Commonplace Book

 "...Love is asking. All the time. For more than anyone ever dreamt of giving."

from Return No More, a piece in Anno Domini by George Steiner

Commonplace Book

 "...The poor souls whom the Will of God caused to be made - have they not a right to resent their birth, if they are born to pain only and hopeless struggling? And if for a while they forget the evil plight into which they by no fault of theirs have been born, by tasting pleasures which a code - to them merely arbitrary - has labelled sinful, by what justice shall they be punished? Human justice at least would be less merciless. Is it just to make a frail thing like a man, place him in the midst of temptation, and then punish him because he falls? Supposing I buy a doll at a toy shop, and place it insecurely on the edge of a table and it falls off, is it just that I should then whip it?..."

from October, a piece in The Book of Months by EF Benson

Race Rock by Peter Matthiessen (1954)

 As a bookseller, I had become used to the idea of Peter Matthiessen as a writer, apparently, of stirring books on nature, with an ecological bent, it seemed. Thus it was a surprise to discover that the beginning of his career was so far back, and in fiction. And, wow, is this a novel of the fifties. The major takeaway for me is its quality of being a potential vehicle for a hothouse film, typical sultriness of the period. If Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift, Rock Hudson, Frank Sinatra, Mercedes McCambridge and James Dean were not considered for roles in a film of this, I'd be surprised. It sits well in the wake of From Here to Eternity and Edna Ferber, right through to Hemingway and the like. It is the story of four young people who grew up in a wealthy coastal corner of New England, their parents and those who served on their estates. There are the tropes of shooting, both in parties and alone, family secrets, some agitation over class. Kids who have bad starts are 'taken over' by other families, and resentments are stricken up by some of the kids lording it, others being destructive and attention-seeking. Their lives are so circumscribed that the ripples caused by these 'small' things carry on undulating through into adulthood as remembered slights, avatars for judgements of behaviour, and mature into conflict. Then comes the war, and their ways separate. They all grow up into the postwar world, and have lost something in the process, becoming world-weary and dislocated. There are three main male characters: George McConville, very controlled wealthy son of the big house on the point, but still a little childlike in some ways; Sam Rubicam, adopted into the McConville clan, weedier, but clever, and always a little more witty and caustic; and Cady Shipman, tough and spiky illegitimate son of a poorer family, who knocked around with George and Sam, who is dangerous even when young, showing signs of psychological cruelty, and who butts heads with Sam continuously. The only major female character is Eve Murray, daughter of another established family, who tomboys around with the older boys when young, and then, as she grows older, has relationships with both George and Sam, even a first kiss with Cady. Her marriage to Sam is unsuccessful, and she and George are, in the contemporary world of the novel, trying to see if they can return to their former love, and make something work. All of the stories of what happened in their childhoods together are looked back upon from this stage, and occupy large parts of the novel. Everything comes to a head in a short period in New York, followed by a weekend in the old stomping ground. Eve thinks she's pregnant to George. George is freaked out by this, and runs back 'home' after a wild night drinking with Sam. Sam, having got steaming drunk with George without knowing why George is nervous and depressed, is dealing with the outflow of his failed marriage to Eve, and a general sense of meaninglessness and despair, though he is quite happy for George and Eve to give things a try. Back at Shipman's Crossing, George and Sam meet Cady, and the usual fireworks between them all explode, except that they're a bit older, a bit more tired, their personal philosophies presumably altered by their war experiences. A crisis is reached, where Cady yet again bests Sam, in a game of Russian roulette which turns out not to be through a trick, who leaves a note saying that he's had enough and is heading out to drown himself. George finds this, but then sees Sam return (the trope of his unsuccess is unremitting) and stumble off into the woods in the direction of the town. George, for a reason best known to himself, allows a Native American, Daniel, who looks after the house, and who has a peculiar and wary half-friend, half-servant relationship with them all, to find the note without enlightening him to the fact that Sam has survived. Daniel, panic-stricken, sets out to try to save Sam, and drowns himself in the attempt. Eve then turns up at the end of this 'boys' weekend', thinking that she'll end it with George, who has seemed childish and disengaged, but finds herself in a bind, torn between her new strong feeling of needing to leave all this history behind for fresh pastures, and a nagging care for George. The fact that the last part of the book is all about Eve and George's relationship, and leaves behind Daniel dead and his girlfriend traumatised, is notable in a negative way. Finally, Eve and George reach an exhausted sense of amity in a downbeat roadside motel on the way back to New York, having given each other hell. Thus the novel ends as it begins, in an atmosphere of storm, with the steel-grey colouring and sense of buffet which shades it throughout. The writing is often quite quietly impressive, though there is a sense of the psychology not being fully followed through - the reader would like to know more about why they're all so weary and alienated. Also intriguing is the question of how much of this, like many a first novel, is autobiographical - was Matthiessen's youth anything like this? Daniel's demise being made somehow secondary is a key issue, not fully addressed, as is Sam's nickname from childhood of Sam Sissypants - there's just a feeling that there may be something more there that Matthiessen either didn't feel he could investigate, or just didn't want to. It feels like unexplored territory, possibly meaningful in its original autobiographic space and not translated into the fiction here, assuming this story had that genesis. A career beginning which is very much of its time, seemingly well-exceeded later, but still striking.

The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy (1887)

 This is an interesting one. It's my third major Hardy, after The Mayor of Casterbridge and Tess of the D'Urbervilles. I've also read some of the poetry, and a few short pieces. And there is a difference to report, and I wonder if it's the reason why this novel doesn't have quite the same cachet as those two mentioned. It was important to the author, mind. He apparently stated, while preparing the Wessex edition not long before the First World War, that it was the one of which he was most fond, though he qualified that with "as a story". Not sure what he meant - the plot? Or this novel seen through the simple lens of entertainment? Or a sense of completeness in the structure? Anyway...... The thing I feel the need to report is a sense of by-numbers-ness. It feels like a deeply pre-determined plot, ticking away, with little chimes at key points numbering off the staging posts. And perspective can be gained by imagining the process of adaptation for film as you read. Having the screen in mind as a big conversation or event comes up, and considering what impact each one would have as written. Too often this droops a little: talk is somewhat stilted, psychology a bit too unfounded, plot a shade too convenient. The ultimate feeling is of a work which hasn't the blazing passion of those others. Now, there are of course significant compensations - times when his writing takes flight and has the signature of complete statement, in the way that is familiar and typifying. The locale, always so important in Hardy, is a delight, resplendent with green-shaded lanes, paths through dense woods, clearings where the forest-economy is practised, from bark-stripping to cider-making, valleys pelted with orchard trees, and two local tiny villages tucked into the milieu. The identifying trope of all this aspect is an unusual one - the drip-zone under and around trees, mentioned many times, where rain or condensation makes its way to the lowest leaves, its final precipitation forming a delineated tract. So, the journey is an alloyed pleasure through these means. The destination is, without giving anything away, a bit neither here nor there, but has a lovely sting with a subsidiary character's lonely vigil in a graveyard. This highlights the slightly hidden tragedy inherent here, and it's a powerful one for all its camouflage under flashier plotlines. The story of unfulfilled lives, which then coils back as you look across what you've read, and see that it applies across the board amongst the major characters. That's not nothing, and proves the worth of this flawed book.

Commonplace Book

 "...There is nothing in the world which, if I got, would make me happy. There are a million things in the world which the desire to get and the hope of getting make me happy. And it is this which a man sets out to seek when he falls in love, which is the best form of happiness devised in the world at large, and, thank God! the commonest. If man or woman knew all of the man or woman each sought, would either be content? On the contrary, the world would be full of spinsters and bachelors...."

from July, a piece in The Book of Months by EF Benson