Jeremy Piggin

Mayors of Casterbridge
Jeremy Piggin
(1984-1990)

 Jeremy Piggin 
(Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge, pt. 1) 

I asked Dr. Feight.* He said I could keep corresponding with Trudy Monae as long as I didn’t think I was truly getting letters from her. “I don’t,” I told him, how truthfully I’m not sure. But then, I am constitutionally unsure of the truth of anything not made of wood or metal.

Dear Trudy,

Are we done with The Return of the Native? I don’t have anything more to say about it, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t. At any rate, I’ve put it aside; and I’ve picked up my copy of The Mayor of Casterbridge. I guess I should have told you. But I’m not very far along, maybe 70 pages in. So far, Henchard’s massive ego and energy dominate the book: all the action is a result of him. In a sense, only he acts and everyone else reacts. No doubt he’ll be brought to heel—but by fate? Or by his own actions? I’m guessing the former.

     We are the bosses of our own stories, until, as we tell them, we realize we are more acted upon than acting. We are treading water under a burning sun; the salt stings our skin where fish have been nibbling; a man in a boat waves back when we call for help—he can’t hear us over his motor made in Toledo. Etc. We are more acted upon than acting, and our little act is mostly ignored. We think we are going to steal the scene; we do not.

So, Ted

 

Dear Ted,

Okay. (re Mayor of Casterbridge) But at some point, we’ll read Tess, right? That would have been my choice for next though I don’t know why, I don’t remember any of these very well, I find. I do remember the book begins with Henchard selling his wife. He may be the actor, but drink is acting on him.
     I was never much of a drinker though occasionally I tried to be, I would have liked to be—to let drink fuel passion then carry me away, an excuse for being uninhibited. Write me about “inhibitions.” The word must come from the Latin. You know Latin, you were going to be a Classics major. Find some examples in the classics then and in the church fathers and . . . Explain how we come about our inhibitions and why we want to set some of them aside, why we don’t like even the ones we cherish. Write me a book.

You have two days, Trudy

11.04.20

_______________
 * Here’s who he is. The Hardy stuff, in correspondence with Trudy Monae, begins here.
** “Just their saying it didn’t make it happen.” – Lucilius

“Mayors of Casterbridge” is a series of phone drawings by m ball.

Politics Sunday

  Politics Sunday 

 The phone rings — early. Interrupting the West Brom – Tottenham match. It’s Bart.*
     “You want to talk to your mother,” I say, eager to get back to the match so I can hear over and over — and again – what a great player Harry Kane is, the Jesus Christ of English football.
     “Eventually,” Bart says. “Did you watch the speeches last night?”
     “Whose?” I know whose, but I ask anyway as if I wanted to prolong the conversation, not get back to the match. I regret it instantly.
     “Kamala’s and Biden’s,” Bart says.
     “No.”
     “Did Mom? Why not?”
     “She may have. I didn’t want to. I find political rhetoric . . . ” I pause because the first word that comes to mind is “ass-clenching,” as in it grabs my sphincter and sucks it two-and-a-half inches up my colon. “. . . ass clenching,” I say because I can’t think of a better word. “Let me get your mom.”
     “Oh,” Bart says. “Okay.”

Jackass Jones decides not to
concede Donald Trump his putt.**

Thank God, he doesn’t ask me to elaborate, but I could have. Political rhetoric hurts my ears though its predictability may be worse than its clang. (This is why Trump was such an initial success: he did clang, but he was not predictable. [Yet.])
     “But you listen to the same songs over and over,” my better angel interjects.
     “Maybe, but songs that sing not songs that carp and whine.” (Caw, howl, bark, bray; squeal, squeak, hiss, hawk and spit).
     “Bossa nova not George Crumb.”
     “Actually, I quite like George Crumb. He’s not spewing clichés like ‘Now every girl can believe she can be vice-president,’ or ‘I’ll be the president of all the people; I’ll unite not divide.’ Tell me she didn’t say that, tell me he didn’t say that, and I’ll be disappointed I didn’t listen.”
     “Well,” my better angel said, paused a moment, then stopped altogether.

10.08.20

_______________
* Dominga’s significant other, Alfredo’s step-whatever. See here.
** He’s informed on the next tee he won’t be playing with the ex-President again.

Tea and sympathy.

  Tea and sympathy. 
(Hardy’s The Return of the Native, pt. 3)

 “What are you doing?” Uncle Albert said.
     “Writing,” I said.
     “I see that. What are you writing?” Uncle Albert said.
     “A letter,” I said.
     “To your dead sister again?”*
     “No,” I said, “to a friend of hers.”*
     “Live or dead?” Uncle Albert asked. I shrugged. “Does Feight* know this?” he said.

“wicker chair” by m ball*

I continue to meet with Dr. Feight, only instead of my going to his office, we talk on the phone.
     “Sort of,” I say to myself. Sort of he knows about it. But to Uncle Albert I say: “You know we’ve talked about this.”
     “Right. When was the last time?”
     “What?” I am being willfully obtuse.
     “You talked about it?”
     “I don’t know,” I say. And I ask him how his tea is. He’s giving up drinking coffee. “It doesn’t taste good anymore,” he says.
     “It’s okay,” he says about the tea, looking into his cup. “Remind me what this is.”
     “Durazno,” I say. “You had it yesterday. You said you liked it then.”
     “Yes,” Uncle Albert said.

Dear Trudy,

I am trusting you have your own copy of The Return of the Native, you have not been reading mine over my shoulder. That would feel too invasive. But your last letter does read as if it had been cribbed from my underlines and marginal notes. So, how can I disagree with what you’re saying?

     If I have a difference with you, it would be this: You seem to have little, if any, sympathy for the characters, and I ache for Eustacia and, if somewhat less, for Thomasin. I find Wildeve weak but believable (maybe too believable: who doesn’t want what he wants – and then some?). Venn, I grant you, is a prig. But I see Clym as the unfortunate result of his mother’s secular Calvinism and his own ideals. (Yes, I know, “secular Calvinism” and “ideals” – a double mouthful and a mushy one at that.) And if his dithering does cause much unhappiness, he will ultimately find his way at the end, modest and forgiving, whether this was Hardy’s intention or The Belgrave’s. I do agree that Mrs. Yeobright is a witch, but it may not be her fault. She is, after all, a clergyman’s daughter exiled in a pagan land: If she can’t hold onto the substance of the faith of her father, she must hold onto the form, and maybe the form is all he bequeathed her.

     Granted, the minor characters are “clowns”; yet we can also sympathize with their fears (Susan Nunsuch and Christian Cantle), their forgetfulness (Humphry), their senilescent bravado (Grandfer Cantle), and their yearning hearts (Charlie). At least, I find myself sympathizing.

     In answer to your question, I’m not sure I know why anybody doesn’t like anybody else. Why doesn’t Mrs. Yeobright like Eustacia? Or, is it Eustacia Mrs. Yeobright dislikes or anyone that dreams? Is it Clym’s marrying Eustacia that she can’t stand or is it what Clym has decided he wants to do? He has become a dreamer, too, if he wasn’t always one. He will always be sleeping or escaping into the back rooms of his own house. And when he comes to preaching, it won’t be any real “Gospel” but only a muddle of middle-class common sense drawn from whatever “Scripture” suits him. Though I suppose all preachers end up doing that, both dreaming and compromising. I's my experience anyway.

So, Ted

      “Yes,” Uncle Albert said again, looking into the cup. “I did like it.” He’s talking about the tea again. “Then.”

11.04.20

_______________
* My dead sister is Moira. See here. Links to the Dr. Feight story are here. The correspondence with Trudy Monaeabout matters Thomas Hardy begins here. mel ball drew the chair with SimpleDraw on an android phone. 

 Joe Biden: Do not - I repeat, do not! - be channeling Al Gore. - Uncle Albert  

Hardy on.

  Hardy on. 
(Hardy’s The Return of the Native, pt. 2)

Though disrecommended by the Chlidonia College English Department,* the correspondence continues.

                                                                                    One day

Dear Ted,

As I press on with The Return of the Native, I begin to wonder who the “villain of the piece” may be. It can’t be Eustacia Vye, she is too transparent: she doesn’t hide what she wants, she doesn’t hide her faults – especially her “luxurious,” longing nature and her inconstancy: what will happen if she falls out of love with Clym? – she’s fallen into and out of love before. I know Wildeve is lurking in the background. I’m to Book III, the beginning of Chapter 6, and I can see his name in that chapter; he is about to step back into the action. And he is a selfish and secretive man. But about him, I shall have to see. Right now, it is Mrs. Yeobright whose haughty inflexibility, whose overreaching conventionality, is driving the plot by her trying to inhibit Clym as she inhibited Thomasin. I didn’t say that very well, but you understand what I’m getting at, right? She represents an understanding of respectability that focuses on doing well (getting ahead financially) and cares nothing about either doing good or loving. She doesn’t seem to understand love at all. At all! (So, why did she marry beneath her? Not for love, it seems, but only so that she could regret it the rest of her life, could chafe against her loss of status and try to regain it through her son and her niece.)
     What do you think? And tell me why your sister doesn’t like me. It has to do with your mother, right?

Please! Trudy

                                                                                   the next

Dear Ted,

How are you getting on with The Return of the Native? I am trying to be patient with “The Aftercourses,” that serialization forced on Hardy because the story couldn’t end with all the central characters either dead or in mourning. Wildeve and Eustacia cannot be raised from the dead, granted; but, for God’s sake, let Thomasin marry Diggory Venn and give poor Clym some measure of comfort.
     Poor Thomasin – maybe she does deserve a measure of happiness. But Clym, still under the influence of – unwilling to shake off the influence of – his mule-headed mother and give her (Thomasin) his blessing, how can he become the gentle Jesus of the heath? That’s the implication, isn’t it? (He is in his thirty-third year, Hardy is at pains to tell us!) But Jesus preached forgiveness of sin, did he not? And love of the least? And Mrs. Yeobright personifies forgiveness of none and dismissal of anyone even vaguely lesser. Finally (back to Clym), what do we say of the man that visits her (his mother’s) grave by day and Eustacia’s only by night? Well, maybe that he has the sort of common-sense wisdom – or careful cravenness – that residents of the heath will appreciate. I don’t think we cay he is a brave man. (I would say he is the live dog to her – Eustacia’s – dead lioness.)
     I remember learning that Hardy had classical and Renaissance tragedy in mind as he plotted the novel. Is that right, do you know? My impression, though, is sadly of a Restoration comedy – chance meetings or appointments missed, the “hero” falling asleep precisely when he needs to be alert, the “villain” hiding behind a door then escorted out the back, the poor “heroine” missing her cue, letters miscarrying, characters stumbling into each other in the dark, etc., etc. Coincidence after unbelievable coincidence – only Hardy, being Hardy, the consequences aren’t funny but dire: nothing can be played for laughs.
     My final complaint: who among the characters, besides that witch Mrs. Yeobright, has any blood in him or her? We’re led to believe that Eustacia does, but marriage seems to leech it out of her. Mrs. Y’s “blood” for that matter is of a viscous gentility that cannot love, only judge (nose in the air!). I'm repeating myself, sorry!
     So again, because you don’t answer my letters, I am growing impatient with you, too. And my question – I’ll ask it again even if it is the reason why: What’s with your sister? Why didn’t your mother like me?

Please! Trudy

11.02.20

_______________
* (Go Marsh Terns!) The department’s statement: Our knowledge of the individuals involved, based on their transcripts and other records, suggests that any exchange between them will be long on opinion and short on understanding, long on emotion and short on sophistication.

Two letters

  Two letters 
(Hardy’s The Return of the Native, pt. 1) 

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

 Dear you,

Do you remember Trudy – Monae, is that right? – that you fell in love with freshman year in college, then you came home in the summer and did yard work for Mr. Dent and took Philosophy 101 at Tech, and she went to Mali I don’t remember why – her parents were missionaries? – and you wrote back and forth like mad all summer: you were reading Thomas Hardy novels (God knows why: I think she did because she wanted to believe that coincidence drove history, and you did because she was; and somehow things fell apart, and she transferred I-don’t-know-where, and you were heartbroken.
     She was in a car crash – did you know that? I don’t know when (You know I never know when.), but I didn’t see her until now. Anyway, she’s here, and I ran into her, and I let slip that you were reading Hardy again, The Return of the Native, and she said she was going to write you. If she did and it got there – or if she does and it gets there – it wasn’t/isn’t because I gave her your address – I want you to know that. I don’t think Mom liked her when she visited spring break on her way to an aunt-or-something’s in D.C., and I don’t think I do either though I don’t know why: Maybe because she didn’t seem to be as nice to you as you were to her.

Love, Moira**

Dear Ted,

I ran into your little sister the other day, and she gave me your address. She also said you were reading The Return of the Native. We read it that summer, right? when I was in Mali and you were home and we were still in love before unaccountably you were not. (What happened there?) I know we read Mayor of Casterbridge and Tess and Far from the Madding Crowd. I don’t think we read Jude, but I vaguely remember Return. (It’s the one with Eustacia Vye, right?) And, as I said, I heard from your sister you were reading it again.
    I have found a copy and thought I’d join you if you don’t mind. Actually, I will read it whether you mind or not. But by “joining you” I meant we could write back and forth about it as we did 40 some years ago; and maybe we could think about then and now.
     What do you think? Here’s a “start” in any case, though I am about halfway through. ~~~ Clym Yeobright has returned to the heath, having decided even before he did that he will stay; he is going to set up as a schoolmaster. Frankly, it doesn’t look like it’s going to be a good decision, even if it’s a well-considered one. He’s thought about it. He thinks it’s right, but is it really? What Hardy captures about “us” is our self-indulgence. However we think about ourselves, however idealistic we think we are being, we are all Eustacia, selfish romantics who want what we think we should have whether it is good for us or not – whether it is good for anyone else or not. If things “at home” don’t go as we think they should, we wander (Diggory Venn, Clym). If the wandering doesn’t give us what we’d hoped – even if we’re not sure quite what that was we were hoping for – we come home. Also, like Eustacia, we are never quite sure what we do want; or, we want it all – don’t ask us to separate the wheat and the chaff.
     You and I both ended up back in Virginia. We came to McLean in 1973, left in 1975 – I went away to college  – and my parents went back to Africa. Both of us went away to college – but who thought Minnesota was a good idea? God, it was cold. So to W&M for me. Anyway, eventually you ended up in the Valley and so did I though we didn’t know it either of us. We went away for some reason that seemed good at the time and we came back for reasons that seemed good at the time. But, what were they?
     I have my ideas, but you tell me yours. Also tell me if I am right about the book, or if I am close anyway. I recognize that the characters are different from one another. Wildeve is venal; Thomasin feels hemmed in (and guilty about it); Clym is bright; and Eustacia is dark. (Diggory is . . . red!) But don’t they all yearn for what they yearn for? And will any of them – or any of us – be satisfied with what he or she gets?
     So we invent “heaven,” where everything falls into place. We are happy, content, etc. because there is nothing to strive for. Like I won’t visit my mailbox twice a day looking for your reply to this letter.

Please! Trudy

10.30.20

_______________

 * LitCrit General’s Warning – By which the General means: Don't expect to learn anything about Hardy that you didn't already know. The opinions expressed here are those of the uninformed opinionators.

 ** For more on Moira, her letters, and where they come from, click here.