Tag Archives: Points of View

The Points of View Challenge – Diary of a Madman – Nikolai Gogol

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Nikolai GogolNikolai Gogol (1809 – 1852)

Russian novelist (Taras Bulba, Dead Souls), short story writer (The Nose, The Overcoat), surrealist, satirist and playwright (The Government Inspector).

Diary of a Madman, first published in Arabesques, a short story collection, in 1835

Available to read online here – please note, this is a different translation from that by Andrew R MacAndrew, which appears in the Points of View book.

This is the second story in the volume Points of View to be given the style classification by Moffett and McElheny of Diary Narration. Their description of this method continues: “The writers of diaries reveal, or perhaps betray, their own states of mind as well as report recent events. Which claims more attention, self-revelation or reporting?” Mentioning other works written in the diary format, they conclude “such stories lie between the strangely public privacy of diary and a subjective narration addressed to the world at large.”

Spoiler alert – if you haven’t read the story yet and want to before you read the summary of it below, stop now!

 

Diary of a Madman

 

Gogol ArabeskPoprishchin starts his diary on October 3rd, with an account of a miserable day at work as a lowly civil servant, mending pens. He says his boss complains that he’s in a muddle and that his work is of poor quality; but Poprishchin has no respect for him anyway and doesn’t care. What he does care about is the director’s beautiful daughter, Sophie, whom he spies alighting from a carriage; he’s instantly lost in her stunning eyes. He recognises her dog, who starts talking to him.

“What an extraordinary dog! I was, to tell the truth, quite amazed to hear it talk human language. But when I considered the matter well, I ceased to be astonished. In fact, such things have already happened in the world. It is said that in England a fish put its head out of water and said a word or two in such an extraordinary language that learned men have been puzzling over them for three years, and have not succeeded in interpreting them yet. I also read in the paper of two cows who entered a shop and asked for a pound of tea.”

The next day he sees her again, and he’s head over heels in love. He even writes love poetry on his bed. A few weeks pass until his next diary entry, and it seems obvious that he has just been shadowing her. The chief clerk tells him he has no chance at his age, with his looks and his poverty. Eventually he gets the idea of convincing her dog that he is worthy of her. The next day, the dog writes to him, with loads of gossip about her daily life, and that of her father. But the dog lets on that the lady thinks Poprishchin is worthless. “His hair looks like a truss of hay” she says, according to the dog. And then the dog tells him that she is besotted with a young chamberlain, and marriage is on the cards.

“Deuce take it! I can read no more. It is all about chamberlains and generals. I should like myself to be a general—not in order to sue for her hand and all that—no, not at all; I should like to be a general merely in order to see people wriggling, squirming, and hatching plots before me. And then I should like to tell them that they are both of them not worth spitting on. But it is vexatious! I tear the foolish dog’s letters up in a thousand pieces.”

At this news, Poprishchin starts to imagine that he is really a count or a general. He reads in the papers that the throne of Spain is vacant, due to a woman being next in line to succeed. And he concludes, therefore, that it must be he who is the next King of Spain. He still goes to the office, but calls himself Ferdinand VIII; Sophie is still not impressed, so he assumes she is in love with the devil. He prepares for his coronation, organising a suitable costume. He waits for the Spanish deputies to arrive, to take him to Madrid. He waits… and waits…

And eventually they arrive! He is taken away to meet the Chancellor of the State who surprises him by beating him with a stick, but Poprishchin maintains his noble stance. He meets the other grandees with shorn heads and is subjected to cold water torture and assumes the Chancellor is in fact the Grand Inquisitor.

“But yet I cannot understand how the king could fall into the hands of the Inquisition. The affair may have been arranged by France—especially Polignac—he is a hound, that Polignac! He has sworn to compass my death, and now he is hunting me down. But I know, my friend, that you are only a tool of the English. They are clever fellows, and have a finger in every pie. All the world knows that France sneezes when England takes a pinch of snuff.”

Finally he can take no more. The beatings, the cold water, and the lack of appreciation of his royal birthright have taken a total toll on him. He is left to dream of what might have been, and of his childhood memories.

“Mother, mother, have pity on your sick child! And do you know that the Bey of Algiers has a wart under his nose?”

Without doubt this is the masterpiece of the anthology so far. There are many fascinating critical appraisals of this story available to research on the Internet which are definitely worth a read, but what impresses me most about the story is that the use of the diary technique means that we only see Poprishchin’s viewpoint of what’s going on. We never hear at first hand the words of his colleagues, of the director’s daughter, or of the doctors and asylum staff, who clearly operate in his head under the guise of the Spanish delegation and the State Chancellor. We only see the world through his own, disastrously dilapidating sanity.

Being Gogol, he cannot help but make you laugh as you read, but it’s a very uncomfortable laughter as you realise that you’re mocking someone who cannot help himself, and who is headed for mental catastrophe. Your laughter turns to sadness as the story proceeds, and you see the awful treatment of the patients by the staff.

The story has been considered one of the first to be a genuine portrayal of a decline into insanity, specifically through schizophrenia. We see Poprishchin’s delusions of grandeur, hallucinations, and finally his complete breaking with reality, by dating his diary entries with made-up, impossible dates. Even almost two hundred years on, it still gives the reader an alarming insight into what the mind of a – for want of a better word – madman might be like. A true work of genius.

The next story in the anthology is the first of five what Moffett and McElheny describe as subjective narration stories, Truman Capote’s My Side of the Matter. I’ve never read any Capote so this should be interesting!

The Points of View Challenge – Flowers for Algernon – Daniel Keyes

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Daniel KeyesDaniel Keyes (1927 – 2014)

American writer (The Minds of Billy Milligan), awarded the Hugo Award for the short story Flowers for Algernon, given the Author Emeritus honour by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2000, Professor of English and Creative Writing at Ohio University.

Flowers for Algernon, first published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, April 1959

Available to read online here

This is the first story in the volume Points of View to be given the style classification by Moffett and McElheny of Diary Narration. This is how they begin their description of this method: “Like monologists and correspondents, the diarists of the next two stories are reacting to events almost as they happen; like correspondents, they write on successive dates. But as diarists they are not writing to anyone in particular: “Dear Diary” suggests a curious image of an audience that is somehow close to the writer, and yet rather general; the imaginary listener or correspondent does not respond at all.”

Spoiler alert – if you haven’t read the story yet and want to before you read the summary of it below, stop now!

 

Flowers for Algernon

 

Fantasy and Science Fiction MagazineCharlie Gordon, aged 37, with an IQ of 68, a student at Miss Alice Kinnian’s remedial reading evening classes, and a general helper at Mr Donnegan’s factory, is approached by two doctors, Nemur and Strauss, to be the subject of an experiment. A little white mouse, Algernon by name, is part of the same experiment, to see if they can artificially raise his intelligence. So far, Algernon’s intelligence has increased extraordinarily. Can the experiment work the same way for a man?

At first, the success (or otherwise) of the experiment is reflected in Charlie’s regular progress reports that he writes for Nemur and Strauss; as the weeks go by, his understanding of language, grammar, spelling and so on all improve by leaps and bounds. At the same time, Charlie and Algernon have been competing in how quickly they can escape from a maze; at first Algernon wins easily, but after a while Charlie starts to beat Algernon. In the end they dispense with the maze races.

But it’s not just Charlie’s intelligence and dexterity that improve. He undergoes an emotional development too, realising to enormous shame that he has been the butt of jokes at the factory as they have been laughing at his stupidity, rather than with him. He also realises he is falling in love with Miss Kinnian. It’s not long before Charlie’s intelligence outshines those of the two doctor scientists and his English teacher; and he realises that he needs to take charge of the experiment himself and starts to write reports and undergo research that will all make the experiment much more easily and dynamically understood.

And then Algernon starts to get irascible, unpredictable, and within a few days he dies. It was always a danger that any intelligence growth by Charlie might be temporary, and that he might regress again – or worse. As time runs out, Charlie tries to complete as much of the research and science as he possibly can; but he’s facing a losing battle. He goes back to sweeping the floors at the factory; refuses to see Alice Kinnian; and in the end is a shadow of his former self, with just the occasional flash of memory. His last words, in his last diary entry, are: “Please, if you get the chanse put some flowrs on Algernons grave in the bak yard”.

This is not my idea of a typical Science Fiction story. No zombies, no galaxies far far away; just an exploration of what could happen if a certain type of scientific research were to grow and be applied to a man. You might say that the experiment should never have been tried on a human being until they had done much more research with mice; Algernon’s death would surely have put paid to Nemur and Strauss’ dream. But that would have deprived Charlie of the pleasure of intelligence – of reading great books, of working out scientific theories, of falling in love. Would it have been fairer not to have involved him, or did it give him the chance of a brilliant life? There are all sorts of ethical questions that this story throws up, and I’m not sure there is a right or wrong answer to any of them.

Massively successful as a short story, in 1966, Keyes expanded it into a full scale novel of the same name, which was the joint winner of the Nebula Award for Best Novel. It became a film, a play, a musical; it has been adapted into all sorts of media all around the world. My own personal link to the story was seeing the West End musical (called Charlie and Algernon when it was shown in the US) and being completely overwhelmed by it, emphasising the emotional side by concentrating more on the love affair between Charlie and Alice. However, I truly admire the original short story for its brevity and simplicity; Keyes’ fantastic concept, which is only a small step away from reality, captures the imagination and the heart with huge power and immediacy.

The diary technique works extremely well with this story as we see at first hand how Charlie’s understanding of basic grammar and literacy gradually improves through the treatment up until the time when Algernon dies and then it all starts to go badly wrong; and there isn’t a dry eye in the bookshop or library when you get to the end.

It’s an outstanding read, an absolute classic of the genre, and it’s a testament to the strength of the original that it could be adapted into so many other art forms, in so many cultures. Completely appropriate that Keyes should have been so significantly lauded for it.

The next story in the anthology is the second of the two diary narration stories, Nikolai Gogol’s Diary of a Madman. I’ve read some Gogol and he’s a brilliant, exciting and witty writer, so this should be very good!

The Points of View Challenge – A Bundle of Letters – Henry James

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Henry JamesHenry James (1843 – 1916)

American novelist (The Portrait of a Lady, The Ambassadors, The Bostonians), ghost story writer (The Turn of the Screw), short story writer, critic, playwright and travel writer.

A Bundle of Letters, first published in The Parisien magazine, 1879

Available to read online here

This is the third and final story in the volume Points of View to be given the style classification by Moffett and McElheny of Letter Narration. They describe A Bundle of Letters as “a collection of one-way correspondence by characters who because they are together do not write to each other but about each other; since the person each is writing to is a mere listening post, the letters are like entries in a diary.”

They go on to conclude: “although the novel of letters enjoyed its greatest vogue in the eighteenth century, when it was used universally to make fiction more plausible […] the use of the technique continued in the nineteenth century but was used selectively, for certain effects only. Although today’s novel is more likely to combine correspondence with other techniques than to tell a story entirely through letters, epistolary short stories continue to crop up.” Remember this commentary was published in 1966. In the twenty-first century, emails and texts are much more likely to be the norm.

Spoiler alert – if you haven’t read the story yet and want to before you read the summary of it below, stop now!

 

A Bundle of Letters

 

On 5th September 1879, an independent and outspoken young American woman, Miranda Hope, writes to her mother in Bangor, Maine, from her hotel in Paris. She travels alone, determined to steep herself in as much culture as possible. She wants to learn some of the language too, and to that end by the time she writes her mother another letter on 16th September, she has moved into the house of Mme de Maisonrouge, for conversation practice with Madame and her family. Madame has other paying guests; English, American, and German.

But living under one roof will always bring out animosities.  The next letter is from the other young American woman, Violet Ray, to her New York friend, in which she calls Miranda “the most extraordinary specimen of artless Yankeeism that I ever encountered; she is really too horrible”. Another letter is written by Louis Leverett, a Bostonian, to his friend Harvard. He cares for neither of the young American women: “they are both specimens of the emancipated young American girl—practical, positive, passionless, subtle, and knowing, as you please, either too much or too little”. But he has fallen for the sweet looks of the Englishwoman Evelyn Vane. An update letter from Miranda to her mother reveals that she is learning a lot from Mme de Maisonrouge’s cousin Mr Verdier, that she doesn’t get on with Violet because she is “haughty”, she is inspired by Leverett’s enthusiastic intellectualism, disappointed in Evelyn’s lack of ambition, disgusted by her brother’s lack of respect and flattered by the attention of the German professor.

Evelyn meanwhile confesses in letter to her friend that, apart from Violet, all the guests are various degrees of frightful, Verdier makes it clear in a letter to his friend that his intentions with Miranda are far from honourable – not that she appears to mind – and the German professor, Dr Staub, reveals himself to be a nationalistic bigot who sees all interaction between foreigners in terms of how weak they are and how glorious Germany will step in and rise to supremacy: “…between precipitate decay and internecine enmities, the English-speaking family is destined to consume itself; and that with its decline the prospect of general pervasiveness, to which I alluded above, will brighten for the deep-lunged children of the Fatherland!”

The last word goes to Miranda, who in a letter dated October 22nd, advises that she’s going to move on to somewhere else – not sure where yet, but noting that everyone has been kind and attentive: “especially Mr. Verdier, the French gentleman, from whom I have gained more than I ever expected (in six weeks), and with whom I have promised to correspond.” Did Verdier get his way with her? I guess we’ll never quite know.

This is a very funny and cleverly constructed story; the grand joke in it all is that no one knows precisely what everyone else thinks about them, and the behaviour of each of them on the surface is likely to be completely different from what’s going on inside their heads! It’s also beautifully written in terms of the individual characterisations of those people lodging chez Mme de Maisonrouge. Miranda can’t understand why she upsets and offends people with her plain talking because surely everyone should share the same ideas that she does? Evelyn retreats into English snobbery as she cannot bear the company of all those ghastly common people. Verdier is a louche ne’er-do-well, bragging to his mate about the progress he’s making. Perhaps most entertaining of all is Leverett’s delightfully pretentious use of language, his mind on a self-consciously higher level as the only things that matter to him in life are self-expressioni and Art.

James was fascinated by the differences between Americans, the English, the French and other European nationalities. In this little story he gets to explore nationalistic stereotypes to his heart’s content. Maybe there is a degree of caricature, particularly with the snobbish Englishwoman and the nationalistic German. Much has been made of how the characterisation of Staub was remarkably forward-looking and predictive, with the German’s disdain for the behaviour of his fellow residents, describing Verdier as homunculus, despising any show of decadence, his pompous mocking of anything that isn’t German, and looking ahead to good times for the Fatherland.

James impresses with his ability to tell a fascinating tale but leave much untold too – he demonstrates that there’s great eloquence in silence. What did happen between Miranda and Verdier? Why does she despise William Pratt so? What is buried Mme de Maisonrouge’s past? And many more questions besides.

Apparently, James wrote this in one sitting, which maybe explains how beautifully it flows. Hugely entertaining, a rather elegant and classy read that gives a good insight into the times and prejudices of the day. This could well make me want to read some more Henry James!

The next story in the anthology is the first of the two diary narration stories, and the reason that I bought Points of View in the first place – Daniel Keyes’ Flowers for Algernon. I am really looking forward to reading this story again!

The Points of View Challenge – Jupiter Doke, Brigadier General – Ambrose Bierce

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Ambrose BierceAmbrose Bierce (1842 – 1913/4*)

*date of death uncertain, disappeared sometime after December 26th 1913

American short story writer, journalist, poet, and Civil War veteran.

Jupiter Doke, Brigadier General, first published in The Wasp, 1885

Available to read online here

This is the second story in the volume Points of View to be given the style classification by Moffett and McElheny Letter Narration. They describe Jupiter Doke, Brigadier General as “a crisscrossing of letters, with excerpts from other documents and a deposition thrown in for good measure.”

Spoiler alert – if you haven’t read the story yet and want to before you read the summary of it below, stop now!

 

Jupiter Doke, Brigadier General

 

WaspOn 3rd November 1861, the Secretary of War writes to the Hon. Jupiter Doke to inform him that the President has appointed him a brigadier general of volunteers. Will he accept the honour? Oh yes he will! He replies on the 9th that it will be the proudest moment of his life. The Secretary of War writes to Major General Blount Wardorg that the new Brigadier General is to be assigned to his department and is to take command of the Illinois Brigade at Distilleryville, Kentucky. Wardorg, however, deliberately instructs Doke to take a route that he knows will be ambushed; he and his men are to be an instant sacrifice. But Doke sends his wife’s cousin in his place (because Doke never likes to get that involved) and it’s poor Mr Briller who gets sacrificed.

As the letters and diary notes continue, we see that Doke has taken to his new status like a fish to water – all apart from the military skill aspect. Wardorg quickly realises that Doke’s is a woefully poor appointment and that he and his men will have to be sacrificed due to their incompetence and stupidity, with the cutting remark to the Secretary of War: “I think him a fool”. After all, Doke is the man who has been collecting 2,300 mules in preparation for each of his men to ride one into Louisville as a form of dignified Retreat. The Confederate Army generals report that a freak of nature in the form of a tornado completely wipes out their men and Doke gets the credit. However, according to the eyewitness Mr Peyton, what really happened was that, at the first sounds of the oncoming enemy, Doke jumped through a window to escape and startled the mules so badly that they stampeded down the road towards the Confederates… I guess any that survived the tornado – if there really was a tornado – were muled to death! Result: Major General Jupiter Doke.

So despite all evidence to the contrary, when the President appointed Doke as Brigadier General, he might just have chosen the right guy! Doke quickly settles in to his new high office, spending all his time enjoying his peripheral benefits, appointing and recommending family members and friends, filling up his expense claims, publishing his speeches and over-egging his heroism, leasing a prominent residence in which to instal his wife and family, and engaging his brother in law to supply arms and regalia (much as you would with PPE today). When it comes to actual military matters, his judgment is pathetic, accidentally sending men to their death, and marching his men into town to be attacked because they were taken for the enemy, and when they returned to camp the real enemy had moved in.

This is a wonderful account of how someone can be promoted way beyond their ability, yet, by a series of extraordinary accidents and misjudgements, the final outcome has them smelling of roses and decorated accordingly. Every decision Doke makes is wrong, primarily because he spends all his time reaping the cash or status benefits of his new-found authority. Bierce portrays him as a magnificent example of small-town pomposity, concealing his own ineffectuality with flattery and self-aggrandization. He never misses a chance to improve his own standing, sneaking in an application for the Gubernatorial Chair of the Territory of Idaho, moving into a “prominent residence” whilst its previous incumbent is fighting in the war, writing a nonsense account of his own heroism for publication in the newspaper. However, the truth is that he is a coward who’ll escape through a window at the first sight of the enemy.

The story improves enormously on a second reading; for 21st century British readers not that familiar with 19th century American idiom and history, it’s easy to miss a few very important details on a first reading. Bierce himself had enlisted in the 9th Indiana Infantry at the start of the Civil War in 1861 and had a great deal of active involvement in several battles and campaigns, so we can trust his experience when it comes to the military procedures and the type of manoeuvres that feature in this story. An excellent satire on how to muck up a war and the elevation of a clown to high office. Now, why does that ring a bell today?

The next story in the anthology, and the last of the three letter narration stories, is A Bundle of Letters by Henry James. As an English graduate, it is to my shame that I have never read any James, so it’s definitely time to put that right.

The Points of View Challenge – A Novel in Nine Letters – Fyodor Dostoevsky

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Dostoevsky

Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821 – 1881)

Russian novelist, (Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Brothers Karamazov) philosopher, short story writer, essayist, and journalist

A Novel in Nine Letters, first published in 1847

Available to read online here

This is the first story in the volume Points of View to be given the style classification by Moffett and McElheny Letter Narration. Here is the start of their description of this narrative style: “Each of the following stories is, to use the title of the James story, “a bundle of letters.” A letter is a written monologue, still relatively spontaneous, still addressed to a certain person for a certain reason; but of course the speaker is not face to face with his listener.” They describe A Novel in Nine Letters as “a two-way correspondence, a dialogue at a distance.”

Spoiler alert – if you haven’t read the story yet and want to before you read the summary of it below, stop now!

 

A Novel in Nine Letters

 

Novel in nine letters (Russian edition)Pyotr Ivanitch writes to Ivan Petrovitch saying he’s been looking for him everywhere, but would he and Tatyana please come to tea. He’s also not happy about having been introduced to Yevgeny Nikolaitch, but we don’t know why. Also his son is ill and his wife is depressed. Ivan Petrovitch replies to Pyotr Ivanitch that he was at home all the time, so he has no idea why he couldn’t find him. He’s not sure what the problem is with Yevgeny Nikolaitch but wants to meet to talk it out – but now he can’t find Pyotr anywhere. Also, his wife is having a baby. Pyotr responds that he was called away because his aunt was ill – but will meet him at a mutual friend’s. Ivan replies that Pyotr didn’t turn up at the mutual friend’s, making him (Ivan) look an idiot, and accusing Pyotr of backtracking on a financial loan. Pyotr replies that it wasn’t a loan, his aunt’s dead and he’s too wounded to discuss the issues. Ivan says Pyotr’s deliberately avoiding him, deceiving him with pretend friendship, leading him on a merry dance and lying. Pyotr refuses to engage. At the end, both receive evidence that their wives have been cheating with aforementioned Yevgeny Nikolaitch and their friendship is incontrovertibly over!

This is a very entertaining battle of words and will between two “gentlemen” – Dostoevsky gives them shared names in an attempt, I think, to show that they’re interchangeable, and each as bad as the other. It’s great to see how the extreme formality and politeness of the earlier missives gets replaced by downright invective towards the end! Dostoevsky deliberately holds back with the details – what exactly did Yevgeny do to make himself such an unwelcome guest? Why was he at Ivan’s flat? (I think we know the answer to that!) Was it a loan between Pyotr and Ivan or some other kind of agreement? And at the end you ask yourself, is Anna really depressed, and who is the father of Tatyana’s baby?!

Deceptively simple, this short story merits being re-read a few times to get the full nuances of what’s being accused and what’s happening behind the scenes. Apparently, Dostoevsky wrote it over the course of one evening, to pay off a gambling debt – something that Ivan accuses of Pyotr of doing. There are some wonderful turns of phrase in these letters; my favourite is when Ivan accuses Pyotr of “shameful exactitude” for pinpointing the precise time that his aunt suffered a stroke. Over 170 years since it was written, it’s fun to imagine these St Petersburg men engaging in a vicious and bitchy spat, but the nature of their disagreement is timeless – you could just imagine how today they would be keyboard warriors of the worst kind!

The next story in the anthology is Jupiter Doke, Brigadier General, by Ambrose Bierce, another writer whose work I have never encountered, so I am looking forward to reading this one!

The Points of View Challenge – Travel is so Broadening – Sinclair Lewis

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Sinclair Lewis

Sinclair Lewis (1885 – 1951)

American novelist (Main Street, Babbitt, Elmer Gantry), playwright, poet and short story writer, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930

Travel is so Broadening, originally published as Part V of the novel The Man Who Knew Coolidge, 1938

Available to read online here (start at page 202 of the document)

The second story in the volume Points of View to be given the style classification by Moffett and McElheny Dramatic Monologue. Here’s more of their description of this narrative style: “This kind of monologue, too, has a counterpart in the theatre, whenever one character takes over the stage and talks for a long time uninterruptedly. Some such speeches provide information about what has taken place offstage or permit the character to explain himself, reveal himself, or betray himself.”

Spoiler alert – if you haven’t read the story yet and want to before you read the summary of it below, stop now!

 

Travel is so Broadening

 

The Man Who Knew CoolidgeLowell Schmaltz collars George Babbitt and his wife after an enjoyable dinner, and takes it upon himself to give advice about the best way to drive to Yellowstone, considering his own extensive, personal experience of long-distance driving. Schmaltz, however, is easily distracted from his main task, and, revelling in the sound of his own voice, forces a range of opinions on his listeners, including the life and times of his brother-in-law Lafayette, the singing talent of his daughter Delmerine, buying a pair of pumps in Chicago, descriptions of typical eateries to be found en route, the rights and wrongs of thumbing a lift, and so on and so on and so on. At the end of his monologue, he realises he hasn’t told the couple half of what he had intended, so it will have to save for another time – although there’s always time for him to squeeze in just one more thing before he goes…

Strictly speaking, this is not a short story in itself, but an extract from the larger book, The Man who knew Coolidge. If one reads the book from the beginning, one will already have encountered the narrator, Mr Lowell Schmaltz, as well as having heard about a couple of the people to whom he refers – his wife Mame, his daughter Delmerine, and some of the places in his life – his hometown of Fall River, Massachusetts, and the fictional city Zenith in the fictional state of Winnemac.

It’s an amusing account of a pompous know-it-all who loves to hold court and never gives anyone else the remotest chance of having their say. We all know people like that, and Schmaltz is a very recognizable character without ever becoming a caricature; although Lewis, the writer, manages to get his own word in when he breaks off from Schmaltz’s narration to explain: “here, by request of the publishers, are omitted thirty-seven other articles recommended by Mr Schmaltz. – EDITOR”.

Its main purpose is to divert the reader with imagining what this dreadful bore would be like in real life, but to today’s audience it also gives a little insight into the early days of driving in America. Even an experienced driver like Schmaltz wasn’t able to drive more than 298 miles in one day – which makes you realise he must have travelled at some speed in the times before freeways! We also get a good understanding of the kind of man Mr Schmaltz is, which doesn’t require much room for anything too deep. Although it’s an enjoyable read, you’re also aware that, deep down, it’s fairly inconsequential, and you don’t need to read too much into it. If there is one lesson to be learned from it, it would be beware of getting cornered by the likes of Mr Schmaltz!

The next story sounds as though it might have a little more gravitas – A Novel in Nine Letters by Fyodor Dostoevsky. In my younger days I read The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment, but I’ve never read any of his short stories, so this should be interesting! This is also the first of the three stories in the anthology that have been categorised as Letter Narration.

The Points of View Challenge – The Lady’s Maid – Katherine Mansfield

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Katherine Mansfield

Katherine Mansfield (1888 – 1923)

New Zealand born poet and short story writer, associated with the Bloomsbury Group of writers

The Lady’s Maid, originally published in The Garden Party, 1922

Available to read online here

Here’s the first story in the volume Points of View to be given the style classification Dramatic Monologue by Moffett and McElheny. This is how they start the description of this narrative style: “Now we overhear somebody speaking aloud to another person. He has a particular reason for telling a particular story to his particular audience, and his speech, as in real conversation, is spontaneous and unrehearsed. We can tell where he is and to whom he is talking from references he makes in his monologue.”

Spoiler alert – if you haven’t read the story yet and want to before you read the summary of it below, stop now!

 

The Lady’s Maid

 

Katherine Mansfield TheGardenPartyMy Lady has a guest staying overnight, and there’s a nice cup of tea left over, so the lady’s maid (Ellen) thought the guest might appreciate it, if she wasn’t asleep yet. The guest gratefully accepts the tea and asks the maid a number of polite questions (that we don’t read) and the maid responds with polite and disarming honesty. During the conversation we discover that the maid dealt with my lady’s mother when she passed away after a stroke; that she chose to leave her own cruel and uncaring family at the age of thirteen to become a junior maid in this same household; and that at one stage she considered marriage to a man named Harry, but my lady couldn’t hide how devastated she would be if Ellen left – and so Harry was dumped.

It’s an elegant tale of complete, self-denying loyalty; part admirable in its honour, part horrific in its self-sacrifice. It’s very convincingly written; when I was reading it, Ellen’s voice came to me as though it were Jean Marsh’s Rose from TV’s Upstairs Downstairs. It’s harder to discern the nature of the unseen character in the conversation; one can only assume she doesn’t know My Lady that well, otherwise she would probably already have known the details that Ellen tells her. You sense that Ellen welcomes the opportunity to open up and tell her story; although she shies away from considering what might happen in the future. She’s content in the here and now and that’s the main thing. Any regrets are pushed right to the back of her mind.

The dramatic monologue style invites you to make sense of a conversation even though you only hear one side of it. It’s a little like a jigsaw puzzle, occasionally you have to piece together the questions from the replies. But it lends itself to exploring the narrator’s thought processes in a gradual and thoughtful way. Very short, but very enjoyable.

The next story in the anthology is Travel is so Broadening, by Sinclair Lewis. I know nothing of him, so have no idea what to expect!

The Points of View Challenge – This is my Living Room – Tom McAfee

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Tom McAfee (1928 – 1982)

Poet, short story writer, novelist and Lecturer in English at the University of Missouri

This is my Living Room, originally published in Poems and Stories, 1966

Available to read online here (Scroll down to Page 105)

The second story in the book to be given the style classification by Moffett and McElheny Interior Monologue. To continue their description of this narrative style: “If the speaker is reacting to his immediate surroundings, his interior monologue will tell the story of what is going on around him. If his thoughts are memories, his soliloquy will review some past events associated with something in the present. If he is mainly reflecting, his train of thought does not record a present or recall a past story – it is the story itself.” Makes sense to me.

Spoiler alert – if you haven’t read the story yet and want to before you read the summary of it below, stop now!

 

This is my Living Room

 

We’re in Pine Springs, a small town near Birmingham (presumably Alabama), and our host – for want of a better word – is a right charmer (also for want of a better word) who’s married to Rosie, whom he wouldn’t change but doesn’t tell her that, and with two daughters Ellen and Martha, whose virtue he watches like a hawk. When Ellen started trying to wear make-up, he took her out of school; he’s expecting her to turn into a Birmingham whore, despite his subscription to Christian Living.

McAfee gives us a detailed insight into the working of our narrator’s brain, even though it’s a place we’d really rather not go. He’s proud of his guns, and he insists that Rosie can shoot too – even though she doesn’t like it and gets scared. Still, some firm slaps around the face makes her see sense. He’s also proud of his store that he opens up at 7am every day; in fact he prefers it to his home. After his wife has died and his daughters have moved out, he’s going to sell the house and live in the store. It has everything he needs; food, fencing, nails and guns.

Some of his customers don’t always play fair with him. Sam Coates owed him twenty dollars for fencing. Wouldn’t pay until he stuck his .22 in Sam’s face whilst milking his cows. He paid. Old Ezmo too; he wouldn’t pay for his bread, and didn’t respond to our storekeeper’s demands. So when he heard Ezmo outside one night, “I was ready for him. I triggered my 12 gauge and got him square in the face.” He insisted that Rosie took a good look at the dead and bloodied body. “See what this world is coming to. You see that knife he had. I held Rosie’s hand and made her stand there till Ellen Jean could get Sheriff Claine.” Still, tomorrow’s Saturday. Get to bed early. Rosie starts to cry. It wouldn’t be like her if she didn’t cry.

In five rigidly structured pages, McAfee reveals this abomination of a man; violent, racist, ruthless, selfish, complacent and (allegedly) Christian. His confiding style lures the reader in and almost makes us complicit in his beliefs and actions simply by reading and accepting what we’ve read. You know the kind of guy – he assumes that you have the same attitudes that he has, just because you’ve agreed to talk with him. Our storekeeper drifts through his narrative, brooking no resistance from anyone with whom he comes into contact, not even the sheriff; he’s made sure the sheriff knows that he’s aware of the lawman’s involvement in an illicit still, so he’s got no fears there. He doesn’t think twice about assassinating Old Ezmo; he probably feels he’s doing the local community a favour.

It’s an uncomfortable read, but a superbly crafted piece of work. Removed from the second edition of Points of View, doubtless because of its abhorrent use of the N word and general offensiveness, it still stands out as an insight into moral ugliness, within a family and community powerless to stop him.

The next story in the book comes under the narrative style heading of Dramatic Monologue, and it’s The Lady’s Maid by Katherine Mansfield.  I’ve never read anything by Mansfield, so I’m looking forward to reading that next.

The Points of View Challenge – But the One on the Right – Dorothy Parker

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Dorothy Parker (1893 – 1967)

Poet, satirist, wit, critic, essayist and notable exponent of wisecracks.

But the One on the Right, originally published in The New Yorker magazine, 19th October 1929

Available to read online here (search for page 86 of the document)

Given the style classification Interior Monologue by Moffett and McElheny: “In these first two stories somebody is speaking to himself, thinking. We merely overhear his thoughts. These stories are the equivalent of soliloquies in a theatre, except that a character thinking alone on stage would have to talk aloud so that the audience could hear his thoughts. Reading these stories is like listening to a soliloquy.” More on what makes an interior monologue when we come to the other short story listed under this category!

Spoiler alert – if you haven’t read the story yet and want to before you read the summary of it below, stop now!

 

But the One on the Right

 

So short, it’s barely a story, more like a fictional article! Dorothy Parker is invited to dinner by a hostess; she clearly knows no one there and is seated next to a boring man on her left. He’s polite, answers her small talk directly, but with no sense of creativity or interest; and her brain gives a running commentary on the occasion. She’s stuck with the one on the left, but the one on the right is being engaged by another lady who bagsied him first, and, despite his attractive shoulders, Dorothy decides to play fair and not try to muscle in on the conversation. At the end, the man on the right reveals that he too finds the whole experience exasperating and surprises Dorothy with an inventive chat-up line.

If ever you’ve been invited to dinner with the intention of getting people who don’t know each other to get to know one another, you know how ghastly the experience can be. And Dorothy Parker nicely conveys that cliff edge of politeness and boredom, of doing what the host expects of you rather than doing what you really want to do. We can all appreciate the disaster that a dull dining partner can provide. It’s a fun twist at the end, when the man on the right is found to be having an equally awful time, and the two of them plan a getaway which might lead on to something more interesting.

Messrs Moffett and McElheny must have decided they wanted an extremely light hors d’oeuvre to start this anthology, and Dorothy Parker is always a reliably witty entertainer with her yarns and bon mots. “I should have stayed at home for dinner. I could have had something on a tray. The head of John the Baptist or something.” I love the phrase vin triste, (not sure if it was an invention of Parker’s but I’d never heard it before) which superbly describes what happens when you have too much of the former and it inevitably descends into the latter. Times change if Chablis was considered a rotten wine, as it is in this story; it’s rather classy nowadays. And I also enjoyed her few literary moments; saying that red wine gave her The Red Badge of Courage (Stephen Crane) or referring to the boring man on the left as “Boy Thoreau” – in an ironic nod to Henry Thoreau’s dense and packed narrative style.

Much as Dorothy Parker might have enjoyed (or endured) a wafer thin starter to her meal, so can we regard this four-page amuse bouche as a precursor to some more meaty fayre to come. The next short story in the book, and the other to be classified as an interior monologue, is This is my Living Room by Tom McAfee. I think this will be a very different kettle of fish.

The Points of View Challenge – 41 Short Stories

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No, nothing to do with an old BBC programme where you praised their efforts to the sky (Well done the BBC, another winner!) but a book of short stories that’s been hanging around my bookshelves for over forty years. Let me explain…

Back in 1979 I saw the musical of Flowers for Algernon, and it really impressed me – even though it didn’t last long, it still remains one of the top ten shows I’ve ever seen. It was based on Daniel Keyes’ short story of the same name, and I decided I had to track it down and read it. In those pre-Internet days it was harder to find a short story in an anthology without having a clue as to who might have published it. But, as luck would have it, I found it an American book called Points of View, edited by James Moffett and Kenneth R McElheny. Moffett (1929–1996) was an American teacher of English, author, and theorist of the teaching and learning of language arts and especially writing – so says Wikipedia, anyway. McElheny – who doesn’t get a Wikipedia entry of his own, alas – taught Creative Writing at the Arlington School, Belmont, Mass. at the time of publication, and had also taught at the Phillips Exeter Academy, as did Mr Moffett, which is presumably where their collaboration began. But I’m guessing here.

Anyway, I bought the book, read the story, put the book on the bookshelf and never looked at it again – until recently. It turns out that this anthology has quite a good reputation for being a) an assortment of excellent short stories and b) for being arranged in an unusual manner. They are listed by their narrative styles. So, for example, the first two stories are listed as Interior Monologue; then there are two under Dramatic Monologue, three under Letter Narration, two under Diary Narration, etc, etc and etc. There are actually forty-one short stories in this book, listed under eleven different narrative styles.

It was published in 1966, but a second edition appeared in 1995 with a revised selection of stories. Thirteen of the original 1966 selection made it into the revised edition, alongside thirty-one new choices. I only have the first edition, so my Points of View Challenge is to read – and write about – each of the forty-one stories lurking within its pages. And, if it goes well, who knows, I might buy the second edition too. Both books are very easily available on the Internet through the usual second hand sources, if you’d like to get a copy and read them along with me. I should add though, that all the writers are very well known and, with a couple of exceptions, you could easily find each of these stories in other collections. Even more convenient, most of these stories are available to read on the Internet, and I’ll provide an online link to the text in each blogpost wherever I can. That means we can all read them together!

The first story in the book – under the heading of Interior Monologue – is Dorothy Parker’s But the One on the Right. I’m going to give that a read and then write up my thoughts – probably tomorrow. Hope you find this an interesting challenge too!