Jack Aubrey Saves the Day, Again

More than a year ago, I wrote about the mysteries of 1815 food in this post. I was, however, an idiot, and I stand corrected, for there is actually a wonderful book from 1997 with descriptions, recipes and a dash of brio much beyond anything I can ever hope to achieve. And it was written by people who are practically my neighbors: a mother-and-daughter team out on Long Island.

What is this wonderful book, you might ask? It is Lobscouse and Spotted Dog (Which It's a Gastronomic Companion to the Aubrey/Maturin Novels). It answers many of the questions I have long had -- what is Soused Hog's Face exactly? (Exactly what you feared. And I now know how to make it, not that I ever will.) What is toasted cheese? And some I never thought to ask, such as how one might cook a rat, and what the result would taste like (surprisingly delicious, the authors contend).

These are the foods that Jack and Stephen ate. We do not recommend them to the unimaginative or faint of heart: some of them call for exotic, revolting, or fearfully expensive ingredients; many take upwards of a week to make; most of them cheerfully violate all the nutritional tenets of the health-conscious '90s. They are all, however, practical and authentic recipes, tested to our satisfaction (and to the detriment of our waistlines) in our own kitchens.

Time Passages

The premise of my novel, such as it is, is that Rachel Falk and Liam Ó Fionnmhacháin, respectively an M.D. and an English professor, travel back in time from 2089 to meet Jane Austen.

But I haven't spent a huge amount of time thinking about the physics problems posed by time travel or why does it have to be 2089, exactly, as opposed to 2809?

Hmm. Because you begin where you are. One has to start somewhere. Right now I am stranded in Chapter 19, which I have started at least six times. I keep writing more of it, as I commute, waiting underground trapped in the 1/ 2/3 IRT lines like someone in Dante's Inferno, but it is not adding up. I know where I need to go, but not how to get there.

Politically Incorrect Thought for the Day

Elizabeth Jenkins in 1938 (and subsequent later editions) wrote about how different the world of Jane Austen's was from our own. It was on the one hand much more beautiful ("plain elegance, uncompromising good taste, surrounded them with almost monotonous completeness") and on the other much more cruel ("But if we are in danger of breaking our hearts over this spirit of beauty which has vanished from the earth, it is also our duty to recall there existed with it, ignored or tolerated, a state of squalor and wretchedness which, to this relatively humane and hygienic age, is nearly as difficult to visualize as its heavenly obverse.")

And then she considers the implications of this:

That there was no cheap, sophisticated entertainment for the masses was part of a state of things in which thousands and thousands of people were less comfortable, less well dressed, less entertained, less informed than they are today; but it also meant that there was not a vast majority which by its very numbers imposed its ideas, its prepossessions and tastes on the world in which the educated person must now exist; the lower middle class, as it is the most considerable among consumers, dictates the canons of a taste which, by its preponderating bulk, has corrupted and destroyed the standards of language, of architecture, of entertainment and literature which once prevailed. This development has brought in its train a great increase in human happiness , and it has annihilated something so precious that its very absence has taken away from us the power to estimate its value. One may find an illustration of our gain and loss in the bear-ward who was Tony Lumpkin's companion at The Three Pigeons; he led a dancing bear, something of which we hate to think; but the tunes to which it danced were Dr. Arne's "Water Parted" and Handel's minuet from "Ariadne."

The Unpersuasive

Yesterday I watched the 2007 film version of "Persuasion" on my computer, unexpectedly finding it available and never having seen it before. Being a mild fan of the 1995 version I was curious as to how this one compared.

There is something to be said for seeing things enacted on film that so far have been viewed only inside one's head. Especially if you are interested in details of costume, setting and certain aspects of daily life that Jane Austen never stops to explain, like just how a bow is done, or want a good look at a carriage in motion. But there are certain aspects of this novel that are apparently simply not able to be expressed in film, and both versions, in the end, prove it.

The fingerprints of the characteristic preoccupations of the late 20th/early 21st century are all over these films. Historians in 100 years will watch them and see this clearly, but I don't have to wait; I have spent too much time mentally in 1815 not to be struck by it.

The 1995 version was notable for its emphasis on establishing shots of farm animals and workers, a subtle reminder of the economic basis of the good lives led by the main characters. Also for a general lack of glamour: characters (the gentry, not only the common people) often look as though they could use a shampoo, something that cannot be said of many movies. The actors, rather than being movie-star handsome, have faces that seem to belong in 1814, and they act up a storm.

The 2007 version, by contrast, is more glamorous, all smooth surfaces and lovely interiors. Yet they both start out promisingly enough, capturing the autumnal mood of the work, Anne Elliot's quietly brave despair. 2007 solves part of the exposition problem by giving Anne a diary and allowing her to make many of the author's less astringent observations; other authorial comments are put into the mouths of characters, to sometimes startlingly frank effect.

It is the last part of the book, when the action moves to Bath, that gives both filmmakers the most trouble. Jane Austen herself seems to have struggled with the ending, for an alternate chapter that she wrote and then decided did not work has survived, offering a rare glimpse into her working methods. (Both 1995 and 2007 choose to use an adapted version of this canceled chapter, evidently finding it more dramatic.)

The problem that both Jane Austen and her two film adapters seem to have struggled with is this: Anne is restricted by the codes and manners of the world she lives in. She can never see or speak to Wentworth alone except by chance, and then only in public, where she is subject to interruption by other people. She cannot call on him, but only hope he might call where she is. She cannot, even if her pride permitted, write to him, for unrelated people of the opposite sex never exchanged letters unless they were engaged. His letter to her, left on the table for her to pick up (in the ending Jane Austen chose to use) is therefore a dazzling example of his audacity and problem-solving abilities, even before it is read.

Anne Elliot's triumph, in Jane Austen's terms, is that she gets her heart's desire without violating any of her principles, without behaving improperly or appearing rude or foolish. (An Anne Elliot who did any of those things would not be Anne Elliot.) The real drama in this story is of the passionate and heartbroken spirit that rages beneath the calm, polite exterior.

That is apparently a hard thing to show in a movie. Both film versions, after starting with a well-crafted and exquisitely correct Anne Elliot, choose to dramatize her growing confidence toward the end of the story that Wentworth still loves her by having her go completely off the rails. Or to express herself, as the modern idiom would have it. Expressing oneself is so completely accepted as a virtue in modern life that it is hard to notice how pervasive this assumption is. Until you start having a proper and perfectly polite baronet's daughter of 1814 start expressing herself, and then its absurdity hits you like a slap of cold water on the Cobb at Lyme Regis.

In the 2007 version we have a lovely, dreamlike, but completely nonsensical scene near the end where Anne Elliot runs out into the street hatless (!) and runs (!) after Wentworth from the Royal Crescent (where the movie places her, though the Elliots lived in the less grand Camden Place) to the Pump Room, and back. Running all the way, like some scene that had wandered in from the cutting-room floor of Chariots of Fire. It might have worked better as a dream sequence, come to think of it, and could not have more comically trampled on the spirit of the book's ending. And let us not even mention the kiss, on the street, (!) once they have finally found each other and exchanged the look that tells all. That kiss! Why not just strip off their clothes and have sex right there in the Royal Crescent, which would have been just as historically accurate and probably more fun to watch?

In the 1995 version there is also a street kiss. Supposedly the kiss was included for American audiences and left out for British ones, something I cannot verify firsthand, though if true is certainly a point for the English. I thought the shot of the circus passing by as the happy couple finally connects was a nice touch, hinting in a possibly plausible way how magic and enchantment had finally come into Anne Elliot's life after 27 mostly arid and dreary years.

If only they could have left it at the circus. Instead, not content with the painfully ahistorical kiss, the 1995 filmmaker felt compelled to have Anne Elliot chase (!) after Wentworth as he leaves the concert. To hiss insulting remarks (!) about Mrs. Clay to her father that in the book she only thinks. To add a completely unneeded scene in which Wentworth, in front of everyone (!), at an evening-party (!) asks Sir Elliot for Anne's hand. (And the defeated William Elliot sneers and slinks away.) In short, to assume that the viewers are idiots and will not understand what has just happened unless they have just been given CliffsNotes.

Unfortunately, that might be true.

It's not over until there is a Wordle

And here it is.

I struggled with this Chapter. I still don't know if I really like it.

Jane Austen vs. Samuel Richardson

Damn. It is Sept 18.

It has been a busy month so far. Chapter 18 has not written itself, and no one else has appeared to write it, so I suppose I have to. I got several thousand words into it and then was unavoidably detained.

I have been slowly reading Pamela, though, in my spare time, and what a piece of work it is! First published in 1740, more than 30 years before Jane Austen was born, and a literary sensation in its day, it inspired Henry Fielding to write at least two parodies of it, Shamela and Joseph Andrews. (Tom Jones is in some sense also an answer to Pamela, though also much more, so that might be considered a third one.)

At the outset, I have to agree with Samuel Johnson, who said that you would hang yourself if you read Richardson for story. Clarissa keeps the suspense alive through hundreds of pages with its shifting points of view and deepening sense of foreboding and doom, but the reader has no such luck with Pamela. Once she comes back to Mr. B and agrees to marry him, her former would-be rapist, she spends many pages rejoicing in how happy she is and praying that she will be worthy enough for him. Great for her, but tedious reading, except as a reminder of the important lesson that conflict is the engine of plot. Once you have a happy ending, it is time to stop telling the story.

On the other hand, there are many interesting elements scattered like bread crumbs along the way. I am struck by how in both Pamela and Clarissa so much discussion and energy is expended on writing itself:

On paper and ink and quills and wafers hidden in various locations so they will not be found and confiscated, on letters concealed under stones and in walls and sewn in clothing against discovery. On letters stolen and forged. On the notion of writing as an act of self-assertion and even defiance by women, highly intelligent women in a society that seemed to place little value on intelligent women. What can he mean by it, I wonder as I read. What sort of person was he, really, to be so interested in such questions?

Richardson is also clearly obsessed with confinement, power (including the power of beauty) and rape. Here again, I cannot help wondering what sort of person he was. His personal demons seem to be left like smeary fingerprints all over his works.

And that is the big difference between him and Jane Austen, never mind all the other differences, because as many times as I read her, I can't really seem to find her. The challenge of being a clever woman surrounded by dolts; yes, it is reasonable to suppose she must have faced that problem, and it is one experienced by Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, Elizabeth Bennet, Emma Woodhouse and Anne Elliot in their different ways.

But to suppose that Jane Austen felt she was smarter than many people around her is not really a brilliant piece of literary detective work. What else? You search and come up empty. And you return wistfully, to the words of Virginia Woolf:

Here was a woman about the year 1800 writing without hate, without bitterness, without fear, without protest, without preaching. That was how Shakespeare wrote, I thought, looking at ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA; and when people compare Shakespeare and Jane Austen, they may mean that the minds of both had consumed all impediments; and for that reason we do not know Jane Austen and we do not know Shakespeare, and for that reason Jane Austen pervades every word that she wrote, and so does Shakespeare.

Onward

I haven't made a Wordle to commemorate it (though maybe I should), but I finished Chapter 17 yesterday.

It did not write itself.

It would not, as Admiral Croft said of Sir Walter Elliot, set the Thames on fire, yet potentially it contains some important elements that will prove useful later.

A larger point, though, is that this is the third time (in a row) that I finished a chapter in about two weeks. The sense of forward momentum seems more important right now than highly polished writing, at least I hope forward is the direction I am going. As opposed to say, sideways.

One thing I struggled with a lot in my first attempt to write a novel, a few years back, was keeping the whole thing in mind at one time. It seemed impossible. Actually, it is impossible, but some things I am doing differently this time around make it seem slightly less so.

Having chapter breaks is important. It provides a sense of accomplishment, however illusory (in many cases my chapter breaks are most arbitrary), to conclude a chapter, type it up and leave that half-page of white space at the bottom of the last page.

Writing fairly fast is also important, because the novel is kind of a living thing. It doesn't like to be left alone too long. It loses its urgency.

Having an outline is important. This was the single most valuable thing I took away from my time at the Sackett Street Writers' Workshop (which is not to say I did not take away many other valuable things, because I did). It's not that I have followed the plan, precisely, because the story has turned out to be more interesting than the plan -- there was a key plot element that I did not even anticipate until it drove up. It's not even that I consult the plan very often. I don't really seem to need to. But it's there. I can go back and look at it whenever I want to. It, too, provides a sense of accomplishment that is illusory and yet important.