Victorians! discussion

Thanks for the link, that is one I haven't yet had the oppertunity to read.

I really enjoyed the discriptions of Lamotte's grave, and than the Bailey house. I found that to be a rather interesting chapter, Sir George could be a bit irritating, though at the same time rather humerous as well.

I was not quite sure what a Victorian water garden was, as such was mentioned at the house, so I looked it up, and here are some links to pictures. It is really quite an interesting concept. Giant man made water lillies that people can acutally stand on, or sit on floating in the water.

http://www.missourilife.com/Missouri-...

http://water-garden-blog.com/wp-conte...

http://mbgserv16.mobot.org/lizardtech...

http://static.panoramio.com/photos/or...

Also this is a link to Leighton's Proserpina which was mentioned

http://www.reversespins.com/pics/pros...

I loved the links to the water gardens. That is a good article by Arthur Mehrhoff about the St. Louis Gardens. I am trying to remember if I was there as a child. Our family visited St. Louis a few times.

I find the Victorian gardens interesting too. I assume unique and exotic gardens became popular in England due to the influence of the lands of the empire.

Wonder how they made those lilies.....?

Yeah those lilles are a trip, and they look really fun. I never seen anything like that before.

So, I've finally started this book, having finished some previous reading commitments. I was a little put out too at first, thinking this book would be above my capabilities/appreciation but I've since changed my mind and quite liking it. I did love the part of Ol' Mole leafing through the old volume (and thieving). I know the excitment of a brilliant literary find (mind you not on the same scale, lol!). You know, the "found" letters reminded me of our previous group read, Middlemarch - specifically the relationship of Dorothea and Ladislaw. Also, I really loved the descriptions of Rollie and Val's history. Byatt is excellent at painting characters, I think. I'v got high hopes for this book. Cheers!

Those lily pads are so cool, Silver--I wonder where they first appeared. I bet it would be so much fun to have a picnic on them.

That would be cool to have a picnic floating on a giant lilly pad

I am finding Mortimer Cropper to be quite an interesting character the more that is leaned about him. The name Mortimer seems to fit him quite well as there does appear to be something particularly macabre or gothic in his brand of obsession with Ash. He seems to be completely consumed by the lives of the dead in his efforts to almost try and re-live Ash's life.

There also seemed to be a suggestion of almost Religious fervor in Croppers obsession/worship of Ash, it felt to me, particularly when speaking of the Stant Collection on all of his Ash relics that he was almost trying to make Ash into a sort of Saint. Particularly when it mentioned the ring with the locks of hair in it. That made me think of the Catholic Reliquaries with bits of bone, hair, clothing from the Saints.

On another note, when it talked about the relationship between Ash and Ellen, it made me think of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrette Browning. Though my biography is a little bit rusty, I thought there was something about Elizabeth's family not approving of Robert Browning, or their relationship.

Elizabeth wrote: "You're right, Silver, on both counts.

Yes, the Barretts were not impressed with Browning at all. Elizabeth and Robert secretly exchanged letters for a while and then finally eloped. "

...and I think that "letter writing" went on for several years before they finally headed off to elope in Italy.

Thank you for confirming, I had thought I did remember something of that nature.

My heart was racing with excitment when they found the letters at Seal Court (Chapter 5). That would be painful, knowing about the letters, having them in hand, but not being able (at least not yet) to have access to them! Sad bit about the state of Seal Court too. That must have happened often? an estate like that falling into disrepair because of the costs of keeping it up?

There's a play that did very well on Broadway, back in the day, about the romance of the Brownings - The Barretts of Wimpole Street.

Elizabeth Barrett's family was a very odd one, from what I know.

Thalia wrote: "My heart was racing with excitment when they found the letters at Seal Court (Chapter 5). That would be painful, knowing about the letters, having them in hand, but not being able (at least not ye..."

I was the same. God, it was agonizing! I ended up staying up late that night because I had to know what the letters said.

The discovery of the letters was quite interesting I thought, and it did rise some questions within me about that sort of thing. It made me ask, should there be some obligation in preserving such things for historical and academic use, and do they properly belong in some collection or museum to be well looked after? Or should scholars such as those within the book have more respect for the personal property and privacy of the families who inherit these items.

Who does more rightful ownership of such finds? The decedents or the world of academia?

The character of Roland is so key to the point you brought up, Silver. Roland discovers the drafts of Randolph's letters. Roland alone in the novel truly loves and devotes his career to Ash's poetry. Then he discovers something personal of Ash and he KNOWs there is something to it. He takes them to protect them, not knowing what he will do with these letters, but knowing he is protecting them from the likes of Blackadder.

Ash's poetry is more to him than just money-making. I won't give away a spoiler, but through his possession of the first drafts of the letter, Roland becomes the protector of both the story and the outcome.

I LOVE the passage of his discussion of Ash's poetry with Maud initially -- "They [the poetry:] were what stayed alive, when I'd been taught and examined everything else."
Maud smiled then. 'Exactly. That's it. What could survive our education.' So here you see how much they mean to Roland and a clue that Maud and Roland are already understanding each other.

I know we have talked about the poetry of the story and its influences, but the characters are so understandable! Especially, if you have ever been in the academic world where your passions are put to the test. I VERY much know what Roland means. You DO protect that inner spark of whatever is really yours, in spite of the rigors of academia.

I go as far as to say that without the character of Roland, I might not have put this book down and never finished it.

Yes that was a great opening scene in which Rolland feels that urge to take those letters because some unnameable feeling overcomes him, and he does not even truly know what he intends to do, he just somehow feels he must do it. Rolland is like something of a guardian to Ash in a way, while you see the likes of Crooper who are grotesque in their "reverence" and almost make a joke of it in the collecting of such artifacts as locks of hair, clothing items and so forth. And the characters such as Maud and Nest who seem to only be working for their own feminist agenda.

But in the incident of Sir George and the finding of the letters there, it gave me mixed feelings. On the one hand it was irritating his reflectance and (for the moment) refusal to hand them over, and there was the part of me that felt their importance in history.

Yet on the other hand a part of me also considered the invasion upon the property and privacy of the Bailey's and how the scholars are almost like new reporters after a story, really thinking of nothing beyond their own personal desires and how they could personally profit and benefit, and thinking they are somehow entitled to something that isn't truly their's.

Thalia wrote: "My heart was racing with excitment when they found the letters at Seal Court (Chapter 5). That would be painful, knowing about the letters, having them in hand, but not being able (at least not ye..."

Thalia, you mentioned Seal Court. I know I continue to steer away from the letters and poetry, but there's just so much in this novel. Anyone have thoughts on why Byatt created such a detailed description of Seal Court. I know she is often generous in her setting details, but Seal Court especially stands out. Is it a sort of "all that remains" sentiment? A reverence to [no spoilers:] the scene of the last revealed detail of the novel? Simply juxtaposing past and present? Any ideas?

I myself really enjoyed the description that was offered of Seal Court, I loved the atmosphere of it, and particularly enjoyed the scene when they were exploring the room that had been left untouched. But there was a feeling of almost a mausoleum about it. The picture of the two elderly people who only inhibit the downstairs, and the image of the place starting to fall apart around them.

Susanna wrote: "There's a play that did very well on Broadway, back in the day, about the romance of the Brownings - The Barretts of Wimpole Street.

Elizabeth Barrett's family was a very odd one, from what I know."

I love that play. My favorite line is when Elizabeth tells Robert that some of his writings are very difficult to understand. She shows him an example, he studies it for a while, and says, "Even I don't know what it means" or something like that.

I have a friend who buys Victorian letters on eBay . . . she has at least one from Geraldine Jewsbury, who was an author and a literary reviewer.

Just a curiosity I thoought I might mention. I just picked up my next book to read (once Possession is completed) and look at what was on the first page before the first chapter began....
"In the darkness of the forest the young knight could hear the splashing of the fountain long before he could see the glimmer of moonlight reflected on the still surface. He was about to step forward, longing to dip his head, drink in the coolness, when he caught his breath at the sight of something dark moving deep in the water. There was a greenish shadow in the sunken bowl of the fountain, something like a great fish, something like a drowned body. Then it moved and stood upright and he saw, frighteningly naked: a bathing woman. Her skin as she rose up, water coursing down her flanks, was even paler than the white marble bowl, her wet hair dark as a shadow. She is Melusina, the water goddess, and she is found hidden in springs and waterfalls in any forest in Christendom, even in those as far away as greece. She bathes in the Moorish fountains too. They know her by another name in the northern countries, wher the lakes are glazed with ice and it crackles when she rises. A man may love her if he keeps her secret and lets her alone when she wants to bathe, and she may love him in return until he breaks his word, as men always do, and she sweeps him into the deeps, with her fishy tail, and turns his faithless blood to water. The tragedy of Melusina, whatever language tells it, whatever tune it sings, is that a man will always promise more than he can do to a woman he cannot understand"
The book is "The White Queen" by Philippa Gregory and it is about Henry VIII's maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Woodville. So very weird.....

Don't you always love when those strange little connections happen.

Thalia wrote: "Just a curiosity I thoought I might mention. I just picked up my next book to read (once Possession is completed) and look at what was on the first page before the first chapter began....
"In the..."

Awesome! Like Silver, I just love those little moments of serendipity. Cheers! Chris

In reading the snippets of the diary of Ellen Ash, particularly in the part in which Ellen seems to reflect some regret upon the state of her domesticity and talks of her wishes to have been a Poet or a Poem, and how she neither truly helped or hindered her husband, I wonder can some comparison be drawn between Ellen Ash and her husband and Roland and Val?

Considering the juxtaposition in the vivid descriptions of places like Seal Court compared to Roland's apartment, is there some parallel pointed out between the past and the present?

Yes I would agree what the relationship between Roland and Val is "shallow" you might put it, and perhaps much less complex than that of Ellen and Ash. Though perhaps that is a way of critiquing the modern world and part of the satire within the book. Showing how self-involved Rolland and Val are compared to the inner battles that were faced with Ellen and Ash and their romanticism which seems to be gone in the modern age. As there are other reflections or frivolous modern relationships in the book in considering Wolf and Maud.

That is an interesting though and compassion between the two. Val does not come off as "domestic" as Ellen was, but she does provide Rolland with his home, and in her own way supports him. Much in the same way that Ellen had to sacrifice her dreams and personal aspirations to be the faithful wife of Ash, Val is dissatisfied with herself because of the work she has been forced into in order to support Rolland and allow Rolland to do what he wishes to do, while she cannot peruse her own personal goals.

The reflections of Roland in the reading of the letters at Seal Court in which he states:

The truth was, Roland though uneasily, these letters, these busy passionate letters, had never been written for him to read--as Ragnarok had, as Mummy Possest had, as the Lazarus poemhad. They had been written for Christable LaMotte.

and Maud's reflections as she was driving through the trees...

...her prying curisoity about whatever had been Christabel's life, seemed suddenly to be the ghostly things, feeding on, living through, the young vitality of the past.

Made me think in the reading of these letters of the past, and her peering to the privates lives of these dead poets, is there a certain voyeurism there? And is the temptation of the voyeur as much behind the drive, and that unexplained need to "possess" as the academic discoveries?

Is there something much more deeply personal rooted within the subconscious that lends to the intensity and the need to read these letters of the dead and to uncover their secrets?

Also, for anyone who has read "The Yellow Wallpaper" when Maud was talking about the trees, and the way in which the trees almost seemed to become the women of her studies, it brought to my mind the story of "The Yellow Wallpaper" and the way in which the woman in the story talked about seeing those woman creeping everywhere in the daytime, and how they moved behind the wall paper trying to get free.

Silver wrote: "The reflections of Roland in the reading of the letters at Seal Court in which he states:

The truth was, Roland though uneasily, these letters, these busy passionate letters, had never been writ..."

Biographies almost always make me uncomfortable: first, because we can never know everything about a person and we are liable to grave misunderstandings; second, because it does not seem right to pry into someone's personal life in areas that he might want to remain private; and third, their subjects almost always disappoint me. I think the art is greater than the artist. We need to know basic facts about the artist, but it can be meddlesome to search too closely. I wonder whether this is part of what Byatt is getting at.

Laurele wrote: "Silver wrote: "The reflections of Roland in the reading of the letters at Seal Court in which he states:

The truth was, Roland though uneasily, these letters, these busy passionate letters, had ne..."

Laurel, I think you are exactly right on this. I don't read biographies of artists for precisely the same reason. Somehow it seems more appropriate for me to read a biography of a famous politician or military leader; they lead such open public lives as it is. Interesting point you and Silver Wood have made, and one that I want to ponder a bit more. Cheers! Chris

I am not sure if it was intentional but there was just something about the scene in the forest and the way id was described that really brought that story in my mind.

I guess when working in the field of history you are trained to examine the evidence and pursue the facts -- in other words find a variety of sources. I think as long as you can keep that in mind, you aren't buying into a particular biographical work. When you read it as a source among many, it can be more enjoyable because you know you can leave with your decided beliefs about the person.

Sadly, though, so many people aren't taught to read or study this way. For example, with so much bias in the media, the average person studying the information of the day may not even have multiple sources to view (because they are a struggle to find). I believe that is why I see such frustratingly narrow views of people. They have read only one source or been lectured by one source and they believe that story.

But back to the subject of biography, I believe that Maud and Roland did represent that struggle about uncovering the past and unknown details. But ultimately, their search revealed to Maud who she truly was, which seemed to redeem their efforts as positive.

Those are good points, Sarah.

Christopher wrote: . . . Wolfe is a womanizer; Crabb is grumpy . . . (post 20)

Maud Bailey is self-enclosed and off-putting. The Canadian Oxford Dictionary defines bailey as 1 the outer wall of a castle 2 a court enclosed by it.

I don't think Crabb was grumpy. Blanche Glover calls him "a pleasant but prosy old gentleman" (p.44). I think Crabb is meant more as in crabapple: "when roasted crabs hiss in the bowl", or something close to that, from Shakespeare. Roasted crabapples put in punch to flavour it, is the idea I got from "Crabb", a host of genial gatherings.

Peregrine wrote: "Christopher wrote: . . . Wolfe is a womanizer; Crabb is grumpy . . . (post 20)

Maud Bailey is self-enclosed and off-putting. The Canadian Oxford Dictionary defines bailey as 1 the outer wall of a ..."

Very good!

That is quite interesting, yes I do think that she is a bit off-putting and very closed in herself. Though I find something amusing in her somewhat aillence with Roland.

I'm on a roll now! LaMotte, from the French, means "lump, a shapeless mass."

Picking up on The Glass Coffin, I think the golden-haired princess encased in glass is Maud Bailey, who also has yellow hair, the always-laughing "black artist" is Fergus Wolff, and the tailor is Roland Michell. A tailor is definitely lower class than a princess, and Roland reacts to class differences a few times in the first half of the book anyway. Roland is seen as nondescript by Blackadder ("a copy of Blackadder's standard reference for him . . . praised his diligence and thoroughness and caution, making him sound thoroughly dull. pp. 211-12) and by Wolff ("I can't believe you've got involved with sweet useless Roland . . . p. 235). He's definitely not seen as academic nobility. And yet he does have skill at his craft; he's the one who found the bit that started the paper chase, and he does seem to have quite the ability at followup.

That is a rather interesting insight. Though I wonder than what is the meaning behind the twin brother, and the image of the tailor/Roland seen sitting alone knitting at home, while the princess/Maud goes on wild adventures hunting with her twin.

Laurele, I was just thinking about that exact problem with biographies. It's weird to read Elizabeth Gaskell's The Life of Charlotte Bronte, for example, since the footnotes point out all the places where Gaskell straight up lies to the reader in order to protect Charlotte's legacy.

It's funny--I think you and Silver are right that Byatt seems to think the academic curiosity about an artist's life is a little too voyeuristic. But that's weird, too, because a reader is basically a voyeur. And we're even worse, since we're utterly enthralled by the very investigations Byatt criticizes.

I accidentally mentioned something that happens in Ch. 15 (albeit without too many details)--so so sorry! I've moved the comment to the other thread.

Haha yes that is an interesting point, the reader does get invited into this world of Voyeurism as well, and gets drawn into it eagerly. Even knowing that the letters are Byatt's own creations, and that there was no Ash or LaMotte one finds oneself eagerly devouring the snippets of the letters and diaries which are presented.

It is a funny contradiction though to consider, how one would be appalled at the idea of reading the diary or personal letters of someone still alive, but once they are dead (particularly if they became a public figure in anyway) doing so because justified and in fact seen as an important part of academic study.

I do think Byatt is aware of this irony and displays it within her characterizations of the characters in the book and traces their own voyeuristic endeavors, as well as drawing the reader into them.

Silver wrote: Is there something much more deeply personal rooted in the subconscious that lends to the intensity and the need to read these letters of the dead and to uncover their secrets?

It's almost as if the writers are alive! Will I be alive so, after my death? Is it my interest that resurrects them? Will someone have such interest in me after I am dead? Will the discovery of some long-forgotten secret of mine resurrect me? Will the force that once lived join with mine, now living, and make me more?

Peregrine wrote: "Christopher wrote: . . . Wolfe is a womanizer; Crabb is grumpy . . . (post 20)

Maud Bailey is self-enclosed and off-putting. The Canadian Oxford Dictionary defines bailey as 1 the outer wall of a ..."

I agree, I think I had the quasi-malevolent Cropper in mind when I said 'Crabb.' It was my bad!

Christopher referred to "the quasi-malevolent Cropper"

Ever since I first saw his name I've been wondering if he's going to "come a cropper"!

Roland - appropriate for a man on a quest, no?

Susanna wrote: "Roland - appropriate for a man on a quest, no?"

Yes indeed!

I wonder at the meaning of the significance of Norse myth within this story. Ash's poem Ragnarok is mentioned several times within the story, and I also recall, though I cannot now bring to mind just who it was, but there was some professor or scholar who was mentioned to have studied the Norse Eddas.

Silver wrote: "I wonder at the meaning of the significance of Norse myth within this story. Ash's poem Ragnarok is mentioned several times within the story, and I also recall, though I cannot now bring to mind ju..."

I'm thinking that the Twilight of the Gods would have great resonance for people at a time when the existence of God was being challenged by biological and geological discoveries.

It intrigues me, this age-old conundrum between Science-Nature-God. I am a geologist, by education and practice, and I think it is because of my scientific background that I appreciate so much the writing of most of the Victorian Era poets and authors. Once Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin published their great works it really was a 'punch to the gut.' Everybody had to rethink the way they thought and what they believed.

A bit off topic, but it always amazed me that Wordsworth and Keats really picked up on that philosophical and theological tension between 'Nature' and 'God' long before Lyell's Principles of Geology (1830) was published, or Darwin's Origin of Species (1859). These were monumentally huge works, and most certainly would have had some influence on probably most of the Victorian Era poets and authors. We can see these influences in their books and the poetry that they wrote. There's something pretty cool about the melding, the blending of mythology, theology, and science in the construction of some of Tennyson's or Robert Browning's poetry; isn't there?

Silver Wood, you have made a very good point here; and thanks for bringing it to the group! Cheers! Chris

Those are some interesting thoughts and ideas. It is true that it would be an interesting and difficult time being stuck between the idea of God, and new Science and Reason. There were a lot of revolutionary ideas which came out of that period of time. I can understand the Victorians wanting to touch back to the age of the romantics, and look upon the past with an eye of romanticism.

Similar I think to the Renascence wanting to revive Greek culture.

I'm increasingly becoming interested in reading some of the works of the Victorian, and Norwegian, playwright, Henrik Ibsen. Does anybody recognise any influence of his work in Possession?