A Word Child 3

 continued from here

 A Word Child 
(Iris Murdoch’s novel, pt. 3) 

LitCrit General’s Warning continues: This still isn’t going anywhere, but it will  get there.”*

Dear Ted,
     Finally – if you’re not going to write back – finally, here’s where we end up: Two women are dead. Two violent men, who participated in their deaths, caused their deaths, remain alive. One is prospering. Or, he’s gone into politics. We’re led to believe both if that be possible. Gunnar! The other is better off than he has been for some time – Hilary.
     One woman is save after a fashion, Crystal, if she can be kept far enough away from one of the violent men, her brother. But another woman is choosing to marry that brother. We can only hope – and truly hope against hope – that she fails in her quest.
     Because Gunnar does survive, and he may well marry a third time – there’s no reason to believe he’s learned anything in the course of the story – and the unholy cycle can begin again. That’s my final, final thought: What then will happen to poor Thomasina?
     Here’s the thing about romance novels. Everyone is always having an epiphany, but nobody learns a damn thing – ever! Is that why forgiveness is impossible in this world? A forgives B because A and B both think B will change – and A’s heart will change as well. But neither will alter one bit. Nobody changes, everyone remains the same, only they are all that much older. “Older and wiser?” are you asking. Say I concede, “Yes, older and wiser.” But even wiser, A is doing the same things all over again, B is doing the same things all over again. We are doing the same things all over again.
    Do write sometime.
                                     Truly, Trudy
P.S. Did Murdoch really write a novel called The Sacred and Profane Love Machine? What could that be about? Note machine! Machine’s don’t grow, they only eventually run down.

Dear Trudy,
     Yes, Murdoch really did write a novel with that odd and, yes, awful title, yet still one I remember liking very much. I don’t remember much more about it. I made no marks in “my” copy, perhaps because it has never belonged to me. It has someone else’s name at the top of the first page, someone I used to know but don’t anymore. The book is also a Warner Books paperback with practically no margins. I don’t write small enough to comment in it. But I haven’t underlined anything either.
     I don’t know what I have to add to your comments on A Word Child. I didn’t find it as engaging as The Bell or The Nice and the Good, nor as interesting psychologically as The Black Prince. Then, I don’t find Hilary Burde as sympathetic a character as Bradley Pearson though they are equally unreliable narrators, one as unable to distinguish imagination from reality – his imagination – as the other.** Both, it occurs to me, lie like our former president does, as unsavory a comparison as that might be: that is, they take their      lies, as soon as they are uttered, to be true, whatever evidence anyone else has to offer to the contrary. Though how are we much different, most of us, always ready to believe our own version of events before any other. Others’ opinions are dismissed. (They are only opinions vs. the true version of events.) This may speak to forgiveness as well. We can’t be forgiven what we refuse to admit.
     But both Bradley and Hilary are violent as well, psychologically and physically as far as they are able. At the time of their stories, Hilary, the younger by 17 years, is far more able. How often does he grab hold, say something like, “I knew I was hurting her,  but . . . .”?
     I  like your characterization of the novel as Gothic. How much the dark winter weather, and that so much of the action takes place in half-light or near dark – adds to that. The intensity of Hilary’s emotional pain, however much of that he whips up himself, has a lot to do with it as well. Odd that Murdoch doesn’t somehow bring in Heathcliff or Rochester or . . . who else? Hilary wouldn’t bring up Byron, not just because Byron is a poet; Hilary lacks Byron’s sense of humor.
     Well, I am saying nothing new or interesting, am I? So I’ll close. Let me know if you have anything to add?
                                           Telly, Ted

02.27.21 

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* LitCrit General’s Warning – By which the General means: Don’t expect to learn anything about Iris Murdoch or the novel that you didn’t already know. The opinions expressed here are those of the uninformed opinionators. They aren’t going to write in any straightforward fashion either. Add that there’s no good online plot summary that I have found. But, you could read the book!
** Golden days (left): Uncle Albert explaining the unreliable narrator to Wayne Booth. Am I using the term correctly, gentlemen?

A Word Child - continued

 continued from here

A Word Child
(Iris Murdoch’s novel, pt. 2) 

LitCrit General's Warning: This isn’t going anywhere - any of it!*

Dear Trudy,
     A few random thoughts. “Don’t you understand human conversation?” Clifford asks Hilary. It’s a clue. Hilary takes it as such– he is always looking for clues. Which does not mean he has understood Clifford, who is saying something like: We war; then we make peace with one another; and we go on from there even if we are still at cross-purposes. The peace is only a treaty; it is not written in stone from Sinai. No one that reads a poem for its grammar – to diagram the sentences – will truly understand that.
     I am reading as a train rattles by only a few blocks away. Then, I stop; in the middle of a sentence, I stop. I stop for the usual reasons: it’s gotten too oppressive – there is too much going on between the words and under the words, in the individual letters. The sun comes out for a moment. (This happens; it isn’t a fiction or a metaphor.) The train continues to rattle by.
     My mind turns to sex. The flesh is weak, but the mind is not all that strong either, and the spirit is on a break. The same stuff that interferes with the words clutters the mind. And it stops. The brain goes out of earshot, the sun weakens but remains, the cat comes in mewing, the mind stops.
                                                                                                                 Bullshit, ay? Ted

__________

 

Dear Ted,
     Not entirely (bullshit). The book does swarm at you, doesn’t it? The words come at you faster than you can comprehend them – or I can anyway. Is all Murdoch like this? I imagine it is, but here! – Such grand intellect, and insight, in the service of gothic, almost tawdry romanticism! At least that’s how I see the book, a psychological Gothic-romance.
     The words come at you like winged ticks – they look so full of blood you can’t believe they’ll take a bite out of you, but you can’t be sure, they’re still threatening. And the narrative rushes forward and rushes forward as if saying, “Don’t pay too much attention to what I’m doing just here, but keep up, damnit, keep up!” As if you can keep up with everything that’s happening off the narrow stage of Hilary’s imagination. Perfervid but (very) restricted imagination, I’ll add. Do you trust him at all? I don’t think I do. On the other hand, he can’t be making it all up. But how much is he just . . . missing?
     I realize I’m not talking about the story itself, just the “narrative,” the point of view and my attitude toward it. I’m talking about what I’m thinking or feeling. But story is so confusing to me: I’m not sure I could tell it if I tried. I might be able to recount Hilary’s version of it if I went back to the beginning and made an outline, but if I don’t trust him . . . ? Why would I do that?
     And I don’t trust him. I can’t trust him. Actually, I don’t/can’t trust any of the characters because their motives are only as he assigns them. I am convinced he has no insight into Crystal with whom he claims to be of one mind and heart. So how could he have any into anyone else? How much less does he understand anyone else? It must be “less than zero.” (Did you ever read that awful, oddly wonderful book?)
     So! I’m flailing. I say what I say; then I say in effect I can produce no evidence for it. Or maybe I just don’t want to work so hard. Anyway, that’s this letter, not at all satisfactory. Write me back about forgiveness, not at all possible really, is it? – not as I understand it. (I mean in the book.)
                                                                                                                ?, Trudy
P.S. Here’s a for-instance (from the book) of something if I’m not quite sure of what: If we can trust his reporting, Laura genuinely believes Hilary has been in love with her. He insists he has not. Does he protest too much? If that thread of the narrative, involving the Impiatts, were told by her, what would we see that is hidden from us now? . . . Or: If Crystal told the story of brother and sister – if it became the story of sister and brother – what would we learn that Hilary has kept from us, negligently or (very) carefully? Tell me. Soon!

 

02.24.21

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 * LitCrit General’s Warning – By which the General means: Don’t expect to learn anything about Iris Murdoch or the novel that you didn’t already know. The opinions expressed here are those of the uninformed opinionators. They aren’t going to write in any straightforward fashion either. Add that there’s no good online plot summary that I have found. But, you could read the book! We’ll finish this next time, plus Uncle Albert will put an oar in, asking if either of us knows what “unreliable narrator” means and remembering when he spent a weekend with Wayne Booth.

** Sketch of Hilary Burde’s teacher, Mr. Osmand was made by m ball in PAINT JOY by Doodle Joy Studio.

A Word Child

 A Word Child  
(Iris Murdoch’s novel, pt. 1) 

LitCrit General's Warning: This isn’t going anywhere - any of it!*

Dear Ted,
     I’m waiting to hear back from you. I’ve started A Word Child though I’m not very far along. Still, I’m anxious to meet ‘Tommy’ – is it short for Thomasin as in The Return of the Native? What sort of girlfriend (or lady (?) friend) / lover could Hilary Burde possibly have? And what effect will the beautiful Indian girl have on their relationship (Hilary and Tommy’s), whatever it is? As you can tell, I’m reading the novel as Romance, not Philosophy. Also, since I borrow all my books – for here no one owns anything, but, as in Acts, everything is held in common – I cannot write in them as you do in yours, I take it.
                                                                                             Write back darn it! Trudy

 Dear Ted,
     Or don’t write back. (Where are you?)

Mayors of Casterbridge
Simon “Pig” Portcullis
1947-1951*

~~~ ‘Tommy’ is Thomasina. She has beautiful legs. You thought I had nice legs, didn’t you? You said so anyway. Not as long as Thomasina’s but nicely shaped.
     Anyway, Thomasina’s star is fading. Now there is this ‘Biscuit.’ Where will that be going? And there is ‘Kitty’ lurking in the wings. All these women with all these nicknames. What will happen to whom next? It’s quite suspenseful, isn’t it? – despite Hilary’s trying to calm everything down.
     He tries to make every week the same; he needs to keep to his routine. But the other characters seem intent on violating it – Christopher and Arthur-and-Crystal; Witcher and what’s-his-name, Reggie, rearranging the office furniture; and now Gunnar Jopling showing up – how dare he?
     I try to think about ‘routine,’ but I cannot where time expands and contracts. Do you still struggle to establish one over which you can exercise control, like Hilary wants to? Why? Do you think it will make you happy or, at least, happier? Why would it? ‘Creatures of habit.’ It’s such a commonplace, isn’t it? But at best it damns with faint praise; at worse it condemns as little, narrow, stuck. So, why would you – anyone – want to become a creature of habit?
     Then there’s this notion that the most ‘effective’ people make a schedule and then make themselves slaves to their schedule. I see the logic of that. What I don’t see at this moment is why one wants to be effective. What does that mean, ‘effective,’ referring to a person? – influential, successful, rich, powerful? Does it have anything to do with Aristotle’s notion of . . . now I can’t think of the word . . . areté (is that right?)? It means something between ‘excellence’ and ‘virtue,’ does it? (Aristotle’s word.) It has to do with one’s being the best he or she can be, the most truly human in her or his way of being human. It doesn’t mean ‘effective’ though that I can see, or ‘influential’ or ‘successful’ or any of that.
     Maybe you can explain though don’t worry if you cannot. I don’t really care. I’m going on with the book. Are you? I do care about that.
                                                          Please! Trudy

Dear Trudy,
     I have gotten to the point where the ‘Anne story’ has come out, Jopling’s first wife – about how Hilary blackmails her into bed, having decided he must have her, and then deciding he must also keep her, how he effectively kills her so she can’t get away. Hilary can’t love Tommy in that way, the way he loved Anne. If there is to be anyone other than Anne he will love, it isn’t Tommy. It isn’t Biscuit either. At this point, I’m wondering where she’s gone. She has come in her sari, but she has been dismissed, and now she has disappeared we don’t know where.
     And Kitty hasn’t come on stage yet, though it must be she, Kitty, Hilary will love – and fasten on. That’s all I have (reading the book as romance). Where are you now, and what are you thinking about it?
                                                                                                                                           From, Ted

 P.S. Have you ever heard the percussionist Willy Bobo? Have you ever heard him sing? A thin, reedy, unimposing voice. The song becomes accompaniment to the music rather than the other way around. It’s a ‘plea’ – is that the word I want? – to pay attention to the background as much as the foreground.

02.18.21

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* LitCrit General’s Warning – By which the General means: Don’t expect to learn anything about Iris Murdoch or the novel that you didn’t already know. The opinions expressed here are those of the uninformed opinionators. They aren’t going to write in any straightforward fashion either. Add that there’s no good online plot summary of the novel that I can find. But, you could read the book!
     The “Mayors of Casterbridge,” phone and tablet drawings by m ball, are collected here.

Oh, Susannah!

  Oh, Susannah!  

“Do you know the story of Susannah and the elders?” Roz asked me at breakfast.
    Because I had a doctor’s appointment and I had been determined to be an unreliable narrator and because Uncle Albert, who had been judged reliable couldn’t get out on the snow and ice, and there was snow and ice, Roz wasn’t going to work, and we were at the kitchen table, eating sailors’ eggs and drinking coffee and orange juice.
     “Of course you do,” she said. “But did you know it’s the key to the whole Bible?” She stopped. “And it isn’t even in it!” she almost yipped.
     “What are you talking about?” I said. I didn’t add that The Key to the Scriptures wasn’t in the Bible either.

     “Think about it,” she said.

She waited. Then: “It’s excitement that threatens order, always. ‘Don’t get excited’ – that’s the great commandment – because if you do chaos might break through. It’s what happens with Eve, right? God spends an entire six days – or six eons – one entire chapter putting everything in order. How dare she, excited by the possibilities the snake hiss-hints at her, risk all that? ‘Jesus! Calm down, woman.’
     “What Jesus tells his mother at the wedding at Cana: ‘Calm down, woman. Can’t we do things in order?’ And he’s right: The first of the signs leads to the second of the signs and to the third and fourth, and every one causes more trouble than the one before, and soon he’s raising Lazarus on the outskirts of Jerusalem: Real trouble is just next door.
     “‘It was the woman you gave me,’ Adam says. ‘I had to have a mother, there wasn’t another way to do it?’ Jesus asks. It’s not misogyny, I don't think. It’s just acknowledging where the excitement begins – for the learned men writing the story: it begins with women: Susana and the elders!” 

“Where did you get that?” I asked as I began clearing the table to scrape the dishes and put them into the dishwasher.

     “What do you mean?” Roz said.
     “What?” The way she said it, I must have been treading on thin ice, so I said, “What?”
     “You don’t think I could make that up? – I mean by myself?”

     “What time do we need to leave?” I asked.
     “Because I’m a woman?” Gruffly. But then she started laughing. Then, “Bwah-hah-hah,” she said. Then, “We should leave in twenty minutes or so,” Roz said.

 

02.16.21

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  * Illustration by Artemisia Gentileshi. Words and music by Stephen Foster.

Leicester City!

  Leicester City!  

Uncle Albert was up early this morning, knocking at my door: Was I going to watch the Leicester City - Liverpool match?
     “I was thinking I would,” I said.
     “I was thinking I would, too. But I need you to help me down the stairs.”

 

So, I got up, pulled a pair of wool pants over my pajama bottoms and a hooded sweatshirt over my pajama top. I walked Uncle A down the stairs and into his chair. “Yes,” he exasperated to my question. “Yes, I’ve been to the john.” I went into the kitchen and made toast and jam and cups of tea, while he tuned the match in. “What’s it on?” he called. “I don’t know,” I said. But he found it.

 

0-0 at the half.

     “So, you’re reading Iris Murdoch again?” he asked. Out of nowhere.
     “Yes,” I said. “Why is everybody* interested?”
     “I met her once,” he said. “Well, more than once. She was formidable.”
     “I imagine.”
     “Why?” Uncle Albert asked after he’d asked me to mute Rebecca and Robbie and Danny. (“Damn they like to talk,” he said: “Except she likes to yell.” “I rather like her,” I said. “Well, she doesn’t care for you,” he said. Then, I said:)
     “Why what?”

     “Do you keep reading Iris Murdoch?” Uncle Albert said.
     “It’s not that I keep reading her, but I do keep coming back to her,” I said. Uncle Albert didn’t say anything. I said, “Gaspar Stephens asked me the same thing? He was reading The Bell. The only other one he’d read was Henry and Cato. He asked me, too, about the homosexual characters in both. What was she doing, given when she was writing, was she exploring ‘identity and alienation,’ I think were his words, and ‘institutions’? ‘It wouldn’t be like today, would it?’ he asked, ‘where the inclusion of LGBTQers might well only be marking how inclusive the writer was?’” I took a breath. It was an ad. Maybe the game was starting again.
     “Mmm?” Uncle Albert said.
     “I said something like that homosexuality, or homosexual characters, played important roles in almost all the books I remembered. Of the ones I’d read lately, I said, they’d play predominant roles in three of the four. Incest was the titillating investigation in the fourth.”

Uncle Albert and Auntie Iris

There was a pause. “Titillating what?”
     “‘Titillating investigation’ – that was the term I used. Unfair – it might be unfair – I said, but it wasn’t entirely wrong. I said: Murdoch wants to both lure the reader in and (then) push the envelope she's lured him into. She is intensely interested in how love works and how it doesn't work, how it can save us and how it can curse us, and how in the meanwhile it is pulling us this way and that way and this way again. The more varieties of love she can put on offer – or investigate – the more she can think about love for us and with us. I said.
     “‘And that’s why I kept reading her’ is what I told Gaspar Stephens.”

“I met her once,” Uncle Albert said.
     “Yes,” I said.
     “Well, more than once,” he said. He motioned at the TV. The second half had begun.

02.13.21

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  * Dramatis personae: GasparStephens, Uncle Albert. “Everybody.”

Ouranic Dissonance

​ Ouranic dissonance.  

When it rains, it sometimes rains letters from heaven.

Dear Ted,
     I think your friend Trudy knows I don’t really like her. [See here.] She pretends though that I must. And I suppose the Culture supports her, for it holds that not only is all well and everything well, all is love and all manner of things is love. So, there is no more room for dislike than for mourning or tears.
     She tells me you are reading Iris Murdoch novels. Is that right? I introduced you to Murdoch, didn’t I? – when I was reading The Bell for reasons I can’t now remember. How old was I – 17 or 18? But I do remember that I passed that book along to you. It was a used Penguin paperback. How does she know that, Trudy – that you are reading Murdoch?
     Otherwise, all is the same because it is always the same, no tears or mourning, no deviation or deceit. Theoretically.
                                                    Love, Moira          

Dear Ted,

     Your sister tells me that you are reading Iris Murdoch – what fun! Also that you have just started A Word Child – I don’t think I’ve read that one. So, again, fun! I could join you. I think I will. Write to tell me what you are thinking about it.
                                               Yes?! Trudy

02.12.21