119. Something Childish but Very Natural – Katherine Mansfield

Another in the Penguin Great Loves collection, Something Childish but Very Natural is my first taste of New Zealand-born Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923). I must admit that a lot of dipping into this collection has been to gain introductions to authors I am perfect strangers with. Some have really tugged at the heart strings and some have put me to sleep with their bombastic silliness. On the whole I’ve felt that I’ve filled in some of my knowledge gaps but this collection of books can be a bit hit and miss.

So before we get to the book who is Mansfield? She was a short story writer and poet, a modernist, a friend to D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf. Her life was cut short by tuberculosis, but despite her 34 years she still had a full life. Lovers, both male and female, failed marriages, miscarriages, travelling, and an altogether bohemian feel to some of her affairs. A scattering of publications. Sadly, she died leaving much of her work unpublished thus the husband she left behind and hadn’t divorced is responsible for editing and publishing the body work.

Something Childish but Very Natural – Katherine Mansfield

From that you might probably be able to guess that this is a collection about the short comings of love and the ikky queasy feelings that come with uncertainty. This is really a book I would never have read from my own motivation, there is a control to the prose that doesn’t feel forced and at times is poetic.

At times her stories are fleeting, but sensitive in their complexities. You get the sense Mansfield really understands the emotions she is writing about, her and all of her characters are old friends that have been on this stage together and now, she is their perfect director. Mansfield seems to be a a writer concerned with a sort of ‘threshold of people’, by that I mean the emotional experience and the endurance of the emotional experience, the sort of pain threshold. In turn her prose seem to turn you into most observant voyeur and an emotional seismograph reading the smallest ripples that come from the smallest details.

I found a very interesting article about Virginia Woolf’s relationship with Katherine Mansfield and here is a lovely quote taken from one of Woolf’s letters to Vanessa Bell:

“Still there are things about writing I think of & want to tell Katherine…. And I was jealous of her writing — the only writing I have ever been jealous of.” – p.264, “Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf and Tensions of Empire during the Modernist Period”, Sarah Ailwood.

That on it’s own must be the highest praise and are words I never thought I’d see written. So. To follow here is a run down of the 8 stories within Something Childish but Very Natural.

Something Childish But Very Natural – The title story concerns some bittersweet moments of thorny innocence. Henry meets Edna on the train and the two young people fall for each other through the journey. He works in an architect’s office and she goes to a training college to be a secretary and although the have decided they are in love their relationship is scuppered before it begins by youth, inexperience and naivety. Edna wants to keep it purely platonic but Henry, whilst patient and caring, is desperate to take it to the next level. He tries to keep his feelings in check despite the fact that he is in love with Edna “with the marigold hair and strange dreamy smile that filled him up to the brim”.”

Feuille d’Album – The painter Ian French rejects the advances of numerous woman and has never fallen in love until he observes a girl at a window. He becomes obsessed with his neighbour and watches her from afar.

Mr and Mrs Dove – Reginald is returning to Rhodesia, as it is his last day in England and he hopes to see Ann the object of his affection. His feelings are lingering and questioning as his affection is not returned as ardently as he might hope.

Marriage à la Mode – A tale in which a husband desperately tries to capture the attention of his wife, who has distanced herself from him and has been spending all of her time with a new set of friends.

Bliss – Bertha Young is in high spirits and still has her dinner party to look forward to. It concerns her marriage, a group of haughty friends and unwittingly discovering that her husband is cheating on her with one of the guests. When she comes to realise what is going on, the reality of her situation is like a punch to the stomach and her expectations are shattered.

Honeymoon – George and Fanny are on their honeymoon! On a terrace overlooking the Mediterranean they talk and the story itself illustrates the differing attitudes and dreams of a young couple on a honeymoon. If I remember correctly they also compare themselves to the couples around them and are as fascinated by being spectators to these other relationships as to their own. There is a protectiveness and a standoffish air of not being like anyone else.

Dill Pickle – A bitter sweet story about a six-year hiatus. A man and woman who used to be lovers meet in a cafe and reflect on their regrets and the changes in their lives since they last met. This may seem like it would be cliche at first glance but it isn’t.

Widowed – Geraldine, in a very short scene, remembers the moment she heard of her late husband’s death.

Mansfield is an odd, interesting, beautiful, bohemian spirit of a writer. And I find her prose mouthwatering. She writes about the uncomfortable sides of falling in love and gives you reality not meeting expectation quite often. In all honesty, it could be quite bleak for some of you because this collection does not make me want to throw myself at love, it seems far too painful and restless a thing to bother with (if Mansfield is to be believed).

There is something terribly honest and jaded in this collection. But also a bittersweet beauty that sometimes gets far away from me when I try to pin it down. I expect I will return to her.

So to finish this post here is a quote from Woolf again on Mansfield, trying to describe the relationship they had as writers in a letter to Vita Sackville-West, which I think is also an apt reading on Mansfield’s writing:

“We did not ever coalesce; but I was fascinated, and she respectful, only I thought her cheap, and she thought me priggish; and yet we were both compelled to meet simply in order to talk about writing … she had a quality I adored, and needed; I think her sharpness and reality — her having knocked about with prostitutes and so on, whereas I had always been so respectable — was the thing I wanted then.” – p.265 “Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf and Tensions of Empire during the Modernist Period”, Sarah Ailwood.

To learn a little more about Katherine Mansfield look here.

I’ve quoted an interesting journal article twice from the University of Wollongong Australia that discusses a little more about Mansfield and Woolf which you can find elsewhere in the post but also here.

96. Magnetism – Fitzgerald

I believe that I have a complicated relationship with Fitzgerald. He is not one of those simple authors that I can pin down and say “Yes, I like him for these reasons.” He’s a bit more like a lover that I’ve been trying to coax into bed with me for five years. He’s aloof, sometimes a little too abstract, sometimes a little cryptic in his descriptions and I know that there are layers of meaning I’m completely missing the first time round. Or sometimes the second, and the third. But sometimes his writing is utterly staggeringly beautiful. Sometimes he frustrates me and I feel the inexplicable need to reach out for more from him, that I’m missing something key to the whole tone of the novel. But I may love the story and eccentricities of the plot. For these reasons, I feel as if the opinion on Fitzgerald is a clear divide, you love him or you hate him, but you will probably wrestle with him until you decide which.

There is something like magnetism about his work which is why I think I keep going back to it. It was only a few weeks ago that I must admit to new jolts of understanding while listening to the Great Gatsby on audible. And sometimes it is in this patience that Fitzgerald is his most rewarding. My imagined version of him winked at me in these moments and nodded over his typewriter, perhaps offering a salute with a glass. Well done, he says, it’s taken you long enough.

I must admit I love him. I don’t always understand him, but when I do it is so worth the wait.

Magnetism – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Fittingly Magnetism is four short stories on different sorts of love and it belongs to the Penguin Great Loves series (which have amazing covers that I can’t get enough of). I found it in Paris on a trip last year in one of the best bookshops I have ever been in. For a brief overview in case you don’t want extra detail later: ‘The Sensible Thing‘ is about a lost love, rediscovered in a different form. ‘The Bridal Party‘ is about the anguish over a woman about to marry a rival, that then disappears when the marriage takes place. ‘Magnetism‘ itself is about a couple falling out of love and being brought back together by a failed bid at blackmail. And to top it off ‘Bernice Bobs Her Hair‘ is about the antagonistic relationship between two cousins which ends in a spectacular way demonstrating that sometimes the winner doesn’t take it all.

I must admit I found some of these stories a little lacking, sometimes a little slow but that is perhaps because I find it difficult to empathise with some of Fitzgerald’s characters. Many of his male characters are very … square for lack of a better word, and straight laced upstanding gentlemen as they may be (and sometimes completely vile), it turns out the victorious mischief of the last story ‘Bernice Bobs Her Hair’ was the only one that has really stuck in my mind. I really like to root for my characters and ‘Bernice’ seemed to be the only story I could really do that in.

‘The Sensible Thing’ is a rather sad story about George O’Kelly who gets turned away by his love Jonquil for not being successful in his career. When his life takes a turn after his rejection he returns to her a successful man hoping to recapture their love but sadly, is turned away again. I must admit this one was a little bittersweet to read and did get me hooked into the collection.

‘The Bridal Party’ describes how Michael is invited to his lover’s wedding. Perhaps victoriously Michael discovers that Caroline is marrying a man on the verge of bankruptcy and despite knowing this goes along with the wedding. I found this one a little exasperating, but I suppose not all protagonists in fiction we are supposed to like and I didn’t like Michael at all. There was the sense that he had somehow dodged a bullet or was superior to the whole situation and enjoying the misfortune of others.

‘Magnetism’ is about the actor George Hannaford. Hannaford can’t control his charm and attracts women without seemingly any effort (poor him *rolls eyes* what crimes have been laid at his doorstep). In his unhappy marriage he is on the verge of divorcing his wife Kay, and he’s had an affair with costar Helen Avery. Of course there is always someone in the background watching everything and the scriptwriter Margarate Donovan (who also has a crush on him) is blackmailing him. Again this one I didn’t enjoy so much, purely on the characterisation.

‘Bernice Bobs Her Hair’ is the story of dull Bernice and her exciting cousin Marjorie. Marjorie takes pity on Bernice and tries to help her fit into society so the boys will dance with her and then dares her to bob her hair. Bernice rises to the challenge but has her own revenge at the end of the story and altogether feels like the most empowered woman in all of Fitzgerald’s work (that I’ve read).

For as much as I didn’t enjoy all of the characters I came across in Magnetism the delight that Fitzgerald takes in creating his characters is something to be seen. There is something elegant in the way he creates a dislikable character and reminds the reader that we all have flaws and make mistakes. The thing that struck me the most about revisiting the Great Gatsby was that I like Gatsby, but I do not like what he’s doing or his motivations and foolishness.

Perhaps that is the bottom line with Fitzgerald’s work, he reminds us that we are all foolish, sometimes terrible people and there is something very human in being so. Go wrestle with him if you haven’t already, find out if you like him or don’t.

84. The Eaten Heart: Unlikely Tales of Love

Do you ever read a book and realise you know the story you’re reading? Not because – as you may be assuming, that I have been the lead protagonist in a story about seducing nuns, or have dropped down dead on finding out my lover is dead, or being murdered by my lover’s jealous brothers. But I picked up this collection of Boccaccio’s tales quite innocently and was enjoying them thoroughly until I recognised the story that influenced Keats poem, Isabella; or the Pot of Basil.

It is at that point that I was overrun with nostalgia, missing my undergraduate days, and since reading this novel I must admit I’ve been revisiting some old friends like Keats and Coleridge. Because they are so much more than ‘just’ Romantic poets for me now.

Head in Herbs is a story as you may expect from my brief outline to this post. It is a story of a woman in love and her lover is killed by her brothers. She sees this in a dream and heartbroken retrieves the head of her lover from the forest and hides it in the base of a pot of basil. Watering it with her tears daily.

The Eaten Heart: Unlikely Tales of Love – Giovanni Boccaccio

I am not entirely sure I would admit to being a bit of a romantic publicly but I have been enamoured with the likes of Keats and the other Romantics. So Boccaccio’s tales have qualities that I enjoy, they are relatively simple and perhaps I wasn’t paying close enough attention or was fooled entirely by a good translation – but they don’t feel as old as they are. The Eaten Heart is just a very small part of a larger work called Decameron (1349). The foreword of the Eaten Heart boasts that Decameron is “best known for its bawdy tales of love, appearing in all its possibilities from the erotic to the tragic.” And I must agree with that sentiment.

From what I’ve read in the Eaten Heart I would happily give time to Decameron as they are bold stories, unflinching from what can probably called artful postures of love and romance that make up the classic tradition with a healthy helping of drama. You must remember while reading these stories that you may be over come with a fit of fainting.

From what I’ve said about these stories it may not surprise you to hear then, that the first story in the Eaten Heart is about a man who manages to seduce an entire nunnery. Sowing the Seeds of Love is a little ridiculous story, comically playing out a scenario that involves a man posing as a deaf-mute gardener. He exerts all of his efforts, but alas the gardening begins to suffer as he does not have the energy for them all and ultimately confesses hi secret and negotiates for a permanent position with a timetable for the nuns. This turns out to be a very happy arrangement for all, and I couldn’t help myself, this story won me over entirely.

Sowing the Seeds of Love is probably my favourite out of the entire collection, a few of the others seemed a little of the same-same but this one was so entirely different from the rest of the tales that it really hooked me in. I must admit that I felt a little like I was reading this book to finish it at some points, but on the whole I enjoyed reading it and when I came to Head in Herbs I felt like I had finally filled in a gap in my knowledge. It is one thing to know Keats, but it is another entirely to say you have finally read the short story that influenced one of his well known poems – even if it is five years after this would’ve been useful.

This collection of tales is a shorter read, it will keep you gripped and interested if you have any interest in classics but it doesn’t feel so classic and convoluted that it is remote reading. As such I’m not sure how I’d feel recommending it, it’s easy to access but I could understand someone boring quickly if this is something very far out of what they usually read. But I guess, if you’ve loved Keats and the Romantics, or even read them a little, this is definitely of interest.

71. Giovanni’s Room

‘Tell me,’ he said ‘what is this thing about time? Why is it better to be late than early? People are always saying, we must wait, we must wait. What are they waiting for?’ p.33

Alongside the stack of unread Discworld novels, beneath my bedside table there is a good chunk of varied literature that I haven’t gotten my teeth into yet. Weirdly, (I am a hopeless romantic), I have never really read into much romance or ‘love’. Whenever I have, I have found formulaic novels devoted to the conquest of a ‘happy ending’ which more often than not is a tragic ending. In my mind to make a classic Romance, you need the stoic, emotionally unavailable lover, the miserable tortured artist, a straying heroine, a third party’s return to dash all hope of an affair becoming more than an affair, and the truth finally uncovered. It’ll be a novel riddled with foolish mistakes made due to fear, miscommunication, and the human condition of hoping there can be more but never quite managing to be brave enough to reach out for it.

This is actually the majority of Giovanni’s Room in a nutshell, but Baldwin puts a spin on some of these classic elements and as a result the novel is enjoyable, if not a little hopeless and tortured. Giovanni’s Room is a tasteful coming out story, it is the explorer realising himself as ‘other’ and discovering how terrifying it is to be ‘other’. It is a protagonist’s rejection of himself and his lover and of course how foolish it is to reject yourself and the consequences of denying your own feelings.

Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin

One of the more interesting things about this novel is David’s, the protagonist, awareness of how tenuous his own masculinity is. Or perhaps maybe his masculinity itself isn’t tenuous, but it is how tenuous the projection of social masculinity is and how easily it is unraveled by prying eyes ‘seeing’ what has long been suppressed. David initially has an impulse to maintain his projection of masculinity as a barrier between himself and the rest of the world. This impulse seems to relax for a while but returns later on in the novel.

I have been trying to decide where I think this impulse is rooted but it’s not simplistic. I think it is heavily implied by Baldwin that David’s impulse is fear boiling to the surface, and the difficulty of having an identity that doesn’t ‘fit’ with social expectation, as his lover is another man. This is quite a difficult thing to achieve in any novel, even with a good helping of introspection and Baldwin pulls it off like a master puppeteer.

The narrative follows David’s reflection on his love affair with a man called Giovanni. It is the story of how they meet, how they were, who they socialise with and then how it ends. But this is framed by some sinister knowledge that Giovanni is somehow going to die because of this love affair which is never revealed fully until the very end of the novel. David is also part of a bit of a complicated circle in Paris, the rich old ‘fairies’ pay the boys on the street for ‘release’ and the rich old ‘fairies’ also seem to run things with their spoilt tantrums. Poor Giovanni is at the mercy of them for part of this novel as he is jobless and helpless.

David meets Giovanni while his woman is away in Spain, deciding how she feels about him. He rediscovered feelings he repressed in his youth and although he is involved he cannot fully let himself be with Giovanni. They live together for a while and Giovanni is revealed as a man who has dumped his life into one room, he belongs to his endless artistic projects that include the room itself. But there seems to always be a distance between David and Giovanni and it is in the most heart wrenching moments of the book where Gio’s painful past is revealed and the reason why he left Italy.

It is in these passionate discussions that I cannot help but feel as if David is attempting to be the stoic emotionally stagnated character. Neatly timed for Hella’s return from Spain David throws himself back into the fantasy of her and they decide to marry but he quickly fades away from her and is wracked by guilt for Giovanni.

There is certainly much more to this novel than at first meets the eye. This is not a novel that has the artful postures of love, that shapes itself on long sighs and whimsy. It is a novel that is supposed to be a tangle of forces pulling David in all directions and it did leave me a little sad in the end. Sad for David. Sad for Giovanni. Sad for Hella. It felt like a decidedly Kafka-esque conclusion, which I suppose is true for many love affairs. Gender roles in this novel were handled in quite an interesting way, David rejecting the idea that Giovanni wants him to be a ‘housewife’, the ‘other’ masculinity that belongs to ‘deviant’ sexuality, Hella’s instance she now wants to be a wife. But it also demonstrates how fine the line is between love and agony and how quickly people reject one another’s company or even who they were with said person because they are wounded.

This novel succeeds to create a facsimile of just how complicated sexuality, gender, and social pressure can be when you are concerned about the expectations placed on you. It is a tragic story in many ways but will give you ample to think about regardless of your own sexuality, gender identity, or relationship status.