same sounds. It took a minute to realize it was just sense parading as nonsense. But this doesn’t fully encompass its purpose.

When I shared this with someone who lived through WWII, they said, “Oh, yeah, of course, it was WWII.” This suggests this verbal game was not just a game but a light-hearted distraction from the war. You can imagine people educating friends on the real lyrics, “Now how does it go again? Mares eat oats...?” That way they can learn, impress friends, distract them for an hour, and pass it on. People were still passing on the song after the war.

Addendum to, Deconstruction of, and Lingering Mysteries in “The Godfather” by Mario Puzo (part II)

This continues discussion begun here.

1.

I needed to revise my estimate of the timeline. The time may have only run into the 50s. My reading of Johnny Fontaine’s aging and the passing of years for other characters skewed my estimate. Michael has come from the war (1945?). Michael has to avenge his father’s shooting (1946?). Michael lives in Sicily (1947?). Michael returns home quietly (Kay has been teaching several years—two or three? 1948-1949?). They marry and have two kids (1950-1951?). They wait two to four years to be able to move to Las Vegas (1952-1955?). They become godfather and kill Carlo and years later after Connie recovers, she remarries happily (1952-1958?).

These are ballpark figures. Perhaps a safer range is anywhere within the Fifties, so five to fifteen years of elapsed time (neglecting flashbacks).

2.

My rereading of Lucy Mancini, Sonny’s mistress, and Jules, the doctor, lowered my estimate of certain sections. It is sensational—there largely to titillate, excite, and stir controversy—but possibly also to pass on auctorial philosophy about how the world should work.

All deconstructions are problematic. They pretend to read the minds of a person, which is, at present, impossible. People pretend deconstructions deliver facts, but they do not. They suggest, and suggestions can be wrong. Plus, not everyone is equally good at it. Therefore, treating deconstructions as facts is like building sandcastles on the beach, which are impressive until the tide comes in.

Nonetheless, I strongly suspect Jules speaks for the author. Why? The doctor is an authority of the body, of science, and of the material world that impacts us humans. We have a name for that: “The White-Coat Syndrome” wherein we automatically loan our trust to doctors. Moreover, the doctor turns out to be right about love for this woman, her malformation, and the vocal chords of Fontaine. Lastly, apart from losing his job as an abortionist (which paradoxically lends him credibility every time he speaks—so that the “bad” thing is actually a “good”), nothing ever goes against the man. Therefore, we readers are expected to trust this man and what he has to say.

Jules does a lot of opining about how the world should work—thoughts that were sensational in their day and remain so to an extent. 1) He believes in abortion (in part because), 2) he believes in a freer sexual society. For instance, a man should make a pass at a woman (on a date?) or else she will not feel appreciated. The book was published in 1969, so these would have generated sympathy with the more liberal elements of the day.

Were other characters portrayed in so sympathetic a light? Vito and Michael Corleone. Vito becomes a father not only to orphans but also to everyone in his community, serving justice where it had failed in society. He refuses to take more than “an eye for an eye.” He also refuses to peddle drugs—a conviction that creates attempts at taking his life. Gambling, drinking, whoring are acceptable vices, but illegal, addictive drugs go too far. Now there is an attempt to justify the drugs by Barzini [the book’s villain]. When he states that African Americans should have drugs peddled to them since they are animals anyway, this is not only to create dislike of Barzini but also, by association, drugs as well. A conservative story element.

Also at stake in 1969 when the novel was published is military service. The standard is to get one’s children out of service, which Vito Corleone is willing to do (and presumably did for two of his other sons); however, Michael chooses to serve and becomes a war hero. So we mix conservative and liberal elements in this one.

Feminism is more complicated than it may at first appear. Men are in charge and conduct violence against women. However, 1) it is a way of life that both Vito and Michael are trying to get their families out of (into the current power structure), 2) violence is strange and mostly pointed at men—strange in that violence is seen as business until it isn’t business (yet every slight is eventually accounted for in this system of justice, so in a sense it's always business and always not business)—so Vito at first tolerates the violence and presumably was waiting to see, to give time for the son-in-law to become a good husband (after all, trusting emotions and rushing into action is what kills Vito’s first son—presumably Vito’s justice would have been more of the eye-for-eye strategy although he also wanted to preserve the family structure), 3) none of the admirable men (the doctor, Vito, and Michael) conduct violence against women, 4) Kay gets a degree and a job, 5) it is Kay who pursues Michael, 6) only Kay can change Michael’s mind, and 7) Vito’s wife works behind Vito’s back to bargain him into heaven (two things implicit here: 1) she has higher connections than her husband, 2) she can do things that the Don may or may not want her to do).

There’s the eighth aspect of her being at the epicenter of the novel’s conclusion, but it’s problematic. She’d accepted his way of life years before, so why does she need reassurance now? As I mentioned earlier, it also doesn’t hit at the heart of the novel’s scope, either, but maybe that’s too tall an order, given the massive scope. The movie’s solution, shrouding the dealings in the mystery of closed doors, may be a stronger choice although that, too, is problematic in its lack of realism.

3.

One strange mystery in The Godfather is violence. Violence (and the threat of violence) is culturally curious in the mafia way of life. It is the blood that courses through its arteries and delivers nutrients to all the body. But the proper way to wage it, only the good Dons like Vito and Michael Corleone know how to do. I don’t think how it works is clearly delineated, much as the novel pretends it is. Why, for instance, would someone assume that if someone lowers an offer, that a death threat is imminent?

Johnny Fontaine, however, remains a tantalizing intrigue, especially in how he treats and is treated by his death-wish friend, Nino. They provide a contrast of something I can’t quite put my finger on. One wants to live and cannot while the other possibly could live but wants to die. One had it all and had it temporarily taken from him; the other lived in comparative poverty and belatedly is given advantages that could have been given earlier but were delayed. I can’t find in the text now , but in a moment of clarity, Fontaine realizes that their talents are similar, but Fontaine got all the big breaks.

The text mentions that Fontaine got a woman that Nino did not, which doesn’t quite feel right except as a miniature of the real deal. Maybe it has to do with getting breaks early in life creates a sense of entitlement, while getting the breaks late doesn’t help. Could that be? How does that spring from the rest of the novel? Are these two a version of the contrast between Michael and his brothers? The answer to that last would seem to be “No,” but who knows? There’s a moment at the end of Fontaine’s POV where he speculates simply that Nino had nothing to live for, but that doesn’t quite complete the picture since it doesn’t answer “why.” Maybe it will come to me later, or maybe this part of the story wasn’t fully developed.

Reading William Wordsworth

            A good poem to start with may be “Expostulation and Reply.” While not his finest, it establishes his viewpoint and demonstrates some of his strengths. It originated with his “[good friend Matthew] who was unreasonably attached to modern books of moral philosophy.”

It begins and ends with similar phrases but transforms the feeling towards those phrases by the end (Note: the first is spoken by Matthew, the second by William):

“Why, William, on that old grey stone,

Thus for the length of half a day,

Why, William, sit you thus alone

And dream your time away?”

vs.

“Then ask not wherefore, here alone

Conversing as I may,

I sit upon this old grey stone

And dream my time away.”

This frame is simple yet very satisfying: Why do you do this? That’s why I do that. It works so long as the middle carries through on the promise and it does. Matthew gets brilliant turns of phrases put in his mouth:

“Where are your books?—that light bequeathed

To Beings else forlorn and blind!

Up! up! and drink the spirit breathed

From dead men to their kind.

“You look round on your Mother Earth

As if she for no purpose bore you.”

William is wasting his time and not studying great books. “Spirit” is a wonderful pun or double entendre, meaning the spirit of the dead and the spirit of alcohol. Note, too, the contrast of drinking breath and a supernatural existence.

William’s reply:

“Nor less I deem that there are Powers

Which of themselves our minds impress

That we can feed this mind of ours

In a wise passiveness.

“Think you, ‘mid this mighty sum

Of things for ever speaking,

That nothing of itself will come,

But we must still be seeking?

“Then ask not wherefore, here, alone,

Conversing as I may,”

Again, we have contrasts or strange pairings. Passiveness is assumed to have wisdom as an attribute, a phrase which Quakers apparently loved. William is not only listening to nature—“this mighty sum / Of things for ever speaking”—but also talking back in this additional contrast: “alone / Conversing.” Conversing assumes a partner, but he is alone.

A companion poem “The Tables Turned: An Evening on the Same Subject” expands on this. The title and others suggest there is disagreement between the two poems, but to my ear it is simply more deeply exploring the same theme. The turned table may simply be that the philosophically attacked speaker in the first poem becomes the attacker:

hear the woodland linnet,

How sweet his music...

There’s more of wisdom in it....

the throstle sings....

no mean preacher....

Let Nature be your Teacher....

a vernal wood

May teach you more of man...

Than all the sages can....

Nature is our teacher, not men. Here, we get find out what the “mighty sum / Of things for ever speaking” finally is. “Man” is meant to include women especially since women are also his companions and appear in his poems sympathetically. Also the term “woman” includes “man” –perhaps a man with a womb. But this potentiality has been discarded. Again, “the past is a different country.”

Our meddling intellect

Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things—

We murder to dissect.

Enough of Science and of Art.

We screw things up with thought. It sounds like Wordsworth opposes science and art, but obviously he is writing a poem and in “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802” he lumps nature with the things of men, perhaps because men are things of nature (more on this poem later).

But he also does so below in this poem:

Close up those barren leaves.

“Leaves” are both a thing of man-made books (which he writes) and things that grow on trees. And obviously to read the poem (at least before computers), one has to read them in a book. But for now, there are times when nature is the teacher, and we must listen.

The Godfather by Mario Puzo -- novel vs. movie (part I)

As always, there will be spoilers; however, I try to limit and minimize them, describing obliquely.

Many have seen the movies. Until I saw Francis Ford Coppola’s movie, I wasn’t particularly drawn to mob movies. But this one etches in the mafia way of thinking. It’s a culture, a way of life that is like living in a foreign country. On my first viewing, I enjoyed the trilogy as a whole although some knock one film or another.

 

I just read (and reread) the book to compare. When one thinks of a mafia story, one thinks of creative deaths—concrete boots, strange burials—where often the punishment fits the supposed “crime,” blood baths, riches, luxury, women, paid protection, gambling, booze, angry revenge, vendettas, etc.

Puzo does some of this; however, he focuses on the family aspect. Don [Vito] Corleone is not just father to blood sons—one wild and angry, one a little too craven to people outside the family, the other controlled but wanting out of the mafia life—but also father to everyone to whom he does favors. He grants favors like getting washed-up singers back on his feet, and getting revenge for ruining the life of a young woman. He expects favors in return. Moreover, if one loses family, one has to see it as “business” in a way that most mob movies don’t go into.

The author aligns us with Don Corleone’s value system. Sometimes the law is unfair, so one has to take it into his own hands. The justice is less poetic, and more familial and deeply loyal. For instance, a man’s only daughter chooses not to have sex with two men. The men are connected (only explained in the book) so that when convicted, their sentences are suspended. So the father comes to Don Corleone for vengeance—murder—but Corleone points out that murder goes beyond justice. The daughter isn’t dead but maimed for life, beauty lost.

Now Don Corleone is not just an alternate justice system you can suddenly turn to when you need him, but a way of life. Corleone wanted the father to have been respectful before the Godfather is needed and to have used Corleone’s justice first, without ever going to the police. There should have been visits for coffee, etc. He expects a lifetime of friendship and gratitude, which one does by kissing the don’s hand (which the movie may or may not have explained well enough to convey the ending).

Puzo sweeps us through history from the 40s to the 50s (ETA: See addendum post), occasionally telling past stories or revisiting the past, alternately sprinting and leaping through history. Some readers may take issue with exposition as he tries to generate large scope without dipping into every moment. Of course, we become involved with what happens in a moment, but there’s also something pleasant about the scope of time, not having to taste every event. Perhaps the scope is sometimes a crutch for Puzo, but we feel the muscular crossing of time as if we were in seven-league boots.

One advantage the book has over the movie—apart from the obvious ability to explain mafia culture when the movie cannot—is the ability to climb into every character’s head. In a few instances, this adds more scope to the culture that the movie does not explore. For instance, Woltz the movie mogul, after the unexpected appearance of a head in his bed, doesn’t immediately decide to accede to Don Corleone’s wishes. It is a train of thought interesting to follow.

Also, Sonny has an extramarital affair with Lucy Mancini (the extramarital affair in the movie, I suspect, merely portrays Sonny as a ladies’ man, perhaps a man of virility too big for just one woman). Lucy is actually looking for sexual satisfaction (intimated in the movie by the wife’s widening of hands, just as Sonny stands to partake in an affair... although I’m not sure this subtlety is clear except for readers of the book).

However, one has to wonder if Puzo needed all those character minds to that extent. Puzo gives Johnny Fontaine and Lucy a lot of book time. To justify this in this novel, it’d be more interesting if Puzo would have delineated more how these characters came to be who they were only through the mafia system. Yes, it does somewhat already, but to justify their growing space in book, we need more negative/positive impacts and repercussions (direct or indirect). One character is trying to drink himself to death, for example, and it isn’t fully clear why.

[Note: I wrote the above before hearing Coppola’s commentary that Lucy's story was merely sensational. It was, and probably did intrigue readers of his day. Coppola and I agree that her story in the novel is out of proportion but she and the doctor represent outsiders whose lives were affected/protected by the mafia. Still, those story threads lost sight of the novel's big picture and should have been better developed, trimmed or cut.

There is also Fontaine, who has a fascinating transformation from powerless and virulent to powerful and impotent, but how and why? If it’s just his vocal chords, then his story could be trimmed, but what if it has something to do with living in the mafia system—failing to learn or being kept?]

One thing the movie does good to exclude is the violence against women (there is still some, but it’s minimized). If it had appeared, the movie may not have done as well since it would diminish our view of the characters. The book, however, may be more honest about the culture. Despite our greater thirst for violence, the casual violence may be as shocking today as Puzo had intended it to be. Woltz is intended to look lower than he is in the movie. Fontaine is a curious one, though, and it’s hard to say exactly a reader is supposed to feel toward his violence—as it forms a part of his growing impotence.

When Michael got the “thunderbolt” in Sicily and fell in love with another woman, we wonder if he ever loved Kay Adams. Perhaps it was an auctorial opportunity to develop Michael’s time in another land, so we can see what he’s been up to, putting off his return. The thunderbolt is a bit of romantic nonsense and the poor girl is immediately dispatched before he returns to the U.S. The movie does a better job of explaining Michael’s detachment or distancing himself from Kay (because of what he has to do); however, when Michael returns, his interest in her feels less sincere.

In the book, it’s actually Kay who pursues: She is the one who arrives at Michael’s house to learn that, despite her letters, she only just now learns that Michael is back in the States, a year after the fact. She is still in love and is disappointed, but still wants to see him. Michael’s mother approves suddenly, without explanation, makinf it sound as if Kay should have shown up earlier despite the mother’s earlier discouragement (probably when Michael had married). The story thread needs more development, especially considering their later importance.

The relationship is key because both the book and the movie end on it. The movie shows intimations that she is shut out of knowing what’s going on in her husband’s life; in the book she has to accept the reality of what she’d merely agreed to in theory. The movie is visually brilliant although the book may be more realistic—the person who is living with you is bound to learn of your secrets. Better to learn in advance if that person could deal with such news.

Apart from a little too much exposition and a little too much time spent with characters who do not help delve into the mafia culture, the main issue I have is the book’s ending which doesn’t quite capture the spirit of the novel as a whole. It does capture the familial side and justifies itself, but there’s more to the family than this—with the Don’s right hand man explaining life in a mafia family to someone outside it. For a big novel, it needs a bigger scene—not necessarily splashier, but more scope.

A younger viewer found the first movie was too long and slow—a curious remark that got me to study the opening scenes. We have a marriage interrupted by the Don’s hearing of people asking of favors, which he has to do within this culture. It’s a nice contrast, to alternate between the sweetness of marriage and the violence of the mafia culture. The violence is merely talked about, which allows the movie to escalate in later scenes. However, I think today’s culture expects more violence than when the movie was released. I don’t think more violence is necessary, but perhaps increasing our interest in the marriage scenes through moments like the FBI taking license plate numbers and perhaps increasing the significance of Sonny’s affair, etc.

If you enjoyed the movies, you’ll enjoy Puzo’s tour of the mafia world. Despite flaws, it dives into the culture and sweeps across more territory than a movie could hope . A TV series might be able to tap that scope by entering Vito Corleone’s past and journeying with the family to the 50s.

This discussion will continue on Feb 24.

Mislaid Poets: Robinson Jeffers

Robinson Jeffers is another poet who has faded from memory, gradually losing his prominence as a poet of some significance in his day. This may be due to his clarity or his clear-eyed lack of sentimentality that sometimes leaked gloom, but perhaps he foresaw this in his poem "To the Stone-Cutter" which sees the stone as having more permanence than what we humans produce:

The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out.... 

Yet stones have stood for a thousand years
This may be a response to Shakespeare's opening to this sonnet: 

Nor marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme

Why was Jeffers a Gloomy Gus? Introducing his Selected Poems, Jeffers, after reading Nietchze say that poets lie too much, "decided not to tell lies in verse. Not to feign emotion that I did not feel; not to pretend to believe in optimism or pessimism, or unreversible progress; not to say anything because it was popular, or generally accepted, or fashionable in intellectual circles, unless I myself believe it."

But it isn't correct that these are merely bleak, full of unremitting darkness; it's up to the reader to see the light. Above, the stone lives on. The house dog in "The House Dog's Grave announces "I'm still yours." Even in "Love the Wild Swan" when the speaker-poet despairs of his own writing, he tells himself:

Does it matter whether you hate your... self? At least
Love your eyes that can see, your mind that can
Hear the music, the thunder of the winds. Love the wild swan. 

Jeffers is intrigued by our temporary place in the cold, Darwinian universe amid other animals ["Ocean"]:

The gray whales are going south: I see their fountains
Rise from black sea: great dark bulks of hot blood
Plowing the deep cold sea to their trysting place
Off Mexican California, where water is warm, and love
Finds massive joy....
How do these creatures know that spring is at hand? They remember their ancestors
That crawled on earth: the little fellows like otters, who took to sea
And have grown great. Go out to the ocean, little ones,
You grow great or die.

You think you have a handle on his meaning, but he switches it up here. What seemed an important warning is wiped away as not important. His speaker explains why.

O ambitious children,
It would be wiser no doubt to rest in the brook
And remain little. But if the devil drives you
I hope you will scull far out to the wide ocean and find your fortune and beware of teeth.

It is not important. There are deeps you will never reach and peaks you will never explore....

It hardly matters; the words ["grow great or die"] are comparative;
Greatness is but less little, and death's changed life.

Live, die--two sides of one coin. I love the play and compression of that last line, which resonates. One imagines that the blurb for Robinson Jeffers' self-help book might read: "Achieve greater enlightenment by reducing yourself to the cinders of insignificance."

One of my favorites is "Hands" where a speaker finds hands painted on cave walls:

Saying: Look: we also were human...
You people with the cleverer hands, our supplanters
In the beautiful country: enjoy her a season, her beauty, and come down
And be supplanted; for you also are human.

During his day, Jeffers was famed for his long, narrative poems. "Roan Stallion" is one of those--part short story, part poem, part both, part none of the above. I promise to ruin it with spoilers. The story is somewhat simple. California's husband, Johnny, is a lush, whose drinking brings good and ill. "We share your luck," California says. She points that his gambling meant the family went hungry and "Tom Dell had me two nights / Here in the house."

Two days before Christmas, he brings home the titular horse but has forgotten to get their daughter Christine something for the holiday, so California vows to get something for their child on his winnings. When California rides their mare, Dora, and buggy through the dark river, however, the horse keeps stopping in the middle of the river. She dumps the buggy. Still, the horse stops. Finally, she prays to baby Jesus to bring light which he does. She interprets the river sounds as wings and in the light she sees a baby holding a snake.

Later, when she is retelling the miracle to her child, she accidentally calls Mary "the stallion's wife," which sets up a cascade of symbols where the stallion may be God or Johnny, California may be Mary, and Jesus may be Christine. California keeps imagining God as the stallion. So she rides the roan stallion and is a little afraid of him: "I will ride him.... Is it not my desire to endure death?" That's a curious question. Is it her desire to be dead, to go through death, or to go beyond the possibility of death? Another curious phrase is "Oh, if I could bear you!" which might signify putting up with the horse/god/husband, carrying said figures, and giving birth to the same figures (as Mary gave birth to God in the form of Jesus).

She does ride him and her fear does not abate so much as survives it. After Johnny comes home with two jugs of wine and wants her to join him, she runs out to the stallion and Johnny has his dog, Bruno, chase after her. Bruno, however, taunts the stallion into madness. Johnny follows. Christine hears the commotion and brings out the rifle to hand to California, who shoots the dog (not meaning to hit the dog) allowing the stallion to take out its rage on Johnny. California shoots the horse after it has done its damage. The long list of symbols collapses. Bruno, perhaps, symbolizes Johnny as well, but it's interesting that these symbols don't attack her but each other.

An interesting aspect is that in the middle of the poem, the narrator breaks out of the poem to opine: "Humanity is the mold to break away from... the atoms to be split"--that last referring to the atom bomb, elaborated as "vision [desire] that fools him out of... useless knowledge of far stars, dim knowledge of the spinning demons that make an atom." He seems to welcome the coming nuclear holocaust. Talk about dark visions. One turns to Jeffers for hope for nature but not the humanity it bore.

“The Fellow who Married the Maxill Girl” by Ward Moor

First appeared in F&SF and was reprinted by Judith Merril, Robert P. Mills, Isaac Asimov & Martin H. Greenberg,  and Ellen Datlow. Read online here.

Summary:

 “The Fellow who Married the Maxill Girl” is a great folksy title summarizing how Nan’s town, Henryton, might have summarized it: Some unknown chap marries into THE Maxill clan. Nan is considered wild (caught necking in two different cars with two different boys though she hadn’t been caught with the others) and she later considers her young self to have been something similar. Maxill name carried some notoriety since the father, Malcolm Maxill, bought a lousy farm to be a bootlegger. None respect him or his farm.

One day a man with eight fingers, Ash, visits and can only hum—his only means of communication. The girls want to keep. He doesn’t eat much although he seems incapable of doing chores. What he can do is heal birthmarks, orchard trees, and crops so that suddenly people start paying attention to Malcolm.

Commentary with Spoilers:

Nan and Ash learn each other’s language and marry and even have a child although she want more. Malcolm schemes for greater things but dies in a freeway accident. They decide to let Ash and Nan continue to run the farm and raise the rest of the girls and their own son. The farm continues to prosper. As Nan ages she notices Ash does not, and she worries. When his people call him back as he is needed, he goes although a word from her would have stopped him. She is sure that the farm will collapse but she suddenly seems to have acquired Ash’s skill.

A disappointing ending since it wasn’t prepared for, but otherwise a strong piece. Moore can compress time admirably when it comes to events, but when he tries to relate many emotions or convey imaginings about what her society might do (which may be true but no evidence is provided), it falls flat. 

Worth reading, especially since it carries more voice than most of his stories usually give.

“It Becomes Necessary” or “The Cold Peace” by Ward Moore

First appeared in Gent and was reprinted by Judith Merril and Ellen Datlow.

            Summary

American Mrs. Fieldman has become a permanent ex-pat in France after her husband is murdered in her native country for his being a Jew. She is lured back to the U.S. with money, but she isn’t buying.

Recommend skipping this tale although it is short. You can find it stored here on Wayback.

            Commentary with Spoilers

However, when a Frenchman tries to burn an American flag, her patriotism reasserts itself and she tries to stop him, so the French beat her to death. Too pedantic and talky (it’s mostly a conversation), but a decent ending (decent aesthetically, not morally, of course--for those unfamiliar with the blog), which often seems to be Moore’s strength.

The original title, “Cold Peace,” makes multiple commentaries on the multiple societies involved. Perhaps Moore felt it necessary to comment on the ending through the title, which is what I presume the new title was intended to do.

Mislaid Poets: Edna St. Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay seems to have been quite the liberated character--sassy with authority, loving whomever she chose, having an open marriage. There's also something tragic, her shying away from the public when she'd lost her looks. She died a year after losing her husband, falling down the stairs.

Her popularity has eroded somewhat. While her subject matter and gender are vogue, her method is not. But she still has much to offer.

Her "Fig" poems are kind of epigrammatic anti-proverbs, perhaps intended to be contrary wisdom, even a little sacreligious (figs possibly being the forbidden fruit that gained humanity knowledge between good and evil and the leaves the first couple used to hide behind). Supposedly the poems were an anthem for the Twenties, but also, in retrospect, speaks of her own life:

First Fig 

My candle burns at both ends;
  It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--
  It gives a lovely light!

Second Fig 

Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!

Her sonnets, often about love like Shakespeare, have their enchantments and also like Shakespeare, the imagery is spare. The one that holds up after multiple readings and may be the best is "What Lips My Lips Have Kissed":

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there sits a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

This is beautiful verse (although for some it may a double melancholic ring with its frank sexuality) is both sweet and melancholy, remembering the passing of lovers and the passing of one's youth and perhaps beauty as well. She was only 31 at its publishing, which seems premature, but maybe she saw the wall's scrawl.

A popular but, in my ear, less resonant sonnet is "Love Is Not All" which has some great lines:

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink...
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again.
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath...
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone...
I might be driven to sell your love for peace...
It may well be. I do not think I would.

That last line, even with its uncertainty, doesn't change the poem's direction much. Would it be better to choose one or the other? Maybe. Especially if the persona would sell the love which is sort of interesting, but it still doesn't do the sonnet's job of changing lanes. Apparently it does for other readers.

Two short bird poems ("Wild Swans" and "Passer Moruus Est") moved me. The first seems to be a call to abandon normal life for one of wildness: "Houses without air! I leave you and lock your door! Wild swans, come over the town, come over / The town again, trailing your legs and crying!" The second uses the death of the sparrow as an occasion to remark, "Need we say it was not love, / Now that love has perished?"

Millay was well respected for the long poem. There was an outcry when she didn't win a contest for "Renascence" which propelled her into poetry's relative fame. She also won a Pulitzer for "Harpweaver" although Untermeyer thought it sentimental. "Sonnets from an Ungrafted Tree" is interesting for the opening lines:

So she came back into his house again
And watched beside his bed until he died,
Loving him not at all.

Intriguing stuff. The persona goes about her business with some keen imagery, but again not much changing directions for a group of sonnets. One wonders with a number of these longer poems if they could have been stronger as shorter works.

Louis Untermeyer has the most complete assessment of her work, tackling each book, and some of the best selections. Millay as a reader has a curious voice--part British, part American, part...? She chants as Yeats and other poets insisted it should be done, yet with her background in theater, she also follows the emotion more than most poets of her time did.

The Jealous Kind by James Lee Burke,

I can't recall if I've read James Lee Burke before but perhaps not. His characters are razor-sharp in their realism, his plots gripping as slides the blade.

Where to start? He won Edgar Awards for Black Cherry Blues and Cimarron Rose while Amazon readers ranked Purple Cane Road as his best. He also has two collections of stories published in literary journals like Antioch, Chariton Review, Southern Review, Shenandoah, and so forth. So I think I'll try those out next.

Someone at The New York Times Book Review called The Jealous Kind's examination of the 1950's “nostalgia noir.” I didn't realize it was part of a series (the Holland Family), but I didn't feel left out.

Aaron Holland Broussard gets embroiled in a fight with a rich kid, Grady Harrelson, over his soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend Valerie Epstein, which involves the delicious dialogue exchange:

“I thought maybe something was wrong and y’all needed help.” 

“Get lost, snarf.” 

“What’s a snarf?” 

“Are you deaf?” 

“I just want to know what a snarf is.” 

“A guy who gets off on sniffing girls’ bicycle seats. Now beat it.” 

The music speaker went silent. My ears were popping. I could see people’s lips moving in the other cars, but I couldn’t hear any sound. Then I said, “I don’t feel like it.” 

“I don’t think I heard you right.” 

“It’s a free country.” 

“Not for nosy frumps, it isn’t.” 

“Leave him alone, Grady,” Valerie said. 

“What’s a frump?” I said. 

“A guy who farts in the bathtub and bites the bubbles. Somebody put you up to this?” 

“I was going to the restroom.” 

“Then go.”

Grady's family is connected to high and low places, so this seemingly one-time bold perhaps foolish act carries long-term consequences that get worse and worse. Fortunately for him, he gets Valerie on his side (as his girl) and, less fortunately, Saber, his best buddy, who is the problematic kind of best buddy at best:

Saber was the only kid in school who how to stick porcupine quills in Krauser [the shop teacher who billed himself a WWII war hero but was a pain in the students' butts] and keep the wounds green on a daily basis. Krauser believed it was Saber who'd hung plunger through the hole in the ceiling, but he couldn't prove it and was always trying to find another reason to nail Saber to the wall. But Saber never misbehaved in metal shop, whereas other guys did and in serious fashion."

My main problem with the novel is the main character as an adult telling the tale. He seems to buy into his teenage reasoning, but the kid makes foolish choices which only makes things harder on himself. I didn't quite realize this until I was three-quarters through the book. His father had excellent advice of not even talking to these people, but Aaron does anyway. By luck, Aaron's mistakes are shown to be nothing and his enemies have done all the real damage. Writerly ingenuity would have been the better path, but the plot was rather convoluted, so maybe Burke needed to tame the multiplying threads.

It's a good enough novel, but probably not the place to begin.