20C Authors

major writers, biographical notes, and literary criticism

major writers, biographical notes, and literary criticism

Chance – a study guide

June 13, 2010 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

Chance (1914) is unusual in the work of Joseph Conrad in that it was his first big commercial success as a novelist; and it was the first (and last) to have a female protagonist. He actually called it his ‘girl novel’. Conrad is now well ensconced in the Pantheon of great modernists, and his novels Lord Jim, Under Western Eyes, and The Secret Agent are popular classics, along with impressive novellas such as The Secret Sharer and Heart of Darkness which are even more celebrated in terms of the number of critical words written about them. And yet he did not have a popular success in his own lifetime until the publication of Chance in 1914.

Joseph Conrad – portrait

Chance – critical commentary

The narrative

Chance sees the return of Marlow as a narrator after an absence of a decade or more. Marlow’s task is to assemble the facts of the narrative from a number of different sources, at different temporal levels, of events covering a time span of seventeen years. Some of these sources are people he has never met, and the information that comes from them is so indirect and convoluted, that one often wonders how reliable it can be.

This obliqueness, complexity, and self-referentiality was even more marked in the serial version of the story, which appeared before the novel. The serial included an outer narrator who is a novelist, reflecting on Marlow’s account of events. Conrad cut this out for publication as a novel, and left behind instead an un-named outer narrator who ‘presents’ what Marlow tells him.

In his later novels Conrad pushed the complexities of his narrative strategies more or less to the breaking point of credibility. In Nostromo for instance we are asked at one point to believe that a minute by minute, detailed description of violent events in a revolution is provided by a character writing a letter with a pencil stub in a darkened room.

Similarly in Chance, Marlow is constructing the drama of Flora de Barrall from events which cover a span of seventeen years, related to him largely by other people, some of whom were not even present at the occasions Marlow describes – often in great detail, including what the participants thought and felt. It’s as if Conrad forgets that he has invented some of the characters included in the chain of the narrative.

This weakness also has the effect of blurring the distinction between Marlow and Conrad as the true carrier of the narrative – despite the fact that there is an almost vestigial outer-narrator who is supposed to relaying Marlow’s account to us, and who could have been used to put a critical distance between Conrad and his narrator.

Since Marlow carries almost the entire weight of the narrative, this lack of critical distance has significant ramifications. For instance he repeatedly punctuates his account of events with quasi-philosophic reflections on the nature of women. These are what we would now call patronising at best and downright misogynist at worst. Very occasionally the outer-narrator interrupts him to express surprise – but Marlow’s opinions are never seriously challenged or questioned. Readers are given every reason to believe that Marlow is acting as a mouthpiece for Conrad.

The drama

There is an argument that Conrad reached the highest point of his achievement as a novelist in the period which includes Nostromo (1904), The Secret Agent (1907), and Under Western Eyes (1911).

Yet even the ending of Nostromo shows signs of being rushed. After 350 pages of dramatic conflict and revolution, the protagonist suddenly changes his customary behaviour and is shot, mistaken for somebody else, and that brings the narrative to an end.

Similarly in Chance the major characters are brought together for one final dramatic encounter on board the Ferndale. First the skulduggery which precipitates the climax is terribly melodramatic – a lethal potion slipped into a drink.

This event is seen by one character, who is watching a second, who is spying on a third – a sequence of improbabilities which might be straight out of a Thomas Hardy novel. And then the villain of the piece suddenly acts quite out of character and swallows his own poison.

And once all the problems have been dealt with, the hero of the novel is removed from the picture by a sudden accident – leaving the stage clear for a very unconvincing happy ending in which the two youngest people in the novel (Flora and Powell) are romantically linked.

The main problem with Chance is that unlike Heart of Darkness, The Secret Agent, and Under Western Eyes, it is not about anything very important. A financial dealer goes bankrupt, and his young daughter is ill-treated by the people who are supposed to be looking after her. She enters a curiously ‘chivalric’ marriage, of which her father disapproves. There is tension between her father and her husband; but when both of them die, she is free to face the prospect of life with a man her own age.

The central drama of the novel is supposed to revolve around the character of Flora – yet she never really comes to life. She is the passive victim throughout – adored by her husband and possessively regarded by her father who shows no signs of paternal affection for her. She marries Anthony in a daydream and appears to be entering into a similar relationship with Powell at the end of the novel. We do not see events from her point of view, and she expresses few emotions other than a feeling worthlessness in her low moments, and a saint-like patience with her father as he rants about her choice of husband.

Chance – study resources

Chance – Oxford World’s Classics – Amazon UK

Chance – Oxford World’s Classics – Amazon US

Chance – annotated Kindle eBook edition

Chance – eBook versions at Project Gutenberg

Chance – Online Literature

The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Routledge Guide to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Oxford Reader’s Companion to Conrad – Amazon UK

Joseph Conrad: A Biography – Amazon UK

The Complete Critical Guide to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Notes on Life and Letters – Amazon UK

Joseph Conrad – biographical notes

Joseph Conrad at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links

Joseph Conrad at Mantex – tutorials, web links, study resources

Chance – plot summary

The celebrated financier de Barrall is a widow with a young daughter called Flora. She is looked after by a governess in Brighton whilst her father concentrates on expanding his business empire. He makes a large fortune by persuading people to invest, but is then disgraced and sent to jail when his business collapses. When the prospect of getting hold of some of de Barrall’s money disappears, the governess (and her shady accomplice) abandon Flora, and she is taken in by lower-class relatives who neglect her. She escapes from them and is then looked after by Mr and Mrs Fynes, where she is rescued by a momentary temptation to commit suicide by Marlow, the narrator of the the story.

She also meets Captain Anthony, Mrs Fynes’ brother who falls in love with her and persuades her to marry him. Because of her life experiences, she feels unloved and worthless, but agrees to the marriage, which Anthony proposes will be ‘chivalric’ on his part. That is, recognising that she is not in love with him, he will make no demands on her (including sexual) but will defend her for the rest of her life.

When her father is eventually released from prison, a broken man, Anthony makes provision for them both on board his ship, the Ferndale. Relations on board however become very strained. Franklin, the chief mate, is passionately attached to Captain Anthony and is jealous of his relationship with Flora. In addition, de Barrall cannot stand the sight of Anthony and regards the fact that Flora has married him as an act of betrayal on her part.

The climax of the story occurs when de Barrall tries to poison Anthony, but is overseen by Powell, the second mate. When de Barrall is exposed and realises that the game is up, he takes the poison himself and dies.

Anthony and Flora are free to continue their mariage blanc for six years until the Ferndale is involved in a collision at sea and Anthony goes down with the ship as the last man on board. Flora retires to the countryside and as the novel ends she is being encouraged by Marlow to entertain the attentions of Powell, with whose ‘chance’ employment on the Ferndale the novel began.

Biography

Principal characters

Narrator	The un-named outer narrator who presents Marlow’s account of events
Marlow	An experienced sea captain, the principal narrator of events
Mr Powell	A shipping office employer, who gives Charles Powell his first chance of employment
Charles Powell	A young, recently qualified naval officer
Roderick Anthony	The captain of the Ferndale
Carleon Anthony	Captain Anthony’s father, a romantic poet
John Fyne	A civil servant, Anthony’s brother-in-law
Zoe Fyne	Captain Anthony’s sister, a radical feminist
Eliza	Governess to Flora in Brighton
Charley	The governess’s young ‘nephew’ and accomplice
Mr de Barrall	A famous financier who becomes bankrupt and goes to jail
Flora Barrall	Barrall’s young daughter
No name	de Barrall’s lower-class relatives who ‘abduct’ Flora
Franklin	First mate on the Ferndale who is passionately attached to Captain Anthony
Mr Brown	Steward on the Ferndale
Jane Brown	The steward’s wife who is companion to Flora

Manuscript page from Heart of Darkness

The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad offers a series of essays by leading Conrad scholars aimed at both students and the general reader. There’s a chronology and overview of Conrad’s life, then chapters that explore significant issues in his major writings, and deal in depth with individual works. These are followed by discussions of the special nature of Conrad’s narrative techniques, his complex relationships with late-Victorian imperialism and with literary Modernism, and his influence on other writers and artists. Each essay provides guidance to further reading, and a concluding chapter surveys the body of Conrad criticism.

Joseph Conrad’s writing table

Other novels by Joseph Conrad

The Secret Agent (1907) is a short novel and a masterpiece of sustained irony. It is based on the real incident of a bomb attack on the Greenwich Observatory in 1888 and features a cast of wonderfully grotesque characters: Verloc the lazy double agent, Inspector Heat of Scotland Yard, and the Professor – an anarchist who wanders through the novel with bombs strapped round his waist and the detonator in his hand. The English government and police are subject to sustained criticism, and the novel bristles with some wonderfully orchestrated effects of dramatic irony – all set in the murky atmosphere of Victorian London. Here Conrad prefigures all the ambiguities which surround two-faced international relations, duplicitous State realpolitik, and terrorist outrage which still beset us more than a hundred years later.
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Under Western Eyes (1911) is the story of Razumov, a reluctant ‘revolutionary’. He is in fact a coward who is mistaken for a radical hero and cannot escape from the existential trap into which this puts him. This is Conrad’s searing critique of Russian ‘revolutionaries’ who put his own Polish family into exile and jeopardy. The ‘Western Eyes’ are those of an Englishman who reads and comments on Razumov’s journal – thereby creating another chance for Conrad to recount the events from a very complex perspective. Razumov achieves partial redemption as a result of his relationship with a good woman, but the ending, with faint echoes of Dostoyevski, is tragic for all concerned.
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Joseph Conrad web links

Joseph Conrad at Mantex
Biography, tutorials, book reviews, study guides, videos, web links.

Joseph Conrad – his greatest novels and novellas
Brief notes introducing his major works in recommended editions.

Joseph Conrad at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts in a variety of formats.

Joseph Conrad at Wikipedia
Biography, major works, literary career, style, politics, and further reading.

Joseph Conrad at the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations for the cinema and television – in various languages. Full details of directors and actors, production notes, box office, trivia, and quizzes.

Works by Joseph Conrad
Large online database of free HTML texts, digital scans, and eText versions of novels, stories, and occasional writings.

The Joseph Conrad Society (UK)
Conradian journal, reviews. and scholarly resources.

The Joseph Conrad Society of America
American-based – recent publications, journal, awards, conferences.

Hyper-Concordance of Conrad’s works
Locate a word or phrase – in the context of the novel or story.

More on Joseph Conrad
Twentieth century literature
More on Joseph Conrad tales

Chronicles of Bustos Domecq

December 16, 2015 by Roy Johnson

short stories, satirical sketches, and parodies of criticism

Chronicles of Bustos Domecq (1979) is a collection of short fiction that Jorge Luis Borges wrote in collaboration with his fellow Argentinean, the novelist Adolfo Bioy Casares. Both of them wrote stories, reviews, and skits for a variety of newspapers and literary journals – particularly Sur, founded by their friend Victoria Ocampo in 1931.

Their stories explore the playful, imaginative, and sometimes fantastic relationship between fiction and reality which Borges was to make his hallmark in works such as the famous collection of stories Fictions. His collaborator Casares was a writer, journalist, and translator best known for his science fiction novel The Invention of Morel

Jorge Luis Borges

Honorio Bustos Domecq was an Argentinean man of letters. A brief note on Domecq written by Dr Gervasio Montenegro (Argentine Academy of Letters) acts as an introduction and preface to the stories. This preface itself arouses our suspicions, for it is written in an absurdly inflated and self-regarding manner. Montenegro showers praise on his own achievements as a writer, and damns the work of Domecq with praise so faint it is almost insulting. It is no surprise to learn that both Domecq and Montenegro are entirely fictitious.

Homage to Cesar Paladion is a biographical sketch of the Argentinean writer whose ‘poetical method’ was inspired by the fact that T.S.Eliot and Ezra Pound quoted from Baudelaire, Verlaine, and The Odyssey in their work. Paladion took this approach one step further by ‘appropriating’ entire works from other writers. He had books such as The Hound of the Baskervilles and Uncle Tom’s Cabin printed under his own name and at his own expense.

In another story a newspaper reporter goes to interview Ramon Bonavena, the author of a six-volume masterwork called North-Northwest. When asked to give an account of the work’s genesis for his admiring readers, Bonavena explains that he set out with the idea of a large scale historical drama exposing social injustices in the province where he lived. However, when faced with legal difficulties, he decided to limit his subject matter – and chose to write about the objects on the right-hand corner of his desk.

The skill in the telling of these stories lies in a combination of conceptual manipulation, structural artifice, and stylistic flair. The credibility of the essential concept behind each story is established by reference to real places and real people. This material is then blended with quite credible life histories that are actually fictitious.

The absurdity of each proposition is usually concealed until the story is well under way – by which time the reader is prepared to entertain it as acceptable. And once the absurdity is revealed, the story is short enough to prevent the conceit becoming tedious.

A study of the poetical works of F.J.C.Loomis traces the development of his publications from his breakthrough Bear in 1911, through Pallet, Beret, Scum, Moon, and Perhaps? which was published posthumously following his death from dysentery in 1931. Bustos Domecq explains that Loomis’s particular genius was for an exact match between the title of his works and their contents. He points out that “The words Uncle Tom’s Cabin do not readily communicate to us all the details of its plot.” In the case of Loomis all the common poetical trappings of metaphor, symbol, rhythm, and alliteration are stripped away to create an exact match between title and content – because each text consists of just the single word of its title.

G.A.Baralt is an Argentinean attorney who has written a multi-volume study of the Brotherhood Movement. This movement is based on the observation that at any given time, all over the world, some people will be doing exactly the same thing. This could be anything from getting out of bed to striking a match. At the conclusion of the story Baralt is compiling, as a supplement to the main study – a list of all possible Brotherhoods, including those who thought about a particular topic two minutes ago, or those who three minutes ago forgot about it.

Some of the stories are amazingly prophetic, given some of the more absurd ‘developments’ in modern art in recent decades. The tales deal with what we would now call ‘happenings’ (random gatherings of people) uninhabitable architecture, ‘concave’ sculpture (composed from the space between objects) and the work of an ‘abstract’ artist all of whose canvases are covered in black shoe polish.

Bustos Domecq emerges as a comic figure in his own right from the stories he relates. As an occupational sideline he sells tickets for events that don’t take place, orders drinks he doesn’t pay for, and publishes (strictly by subscription in advance) the work of a worthless poet. He is pompous, self-regarding, and his literary style is amusing in itself – filled with creaking and orotund journalese, recent archaisms, irrelevances, and non-sequiturs.

The weaker examples of this collection lapse into silliness and mere whimsy, but the basic approach is quite subtle – given that the stories contain amusingly absurd ideas and are related by not only an unreliable narrator but one with an off-beat, almost bizarre literary style.

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Jorge Luis Borges, Chronicles of Bustos Domecq, New York: E.P.Dutton, 1979, pp.143. ISBN: 0525080473

Jorge Louis Borges links

Jorge Luis Borges – biography

Borges Center – University of Pittsburgh

BBC Radio 4 audio documentary

Paris Review – Interview

More on Jorge Luis Borges
Twentieth century literature
More on study skills

Complete Critical Guide to D.H.Lawrence

May 22, 2009 by Roy Johnson

biography, guidance notes, and literary criticism

D.H.Lawrence is not an easy writer to categorise. We think of him mainly as a novelist – but he is equally influential (if not so highly regarded) as a poet and a writer of novellas and short stories. He also wrote plays, but these tend to be overlooked in favour of his fiction. This guide to his work comes from a new series by Routledge which offers comprehensive but single-volume introductions to major English writers. They are aimed at students of literature, but are accessible to general readers who might like to deepen their understanding. The approach taken could not be more straightforward.

Part one is a potted biography of Lawrence, placing his life and work in a relatively neutral socio-historical context. Thus we get his early influences and his complex relations with women; but we are also nursed through an introduction to the literary Modernist movement of which he formed an important part. Part two provides a synoptic view of Lawrence’s stories, novels, and poetry.

The works are described in outline, and then their main themes illuminated. This is followed by pointers towards the main critical writings on these texts and issues.

Part three deals with criticism of Lawrence’s work. This is presented in chronological order – from contemporaries such as T.S. Eliot and E.M. Forster to critics of the present day who tend to focus on Lawrence’s psychological insights. Feminist writers have been particularly critical of what they see as misogyny in Lawrence’s work. .

The book ends with a commendably thorough bibliography which covers biography, criticism in books and articles, plus pointers towards specialist Lawrence journals.

An excellent starting point for students who are new to Lawrence’s work – and a refresher course for those who would like to keep up to date with criticism.

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Fiona Becket, The Complete Critical Guide to D. H. Lawrence, London: Routledge, 2002, pp.186, ISBN 0415202523

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Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

July 18, 2009 by Roy Johnson

a guide to Conrad’s classic critique of imperialism

Joseph Conrad retired from the sea and started writing romantic adventure stories. His first works were popular but light, but then in 1899 he produced a novella which struck such dark tones and offered a reading of European imperialism so profound, that it still strikes deep resonances today. Heart of Darkness, which is aimed at students and general readers who might wish to extend their understanding of Conrad and what he has to offer. The first chapter puts Conrad into historical, intellectual, cultural, and literary context. He was of the nineteenth century, but he signalled many of the concerns and even the literary techniques of twentieth century modernism. And of course, even though he is now regarded as a pillar stone of English Literature, he was Polish.

This is a study guide to that work, Allan Simmons then takes you straight into an analysis of the story via his consideration of Conrad’s use of English (which was his third language) his narrator Marlow, and his use of the novella as a literary form. A level students and undergraduates will find his analyses of the details thought-provoking – and the process should lead them towards the complexities of investigation they might be making on their own behalf. At the same time, anyone teaching the novella will find his approach useful.

The central part of the book is a reading of the novella, tracing the narrator Marlow’s journey from Europe, into the ‘dark continent’, and back out again – an ambiguously changed man. Simmons traces all the subtle allusions, symbols, and thematic parallels in the narrative.

Despite the ultimate pointlessness of comparing fiction with what might have been its real life inspiration, I think a map of the Congo would have been useful here.

In the two final chapters Simmons traces Conrad’s reputation as a writer from the publication of Heart of Darkness to the present, then he looks at the adaptations – nearly ninety films and even a piano concerto.

There is still interpretive work to be done on many aspects of Conrad – not least his attitude to women – but studies such as this help to provide the means whereby this work will be done.

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Allan Simmons, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, London: Continuum, 2007, pp.132, ISBN: 0826489346

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Twentieth century literature
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Cousins

August 3, 2017 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, study guide, web links, and further reading

Cousins (1984) is one of five pieces (four stories and a fragment) published in the collection Him with his Foot in his Mouth. The other stories in the collection are A Silver Dish, Him with his Foot in his Mouth, What Kind of Day Did You Have, and Zetland: By A Character Witness.

Cousins – commentary

Cousins follows a story line similar to many of Bellow’s other fictions. A well-educated first person narrator from Chicago relates the problems he faces as a result of family connections—particularly relatives who have either become rich in a dubious manner or who have connections with organised crime.

For Bellow the connection between these two worlds – education and ‘business’ – is that they symbolise the alternatives open to an immigrant. Education represents the continuation of European cultural traditions and the desire for intellectual improvement. The world of ‘business’ represents assimilation into the American way of life, along with its material excesses and its tainted connections.

The narrator Ijah Brodsky has a foot in both these camps. His work as a financial and political advisor gives him access to the first – even though he doesn’t feel altogether a part of it. His family connections give him access to the second. When he questions his own motives for helping a relative who is being sent to jail, it is a sense of loyalty to relations that wins out:

By sacrificing an hour at my desk I might spare Tanky a good many years of prison. Why shouldn’t I do it for old times’ sake, for the sake of his parents, whom I held in such affection. I had to do it if I wanted to continue these exercises of memory. My souvenirs would stink if I let Shana’s son down. I had no space to work out if this was a moral or a sentimental decision.

Background

The background to this story is the corruption that traditionally lies behind much of business, political government, and even organised labour in the metropolitan centres of America – Chicago in this particular case. This corruption exists because of the Mafia and its system of bribery, extortion, and organised crime that penetrates all levels of American society. Three real-life historical figures from the murky world of gangsters and criminal behaviour are mentioned at the outset of the story:

As for Tanky’s dark associate, I have no idea who he may have been—maybe Tony Provenzano, or Sally (Bugs) Briguglio, or Dorfmann of the Teamsters union insurance group. It was not Jimmy Hoffa. Hoffa was then in jail.

Tony Provenzano was a Sicilian gangster (1917-1988) from New York who embezzled funds from the Teamsters Union, of which he was second-in-command. Jimmy Hoffa was its leader – in jail at the time the story is set for bribery, fraud, and corruption. Hoffa was eventually released early in 1971 by Richard Nixon, after the payment of a large bribe by the Mafia. Salvatore Briguglio was a loan shark and gangster who was implicated in the murder of Anthony Castellito, the Union’s treasurer, whose body was put through a tree shredder.

Allen Dorfmann was in charge of the union’s pension funds: he was charged with jury tampering, bribery, and embezzlement. Three days before sentencing, he was murdered by the Mafia, presumably to prevent his ‘co-operating’ with the authorities. Eventually, even Hoffa himself was ‘disappeared’ in 1985, and his body has never been found.

Corruption in local government is outlined by Tanky’s sister Eunice, who is forced to pay bribes simply to get her daughter admitted to the Talbot Medical School:

“Even to get to talk to the director, a payoff was necessary … And then I had to pledge myself to Talbot for fifty thousand dollars [over and above tuition fees] … I made a down payment of half, with the balance promised before graduation. No degree until you deliver.”

The cousins

As the story progresses, it becomes apparent that Bellow is exploring the responses of a family’s younger generation to the challenges of immigration. The cousins may not have spoken to each other or met for some time, but they recognise family ties – Ijah in particular.

He has been successful and is part of the American establishment – giving advice at government and international level. Yet he feels detached from the centre of power in which he works. He reads ethnographic reports from Siberia and dwells on political history when he should be writing reports.

His cousin Raphael (Tanky) has wandered from business into the realms of illegality and connections with the Mafia – which is why he is being sent to jail. At the other extreme his intellectual cousin Scholem Stavis has written a revolutionary work on biological theory then lived a blameless life working as a New York taxi cab driver.

Several other cousins feature in Ijah’s survey of his social and genetic heritage – a fact that raises two problems. The first is that an alarming proportion of his relatives are talented, gifted, or rich. Eventually, Ijah realises that he should add himself to this roster, since he too is a cousin to the others. This brings the survey to a neat conclusion, but Bellow does not provide any convincing explanation why we should accept such a prosperous group of individuals as in any way typical.

The other problem is that the first half the story is dominated by the episode involving Raphael, who is connected to the Mafia and has gone to prison. He knows he must remain silent about his criminal associates in order to avoid being executed by them. This sets up dramatic expectations which are not met by the remainder of the story, leaving the whole composition rather unbalanced. We are treated to an entertaining roster of character studies, but they remain like the separate beads detached from a necklace, with no string holding them together.

Cousins – resources

Cousins – Penguin Classics – Amazon UK

Cousins – Penguin Classics – Amazon US

A Saul Bellow bibliography

Saul Bellow – Collected Stories – Penguin Classics – Amazon UK

Saul; Bellow – Collected Stories – Penguin Classics – Amazon US

Saul Bellow (Modern Critical Views) – essays and studies – Amz UK

Saul Bellow (Modern Critical Views) – essays and studies – Amz US

Cambridge Companion to Saul Bellow – Amazon UK

Cousins – plot synopsis

Ijah Brodsky is a financial analyst and political advisor in Chicago. He previously had a television programme that featured contentious court cases. His relatives mistakenly think he is a legal expert and seek his influence when his cousin Raphael (Tanky) gets into trouble. Ijah is acquainted with the judge in the case, and is persuaded to write a plea for clemency. He does this for sentimental reasons of family solidarity as the children of first generation Jewish immigrants.

Tanky receives a reduced jail sentence. Ijah takes Tanky’s sister out to dinner, where she makes a further request for another letter to the judge asking for special favours. She outlines to Ijah the system of bribes and corruption that obtains even in the education system in Chicago.

Ijah reads about Siberian anthropology and discusses his cousin Ezekiel who is a gifted student of foreign languages. Then he visits his aged uncle Mordecai and recalls a family picnic during his childhood.

His intellectual cousin Scholem has written a philosophic thesis and wants to be buried in Eastern Germany, where he fought in the war. Ijah asks another cousin Mendy if they can use a family financial resource to help him. The money is released, and Ijah travels to Paris to meet Scholem.

Cousins – characters

Ijah Brodsky	a Chicago financial and legal advisor
Isabel (Sable)	Ijah’s ex-wife
Raphael (Tanky) Metzger	Ijah’s cousin, with Mafia connections
Eunice Karger	Raphael’s sister
Miltie Rifkin	Ijah’s cousin, a hotel owner
Ezekiel Seckiel)	Ijah’s cousin, a gifted linguist
Mordecai (Motty)	Ijah’s rich uncle
Scholem Stavis	Ijah’s cousin, a philosopher and taxi cab driver
Mendy Eckstein	Ijah’s cousin

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Twentieth century literature

Critical Guide to Joseph Conrad

July 9, 2009 by Roy Johnson

biography, guidance notes, and literary criticism

This comes from a new series by Routledge which offers comprehensive but single-volume introductions to major English writers. They are aimed at students of literature, but are accessible to general readers who might like to deepen their literary understanding. The approach taken could not be more straightforward. Part one of the Critical Guide to Joseph Conrad is a potted biography, placing Conrad’s life and work in its socio-historical context. Thus we get his early years in Poland, his career as a seaman, his influences and ambitions, and his (relatively slow) rise to fame as a novelist. One of the interesting features of Conrad’s development as a writer is that his early novels were largely adult versions of boy’s adventure stories.

However, as his work became richer he tackled themes of intense political complexity. Read Heart of Darkness today and you would swear it had been written quite recently. Part two provides a synoptic view of his stories and novels. The works are described in outline, and then their main themes illuminated. This is followed by pointers towards the main critical writings on these texts and issues. I must say that reading through the synopses of some of his lesser known works made me want to go back to them again.

Part three deals with criticism of Conrad’s work. This is presented in chronological order – from contemporaries such as Richard Curle and his collaborator Ford Madox Ford, via early champions such as F.R. Leavis and Albert Guerard, to critics of the present day, with the focus on colonial and post-colonial criticism.

The book ends with a chronology of his life, a commendably thorough bibliography which covers biography, criticism in books and articles, plus pointers towards specialist Conrad journals.

This is an excellent starting point for students who are new to Conrad’s work – and a refresher course for those who would like to keep up to date with criticism.

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Tim Middleton, The Complete Critical Guide to Joseph Conrad, London: Routledge, 2006, pp.201, ISBN 0415268524

More on Joseph Conrad
Twentieth century literature
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Critical Guide to Samuel Beckett

July 14, 2009 by Roy Johnson

biography, guidance notes, and literary criticism

This Critical Guide to Samuel Beckett comes from a new series by Routledge which offers comprehensive but single-volume introductions to major English writers. In this case it’s a writer who was Irish, who wrote in English, then in French, then translated his own work back into English. It is a guide aimed at students of literature, but it’s also accessible to general readers who might like to deepen their understanding.

The approach taken could not be more straightforward. Part one is a potted biography of Beckett, placing his life and work in a socio-historical context. Thus we get his early influences and his move from Trinity College Dublin to life in Paris working as secretary to James Joyce. We are also nursed through an introduction to the literary Modernist movement of which he formed an important part. Part two provides a synoptic view of Beckett’s stories, novels, plays, and poetry.

The works are described in outline, and then their main themes illuminated. This is followed by pointers towards the main critical writings on these texts and issues. Beckett is not an easy writer to categorise. We think of him mainly as a dramatist – but he is equally influential (if not so highly regarded) as a writer of novellas and short stories.

Part three deals with criticism of Beckett’s work. This is presented in chronological order – from the work of the 1960s which sought to explain what seemed at the time an odd view of the world, to critics of the present day.

The book ends with a commendably thorough bibliography which covers biography, criticism in books and articles, plus pointers towards specialist journals.

This is an excellent starting point for students who are new to Beckett’s work – and a refresher course for those who would like to keep up to date with criticism. These guides have proved to be very popular. Strongly recommended.

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David Pattie, The Complete Critical Guide to Samuel Beckett, London: Routledge, 2000, pp.220, ISBN: 041520254X

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Twentieth century literature
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D.H.Lawrence close reading

March 21, 2014 by Roy Johnson

a tutorial in literary analysis

This tutorial features a close reading exercise on the opening two paragraphs of D.H.Lawrence’s story Fanny and Annie, taken from his collection England, My England which was first published in 1922. It tells the story of a young woman Fanny, returning with some trepidation to her home town in the north of England, to meet her young man, Harry.

In the tutorial notes that follow, each sentence is considered separately, with comments highlighting whichever features of the prose seem noteworthy. The focus of attention is largely on Lawrence’s choice of vocabulary and some of the rhetorical devices he employs.

A close reading exercise is not a guessing game or a treasure hunt: it is an attempt to understand the mechanisms by which a narrative is constructed and its meanings generated. However, a really successful close reading can only be made when you know the work as a whole. So, if you wish to read the complete story in conjunction with these tutorial notes, it is available free at Project Gutenberg.

Fanny and Annie

D.H.Lawrence – portrait

Fanny and Annie – the text

Flame-lurid his face as he turned among the throng of flame-lit and dark faces upon he platform. In the light of the furnace she caught sight of his drifting countenance, like a piece of floating fir. And the nostalgia, the doom of homecoming went through her veins like a drug. His eternal face, flame-lit now! The pulse and darkness of red fire from the furnace towers in the sky, lighting the desultory industrial crowd on the wayside station, lit him and went out.

Of course he did not see her. Flame-lit and unseeing! Always the same with his meeting eyebrows, his common cap, and his red-and-black scarf knotted round his throat. Not even a collar to meet her! The flames had sunk, there was shadow.

D.H.Lawrence close reading

01. In the first sentence Lawrence plunges straight into the use of alliteration and repetition to give dramatic emphasis to his scene. ‘Flame-lurid his face’ is the first of many alliterative uses of f and l in the passage, and the term flame is repeated within the sentence at ‘flame-lit’. Moreover the single word ‘flame’ itself contains the two alliterated letters. This is very much in keeping with the theme of the story, which is about sexual passion and the physical attraction between Fanny and Harry, despite her reservations about his status as a working-class male. Fire, heat, and flame are all traditionally associated with passion.

Moreover, ‘lurid’ is a rather emotionally charged term – an item of vocabulary taken very much from the literary register. Note too that the sentence lacks a main verb: there is an implied (but missing) verb was in ‘Flame-lurid his face’.

And the term ‘upon’, where today we would just write ‘on’, gives the sentence quite a serious tone: it has an almost Biblical ring to it. Lawrence was very influenced by his non-conformist religious background, and uses lots of its imagery in his work.

02. ‘Furnace’ and ‘floating fire’ continue the use of alliteration. They lend an incantatory rhythm to the narrative voice, which is actually giving Fanny’s point of view.

A simile is used to compare his face (poetically described as ‘his drifting countenance’) with the piece of fire. And ‘drifting’ here seems to carry two meanings: both literally as in ‘moving along the platform’, and metaphorically as ‘independent and untroubled’. We subsequently learn that this is how Fanny perceives Harry. ‘Countenance’ is another literary and quasi-Biblical term. And ‘a piece of floating fire’ is a fairly striking image – but perfectly in keeping with the charged manner of Fanny’s perceptions.

03. Following ‘nostalgia’ the term ‘doom of homecoming’ is almost a tautology, but Lawrence is obviously piling on emphasis here – as the onomatopoetic ‘doom’ illustrates. ‘Doom’ gives a sense of heavy inevitability, as though her life is predictably blighted by her origins.

Note too that he is using the phenomenon of nostalgia in its negative sense (it can mean both ‘homesickness’ or ‘sentimental regret’.) The simile ‘like a drug’ is another strongly emotive comparison.

04. The adjective ‘eternal’ is used to powerful effect here as it again suggests inevitability. The word ties in with the biblical vocabulary noted earlier. ‘Eternal’ usually describes God and therefore it is positive, but in the context of the passage it works in a negative way to suggest that Fanny feels trapped.

I take it to represent Fanny’s annoyance: she does after all resent the fact that she is having to come back to Harry. And I support this reading by pointing to Lawrence’s use of the exclamation mark to indicate that the sentence is a segment of narrative written from Fanny’s point of view.

05. ‘The pulse and darkness of red fire’ gives a very strong impressionistic image in the sense that although very literally red fire cannot possess darkness, we know that Lawrence means alternating periods of lightness and dark. And the terms ‘pulse’, ‘darkness’, ‘red’, and ‘fire’ are all charged with very elemental connotations relating to life in a very primitive sense. This is appropriate as it is an important point in Fanny’s emotional development.

06. ‘Of course’ is rather conversational in tone, and it is an expression which reinforces the fact that we are seeing the events from Fanny’s point of view.

07. ‘Flame-lit’ is the fifth occasion of the f/l alliteration in these two paragraphs: this is Lawrence being unashamedly rhetorical in his prose style. Rhetoric is ‘the art of speakers or writers to persuade, inform, or motivate their audience’. Here Lawrence is using these rhetorical devices to show Fanny’s emotional turmoil. .

‘Unseeing’ is another term which is not immediately clear: I take it to mean ‘not paying attention’. In Fanny’s implied voice, this is a statement of bitter irony where ‘flame-lit’ is ‘literally juxtaposed with ‘unseeing’, suggesting that he is blinded by his own light. The sentence as a whole is another which is very impressionistic — incomplete in the strictly grammatical sense.

08. This sentence too omits an implied ‘He was’ at its beginning: (the technical term for this device is elision). ‘Meeting’ is being transferred from its use as a verb to be an adjective. The effect of this is to animate his features by implying that the eyebrows are conscious, and ‘meeting’ each other.

09. This is another grammatically incomplete sentence in which, apart from the last word ‘her’, we are almost in Fanny’s mind. Lawrence is using a form of stream of consciousness here to reflect the technical incompleteness and sometimes fragmentary nature of our thoughts. His third exclamation mark reinforces this impression.

10. The very absence of rhetorical devices in this sentence seems to indicate that Lawrence is preparing the reader for a transition to a less highly charged and impressionistic narrative manner. This proves to be the case in the next part of the story.

Selected Stories of D.H.Lawrence – Amazon UK

The Fox, The Captain’s Doll, The Ladybird – Amazon UK

Close reading – general

In your own close reading of this text you might have noticed features different than those listed here. These points are just examples of what can be said and claimed about a text, and help us to understand the technical details of how prose fictions work.

In literary studies there are various types of close reading. It is possible and rewarding to scrutinise a text closely, keeping any number of its features in mind. These can reveal various layers of significance in the work which might not be apparent on a superficial reading. You might focus attention on the text’s –

language
meaning
structure
philosophy

The most advanced forms of close reading combine all these features in an effort to reveal the full and even hidden meanings in a work.

Studying Fiction is an introduction to the basic concepts and the language you will need for studying prose fiction. It explains the elements of literary analysis one at a time, then shows you how to apply them. The guidance starts off with simple issues of language, then progresses to more complex literary criticism.The volume contains stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, Katherine Mansfield, Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad, D.H. Lawrence, and Charles Dickens. All of them are excellent tales in their own right. The guidance on this site was written by the same author.
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Close reading tutorials

Sample close reading of Charles Dickens’ Bleak House

Sample close reading of Katherine Mansfield’s The Voyage

Sample close reading of Virginia Woolf’s Monday or Tuesday

Other work by D.H.Lawrence

Sons and Lovers This is Lawrence’s first great novel. It’s a quasi-autobiographical account of a young man’s coming of age in the early years of the twentieth century. Set in working class Nottinghamshire, it focuses on class conflicts and gender issues as young Paul Morrell is torn between a passionate relationship with his mother and his attraction to other women. He also has a quasi-Oedipal conflict with his coal miner father. If you are new to Lawrence and his work, this is a good place to start. This novel has become a classic of early twentieth-century literature.
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The Rainbow This is Lawrence’s version of a family saga, spanning three generations of the Brangwen family in the north of England. It is the women characters in this novel who remain memorable as they strive to express their feelings and break free of traditions. The story concludes with the struggle of two sisters, Ursula and Gudrun, to liberate themselves from the stifling pressures of Edwardian English society. The two young women also feature in his next and some say greatest novel, Women in Love – so it would be a good idea to read this first.
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D.H.Lawrence – web links

D.H.Lawrence at Mantex
Biographical notes, book reviews, study guides, videos, bibliographies, critical studies, and web links.

D.H.Lawrence at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts of the novels, stories, travel writing, and poetry – available in a variety of formats.

D.H.Lawrence at Wikipedia
Biographical notes, social background, publishing history, the Lady Chatterley trial, critical reputation, bibliography, archives, and web links.

D.H.Lawrence at the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations of Lawrence’s work for the cinema and television – in various languages. Full details of directors, actors, production, box office, trivia, and even quizzes.

D.H.Lawrence archive at the University of Nottingham
Biography, further reading, textual genetics, frequently asked questions, his local reputation, research centre, bibliographies, and lists of holdings.

D.H.Lawrence and Eastwood
Nottinhamshire local enthusiast web site featuring biography, historical and recent photographs of the Eastwood area and places associated with Lawrence.

The World of D.H.Lawrence
Yet another University of Nottingham web site featuring biography, interactive timeline, maps, virtual tour, photographs, and web links.

D.H.Lawrence Heritage
Local authority style web site, with maps, educational centre, and details of lectures, visits, and forthcoming events.

More on D.H. Lawrence
More on the novella
More on literary studies
More on short stories

D.H.Lawrence web links

December 9, 2010 by Roy Johnson

a selection of web-based archives and resources

This short selection of D.H.Lawrence web links offers quick connections to resources for further study. It’s not comprehensive, and if you have any ideas for additional resources, please use the ‘Comments’ box below to make suggestions.

D.H.Lawrence – web links

D.H.Lawrence at Mantex
Biographical notes, book reviews, study guides, videos, bibliographies, critical studies, and web links.

D.H.Lawrence at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts of the novels, stories, travel writing, and poetry – available in a variety of formats.

D.H.Lawrence at Wikipedia
Biographical notes, social background, publishing history, the Lady Chatterley trial, critical reputation, bibliography, archives, and web links.

D.H.Lawrence and Eastwood
Nottinhamshire local enthusiast web site featuring biography, historical and recent photographs of the Eastwood area and places associated with Lawrence.

The World of D.H.Lawrence
Yet another University of Nottingham web site featuring biography, interactive timeline, maps, virtual tour, photographs, and web links.

D.H.Lawrence Heritage
Local authority style web site, with maps, educational centre, and details of lectures, visits, and forthcoming events.

The Cambridge Companion to Lawrence contains fourteen chapters by leading international scholars. These specially-commissioned essays offer diverse and stimulating readings of Lawrence’s major novels, short stories, poetry and plays, and place Lawrence’s writing in a variety of literary, cultural, and political contexts, such as modernism, sexual and ethnic identity, and psychoanalysis. The concluding chapter addresses the vexed history of Lawrence’s critical reception throughout the twentieth century. Features a detailed chronology and a comprehensive guide to further reading.

More on D.H. Lawrence
More on the novella
More on literary studies
More on short stories

Death in Venice

February 21, 2010 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, study resources, video, further reading

Death in Venice (1913) is a classic novella – half way between a long story and a short novel. It’s a wonderfully condensed tale of the relationship between art and life, as well as love and death. Venice provides the background for the story of a famous writer Von Aschenbach who departs from his usual routines, falls in love with a beautiful young boy, and gets caught up in a subtle downward spiral of indulgence. The unity of themes, form, and motifs are superbly realised – even though Mann wrote this when he was quite young.

Thomas Mann

Death in Venice – plot summary

Gustav von Aschenbach is a famous author in his early fifties. He is a widower, dedicated to his art, and disciplined to the point of severity. While strolling outside a cemetery in his native Munich he has a disturbing encounter with a red-haired man, after which he resolves to take a trip. He reserves a suite in the Grand Hôtel des Bains on the Lido island of Venice. While en route to the island by vaporetto, he sees an elderly man with a wig, false teeth, makeup, and foppish attire, which disgusts him. Soon afterwards he has a disturbing encounter with a gondolier.

At dinner in his hotel he sees an aristocratic Polish family at a nearby table. Among them is an adolescent boy in a sailor suit. Aschenbach is startled to realize that the boy is beautiful. His sisters, however, are so severely dressed that they look like nuns.

The hot, humid weather of Venice begins to affect Aschenbach’s health, and he decides to leave early and move to a more salubrious location. On the morning of his departure however, he sees Tadzio again, and a powerful feeling of regret sweeps over him. When he reaches the railway station he discovers his trunk has been misdirected. Secretly overjoyed; he decides to remain in Venice and wait for his lost luggage. He returns to the hotel, and thinks no more of leaving.

Over the next days and weeks, Aschenbach’s interest in the beautiful boy develops into an obsession. He watches him constantly, and secretly follows him around Venice. One evening, the boy directs a charming smile at him. Disconcerted, Aschenbach rushes outside, and in the empty garden whispers aloud, “I love you!”

Aschenbach next takes a trip into the city of Venice, where he sees a few discreetly worded notices from the Health Department warning of an unspecified contagion and advising people to avoid eating shellfish. He smells an unfamiliar strong odour everywhere, and later realises it is disinfectant. However, tourists continue to wander round the city, apparently oblivious.

Aschenbach at first ignores the danger because it somehow pleases him to think that the city’s disease is akin to his own hidden, corrupting passion for the boy. During this period, another red-haired, disreputable-looking man crosses Aschenbach’s path – a street singer who entertains at the hotel one night. Aschenbach listens entranced to songs that, in his former life, he would have despised – all the while stealing glances at Tadzio, who is leaning on a nearby parapet in a classically beautiful pose.

Aschenbach decides to uncover the reason for the health notices posted in the city so he can warn Tadzio’s mother. After being repeatedly assured that the sirocco is the only health risk, he finds a British travel agent who reluctantly admits that there is a serious cholera epidemic in Venice. Aschenbach, however, funks his resolution to warn the Polish family, knowing that if he does, Tadzio will leave the hotel and be lost to him.

One night, a dream filled with orgiastic imagery reveals to him the sexual nature of his feelings for Tadzio. Afterwards, he begins staring at the boy so openly and following him so persistently that the boy’s guardians finally notice, and take to warning Tadzio whenever he approaches too closely. But Aschenbach’s feelings, though passionately intense, remain unvoiced; and while there is some indication that Tadzio is aware of his admiration, the two exchange nothing more than the occasional glance.

Aschenbach begins to fret about his aging face and body. In an attempt to look more attractive, he visits the hotel’s barber shop almost daily, where the barber eventually persuades him to have his hair dyed and his face painted to look more youthful. Freshly dyed and rouged, he again shadows Tadzio through Venice in the oppressive heat. He loses sight of the boy in the heart of the city; then, exhausted and thirsty, he buys and eats some over-ripe strawberries and rests in an abandoned square, contemplating the Platonic ideal of beauty amidst the ruins of his own once-formidable dignity.

A few days later Aschenbach feels ill and weak, and discovers that the Polish family plan to leave after lunch. He goes down to the beach to his usual deck chair. Tadzio is there accompanied by an older boy. Tadzio leaves his companion and wades over to Aschenbach’s part of the beach, where he stands for a moment looking out to sea; then turns around to look at his admirer. To Aschenbach, it is as if the boy is beckoning to him: he tries to rise and follow, only to collapse back into his chair. His body is discovered a few minutes later. When news of his death becomes public, the world decorously mourns the passing of a great artist.

Death in Venice – study resources

Death in Venice – Vintage Classics – Amazon UK

Death in Venice – Vintage Classics – Amazon US

Death in Venice – Kindle eBook edition – Amazon UK

Thomas Mann – biographical notes

Der Tod in Venedig – eBook (in German) at Project Gutenberg – [FREE]

The novella – study notes

The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Mann – Amazon UK

Death in Venice – the 1971 Luchino Visconti film – Amazon UK

Death in Venice – unabridged audioBook edition – Amazon UK

Thomas Mann at Wikipedia – biographical notes and web links

Thomas Mann at Mantex – tutorials, web links, and study resources

Death in Venice – film adaptation – I

Luchino Visconti – 1971

Visconti produced a visually glamorous version of Mann’s novella which captures the original very faithfully. Shimmering scenes of the Venice lido are interspersed with menacing glimpses of the impending plague. The film is famous for two features – the spectacular use of a slowed-down version of the adagietto from Mahler’s fifth symphony as a sound track, and the outstanding performance of Dirk Bogard as the ageing Gustav von Aschenbach – one of his last and greatest screen performances. Visconti takes the liberty of transforming Aschenbach from a writer into a composer, but the film as a whole is a visually spectacular rendering of the original story.

See reviews of the film at the Internet Movie Database

Mont Blanc – Thomas Mann special edition

Opera adaptation

Benjamin Britten 1973

Classical references

Achelous	chief river deity
Cephalus	one of the lovers of the dawn goddess Eos
Cleitos	officer of Alexander the Great
Elisium	final resting places of the souls of the heroic and the virtuous
Eros	the primordial god of sexual love and beauty
Hades	the ancient Greek underworld, and its God
Hyacinthus	a beautiful young man admired by the god Apollo and the West Wind, Zephyr
Kritobulous	son of Crito, who was friend of Socrates
Mercury	a messenger, and god of trade, profit and commerce
Narcissus	a beautiful youth, changed by Echo into a flower
Orion	a giant huntsman
Phaeax	son of Poseidon and Cercyra
Phaedrus	a friend of Socrates
Poseidon	god of the sea – and earthquakes
Zephyr	god of the west wind

Other works by Thomas Mann

Mario and the Magician
Using settings as varied as Germany, Italy, the Holy Land and the Far East, these stories explore a theme which always preoccupied Thomas Mann – “the two faces of things”. Written between 1918 and 1953, they offer an insight the development of his thought. The title story concerns a German family on holiday in Italy who fall under the hypnotic spell of a brutal magician. It is often seen as a warning against the seductive power of fascism.

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The Magic Mountain
This is a curious but impressive novel, written on either side of the First World War. The setting is a sanatorium in the Alps – a community organized with exclusive reference to ill-health. There the characters discuss love, politics, and philosophy. Much of the novels ‘activity’ is intellectual debate between characters such as Settembrini and Naphta (who are said to represent Mann’s brother Heinrich and the Hungarian Marxist critic Georg Lukacs respectively). It’s an intellectual drama of the forces which play upon modern man. Don’t expect tension or plot in the conventional sense. The novel also marks a transition in Mann’s political philosophy – from a conservative to a more liberal ideology.

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20C Authors

major writers, biographical notes, and literary criticism

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

Chance – critical commentary

Chance – study resources

Chance – plot summary

Biography

Principal characters

Further reading

Other novels by Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad web links

short stories, satirical sketches, and parodies of criticism

Jorge Louis Borges links

biography, guidance notes, and literary criticism

a guide to Conrad’s classic critique of imperialism

tutorial, study guide, web links, and further reading

Cousins – commentary

Cousins – resources

Cousins – plot synopsis

Cousins – characters

biography, guidance notes, and literary criticism

biography, guidance notes, and literary criticism

a tutorial in literary analysis

Fanny and Annie – the text

D.H.Lawrence close reading

Close reading – general

Close reading tutorials

Other work by D.H.Lawrence

D.H.Lawrence – web links

a selection of web-based archives and resources

D.H.Lawrence – web links

tutorial, study resources, video, further reading

Death in Venice – plot summary

Death in Venice – study resources

Death in Venice – film adaptation – I

Further reading

Opera adaptation

Classical references

Other works by Thomas Mann

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