<-->Source of book: I own this
One of my reading projects of the last decade or so has been to start exploring the classics beyond the best known authors. This is not to say I am ignoring the pantheon, of course - feel free to poke around my fiction index - I read a lot of classics and always have.
One of the unfortunate truths about literature is that the question of who becomes part of the canon is not a matter of objective merit. It has always helped to be rich, white, male, or some combination thereof. For a woman in particular to break through, it has never been easy. Female authors are often sidelined as writing about “domestic matters” rather than the big issues of the day. (This is bullshit and always has been, but whatever.)
It is thus that in our day, even the most literary of readers struggles to name female writers of the 19th Century and before beyond a handful of names. For American authors, that list probably looks like “Louisa May Alcott, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Emily Dickinson.” Maybe add Kate Chopin to that list. But other than that, it is mostly a bunch of white guys from New England.
Perhaps one of the saddest things about the female authors of this era is that they were often far more popular at the time than they are now - which is some evidence that the decades after their deaths were even more sexist than when they were living. As part of my own quest to re-discover some of the forgotten female voices, I decided to track down a Library of America edition of Woolson.
So who was Constance Fennimore Woolson? As the name implies, she was the grandniece of early American author James Fennimore Cooper. You know, the guy who wrote books about the Dirk Pitt of the colonial era, Natty Bumppo.
Woolson grew up in an educated family, and herself was a college graduate. However, her life was marked by tragedy. Three of her sisters died of scarlet fever in a short period of time, two more died later of tuberculosis, her brother committed suicide, and, after her father’s early death, she turned to writing in order to supplement her modest income.
Her stories are set in places she lived: first, the Great Lakes region where she grew up, then the American South where she spent summers with her mother, and finally Italy, where she lived for the second half of her life. The early works are mostly short stories, with the novels coming later.
Woolson became friends with another ex-pat writer, Henry James, and there is some evidence she hoped it would become more than that. It was not to be, because James was somewhere on the gay-to-assexual continuum (there is no evidence of a romantic relationship with either men or women, and he himself refused to discuss or perhaps even think about it.)
Even worse, although James apparently liked her as a person, he wasn’t a huge fan of her writing style, finding her female characters too passive for his taste. I am also of the opinion that very likely few if any authors lived up to James’ high standards - even himself. And James is one of the greatest psychological writers of all time anyway. Whatever the case, he eventually wrote about her writing, and, while he probably tried to be tactful, the result was a bit traumatic to her.
James’ criticisms were valid at least in part - her female characters do have a tendency to suffer in silence, to practice self-denial rather than taking risks to live authentically, and to end tragically as a result. The narrators are often the opposite - and are often male characters.
That said, I think James’ tendency to sexism shows through a bit as well, and he all too easily dismisses the books as “typically female.” If I had read the stories without knowing the author was a woman, I would not necessarily have guessed it other than the fact that there are actually some female narrators, which is unusual for male authors of the era. The prose itself is unsentimental - as she said, she hated pretty and “sweet” writing. She described her writing as ugly and bitter, but ultimately strong.
Woolson’s death at the age of 53 was and is controversial. She suffered from depression her entire life, but at the time was also ill with influenza - and possibly delirious. What is known is that she fell or jumped from her 4th story window and died an hour later of her injuries. It was a sad end for a talented writer.
The collection I have contains selected stories from her four collections, as well as a pair of uncollected stories she wrote for magazines. Unfortunately, none of them are complete. For the one I chose, Castle Nowhere, six of the nine stories are included. The title story and two others are omitted. I might complain more, except that finding complete versions (except as online scans) is near impossible, and the book is already nearly 700 pages long.
As with others of this sort, I will mention just a few things about each story.
Overall, the collection is quite good - I don’t see Woolson as a second-rate author, at least as far as the short stories go. These are all set in the Great Lakes area, and concern people on the margins of society: miners, religious fanatics, oddballs, social outcasts, and so on. She writes with empathy and a gentle touch. For the most part, her descriptions are excellent and evocative, and her settings are unforgettable.
Honestly, one of the best proofs of sexism in the literary canon is that James Fennimore Cooper is well known and studied, while his grandniece’s books are not. Having read both, Cooper’s writing is fourth-rate at best, and not nearly as good as Woolson’s is.
With that, here are the six stories included:
“Peter the Parson”
This one is about an ill-fated minister sent to an outlying mining settlement on Lake Superior. He is not the best man for this job - he doesn’t have the gravitas or the personality to hold his own, just an upright sense of morality that doesn’t mesh well with rough frontier justice. He is described in this excellent line:
There was a boyishness in his air, or, rather, lack of air, and a nervous timidity in his manner, which stamped him as a person of no importance, - one of those men who, not of sufficient consequence to be disliked, are simply ignored by a well-bred world, which pardons anything rather than insignificance.
Soon, he finds himself in an impossible situation through no fault of his own. The local bully (whose dog terrifies the parson), has a crush on the lovely Rosie Ray, who is herself smitten with the parson.
This leads to tragedy in the end, unfortunately, in part through the passive response of the parson when he should have been active, and his choice to meddle in a matter he should have avoided.
“Jeanette”
I would say this is another ill-fated love story, but it isn’t a love story at all when it comes down to it. The unnamed narrator wishes to set her military surgeon nephew up with Jeanette, an enigmatic French and Indigenous young woman who the narrator has taken under her wing.
The problem, though, is that, while Rodney eventually falls in love with her (perhaps against his better judgment - she is below his class after all), she has always been in love with a fisherman, and laughs him away. The true drama in the story is the fantasy that the narrator and her nephew have built around the match.
There is one line that I found amusing, in no small part given the last few years of Highway 1 sliding into the ocean here in California.
In 1856, there was no time for road-making, for when military duty was over there was always more or less mending to keep the whole fortification from sliding down hill into the lake.
Another fascinating line was an observation about race relations.
I noticed this as a peculiarity of the New England Abolitionist. Theoretically he believed in the equality of the enslaved race, and stood ready to maintain the belief with his life, but practically he held himself entirely aloof from them; the Southern creed and practice were the exact reverse.
“Solomon”
This one is quite the tragedy of a story, and also a fascinating study in personality. A pair of sisters, Erminia, and the narrator, Dora, are vacationing in the Ohio coal country, in a community of what are either Amish or a related anabaptist group.
One day, they head out to find a sulfur spring, which is located on the property of Solomon and his wife. He grew up there, and later returned, although he was never part of the religious community as a child. He also seems to be autistic, although that term was unknown at the time the story was written of course. He fell in love with a woman, who married him, and followed him back to the community. We do not find out her name (Dorcus) until near the end of the story.
This is a pretty good metaphor for her life - she left a middle class existence to end up in a ramshackle house with a dog she loathes, and a husband who works in the mines for sustenance, and spends the rest of his time painting lousy pictures of her.
The most fascinating part of this story to me is the way that the sisters disagree as to which of the two should be pitied the most. Is it Dorcus, whose life has been a bitter disappointment to her, or Solomon, who is stuck with an unhappy wife but without the skills to make her happy?
“Wilhelmina”
This one wasn’t my favorite. The titular character is in another of those anabaptist communities, where the young men, threatened with the draft, end up enlisting in the army. Her beau is one of those, and she eagerly awaits his return, when he will marry her.
Unfortunately, he has now seen the world, and considers her a boring provincial girl, and throws her over.
While an interesting look at the dynamics of the community - one not too far off from the Fundie subculture - it is the most irritating version of the passive female who is content to die of unrequited love rather than find a life purpose beyond a man. And yes, I have seen this sort of scenario myself, minus the pining to death, fortunately.
“St. Clair Flats”
This story, on the other hand, contains one of the most vivid descriptions in the book. Two young men are on a steamboat along the Lake Erie coast, and decide to stop at the titular location. Which turns out to have all of two families - the lighthouse keeper and his wife and menagerie of small children, and an eccentric couple: Waiting Samuel and his wife Roxana.
Because the lighthouse has zero space for visitors owing to all the children, the only place for them to stay is with the others, who must be accessed by a winding channel through the reeds. This is the description that is so amazing. It really brings the place to life.
Waiting Samuel is a prophet of sorts, or a religious nut-job if you prefer. He sees visions and speaks to spirits, and is awaiting the end times - hence the name. In contrast, Roxana is prosaic and practical - the person who makes sure they don’t starve. But both of them are sympathetic characters as well, and their closeness to nature inspires the narrator.
Like Dorcus, Roxana is another passive woman who has given up so much for her man, for little reward. But she is no Wilhelmina either - she has found her own purpose and does not seem unhappy.
“The Lady of Little Fishing”
The final story in the collection is about an abandoned mining settlement with a mysterious story. It bookends the first one on several counts. Obviously the mining, but also that of religion and unrequited love. In this case, a young woman appears as a missionary, and tries to reform the settlement. The problem is, everyone is in love with her, not with God. Oh, except for the young man that she fancies, who is uninterested.
There is a fun twist in this one at the end, and some lovely descriptions.
Overall, the collection is a good read. James wasn’t wrong about the female characters, but they are actually quite believable - anyone who has lived in today’s Fundie subculture can recognize the pressure to be a passive woman, a silent sufferer, and one paralyzed when it comes to pivotal decisions.
As I noted regarding William Dean Howells, just because a writer isn’t in the pantheon of the all-time greats doesn’t mean that their writing isn’t good or worth experiencing. Often, the secondary lights are the ones that make up most of the sky, and give the most complete picture of an era. Woolson is one of those authors that helps complete the picture, and gives a unique perspective.
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