The Little Professor

This Week's Acquisitions

• Gregory Norminton, Ship of Fools (Sceptre, 2002).  Where are these people going? It's The Canterbury Tales, only the pilgrimage is not quite so holy.  (Amazon [secondhand])
• Tom McCarthy, C (Vintage, 2011).  Strange adventures of young Serge Carrefax, generally involving the letter "c."  (Lift Bridge)
• Michael Clark, Albion and Jerusalem: The Anglo-Jewish Community in the Post-Emancipation Era (Oxford, 2009).  History of England's Jews during the second half of the nineteenth century, including their involvement in politics and activism.  (Amazon [secondhand])
• Mark Lussier, Romantic Dharma: The Emergence of Buddhism into Nineteenth-Century Europe (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).  Tracks growing interest in Buddhism among European intellectuals and analyzes how the knowledge thereof made it to Europe in the first place.  (Review copy)

As I was saying...

...just a couple of posts down, whenever I even begin to think of buying an e-reader, the plumbing throws a temper tantrum.

Last night, I was pondering the Kindle Fire.

And lo, a substantial bill for repairs lands on my desk.

Coincidence? I think not.  There is some mysterious antagonism between my plumbing and e-readers.  This calls for a short story by M. R. James. 

Adventures in home ownership, #9221

Or: what the previous owner, fatally addicted to DIY, totally botched, take #9221.

1.  The floor in the upstairs bathroom is not entirely level.  This should not come as a shock, thanks to settling foundations, etc.; after a few years, most elements of a house are not entirely level.

2.  If you know what you are doing, you make sure that you shim up the shower unit when you install it, so that it is, indeed, level.  Otherwise, you get gaps between the unit and the wall, and water comes through, wrecking the drywall.

3.  If you don't know what you're doing, you just rest the whole thing directly on the floor, and plug up all the gaps.  Enter water coming through and wrecking the drywall.

4.  If you chose #3, the next owner will have to pay someone to rip out the unit, jack up the tub, level everything, and repair the drywall.

I leave it open to my readers' imaginations as to which option the previous owner took. 

British Historical Fiction before Scott

Literary historians have been out to dethrone (or, at least, decenter) Sir Walter Scott for some time, either by pointing out how much his work derives from earlier genres such as the national tale or the Gothic, or by noting that there have been historical novels since we've had novels [1].   Nevertheless, Scott's wide-ranging international influence means that questions about his originality are in tension with his indisputable cultural centrality.    What's different about Scott, in other words? Or is there a difference?

In British Historical Fiction before Scott, Anne H. Stevens reconstructs the explosion of interest in historical tales in the eighteenth-century literary marketplace.  Her book attempts to put Franco Moretti's arguments for "distant reading" into practice (13): instead of doing extended close readings, she lists, classifies, and tracks genre characteristics across large groups of texts.  She studies how historical novels were distributed in circulating library catalogs and spends a chapter on how book reviewers established the norms for and prestige (or lack thereof) of the emergent genre.  In addition, Stevens borrows from film theory by adapting the concept of "generic cycle" to literary history.  The generic cycle identifies how, through a "series of imitations" (22), recognizable cinematic genres or subgenres emerge: a film comes out, makes a financial splash, is carefully studied by production companies, and after trial and error, a "formula" eventually coalesces.  Thus, Stevens uses the generic cycle to analyze how the categories of "Gothic" and "historical fiction" emerged over the course of the eighteenth century, given that the two forms frequently overlapped in practice (a point that has been made in various forms by Ian Duncan, Fiona Robertson, and James Watt, among others).  Novelists and publishers noted that the innovative works by Thomas Leland and Horace Walpole sold well; sought to imitate and/or revise them; and, eventually, arrived at specific generic characteristics (both of form and content) that appealed to popular tastes.   Furthermore, she argues, book reviewers proved instrumental in sorting out core characteristics, forcing authors to wax more attentive to historical accuracy (sort of) or, at least, more self-aware of deviations from same (e.g., 144).  And eighteenth-century reviewers were already anxious about what would be one of the core debates over historical fiction in the nineteenth century: the "worry about young readers [and adult ones, we could add] obtaining inaccurate information about historical events and figures through fictions" (131). 

Some of Stevens' arguments have wider applications.  In particular, her study of circulating library catalogs demonstrates that "there is a very strong correlation between the most prevalent books in circulating libraries, those that can be found in catalogs a decade or two after their publication, and those that have been reprinted in the modern era."  That is, "the process of canon-formation, sorting out the novelistic canon from the mass of novels that are doomed to be forgotten, happens fairly quickly and decisively" (73).  Given longstanding debates about canon-formation in literary studies, this is an interesting point--but also, perhaps, one in need of further clarification.  It's not clear, for example, whose canon this is: Sophia Lee's The Recess drops out of sight by the mid-19th c., only to be revived for specialist audiences by first Arno Press and then the UP of Kentucky "Eighteenth-Century Novels by Women" series.  Of the other authors she suggests were canonized by the 1830s, Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe, Maria Edgeworth remained readily available from initial publication until the present, whereas William Godwin and Lady Morgan were only resuscitated after academic tastes changed, Jane Porter very recently (sort of), and Jane West not at all (although if somebody wanted to produce a critical edition of The Loyalists, I'd hardly object).    It might be more accurate to suggest that the initial phase of canon-formation happens very early, but that there's an ongoing shakeout; I've previously suggested that you see quite rapid changes in critical estimation around the century mark, whether affirming or disavowing.  Early Everyman's Library catalogs, for example, contain all sorts of now-forgotten things.    (And, of course, critical reputations and sales frequently go through a rising and falling motion in the first couple of decades after an author's death--the Brontes, for example.) 

By the end of the book, Stevens has convincingly demonstrated that Scott "was writing within a certain tradition with a built-in audience and certain generic expectations" (122).  Although the epilogue on Scott's Ivanhoe establishes how he invoked, reworked, and satirized those expectations, though, it doesn't establish how Scott became "Scott"--how, that is, he successfully became the model for future generic cycles.  In part, this is because Stevens analyzes the novel and not its marketing, distribution, and reception history, all of which might go some ways beyond internal factors to explain how Scott, the Wizard of the North, waved his magic wand and made his predecessors vanish.   One might also ask how sheer forgetfulness inadvertently helped make Scott into "Scott"--the reading public's memory is not always long.  Overall, however, this is an extremely useful monograph, both for its analysis and the amount of research legwork involved (literary historians will like the charts a great deal).  

[1] In addition to various articles by Peter Garside, see, e.g., Ina Ferris, The Achivement of Literary Authority: Gender, History, and the Waverley Novels (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1991); Richard Maxwell, The Historical Novel in Europe, 1650-1950 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009); Katie Trumpener, Bardic Nationalism (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1997).  Tomas Hagg points out that "[i]t would not be altogether unreasonable to call some of the Greek novels of love, adventure, and travel 'historical novels.'"  The Novel in Antiquity (Berkeley: U of California P, 1991), 125.    

Me-me-me-me

A book meme, found here.

1. Favorite childhood book?
 Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. 

2. What are you reading right now?
Elaine Lomax's book on Hesba Stretton, Anne Stevens' study of pre-Sir Walter historical fiction, and, for bedside reading, the Mammoth Book of Dracula.  (No bats at my window as of yet.   The stories avoid most of the pitfalls in my Dracula pastiches post, incidentally--there's some quite good stuff here.)  

3. What books do you have on request at the library?
I just ILL'd five books, two by Paul Fiddes, two by David Jasper, and one by somebody else whose name I've momentarily forgotten (but I'm sure it will return to me soon).

4. Bad book habit?
You've seen the bookshelves, right?  Friends have made pointed comparisons between books and rabbits. 

5. What do you currently have checked out at the library?
This could take all day--I've got about thirty books checked out, on a combination of British heritage films (the article I'm writing), various things having to do with Book Two, and religion & literature books (for the bibliographical essay). 

6. Do you have an e-reader?
No.  Given that my plumbing decides to throw a temper tantrum every time I think I've got the spare cash to buy one, it's possible that there may be some sort of Master Plan interfering with my acquisition of same. 

7. Do you prefer to read one book at a time, or several at once?
I have been known to read up to three at once.

8. Have your reading habits changed since starting a blog?
No, although the blog has altered my writing habits--I wind up posting about books that I would never be discussing in my professional work.  Or, on the flip side, I develop ideas that one day reappear in my professional work, albeit in considerably different form.  

9. Least favorite book you read this year (so far?)
It occurs to me that this is an odd question for somebody who specializes in religious fiction of dubious aesthetic value.  But I'd have to say Emily's Ghost. 

10. Favorite book you’ve read this year?
In scholarship, I'd say Gregory Jackson's The Word and Its Witness.  In fiction, Bruce Duffy's The World as I Found It and Ernst Weiss' Georg Letham: Physician and Murderer. 

11. How often do you read out of your comfort zone?
Strictly speaking, much of what I read for "business" is pretty darned discomforting.

12. What is your reading comfort zone?
I read quite a lot of British literature. 

13. Can you read on the bus?
If I can hold the book open, I can read anywhere.

14. Favorite place to read?
At home, generally on the bed or the living room couch, but I also like reading in coffee shops, in the snack bar at the grocery store...

15. What is your policy on book lending?
I'm happy to do so.

16. Do you ever dog-ear books?
Heavens, no.

17. Do you ever write in the margins of your books?
Usually not--I mark important places with slips of paper, and write on those.

18. Not even with text books?
Assigned texts, yes.  I extemporize lectures on poetry, so I'm working directly from the notes in the text. 

19. What is your favorite language to read in?
English. 

20. What makes you love a book?
Was the language seductive? Do I keep thinking about it? Does it reshape how I understand other books? Was it so absorbing that I stayed up to 2 AM to finish it?

21. What will inspire you to recommend a book?
For some reason, I'm pretty shy about recommending books to other people.  (Even my blog posts don't usually say OH YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK.) 

22. Favorite genre?
Novels. 

23. Genre you rarely read (but wish you did?)
I'm afraid that travel writing has never done anything for me.

24. Favorite biography?
Robert Blake's biography of Benjamin Disraeli.  

25. Have you ever read a self-help book?
No, unless the Guide to MLA Style counts...

26. Favorite cookbook?
I generally rely on online sources for my recipes.

27. Most inspirational book you’ve read this year (fiction or non-fiction)?
This was not, perhaps, an inspirational year.

28. Favorite reading snack?
I prefer to have something to drink, rather than eat.

29. Name a case in which hype ruined your reading experience.
I'd have to go back several years, but I'd say Thomas Pynchon's Mason and Dixon.  

30. How often do you agree with critics about a book?
The critics and I tend to go our separate ways when it comes to pop historical fiction.   

31. How do you feel about giving bad/negative reviews?

When I'm writing scholarly reviews, I try to think myself into the shoes of the intended audience, particularly when that audience is clearly not me.  But there are times when you just have to say "there's no evidence here," or "I've read machine translations that make more sense than this author's prose."

32. If you could read in a foreign language, which language would you chose?
Classical Greek.  Which is ironic, of course, because I deliberately avoided becoming a classicist. 

33. Most intimidating book you’ve ever read?
William Gaddis' The Recognitions.

34. Most intimidating book you’re too nervous to begin?
I can't think of anything that is making me "nervous," exactly...

35. Favorite Poet?
Robert Browning.

36. How many books do you usually have checked out of the library at any given time?
I've had close to a hundred or so.  It depends on where I am in a particular project. 

37. How often have you returned book to the library unread?
Not very often. 

38. Favorite fictional character?
Dorothea Brooke in Middlemarch.

39. Favorite fictional villain?
Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair.  

40. Books I’m most likely to bring on vacation?
This is when I go for long contemporary novels. 

41. The longest I’ve gone without reading.
Huh.  A couple of days, maybe?

42. Name a book that you could/would not finish.
A collection of Jane Bowles' work, My Sister's Hand in Mine.  And I just couldn't get into Sarah Waters' Tipping the Velvet, even though I've enjoyed all of Waters' other novels.  

43. What distracts you easily when you’re reading?
Noise actually helps me focus.  But I can't multitask. 

44. Favorite film adaptation of a novel?
Tie betwen Atom Egoyan's adaptation of Russell Banks' The Sweet Hereafter and Peter Weir's adaptation of Joan Lindsay's Picnic at Hanging Rock.

45. Most disappointing film adaptation?

The 1988 adaptation of Little Dorrit (which may well have been a hype issue).  Derek Jacobi is a great actor, but I thought he was about as wrong for Arthur Clennam as it was possible to get.  

46. The most money I’ve ever spent in the bookstore at one time?
Hrrm.  I think I dropped at least $200 on my one visit to Powell's in Portland, OR. 

47. How often do you skim a book before reading it?
Rarely.

48. What would cause you to stop reading a book half-way through?
Either "I'm learning nothing" or "I would probably enjoy this book more if I were using it for fireplace kindling." 

49. Do you like to keep your books organized?
Everything is categorized and then alphabetized.

50. Do you prefer to keep books or give them away once you’ve read them?
I keep almost everything, but do have occasional purges.  Pop fiction tends to leave once I'm done with it, although I keep everything by Reginald Hill (really the only author I collect in first editions). 

51. Are there any books you’ve been avoiding?
Not really, no. 

52. Name a book that made you angry.
I'm blanking on the title, but it was a Horatio Hornblower/Aubrey-Maturin knockoff that had a scene so repulsive that I just said to myself, "I can't be having this in the house." 

53. A book you didn’t expect to like but did?
Frans Bengtsson's The Long Ships.

54. A book that you expected to like but didn’t?
Sigrid Undset's Master of Hestviken novels.  Kristin Lavransdatter was hugely absorbing, but these...

55. Favorite guilt-free, pleasure reading?
British mysteries--Hill, as I said above, but also Ruth Rendell, Ian Rankin, P. D. James, etc. 

Nominal

Of all the things to wax cranky about, students who don't care about how you pronounce their names are, I fear, rather low on my list--somewhere below missing dry erase markers, non-functioning thermostats in winter, and rattling air conditioners.  I've actually given up on getting people to pronounce my surname "correctly"; the adverb there is in quotation marks because there are two pronunciations for it, and my particular branch of the family uses the rarer one (of course).  At this point, whichever pronunciation comes out is fine with me.  My Super Correction Button only gets mashed when somebody sticks an "n" in the middle of it.  Because there is no "n" there. 

This Week's Acquisitions

• Elizabeth M. Stewart, The King and the Cloister; Or, Legends of the Dissolution (D. Stewart, 1872).  Catholic short stories set during the reign of Henry VIII.  (AbeBooks)
• Charles Edmund Maurice, Richard de Lacy.  A Tale of the Later Lollards (British Library, 2011).  Facsimile reprint of a historical novel featuring Reginald Pecock and Jack Cade, among others.  Maurice was a historian and son of theologian F. D. Maurice.   My impression of the hard copy version of this British Library reprint series (the one originally promised for Kindle): seems solidly bound, good paper, a slightly awkward size (rather bigger than a standard trade paperback), some loss to the print (as one might expect from a print of a scan of the original).  (Amazon)
• Michele Roberts, Wild Girl (Random House, 1991).  Example of the "lost gospel" subgenre of the historical novel, this time featuring the Gospel of Mary Magdalene.  (Amazon [secondhand])

Still in search of nuns: Diary of a Nun, vol. II

We return to the scene of the crime.  When last we saw our humble protagonists, they were wandering through an art gallery.  I, meanwhile, was grumbling about the shortage of nuns.

1.  (II.3): Gertrude has found the strength to resist spending any further time with her Illicit Beloved.  And yet, this is only page 3.

2.  (II.3): Never mind.  "I have fallen" (*gasp*) "fallen, oh how grievously, in my own estimation!" OK, so slight false alarm there, but it would appear that Gertrude's moral fiber is none of the sturdiest.

3.  (II.8-9): "I must do him the justice to believe that he has no idea of the state of my feelings, or he never could have pressed me as he did to become an inmate of his house."    Well, this novel wasn't titled Diary of an Intelligent Heroine, so we can't claim false advertising on that score.

4.  Strangely, Edith is not as happy about Gertrude's change of mind as she could have been, being Gertrude's BFF and all. 

5.  (II.11): Gertrude will now try to see what "rigorous self-command" can do for her, even though she wasn't able to maintain her previous resolution for more than about five sentences.  She will, of course, regard Arthur as her "brother."  Because that has been working out so well. 

In the meantime, nuns do not show themselves on the horizon. 

6.  (II.18): We take time out from our Illicit Love to make fun of American taste in art, or lack thereof.

7.  Edith's rejected suitor has put in a reappearance, and very kindly takes up enough of Edith's time that Arthur can hang out with Gertrude.  In a purely fraternal sort of way, of course.  Remember, rigorous self-command.

8.  (II.25-26): Once again, the author has run out of material, so it's time to do some more sight-seeing--this time, Bernini's Apollo and Daphne in the Villa Borghese.

9.  (II.27): And now, Gertrude feels foreshadowing stealing upon her with feet of lead. 

What could possibly go wrong, after all?

Also, ongoing lack of nuns.

10.  Gertrude takes time out from conducting an Illicit Love Affair platonically enjoying the company of her "brother" to mock the miracle of Saint Januarius. For a woman who supposedly has a deep-seated attachment to Roman Catholicism, she certainly acts like your average Victorian Protestant.  Perhaps this is a sign of complex characterization at work.

Or perhaps the novelist doesn't know what s/he is doing.

11.  (II.60): Oops! Edith has found it terribly convenient to let Gertrude do all these boring sight-seeing trips with Arthur.  It's good to know that both of our heroines lack much in the way of common sense.

12.  (II.61): Oops, take two! Edith has finally figured out that Something Is Not Right Here. 

13.  (II.62): Oops, yet again! She doesn't mention this to her husband, who would have been ever so "grateful" for the admonition (despite there being nothing in the current characterization to suggest that that would be true).  It's not altogether clear that the novelist has much in the way of common sense.

Of course, since I'm still reading this novel, despite the predictable absence of nuns, my own common sense may be in question.

14.  (II.64): Oops, take four! Edith continues to hang around with her rejected suitor, which cannot possibly be a good thing. 

15.  (II.77): Arthur and Gertrude get themselves locked in Pompeii.  Alas, no volcanic eruptions follow, symbolic or otherwise.  Strangely, Arthur doesn't seem to understand why his wife might be upset.

16.  (II.78): Tsk, tsk.  Arthur doesn't like Edith hanging about with her rejected suitor.   It's almost as though he's some sort of hypocrite.  But Edith's feelings for her rejected suitor are, it would seem, only of the purest, the most innocent, the most reeking of the odor of sanctity, the most...you get the picture.  I detect another Mary Sue looming upon the horizon.

17.  (II.80): Good thing that Edith is sticking to the "path of duty," unlike her husband and BFF, who clearly...are not.

Meanwhile, a third of the way through volume two, no nuns have manifested themselves.   Do I continue to read out of duty? Sheer cussedness? My devotion to my eager blog readers, who are probably also wondering why on earth I'm still reading this thing?

18.    We interrupt this all-around romantic incompetence for additional sightseeing and anectrivia.  On a positive note, this book is so padded that it would probably bounce if you dropped it.

19.  (II.127): Gertrude comes up with something nice to say about Catholicism.  Stop the presses! Or the blog!

20.  (II.143): Our sight-seeing tour stops at the Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino.  In other words, monks.  Yes, monks.  No nuns.

21.  (II.147): One of the monks appears to be sending a mash note to a former fellow student at Oxford.  This is not what one expects of monks, but Gertrude and Edith think it's adorbs.  Gertrude moans again about the "gloom and monotony of a convent."   By this time, the reader may detect some foreshadowing about Gertrude's Punishment for the Sin of Illicit Love.

22.  (II.152): Gertrude succumbs to yet another attack of the foreshadowings.

23.  (II.155): Gertrude has gone, and now Arthur is in a state of massive sulks, surely incompatible with pure brotherly love.

24.  (II.160): Poor Edith--will she die of a broken heart? Will Arthur and Gertrude atone for their sin? Will the LP continue mocking this novel?

25.  (II.163-64): Gertrude is thinking some pretty nasty thoughts about the inferiority of her BFF, who so obviously does not deserve the awesome hunk of manhood that is Arthur.  But...but...pure brotherly love! 

The moral corruption on display is almost too much for my delicate sensibilities, but I shall be firm.

We're getting to the end of the novel.  I still hold out a faint hope for nuns.

26.  (II.168):  Edith has to admit that she is not, perhaps, altogether enthusiastic about another reunion with Gertrude.  This demonstrates common sense.   She makes up for this unexpected attack of emotional realism by writing a letter of Tender Forgiveness to Gertrude, and in so doing, begins her slow, inexorable slide into the purest of angelically pure Mary Sues.

27.  (II.181): The rejected suitor turns up and points out to Edith that she's being an idiot. Edith momentarily sinks under this onslaught of the blooming obvious, but soon rebounds. 

28.  (II.187-88): Oh, dear.  Arthur has also been writing letters to Gertrude, and not of the Tenderly Forgiving variety. 

29.  (II.191): Poor Edith can't catch a break.  After discovering Arthur's letter to Gertrude, she runs out into the woods (but it might be cold and damp!) and promptly overhears an Illicit Encounter between the two, in which Arthur says some Not Very Nice Things. 

This being a Victorian novel, Edith swoons.  It's an important weapon in the arsenal of every innocent Victorian female character, but is generally ill-advised when it's nighttime and cold. 

In case you're wondering, no nuns rush to Edith's rescue. 

30.  (I.195): Gertrude finds the letter of Tender Forgiveness, and is distraught.  Arthur throws a temper tantrum.  Why, it's as though he isn't an awesome hunk of manhood, and everyone has been deceived.

Sort of like the author has been telling us from the second chapter or so.

31.  Gertrude, who has been snarking her way through the book, is now reaching heights of Extreme Righteousness heretofore unimagined by man, or at least this novel.  Arthur, however, is clearly Teh Evulz. 

Edith is presumably still in  a state of swoon.

32.  (II.202): Finally, Gertrude sees "the path of duty."  It's certainly taken her long enough.

33.  (II.207): Gertrude flees to a convent, because, after all, "her heart had long leaned towards the religion of her mother."  This despite the fact that she's been spouting off anti-Catholic cracks the entire novel.

Perhaps the novelist assumed that the reader would just skip to the end.

However, nuns!

34.  (II.208): As Gertrude has now relinquished the right to snark about Catholicism, the narrator will do it instead, making it clear that Gertrude falls prey to Catholicism's snare only because her own Protestant upbringing has been so poor.  Apparently, this is what you get for letting under-Protestantized young ladies go to Italy.  Well, that and the whole Illicit Love thing. 

35.  (II.215): Noooo! Edith is dying of consumption! And just when it looked like she might get her husband back, too. 

Moral of the story: don't swoon when it's cold.  Try to do so only in warm environments. 

36.  (II.224): Does Edith hate Gertrude? Does she heap her with reproaches? Does she point out that she's partly responsible for the deadly swoon?

That would be kind of entertaining, actually.  Instead, Edith douses Gertrude in buckets-full of Purity, Love, and Forgiveness.  Treacle slowly rolls off the pages and onto my laptop keyboard, gumming up the keys.

37.  (II.234): Now it's Arthur's turn to drown in treacle.

And I had just cleaned off my laptop.

38.  (II.238): Edith dies while "pointing upwards," which seems sort of...I don't know...obvious.

Then again, the Star Wars prequels had more subtlety than this novel.

39.  (II.245): Edith's mother dies.  On Edith's grave. I suppose there's a certain convenience to dying in a cemetery. 

Let me revise my previous statement: the Stars Wars Holiday Special had more subtlety than this novel.

(I saw the Holiday Special when it aired, making me one of the privileged few.)

40.  Gertrude is now on the verge of becoming a nun.  Yes! Finally! My patience has been rewarded!

41.  (II.254): Edith is dead; Edith's mother is dead; and Gertrude is about to become a Carmelite.  So Arthur is now writhing in Pangs of Remorse, right?

Nope.  He wants Gertrude to come and live with him.  Dude, seriously?

Also, if she leaves the convent, I'll be deprived of nuns again.

Luckily for both me and the novel, Gertrude remains firm. 

42.  (II.257): Instead of Gertrude complaining about convent "gloom," it's now the narrator. 

43.  (II.269): My goodness, Arthur is still whining about Gertrude deserting him.  This is the whiniest whine that ever whined.

44.  (II.275-76): Gertrude (now Teresa) promises Arthur that the remainder of her life will be spent in "one long deep dream of thee," which I don't think is how nuns are supposed to conduct themselves. 

45.  The novel has just burst into poetry, celebrating Teresa's enduring love for a guy who has spent the entire novel demonstrating that he's really kind of a jerk.  For some reason, the sublimity of this eludes me.

46.  And so we conclude, with Teresa doing penance by meditating on Edith's grave in an extremely uncomfortable position.  At least she's thinking about somebody other than Arthur, the King of Whines. 

There was, after all, a nun, but the book might have been more accurately titled Diary of Somebody Who Will Be a Nun By the End of the Novel, But Don't Get Your Hopes Up Too Soon. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking for nuns in all the wrong places: Diary of a Nun

1.  A novel about a nun? That I've never heard of? How interesting! (To me.)  I shall read it.

2.  (Vol. I) Young Edith is engaging in trite dialogue with her mother about two suitors.  No nuns yet.

3.  Third-person omniscient narrative + chapter in epistolary format = where's the diary?

4.  (I.16) Describing Edith's tender-hearted nature": "For, oh, what happiness can such dispositions hope to find in this cold world ?—what but disappointment and misery can await them? Fond hopes blighted — young high spirits broken — ardent affections chilled and trampled on! Is not this the lot of all the brightest and fairest upon earth,—of all who have a heart to waste upon its hardness?"  I...I detect foreshadowing.  Somehow, somewhere.  Could it be that Edith will come to a bad end?

Shocking.

Also, still no nuns. 

5.  (I.18): Edith's regard for her beloved Arthur is "idolatry."  The drums of foreshadowing grow ominously louder.

In case you're wondering, the two pages that have passed since the previous entry have supplied no nuns.

6.  Edith's friend Gertrude is half-Italian,  half-English.  Besides being an obvious Corinne knock-off, this also endows her, one presumes, with an Passionate and Uncontrollable Nature.  Unlike Corinne, however, Gertrude lacks star quality, although she might do well enough on American Idol. 

7.  (I.24): Gertrude adores "Tasso and Metastasio."  Does this bode ill for her moral fiber?  Am I being insensibly corrupted by the copy of Jersualem Delivered on my shelf?

Nuns continue to be conspicuous by their absence.  But still, it's early yet, right?

8.  (I.38): The narrator is moralizing again: "Happy, oh, happier far are they who hold on their solitary path through life, unloving and unloved! What though no bright dream of ecstasy shed a momentary halo around them?—they are not doomed to 'awake, and find the vision flown;' it is not theirs to mourn over the tomb of blighted hopes and crushed affections."  Oddly enough, this is right after Arthur declares his Undying Love to our heroine, Edith.  The foreshadowing continues to rumble along, like thunder after a spectacular lightning strike.  Or one's stomach after too much chocolate cake with fudge icing.

9.  (I.39): It's a nun!  I dance a hora around the office in celebration.

But it can't be the nun, because she's a supporting character. 

My heart droops.

10.  (I.52): Gertrude is "disappointed" in Edith's Beloved Arthur.  The shock, the horror.

Letters again.  The novel's title distinctly announced a nun and a diary; we've seen only one nun, who isn't writing a diary, and nobody else seems inclined to diarize, either.

11.  Four pages later, Gertrude appears to be awfully pleased whenever Arthur is in the neighborhood.  Must be the dire influence of Tasso. 

12.  And four pages after that, Gertrude and Arthur find themselves possessed of "a wonderful congeniality of taste and disposition."  Of course, Arthur's grand passion is entirely reserved for his Edith.

Of course.

The cluelessness is strong in this one. 

13.  (I.61): It's...it's...it's a diary.  I can barely restrain myself from dancing another hora around the room.  Luckily, the ongoing lack of nuns helps me maintain control.

14.  (I.62): For some reason, Gertrude is oddly unwilling to depart Venice.  You know, where she's been hanging out with Arthur.  The guy engaged her to her BFF.  That guy.

Except that now she's rhapsodizing about the inferiority of BFF and other BFF (now the novel's only nun) to Arthur.  Golly, I wonder what's going on.  Could it be...lurrve? Luv? Or even love?

In the interest of scholarly detachment, I shall disengage sarcasm mode. 

15.  (I.66): Now the characters are indulging in foreshadowing.  It's almost as if we're supposed to think that this is all going to turn out really, really badly.

Strangely enough, sarcasm mode has reengaged.

The number of nuns continues to be stuck at one.  I contemplate suing for false advertising.

16.  Gertrude begins sight-seeing.  This novel might actually be useful to someone studying tourism in Victorian culture.

I, however, am not doing that.

17.  Still sight-seeing.  If I were interested in writing about tourism at this juncture, I might find the motivation to figure out just which travel writer(s) this novelist has decided to plagiarize. 

Note the "if."

18.  (I.95): Good heavens.  Gertrude's sight-seeing now encompasses a "collection of human petrifactions."  It is not immediately clear why human petrifactions need to appear in a Victorian novel, let alone what they have to do with nuns.  Because I had expected more nuns than petrifactions by this point. 

19.  Amazingly, the petrifactions in question are real (warning: NSFW and/or the squeamish, due to petrified heads and other body parts). I have now learned something, although the knowledge in question is not, perhaps, altogether practical in nature. 

20. (I.100): For some reason, Arthur just can't bear to tear himself away from Gertrude.  It's almost as though the foreshadowing has come to pass.  Or something.

Now, if only the novel's title would come to pass...

21.  (I.111): Gertrude admits to herself that she has fallen in love with her BFF's fiance.  The world rocks on its axis at this sudden demonstration of basic self-awareness. Not that she's going to tell Arthur about her Forbidden Passion.  Or Edith! Definitely not.  Absolutely not.  Positively not.

Just who are we fooling here? There's still one-and-one half volumes to go.

22.  In order to fill up the rest of the pages, we now break from our regularly scheduled Secret Passion to spend several pages on the manners and morals of the Italian peasantry. Why, it's as though the author felt that his/her plot was inadequate for a full-length novel! Either that, or s/he had an unpublishable travel narrative lying around the house.

23. (I.148): Gertrude trots off to visit Catalani.  I hear a dull thud, as of a name being dropped into the uncharted depths of a dry well. 

I do not, however, hear any nuns.  I have been deprived of nuns.  This novel promised me nuns, darn it.

24.  (I.157): Gertrude's feelings about Edith's marriage would appear to be oddly mixed, given that Edith is her BFF and all.

25.  Back to sight-seeing again.  The author's inspiration is not what one would call wide-ranging.

26.  Time to complain about what passes for food in Italian inns.  At least Gertrude's attitude to her stomach remains thoroughly realistic.

27.  (I.179): Gertrude drops in at a Catholic church, and feels "suddenly transported to some holy, happy region, far from this sorrowful, distracting world."  Could this be a sign of a nun-in-waiting?

28.  (I.181):  And yet, when she visits BFF #2 in her convent, Gertrude bemoans the "dreary monotony of such a tedious existence."  Ironic foreshadowing? Victorian anti-Catholic + anti-convent sentiment? A combination of both?

29.  (I.182): Yet another name, Giuseppe Mezzofanti, thunks down amidst the pages. 

30.  (I.186): Apparently, nobody told the author that name-dropping is most effective when the name in question is spelled correctly.  I work up sufficient energy to figure out that the mysterious "Tinerani" is actually the sculptor Pietro Tenerani. 

I soldier on...

31.  (I.187): ...only to stumble and fall headlong over yet another name, that of actress and poet Rosa Taddei.  Please tell me that Gertrude isn't going to meet every celebrity in Italy. 

32.  Alas, I neglected to mention that Gertrude is apparently BFF with yet another star, the sculptor Bertel Thorvalsden.  All famous people adore Gertrude, even though she's being kind of a jerk to Edith (reminder: Gertrude has alienated the affections of Edith's Darling Arthur).  I detect a strange "squee!" floating through the air, as of a thousand Mary Sues glorying in the panting love of their Captain Kirks.

33.  (I.201): A whole lot of snarking at papal elections going on.  If Gertrude is going to magically morph into a nun, she'll have a lot of explaining to do. 

34.  Back to the manners and morals again, this time in high life. This is clearly a short story in search of an editor. 

I would pat myself on the back for my intellectual fortitude, were it not that I continue to read this novel out of sheer stubbornness.  I refuse to believe that the title, like the cake, is a lie.

35.  (I.234): And now we're staring at the corpse of Napoleon's mother. Luckily for her, she's dead--she's spared having to adore Gertrude.  To be fair, all this sight-seeing seems to keep Gertrude from fantasizing over her BFF's husband.  Either that, or the author temporarily forgot the plot.

36.  (I.258): The Inquisition! *gasp*

Some random anti-Catholicism follows.

37.  (I.272): A letter from Edith! With a postscript from Arthur, comparing Edith to Gertrude! Could it be that Arthur's and Gertrude's Grand Passion has survived the marriage? Could it be that the foreshadowing has come true? Could it be that this novel is mind-blowingly predictable?

38.  (I.273): But Gertrude will only love him "as a brother."  As opposed to loving him as a father, uncle, or microwave oven, no doubt.

39.  (I.275): Two pages later, Gertrude angsts over Arthur's chilliness.  Because, presumably, he should have engaged in a Demonstration of His Grand Passion right in front of his wife, as one always does with one's Illicit Beloved. Also, exactly what sort of warmth does one expect from a brother? It's not as though we're watching the first two Star Wars films, before Luke figured out that Leia was not a romantic option.

40.  (I.278): Arthur and Gertrude get lost in the woods.  The symbolism, it kills me.  Along with the ongoing shortage in the supply of nuns--nuns being, as you may recall, the only reason I picked this novel up in the first place.

Perhaps I'm being punished for some unknown transgression.

41.  Yet more sight-seeing, complete with not-very-acute observations on contemporary art.  Oh, joy.

...and that's how we end volume one, with the characters sight-seeing, the novelist achieving new heights of book inflation, and the innocent scholar rather distraught. 

 

 

 

This Week's Acquisitions

• The Rev. Arthur Pennington, Preludes to the Reformation; Or, from Dark to Day in Europe (RTS, 1886).  Part of a popular religious history series.  Pennington was a prolific biographer and church historian who usually wrote on medieval and early Reformation topics.  (eBay)