The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

Source of book: I own this.

One of the gaps in my reading experience has been the “era of pessimism,” for lack of a better term. I read a lot of the Victorians and earlier, and some of the books of the 20th Century, but not nearly as much as I should have. I think there were two reasons for this. First, my parents, who introduced me to authors like Dickens, Twain, and Hawthorne at a very young age (think single digits) weren’t all that familiar with more modern books - perhaps a result of the schooling they received? I mean, there were some - my mom encouraged me to read The Octopus. But for the most part, we read older books together. The other factor was that my literature curriculum was A Beka, which, while in a few cases quite subversive for a Fundie publication, tended to give the 20th Century - that godless era - a rather short shrift.

So, over the last few years, I have tried to read a wider variety of books and catch up on some of the most important ones I missed. To that end, I read my first Edith Wharton novel: The House of Mirth.

The title comes from Ecclesiastes: “The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.”

Wharton was born about a decade before the Gilded Age, into a wealthy New York socialite family - like the characters in this book. As such, she wrote from first-hand knowledge of that society. She also was insulated from charges that this book was sour grapes, that she was from a lower class just jealous of the wealthy. Her own background allowed her to write piercing satire from her own experiences and take her shots against her own tribe, so to speak.

Lily Dale is an impoverished but well born beauty who has been raised since birth for one task: to marry money. At the opening of the book, however, she is at the elderly age of 29, and so far hasn’t succeeded. In part this is because she wishes to marry for love. As she discovers, though, the ultra-wealthy guys tend to be...not very nice people. This much remains true. Excesses of money and power do not tend to build good character, and trust fund babies (like, say Il Toupee) grow up to be entitled assholes.

Lily makes a number of missteps that lead to her crashing out of society, and eventually coming to a tragic end. The first is at the beginning, when she visits her friend Laurence Selden, a respectable but not wealthy lawyer. (He is kind of at the fringe of the top society because of his birth, and he lives a comfortable, but not ostentatious life - but he still earns his living working, which keeps him out of the upper echelons.) She is seen leaving by Mr. Rosedale, a Jewish banker trying to rise in society.

Next, she chickens out of marrying Percy Gryce, a wealthy mama’s boy who is at least not a jerk, even if he is insipid.

In debt because of the social expectation that she play at bridge for money, she cannot sustain her lifestyle, and turns to her friend’s husband, a stock speculator, for assistance. She fails to realize that he isn’t just investing her money, he is adding to it with the expectation that his generosity will be...rewarded. And not in a way Lily wishes to.

From there, it is misstep after misstep, and not of the necessarily blameworthy variety. She is “sacrificed” by a friend who wishes to deflect blame for her own affair. She is unjustly accused of trying to get young heir married to her social inferior. (The males who were really involved get off scot free, of course.)

I can’t decide how much of The House of Mirth is intended to skewer upper class society, and how much of it is intended to critique women like Lily, who expect to have wealth and love just because they are well-born and beautiful. Probably both. Wharton also takes on the sexual double standard, where men are free to play without consequence, while women pay the social price. Unless they have money and a scapegoat.

Reading this book left me with ambiguous feelings about it. On the one hand, Wharton is a skilled and witty writer. There are many devastating lines, and her descriptions and psychological explorations are memorable. On the other, her casual anti-semitism is really grating. Rosedale is mostly a stereotype common to the age, and even the little bit of humanity he is briefly allowed is then immediately counteracted by his avarice. In a book with nuanced and conflicted and complicated characters, that one should be “unacceptably Jewish” and assumed to be beyond the pale for a woman of good breeding to consider is disappointing. And while you could blame Wharton‘s time in history, it seems less of a valid excuse when you consider that George Eliot wrote a far better book with Jewish characters, Daniel Deronda, a full 30 years prior.

Another irritating factor for me was that it was hard to find a character to actually like. I guess the closest is Selden, who seems at least normal and decent. But he - quite rightly - realizes that Lily would never be happy with his financial station. So I was hoping he wouldn’t get caught in her snare. Except that he is about the only good thing in her life, and you hate to see her lose that. And Lily herself is the sort of woman that I most hate to deal with in divorce court - aware of their beauty and wearing a gigantic sense of entitlement. I spent more of the book looking on in horror at the unfolding tragedy, but having a hard time sympathizing with anyone. To quote Mercutio: “A plague on both your houses!”

There are some great lines along the way, at least. One comes in the opening scene, where Lily Dale expresses her jealousy of Selden’s modest flat (with a library, though, so I approve.)

“How delicious to have a place like this all to one’s self! What a miserable thing it is to be a woman.”

Seldon points out that his cousin gets along fine by herself. But she has no ambitions of marrying, so Lily sees female independence as giving up the dream of marrying money.

I also loved this description of another character, Mrs. Dorset.

She was smaller and thinner than Lily Bart, with a restless pliability of pose, as if she could have been crumpled up and run through a ring, like the sinuous draperies she affected. Her small pale face seemed the mere setting of a pair of dark exaggerated eyes, of which the visionary gaze contrasted curiously with her self-assertive tone and gestures; so that, as one of her friends observed, she was like a disembodied spirit who took up a great deal of room.

There is also a good scene where Lily is still on the fence about Percy Gryce.

She had been bored all afternoon by Percy Gryce -- the mere thought seemed to waken an echo of his droning voice -- but she could not ignore him on the morrow, she must follow up her success, must submit to more boredom, must be ready with fresh compliances and adaptabilities, and all on the bare chance that he might ultimately decide to do her the honour of boring her for life.

This is, of course, the dilemma for Lily. Which is more important? To marry for the vast wealth she craves? Or settle for less but avoid the boredom? Lest we forget, this is only the dilemma because Lily is well-born and beautiful - if she were ordinary, she would be forced to take what she could get.

It isn’t until we have the stage set pretty well that we get to hear of Lily’s upbringing. Of her mother who was good at spending and raised her daughter to be the same. Of her father who did what was expected - bring home the money - until he didn’t, and at that point, he might as well be dead. Wharton sneaks this poisonous line in:

She [Lily] had not been deceived by Mrs. Bart’s words: she knew at once that they were ruined. In the dark hours which followed, that awful fact overshadowed even her father’s slow and difficult dying. To his wife, he no longer counted: he had become extinct when he ceased to fulfil his purpose, and she sat at his side with the provisional air of a traveller who waits for a belated train to start.

I have seen too many of this kind of woman in my divorce practice. Sure, they aren’t in the upper crust of society, but the idea that the function of a man and the measure of his manhood is money very much persists. It is the same dynamic: woman leverages her beauty and “purity” into a marriage to a man with sufficient income. Life happens, and his income decreases, and she dumps his butt and slanders him to everyone as lacking manhood (aka money).

Here is another cutting line, from Lily’s analysis of Mr. Gryce’s nature.

He had the kind of character in which prudence is a vice, and good advice the most dangerous nourishment. But Lily had known the species before: she was aware that such a guarded nature must find one huge outlet of egoism, and she determined to be to him what his Americana had hitherto been: the one possession in which he took sufficient pride to spend money on it. She knew that this generosity to self is one of the forms of meanness, and she resolved so to identify herself with her husband’s vanity that to gratify her wishes would be to him the most exquisite form of self-indulgence.

That’s just so good. Wharton does indeed capture that dynamic - the man who loves to spend on his wife as he would on another hobby that gratifies him. To see her dressed finely (or, in the modern case, to see her driving an Land Rover) gratifies his ego, and is that “exquisite form of self-indulgence.”

Later in the book, Lily has found herself in the uncomfortable position of accompanying a wealthy friend and her husband on a European trip - and the expectation is that she will keep the husband occupied so he doesn’t notice his wife having an affair with a much younger man. But things fall apart (and Lily is eventually blamed for it.) I like this line in the middle of a longer contemplation of the situation.

All her concern had hitherto been for young Silverton, not only because, in such affairs, the woman’s instinct is to side with the man, but because his case made a peculiar appeal to her sympathies. He was so desperately in earnest, poor youth, and his earnestness was of so different a quality from Bertha’s, though hers too was desperate enough. The difference was that Bertha was in earnest only about herself, while he was in earnest about her. But now, at the actual crisis, this difference seemed to throw the weight of destitution on Bertha’s side, since at least he had her to suffer for, and she had only herself.

Wharton’s wit is definitely the best part of the book. I wonder if she was as rapier-sharp in person as well.

After the crisis, Bertha blames Lily, and tells tales about her. Lily’s poorer and do-gooder friend asks why Lily can’t just tell the truth about it all and clear her name.

“The whole truth?” Miss Bart laughed. “What is truth? Where a woman is concerned, it’s the story that’s easiest to believe. In this case it’s a great deal easier to believe Bertha Dorset’s story than mine, because she has a big house and an opera box, and it’s convenient to be on good terms with her.”

Lily is right, alas. We see this play out every day, where those with money and power are able to control the narrative. (Although the Me Too movement is pushing back - a welcome development.) In fact, I can point to my wife’s experience as a teen as an example of this. It was more convenient to believe she was a Jezebel gunning for the young men than to challenge those with power in the group.

There is one final observation I want to look at. As Lily falls further in social status, it becomes clear that her specific skill set isn’t well adapted to changing circumstances.

Having been accustomed to take herself at the popular valuation, as a person of energy and resource, naturally fitted to dominate any situation in which she found herself, she vaguely imagined that such gifts would be of value to seekers after social guidance; but there was unfortunately no specific head under which the art of saying and doing the right thing could be offered in the market, and even Mrs. Fisher’s resourcefulness failed before the difficulty of discovering a workable vein in the vague wealth of Lily’s graces.

Wharton puts it particularly well, but the problem is simple enough: Lily hasn’t learned how to “do” anything productive. She has learned how to perform a role in a particular society. She knows how to look pretty, dress well, say witty stuff, and make people of a similar social class enjoy her company. But, failing to leverage these skills into becoming a rich man’s wife, she has nothing else really to offer. And when she is forced to actually earn a living, she is worse off than the average working-class girl.

Inherited tendencies had combined with early training to make her the highly specialized product she was: an organism as helpless out of its narrow range as the sea-anemone torn from the rock.

I have had this discussion with a number of people of the white Evangelical persuasion - typically parents of children or teens - about whether it is wise to train female children with the goal that they will be stay-at-home moms. For the cult in which my wife was raised, this was the only acceptable choice - and she was ostracised because she went to college to learn a skill.

But really, isn’t this very much like Lily Bart? Sure, the social stratum is lower - the white middle class - but the idea is the same. A woman is to be trained to perform a particular social role. “But what about caring for children and keeping a home?” I hear all the time. Sorry, I do not consider caring for children and doing housework to be a particularly unusual skill. I believe it is a basic life skill that all people - men included - should have. Kind of like knowing how to bathe and dress one’s self. Like Lily’s ability to charm, they aren’t that marketable in a pinch. And, given how many “stay-at-home moms” I know and have known who send their kids to school and have a housekeeper come in and clean, I am thinking the essence of the role isn’t actually the kids and house: it is fulfilling a particular social role in a particular social stratum. And if you fall out of that stratum for whatever reason, it’s a hard landing without other skills to fall back on.

In the end, Lily’s desire to marry for love isn’t a bad one. But combined with her insistence that it come with money, and her lack of a plan B, mean that she has zero margin for error - or even bad luck. Anything less than the “perfect” man coming along means she will fail. In contrast, Wharton portrays the working-class women, who grow up expecting to work, and hoping for a marriage to a decent if poor man. And so, if love doesn’t come, they can work, and if it does, they work to provide for the family. There is the resilience of lower expectations and greater diversity and suitability of their skill sets.

So, I guess in the end, I did rather enjoy this book. The wit and perceptive portrayal of the issues won me over, despite the lack of likeable characters.

North and South by Elizabeth Bishop

Source of book: Borrowed from the library.

I have mentioned before that I read very little from the Twentieth Century during my high school years. In fact, I suspect that the curriculum we used didn’t acknowledge that anything had happened since the 1950s except to universally deplore it all. On the one hand, I can see the point of waiting until time has done its winnowing. It takes decades before the less worthy works become forgotten, and what one era finds great often ages poorly. This is, of course, why there is the illusion that everything - particularly literature - was greater in the past. (You can also see this in the memes going around comparing the lyrics of Bob Dylan to Justin Beiber.) There was plenty of garbage in every era, of course, but we tend to forget that because we don’t have to suffer through it anymore. A bit of a digression, I’m afraid. Back to our regularly scheduled review.

One of the most enjoyable books I read at the outset of my “career” as a book blogger was Robert Pinsky’s anthology of poetry, Essential Pleasures: A New Anthology of Poems to Read Aloud. That book inspired me to make poetry more than an occasional part of my regular reading. It also introduced me to Elizabeth Bishop.

Bishop was an American poet, but that identification is far too simple. She was born in Massachusetts. Her father died when she was an infant, and her mother was institutionalized for mental illness a few years later. She was raised for a while by her maternal grandparents in Nova Scotia. Later, her paternal relatives were able to gain legal custody of her, and, much to her distress, removed her from her home. The discontented Elizabeth was eventually permitted to reside with another maternal aunt. She attended Vassar College (which was then an all-female institution) as a music major. She was so terrified of performance that she gave it up, and and switched to English.

After her graduation, she lived a rather interesting life. She had a good sized inheritance from her father, which freed her from a need to earn a living. She taught some classes here and there, but spent most of the next several decades travelling and writing. This particular collection references Paris, among other cities in which she lived for a period of time. So really, she could be considered as much a citizen of the world as of any particular place within it. Officially, her residence was in Florida, and a number of her poems describe that state. 

Bishop was a very private person, and wrote little that could be considered autobiographical. In fact, from her poems, there is little one could learn about her visible life - her inner thoughts are on display, but they do not point back to her specifics. Likewise, she refused to be published in collections of “women’s” poetry, because she felt that her work should be judge on its merits without reference to her gender. The poems need not, in that sense, have been written by a women, but by a poet. And thus they read. I did not find them to feel strongly feminine, but just poetic.

North and South is Bishop’s first collection of poetry, published in 1946.

There are a few poems in this collection that are modern in form, without a discernable rhyme or meter; but many are fairly traditional. I appreciate good craftsmanship, both traditional and modern. From my very limited attempts at poetry in high school, I can attest that it is hard to write in a rigid form - but even harder to write anything that doesn’t sound strained or pretentious. In both the traditional and modern forms, Bishop writes with a language that feels natural, belying the many hours of work she must have put into them. Here are a few that I particularly liked.

“The Colder the Air”

We must admire her perfect aim,

this huntress of the winter air

whose level weapon needs no sight,

if it were not that everywhere

her game is sure, her shot is right.

The least of us could do the same.

The chalky birds or boats stand still,

reducing her conditions of chance;

air's gallery marks identically

the narrow gallery of her glance.

The target-center in her eye

is equally her aim and will.

Time's in her pocket, ticking loud

on one stalled second. She'll consult

not time nor circumstance. She calls

on atmosphere for her result.

(It is this clock that later falls

in wheels and chimes of leaf and cloud.)                        

The poem is basic iambic tetrameter, but I do like the ABCBCA rhyme scheme. And what of the idea itself? The huntress who cannot miss. I would presume that the cold winter air or wind is she, but what a bitter reflection. It is one that anyone who feels alienated surely knows. Those who “fit in” seem to have everything come to them easily. One could admire their aim, but their skill is an illusion. They are predestined to succeed by their nature. Bishop was an outsider for many reasons. An orphan and ex-patriot, an introvert in a profession and world that favors extroverts. Her gender and sexuality likewise cut against easy success and belonging. There are times I understand her idea. “The least of us could do the same.”

In contrast to the dark edge of that poem is this next one, placed next to it in the collection.

“Wading at Wellfleet”

In one of the Assyrian wars

a chariot first saw the light

that bore sharp blades around its wheels.

That chariot from Assyria

went rolling down mechanically

to take the warriors by the heels.

A thousand warriors in the sea

could not consider such a war

as that the sea itself contrives

but hasn’t put in action yet.

This morning’s glitterings reveal

the sea is “all a case of knives.”

Lying so close, they catch the sun,

the spokes directed at the shin.

The chariot front is blue and great.

The war rests wholly with the waves:

they try revolving, but the wheels

give way; they will not bear the weight.

In this one, while the language speaks of violence, I find a bit of a humorous edge, rather than a bitter one. Anyone who has waded at a steep beach with imperfectly rounded shells and rocks knows exactly what she describes. I was curious about the fact that she put “all a case of knives” in quotes. It turns out that she is quoting an George Herbert poem, “Affliction IV,” in which he describes his thoughts as a case of knives.

Another delightful poem also treats on the subject of water, this time the riverfront of the Seine in Orleans.

“Quai d’Orleans”

Each barge on the river easily tows

    a mighty wake,

a giant oak-leaf of gray lights

    on a duller gray;

and behind it real leaves are floating by,

    down to the sea.

Mercury-veins on the giant leaves,

    the ripples, make

for the sides of the quai, to extinguish themselves

    against the walls

as softly as falling-stars come to their ends

    at a point in the sky.

And throngs of small leaves, real leaves, trailing them,

    go drifting by

to disappear as modestly, down the sea’s

dissolving halls.

We stand as still as stones to watch

    the leaves and ripples

while light and nervous water hold

    their interview.

“If what we see could forget us half as easily,”

    I want to tell you,

“as it does itself - but for life we’ll not be rid

    of the leaves’ fossils.”

I read it both as a beautifully description of a place and a moment and as a reflection of the way our experiences shape us. We carry the “fossils” of those memories that have made us what we are, and we carry them for a lifetime, even though they seem to have disappeared much as the ephemeral ripples or meteor traces.

Thus far, these poems have at least leaned toward a regular meter. Others, though, are true free verse, where the length of the line and the flow of the sounds reinforce and influence the meaning.

“Seascape”

This celestial seascape, with white herons got up as angels,

flying high as they want and as far as they want sidewise

in tiers and tiers of immaculate reflections;

the whole region, from the highest heron

down to the weightless mangrove island

with bright green leaves edged neatly with bird-droppings

like illumination in silver,

and down to the suggestively Gothic arches of the mangrove roots

and the beautiful pea-green back-pasture

where occasionally a fish jumps, like a wildflower

in an ornamental spray of spray;

this cartoon by Raphael for a tapestry for a Pope:

it does look like heaven.

But a skeletal lighthouse standing there

in black and white clerical dress,

who lives on his nerves, thinks he knows better.

He thinks that hell rages below his iron feet,

that that is why the shallow water is so warm,

and he knows that heaven is not like this.

Heaven is not like flying or swimming,

but has something to do with blackness and a strong glare

and when it gets dark he will remember something

strongly worded to say on the subject.

There is a razor edge of truth in this one, truth that I have come to embrace more and more as I grow older. There is more here than a contrast of nature and what man has made - although that contrast is part of the metaphor. I also do not think that this is ultimately about religion, although it can be read that way on the surface. I believe that Bishop is making a point about all dogmatic assertions of “the way things are.” The lighthouse has a neat and tidy explanation for, as Douglas Adams put it, “Life, the Universe, and Everything.” The seascape may not be heaven in the literal sense, but it isn’t made warm by hell either. The experience of a glimpse of heaven is, however, real in a significant sense. It is an experience of the same nature as Handel’s view of the heavens opening as he composed the Hallelujah.

To so neatly tie everything up in perfect theological and philosophical packages is to exterminate the sense of wonder and transcendence. There would be no room for a G. K. Chesterton in the lighthouse’s world. I am reminded a bit of the insistence by those in the cultic organizations that my wife and I spent time in that children not read fiction containing talking animals and the like, because such things were not “real.” The world - and heaven - were not like that. But really, is that true? Perhaps hope really is a thing with feathers perched in my soul. Perhaps the heron - or the condor - in the sky is a glimpse of something angelic. If one is to be as a little child to inherit the Kingdom, surely the imagination and the ability to see the Divine in what surrounds us is a key facet to that becoming.

I’ll mention a few others that I recommend from this collection. “The Man Moth” is probably Bishop’s best known poem, and for good reason. “The Fish” is also worthwhile, a tribute to sympathy for those who have survived much.

Bishop wasn’t a particularly prolific poet, but her poems show careful crafting, and unhurried contemplation. Like another of my favorite poets, Emily Dickinson, Bishop was an introvert, and thus, I feel a certain camaraderie.

I enjoyed reading this collection, and intend to return to her poems as I continue my poetry project.

Daniel Deronda by George Eliot

Source of book: I own this. My wife found a hardback Everyman’s Library edition at a library sale for me.

This book was the August selection for the Reading To Know book club, but it took a bit longer than that to read. Here are the other reviews:

Carrie

Sky

Barbara

Heather

I would imagine most of us read Silas Marner as part of our assigned reading in high school. That was my introduction to George Eliot. I later read The Mill on the Floss, which has some autobiographical elements.

George Eliot was the pen name of Mary Ann Evans. She also went by Marian and Mary Anne at various times, but decided to write under a man’s name so that her novels would be taken seriously and not pigeonholed into the light romantic fluff associated with female writers. (A version of this prejudice continues today, of course.)

Eliot was considered to be rather unattractive, even at a young age, but was highly intelligent and a voracious reader. Her parents thus decided that an advantageous marriage was unlikely, and invested in her education. Like Christina Rossetti and Anne Bradstreet, she was able to gain an education unusual for women of the time.

George Eliot circa 1860, by Samuel Laurence. This is the most flattering picture of her I could find.

True to the expectation, she stayed home and kept house for her father from the death of her mother when she was sixteen until his death when she was thirty. After a year abroad, she returned to England and edited a political journal for several years.

In 1854, at age thirty-five, she began a relationship with George Henry Lewes, which was to last for the next twenty years until his death.

The problem was, Lewes was already married. He had an open marriage, and his wife had several children by another man. Since he knew of that affair, he lacked grounds to divorce her. She likewise, could not divorce him, because adultery wasn’t grounds for a woman to get a divorce, so they just went their separate ways. (For more peculiar rules regarding divorce in the Victorian and earlier eras, see my post on domestic violence.) So, Lewes and Eliot couldn’t marry. Had they lived a century later, they would have been able to marry, and thus avoid the stigma.

Now, having a longstanding affair like this was actually fairly commonplace in the Victorian Era. It wasn’t even all that scandalous if a man had a mistress. It was rather expected. But, a man had to be discreet. He should pretend the other woman didn’t exist. Lewes and Eliot made the social mistake of being open about their relationship. (Keep this thought in mind, because it becomes a key plot point.)

Daniel Deronda was Eliot’s last book. While Middlemarch is generally considered to be her masterpiece, there are many who make the argument in favor of Daniel Deronda. Since I have not read Middlemarch yet, I cannot weigh in. I can, however, highly recommend Daniel Deronda.

My edition of this book is 900 pages long. I am reasonably used to long books. I have read several over 500 pages this year. However, August was a busy month for me, and I got behind. It took a while to get through it.

Even by Victorian standards, this isn’t a short book. I believe one of the main reasons for this is that Eliot combined two books into one.

On the one hand, this is a tragedy. The tragedy of Gwendolyn Harleth, who marries for money against her conscience and better judgment, and pays (most) of the consequences, before being rescued by a deux ex machina at the end.

The other half of the tale is one of self-discovery by the title character and his eventual romance with the beautiful Jewess, Mirah Lapidoth.

Both plots tie together pretty well, but either could have stood alone - particularly the first one.

Gwendolyn is, in my opinion, one of the most fascinating female protagonists in Victorian literature. One of the clues as to Eliot’s gender is that she is far harsher to Gwendolyn than any male Victorian author could be. Her faults are not excused, but are dwelt on, and not lovingly. Still, Eliot makes her just sympathetic enough that she isn’t a villain. She is irritatingly entitled and egoistic, but one still doesn’t wish terrible things on her. And she certainly finds herself in an awkward position without a clear good choice.

Stunningly beautiful, and reasonably witty, she is expected by all to make an advantageous marriage. Sure, she is a bit full of herself, and her tongue has an acid edge, but she is young, and will presumably improve with a little age.

Two problems, though, interfere. First, she fears the dependency that marriage will bring. She has no intention of being ruled by a man. (Her mother’s unhappy second marriage gives her pretty good reason for anxiety.)

Second, her family loses its fortune. It wasn’t a big fortune to start with, but now she becomes responsible for the financial fortunes of her family. Her uncle the clergyman generously helps with their support, but he doesn’t have that much to share. Her mother intends to do some sewing for the little it will bring in, but it is Gwendolyn who is expected to become a governess until her great beauty snares an appropriately wealthy man.

Gwendolyn is not eager to submit to the role of governess, though. She has never been raised with employment in mind, and her proud spirit recoils at having to take orders.

“As to the sweetness of labour and fulfilled claims; the interest of inward and outward activity; the impersonal delights of perpetual discovery; the dues of courage, fortitude, industry...these, even if they had been eloquently preached to her, could have been no more than faintly apprehended doctrines…”

This is an interesting mirror image of Eliot’s own experience. She was “ugly” and therefore was raised with the idea that she would have to find employment, income, and satisfaction in working with her hands or brains.

Perhaps this might have lent the bitter edge to her portrayal of Gwendolyn.

Enter Henleigh Grandcourt.

(Side note: I love the way this name rolls off the tongue. I am reminded of a similarly stuffy British name in the character of Heneage Dundas - a minor character in Patrick O’Brian’s books.)

Grandcourt is blessed with, not one, but two likely inheritances. He got his father’s property, of course. He is also in line to receive the property of his uncle, Sir Hugo Mallinger (another delightful character), who had the misfortune to have only daughters. This is a source of distress to the good-natured, if a bit clueless Sir Hugo, as his own family will be relatively impoverished while his nephew receives nearly everything.

Grandcourt takes a liking to Gwendolyn, and seems on the verge of proposing, when Gwendolyn makes an unpleasant discovery.

Grandcourt has another family already. In his younger years, he took up with the wife of an Irish military officer. She left her husband because he was abusive; so, by comparison, Grandcourt seemed like a welcome change, even if they couldn’t marry. (Again, enter those Victorian marriage laws: abuse was not grounds for a woman to obtain a divorce. Her husband could have divorced her due to her adultery, but chose not to out of spite.) So, Grandcourt never does marry Lydia, his mistress, but they have children together.

Gwendolyn meets Lydia and learns all, and essentially promises not to marry Grandcourt. Her prospective poverty, however, overcomes her scruples, and she marries Grandcourt. First and foremost, because she realizes this is the way she is expected to rescue her family (and, let it be said, herself) from poverty.

This is where the sexual politics get interesting. Grandcourt is in a position of power. He has a vast current and prospective fortune, which he has and will receive solely because he is male. Gwendolyn is impoverished. So, she already owes him big time.

Grandcourt isn’t a benevolent dictator either. He gets off on controlling others, and Gwendolyn is simply his latest pet. She is beautiful arm-candy, and he knows that he can get her to do whatever he wants. In fact, her resistance to his control makes his success all the sweeter.

I was reminded a bit of another written a decade later by George Meredith. I am determined that all of my children read The Egoist before they marry. Actually, anyone enamored of Victorian era marriage should read it. In that book, which is humorous where Daniel Deronda is dark, the wealthy and highly eligible Sir Willoughby sees woman as a mirror for himself to gaze in and see his own views and opinions reflected back. It is all about him, and women are just commodities in which he can revel: they confirm his high opinion of himself.

Where Willoughby is laughably clueless, but completely non-malicious, Grandcourt is truly malevolent. He “prefers command to love,” as Eliot puts it.

His behavior is never violent - or even outwardly angry. To an outsider, Gwendolyn even has a “good” marriage. But Grandcourt is undeniably abusive to her. He has the power, and enjoys bullying her. And, under the laws she lives under, she has no options. To leave would mean an even worse poverty, as her disgrace would prevent employment - except as a prostitute. And then, her family would suffer as well.

Even worse for Gwendolyn is her guilt concerning Lydia. She knows she has wronged her, but cannot at this point make things right. As Eliot puts it, the Furies have entered her marriage and pursued her. In her despair, she turns to Deronda for advice as to how to become a better person.

Who is Daniel Deronda? That is a question not answered until near the end of the novel. Deronda has been raised by Sir Hugo, who has never revealed his parentage. Everyone, including Deronda himself, suspects that he is Sir Hugo’s illegitimate son, but only Sir Hugo knows.

In the meantime, while he decides what he intends to do with himself for the rest of his life (he has a little income from those mysterious parents), he ends up rescuing Mirah from a suicide attempt. She has fled her abusive father, who attempted to sell her into prostitution, and had been looking for her mother and brother, who she hasn’t seen since she was a very small child.

Deronda locates the brother (the mother is long dead) by a series of coincidences, and becomes friends with him.

While this part of the plot is less convincing that the other, it contains some very interesting ideas. First of all, Eliot introduces the idea of Zionism - the quest to re-establish the nation of Israel - at a time when it was fairly new to non-Jews in Europe. I was a bit surprised to find it here. I was not surprised to find descriptions of anti-Semitism as it existed in Europe.

In the light of subsequent events, it was a bit jarring to see a note of optimism about the acceptance of Jews in Germany, to be sure. Eliot could not have foreseen the Holocaust, but details of her descriptions look prophetic in retrospect. (This would be an interesting future post. The connection of the Holocaust to millennia of anti-Semitism in Europe. Also the unfair portrayal of Nietzsche as a proto-Nazi and the whitewashing of Martin Luther’s anti-Semitic views in certain right-wing circles. I’ll think about it.)

There are also a few mentions of the Kabbalah, the Jewish version of mysticism. If you are interested in further fictional reading in this regard, I highly recommend the short stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer (not to be confused with Isaac Singer, the sewing machine magnate.)  

The two plots come together at a few crucial points. One is the contrast between Gwendolyn’s self absorption and Deronda’s compassion. She thinks nearly entirely of herself (and a little of her mother). Deronda is easily caught up in the emotion of empathy for those less fortunate - even Gwendolyn.

There is also the contrast between Gwendolyn, who fears work, and fears even more being subservient to anyone, with the Meyricks, who take in Mirah despite their own poverty. Gwendolyn has difficulty imagining life outside her privileged bubble, and it is only through Deronda’s encouragement that she is finally able to look outside herself.

I really wish I had the time and space to quote extensively from this book. There really are great lines throughout - often many on one page. From the opening scene with its description of wealthy gamblers (which could be a modern description of gamblers at Las Vegas, minus a little of the glitz), to the many potent zingers against social hypocrisy.

Particularly pricking are the ones on class and gender relations.

For example, in the description of Gwendolyn’s aunt, “Many of her opinions, such as those on church government and the character of Archbishop Laud, seemed too decided under every alteration to have been arrived at otherwise than by a wifely receptiveness.”

Or, of Grandcourt, “was good-looking, of sound constitution, virtuous or at least reformed…” Yes, a woman must be unstained and pure. A man can settle for “reformed” provided he has a nice little income.

Or the later observation that “Gwendolyn’s view of her position might easily have been no other than that her husband’s marriage with her was his entrance on the path of virtue, while [Lydia] Glasher represented his forsaken sin.”

Perhaps Gwendolyn’s flippant remark to Grandcourt, laced with more truth than she intends to share:

“We women can’t go in search of adventures - to find out the North-West Passage or the source of the Nile, or to hunt tigers in the East. We must stay where we grow, or where the gardeners like to transplant us. We are brought up like the flowers, to look as pretty as we can, and be dull without complaining. That is my notion about why some of them have got poisonous.”

Eliot plays more on this idea through the character of Deronda’s mother, who was forced by a domineering father into a marriage she did not desire. The pressure to be the good girl eventually overwhelmed her, leaving havoc behind.

Or maybe Eliot’s biting aside after Sir Hugo lightly dismisses the importance of birth in determining success, “as men after dining well often agree that the good of life is distributed with wonderful equality.” Touché.

This, contrasted with Deronda’s observation about wealth. “[I am] not rich, except in the sense that every one is rich who has more than he needs for himself.”

I might also go with Eliot’s perceptive notice that gambling is a refuge from dullness and boredom. (Ever watch a bingo game at a senior center? Just a little scary.)

“I don’t admit the justification,” said Deronda [to Gwendolyn]. “I think what we call the dullness of things is a disease in ourselves. Else how could any one find an intense interest in life? And many do.”

I also loved Deronda’s comment that age or novelty by itself should not be an argument for or against anything. Fashions - and ideas - must be weighed on their own merits, and not rejected or accepted just because of the comfort of habit or the thrill of the new.

Also, the exchange between Mrs. Meyrick and her outspoken daughter Kate.

“I notice mothers are like the people I deal with - the girls’ doings are always priced low.”

“My dear child, the boys are such a trouble - we should never put up with them, if we didn’t make believe they were worth more.”

It was also fun to learn a new word: calignosity. Calignous is “misty, dim; obscure, dark.” In context, Deronda prefers that he not know his origins, preferring “cheerful calignosity.” I love that.

Finally, I must note some great observations regarding music. Deronda attends a Jewish service, and is carried away by the power of the liturgy, even though he cannot understand it.

That “strongest effect of chanted liturgies which is independent of detailed verbal meaning - like the effect of an Allegri’s Miserere or a Palestrina’s Magnificat. The most powerful movement of a feeling with a liturgy is the prayer which seeks for nothing special, but is a yearning to escape from the limitations of our own weakness and an invocation of all Good to enter and abide with us; or else a self-oblivious lifting up of gladness, a Gloria in excelsis that such Good exists; both the yearning and the exultation gathering their utmost force from the sense of communion in a form which has expressed them both, for long generations of struggling fellow-men.”

Yes. A thousand times yes! If you have never experienced this, I pity you.

The most I can do is to introduce you to the two masterworks of the Renaissance era cited above. You can (and should be able to) enjoy and understand both without knowing the text. But, for the record, the Miserere is Psalm 51, written by King David after getting called on his sin of adultery with Bathsheba and his murder of her husband. (The text accompanies the music in this clip.)

The Magnificat is the song of the Virgin Mary from the Gospel of Luke, after she is told she will give birth to Christ. 

My soul doth magnify the Lord : and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

For he hath regarded : the lowliness of his handmaiden.

For behold, from henceforth : all generations shall call me blessed.

For he that is mighty hath magnified me : and holy is his Name.

And his mercy is on them that fear him : throughout all generations.

He hath shewed strength with his arm : he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

He hath put down the mighty from their seat : and hath exalted the humble and meek.

He hath filled the hungry with good things : and the rich he hath sent empty away.

He remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant Israel : as he promised to our forefathers, Abraham and his seed for ever. (translation from The Book of Common Prayer)

I’ll end with Deronda’s view of the place of music in the soul. Gwendolyn has given up singing after a true musician tells her she lacks the skill to be a professional. She rejects Deronda’s proposal she take it up again for pleasure and for the good it will do her.

“I don’t feel able to follow your advice of enjoying my own middlingness.”

“For my part,” said Deronda, “people who do anything finely always inspirit me to try. I don’t mean that they make me believe I can do it as well. But they make the thing, whatever it may be, seem worthy to be done. I can bear to think my own music not good for much, but the world would be more dismal if I thought music itself not good for much. Excellence encourages one about life generally; it shows the spiritual wealth of the world.”

“But then if we can’t imitate it? - it only makes our own life seem the tamer,” said Gwendolyn, in a mood to resent encouragement founded on her own insignificance.

“That depends on the point of view, I think,” said Deronda. “We should have a poor life of it if we were reduced for all our pleasure to our own performances. “

This is encouraging to me. I know the limitations of my own ability all too well, and it falls short of the perfection I desire. But excellence is worth pursuing for its own sake.

Anyway, I loved this book, and highly recommend it. Eliot is psychologically astute, and the conversations seem as if they could be from our own time, even though the institutions have changed. The main weaknesses are typical of the Victorian era: a sentimental ending, a too-neat resolution, a death from consumption, and the conformity at the end to the “damsel in distress” view of gender roles. Once one acknowledges the need to adhere to certain elements of the formula to sell books, one can enjoy Eliot’s solid command of narrative, pacing, and especially the language, which is rich and yet easily comprehensible.

Note on the Furies:

The Furies, also known as the Erinyes, were a group of female underworld deities in Greek mythology. (Eventually, it became common to refer to three of them.) They were goddesses of vengeance, pursuing those who did wrong, particularly those who broke oaths. They figure prominently in Aeschylus’ play cycle, the Oresteia, in which they relentlessly pursue the protagonists in vengeance for the ongoing blood feud within the family of Agamemnon.

They are thus fitting in this book, as they pursue Gwendolyn, who has broken her oath to Lydia.

The Remorse of Orestes or Orestes Pursued by the Furies, 1862 by William-Adolphe Bouguereau. I wonder if this painting partially inspired Eliot’s use in this book. It predated the book by just a few years.