An improbable work of genius: A Confederacy of Dunces

I thought I read a lot until I met J_,  We were working in the same law firm and introduced to each other as great readers.  But J__ leaves me in the dust.  For example, when we first met and ran over lists of our favorite books she added, "And of course, I love A Confederacy of Dunces."  That brought me up short.  I hadn't even heard of A Confederacy of Dunces.  If you haven't, get ready.  This isn't one great story, it's two.

The story behind the story is incredible.  This young guy, John Kennedy Toole, writes a comedy novel during the late 50's and early 60's while he's serving in the army.   He comes home to his native New Orleans, starts teaching and finishes the draft of the book.   He finishes the novel and ships it off to one of the best publishing houses at the time, and the editors indicate they are interested in publishing it.  (This rarely happens to a first-time novelist).  The book needed work, they said, but they're interested.   So Toole goes back and revises.   And revises.  And revises.  After almost a decade of rewrites and revision, the publisher turns the book down.   All that work, for nothing.

Mr. Toole tried to keep going but his other work wasn't picked up and the rejection and symptoms of mental illness began to eat away at his life.  He lost his confidence, fought with his folks and dropped out of his Ph.D. program.  One January, he ran away from home.  In March, he took his own life.

Mr. Toole's mom was one of those overwhelming, indomitable Southern Women.   Armed with her son's comic manuscript and a will of galvanized steel, she made the lives of publishing executives hell during the 1970's, showing up in their offices and demanding they publish her dead baby's masterpiece.  Eventually she ran into Walker Percy, (probably literally) that great southern writer, who was teaching at Loyola at the time.  She coerced him into reading the pages. The college's press published the book, A Confederacy of Dunces, in 1980.  It won the Pulitzer Prize in '81, (something unheard for a posthumous work)  and has been studied, translated, loved, celebrated and adapted ever since.  How about that for a back story?

Now for the book itself:  ACOD has one of the most unlikely anti-heroes in American Literature, Ignatius J. Reilly.   This 30-year old New Orleans native is a self-absorbed, lazy, fat, slob who plays the lute, pontificates about his bodily functions to anyone and hates everything about the modern world, especially the idea of supporting himself.  He sponges off his mother  and spends his days criticizing the world and telling his mama what to do.   When somebody asks Ignatius what he does to help around the house, he has this to say:

"I dust a bit...in addition, I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century.  When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip."

To him, this is sufficient.   To the rest of the world, it is not.  Eventually his mother develops enough of a backbone to insist her college-educated son get a job, any job, to help out with the family finances and Ignatius manages first to get a clerical position in a pants factory (how someone can cause that much trouble while avoiding even the semblance of work is amazing) and afterwards, the chance to sell hot dogs from a push cart in the French Quarter.  Pity the owner of the pushcart.  Ignatius returns the cart at the end of the day, sans hot dogs and sans profits but with some new aromas around his person.  Can you guess what happened to the hotdogs?

I haven't mentioned half of the incidents in the book or the wonderful supporting characters (I love Myrna Minkoff, the beatnik activist who lives to be arrested and is the closest thing Ignatius has to a girlfriend) because I don't want to spoil it.  But I will say the book is acknowledged as a masterpiece and one of the few works of literature that really captures New Orleans.  I'm not surprised.  The town seems to me to be a lot like our hero here: strange, eccentric, a bit fool-hardy, not of this world and despite all efforts, unbeatable.  Ignatius and NOLA are made for each other.

So follow me and J__ and open the pages of A Confederacy of Dunces or take a walk in the City That Care Forgot .   Pick up some wine-cakes from the bakery in D. H Holmes and remember to tie up your box with a lute string.  But  watch out for any Oliver Hardy lookalikes under the clock outside the store, especially if they stand beside a food cart.  Those guys can turn your world upside down.

When Forgiveness is Not enough: Anne Tyler's Saint Maybe

I love the work of Anne Tyler.  Her prose is open, direct, kind and she writes about the people I know.   Her characters are the Americans I grew up around, people from the working and upper-middle class who lives are usually defined by geographical boundaries and aspirations.  These are not the folks who dream of learning a second language, becoming famous or climbing Everest.  These are the middle-class, middle-income, middle everything Americans.  (God love us, we can be so boring at times.)  Anne sees our faults and our fears and still loves us (especially those from her native Baltimore) but her novels tend to disarrange our neat little worlds.  Underneath her open sentences are some serious ideas and I like the way she displays them.  Most readers know her more famous books, Breathing Lessons and The Accidental Tourist but my favorite has, I think, the quintessential Anne Tyler title: Saint Maybe.

Set in the early 1960's, the Bedloes are convinced they are the prototype of a American family.   They are an established family in a well-settled neighborhood and their youngest son, Ian,  seems the most well-sorted of all.  His looks, brains and sports ability are all better than average, though not extraordinary.  His girlfriend and his college match as well.  Nothing about Ian or life should change.   Except they both do.

Death comes to the Bedloe family and Ian is sure he's the cause.  Despairing from the guilt he carries, Ian finds The Church of the Second Chance and discovers the idea that forgiveness is possible only with atonement and an effort to repair the damage.  Ian's choices and what happens after that rewrites this family's story  more than the losses they sustain.

The novel's twin themes are choices and grace and how we deal with unexpected results.  In the end, we make choices that alter our futures and how we deal with the results gauges the joy in our lives.  Do we sigh or regret?  Do we run?  Do we make lemonade?  Or, like Miniver Cheevy, do we pretend and keep on drinking?    Most of us, I think, accept our outcomes  and eventually see the burdens we resented become the structure in our lives.   And so we live, we ordinary people, graced with choices, results and cares.  Do those cares make us saints once we carry them well?  Perhaps in the world of Saint Maybe.

What a difference 12 Steps can Make: The Shining and Doctor Sleep

I came late to the Stephen King party.   His books first hit the national consciousness when I was a teenager and at the time, I decided they were bad.  Not because of the subject matter; I've been terrifying myself with stories since I first picked up a book.  No those early stories were poorly written, in my opinion, fiction man-handled onto a page by someone without subtly or regard for language.  Except for the film adaptations, I ignored the man's output until 1999 (which is a separate tale in itself) when I found the author everyone else had been yakking about for decades.  I am sure some of Mr. King's writing skill improved through sheer practice and I hope he's had help from the best editors in the business but I'd guess the single greatest factor that improved the man's work is his sobriety.  His later books have a focus that was missing in his earlier work.. Nothing shows the change more than comparing the two stories of Danny Torrence: The Shining and Doctor Sleep.

The Shining is, of course, the account of the Torrence family's tragic adventures in the Overlook Hotel.  Jack Torrence tries to turn his life around by abstaining from liquor while he takes care of the closed hotel and writes a new work.  Danny is the precious child who can "see" the malevolent spirits that inhabit the Overlook.  Unfortunately, Jack's sobriety  and anger are contained solely by his internal resolve and those disintegrate under the pressure of the hotel's supernatural forces.  Jack's death is the last merciful gift he can give to his son.

Doctor Sleep is more about the problems of sobriety: how do you grab it and how do you keep it.  By the time Dan (formerly Danny) Torrence reaches the age his father was when they saw the Overlook, Dan is sleeping under a bridge.  The compulsion to drink is part of what drives Dan but another part is self-medication:  booze puts a damper on the visions he still gets from "the shining".  Caught between the misery he's made of his life with the bottle and the horrible visions that still come visiting, Danny takes the chance his father never really grabbed on to.  Dan finds a sponsor and a support group and starts the long grind of learning how to exist without booze.

Dan has a long road to travel both with his sobriety and with his visions but it's shorter on drama than The Shining.  Getting sober is a choice made moment to moment for millions of moments at a time but a lot of those moments are quiet.  There's not a lot of ongoing drama.  Oh, King has a reasonable horror plot to keep the reader interested and it has ties into Danny's sobriety but it doesn't have the inexorable draw of the Overlook.  The "Big Bad" is not as central to the story.

Judged side by side, The Shining is the stronger story. There's enough in the novel (forget the Kubrick movie) to make you like the Torrence family and hope that they survive.  Jack's wife, Wendy, isn't a complete nebbish and Jack's anger, in the end, is not his own.  This decent little family, already stressed by disease, has no chance against the monolithic hotel.  What they achieve is against great odds and that makes a compelling story.

Still, I reread Doctor Sleep more than The Shining because it's a pleasure to read.  I'm not counting cliches on the pages or waiting for the plot to coalesce.  Danny's journey may have less drama than his father's but Dan is easier to understand and relate to, shining powers not withstanding.  At the end of the famous novel, I pitied Jack Torrence; I trust his grown son, Dan.

Part of this is due to skills Mr. King has polished in the thirty-six years between these books but most of it must be from his own sobriety.  With a less linear story, King manages to build a compelling tale in Doctor Sleep and keep a balanced narrative that lets the reader follow multiple plots until the point they converge.   That takes a bit of doing.  The author that loves pop references and slang is still here but the vernacular doesn't overwhelm the prose. And the writer's insights are clearer in Doctor Sleep.  In execution, the sequel is better.

In the end, it doesn't matter which the reader prefers, the early book or the later one.  But it matters when any human being was able to face a life-threatening compulsion and step away from it, one day at a time now for decades.   As the old saying goes, "where there's life, there's hope."  And where's hope, there's creation.  Enough creation and eventually you may find art.

The Necessity of Redemption: A Moon for the Misbegotten

I nearly forgot I said this is a place to discuss, books, plays and short stories.  As long as I'm finally getting around to plays, I'd like to start out with a favorite: A Moon for the Misbegotten.

Every person has life-changing experiences.  Some of these are obvious turning points like marriage or the death of a parent, some are not.  One of mine was a play I saw at age fifteen, a modern drama.  At fifteen, I couldn't say why I identified with the characters or why it moved me so (other than it was a great performance) but the work and the author got under my skin for the rest of my adolescence.  It is still a singular piece though now I understand it a bit more.  It was written by Eugene O'Neill and it's called "A Moon for the Misbegotten."

Few people outside of the theatrical world understand the impact of O'Neill but, to put it simply, he made American Drama human.  Theatrical plays written in this country before O'Neill were either broad comedies or melodramas.   I'm sure they were lots of fun to watch, containing virtuous heroes and dastardly villains but there was nothing an audience member could recognize as their own feeling or experience.   It was all Grand Gesture; no humanity.  Eugene O'Neill changed all that by writing about people, their successes and failures, their generosity, anger and flaws.  And he wrote about his family, usually in code because his father was well-known and because they all had secrets.   Secrets he needed to tell.

These days, the O'Neills would be described as a dysfunctional family because the males had a thirst for booze and the mother was hooked on morphine.  Back and forth the four of them went for years in a tango of substance abuse.   From functional use, to collapse, through withdrawal, white-knuckle abstinence, fights, slips and relapses the four of them went, trying, crying, fighting and lashing out at each other when they weren't hanging onto hope and affection.  Of the four O'Neills, the playwright and his mother eventually found a measure of sobriety (Years before the creation of the 12-step programs, O'Neill's mother got well by treating her addiction was part of a crisis of faith.  It was an amazing insight.) and the father's drinking mostly impaired his personal life.  Eugene's elder brother Jamie, on the other hand, never really grew up or gained independence, never really found sobriety and died in an insane asylum, of cirrhosis and the DTs at age 45.  Eugene grieved for all of his family and wrote most directly of their lives in "A Long Day's Journey into Night."  But even that great play could not release him from thoughts of Jaime.

Eugene loved his brother's charisma and kindness as much as he hated what his brother became whenever Jamie picked up the bottle and he hated Jaimie's death.  So, in his last produced play, O'Neill re-wrote Jamie's ending.  He couldn't save his brother from alcoholism or an early death (he wasn't writing fantasy) but instead of a strait jacket and blindness, Eugene gave his brother a wistful romance with a woman who understood the damage of demons and granted Jamie the love and peace he needed as well as the grace of redemption.

Redemption.  It's a big concept, central to Christianity and creative writers and Eugene O'Neill was both (well, he was a failed Catholic).  Redemption is what so many of us need, to feel forgiven and loved despite our past errors and sins.  It's a new lease on life and a pardon we don't deserve.  Redemption and peace is what O'Neill grants his brother in that play and it moved me although I knew none of the back story at the time.  Now that I understand it more, the technical achievement moves me still.  These days, someone like the playwright O'Neill would have a plethora of information and support available if he needed help resolving the confusing conflicts he had about family.  These days there would be rehabs and half-way houses and kind people discussing detachment and enabling.  Without any help, Eugene O'Neill synthesized his experience and pain and created a solution that not only gave him some peace for a lost brother; he made that brother immortal.

My family did not match the haunted O'Neills, although we had our ups and downs, as James Goldman wrote in "A Lion in Winter".  But Eugene O'Neill's plays spoke to me when I had trouble understanding my folks and wished for a life with less drama.   And that is ultimately what modern creative work is supposed to do. It creates a vision of  the human experience and through viewing, gives the audience a greater understanding of self.  And if that redeems us or helps us to act a little better in the future, so much the better.  That's Modern Drama, courtesy of Eugene O'Neill. 

Thanks that are long overdue

Kids take a lot of things for granted.  It's part of being a kid, to accept the world and its people as part of how life should be.   That's a terrible thing for kids who live with pain or deprivation but for a lot of us that meant a childhood where we took bicycles, birthday parties, vacations and our family's love and devotion as part of our just due. We rarely said thank you.  For example, I never thanked my folks for showing me why some stories are classics.  Still, I haven't forgotten our time with Treasure Island.

I don't know if Treasure Island is still one of the required books of childhood.  There are so many other stories now and Disney has such an imprimatur on the pirate world these days that Robert Louis Stevenson's classic may get lost in the shuffle.  My folks had both grown up with the tale and I suspect they were a bit excited about sharing "their" story with me when I turned ten.  Perhaps I was a bit young, but I already had my nose in a book all the time so why not give me one they loved?  None of us expected I couldn't get "into" it.

But I couldn't, not past Section I, as I told my mom three months later when she caught me re-reading The Borrowers.  Mom didn't fuss at me (as I feared) or remind me that I shouldn't ignore an expensive present.   She walked away and the next evening told me that she and Dad had a new project: they would read Treasure Island out loud over the next several nights, one chapter per parent per evening.  All I had to do was sit and listen.  

How well I remember those evenings, Dad lying on the couch and mom in a chair while I perched in the rocker, listening.  Dad read with enthusiasm, enjoying the author's writing style but my Mom touched greatness as a reader.  She had all the talent of an actress and a gift for mimicry so I recognized each character by their voice tone and accent whenever she read.  Squire Trelawney's remarks had the drawl of aristocracy and Dr. Livesey used the Estuary English accent of an educated but self-made man.  The pirates, of course, all used cockney or West Country accents and Jim's voice had the higher tone of a boy.  It was a wonderful performance.

My parents read every night, sailing through the dry area narrative where I'd stopped and into the sea-voyage, my excitement growing with each reading.  I asked mom to return the book to me so I could "read ahead" but my wise mother said no and hid the volume, knowing the wait would increase my desire for the story.  I took to wearing my winter boots for each reading, because they were the closest things in my closet to pirate garb and begged for extra chapters when we stopped at a cliff-hanger.  I hated it when the book ended.

I think we all enjoyed that wonderful experiment although we never repeated it.  My interest in reading rarely flagged after that and, though readers, my folks seldom liked the same books.  But when a loved one says some classic tale isn't keeping their interest, I'll volunteer to read it aloud.   My parents are gone now and it's the only way I can thank them for those evenings of pirates and treasure. 


And now my month of steady blogging is done.  Have you liked it? What books did I miss that you like, which brought back memories for you, which books followed you home?   Having a blog is rather like throwing bottled messages into the sea and I'm curious to know where (or if) my letters wash ashore.  For everyone who has fished out a bottle by reading this blog, thank you.  I appreciate your trips to the beach.

If you don't know Cannery Row, you don't know Steinbeck.

"Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream."

So says John Steinbeck, the twentieth century novelist teachers forced you to read  high school and professors mocked in college.   Steinbeck who preaches in The Grapes of Wrath and makes you weep in Of Mice and Men, did you know he could be funny?   That man, so serious and biblical in  East of Eden (except for the scenes with the car), also knew how to relax.   You wouldn't guess it but Steinbeck was a versatile writer who loved life.  Of all things, Steinbeck cared about people and that shows up in Cannery Row.

Cannery Row was and is a waterfront street in the town of Monterey and for a while was the hangout of Steinbeck.  Then, it was a rundown place full of abandoned buildings and homeless  people who sheltered there.  Other impoverished people such as artists, prostitutes and rejects from society lived on the row but, most remarkably, Steinbeck's best friend, a self-taught naturalist named Ed Ricketts lived and worked there finding sea animals for university labs and zoos. All of these people made it into the novel Cannery Row.

In the novel, Ed Ricketts becomes Doc, the owner and operator of Pacific Biologicals, a marine lab and one of the few profitable businesses in Cannery Row.  The other primary businesses are Lee Chong's Heavenly Flower Grocery (where any marketable item can usually be found because Lee Chong does not give up on merchandise just because it isn't selling) and the Bear Flag Restaurant, a brothel whose madam funds or performs most of the civic projects in the area.  Wandering in between these establishments are a group of fellows known collectively as "Mack and the boys".   These are men who Steinbeck says have "in common no families, no money, and no ambitions beyond food, drink, and contentment."  This group of well-intentioned hobos get the idea they would like to thank Doc for all of his kindness by throwing a party for him.  A surprise party.   The ensuing adventure surprises a farmer, Lee Chong,  Doc, everyone on the Row, the police and more than a thousand frogs.  One of the funniest sections of this very funny book concerns the acquisition of those frogs and since I don't have the rights to republish this and I don't want to get sued for copyright infringement, I'll add a link here to someone who has published the prose (A Frog's tale)  If that page doesn't make you smile, forget it.

But I can't forget it, anymore than I can forget Lee Chong, Doc's beer milk-shake or the woman who wants to hang curtains inside a boiler.  It's a sweet place, Cannery Row, and I expect to find it one day in some place far away from ambition and close to the sea.  If you find it first, call me and get a six-pack of beer from Lee Chong's.   It will be time to kick back and breathe..

A Pattern for Learning: Johnny Tremain

Every kid who is lucky gets one or two teachers in their childhood who seem to understand them, teachers they respond to.   All of my grade-school teachers were nice people and a few actually seems to care about me but my sixth grade teacher gave me the extra guidance I needed at that uncertain age.  She had an intuitive understanding of all the "outsider" kids in her room and found activities that made us valued members of the class.  During discussions, she treated us like we were reasonable adults and we responded in kind.  And she brought a great book into our lives, reading it aloud after lunch.  I will always be grateful for her introduction to Johnny Tremain.

Johnny is the story of a developing nation but more than that, it's the story of a developing man, Jonathan Lyte Tremain.  In the beginning, Johnny is an apprentice in pre-revolutionary Boston, Massachusetts, a silversmith in training and one of those talented people you want to slap.   Yes, he is gifted and smart, probably the mainstay of his employer's business but he's also sarcastic, arrogant and an intellectual bully.  Some of this behavior comes from an over-inflated ego but part of it is a coverup for this isolation he feels as an orphan who has never made friends easily.  Two things cause Johnny to revise his character: first, a life-altering injury ruins his career and sense of identity; he's cast away from the community that once valued his abilities.  Then, he finds that teacher we all need; the mentor who, by example, teaches us to value character more than talent and the worth of others as well as well one's self.  This teacher gives Johnny the opportunity to overcome his injury and a front-row seat to history: the first blows of the American Revolution.

Johnny Tremain's author, Esther Forbes, was a historian who researched the lives of American colonists and she included real people as supporting characters in this book.  Well known figures such as Paul Revere,  Sam Adams and  John Hancock. and lesser known ones like Joseph Warren and James Otis walk across the pages as well as the fictional characters and the patriots bring Johnny into the Revolutionary War. Johnny's struggle to develop his new life and identity parallels Boston's and the colonies' fight to reinvent themselves as parts of an independent country.    Both Johnny and the community face hardship and sacrifice in the battle for self-determination and it's that battle that gives Johnny the purpose and community he's needs to continue, not as the star apprentice in a small shop but as an American in a group of fellow Americans.  It's an incredibly powerful lesson.

Teachers give lessons and homework and tests to get ideas and information into their students until the students begin to teach themselves.   A good teacher, like a good book, can take you into yourself but the best ones take you into the world.  At the beginning of this holiday season, let me wish you a lifetime of great teachers and great books.  Books like Johnny Tremain.

When you can't pick a favorite: Dick Francis & Decider

I love the crime thrillers of the last century and one of my favorite authors in the genre was Dick Francis.  The man lived an incredible life (RAF pilot, champion jockey, best-selling writer, just look at his Wikipedia bio!) and if his novels run to a formula, each mixed a new field of information into an abiding love for horses and a solid block of principles.  I've read all of them at least once, I give most of them house room and I can't pick a favorite.   So, I'll give the first shot to one of his later books, Decider

In Decider, Lee Morris salvages ruins.  In today's vernacular, he's a flipper, one of those guys who buys distressed or damaged buildings and turns it into a marketable property.  Lee's an architect and he specializes in reclaiming "listed buildings," those structures the British government protects from bulldozing and developers because they have historic or architectural interest.  Lee's business is to turn these often dilapidated buildings into marketable residences without destroying the characteristics that make the structure "listed".  Lee's learned how to work with a variety of people in order to do his job and right now he needs these skills to help a family that's not quite his.  You see, Lee has inherited a few shares of a racecourse that's primarily owned by the Stratton family and the Strattons can't decide what to do with the property.  As a matter of fact, a lot of the family members' energy (and some of the family weath) is devoted to infighting and or foiling the schemes of more outrageous relatives.  Against his better judgment,  Lee's pulled into the Stratton disputes and by the end, he has to expose the Stratton secrets to keep his own family safe.

While this looks like just another Dick Francis mystery with chase scenes and horses, it's a really a story about the stresses and structures that exist in both buildings and families.  The hero watches the Stratton power struggles and compares the destructive members to his troupe of growing boys, trying to anticipate the stresses his sons will face and reinforcing their characters.  Without saying so, the author draws a parallel between the damaged but salvageable buildings Lee rehabs for his livelihood and the damaged relationships he sees both in the Stratton family and his own.  While some derelict places or relationships can be revived,  Decider implies that salvage can be a dangerous game and restoration is achievable only to a degree.  Some breaks are beyond repair.

There are some delightful architectural asides thrown in such as the argument to using peach canvas when you need a fabric shade.  Light shines through the canvas onto the faces below and the peach tint is more complimentary than say, yellow.  Peach makes old faces look younger and healthier and since the older customers are usually the ones with real money to spend, choose materials that make them feel happier.  Another observation is that the smells in a pub are supremely important.   You can buy a pub with a great location, wonderful parking and a great wait staff but if the place smells like ammonia cleaner, you've wasted your money.   Get the smells right and your customers will come. Those observations are the kind of things that I love in a novel, the sense of getting insight from an expert.   Dick Francis did this in almost every book, researching subjects so his tales gave the reader insight on some new profession or industry.  They are fascinating as well as enjoyable.

Only you can say if you want to know more and whether you'll pick up this book.  If you aren't sure, make your list of pros and cons but listen to your instincts and heed what appeals to your heart.   Like Lee Morris, let that be your Decider.

The Spoils of Poynton or Why My English Teacher was right about Henry James

My English teacher said some writers often go in and out of fashion. A few, like some clothes, hardly ever go out of style.  You can like them forever and know they'll always be available for discussion and the worst opinion you'll hear is, "Well, of course, you like___, who doesn't?"   For example, if Shakespeare was fashion, he'd be a great pair of leather loafers or a white, short-sleeved shirt.  Good for practically everything.  Oscar Wilde might be a burgundy velvet vest: (waistcoat for citizens of the U. K.)  dramatic, a bit sensual, fairly versatile but not the go-to choice in every situation.  Shame, because I really like burgundy velvet vests.  But the writer who seems a bit neglected these days is Henry James. Except for Halloween revivals of The Turn of the Screw and the occasional big-budget costume picture, his work is largely ignored and that's a shame. He appreciated the complexity of human character and culture and he used it to create wonderful, memorable stories.   My favourite is The Spoils of Poynton.

Poynton is the story of four individuals who keep pairing off into irreconcilable teams.  Team One might be the Gareth, widowed mother and grown son, in trouble due to British probate laws.   Mrs Gareth and her late husband spent an incredible amount of time, effort and money to furnish their home, Poynton, with the greatest possible taste.   When the son (Owen) decides to marry, the house and everything in it become his property.  Legally, Mama doesn't own anything. That's hard on Mrs G, especially since she knows Owen didn't inherit his parents' taste or intelligence and she wants to make sure that his bride will be a better custodian.

Enter Team Two, the two main candidates, for Owen's hand in marriage. Fleda Vetch, has wonderful taste but no money and Mona Bridgstock who has terrible taste but Owen's interest.   Actually, Owen's interest seems to vacillate between the two girls because (are you taking notes, children?) Owen and Fleda are basically nice people who try to think of others and the ethical thing to do while Mona and Mrs G. both focus on how to get their own way(s).  

Okay, now we've seen the Gareths v. the would-be brides and the nice ones v. the naughties and I've hinted at the third set of teams (the aesthetes v. the barbarians or the tasteful v. tasteless, if you prefer) and the plot wheel begins to spin.   Owen proposes to Mona who says she'll wed when she gets the keys to Poynton and every stick of furniture inside it.  (Granted, Mona can't tell Spode from a spade but she's not about to let Owen's mum run off with the silver and soft furnishings.  As far as Mona is concerned, Poynton and its fixtures are Owen's dowry.)  Mrs G has developed a real friendship with Fleda Vetch and whenever Owen shows up wanting to talk about the wedding and mum's eviction, Mrs Gareth sends Fleda to the meeting.  Now for the cherry on the Sundae: Fleda's got a secret, world-sized crush on the son, Owen. She can't tell Owen how she feels (he's engaged!) and she doesn't dare tell Mrs Gareth who would try to manipulate her. Fleda feels bad that Owen's predicament and worse about her own role in this mess but she's under strict instruction never to accept or turn down his suggestions about "What to do About Poynton." 

Henry James

Now a couple of interesting side bits.  The plot of Poynton is partially based on legal case that Mr. James had seen in the news.  The dowager widow of an English estate didn't want to turn over the house and land to her son when he came of age.  The son sued to get his inheritance and mum testified he wasn't entitled to it because (wait for it!) her husband wasn't the boy's father.  When you consider how adultery was viewed in that culture, you'll understand how desperate the mother must have been to come up with that defense!  The other thing you'll notice if/when you read the book is that beyond one item, nothing in Poynton's collection is described or documented.   The house is supposed to be an assembled work of art, a cohesive collection that brings out the best in each piece and every room but we really don't know what it looks like.   Mrs Gareth continually refers to the contents of her home as "the things" (As in, "Has she any sort of feeling for the nice old things?"). The author originally wanted to call the novel "The Old Things" but he deliberately left most of the specifics of the collection off.   This allows each reader to conjure up a vision of what Poynton must look like to be worth this much trouble.

If you've been reading about these precious, immovable objects and teams of irresistible forces, chances are you've thought, "Something's gotta give" and yes, it does.  Well, a lot of things do but not all at once and not the way you'd expect.  The Spoils of Poynton has a hum-dinging twist of an ending.  So pick up the book, brew yourself a good pot of tea and do not skip ahead to the ending.  This tale is wound up tight and you won't appreciate the ride if you miss hitting most of the curves.   It's the work of a master so appreciate it for what it is.   Intricate, archaic, wound up and beautifully designed, this work is the literary equivalent of a Victorian pocket watch.  And so is Henry James.  I hope he comes back into style.

When home is a place where you've never been: Cross Creek

William Shakespeare, that quotable fellow, said "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them."   That's how I feel about home.  Many people I know are raised with a real sense of identity, knowing who they are and where they belong long before they learn how to read.  That place of origin, for good or for ill, is home, undeniable as DNA.  Others have to make a place for themselves in this world and a few of us enter a strange site and realize with amazement that this place centers us like no other.  It's a shock, like first falling in love, and it changes the folks who experience it.  That realization of finding home is central to Marjorie Kinnan Rawling's book Cross Creek  because it's not just about the first heady days of romance.  Cross Creek is the love affair between a discoverer and place.

The two were an unlikely match.  Mrs. Rawlings was a thirty-two year old journalist whose career and human marriage were both showing wear but not many signs of success.  She was educated, politically liberal and although she could write, she had not found her "voice", that prerequisite of transcendent writers.  Cross Creek was an undisturbed pocket of the Old South populated by black and white families who eked out an living on the land, through farming or sharecropping, hunting, trading or fishing.  Probably no one believed she would stay.   The greatest trait both parties shared was stubbornness.

Well that, and a love of the place.  It must have held beauty beyond measure because Marjorie stuck there without friends, without encouragement and soon, without her husband (who couldn't tolerate the isolation) or her dog (who hated the heat.)   Marjorie tolerated it all, including the bugs and the outhouse, adapted, repaired and plugged away at fiction that wasn't getting published.  She was also writing to an editor about her neighbors.   Those letters mark the beginning of her voice.

A key part of the success of Cross Creek is Marjorie's opinion of her neighbors.  She recognizes their residential seniority and values each individual for the merits in his or her own character.  She also recognizes her own fallibility and admits to her many mistakes.  That humility told the neighbors she might be be worth teaching.

From these new friends and the things they taught her, Marjorie gleaned the material for her best known work, The Yearling  (when her editor suggest she write a boy's story set in the Florida scrub, she replied to his suggestion, saying, "How calmly you sit in your office and tell me to write a classic!"  Irony, thy name is Marjorie.)  Cross Creek was the follow-up, a love song to the area she loved.

As in so many romances, the one between Marjorie and Cross Creek did not make it to the finish line.  First, she remarried and living with her second husband meant living some seventy miles away.  Far sadder is the fall out that came from this book.  One of the people Marjorie wrote of with affection and respect took offense over the description and sued for libel.  The case went on for years, dividing the community and draining the parties.  Marjorie stayed away after that.

In the end, Frost described it best: "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in."  When Marjorie died, she was buried in a cemetery less than five miles from the place she'd recognized as home.  Other Creek residents are spending their eternity there including the woman who sued her.  Thus far, the residents seem to be keeping their peace.

Marjorie wrote she was not the real owner at Cross Creek noting, "Cross Creek belongs to the wind and the rain, to the sun and the seasons, to the cosmic secrecy of seed, and beyond all, to time." Instead, she belonged to this place that defined her, defied her and nourished her soul.  For good or for ill, Cross Creek became part of her, like DNA.  Call that what you like, I think it means "home".