5. The Marriage Plot

By Jeffrey Eugenides

At some point after Deep Water, I stopped posting about stuff I read.  Although I still kept track of finished books, as a busy working parent, something had to go so I stopped writing about what I had read.  I must admit that before my pregnancy I did a fair amount of blogging at work.  So when my maternity leave ended and I returned to work, there was some adjustment to my new daily schedule, and well, I lost my momentum to write reviews.

It's 2020 now (more specifically, the 5th of May).  Still in Montreal, still living in the same neighbourhood, still working at the same company.  But now the COVID-19 pandemic has taken over the globe and my family is in our eighth week of home isolation and social distancing.  Finally I can devote more time to reading.  For at least a year now, I've been meaning to retroactively add all the books I've been reading since 2013.

These new entries won't be as thoughtfully written as before since I won't have much of the source material to quote fave passages, and my memory of details has faded significantly.  My main goal will be to simply track my reading.  Just yesterday Olman was looking for something to read, and I offered a Dawn Powell ('A Time to Be Born'), which he quite enjoyed.  He asked which one I had read, and I consulted Meezlyblog.  It was so satisfying to find my entry for 'Turn, Magic Wheel', which in turn helped me to remember the book, and whether I've read it!

The Marriage Plot was the last book in which I took the time to note down passages I liked.  I remember having really enjoyed this novel, which was an unabashed contemporary update of a Jane Austenesque situation amidst a collegiate setting in east coast America.  Kind of like if Whit Stillman were to write a novel, this would be it.

To summarize, the novel centres on Madeleine Hanna, who is writing her senior thesis on Jane Austen and George Eliot, purveyors of the marriage plot, and her involvement with two different young men.

Even though Madeleine vacillates between Leonard Bankhead and Mitchell Grammaticus (those names), and is someone who is longing to be loved, her one true love is books, specifically classic English fiction. The plot itself is rather typical and the characters are the typically annoyingly over-educated privileged white American twenty-somethings.  My overall enjoyment of The Marriage Plot was the writing and how much it devotes itself to the love of English and American literature.

There are plenty of charming nuggets in the novel about Madeleine loving old musty books.

…Even now, at bed-and-breakfasts or seaside hotels, a shelf full of forlorn books always cried out to Madeleine. She ran her fingers over their salt-spotted covers. She peeled apart pages made tacky by ocean air. She had no sympathy for paperback thrillers and detective stories. It was the abandoned hardback, the jacketless 1931 Dial Press edition ringed with many a coffee cup, that pierced Madeleine’s heart…

   And yet sometimes she worried about what those musty old books were doing to her. Some people majored in English to prepare for law school. Others became journalists. The smartest guy in the honors program, Adam Vogel, a child of academics, was planning on getting a Ph.D. and becoming an academic himself. That left a large contingent of people majoring in English by default. Because they weren’t left-brained enough for science, because history was too dry, philosophy too difficult, geology too petroleum-oriented, and math too mathematical—because they weren’t musical, artistic, financially motivated, or really all that smart, these people were pursuing university degrees doing something no different from what they’d done in first grade: reading stories. English was what people who didn’t know what to major in majored in.

And this.

Reading a novel after reading semiotic theory was like jogging empty-handed after jogging with hand weights.  After getting out of Semiotics 211, Madeleine fled to the Rockefeller Library, down to B Level, where the stacks exuded a vivifying smell of mold, and grabbed something—anything.  The House of Mirth, Daniel Deronda—to restore herself to sanity. How wonderful it was when one sentence followed logically from the sentence before! What exquisite guilt she felt, wickedly enjoying narrative!  Madeleine felt safe with a nineteenth-century novel.  There were going to be people in it. Something was going to happen to them in a place resembling the world.

And this.

The thing about the Victorians, Madeleine was learning, was that they were a lot less Victorian than you thought. Frances Power Cobbe had lived openly with another woman, referring to her as her “wife”.   In 1868, Cobbe had published an article in Fraser’s Magazine entitled “Criminals, Idiots, Women and Minors. Is this Classification Sound?” Women were restricted from owning and inheriting property in early Victorian Britain.  They were restricted from participating in politics.  And it was under these conditions, while they were classified literally among idiots, that Madeleine’s favorite women writers had written their books.  

And this humourous exchange. 

  “Are you actually reading that?”

Mitchell looked up to find Claire staring at him from the bed.

  “Hemingway?” she said dubiously.

  “I thought it would be good for Paris.”

   She rolled her eyes and went back to her book. And Mitchell went back to his. Or tried. Except that now all he could do was stare at the page.

   He was perfectly aware that certain once-canonical writers (always male, always white) had fallen into disrepute. Hemingway was a misogynist, a homophobe, a repressed homosexual, a murderer of wild animals. Mitchell thought this was an instance of tarring with too wide a brush. If he was to argue this with Claire, however, he ran the risk of being labeled a misogynist himself. More worryingly, Mitchell had to ask himself if he wasn’t being just as knee-jerk in resisting the charge of misogyny as college feminists were in leveling it, and if his resistance didn’t mean that he was, somewhere deep down, prone to misogyny himself. Why, after all, had he bought A Moveable Feast in the first place? Why, knowing what he did about Claire, had he decided to whip it out of his backpack at this particular moment? Why, in fact, had the phrase whip it out just occurred to him? 

--
So many more delightful passages that would be too much to include here.  So very glad I found this hardcover at my neighbourhood thrift shop.

4. Emma

By Jane Austen

Another ongoing reading project of mine is to work my way through Jane Austen's oeuvre. So far, Emma is only my third, having already read Pride and Prejudice (twice) and Sense and Sensibility. I had meant to read in order of publication, since I had a copy of Mansfield Park, but mistakenly picked up Emma instead. No matter. Now that I've finally read Emma, I can now say that Amy Heckerling's 1995 film, Clueless, did a great job updating the 1815 novel!

Emma, the youngest daughter of the hypochondriacal Mr Woodhouse, is a bright, attractive twenty-year-old woman burdened with a bit of idleness and boredom, being somewhat isolated in the country estate of Hartfield. She decides to befriend a younger woman of lesser status named Harriet Smith and takes it upon herself to play matchmaker for her new pet friend. When a farmer of solid character proposes to Harriet, Emma intervenes, with the heartfelt belief that Harriet, though illegitimate, is still a "gentleman's daughter" and therefore, "superior to Mr Robert Martin."

... It was a bad business. She would have given a great deal, or endured a great deal, to have had the Martins in a higher rank of life. They were so deserving, that a little higher should have been enough: but as it was, how could she have done otherwise? - Impossible! - She could not repent. They must be separated...

Emma's meddling in Harriet's affairs naturally results in unexpected consequences later on in the narrative. It is also obvious that Emma is a terribly flawed character; her well-meaning efforts to improve a friend's lot in life being rife with hubris. Worse, she refuses to listen to the sagacious advice of her dear friend and neighbor, Mr Knightley. Despite all these flaws, Emma Woodhouse is probably one of the more charismatic Austen heroines I've read so far. Emma may be overbearingly conceited and unwise, but she is also admirable for her independence, self-containment and unconventionality, which is evident in her conversation with Harriet:

   '... If I were to marry, I must expect to repent it.'
   'Dear me! - it is so odd to hear a woman talk so!' -
   'I have none of the usual inducements of women to marry. Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing! But I never have been in love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall. And, without love, I am sure I should be a fool to chance such a situation as mine. Fortune I do not want; employment I do not want; consequence I do not want: I believe few married women are half as much mistress of the husband's house, as I am of Hartfield; and never, never could I expect to be so truly beloved and important; so always first and always right in any man's eye's as I am in my father's.'
   'But then, to be an old maid at least, like Miss Bates!'
   ...'If I know myself, Harriet, mine is an active, busy mind, with a great many independent resources; and I do not perceive why I should be more in want of employment at forty or fifty than one-and-twenty...'

There are many character foils in relation to the titular character, which is part of what makes the novel so enjoyable. Emma seems fairly confident that she won't end up a silly old maid as Miss Bates, and she is more surely financially secure than Jane Fairfax, who is her equal in age, yet faced with a less certain future. Nevertheless, for various reasons that she confesses to Frank Churchill, Emma has always consciously avoided being friends with Jane Fairfax.

'I have known her from a child, undoubtedly, we have been children and women together; and it is natural to suppose that we should be intimate, - that we should have taken to each other whenever she visited her friends. But we never did. I hardly know how it has happened; a little, perhaps, from that wickedness on my side which was prone to take disgust towards a girl so idolized and so cried up as she always was, by her aunt and grandmother, and all their set. And then, her reserve - I never could attach myself to anyone so completely reserved.'

But it's not until she meets the vicar's new wife where Emma meets her true nemesis. It is not because Mrs Elton is the daughter of a wealthy trader (and therefore not gentry) that repulses Emma, but her utter lack of refinement and character, which induces Emma to rant:

'Insufferable woman!' was her immediate exclamation. 'Worse than I had supposed. Absolutely insufferable! Knightley! - never seen him in her life before, and call him Knightley! - and discover that he is a gentleman! A little upstart, vulgar being, with her Mr E., and her caro sposo, and her resources, and all her airs of pert pretension and under-bred finery...

Since Mrs Elton is also a social butterfly, her ubiquitous presense in the village of Highbury sets the stage for a few awkward situations which tests Emma's sense of social obligation, and force her "to be always doing more than she wished, and less than she ought! ". A good example is when Mr Weston invited Mrs Elton to join their touring party that Emma herself very much wanted to go:

Now, as her objection was nothing but her very great dislike of Mrs Elton, of which Mr Weston must already be perfectly aware, it was not worth bringing forward again: - it could not be done without a reproof of him, which would be giving pain to his wife; and she found herself therefore obliged to consent to an arrangement which she would have done a great deal to avoid; an arrangement which she would probably expose her even to the degradation of being said to be of Mrs Elton's party!

Naurally, one has found themselves in similar predicaments as our dear Emma! Fortunately (or unfortunately), the novel has a conventionally happy ending where eventually Emma learns the error of her ways and even winds up marrying a man of high character who is suitable to her status and temperament. Ah, but what else can I say that has not been said before about Emma? The novel was immensely enjoyable, but it also lacked a narrative arc that P&P and S&S had. Not only was it denser, but it also felt longer, because it got rather bogged down in the middle. Despite its flaws, Emma was still a book that I'm so glad to finally read. And I'm beginning to understand how Austen's books can inspire such a devoted, near universal following. The charming romances and comedy of manners are definitely a factor in a kind of surface appeal. But when it comes down to it, Austen was, at heart, a keen observer of every day human foibles.

Last year, the Indo-British author V.S. Naipaul caused a minor stir when he proclaimed that there was no woman in the history of literature who was his equal - not even Jane Austen. Perhaps his chauvinistic ego had ample time to inflate since 2001 when he won the Nobel prize, but he also failed to recognize (had he bothered to read any of her books) that Austen had no equal in characterizing pompous asses like himself.

Although Naipaul's declaration was nothing short of embarrassing, it did inspire a wealth of spirited responses from the literary world. One excellent article I found was this book review:
"Like it or not, the reality on the ground is that Jane Austen benefits and suffers from being associated with women, and her status as a major writer has been complicated by gender issues since her earliest readers".

Bilger's insightful review also allowed me to discover William Deresiewicz, a former Yale professor who, twenty years ago, might have wholeheartedly shared Naipaul's attitude... until he started reading Jane Austen and came to the realization that she was - surprise! - a great writer. Looking back on the writers "whose heroes he had wanted to emulate", he found them "wanting by comparison". According to Deresiewicz, "[S]he didn't need to play the same game as the big boys. Her small, feminine game was every bit as good." He then became inspired to write a book about his experiences, A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me about Love, Friendship, and the Things that Really Matter.

Great. Another book to put on my ever growing list of books to read. But not before I finish Austen's entire oeuvre!

Literary fiction versus genre fiction

The Globe and Mail books section recently featured an article about how reading fiction is good for you.

I appreciate Keith Oatley's study that reading fiction is indeed good for the mind and soul by fostering empathy for others and expanding worldviews.  However, it's towards the end of the article that Oakley makes the specific case that only literary fiction (not any other fiction) can have the capacity to change you:

For his part, Oatley is convinced that the better the writer, the more powerful the simulation, and he makes a distinction between literary fiction and genre fiction.

“You can have a good read, but it is sort of like going on a roller coaster. The engineers have constructed it so you have a particular set of experiences. You get off, your heart is beating a bit, but you are still the same person,” he says of reading a thriller or detective story. On the other hand, “Chekhov was a great artist: The effect is different – the extent to which [the reader] can really inhabit another mind.”

The roller coaster may be fun, but the flight simulator … now that's art.

Does this mean then, that reading genre fiction would not have any of the same benefits – at all?  Does reading lowly genre fiction serve to merely excite the mind, rather than enlighten it?  Oatley says that in order to truly inhabit the mind of someone else, the story should contain three of six elements (the article doesn't list them; I guess you have to buy a book or something).  But what if a story contains the required elements but the characters you are inhabiting the mind of happen to fly spaceships, slay dragons, or investigate murders?

I’m sure if I were to only read Dan Brown or Danielle Steele, I would probably suffer some mental deficiency over time and perhaps become even more self-absorbed than usual.  But I can’t get over Oatley's (and the Globe & Mail's) condescending attitude towards genre fiction -- that is, fiction that is not in the lofty form of literature.  This kind of smug attitude seems all too common among those who read literary fiction primarily to be enlightened, and if they were to read any other fiction, it would be for simple edification, escapism or entertainment.  

For one thing, Oatley sings the praises of how Pride and Prejudice is "a wonderful example of the simulator effect", conveniently overlooking the fact that this classic novel is also a romance at heart. An extremely well-written romance, to be sure, but P&P nevertheless uses the same tropes found in any Harlequin paperback. Even Austen herself admitted that P&P was like a sparkling flight of fancy which stood apart from her other works.  Oatley is right in that the power of simulation depends on the talent and skills of the writer, yet he argues that thrillers and detective novels don’t count. So I guess Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie and Patricia Highsmith just don’t cut it when it comes to rewarding simulation then.

I just recently read my first Alice Munro book, a classic coming of age novel that was banned from schools because of its sexual content. Alice Munro is considered a sacred cow of CanLit, a master of storytelling.  Legions of fans revere her for the powerful realness and understatedness of her writing. But personally I found her book to be a snooze-fest.  It failed to have any of that simulator effect on me, and other than a few exceptional passages, the novel failed as a whole to stimulate my mind in any real way, suffering from too much description, a lack of plot and a meandering structure (which happen to be -surprise- the clichés of literary fiction).

At first I felt a little guilty. I consider myself a fairly well-read person who has read all kinds of books (modern and classic literature, romance, fantasy, sci-fi, thrillers, horror, non-fiction, etc), surely I’m missing something important by being bored with a Munro book (and a classic one at that)? But no, I realize that there are plenty of other well-read people who feel the same way.

For me, it’s not about being on a rollercoaster, it's about being engaged – the equivalent is the suture effect when watching a movie. How can I really inhabit another person’s mind (or appreciate the true artistry of literary fiction) if I’m bored to tears? Or worse, if I feel obligated to read literary fiction because it's considered important.  Literary fiction shouldn't be a chore, or like a root vegetable  (it's not about enjoying it, it's about what's good for you).  I get that literature can allow us to understand the human condition better, but I also like to be engaged with what I'm reading at the same time.

In many ways, Alice Munro writes more beautifully than Austen, yet her stories are much harder for me to engage with. What makes Jane Austen distinctive (and so popular) is her brilliant social insight wrapped up in the form of a tightly structured (and appealing) narrative. There are plenty of gifted writers who follow this tradition of mixing "high" (quality writing) with “low” (genre conventions) – Sarah Waters, Gil Adamson, Susanna Clarke, Laura Lippman (no reason why I only came up with female authors), but also Juno Diaz, Jonathan Lethem, Patrick O’Brian also come to mind -- who have made far more impact on my mind than any Munro or Atwood or literary icon of "serious" fiction.

The thing is, I don't believe there is a qualitative difference between literary and genre fiction, as it's apparent that literature borrows much from genre fiction, and all the better for it.  By the same token, genre fiction can provide a deeper understanding of human foibles.  Again, it's a matter of context.  Sherlock Holmes was probably considered pulp fiction in its day, but those books are now regarded as literary classics.  These books are most definitely detective novels, but they also contain sharp character studies of the protagonists - do they not qualify as wonderful simulators in Oakley's mind because the stories also happen to be driven by plot?  Certainly, reading about the friendship between Holmes and Watson must help readers understand, as Oatley says, "what goes on between people” in real life.

And I'll bet a lot of the simulator effect depends on how the reader responds to the work of fiction.  I'm sure if Oatley were to take MRI scans from me and an avid Munro fan on how we respond to Lives of Girls and Women, the mental synapses of the Munro fan would be firing while mine would be dormant.  But I'm sure my synapses would awaken if I were to read a Stieg Larsson book.  He is not a great writer, but he does a wonderful job of painting a picture of a bleak Stockholm and making the unrealistic yet very identifiable Lisbeth Salander come alive in my mind.  Does that make me, as a reader, less capable of empathy?  One person's response is not superior or inferior to the other; we're just different people with different perceptions and experiences.

I think that Oatley must have equated genre fiction with sensational writing (which elicits cheap emotions), and literary fiction with great writing (that provokes thought and intelligent emotions), overlooking the fact that great writing is not strictly limited to the lofty realm of literary fiction.  That is the only explanation I can think of to understand where his snobby attitude and silly arguments came from.

Perhaps I should pick up Such Stuff as Dreams, as I'd really like to see the type of reader cross-section that was used for these MRI scans.  Because at the moment, it strikes me as ironic how Oatley makes the case for fiction fostering greater empathy, yet he himself holds such close-minded regard for genre fiction.

Anyway, that’s my rant for the year!