Elective Affinities: A Novel - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1809)

 

Elective Affinities

One of the best, and likely also worst, things about art is that it is open to interpretation and not an exact science. In the case of Goethe’s “Elective Affinities” I seem to have a rather different understanding of the novel than the clever heads who have formed the official interpretation of the novel and because of the above, my interpretation may be as good as theirs.

In the German countryside live Charlotte and Eduard. They may be lower nobility, but their rank is newer spelled out. They have resources enough for some extravaganza, but not endless funds. Both were previously married but as both widowed around the same time their infatuation with each other in their youth can now be realized in a marriage at their not so young age.

Their life together is in harmony when they get two new lodgers, Charlotte’s niece Ottilie and Eduard’s friend, the Captain (known throughout as “The Captain” and later “The Major”). Eduard falls passionately in love with Ottilie and his feelings are reciprocated. Charlotte and The Captain also develop feelings for each other but are better able to control them. When Eduard and Ottilie’s affair becomes too obvious Charlotte decides that Ottilie must be sent away, but Eduard flees and begs that Ottilie then can stay in the house. Eduard just manages to make Charlotte pregnant before he leaves but that is not enough to bring him home. Instead, he goes to war and throws himself into danger (the Napoleonic wars are raging at the time). When finally he does come home, he is dead-set on getting Ottilie. His scheme is that he gets divorced from Charlotte and marries Ottilie, while Charlotte marries the Captain/Major. Except his wild passion sets off a string of calamities, starting with the drowning of his little son.

Now, as I understand it, the common interpretation of this novel is as a critique of the institution of marriage as that being what prevents the “logical” pairings of the characters. Another, slightly more refined interpretation says that it is not so much the institution of marriage but the inability of the characters to think out of the box and release their adherence to conventions. In any case, they seem to think that Goethe meant these people to combine in different ways and their misfortune was that they were prevented from doing so. The major argument being that Goethe himself had affairs left and right and did not really consider marital faithfulness an objective but merely an obstacle.

My take on this story is much simpler. It demonstrates two characters, Charlotte and Eduard, where one can handle her emotions and weather potential disasters, while the other is a victim of his passions which unchecked must cause disaster left and right. Rather than being an advocate of serial monogamy, this story demonstrate the danger of unruly passions to the happiness and wellbeing of people.  

All characters have potential good futures ahead of them with plenty of reward, both socially and materially. Charlotte and the Captain/Major demonstrate how to reconcile passion and reality to both a common and a personal good, even satisfaction. Eduard on the other hand entirely embraces the romantic idea of letting his passions run his decision making with no regard for other people’s feelings and the potential for disaster, personal and to others. This makes him an egocentric person and his affair with Ottilie is just one example of his passion driven poor decision making. Charlotte’s daughter, Luciane, is another example of such a character where the damage she inflicts on others for he own gratification is obvious.

Rather than being an advocate of free love, Goethe is actually running a critique on the romanticism that was the rage at the time, asking those free spirits to rein in their passions a bit. This follows very much in the line of Goethe’s earlier novels, “The Sorrows of Young Werther” and “Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship” which run similar conclusions.

Of course, I could be entirely wrong, but I am entirely entitled to my own interpretation of art.

Recommendation? It is okay, but pales compared to Goethe’s earlier work.

 

Rameau’s Nephew - Denis Diderot (1805)

 

Rameau's Nephew

Yet again we take a step back in time with another one of Denis Diderot’s leftover manuscripts. As with “The Nun” and “Jacques the Fatalist”, Diderot kept “Rameau’s Nephew” to himself or at least in very local circulation in his lifetime, presumably because the political climate did not allow a public release, and it only found a way to the public in 1805. Even then, it took another 150 years until a version we can consider Diderot’s own version, was published.

The novel takes the form of a dialogue between a first-person character (Diderot himself?) and a character called Jean-Francois Rameau, the nephew of a famous composer with the same surname. These were real characters, and the conversation is presented as if it really took place, yet we can assume that although Diderot and Rameau really had a conversation at a vey specific time and venue, Diderot used this as a framework upon which to discuss and lampoon a number of issues that was on his mind.

Rameau is a scoundrel. A hand-to-mouth swindler and con artist, but also a very self-aware clown, conscious of his own limitations, who simply do what he does best with what he has. And what he does best is to entertain and con people by appealing to their vanity.

During their conversation Diderot and Rameau get into a great many topics, particularly around music, yet the recurrent theme is that appearances matter a lot more than substance and that people want to be fooled and confirmed. Rameau’s current situation is that he has just been dismissed from the family who had sponsored him for the past months. Rameau’s parasitic existence had been to be around, be amusing and confirm the host family of how amazing they were. His dismissal was caused by him telling the truth.

According to Rameau’s creed, the purpose of existence is to eat, drink, bed women and empty the bowels. This is the only obligation and purpose of man, and the means is just whatever works to get there.

Diderot’s purpose for this dialogue has apparently been discussed extensively, yet to my mind it is pretty obvious. Diderot was an incredible gossip, and he got a real kick out of a juicy story. “Rameau’s Nephew” is an outlet where Diderot could lampoon the entire establishment for their scandals and idiocy. In the buffoon of Rameau, the ridiculousness of the establishment becomes condensed and very entertaining and it is a safe space for Diderot as nobody gets to read it. This is Saturday Night Live for the smallest audience possible.

I found it an incredibly amusing read. It is sharp and witty and often caused me to laugh out loud. Very few of the comedic texts of the eighteenth century have accomplished that. Rameau is a tragic clown, a complete cynic with a heart and reading of his exploits is both distressing and highly entertaining. I think Diderot had a blast writing this and I can feel his need to lampoon his fellow men and women seeping through the pages.

“Rameau’s Nephew” is an easy, short read and highly recommended from me. I could totally see such a text being written today. In fact, I got an idea for a novel or sci-fi movie I would read or watch: What if Diderot was really a twenty-first century comedic writer for SNL who fell into a time hole and then had to carve out a life in the eighteenth century? Not so far fetched as you might think. His texts and his views are incredibly modern. I would love to be credited for that idea.

 

Henry Von Ofterdingen: A Novel - Novalis (1802)

 

Henry of Ofterdingen

I have never really understood the concept of poetry.

I get it as far as it being an attempt to condense something, usually intangible, into verse and that you are supposed to feel it rather than understand it. Which actually to me sounds like the definition of art as a concept. My problem is that it usually does not touch me and often strikes me as so much sophism and form that I find it hard to take seriously. I know, this is a philistine viewpoint, and I will likely take a lot of heat for it, but there it is. To me, it is like watching dancing: probably fun to be a part of but leaves me cold and non-plussed to look at.

This is a problem when reading Novalis’ “Henry of Ofterdingen”. This is a book that seems to be intended as a manifest for poetry. Novalis tries to describe to role and search of the poet, and define what poetry is and should do. Not in some positivistic, practical sense, but by setting up a spiritual framework that most of all sounds like a cult.

The framework of the story is that of a young man, Henry, who is travelling from his home in Thuringia with his mother to her father’s court in Augsburg, Bavaria. This is a boy with poetic aspirations and underway he encounters numerous characters who tell him instructive stories or instruct him directly in how poetry work. The stories are rather lengthy and with a clear sense that it is these and not the real-life voyage of Henry that is the agenda of the book.

The stories range from fairy tales over real-life stories to mythological fables of which the last ones are of a nature that I hardly know what is up or down in them and much less what the point is. Recounting these seem pointless. It is easier with the real-life stories such as those of the miner and the knight. They do make some sense, but again, they are supposed to drive a point that eludes me.

I suppose that if I had been into poetry and really cared for it, this might have been a gold mine and this is exactly what this text is considered to be. Almost the defining text on the romanticism of early nineteenth century. I can just imagine wannabe poets poring over this text and trying to find that spot where it all makes sense. Proselytes into this mishmash cult of Christianity, Hellenisms, nature and beauty.

For me however it comes across as a mess. In terms of catching the ephemeral, the intangible essence I am far more a subscriber to the Proustian style. Marcel Proust had much less need for a mythology and mysticism to formulate his images and it seems to me more straight forward and obvious that the dramatic complexity of the systems Novalis sets up.

Or maybe I have just misunderstood the whole thing.

The ending is rather peculiar. The story comes to an abrupt stop and in a post-script, a friend of Novalis tries to summarize what was to come next, hinting that we only got the first one and a half chapters of a five chapter long epic. For a while I thought this was an artificial tool of Novalis, like Diderot would use, but it seems to be genuine enough, making this an unfinished novel.

I am not certain I would need to read the remaining chapters of the story. I get the picture and think I will leave it to others to use this text. It is not a recommendation from me.

Castle Rackrent - Maria Edgeworth (1800)

 

Castle Rackrent

With Maria Edgeworth’s “Castle Rackrent” I have left the 18^th century and entered the 19^th. Not a major shift there, but it does feel like rounding a significant corner. It is therefore particularly pleasing that this book also feels like a novelty compared to my previous reading.

This is, if I remember right, the first book on the List to take place in Ireland and it is also written by an Irish, albeit of the Anglo-Irish landowner class. That in itself is interesting, I like when these books take me around the world, and I did my share of travelling in Ireland some twenty years ago. The true novelty however is that the first-person character who narrates the story is an Irish domestic who narrates in his own tongue and mannerism. Edgeworth thus takes on a different persona, which she was likely familiar with, but still a radically different character from herself, and does it with conviction.

Thady Quirk is steward to several generations of masters on Castle Rackrent (rackrent being the term used for a cruel method of extorting the tenants on the land). He tells us the story of four generations of Racrents, one is a spendthrift, a second sues everybody and their mother over pittances and lose mighty sums in the process. A third marries a Jewish girl for her wealth and locks her up until she is ready to part with her diamonds and a fourth… well, the fourth, Sir Condy Rackrent, takes up the major part of the story. He is well liked, cares little for how he spends money and takes an interest in people around him. Unfortunately for him, that means mismanagement of his estate and eventually he loses everything to Thady’s thrifty son Jason (this is hardly a spoiler).

Thady is incredibly loyal. No matter how absurd or cruel his masters, he is always ready to defend them. He loves them to a fault and in his eyes, they are never truly to blame for their error. Yet, it is not difficult to read between the lines that all these masters of Castle Rackrent are terrible landlords. That they are invested with a power they do not know how to administer and get away with it because Ireland is a place of the jungle law, where anything is possible if you have the means and the will and nobody are protected, least of all from themselves.

In these four masters, Edgeworth manages to present to us the evils going on in an uncontrolled Ireland and how unsuited the landed class is to take care of the country. It is quite a subversive writ really. A plea to the British to step in and reform the land.

Beside Thady’s gushing defense of the Rackrents a number of other elements work in the same direction. The Irish of the text itself are described as conniving children, but just beneath the surface it is not difficult to see that they are where the sympathy really lies. Additionally, the novel is equipped with extensive, original notes which all seem to placate the English reader by confirming all the demeaning stereotypes of the lazy and backward Irish, but again, it actually contains a wealth of background information and cultural context to demonstrate and understand the rich Irish culture.

“Castle Rackrent” is short, barely a hundred pages, but a very entertaining and informative read and one I quite enjoyed. I would not say it changed my life, but I do feel a bit smarter for reading it, and that is not a bad thing.

Sadly, as the novel was finalized, Ireland descended in turmoil and the English grip on the country only worsened, culminating in the disaster of the mid-nineteenth century. It is hard to think Edgeworth novel actually helped anything, but it should have and maybe it did in the very long term.

Hyperion - Friedrich Hölderlin (1797)

 

Hyperion

Friederich Hölderlin’s “Hyperion” is novel written like a poem. Or poetry in the shape of a novel. Either way it is the sort of reading you are not supposed to blaze through but read slowly to enjoy the cryptic images it conjures. Unfortunately, I am a rather plebeian reader on whom that sort of flowery writing is rather wasted and that heavily influences my opinion on this book.

While it is something you are supposed to analyze your way to work out, I understand that this is a fellow, Hyperion, who has returned to Greece and from there sends letters to someone named Bellarmin, who I suppose is a friend. This Bellarmin apparently has talked him into telling his life story.

As a young man Hyperion met an older man named Adamas whom he loved as a father. Adamas disappeared and Hyperion met Alabanda whom he seems to have had a homosexual relationship with. It certainly takes bromance to another level. Hyperion does not like Alabanda’s friends, possibly he is jealous, so he leaves him. Then he meets Diotima, and she becomes the love of his life. Though what he loves more than anything is to set his people, the Greek, free from the Ottomans, because the Greeks are a noble people who founded civilization. So, when the Russians and the Ottomans go to war, Hyperion joins a rebellion and becomes some sort of officer together with Alabanda. Unfortunately, the rebels do not live up to Hyperion’s lofty ideals and is merely a rabble, so Hyperion gets depressed and wants to die. So does Diotima. Hyperion changes his mind, but too late to save Diotima. This makes Hyperion really depressed so he goes to Germany in exile, but the Germans are terrible people so now he is back in Greece to write his story, which is the story we have just been reading.

The story apparent is one about a hyper-sensitive guy who seems to get carried away, even overwhelmed, by emotions at every turn. Nothing is simple and easy for this guy, and everything from the morning breeze to the plight of the Greek people becomes loaded with higher meanings far beyond what reality can answer, hence Hyperion’s life is one of disappointments. I would say this is a guy with mental health issues, but for that I would probably be crucified as someone lacking sensibility for the higher arts.

My copy came with a lengthy analysis of the text of which I understood even less that the actual novel. This appears to be a very important text from the nascent German romanticism. Hyperion is supposed to be our priest to teach us… well, that is not really clear, but my assumption is the beauty of nature and that the intrinsic value of beauty is all that really matters.

I have to say that I was not particularly overwhelmed by this text. Or maybe I should say that it lacked appeal to me because it was actually rather overwhelming. I kept worrying that this guy would go over the edge and become raving mad and maybe he should go back to his medication. To me, this sounded like a bad case of bipolar disorder with each part of the sinus wave making Hyperion lose touch with reality.

It was not surprising for me to learn that Hölderlin actually was mentally ill and in the end succumbed to schizophrenia. Poor guy.

I could easily image a lot of people liking, even adoring the poetic nature of this text and the melancholic suffering it expresses, but I think I passed that phase some time back in the nineties.

  

The Nun - Denis Diderot (1796)

 

The Nun

We continue with another book by Denis Diderot, published posthumously decades after it was actually written. The subject matter and the style of writing is quite different from “Jacques the Fatalist”, this being a first-person narrative in the Richardsonian style about the suffering of a nun as opposed to the Sternian chaos which is “Jacques the Fatalist”, but Diderot being Diderot it also has very modernist elements.

The main part of the novel is formed as one, very long letter to a possible benefactor of the nun Sainte Suzanne. She describes her life story, how as an illegitimate child, her parents wanted to get her out of the way by placing her in a convent. In the first convent she flatly refuses to take her wows, causing quite a scandal, but subjected to enough emotional blackmail she finally accepts to take her wows in the second convent despite being convinced that the religious life is not for her.

The Mother Superior of this convent is a saintly woman who actually understands the misery Suzanne goes through and tries to make her life as tolerable as possible. She dies, and her replacement as Mother Superior is the exact opposite. She sees in Suzanne a threat to her dominion and Suzanne is subjected to all sorts of harassments. Suzanne decides to attempt to be released through a court ruling, which when it becomes known, makes her conditions in the convent even worse. Torments, taunts, starvation and theft are just some of the cruelties she is subjected to. She loses her court case for some reason, possibly because you needed very powerful friends in high positions to get out of a nunnery, and the torments continue, now without hope. Her lawyer and a friendly Vicar General do manage to get her transferred to another, third, convent.

The main problem here is that the Mother Superior is lesbian and abuses her position in true Weinstein fashion to get sexual favors. When Suzanne refuses, the Mother Superior goes into self-escalation and, everybody blaming Suzanne, her life again turns misery.

So far, so good. This story is fairly straight forward. Diderot presents the convent system, not as a religious asylum, but as a prison system to put away unwanted women. A system where compliance is required on pain of torment and a system that will drive those mad who are not suited for a religious life. Diderot obviously was not a fan of convents. His sister was driven mad in one, and he himself fled from a religious career. As a criticism of the enforced convent system, this story is very effective. Suzanne cannot say what it is she wants instead on the religious life, it is the lack of choice that is the problem for her. She has lost her freedom and as intangible as this may be, it is soul-crushing to her.

Then something really weird happens. In a lengthy preface text after the novel proper, it is revealed that the text is a hoax, invented to lure a Marquis back from the provinces to Paris where his friends are missing him. This Marquis was previously engaged in a case where a nun wanted to be released but could not and now, through letters pretending to be from a nun on the lam, they are trying to get him engaged in this story. He consents, so they have to kill her off, and then send him her full narrative as described above.

Why this hoax? And why present this story as a hoax? Do we really want to, or need to, know that this is not just an invented story, but a story invented for crude laughs and petty motives? And even weirder, the way these letters a presented with Diderot talking about himself in third person, makes me wonder if not even this correspondence is a fake, invented for the effect if will have on the story?

I think the whole thing is an exercise in false reality, what we today would call fake news. That the object is to make the reader question apparent truth as something that may look and feel real but is not. This is my guess of course and may be inspired by the times I live in as opposed to the eighteenth century, but if correct, it would make Diderot a far more modern writer than his contemporaries. And well, that was a conclusion I already drew with “Jacques the Fatalist”.

In many ways “The Nun” is the better book, if for nothing else then because Sternian writing tends to annoy me, and beside the modernist mindfuck it also concerns itself with very real social issues that would surely touch a reader, even today. Recommended.

   

Jacques the Fatalist - Denis Diderot (1796)

 

Jacques the Fatalist

A year or so ago I was reading a lot of “Enlightenment” literature, especially the endless writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He spent most of his life quarreling with everybody else and in particularly a character named Denis Diderot. Frankly, from Rousseau’s telling, Diderot sounded like a far more agreeable character to be around and as it turns out, he also wrote and a far more delightful writer he was.

Diderot dared not publish in his lifetime. Or rather, he stuck to the Encyclopedia, which was controversial enough as it was. His dabbling into literature was way more transgressive and subversive and had to wait for The French Revolution to become printable. Rather promising actually, but also sad for the writer. It also means that I am now thrown somewhere between twenty and forty years back in time.

“Jacques the Fatalist” has been described as the world’s first post-modernistic novel, preceding the advent of those by some 160 years. What is meant by that is that Diderot is playing with the format in a way that is sometimes meta, sometimes explorative and always playful. Heavily inspired by Laurence Sterne, Diderot is not interested in a plot. In fact, plot-wise “Jacques the Fatalist” goes absolutely nowhere. A Master, known only as “Master”, and his servant Jacques travels from place to place. En route the time is spent telling stories. Some stories are begun but never finished. Some are picked up repeatedly, only to be interrupted. I am not quite certain any of them are ever finished and if they were, it is in an abrupt and not really satisfying manner, as if there is actually more to the story than is told.

The theme of the stories is usually around escapades, love affairs, swindles or other juicy topics. This makes them rather amusing if not very coarse, but also so much more disappointing when they never finish. I think Diderot is telling us that the conclusion to the stories is unimportant or the fact that we never know how they end is a point in itself. Jacques himself constantly drives at the futility of changing anything. He is a declared fatalist and convinced that everything that happens is written in the great scroll above. If a thing must happen, it will, and we are powerless to change it. Exactly how that motivates the stories I am not quite certain, but they do serve to illustrate how bizarre and outrageous things can be and that it is virtually impossible to predict what is going to happen, even if it is prescribed.

Diderot insists that everything is true, in the sense that all his stories did actually happen in some form or another and it is difficult not to think that Diderot really just wanted to spread some juicy gossip. Another agenda of his seems to have been to lampoon and grill all the institutions and notabilities he could get away with. He was antiauthoritarian in an age where that was a very dangerous thing to be and he clearly had a lot of things to say about a lot of people.

The upshot is that “Jacques the Fatalist” is a chaotic and messy book to read but highly entertaining and playful, teasing you into rethinking what you think a novel should be. It will never be a favorite of mine, I think, but I am very happy to have read it and I do think I know both Diderot and his age a little better from reading this.

I am not done with Diderot though. The next book is another of his secret novels and another one will pop up when I enter the eighteen hundreds.