The Mysteries of Udolpho

Finally. After a week of struggle, forcing my way through 632 pages of very small print, I have, at last, finished The Mysteries of Udolpho. I feel ambivalent about this novel; I think it’s fair to say that overall, I sort of enjoyed it, but the prevailing thoughts in my mind as I read this were of exasperation and irritation. Not exactly a favourable review, but let me explain.

On the back of my copy, it says that this novel, which was published in 1794, employs an “imaginative use of history, poetry, landscape and the supernatural.” This is part of the problem. Despite that, this was a huge success at the time, the author, Anne Radcliffe, earning £500 for the copyright (authors of standard circulating-library novels earned £10 or perhaps £20). Had I been born in the 1770s, and had read The Mysteries in my 20s, I am positive I would have adored it. My situation, however, remaining firmly in the twenty-first century, I have several issues with the heroine, Emily St Aubert, and her general demeanour.

Emily has been bought up by her mamma and papa very well; they have taught her the virtues of modesty and piety and general adorableness. She has been well-educated, and has had an idyllic childhood, surrounded by people who love her. As it tells me this on the back of my book, so I have no scruples in telling you this, her mother dies fairly early on, so Emily and her father go on a little holiday in the mountains to distract themselves from their woe. They don’t do a very good job, and here comes my main complaint – they cry all the time. Not just from sorrow, and not just because of the mothers’ death. The characters cry when they see beautiful scenery. They cry when they reflect on how lucky they are. They cry when they reflect on how unlucky they are. They cry when they fall in love. They cry when they are separated. They cry when they are reunited. They cry when they are happy. They cry when they are frightened. All the men cry, or if they are trying to be a bit more masculine, sigh sorrowfully. Emily, in particular, cries the most. And when she is not crying, she is fainting. It is this insipidness of character that surprises me so. Perhaps I am used to the more feisty Victorian woman – even the most “Angel in the House” characters tend to display some sort of nerve. Emily shows little courage, and little strength. The smallest shock renders her unable to speak. And despite (or perhaps, because of) her feebleness, virtually every man she encounters falls in love with her (or, in the case of the more disreputable men, want to have their wicked way with her). What kind of heroine is that?

But it isn’t just Radcliffe’s way of writing that makes Emily so colourless– Annette, Emily’s maid when she is imprisoned in the deliciously Gothic and unsettling Castle of Udolpho – is talkative and likeable. She actually has a believable character – easily frightened and superstitious, slightly silly and very loving and affectionate. Emily seems a rather two-dimensional image of what a woman ought to be, while Annette, who, in comparison, is a minor character, brims with warmth.

The reason that this took me so long to read was its pace. The first half of the novel is fairly slow – that took me at least three days to read. The second half I managed in a day and a half. Radcliffe’s use of “poetry and landscape” slows the plot down so very much, I wanted to weep. While this was possibly quite thrilling to contemporary readers, her rapturous descriptions of the Pyrenees (often accompanied by Emily snivelling with joy), that quite literally go on for pages, moved me very little. Similarly, the poems that Emily often amuses herself with composing whilst sitting, picturesquely on her own, hold no fascination for me. Titled with cutesy names such as “The Glow-Worm” “The Pilgrim” “The Sea-Nymph”, the lines are dully sentimental and make me want to hit my head against a wall. However, once Emily is effectively a prisoner, things start looking up. Yes, she still cries, but at least with vaguely good reason. Radcliffe really manages to create a sinister mood of suspense that pervades Udolpho and its gloomy corridors. The famous and dreaded “black veil” in a locked-up room (the very one that is so parodied in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey) hides something so horrific that Emily faints (obviously) and cannot bring herself to mention again. This mystery, along with all the other supernatural happenings, are all explained satisfactorily in a way that I applaud. Unlike other Gothic authors, Radcliffe does not allow a ghost to be a ghost; an all too terrestrial explanation is available, sometimes in most unexpected and exciting ways.

The excitement really kicks off, however, very close to the end, when Radcliffe seems to get to grips with the art of the cliffhanger. She starts following different plotlines to great effect, and more than once I reached the end of a gripping chapter, to turn eagerly to the next, and find her teasingly serene words describing an event far away from the one I wanted to read about. As with many of the novels of this period, the overall ending is a rounded off, satisfactory one. All mysteries explained, all obstacles overcome. Tears all around.

Something that interested me was the rather trite moral Radcliffe felt obliged to add at the end. “Though the vicious can sometimes pour affliction on the good”, she writes, “their power is transient and their punishment certain. …Innocence, though oppressed by injustice, shall, supported by patience, finally triumph over misfortune!” Perhaps in her Gothic world of tyrannous Counts, kindly nuns, wilting young ladies, valiant chevaliers, dastardly banditti and faithful servants, this is true. Sadly, in our world, it is not.

I realise that this article is fairly condemning of what is, after all, a magnificent piece of literature. I am perfectly aware that I have become ensnared in minute details that, to another reader, might go unnoticed. It is considered one of the greats of Gothic fiction, and so I urge the gentle reader to attempt it. My only piece of advice : do not be put off by the crying and the scenery. It gets better.

The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner

This little book was written some time before Victorian sensation-alism (a favourite genre of mine) became popular. However, being a sort-of example of a Gothic novel, it seems fair to say that this is a precursor to the kind of fiction that would so shock and excite readers decades later. Written in 1824, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner is a relatively short work, written by a Scottish shepherd, James Hogg. It was not very well received. It was called “uncouth and unpleasant” by the British Critic; “extraordinary trash” by the Quarterly Theological Review; and the Westminster Review thought Hogg had been “uselessly and disgustingly abusing his imagination” in writing this novel. Alright, it’s not the most joyful of books, but I don’t think it deserves such heavy-handed criticism as that.

It is written by two narrators; an ‘editor’, who opens and closes the novel, and the ‘justified sinner’ himself, Robert Wringhim. The editor tells the story of a jolly Laird and his ludicrously pious wife (a strict Calvinist) who eventually live separately because of their inherent differences. She has two sons – one is athletic and handsome, and is brought up by the Laird, the other, Robert, is doubted by the Laird to be his son and is so brought up by the mother and a preacher, becoming, in turn, a strict Calvinist. I have read that this is not a strictly truthful portrayal of Calvinism, but nevertheless: a brief outlining of this division of Christianity. Calvinists believed that they were chosen by God to spend eternity in Heaven. This great list was already written, and absolutely final – you couldn’t earn a place there, no matter how Christian you were, you were simply chosen as one of the elect. What Hogg exploits here is the notion that if you could not act in a way to promote yourself onto the list, then surely no one could act badly enough to be thrown off it. This attitude was so outrageous that Hogg initially had his novel to be published anonymously, for fear of retribution from High Calvinists.

To avoid entering into lengthy explanations of plot – and ruining any potential plot twists – I shall summarise in as few words as I can bear, in order to whet the appetite, so to speak! The young Robert Wringhim, burdened with a jealousy of his handsome brother, meets a mysterious stranger, called Gil-Martin, who talks most exquisitely about God. They enter into a friendship that initially, to Robert, seems to be about the glorification and discussion of their holy Father, but soon brings him to mischief, and murder. While the reader easily recognises this character to be Satan, Wringhim is so drawn in by his dazzling arguments that the sins he’s committing are justifiable and right, that he doesn’t realise how he is truly acting. There is an extremely sinister side to his character when Robert begins to have no recollection of the crimes the people around him accuse him of having done. Hogg manages all these suggestions so well that the reader might even have a suspicion as to whether Gil-Martin exists at all. It is not made entirely clear – it is up to you to decide.

So. It’s not exactly a walk in the park, but it is certainly an interesting novel to read. There are sections of fairly heavy-going religious discourse, but I suppose it is only to be expected in a book centred on Calvinism. Some bits are fairly humourous, which offers light relief, but for me, it’s worth reading purely for the portrayal of Wringhim’s escalating despair and panic as he realises that he is no longer in control of his actions. Not bad for a Scottish shepherd.

Lady Audley's Secret

Once again, I have eschewed the more modern books in my alarmingly large “to be read” pile, for one of my favourite genres - Victorian sensationalism. Lady Audley’s Secret, by Mary E. Braddon, a consistently successful and popular writer in the nineteenth century (although she has fallen now into relative obscurity), was written notoriously quickly - the last volume in less than a fortnight. The speed at which it was penned seems to shine through the words, not through carelessness, but through the spark and wit and sharpness of the developing plot.

As much as I adore Victorian writing, I cannot deny that some works can have tedious sections, to say the least, and it becomes something of an effort to carry on reading. One needs frequent breaks to gaze out of the window, or to get up and make tea. This particular novel is quite the opposite – I was utterly enthralled, the scenes outside remained unobserved, and the tea pitifully unmade. I found it hugely enjoyable and easy to read, without feeling patronised or that I was reading something overly frivolous. There is heartache and anguish, but it never roams into the depressing. There is mystery and secrecy but no tiresome confusion. There is scandal and disgrace, but a satisfactory conclusion. In the true Victorian style, the wrongdoers get their comeuppance and the heroes their rewards. In the modern world, there seems to be a growing tendency to have deliberately ambiguous endings (the final scene of the astoundingly good film ‘Inception’, which I went to see last night, is testimony to that) but I admire the Victorians (at least, the majority of Victorians – there are still a few devils who delight in thwarting the reader’s anticipation of closure – Thomas Hardy, to name and shame!) for usually giving a proper ending. It could be good, it could be bad, but that is that.

Lady Audley’s Secret centres around Robert Audley, a foppish but decent sort of chap, intent on uncovering the circumstances of his close friend’s sudden disappearance. Of course, the novel also features the charming Lady Audley herself. She is beautiful in a pale, listless sort of way, with plenty of descriptions of her “showering flaxen curls” and “soft and melting blue eyes”, not to mention her “slender throat and drooping head” – the very model of Victorian perfection. I speak entirely without bitterness (and as someone with dark brown hair and a tanned freckly complexion – I would probably have been described as swarthy, sallow - and possibly degenerate and/or masculine - in a Victorian novel!) but I see absolutely NO attraction in these depictions! Everything about our heroine speaks of feebleness – she is constantly described as “childish”, both in appearance and attitude. However, this makes her secret – whatever that might be – all the more shocking. Braddon constructs Lady Audley’s character, and the readers’ opinion of her very carefully indeed. What begins as a girlish, delightful young lady soon changes into a calculating, almost menacing presence as the reader comes closer and closer to discovering her real nature. The back of my copy of this novel declares that it “uncovers the truth about its heroine in a plot involving bigamy, arson and murder.” That, I am afraid, is about as much information as I am prepared to reveal. Any more would spoil it for you.

As Victorian novels go, this is a fairly short one, and, as previously mentioned, one that is very easy to read. It is fast-paced and very funny in parts, Braddon having a clever grasp of words and storyline. If you’d like, therefore, a gentle introduction to the joys of sensationalism (and if Wilkie Collins seems a step too far), then this is perfect for you. Bigamy, arson, murder – what’s not to like?

The Remains of the Day

In a slightly manic fashion, I started reading The Remains of the Day almost immediately after I’d finished Never Let Me Go. I didn’t manage it in one sitting, this time (when I was about a third of the way through, I went to see George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion at the Chichester Festival Theatre with the family – it was rather excellent and starred, of course, the utterly divine Rupert Everett) – but I think I preferred it. I’m not saying it’s better, but something in the novel resonated with me.

I have a slight obsession with the past, and eras of the past, and have often wished, in moments of modern disillusionment, that I had been born a hundred, or two hundred, or more specifically, one hundred and ten, years ago (I should have liked to have been in my twenties during the twenties, so to speak). There is something about the 1920s to which I am drawn. Perhaps it is the knowledge that my grandparents were born in the early years of that decade, and it would have been the first world they would ever know. There seems to me to both a sense of despair and of hopefulness in the post-war years, discernible in the literature and art of the time. The roaring twenties – and the bright young things – also fascinate me. The youth suddenly became youthful, breaking away from the conventions of the Edwardian way of life and reaching towards modernity. Also, P.G. Wodehouse, one of my all-time favourite authors, champions the spirit of the time deliciously and delightfully in his Jeeves and Wooster tales. Although The Remains of the Day was obviously written decades after the twenties – Ishiguro’s novel is largely based in this period, and, for me, anyway, is so evocative of the time as to fully immerse the reader in it.

It is the 1950s, and an ageing butler takes a well-earned holiday. Servant to a rich American, a great contrast to the noble Lord Darlington under whose employ he had previously been, Stevens, the butler, drives across the south of England to visit an old colleague of his, the ex-housekeeper of Darlington Hall. As he motors down country lanes; pulls over to admire the scenery of England’s green and pleasant land; stops for the night in various towns, he allows himself to reminisce. The storyline slips between the two eras – motoring in the fifties, and remembering the twenties – the golden age, according to Stevens. However, its golden haze tarnishes, the deeper he goes into his memory. Elements of politics seep into his nostalgia, the politics of Lord Darlington and other British aristocrats and politicians concerned with the aftermath of the Versailles Treaty. The uneasiness Stevens uncovers is not just in the international affairs, but within Stevens himself. He really is the most extraordinary character – the epitome of British reserve and self-restraint. I know Ishiguro has lived in Britain since he was five, but perhaps the sense of not being English has allowed him to see deeply and very perceptively into the heart of what it is to be so. Stevens sees great merit in being able to be dignified – and to carry on in his roles as a butler – no matter how distressing the events that are unfolding seem. One of the most memorable moments in the novel is the scene in which Stevens’ father – who has been the under-butler at Darlington Hall for some time – dies. Stevens shows no emotion whatsoever, he merely carries on with his duties, as a rather large event is taking place at the house at that time. For me, his character is immensely frustrating, as he never betrays any sense of humanity at all. But the beauty and subtlety of Ishiguro’s writing is that the reader is certain that Stevens is deeply moved by some things, but has trained himself so well, as to never even admit this to himself. It is rather sad, really. And makes his road-trip to one of the few people who he could perhaps think of as a friend all the more touching.

I felt rather disheartened at the end of this novel, but was also filled with the sense that I had just read something very, very good. I immediately texted my small Ishiguro-loving best friend to inform her of his revelation, then crawled out of bed (I began reading as soon as I awoke) to begin another day in the (wonderfully emotional and unreserved!) modern world.

Never Let Me Go

Considering my last post was largely about how long it took me to read a novel, it is quite exciting for me to announce that I have read a book in one sitting! This used to absolutely be the norm for me – a childhood deprived of television ensured that – but recently I have (rather sadly) experienced reading to be more of a chore. There is a certain amount of irony in doing a degree in English Literature, and finding less and less joy in sitting down with a good book. There is something about a reading list of books one HAS to read that chills the very soul. Nevertheless, today, in my conservatory, in a woolly jumper and alarmingly bright bedsocks, listening to the rain on the glass roof (yes, it is August), I positively devoured Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. I had heard many a good thing about this particular novel – my small and pale best friend often urging me to read it – but it is only now, I regret, in the face of necessity (it forms part of my reading list for next year’s ‘Post-War Fiction and Poetry’ module) that I have deigned to do so.

It is, quite simply, brilliant. For those of you who haven’t read it, please do. Even if you don’t read it now, you will soon wish you had - a film is to be released shortly, with Keira Knightley (who, much as I love her, looks totally wrong for the headstrong and not entirely likeable character of Ruth), and Carey Mulligan (whose career I have followed from her earliest roles; I utterly adore her and think she is wonderful). However, this is only my first impression from a short trailer; no doubt the film itself will enlighten me further. I predict this book will fly into the book charts once more and stay there for a good while.

The plot centres around Hailsham – an idyllic and slightly surreal boarding school, where the children are monitored by guardians; there is no mention of parents. The students’ health is carefully observed, creativity is encouraged and there is no contact with the outside world. It soon becomes clear that the children are clones – bred specifically to donate vital organs when they reach adulthood. Since this is all they have ever known, they accept this, but with the glibness of children, and without realising the full horror of their situation, and the dreadful consequences. What I love about the novel is Ishiguro’s sense of time – the narrator, Kathy, effortlessly dances backwards and forwards through the linear timeline, digressing, following her train of thought, reminiscing the past whilst being all too aware of present events. The three central characters – Kathy, and her two closest childhood friends, Ruth and Tommy (although the term ‘friends’ can only be loosely applied to Ruth, I feel, although I’m sure someone much cleverer than me would be able to argue otherwise…) are trapped in a love triangle so understated and so dominated by Ruth, that it barely seems to exist.

The rather beautiful title stems from a fictional song that Kathy hears and loves. She imagines the lyrics – Baby, never let me go – to be from a previously infertile mother to her newly and miraculously-born child, but it becomes clear that it means so much more than that. Kathy is clinging on to so many things – the idyll of childhood in the harsher adult world; relationships with the people around her; the idea of hope in the dystopian world. Madame, the haughty and enigmatic woman in charge of Hailsham, stumbles across Kathy as a young girl, with her eyes closed and clutching a pillow as if it were a baby, dancing around her room to this song. Kathy opens her eyes from her reverie to see Madame sob, and hurry away, weeping. It is revealed towards the end of the story why she reacted this way, Ishiguro effortlessly changing, with a few words, the readers’ attitude to the rest of the novel.

I don’t want to give away too many details – Ishiguro releases them so deliciously and casually that it would be a shame to spoil the readers’ gradual sense of awareness of what is happening – but the colloquial style of address from Kathy makes reading it (curled up on a sofa in a glass conservatory) blissfully easy. So, dearest reader, when you come across the rich yellow cover with a blurred dancing girl upon the front, have a casual read through the first few pages – I’m fairly sure that you will be utterly spellbound.

The Woman in White

I recently went to Ghana, and took The Woman In White with me. It is not an obvious choice for so hot a clime; whereas I sweltered in the humidity of rainy season, Wilkie Collins describes the chill of the Cumberland moors. Similarly, while I engaged in trying to help the local community by building a school in the mornings, and spent pleasant afternoons trawling through bead markets and dancing to Ghanaian club music, Wilkie writes of a thrilling mystery and a conspiracy of terrifying proportions. Indeed, there seems to be no congruity between the book and the place, at all. Perhaps the stress should be laid on how long I was there for – a month. And The Woman in White is a bloody long book. I’m usually a fairly quick reader (the last Harry Potter in seven hours, anyone?); this took the best part of the month. But what a book!

It was written, as many great Victorian novels are, as a serialisation over the years 1859-60. Cue an inordinate amount of cliffhangers. A lecturer at university once urged us - his tired and hungover students - to read another great serialised novel – Dickens’ Bleak House – in the sections in which it was gradually published. That way, we could perhaps read it a little more closely to how it originally would have been read. Instead of closing the book when one is tired, surely ceasing to read when the author intended his reader to stop is allowing one more literary device to influence and add to our experience of the novel? I am beginning to sound like a pretentious fool (‘Beginning?’ I hear you say) and so I will return to the point I am laboriously trying to make. I read The Woman in White in stops and starts, section by section, so I feel I must have felt a little of the original drama – wondering what is to happen next, how the vast number of threads could ever possibly be tied together, however tenuously. What a delight! I recommend this way of reading at once.

The plot is riveting. Our hero, Walter Hartwright, a poor painting-master, lands the job of his dreams - teaching his suitably ladylike art to two delightful young women – the vivacious and charming Marian and her half-sister, the more demure but exquisitely beautiful Laura. Before he sets off, he encounters a terrified and wild-eyed young woman, dressed in white. He helps her on her way, but not before she mentions Limmeridge, the very house to which he is going to teach. This fact, and the following revelations add to the deeply mysterious plotline - he discovers that she has escaped from an asylum, and later on we discover her uncanny resemblance to Laura, who Walter inevitably falls in love with. A dramatic series of fairly Victorian events occur – an unhappy marriage, a brokenhearted self-exile to the Americas, a convoluted plot by villains for an heiress’ fortune, but Collins’ remarkable skill for characterisation makes it wholly different, to me, to anything like this that I have read before. Count Fosco is a morbidly obese, sinsterly lightfooted Italian, with a curious tenderness for small animals, and a frighteningly intelligent mind. Frederick Fairlie, guardian of the two women, is a selfish and feeble hypochondriac, determined, at all costs, to not be bothered by anyone. His lack of interest in anything that does not concern himself provides some of the funniest sections in the book, but proves equally frustrating.

My favourite character, however is, without a doubt, Marian. What I adore about her character is also what annoys me – her constant and self-conscious references to her role as a woman. She often remarks (with an element of sarcasm, I like to think) on the negative traits of women – stating offhandedly “women can’t draw – their minds are too flighty, and their eyes are too inattentive.” Whilst I am by no means an artist, this pains me somewhat, and I can just imagine Victorian gentlemen reading this and having their suspicions of the inferiority of women confirmed. Wilkie is not so cruel as to portray women in a completely negative light – she displays courage, wit, and a sharp intelligence. It is the lightheartedness of her comments - “I am as inaccurate as women usually are” - that lends a charm to her words, and I simply cannot help but admire her. She seems to me to be the model of a constrained female desperate to break free – in her more heated speeches she declares such feisty statements as “If I had been a man, I would have knocked him down”! A woman before her time, perhaps, but one still thoroughly Victorian.

Anyway. As I am sure will be the case with most of the books I review here, I will now urge you to give this wonderful novel a try. It is rather long, but persevere – in a true Victorian style, the ending ties up magnificently, leaving one feeling smug and emotionally satisfied – and ready to tackle another morning’s building in the Ghanaian sun.

A Warm Welcome

Imagine this blog to be a curious mixture of the ages - a Victorian parlour - late Victorian, that is - walls crammed with pictures; the mantlepiece swathed in silks; silly and fairly horrendous porcelain figurines balanced precariously on every surface. At one end of the room (well away from the fireplace, of course) a wall of books, bound in sombre leather - alphabetically ordered, with the occasional flash of colour from the more modern paperbacks. There is a squashy armchair or two by the fire; a small ginger cat is curled up on the hearthrug. Please, do have a seat: the tea and crumpets will arrive shortly. Meanwhile, I entreat you to stare into the fire, put up your feet on this (rather overstuffed) footstool, and contemplate the vast array of literary musings - however mediocre - I have to offer...