「橫門棲遲」

As Victorian reading prevails in the literary blogosphere, I finally decide to clear out my bookshelves and DVD-R discs to find books (or adapted radio drama) of that time. With 4 papers, and many more writings (and of course, before-exam cramming) need to be finished, I'll try my best to add a little Victorian taste to this dreary winter.

Because our English lit course has just put an end to Victorian (with Wilde's "ballad of reading gaol"), I'll begin with two fictions I finished last month (I guess November also account as part of Winter):

1. JANE EYRE, by Charlotte Brontë – It's a pity that I didn't read Brontë sisters during middle school years. I adore gothic things at that time, but now books like Jane Eyre is just a little too creepy (let alone the more rebellious Wuthering Heights).
2. VANITY FAIR, by William Makepeace Thackeray – Published at the same year of Jane Eyre, it is a blend of historical novel and contemporary issues, vast background and specific characterizations. This innovate story questions the traditional moral judgement which reminds me of Wilde's LADY WINDERMERE'S FAN. Its heroin Becky Sharp is also very much like Mrs. Erylnne in that drama. (Or I should say Mrs. Erylnne is like Becky Sharp. But I finished the drama first, so…) Besides, this novel's unconventional comedic ending is also appealing to me.
3. AN IDEAL HUSBAND, WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE, etc by Oscar Wilde – I realise there are many faces of Wilde, the beautiful and poignant one in his fairy tales, the hilarious and cynical one in his drawing-room dramas and short stories, the dark and twisted one in works like Salomé and Reading Gaol… Sometime these faces blend together, for example in Fisherman and His Soul. I really wish to read more of his short stories, literary criticism and perhaps Dorian Gray, although I've already finished a BBC drama of the same novel. But in case I don't have that much time, I should put at least these two comedies (which perhaps less significant than the other finished two – Lady Windermere's Fan and The Importance of Being Earnest.) at hand.
4. OLIVER TWIST, BLEAK HOUSE, GREAT EXPECTATIONS and OUR MUTUTUAL FRIEND, by Charles Dickens – My dislike of Dickens raised in middle school where we learned Tale of Two Cities, unbelievable plot with obscure language (this I refer to the Chinese translation). So I'm not sure how many can I finish among these four – one early work and three late works. Perhaps I should focus on the more critically acclaimed two in between.
5. MIDDLEMARCH, by George Eliot – I've long heard that Dorothea is one of the most fascinating characters in English literature, a good comparison of Austen's Emma. I may also compare Middlemarch's multiplot structure with that of Vanity Fair. But I've received caution from a friend, saying that this novel is a little boring. Well, this time I need to be more persistent.
6. THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY, by Henry James --- I bought this noted version in Shanghai a few days ago. James' first great novel sounds like an excellent starting point to explore the art of fiction of this Anglo-American novelist.
7. My secret life, by…anonymous – Also bought in Shanghai, at SISU bookshop on a reasonable price, with a subtitle of "An Erotic Diary of Victorian London". Yes, it's a little light-hearted semi-fiction which provides a new perspective of Victorian age. I had never heard of this book before, and Google tells me it has been banned for 100 years. Mine is an abridged version, the full one can be seen online which contains over 1 million words. By the way, according to the accompanied introduction, only scholars or mentally tangled people read the full version. :D

So there are all together 12 items (at least), most of which are novels. I'd like a fiction-around leisure to balance our poetry-centered English lit class. Time is ticking…good luck with my winter journey!

I'd like to discuss here two short stories, both written by English authors, dealing with imagined horror happened in drawing-room settings. In Saki's "The Open Window", a man coming to a country retreat in hope of curing his nerve ailment, encounters a girl, whose horror account scares his away. If this be a quasi-horror story, then J. Jefferson Farjeon's is a quasi-crime one. After invented a murder mystery, the main character in "Waiting for the Police" demands his fellow boarding-house acquaintances each provide an alibi. The man supposed to be murdered, of course turn out to be alive in the end, just like the "ghosts" in the former story are in fact safe and sound.

Why the characters in the two stories invent romances as such? I think their similar settings provide an answer. In both story, people are confined in a rather limited space. Nothing much actually happens and most of their plots are conveyed through conversations. (In Saki's, even an apparent narrative material –Mr. Nuttle's being encouraged by his sister to pay visit to each household-- is deliberately disposed as a semi-dialogue.) It seems that people in English drawing-rooms are especially afraid of silence. And "when silence [has] reached its allotted span", one has to "whip up a little interest". So there you go, romances like cancer grow. And besides the "private" settings, there are social settings. In Saki's one sense the distinct politeness of Victorian-Edwardian times from the very beginning:

Framton Nuttel endeavoured to say the correct something which should duly flatter the niece of the moment without unduly discounting the aunt that was to come. Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formal visits on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helping the nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing.

Later, we have Mrs. Sappleton's "[bustling] into the room with a whirl of apologies for being late in making her appearance". I doubt if such social formality is part of the cause of Mr. Nuttel's nerve problem. "Waiting for the Police" may be more relaxed, though there is still elegant inquiry like "would you oblige next" or "if you would be so good".

If the imagined horror forms a sharp contrast with the calmness of a drawing-room, then so does the characters engaged in the two stories—a self-possessed young lady of fifteen who gracefully creates the horror, and a seventy-year old knitting-needle "murderer". Their respective actions in the end are utterly unexpected. However, Saki has only one colourful character, whereas Farjeon has many more, an ensemble cast, so to speak (which reminds me of the film Gosford Park). Each one's feature unfolds in the splendid opening introduction paragraphs, with clever remarks. Indeed, the author's description is the main attraction of this story; that's why the adapted classroom drama (*) was such a poor job – almost all the beauty of language has lost.

But I'm not saying that Farjeon hasn't done a good job in dialogue. In fact, he successfully avoids the most annoying problem of conversion-driven stories: the repeated "said". There are only four "saids", three "answereds", two "respondeds", and the left are likely to be more specific verbs like "pressed", "interrupted", or "ejaculated". "The Open Window" however, have many "saids', but its many other phrasal verbs add great varieties. Irony plays important part in both the two, just like many other English novels and stories. E.g. Framton notice that "total strangers and chance acquaintances are hungry for the least detail of one's ailments and infirmities, their cause and cure." And after he finishes his speech, Mrs. Sappleton answers a casual "no", "in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last moment." One of the hilarious moments in "Waiting for the police" is that after Mr. Calthrop, an ill-tempered man "viciously" provides his alibi, Penbury, the leading male role gently replies, "I should be the last person to refute such an emphatic statement," he said, "but let me suggest that you give the statement to the police with slightly less emphasis." Indeed, this kind of dry humour has long been an English tradition.

And maybe that's what makes these stories delightful, as plays by Oscar Wilde and Noel Coward. Our lives are essentially boring and lack of drama, so we should be grateful to those creative minds that fight against boredom with juicy imagination.

* The two are both textbook stories. An adaptation of Saki's "The Open Window" appears in nju's self-constructed first-year college intensive reading textbook, and J. Jefferson Farjeon's "Waiting for the Police" in Contemporary College English 4 (FLTRP).

As I was sitting in the mid-term exam of intensive reading, an essay captured my eyes. It seems like a newspaper article on Danish people, written by someone outside Denmark, very well organized and humorously rendered. Since I finished the test much ahead of the clock, I had got a chance to reread this article several times, appreciating the rhythm of language, making marginal notes before handed in the paper (Alas, I had to hand the it in). English tests are generally boring, but encountering a beautiful essay in reading can make all the difference. That's why I hate those BIG exams like GRE, where you have so little time for the reading section, and instead have to learn of providing answer while avoiding actual reading. In any case, the first thing when I got home is to google the article...still have no idea of its title, but it seems to be the Text A of 2000 TEM8 reading section. Delightful choice!

What I like most is the article's balance. It opens with the peculiar self-effacing ways of Danes thinking about themselves, but followed are instances showing Denmark's wonderful characteristics. Of course, Danish officials speak highly about their country, but again there're "inharmonious" moments like xenophobic graffiti and drunk teenagers. While the next paragraph deals with the country's orderliness, the author also touches upon Danes' high incidence of suicide. So the process of expressing is always to get one step further, and back off a little. The flow of language is natural and highly objective; and at the same time one can never fail to tell the author's attitude – such a wonderful way to develop a passage.

The article's content is equally impressive. It indeed clarifies some myths of this welfare nation. And as a big planner, lover of interesting lectures, it's easy for me to sympathize with Danes. And I like their linguistic tolerance --"despite all the English that Danish absorbs—there is no Danish Academy to defend against it". Very soothing especially today, when media are overwhelmed with the purification of national language, be it Chinese, French or the recent Russian. And most of all, Denmark is "a land where few have too much and fewer have too little", and everyone is grow up with "a sense of entitlement and security", knowing that "certain things are yours by virtue of citizenship, and you shouldn't feel bad for taking what you're entitled to"...can anything be more appealing to us than these "alien" notions?

It is not a nation of jay-walkers. People stand on the curb and wait for the red light to change, even if it's 2 a.m. and there's not a car in sight. However, Danes don' t think of themselves as a wainting-at-2-a.m.-for-the-green-light people——that's how they see Swedes and Germans. Danes see themselves as jazzy people, improvisers, more free spirited than Swedes, but the truth is (though one should not say it) that Danes are very much like Germans and Swedes.

Interesting, isn't it? For more about how Danes see themselves, here's an excellent article by Klaus Rifbjerg, a noted Danish essayist, who examine from history how Dane become "a creature with a big heart and an equally big inferiority complex". Indeed, time for an insider's view.