A Curtain of Green by Eudora Welty

Source of book: I own this.

Interesting fact: Eudora Welty lived in the same house in Jackson, Mississippi. from the time her family moved there around when she finished high school until her death at age 92. (She did move out for part of her college education, but returned.) That’s pretty rare these days. 

A Curtain of Green is Welty’s first collection of short stories, published in 1940. I noticed immediately that her writing resembled that of Flannery O’Connor, another Southern short story writer. I looked it up, and Welty predated O’Connor by nearly a decade. (Inquiring minds want to know this sort of thing.) I also noted some resemblance to the small town tales of Sarah Orne Jewett, who wrote in the late 1880s. All three had an eye for personal relationships, the countryside, and the beauty, truth, and occasionally terror of the small town life. (Jewett wrote about New England, thus potentially influencing Robert Frost.)

Even more than that, Welty is one in a long line of authors that wrote short stories that might be called “local sketches,” as my wife put it. It wasn’t just women, although many were. Mark Twain, Guy de Maupassant, and in his own way, Edgar Allan Poe wrote in this vein. In addition to her short stories, Welty also wrote longer works, winning the Pulitzer for The Optimist’s Daughter.

There are some rather dark stories, but also some that are humorous (“Why I Live at the P.O.” for example) and others that give a kind portrait of decent people. Welty’s South isn’t really the South of the rich yet decayed plantation - it’s the impoverished South, complete with unemployment, racial tensions, and making do. The darkest tale, “Flowers for Marjorie” is almost a reverse portrait of an O Henry relationship, where the couple turns against each other during hardship rather than coming together.

Another theme that runs through the stories is that of the outsider. I was surprised at the number of characters which suffer from some sort of mental or physical disability. In “Lily Daw,” a mentally slow woman is alternately encouraged to enter an asylum and to marry the man that desires her. Welty does an excellent job of portraying the callous way we tend to treat those we view as “retarded.” She had a keen ear for the sort of dialogue by which we dehumanize the disabled.

I also loved the portrayal of the African American jazz musician “Powerhouse,” in the story that bears his name. Again, she is able to bring out the nuances of conversation, the realities of show business and of segregation, and uses minor incidents to show personality. 

I can't help but imagine Louie and his larger-than-life stage presence as a model for Powerhouse.

 

There are many examples of creative word pictures and descriptions. One that I particularly liked was in “The Key.”

He looked home-made, as though his wife had self-consciously knitted or somehow contrived a husband when she sat alone at night.  

Not only does this evoke a particularly idea of the man’s appearance, but it also hints at the relationship as it emerges later in the story.

One more note on this. Welty would be an excellent example for aspiring writers of which details are important, and which are not. I think she does an exceptional job of making every small item described important to either plot or character. Nothing is wasted.

It’s interesting when an author writes about his or her own writing process - or how they came to write. Thus, it is intriguing to read “A Memory,” in which (assuming the story is true and not fictional) Welty describes how she first began to see people as the characters she would later write. Welty does not glorify this awakening. Rather, she is harsh - almost brutal - on her younger self for her complete lack of compassion.

I was at an age when I formed a judgment upon every person and every event which came under my eye, although I was easily frightened. When a person, or a happening, seemed to me not in keeping with my opinion, or even my hope or expectation, I was terrified by a vision of abandonment and wildness which tore my heart with a kind of sorrow. My father and mother, who believed that I saw nothing in the world which was not strictly coaxed into place like a vine on our garden trellis to be presented to my eyes, would have been badly concerned if they had guessed how frequently the weak and inferior and strangely turned examples of what was to come showed themselves to me.

Later in this story, she describes being at a local beach, and seeing this group of strangers:

Sprawled close to where I was lying, at any rate, appeared a group of loud, squirming, ill-assorted people who seemed thrown together only by the most confused accident, and who seemed driven by foolish intent to insult each other, all of which they enjoyed with a hilarity which astonished my heart. There were a man, two women, two young boys. They were brown and roughened, but not foreigners; when I was a child such people were called “common.” They wore old and faded bathing suits which did not hide either the energy or the fatigue of their bodies, but showed it exactly.

Throughout the story, these people revolt Welty, and yet her revulsion disturbs her greatly. This does appear to be the germ of her particular genius. Many of her characters are unsympathetic, and yet, she has learned empathy in those years since her childhood. She still notices the quirks, the physical and emotional unattractiveness, the unkindnesses they often show each other. Yet, she views with love more than disgust. I think particularly of the last story in the book, the one that is probably the best known, “A Worn Path,” which misses no line and crease, and yet is a compelling portrait of self-sacrifice.

This sense of compassion is also apparent in Welty’s photography. She worked as a publicity agent for the Works Progress Administration, and her photographs of Southern rural poverty during the Great Depression dovetail nicely with her writings. Both give a sympathetic while highly realistic and perceptive view of her native Mississippi and its inhabitants. 

Alarms and Diversions by James Thurber

Source of book: I own this.

Although I probably would have developed a love for snark one way or another, I blame the fact that I read a good bit of Mark Twain and James Thurber during my high school years. (Twain’s The Innocents Abroad did much to make me cynical of guided tours and saintly relics. And the line, “Is...is he dead?” still makes me laugh.) Thurber’s style still fascinates me as well. His wordplay and puns, the fraught male-female relations, his intolerance for annoying dinner guests, and his delightfully primitive drawings - all these characteristics make for delightful reading, particularly when combined with his dry, understated wit.

Those who have not read any Thurber might start with his best known work, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” or perhaps Fables for Our Times. (Moral: Don’t count your boobies before they are hatched.)

Thurber was born in Ohio in 1894. His father was probably his model for the timid protagonist with the far stronger wife. His mother was quite the live wire. Thurber called her a natural comedian, and her strongest form of humor was the practical joke. (More about her later.) As a child, he lost an eye after his brother accidentally shot him with an arrow. His eyesight in the remaining eye was injured as well, and he eventually became practically blind.

I noted in one of my posts on P. G. Wodehouse that it was interesting that it was Wodehouse and Thurber who wrote the character of the hen-pecked man more convincingly than any other authors - despite the fact that they were both happily married. Thurber did experience an unhappy first marriage, but he hardly seemed to have been a pushover. His second wife Helen was much better suited to life with an author, and indeed she helped him greatly as his sight failed. Friends described them as a devoted couple.

Thurber wrote primarily for The New Yorker, during its heyday under founder Harold Ross. (Thurber would write about his relationship with Ross, who was quite a character, in The Years with Ross.) His various fiction and non-fiction works were then collected and published as books. He also wrote a few stand-alone works, such as his surreal fairy tale, The Thirteen Clocks.

Of the Thurber collections I had previously read, I would have voted for Lanterns and Lances as my favorite, based on the pleasing variety of topics, the nightmarish tales of his insomnia, when words would haunt his thoughts, and on the delightful tales of how annoying other people’s children - and their doting parents - are, “The Darlings at the Top of the Stairs” and “Moments with Mandy.” Oh, and also essays on ill-used language, such as the prescient “The Spreading ‘You Know’” and “Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Lend me Your Earmuffs.” However, I think that Alarms and Diversions might now be my favorite. By a little. At least because it has more drawings.

While language does not take up as much space in this particular collection, Thurber’s wit still shines in essays such as “The Psychosemanticist Will See You Now, Mr. Thurber,” which includes delightfully descriptive terms such as “carcinomenclature” (meaninglessly obtuse descriptions), and memorable phrases like, “the psychic trauma caused by linguistic meaninglessness.” In our increasingly jargonistic times, Thurber’s perspective could have been written in our own time, rather than the 1940s and 50s.

Also surprising is how well Thurber understood trends that we think of as modern. For example, he wrote wonderful sendups of parenting trends (“...the tendency of our time to oversimplify problems, especially where little girls are concerned...” is a great line in an essay on poor parenting techniques), belief in mythical creatures (an essay on the Loch Ness Monster compares it memorably to the Beast of Revelation), the Christmas card culture, and panic about the supposed “feminization” of everything - particularly literature.

Another incident in Thurber’s life gave rise to another modern conundrum. Thurber spent several months during World War One as a code clerk for the State Department. For whatever reason, he was never given much of a screening, being asked only if his grandparents were born in the United States.

Waking up at night now and looking back on it, I sometimes wonder how I would have come out of one of those three-men inquisitions the State Department was once caught conducting. Having as great a guilt sense as any congressman, and a greater tendency to confession, it might have taken me hours to dredge up out of my mind and memory all the self-indictments that must have been there. I believed then, and still do, that generals of the Southern Confederacy were, in the main, superior to generals of the Northern armies; I suspected there were flaws in the American political system; I doubted the virgin birth of United States senators; I thought that German cameras and English bicycles were better than ours; and I denied the existence of actual proof that God was exclusively a citizen of the United States.

It wouldn’t be a Thurber book without some funny stuff about the “battle of the sexes,” of course. I liked the banter between Thurber and his wife after he made a questionable impulse purchase.

My wife sighed. “Men shouldn’t be allowed to shop alone,” she said. “It’s - it’s dangerous.” No, it isn’t,” I protested. “Well, chaotic, then,” she said. I settled for that.

His self-deprecating humor at the expense of males is balanced by his hilarious portrait of his aunt Wilma, who couldn’t do math to save her life, yet insisted on arguing with the local merchant about the amount of change.

One of the best essays in the collection is entitled “My Own Ten Rules for a Happy Marriage.” Inspired (he says) by the couple in a nearby apartment who destroyed the tasteful arrangement of their home by appropriating the knick-knacks as projectiles, he decided to make his own list.

I have avoided the timeworn admonitions, such as “Praise her new hat,” “Share his hobbies,” “Be as sweetheart as well as a wife,” and “Don’t keep a blond in the guest room,” not only because they are threadbare from repetition, but also because they don’t seem to have accomplished their purpose.

Thurbers rules are at turns silly, satiric, and pointed. Examples, in that order:

Rule Two: A man should make an honest effort to get the names of his wife’s friends right. This is not easy. The average wife who was graduated from college during the past thirty years keeps in close touch with at least seven old classmates. These ladies, know as “the girls,” are named, respectively: Mary, Marian, Melissa, Majorie, Maribel, Madeleine, and Miriam; and all of they are called Myrtle by the careless husband we are talking about. Furthermore, he gets their nicknames wrong. This, to be sure, is understandable, since their nicknames are, respectively: Molly, Muffy, Missy, Midge, Mabby, Maddy, and Mims...”

Rule Three: A husband should not insult his wife publicly, at parties. He should insult her in the privacy of the home...

Rule Four: The wife who keeps saying, “Isn’t that just like a man?” and the husband who keeps saying, “Oh well, you know how women are,” are likely to grow farther and farther apart through the years. These famous generalizations have the effect of reducing an individual to the anonymous status of a mere unit in a mass...

This last one, in particular, is one that I have observed to cause immense damage in relationships - and kudos to Thurber for finding a way to make it amusing by the end.

Another fun one was his idea that a wife might need to draw a detailed map of the house, showing the location of all objects the husband might need. (My wife probably has thought this at some point.) Of course, the problem is that he would lose the map.

And, in the way that only Thurber can find a way to mix relationships with grammar, has this great paragraph near the end of the “rules.”

Two persons living in holy matrimony, I should have said long before this, must avoid slipping into blasphemy, despond, apathy, and the subjunctive mood. A husband is always set on edge by his mate’s “Far be it from me” or “Be that as it may.” This can lead to other ominous openings: “Would God that” and “Had I only the good sense to,” and the couple is then in the gloomy sub-cellar of the pluperfect subjunctive, a place where no marriage can thrive. The safest place for a happily wedded pair is the indicative mood, and of its tenses the present is the most secure. The future is a domain of threats and worries, and the past is a wasteland of sorrows and regrets.

I want to mention two more essays that I loved. Both are biographies. The first is a portrait of a woman known to everyone as “Aunt Margery,” from “Daguerreotype of a Lady.” Aunt Margery is a midwife and herbalist, with a delightfully quirky personality. She was obviously a big influence on the very young Thurber.

The second is entitled “Lavender with a Difference,” and is Thurber’s touching (and hilarious) obituary for his mother. As I noted above, she was quite a practical joker. In fact, by the end of the first couple of pages, I realized that I had found a female version of my father-in-law, who pulled some pretty outrageous and delightful pranks in his younger years. (He drywalled over the door to a dorm-mate’s room while he was home for the holidays, for example.)

Mrs. Thurber borrowed all the dogs in the neighborhood to pull a prank on her uptight aunt, pretended (in a brilliant disguise - including young James as a prop) to attempt to purchase the house next door, harassed the local merchants with requests for a single shoe or glove, and so on. The best, however, was when she snuck into a meeting hosted by a “faith healer,” borrowed a wheelchair sitting outside, and pretended to regain her ability to walk. Unfortunately, the owner of the chair was not amused...

Finally, I do want to share some of the illustrations. Thurber’s art was, shall we say, a bit simplistic. Like Mo Willems of the “Pigeon” series of children’s books (I love his stuff!), his art has an unexpected impact. He is able to convey mood and emotion in a minimum of detail.

Here are a few of my favorites from Alarms and Diversions. I apologize for the poor quality. I had to take pictures from a book that didn't want to stay open. These are really hard to find online - particularly the ones that fit my quirky sense of humor.

The typical Thurber male. 

I suspect that this is the fear that keeps my wife from being a camper. And she has a point...

Poetry geeks will appreciate this one. 

Clearly Mr. Thurber shared with me a knowledge of Homer and an annoyance at "morning people." 

The Man of Mode by Sir George Etheredge

Source of book: I own this.

The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries must have been an interesting time for the citizens of England. A seemingly trivial event - a pretty woman catching the eye of a married monarch - led to a century-and-a-half of religious and political upheaval and forever changed both church and state in the English speaking nations.

Henry VIII probably didn’t intend to change the world: he wanted a male heir, and was none to fond of Catherine anyway. Perhaps Anne Boleyn would be a better choice. If the pope hadn’t been so stubborn, perhaps the Anglican church would never have come into being, and Spain and England would have remained allies. Henry could have had his divorce, and the Catholic Church would have retained its precedence in the British Isles. Instead, Henry broke with Rome, and England eventually became a predominantly Protestant nation.  

(This wasn’t the only way that Henry inadvertently caused a revolution. Lawyers know that the idea of the trust was formed in response to Henry’s “Statute of Uses,” which was an attempt to curb tax evasion. Henry needed money, and his attempt to obtain it caused a revolution in the law of estate planning.)

The ride was a bit bumpy, however. After Henry’s death, Catherine’s daughter Mary attempted to re-convert England to Catholicism, spilling a great deal of blood in the process. Then, Anne’s daughter Elizabeth returned to Protestantism. Since Elizabeth didn’t leave an heir, the line of the Tudors ended, and James I of Scotland - who rather liked being head of the Church of England, tangling with Parliament, Puritans and Presbyterians alike.

His son Charles I was even worse, believing strongly in the “Divine Right of Kings” to do whatever they wanted. Not content to feud with both the English and Scottish parliaments, he suppressed the Puritans, and attempted to conform the Scottish church to the English pattern. Things eventually came to a head, and Charles ended up losing his.

The intervening period began as a commonwealth, with the Puritan-leaning Parliament in charge. A whole host of political, judicial, and religious reforms followed. Among them was a series of “moral” laws, mandating the observance of the sabbath and shutting down all of the theaters.

The commonwealth gave way to the “Protectorate,” the rule by the “Lord Protector,” Oliver Cromwell, with the support of the army. Cromwell’s son Richard wasn’t a capable as his father, and discontent grew.

Eventually, the son of Charles I, the soon-to-be Charles II, agreed to return to be king of England, and the monarchy was restored. While Charles II had Catholic leanings, he did not attempt anything further than unsuccessfully pressing for toleration of Catholics. His son, James II, however, was openly Catholic, and not only ordered religious toleration (which was not popular) but appointed Catholics to high government posts. He also appeared to very much believe in the Divine Right of Kings.

This led to the invitation to William of Orange to come assume the throne. (William had married the sister of James II.) At last, this put an end to the controversy. The monarchy lost much of the power it had had under the Stuarts, Parliament became the preeminent institution, and England became thoroughly Protestant.

Rather a long introduction, but this play makes more sense in light of the historical background.

The Man of Mode, or Sir Fopling Flutter, is one of the better known Restoration Comedies. The Puritan Cromwell, believing all acting and theater to be evil, abolished them at the outset of the Commonwealth. In retrospect, it is hard to believe that this could occur so soon after the writing and performance of Shakespeare’s masterworks. However, there were also many bawdy entertainments, and theaters attracted prostitution and gambling as well. While many sought to clean up the theater, the Puritans distrusted all amusements as being a distraction from spiritual things and a waste of time; thus, they also sought to do away with ballad singers, dancing, game festivals, and even mirrors (due to concerns about vanity). (Political considerations were also present: then as now, artists tended to mock the status quo.)

England eventually tired of Puritan rule - they were fed up enough to invite nearly Catholic Charles back. When the Restoration came, the theaters were re-opened, and a floodgate of new works spilled forth. (In the New World, the Puritan influence keep the theaters close for an additional hundred years, and indeed, there remains a segment of American Christianity that still avoids theaters of all kinds, whether for plays or movies.)

Of the new works, the one genre that lasted beyond the time was the so-called Restoration Comedy, which featured a new kind of character, the Rake. Short for “rakehell,” the rake was a man of wit and means, who wasted it all on wine, women, and song. Particularly the women, as the rake was always a notorious womanizer. In most cases, the rake was reformed to some degree, usually by marriage.

The Man of Mode is notable for its witty dialogue and its piercing commentary on social manners. It also caused a stir at the time because all of the characters - even the minor ones - are based on real persons. The protagonist, Dorimant, is a thinly veiled portrait of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. (Rochester would die at age 33 of syphilis and alcoholism, naturally.) His friend and fellow womanizer and wit Medley, is probably Etheredge himself: Etheredge and fellow playwright William Wycherley ran in the licentious aristocratic circles themselves. Sir Fopling Flutter (a great name for the character) was also based on a real person, in that case a flamboyant dandy who attempted to look French. 

The only known portrait of Etheredge, by an unknown artist.

The plot itself is not complicated, but is a little hard to follow due to the language. On stage, it would probably be easier to keep the characters straight. Dorimant wants to dump his current mistress, Mrs. Loveit, for the younger Bellinda. He attempts to engineer a break that doesn’t make him look bad by making much of Sir Fopling’s attentions to Mrs. Loveit. Meanwhile, young Mr. Bellair and his flame Emilia wish to marry, despite his father, old Mr. Bellair, who has his eye on Emilia himself. So, young Bellair pretends to flirt with Harriet (who is the wittiest and most interesting female in the play) to throw his father off the scent until he can get a minister to do the deed. In the end, Dorimant finds himself rejected by both Mrs. Loveit and Bellinda, and is put in the position of having to marry Harriet, who is probably the only woman who can tame him.

I found Etheredge to be a step below my two favorite masters of the biting comedy, Oscar Wilde and Molière, but amusing nonetheless. As I noted in my post on The Importance of Being Earnest, nearly any random line in that play is delightfully quotable. Molière’s dialogue likewise sparkles, and his observations of human nature are remarkably relevant 350 years later. The Man of Mode has scenes that seem more of their time than timeless, but there are plenty of moments that can still draw a smile or spark of recognition.

The introduction is a deliciously biting bit of wit, written for the play by Sir Car Scroop, an otherwise unnotable wit. (A common practice of the time.)

But I'm afraid that while to France we go,

To bring you home fine dresses, dance, and show,

The stage, like you, will but more foppish grow.

Of foreign wares why should we fetch the scum,

When we can be so richly served at home?

For, heaven be thank'd, 'tis not so wise an age

But your own follies may supply the stage.

Though often plough'd, there's no great fear the soil

Should barren grow by the too frequent toil,

While at your doors are to be daily found

Such loads of dunghill to manure the ground.

'Tis by your follies that we players thrive,

As the physicians by diseases live;

And as each year some new distemper reigns,

Whose friendly poison helps t'increase their gains,

So among you there starts up every day

Some new unheard-of fool for us to play.

Then for your own sakes be not too severe,

Nor what you all admire at home, damn here.

Since each is fond of his own ugly face,

Why should you, when we hold it, break the glass?

Dorimant also gets some fun lines, such as this one as he banters with Mr. Medley about his plan to dump Mrs. Loveit.

DORIMANT: Most infinitely; next to the coming to a good understanding with a new mistress, I love a quarrel with an old one. But the devil's in't, there has been such a calm in my affairs of late, I have not had the pleasure of making a woman so much as break her fan, to be sullen, or forswear herself these three days.

While Dorimant is focused on his womanizing schemes, Medley is there to spread the gossip and make merry over all the intrigue, while he himself stays aloof. Lady Townley and Emilia discuss Medley’s propensity to exaggerate.

EMILIA: I love to hear him talk o' the intrigues. Let 'em be never so dull in themselves, he'll make 'em pleasant i' the relation.

LADY TOWNLEY: But he improves things so much one can take no measure of the truth from him. Mr. Dorimant swears a flea or a maggot is not made more monstrous by a magnifying glass than a story is by his telling it.

Perhaps the most memorable cut is given by the ever-witty and cynical Harriet while speaking about another woman (who is named but doesn’t actually appear in the play) to her maid.

BUSY: Ah, the difference that is between you and my Lady Dapper! How uneasy she is if the least thing be amiss about her!

HARRIET: She is indeed most exact. Nothing is ever wanting to make her ugliness remarkable.

BUSY: Jeering people say so.

HARRIET: Her powdering, painting, and her patching never fail in public to draw the tongues and eyes of all the men upon her.

BUSY: She is indeed a little too pretending.

HARRIET: That women should set up for beauty as much in spite of nature as some men have done for wit!

That last line is highly quotable.

Soon afterward follows my favorite scene, where young Bellair and Harriet are pretending to flirt with each other, while exchanging witty banter completely contrary to that appearance. In fact, they start by promising in all possible false seriousness to never marry each other.

BELLAIR: What generous resolution are you making, madam?

HARRIET: Only to be disobedient, sir.

BELLAIR: Let me join hands with you in that.

HARRIET: With all my heart. I never thought I should have given you mine so willingly. Here.

(they join hands

I, Harriet—

BELLAIR: And I, Harry—

HARRIET: Do solemnly protest—

BELLAIR: And vow—

HARRIET: That I with you—

BELLAIR: And I with you—

TOGETHER: Will never marry.

HARRIET: A match!

BELLAIR: And no match!

Sir Fopling is a relatively minor character in the play, but his role is one of clown. He is over-the-top foppish, with his insistence on a whole train of French servants to accompany him everywhere, his affected French accent, and his garishly Continental attire. As in much English literature, a great deal is made of the differences between France and England (who after all, did manage a Hundred Years’ War), however minor. One bit of wit makes a comparison between music with kettle drums and trumpets on the one hand, and sweet flutes and French hautboys (oboes). Fopling is still humorous because he is recognizable as anyone who goes too far trying to be cool. He just doesn’t get how far he is from any form of good taste.

One final line struck me. Lady Woodvill, who has fallen for Dorimant’s charms, not realizing who he is, falls into a banter with him about how inferior the present is to the past, and young folks to persons of her age. Nobody gives proper deference to more noble blood like they used to.

DORIMANT: Forms and ceremonies, the only things that uphold quality and greatness, are now shamefully laid aside and neglected.

LADY WOODVILL: Well, this is not the women's age, let 'em think what they will. Lewdness is the business now, love was the business in my time.

I noted this in my discussion of Anthony Trollope’s excellent tragedy, He Knew He Was Right, that nothing really changes. Each generation thinks that the generation that follows is scandalously unchaste. Trollope poked fun at it in the 1860s. Here, Etheredge takes his shot in the 1670s. Each generation is sure that it invented love, and that young people simply don’t and won’t understand it. Nothing is new under the sun.

Overall, a worthy read, if not in the pantheon. There are plenty of witty lines (and some bawdy ones too), even if some of it seems to be silliness. I would recommend Molière over Etheredge, if one was going to read just one comedy from this era.