Dear Medieval Blog:
I must confess, I am unfaithful in my affections. You see, I have this horrible crush on the 19th century. I know, it’s awful. I mean, I’ve spent so long collecting little pictures to illustrate medieval posts, and I’ve got absolutely nothing for the 19th century.
So. I said I wasn’t Well Read, and I was going to read more Literature. I thought about a structured program of reading, but in the end my reading habits shall be directed by What I Can Lay Hands On In Second-Hand Or Remainders Stores (this is not a bad plan. Canberra has whole shops devoted to Academic Remainders).
And that is how I came to read Henry James’ Portrait of a Lady. I could say a lot of things about this book. It is long. It is the longest non-academic book I’ve read for… possibly four years. Maybe more. And since I rarely read an academic book cover-to-cover, suffice it to say that 636 pages of Portrait were an exercise in patience. It’s not a book which moves very fast: it’s a book in which people drift about Europe and converse in drawing-rooms, and all the 
interest and beauty is in the detail of their characterisation and relationships. There are no explosions, swords, quests, comic relief characters, or even satisfactory snogging scenes. Once upon a time this wouldn’t have bothered me, but apparently I’ve grown shallow in my old age.
Aside from the lack of explosions, swords, quests and the like, the other thing which bothered me about reading 636 pages of 19th century literature is that, when one reads novels, one reads the novel. I’m so used to reading medieval texts in small chunks, responding, commenting, reading secondary lit, reading some more of the original, discussing, making pencil notes and cross-referencing this or that other obscure text, it was very strange to be reading only one thing at a time and having no further purpose to it. My inner cross-referencer went into overdrive, and came up with some interesting points of comparison.
First up, Portrait reminded me of The Picture of Dorian Gray1, so much so that I wonder if one title references the other or if they’re both referencing something common to them. Not in plot, per se, but they share a common genre – both Gothic, but largely bereft of spooks, ghosts, bloodsuckers, sputtering candles, fluttering curtains, and all the usual bread and butter of Gothickery. Each relies on one chilling figure to underpin the Gothic narrative – although both Wilde and James do use some of the other tropes of Gothic literature (murder for Wilde, ghosts for James) with a light hand. The Picture lurks at the centre of Dorian’s tragedy, and Gilbert Osmond at the centre of Isabel’s. Understatement is the order of the day: both Wilde and James underplay the horror – it is not as if they wish to wind their audience into hysterical fright, or wow them with dramatic thrills, but rather to leave the reader unnerved.
Wilde and James also have in common a knack of Not Talking About Sex while still, very much, talking about sex. They go about it differently – you can tell Wilde is trying to see just how much he can say, just how far he can push people before someone arrests him (again). I read Dorian and sniggered and muttered things to myself like “artistic romance my FOOT”, and then had a look at the appendixes and discovered that all the business about Basil’s “artistic passion” for Dorian was
a late addition… the original Wilde MS did not exactly beat around the bush in the early stages, but as far as Penguin’s appendices can tell you, he never went so far as to spell out what Dorian’s sins were, exactly what dreadful influence he had on young men, or the extent of the experiences Dorian pursued for the sake of experience. He leaves the question open: he could mean anything, and whatever answer you settle upon leaves you wondering both if you’re dreadfully dirty-minded, and if you’re incredibly naive and the truth is much more salacious.
James is, in a way, more straightforward: he simply elides sex and desire from his narrative, and the absence tells you very clearly exactly what it is he means. James’ description of Osmond, on introducing him, didn’t make of him the great object of desire which Wilde does of Dorian Gray (you can hear Wilde drooling…). He tells us little of Isabel’s initial reaction to Osmond: she admires his taste, enjoys his conversation… We are told nothing of her decision-making process surrounding her marriage: James keeps the details as shuttered off from the reader as Isabel keeps them from her family. All we know is that she’s somehow gone from a self-analytical young woman opposed to marriage, to one with an all-absorbing devotion to an apparently unremarkable betrothed.
Wilde’s treatment of desire in Dorian Gray was entertaining and intellectually engaging, but James’ handling of the subject in Portrait really got me. It’s the one power which could make Isabel surrender her self-determination, and James doesn’t engage with it as an intrinsic part of her character, or even as one of the life experiences her friends thought so beneficial to her. He simply marks out the space where desire arrived in her life, and leaves that space for the reader to remember as, in the ruin of her marriage, Isabel holds fast to the determination that she chose her surrender.
Secondly – and more surprisingly than the Wilde connection – Portrait brought my internal cross-referencing system to Little Women and the work of Louisa May Alcott. This post has taken me far too long, so I shan’t continue right now, but as soon as I can manage it without decimating my sleeping patterns, we will consider such questions as the value of experience, a young woman’s potential, and a woman’s duty.
1. Also an acquisition of the What Can I Buy Cheaply campaign. <3 Popular Penguins.
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What is it that’s so fascinating about kings? I’ve been reading Shakespeare’s Richard II, thanks to 
Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood
And yet, almost every fantasy series you pick up has a king in it: often the hero, who is not king, will become king. What makes a king, what kind of man must a king be, who can be king, how shall the king rule, is the king still king in exile? Aragorn, Denethor and Boromir: is it birth which sets Aragorn apart? Personality? Circumstances? Wisdom? His impressive manly stubble?
On the off-chance that someone might want to contact me: gmail disabled the email address I was using for this blog, for no known reason (I assume the keyword ‘naked’ in the title was a bad idea).
In the meantime, months ago I stumbled across a list of frequently banned books (American Libraries Association data) from the last decate of last century, and 
I keep meaning to post things (really, I have posts all lined up in my head!). But the Real World is unexpectedly more time-consuming, or possibly more energy-consuming, than you’d think.
re so inclined.
* Stress happens in the Real World, too. But it’s not the end of the world. Right now, for example, my team is completely crunched: major project, already extended deadlines by about a month, and there is absolutely no way the final product is going to be as shiny and professional as we would like it.
Stress is happening. I want to go into Deadline Mode (stopping only sleep, eating while working, and compulsively checking Livejournal every five minutes). But even if I did, this is a teamwork project, and I’m the tiniest cog in the team machine. I’ve worked in teams before and I’ve worked on projects with deadlines before, but I’ve never done both at once. It’s at once incredibly frustrating and incredibly comforting. This thing lives or dies on a communal effort, and its success or failure doesn’t change my net worth as a human being, or my standing in the workplace.
