Neglected Classics and Unbound Women

Apologies for my absence this week, my friends. I’ve been under the weather and am still suffering the ill-effects of the chronic fatigue that inevitably attaches to whatever ails me. This has had the consequence that I’m also terribly behind in my reviews. Now, I’ve noticed lots of blogging friends signing up for the Women Unbound Challenge, which I thought was tempting, but which I hadn’t intended to join. And then it suddenly struck me that all the reading I’ve done of late (four and a half books) has featured women behaving, or at least trying to behave, in an unorthodox manner. So, belatedly, I’m in. I think that the role of women in novels is notably constrained. Women are confined within a couple of dominant plotlines; they are either a) romantic heroines, pursuing love or b) selfless, devoted mothers or c) wicked and unsympathetic in some way because they are neither a) nor b). It’s quite unusual to find novelists who are trying to do something different with their central female protagonists, and practically nothing upsets the moral universe in which good women are selfless and bad women are out for gain.

So let’s begin with Anthony Trollope’s Miss Mackenzie, a novel that’s been in the news recently because it was advocated by Joanna Trollope as one of Radio 4’s Neglected Classics. Given that it was published in 1865, we’re not going to expect rampant radical feminism here, no. But Trollope did have unusual intentions up his sleeve as he set out ‘to prove that a novel may be produced without any love’. He admitted himself that in fact it didn’t turn out that way in the end, but he still incurred the bewilderment of reviewers at the time by making his heroine plain and unremarkable. Miss Mackenzie, by the time the reader meets her, is an old maid of 36 who has spent her life caring first for her sick father and then her sick brother. Finally she is free and independent, having come into a reasonable sum of money on her brother’s death. And with this little sum, Miss Mackenzie decides to see a bit of the world. She moves to Littlebath (Trollope’s fictional version of Bath) and rents lodgings there, taking with her a niece from her remaining brother’s family, with the intention of paying for her education. And once she is there, the trouble begins, with endless unscrupulous attempts about to be made upon her, in order to secure a stake in her modest fortune.

Money matters, in Trollope’s world, and even an unprepossessing soul like Margaret Mackenzie can clock up a surprising three suitors, all of whom look less attractive than the last, and none of whom seems able to view her separately her from her eight thousand a year. Her family, rather than support and protect her in her newfound independence, are in fact the first of the vultures. Her remaining brother is in trade – which makes for lots of Trollopian fretting about class issues – and his wife is a horrible, grasping sort who needles Margaret mercilessly in order to get a share of her inheritance. Her brother’s business partner, a Mr Rubb, comes courting Margaret with clearly mixed motives. His first act is to secure a hefty loan for the business, which is instantly lost to swathes of debt. Then there are the Balls, a different line of her family, who hold a grudge that they were cheated out of money many years ago and ought by rights to have it now. Margaret’s cousin on this side, John Ball, has nine children, and needs funds. He is manipulated by possibly the most awful character in the novel, the truly ghastly Lady Ball, Margaret’s aunt, who bothers and blackmails her relentlessly and cruelly, to get hold of the money. Then there is a deeply unpleasant clergyman in Littlebath, the Rev. Maguire, whose squint Trollope describes with disquieting horror. He wants to set himself up in his own church and will prove to be one of the most tenacious and underhanded of them all.

But in the middle of this, holding onto her integrity with both hands, is Margaret Mackenzie, who continually balances calm common sense and insight against her desire to be ‘useful’ and give herself and her money over to the worthiest cause. Miss Mackenzie is a wonderful creation; clear-sighted enough to recognize (with sorrow and indignity) when people are out to abuse her, yet quietly passionate about her right to be loved for herself. This is a forward-thinking novel for its time, although its concerns are ancient. There is a profound inquiry into women’s value here, and Margaret wants to be valued at least in part for something other than her inheritance. But since it is the nineteenth century, women are almost inextricably bound up with the money they possess, and Margaret is bitterly aware that while she is relatively rich, no one can view her without money bags popping up before their eyes. And so, about halfway into the novel, Margaret loses all the money she gained, not by any fault of her own, but through a legal loophole.  Whilst she faces poverty and an end to all her worldly aspirations (which were on the tentative side anyway), it does open up a pathway for her to find out which of her unsuitable suitors has the most genuine and lasting desire for her. Because choose one of them she will, before the novel has finished.

So, a quick feminist tot-up here on Trollope’s credit and debit sheet. On the negative side, Trollope still can’t come up with any other plotline for a female protagonist than to have her fall in love and, prior to that ultimate salvation, to have her suffer horribly. Women were such empty vessels in the nineteenth century, their ornamental status so absolute and blinding that any other form of ‘doing’ was entirely foreclosed. Furthermore, the happy ending is only reached after the deus ex machina intervention of yet another relative (and a female one), but finally, finally!, a nice person, who is willing to help Margaret out, albeit from her secure, moneyed and titled position. We have not reached the point in history yet where sisters are doing it for themselves. They need to be backed up by another form of authority. Still in the debit column, Margaret has little or no self-esteem, and is aware that she is valuable to those around her only to the extent that she can give herself (and her assets) away. But, and this is a relatively biggish but, she never sacrifices her pride, either financial or personal, refuses to be any kind of a burden on others, is faintly distrustful of her own romantic notions, and remains at all times true to her own sense of priorities and values. She is clear-sighted, quick-witted, not lost to her emotions and always acting with great integrity. There is much more to Margaret Mackenzie than love interest in a novel; she is, for once, a character in her own right.

I loved this book, and found it an engaging and satisfying read, and whilst I couldn’t rate it as highly as La Cousine Bette or Middlemarch, it is certainly worth your time.

Reasons For Buying Books

I see that my blog friends Dorothy and Stefanie have both been talking about this of late, and I can never resist joining in on their discussions. They have been wondering why a reader might feel guilty about buying books, but I’m approaching this from the angle of being a reader who thinks it’s important to buy them. If you simply cannot afford books at present, that’s fine; we’ve all been there at one time or another. Go read a different post because I’m not addressing you. But if you have a small portion of your disposable income set aside for leisure pursuits, then here are my reasons why you should spend it on books:

1. Reading is extremely good for you. It focuses the mind, hones concentration and improves memory, all in scientifically proven ways.* It is also a way to open your mind to other cultures, other perspectives, other ways of life. Reading on screen, listening or watching television and/or films does not bring the same mental benefits as the slow, in depth, contemplative exercise of reading on the page. It also teaches problem solving and lowers stress. If you think it is important to do a sport or take exercise for the body, it’s equally essential to work out the brain, or else we risk becoming insular, forgetful, restless and opinionated.

2. If you already enjoy reading then it’s important at this particular juncture of history to be evangelical about it. Numbers of young people reading are dropping fast. Half of the American population between 18-24 has never read a book. On average an American citizen reads four books a year (and those are not necessarily fiction). I couldn’t find online statistics for other countries, alas, but I’m sure they are similar. It’s essential that we promote reading as much as we possibly can as there is a genuine risk of it becoming an eccentric hobby, and as I mentioned above, there are essential personal reasons why we do it.

3. But there are also cultural reasons. Buying a book is like placing a vote for a certain way of life. Books ask us to think deeply about the reasons why we do things, they challenge us and they reflect back to us the kind of society we create for ourselves. A culture with a strong literary component is one that considers contemplation, critique and creativity essential factors in the life of its citizens. It’s a culture that is not afraid to question what it does, and that welcomes subversion as being essential to vitality and growth. It’s a culture that doesn’t want to encourage sheep-like compliance or self-centred, short-sighted demands. It’s the culture I’d like to live in.

4. It isn’t necessarily the culture we do live in, and the atrocious state of the publishing industry is testimony to that. Publishing is currently in crisis and much as that may in part be due to the industry’s own excessive expectations following the creation of all those huge multi-media companies in the 90s, we have to support it if we want it to continue, and therefore gain the benefits of a vibrant book culture. Cutbacks in publishing do not lead to only the best-written books making it onto the marketplace, as we know. Instead, frightened publishers churn out celebrity biographies and Dan Brown-alikes. So, support the industry before we lose it, or lose any chance of intervening in its future. Buy the books you would most like to see published. Buy the kind of books you would like to write, if you feel that way inclined. Buy wall-to-wall Jilly Cooper and children’s annuals, if that’s what pleases you; bestsellers make it possible for publishers to risk other types of books and maintain a diverse list.

5. It’s important to support libraries too, for all those people who simply cannot afford books. But the only way to show that reading remains important, to governments, to industries, to advertisers, is to buy a book. Only the market with its cold, hard statistics has real, uncontentious power at present.

6. Books are relatively cheap. A full price book still costs less than a cinema, theatre or concert ticket, a meal out or half a tank of petrol. The problem with book buying is that it tends to be small amounts spent regularly, which become more noticeable to the consumer than a large amount spent infrequently. You could buy a book a week for a whole year and spend less than you would on a couple of nights at a mid-range hotel. Other consistent expenditure on non-necessities – on snack foods, on alcohol, on cigarettes, on clothes shopping, on travel – adds up to much more than book buying and is generally worse for you or the environment. I’m not quite sure why it is, but people tend to be more tenacious about indulging their vices than their virtues. If books could be proven to be bad for you, sales would start to increase, I suspect.

7. So you already have books on the shelves? Well, the good news is that books do not have use-by dates. Have a look in the fridge instead and see what ought to be thrown out, calculate the cost of those items and compare it to the price of a book. Books sit around and wait for the right time for you to read them. There have been periods of stringent economy in my household when my husband was out of work, or when I’ve been ill with chronic fatigue, when I’ve been extremely glad of having a stack of books laid in. And being able to choose exactly the right book for the moment contributes a lot to the quality of my reading life, I think.

8. So you are running out of space on the shelves? Well, think first of all how wonderful your house looks, packed full of gorgeous books. And how it reflects back to you the life of your imagination over the past few decades. And how it says you’re the kind of contemplative, thoughtful, open-minded person I mentioned in the first point. And then either, a) squeeze in another bookcase or b) have a bit of a cull and give books to the friends who can’t afford them, or the charity shops, or even sell them at a car boot sale for a book slush fund.

9. Finally, I rather liked this article about spending money, which claims that 80% of people who suddenly come into a great deal of money run through it in the first year, whilst 12% end up committing suicide. Sudden wealth isn’t necessarily an advantage, then. But the article suggests that the most worthwhile expenditure is on education, and books at all levels, whether text books or guides or even mind-expanding fiction, are an education waiting to happen. Buying books is always an investment – in my own mental development, and in the healthy, vibrant life of my culture. I think that’s worth it.

* Writing this post made me order (!) Maryanne Wolf’s book, Proust and the Squid, which is all about reading and neuroscience – so in time I might have more precise details on this topic.