Sympathy: Chekhov on peasants

Look at this passage from “My Life”: 

“… I was growing used to the peasants, and I felt more and more drawn to them. For the most part they were nervous, irritable, downtrodden people; they were people whose imagination had been stifled, ignorant, with a poor, dingy outlook on life, whose thoughts were ever the same—of the gray earth, of gray days, of black bread, people who cheated, but like birds hiding nothing but their heads behind the tree—people who could not count. […] There really was filth and drunkenness and foolishness and deceit, but with all that one yet felt that the life of the peasants rested on a firm, sound foundation. However uncouth a wild animal the peasant following the plow seemed, and however he might stupefy himself with vodka, still, looking at him more closely, one felt that there was in him what was needed, something very important, which was lacking in Masha and in the doctor, for instance, and that was that he believed the chief thing on earth was truth and justice, and that his salvation, and that of the whole people, was only to be found in truth and justice, and so more than anything in the world he loved just dealing. I told my wife she saw the spots on the glass, but not the glass itself […] How could she forget that her father the engineer drank too, and drank heavily, and that the money with which Dubechnya had been bought had been acquired by a whole series of shameless, impudent dishonesties? How could she forget it?” 

Now look at this passage from “Peasants”, a story about a couple in Moscow who have a hard time and decide to return to the man’s family home in a village and live among peasants (the passage focuses on the perspective of the wife, Olga):  

“Yes, to live with them was terrible; but yet, they were human beings, they suffered and wept like human beings, and there was nothing in their lives for which one could not find excuse. Hard labor that made the whole body ache at night, the cruel winters, the scanty harvests, the overcrowding; and they had no help and none to whom they could look for help. Those of them who were a little stronger and better off could be no help, as they were themselves coarse, dishonest, drunken, and abused one another just as revoltingly; the paltriest little clerk or official treated the peasants as though they were tramps, and addressed even the village elders and church wardens as inferiors, and considered they had a right to do so. And, indeed, can any sort of help or good example be given by mercenary, greedy, depraved, and idle persons who only visit the village in order to insult, to despoil, and to terrorize?” 

(both translated by Constance Garnett)

It is incredible how Chekhov can write about peasants truthfully, without idealisation and without illusion, depicting all of their ignorance and pettiness and deceit and bad habits, but at the same time write with so much humanity and compassion.

In “Peasants” for example, Chekhov depicts Fyokla, one of the other daughters-in-law, as an unpleasant woman. Unlike the kind Marya, she is bitter, envious, and sarcastic, and often rebukes the family of Nikolai and Olga for coming and becoming a burden. She is a deeply unpleasant character. And yet one night, whilst everyone else is sleeping, Olga hears a soft tap at the window and opens the door to find Fyokla standing outside completely naked, having been undressed and turned out like that by some ruffians, you can’t help feeling sorry for her, especially that she’s now vulnerable and asking for help from a person to whom she has been hostile for some time.

A writer like Tolstoy may switch to Fyokla’s perspective and tell us her feelings, but Chekhov doesn’t. Instead, he writes:  

“All was stillness again. They always slept badly; everyone was kept awake by something worrying and persistent: the old man by the pain in his back, Granny by anxiety and anger, Marya by terror, the children by itch and hunger. Now, too, their sleep was troubled; they kept turning over from one side to the other, talking in their sleep, getting up for a drink.

Fyokla suddenly broke into a loud, coarse howl, but immediately checked herself, and only uttered sobs from time to time, growing softer and on a lower note, until she relapsed into silence.”

That is poignant. 

In “The New Villa”, Chekhov writes a variation of a basic idea of “My Life”. In “My Life”, an architect’s son and an engineer’s daughter decide to leave their own world and their own class, get married, move to the country and work on a farm, but they cannot get along with the peasants, keep getting cheated by them or getting into trouble with them, and soon the wife realises that it’s all a mistake, she cannot live such a life, and leaves. In “The New Villa”, an engineer builds a bridge in a village, then he and his wife like the area and build a villa, they try to be friendly and try to live on good terms with the peasants but fail and keep getting swindled by them or getting complaints from them, and in the end they have no choice but to move away. 

In “My Life”, Chekhov writes from the perspective of the “outsiders”. In “The New Villa”, he focuses more on the peasants. 

This is near the end (Elena Ivanovna is the engineer’s wife): 

“In their village, they mused, the people were good, quiet, sensible, fearing God, and Elena Ivanovna, too, was quiet, kind, and gentle; it made one sad to look at her, but why had they not got on together? Why had they parted like enemies? How was it that some mist had shrouded from their eyes what mattered most and had let them see nothing but damage done by cattle, bridles, pincers, and all those trivial things which now, as they remembered them, seemed so nonsensical? How was it that with the new owner they lived in peace, and yet had been on bad terms with the engineer?” 

(also translated by Constance Garnett) 

I should look at this passage now and then. As Scott commented on my blog post the other day about Chekhov, “his stories are already full of the ideas that life itself is beautiful and precious, and we ruin it for ourselves and each other through selfishness. There is, in Chekhov's opinion, no bigger idea than this, and he was examining this idea constantly, right there on the page.” 

How to Be a Good Creature by Sy Montgomery

Why did I pick up The Soul of an Octopus? I must have read about it somewhere. It’s a wonderful, deeply affecting book, and it introduced me to Sy Montgomery, so lately I’ve been reading her book How to Be a Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals. 

She was a weird kid.

“An only child, I never yearned for siblings. I didn’t need other kids around. Most children were loud and wiggly. They wouldn’t stay still long enough to watch a bumblebee. They ran and scattered the pigeons strutting on the sidewalk.

With rare exceptions, adult humans were not particularly memorable either. I would stare blankly at an adult I had seen many times, unable to place them, unless one of my parents could remind me of their pet.” (Ch.1) 

Sy Montgomery has the gift to understand animals, to communicate with them, to feel a closeness to them. I don’t. Apart from a turtle my grandma got when I was a kid, which didn’t live that long, I’ve never really had a pet because my family have always lived in apartments and we couldn’t have pets. My boyfriend and I don’t have pets now either, though his grandparents and my stepfather have cats and I play with them when I visit. But that’s all, so I do envy Sy Montgomery’s gift for understanding animals and I love the way she writes about them—with a sense of wonder and an infectious enthusiasm and lots of love. She sees each animal as an individual, with a personality, with likes and dislikes, with a soul. 

For example, look at this passage about emus: 

“I could easily tell them apart. One had a long scar on his right leg. I named him Knackered Leg. (Knackered is Australian slang I’d learned from a zookeeper. It means “messed up” and is more impolite than I then realized.) His injury might have been the reason he sat down most often of the three. Black Head seemed to be the most forward emu of the group, and took the lead most often. It was surely he who approached us straight on during my second meeting with them. Bald Throat had a whitish patch on his throat where the black feathers were sparse. He seemed skittish. When the wind would blow or a car would approach, he’d be the first to run.

[…] I knew, though, that they were not quite adult, because they lacked the turquoise neck patches that adorn the mature birds. And they were surely siblings, having left their father’s care (the male incubates the greenish-black eggs and takes care of the up to twenty chicks who hatch) only weeks or months earlier. Like me, they were just starting to explore their world.

What do they do all day? I wondered.” (Ch.2) 

She makes me curious too: what do they do all day? 

Emus are strange, fascinating birds. I’ve heard that Luis Bunuel liked emus, which is why he put them in The Phantom of Liberty. I didn’t know till I read this book that emus had 2 different sitting positions.  

Now look at this passage, about the emus: 

“They also had a sense of humor. One day I watched them approach the ranger’s dog, tied on a chain outside his house. The dog barked hysterically, but bold Black Head, head and shoulders raised high, continued approaching the straining animal head-on. Once Black Head was within twenty feet, he raised his wing stumps forward, hurled his neck upward, and leapt into the air with both feet kicking, repeating the behavior for perhaps forty seconds. Soon the other two joined him, and the dog went absolutely wild. The emus then raced off across the dog’s line of vision for about three hundred yards, before sitting down abruptly to preen—as if to congratulate themselves on the success of their prank.” (ibid.) 

Is that not fascinating? 

Sy Montgomery and her husband adopted a baby pig, called Christopher Hogwood (named after the conductor). This passage is about the pig and their little neighbours Kate and Jane, who were 10 and 7 respectively: 

“Kate and Jane also instituted Pig Spa. One spring day, Kate decided that the long ringlet of hair at the tip of Christopher’s tail needed to be combed. Then, of course, it needed to be braided. Inevitably for two preteen girls whose house was littered with hair scrunchies and smelled like bubble bath, the effort expanded to an entire beauty regimen for our pig.

We fetched warm buckets of soapy water from the kitchen, and more warm water for the rinse. We added products created for horses to apply to his hooves to make them shine. Grunting his contentment as he lay in his pool of soapy water, Christopher made clear he adored his spa—unless the water was chilly. Then he’d scream like he was being butchered—and we’d race back to the kitchen to fetch a more comfortable bath. He forgave us the instant the warm water touched his skin.” (Ch.3) 

Each chapter of the book is dedicated to an animal that has changed her life and what lessons they have taught her. Chapter 3 is particularly interesting because, while writing about the pig, Sy Montgomery also writes about her parents and the differences that broke their relationship. The differences between her and her pig do not matter—they love each other.  

This is the concluding passage in the chapter: 

“Chris loved his food. He loved the feel of the warm, soapy water of Pig Spa, the caress of little hands on the soft skin behind his ears. He loved company. No matter who you were—a child or an adult, sick or well, bold or shy, or whether you held out a watermelon rind or a chocolate donut or an empty hand to rub behind his ear—Christopher welcomed you with grunts of good cheer. No wonder everyone adored him.

Studying at the cloven feet of this porcine Buddha every day, I could not help but learn from a master how to revel in and savor this world’s abundance: the glow of warm sun on skin, the joy of playing with children. Also, his big heart, and huge body, made my sorrows seem smaller. After a lifetime of moving, Christopher Hogwood helped give me a home. And after my parents had disowned me, out of an assortment of unrelated, unmarried people and animals of many different species, Christopher helped create for me a real family—a family made not from genes, not from blood, but from love.” (ibid.) 

This is a delightful, heartwarming book. She writes well, and she can change the way you think. About a decade before How to be a Good Creature, she wrote a book about her pig, called The Good Good Pig: The Extraordinary Life of Christopher Hogwood. 

In the same chapter about Chris, Sy Montgomery also writes about their dog Tess, a border collie who was abandoned several times and previously had an accident that took her nearly a year to recover from multiple surgeries.

“She was only two years old when we took her home from Evelyn’s, but Tess had already seen a lifetime of pain, loss, and rejection.” (ibid.) 

This passage is heartbreaking: 

“…except for when we were playing her favorite sports (which worked out to be about once an hour), Tess was as wary of people as Chris was outgoing. She didn’t pee, poop, or eat without our specifically asking her to do so. She consented to petting, but seemed confused about the point. She didn’t bark for weeks, as if she were afraid to use her voice in the house. The first time we invited her up on our bed she looked at us in shocked disbelief. When we patted the covers, obediently she jumped up, but leapt back down again a second later, as if this couldn’t possibly be what we wanted.

Tess seemed to be guarding her emotions. But we knew we could change that.” (ibid.) 

And they did. 

Later in chapter 6, she writes again about Tess—in more detail. This is a deeply moving chapter with some great passages but I won’t put them here—you should read the book yourself. It is a great chapter. She makes me love a dog I have never known. She makes me envy her relationship with Tess. 

In How to be a Good Creature, Sy Montgomery alternates between her pets and the wild animals she has met. In chapter 7, she writes about tree kangaroos, echidnas, pademelons… Then in chapter 8, she writes about another pet dog: Sally, another black and white border collie that she believes Tess sent to her in a dream.  

“Despite being the same breed, Sally and Tess were almost complete opposites. Tess was a graceful athlete. Sally knocked things over. Tess loved her Frisbee and tennis ball but disdained other toys. Sally, as it turned out, became crazy for toys—except for the Frisbee, which she would catch only grudgingly to please Howard…” (Ch.8) 

Different from The Soul of an Octopus, How to be a Good Creature is a lot more personal. When she writes about wild animals, including those in capture like the octopuses, there is a sense of wonder and a sense of exploration as she interacts with an animal with which humans are not very familiar, especially animals that lack facial expressions or have expressions that we can’t read. Chapter 4 for example is about her transformative encounter with a pinktoe tarantula in a rainforest—transformative because the experience opens her up to the world of spiders that she has never known before, because it forever changes her perception of the small spiders she sees at home. 

Her writings about the pets are different—she feeds them, plays with them, loves them, and sees them as family. 

“I felt whole again. Sally made me unspeakably happy. I loved the softness of her fur, the cornmeal-like scent of her paws, the rolling cadence of her gait, the gusto with which she ate (even the stick of butter softening for the dinner table and the bowl of cereal abandoned for a moment to take a phone call)…” (ibid.) 

The three of them (her, her husband Howard, and Sally) sleep together in the same bed. 

“… And if Howard got up at night, Sally would immediately and deliberately rearrange herself to take up his sleeping lane, with her head on his pillow. When he got back, she’d give him a puffy smile. She thought this was a hilarious joke. And so did we.” (ibid.) 

This too is a great chapter, and Sally sounds like an adorable dog. 

Overall, How to Be a Good Creature is a wonderful little book, a good book to read in these depressing times. What are you waiting for? 

George Eliot& George Sand

Yesterday I was working on a post called "Some wonderful letters by George Sand", then I felt it might have been a bit long, and decided to paste it in Word. Turned out, that post was more 14000 words! 
Which means that it won't be published. Or maybe it will be published in a series of posts. Or heavily cut. 
Anyway, as I was rereading parts of The George Sand- Gustave Flaubert Letters (translated by A. L. McKenzie), I discovered something interesting- in many passages George Sand sounds just like George Eliot. 
For example, look at this:

"“Not put one’s heart into what one writes?” I don’t understand at all, oh! not at all! As for me, I think that one can not put anything else into it. Can one separate one’s mind from one’s heart? Is it something different? Can sensation itself limit itself? Can existence divide itself? In short, not to give oneself entirely to one’s work, seems to me as impossible as to weep with something else than one’s eyes, and to think with something else than one’s brain." 

A while ago there was a post on this blog about a discussion between her and Flaubert, who had opposing views, on whether the author should express their opinions in a literary work. The other George, we all know, wrote didactic novels and often used intrusive narrators, and could have called impersonality "a sort of idiocy which is peculiar to me" as George Sand did, and said "I attach less importance to [style] than you do". 
The French George talked about love for humanity: 

"And what, you want me to stop loving? You want me to say that I have been mistaken all my life, that humanity is contemptible, hateful, that it has always been and always will be so? And you chide my anguish as a weakness, and puerile regret for a lost illusion? You assert that the people has always been ferocious, the priest always hypocritical, the bourgeois always cowardly, the soldier always brigand, the peasant always stupid? You say that you have known all that ever since your youth and you rejoice that you never have doubted it, because maturity has not brought you any disappointment; have you not been young then? Ah! We are entirely different, for I have never ceased to be young, if being young is always loving." 

And her optimism: 

"One needs to see the putting-on of a play in order to understand that, and if one is not armed with humor and inner zest for the study of human nature in the actual individuals whom the fiction is to mask, there is much to rage about. But I don’t rage any more, I laugh; I know too much of all that to get excited about it, and I shall tell you some fine stories about it when we meet.
However, as I am an optimist just the same, I look at the good side of things and people; but the truth is that everything is bad and everything is good in this world." 

"... And YET, in the midst of all that, my soul exults and has ecstasies of faith; these terrific lessons which are necessary for us to understand our imbecility, must be of use to us. We are perhaps making our last return to the ways of the old world. There are sharp and clear principles for everyone today that ought to extricate them from this torment. Nothing is useless in the material order of the universe. The moral order cannot escape the law. Bad engenders good..." 

That love, acceptance of everything, and optimism, can be felt in Middllemarch as well as in Adam Bede and Daniel Deronda. Everyone, or almost everyone, in these novels is depicted with understanding and sympathy. People may have faults, but they may improve. People may make mistakes, but they may learn through experience and become wiser. People may suffer injustices, but if honest and good may be later rewarded; and even if the happiness is not "absolute" in the end, there's a calm acceptance. 
Look at this excerpt from another letter from George Sand to Flaubert: 

"I make my life in the midst of all that, and as I like my life I like all that nourishes it and renews it. They do me a lot of ill turns which I see, but which I no longer feel. I know that there are thorns in the hedges, but that does not prevent me from putting out my hands and finding flowers there. If all are not beautiful, all are interesting. The day you took me to the Abbey of Saint-Georges I found the scrofularia borealis, a very rare plant in France. I was enchanted; there was much . . . in the neighborhood where I gathered it. Such is life!
And if one does not take life like that, one cannot take it in any way, and then how can one endure it? I find it amusing and interesting, and since I accept EVERYTHING, I am so much happier and more enthusiastic when I meet the beautiful and the good. If I did not have a great knowledge of the species, I should not have quickly understood you, or known you or loved you.." 

There are still other passages which sound as though they could have been written by George Eliot: 

"The deluge comes and death captures us. In vain you are prudent and withdraw, your refuge will be invaded in its turn, and in perishing with human civilization you will be no greater a philosopher for not having loved, than those who threw themselves into the flood to save some debris of humanity. The debris is not worth the effort, very good! They will perish none the less, that is possible. We shall perish with them, that is certain, but we shall die while in the fulness of life. I prefer that to a hibernation in the ice, to an anticipated death. And anyway, I could not do otherwise. Love does not reason. If I asked why you have the passion for study, you would not explain it to me any better than those who have a passion for idleness can explain their indolence." 

"Can one live peaceably, you say, when the human race is so absurd? I submit, while saying to myself that perhaps I am as absurd as every one else and that it is time to turn my mind to correcting myself."

"I pity humanity, I wish it were good, because I cannot separate myself from it; because it is myself; because the evil it does strikes me to the heart; because its shame makes me blush; because its crimes gnaw at my vitals, because I cannot understand paradise in heaven nor on earth for myself alone." 

"You have too much knowledge and intelligence, you forget that there is something above art: namely, wisdom, of which art at its apogee is only the expression. Wisdom comprehends all: beauty, truth, goodness, enthusiasm, in consequence. It teaches us to see outside of ourselves, something more elevated than is in ourselves, and to assimilate it little by little, through contemplation and admiration." 

If I had never known about these letters, and if somebody had replaced the name, I might have thought that those letters were written by George Eliot. So in a way I have a vague idea about what she and Flaubert would have said to each other, had they been acquaintances. 
I've never read any novel by George Sand however. Are the 2 Georges similar?

Moral lessons from George Eliot's Middlemarch

What George Eliot aims to say, to teach, through Middlemarch can be broken down to several moral messages such as: 

- Think carefully and get to know the other person well before getting married. In marriage, there should be love, understanding and respect. Both Casaubon and Lydgate are wrong to regard women as inferior and expect them to be submissive and docile. 

- Human beings are all frail and flawed, and what should we live for if not to make life less difficult for each other. This is said, and practised, by Dorothea, especially when she prioritises her sense of justice, sees past her own anger, and assures Rosamond of Lydgate’s innocence and others’ belief in him. The selfish Rosamond, in return, helps clear the misunderstanding between her and Will. 

This lesson can also be seen in Mrs Bulstrode’s decision to stay with her husband when he’s abandoned by everybody, in Mr Garth’s readiness to help Fred, etc. 

- Love, sympathise, trust, forgive. Return love with love. Return hate with love. Give others the benefit of the doubt, and the chance to speak and explain themselves. Again, Dorothea is the embodiment of this spirit, who is willing to trust Lydgate when everyone else doubts him. 

- Don’t let prejudices and private feelings interfere with your judgements and actions. Lydgate sees Farebrother’s shortcomings and votes for someone else even though they’re friends. Mary criticises Fred for his foibles and refuses to marry him until he meets her conditions, even though she loves him. Farebrother represents Fred’s interests even though he loves Mary. Dorothea speaks to Rosamond on behalf of Lydgate and consoles her even though she thinks there’s something between her and Will. 

In contrast, people in the town destroy Lydgate’s career and lose a good doctor because they believe him to be guilty, and they believe so because they have always disliked him.

- We should be open—if there’s anything wrong, we have to talk about it. 

Mrs Bulstrode talks to Rosamond and Mr Bulstrode talk to Lydgate about the state of their relationship, otherwise it goes nowhere. Mary always talks frankly to Fred about his faults. Fred admits his error to the Garths. Farebrother, Fred and Mary talk openly about their relationships and feelings. Dorothea and Will keep misunderstanding each other when they make assumptions and don’t have a conversation, or talk in an indirect way instead of being straightforward. The marriages of Dorothea- Casaubon and Lydgate- Rosamond don’t work because they’re not open to each other; Casaubon torments himself and has suspicions about his wife simply because he pushes her away and keeps her at a distance; Rosamond resorts to passive-aggressive behaviour and ruins things behind her husband’s back simply because they don’t talk frankly to each other. Lydgate suffers alone because he keeps things to himself and doesn’t confide in anyone, even his friend Farebrother. 

- Take the responsibility for your own actions. If you wrong somebody, admit your fault and try to undo the wrong or pay for it. Examples are Fred and Mr Bulstrode. 

If you make a wrong decision, face the consequences, do your duties, make the best of the situation, learn from mistakes and improve yourself. Blame no one. Don’t run away. Both Dorothea and Lydgate make a mistake in choosing a spouse, but they do their duties. Farebrother chooses a wrong vocation, but he makes the best of the situation. Rosamond can never learn and become better or wiser because she always finds herself irreproachable and others disagreeable, always puts the blame on others. 

- Be independent. The models are the Garths. Fred has to learn to become independent. Dorothea renounces wealth. Lydgate insists on relying on nobody, and gets into trouble once he gets the loan from Bulstrode. 

- George Eliot apparently adheres to duty ethics. The moral people of the book are the Garths, who hold fast to their values and principles and do nothing that might give them a heavy conscience. 

- Sometimes it’s only through experience and disillusionment can one become wiser. We can see this in Dorothea and Lydgate, but also in Fred, who becomes stronger and wiser after being disillusioned by the collapse of his expectations. 

- Besides stressing the benefit of experience and disillusionment, George Eliot also sets out to make a point about the power of love. That obviously refers to Fred, whose love for Mary makes him strive to be a better man. 

- Spoiling your children gives you, at best, Fred Vincy, at worst, Rosamond. 

And so on. 

It's no wonder that many people see Middlemarch as the book of their lives. 

However, I can’t help finding it problematic that a novel can boil down to several moral lessons as seen above. Can we do the same for Anna Karenina and War and Peace? I don’t think so—they are didactic indeed, but they’re too complex for that. 
Perhaps I could have liked and appreciated Middlemarch a lot better if I had never read Tolstoy’s masterpieces.  

Experience and growth; Dorothea Brooke and Gwendolen Harleth

Jane Austen's heroines don't make (seriously) wrong decisions- if they're not right all along (Fanny Price, Elinor Dashwood, Anne Elliot), they gain self-understanding and realise their own errors before it's too late (Marianne Dashwood, Catherine Morland, Elizabeth Bennet, Emma Woodhouse). This must be 1 of the reasons her works are now and then dismissed as light. In contrast, George Eliot's female protagonists, specifically in this case Dorothea Brooke (Middlemarch) and Gwendolen Harleth (Daniel Deronda), make wrong decisions that change the whole course of their lives, then learn and grow through experience. By the time they learn a lesson, through disillusionment and suffering, they've become different persons, with a different view on life.
Dorothea and Gwendolen, despite their different personalities and mental abilities, have a few things in common. They lack an authority figure, a kind of guidance. They have neither a keen sight, nor a set of principles on which to rely to choose a man (unlike those Jane Austen characters, except Catherine). They're mistaken about the men they marry, Casaubon and Grandcourt respectively, and hasty. They don't marry for love. They expect to have freedom and power to do what they like, but once married, become absolutely powerless. Most importantly, they make the decisions themselves, being forced by nobody, and cause their own tragedies. However, there's no other way. Dorothea lacks experience and insight to judge people but, being intelligent and independent, often has her ways and doesn't listen to others' objections and advice. Gwendolen, selfish, weak-willed and used to comfort due to having been brought up a spoilt child, ignores everything and chooses the easy way to avoid hardships. Besides, Casaubon and Grandcourt turn out to be contrary to expectations only after the wedding. There's no other way for Dorothea and Gwendolen to learn. They have to make those wrong decisions and suffer the consequences, in order to become stronger, and wiser, and in Gwendolen's case, better, less selfish.
Reading Middlemarch may not be the same ecstatic experience as reading, say, Anna Karenina, but it's no longer frustrating once the readers accept George Eliot's method and get into the flow. Reading Middlemarch is like having the company of an insightful, wise, benevolent person who sees the foibles, weaknesses and mistakes of mankind and forgives them all, empathises with them all. She shows that wrong decisions can be damaging but not completely destructive, because we can learn from experience and become better.




2 lessons from George Eliot: 

"Men outlive their love, but they don't outlive the consequences of their recklessness." 

"If youth is the season of hope, it is often so only in the sense that our elders are hopeful about us; for no age is so apt as youth to think its emotions, partings, and resolves are the last of their kind. Each crisis seems final, simply because it is new. We are told that the oldest inhabitants in Peru do not cease to be agitated by the earthquakes, but they probably see beyond each shock, and reflect that there are plenty more to come."

On the Marilyn Monroe myth

I've just come across this post: http://9gag.com/gag/anYr58b/audrey-hepburn-vs-marilyn-monroe

Annoys me a great deal.
Because Marilyn Monroe's known as a sex symbol, and for her dumb blond roles, to most people she must have been an idiot.
Oh yeah?
All over the internet you can find photos of Marilyn Monroe reading:
https://www.google.no/search?q=marilyn+monroe+reading&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=667&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=G-RgVdyyBOiBywP6uoKQBA&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ
Here are 2 articles about her reading:
http://www.openculture.com/2012/11/marilyn_monroe_reads_joyces_ulysses_at_the_playground.html
http://www.openculture.com/2014/02/marilyn-monroe-reads-walt-whitmans-leaves-of-grass.html
Open Culture has also published the list of the 430 books in her library:
http://www.openculture.com/2014/10/the-430-books-in-marilyn-monroes-library.html
Some of her most insightful quotes can be found here:
http://flavorwire.com/395121/30-of-marilyn-monroes-smartest-and-most-insightful-quotes/view-all
Or here:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Marilyn_Monroe
(compare them to Audrey Hepburn's quotes, which, much as I love Audrey, are quite trite and banal).
Here are some of Marilyn's poems, or fragmentary, poem-like texts found in her notebooks:
http://www.brainpickings.org/2012/07/27/marilyn-monroe-fragments-poems/
Other sites have many other poems/ fragments:
http://moreintelligentlife.com/blog/ariel-ramchandani/five-things-fragments-marilyn-monroe
http://www.immortalmarilyn.com/HerPoetry.html
http://ellensplace.net/mm_poems.html
http://backlots.net/2013/08/05/the-poetry-of-marilyn-monroe/
Brain Pickings has also shared her resolutions, which show her wish for self-improvement:
http://www.brainpickings.org/2013/01/01/four-famous-new-years-resolution-lists-jonathan-swift-susan-sontag-marilyn-monroe-woody-guthrie/
About her, Arthur Miller, her 3rd husband, said: 

"To have survived she would have had to be either more cynical or even further from reality than she was. Instead she was a poet on a street corner trying to recite to a crowd pulling at her clothes."

This is an article about Marilyn Monroe and her monsters, with excerpts from Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters by Marilyn Monroe:
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2010/11/marilyn-monroe-201011
And I've found this story about Marilyn Monroe and Ella Fitzgerald:
http://www.kplu.org/post/how-marilyn-monroe-changed-ella-fitzgeralds-life

According to what I've noticed in the internet, people generally perceive Marilyn Monroe in 2 ways. Those in the 1st group see her as a dumb blond like the characters she portrayed, a selfish bitch, a whore, a slut, a talentless and scandalous star known for nothing but her physical appearance (which, to many of them, isn't even remarkable). To them, she's nothing but a sex symbol. Shallow, brainless. Look again at the photo above. I haven't pointed out that Marilyn didn't die from a drug overdose- she committed suicide. As a child she lived in foster homes and was sexually abused. When discovered and encouraged to become a model, she was working in a factory, and throughout all of her life Marilyn struggled with insecurities and depression. Then a day came when she couldn't bear it any longer, and lost the fight, she terminated her own life. 
On my part, I do not think of Marilyn as a good actress, nor a good singer, nor a good poet, nor a good role model; and do not know how intelligent she really was, but methinks all the childhood trauma and hardships she went through made her a sensitive person. The scribblings in her notebooks, albeit unremarkable in terms of literary merit, do show that she's not as frivolous, shallow and superficial as some people think she was. She had sensitivity, depth of feeling and insight. The notes, too, show her determination to be better, as an actress, a singer and a person. 
Those in the 2nd group see Marilyn as a kindred spirit, a role model, a philosopher of sorts. But Marilyn's not Sylvia Plath. Quoting her everywhere, these people, mostly girls, exploit her name and her image not any less than those in the 1st group do. Abusing her quotes, especially the "If you can't handle me at my worst, you don't deserve me at my best", is their way of trying to justify their nasty, selfish, thoughtless behaviour and speak of themselves as vulnerable, insecure and scared even though they may very well be bullies in life, ready to take advantage of or trample on others when necessary. Very often, I believe these girls don't know much about Marilyn either and haven't seen her in anything except probably a few video clips on youtube. 
Marilyn Monroe, or perhaps I should say Norma Jeane, was too complex for all that, as human beings are. Those 2 ways of looking are her are too simplistic, reductive. And I find it unfortunate that even long after her death, she's still being exploited. 
Anyhow, to come back to the comparison at the beginning, I wonder: what's the point? Why denigrate Marilyn just to acclaim Audrey Hepburn? Audrey has her place, she's as much an icon as Marilyn, her face most people can recognise. Anywhere you can find pictures of Marilyn Monroe, you find, next to them, pictures of Audrey Hepburn. Why not mention the truly great actresses that are less known? Like Vivien Leigh? Katharine Hepburn? Bette Davis? Ingrid Bergman? etc. 
Silly.

"Sorrow comes in great waves... but it rolls over us"- A letter from Henry James to Grace Norton

Source: https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/j/james/henry/letters/complete.html


To Miss Grace Norton.

131 Mount Vernon St., Boston.

July 28th 1883.

My dear Grace,
Before the sufferings of others I am always utterly powerless, and your letter reveals such depths of suffering that I hardly know what to say to you. This indeed is not my last word — but it must be my first. You are not isolated, verily, in such states of feeling as this — that is, in the sense that you appear to make all the misery of all mankind your own; only I have a terrible sense that you give all and receive nothing — that there is no reciprocity in your sympathy — that you have all the affliction of it and none of the returns. However — I am determined not to speak to you except with the voice of stoicism. I don’t know why we live — the gift of life comes to us from I don’t know what source or for what purpose; but I believe we can go on living for the reason that (always of course up to a certain point) life is the most valuable thing we know anything about, and it is therefore presumptively a great mistake to surrender it while there is any yet left in the cup. In other words consciousness is an illimitable power, and though at times it may seem to be all consciousness of misery, yet in the way it propagates itself from wave to wave, so that we never cease to feel, and though at moments we appear to, try to, pray to, there is something that holds one in one’s place, makes it a standpoint in the universe which it is probably good not to forsake. You are right in your consciousness that we are all echoes and reverberations of the same, and you are noble when your interest and pity as to everything that surrounds you, appears to have a sustaining and harmonizing power. Only don’t, I beseech you, generalize too much in these sympathies and tendernesses — remember that every life is a special problem which is not yours but another’s, and content yourself with the terrible algebra of your own. Don’t melt too much into the universe, but be as solid and dense and fixed as you can. We all live together, and those of us who love and know, live so most. We help each other — even unconsciously, each in our own effort, we lighten the effort of others, we contribute to the sum of success, make it possible for others to live. Sorrow comes in great waves — no one can know that better than you — but it rolls over us, and though it may almost smother us it leaves us on the spot, and we know that if it is strong we are stronger, inasmuch as it passes and we remain. It wears us, uses us, but we wear it and use it in return; and it is blind, whereas we after a manner see. My dear Grace, you are passing through a darkness in which I myself in my ignorance see nothing but that you have been made wretchedly ill by it; but it is only a darkness, it is not an end, or the end. Don’t think, don’t feel, any more than you can help, don’t conclude or decide — don’t do anything but wait. Everything will pass, and serenity and accepted mysteries and disillusionments, and the tenderness of a few good people, and new opportunities and ever so much of life, in a word, will remain. You will do all sorts of things yet, and I will help you. The only thing is not to melt in the meanwhile. I insist upon the necessity of a sort of mechanical condensation — so that however fast the horse may run away there will, when he pulls up, be a somewhat agitated but perfectly identical G. N. left in the saddle. Try not to be ill — that is all; for in that there is a failure. You are marked out for success, and you must not fail. You have my tenderest affection and all my confidence. Ever your faithful friend —
Henry James

"W&P": The meaning of life

Volume II part II chapter 15. 
It seems that the question bothering Tolstoy for all of his life was: What's the meaning of life? At least, I've seen this same theme in most of his works that I have read, especially the major ones- War and Peace, Anna Karenina, Resurrection and The Death of Ivan Ilyich.
Here, the characters deal with the same question. 
We can look at the 3 main guys- Pierre Bezukhov, Nikolay Rostov and Andrey Bolkonsky. 
All of them go through a crisis: Pierre- Helene's affair, duel with Dolokhov, break with Helene, meeting with a Freemason; Nikolay- massive loss at cards, followed by deep shame and bad conscience; Andrey- war, a moment he's facing death, the blue sky and then Liza's death. Pierre finds his life idle, selfish, pointless; Nikolay finds himself indulgent, shallow, unprincipled; Andrey finds his desire for glory pointless, a pursuit of false values. Consequently, they have to change. 
Here is where the difference lies, both Pierre and Nikolay want to be a better man by living for some ideals- the Freemasonry's principles and virtues in Pierre's case, patriotism and duty in Nikolay's case, whereas Andrey changes in the opposite direction, i.e lives for simpler things, less abstract things, such as himself and the people around him*. His rule might appear selfish and limited, yet a man cannot be a good man if he, whilst trying to live for some high ideals, cannot treat those close to him in a kind way. Andrey is disillusioned twice, 1st with married life, later with the army and its so-called glory. 
That is not to say I'm entirely on Andrey's side, disagreeing with Pierre and Nikolay. Nikolay can be a nationalist, with his limitations, but at least he'd doing something for his country, and has a good will, unlike Boris. Pierre can be naive, he's so easily swayed that the moment he meets a Freemason whilst struggling with his bad conscience over all the things he has done, he himself becomes a member of the Freemasonry, but he renounces his past life and tries to be a more virtuous man, to help others. Andrey, at this point, is not only in grief, he's in depression. Haunted by the look on Liza's face after she has died, he feels guilty of having treated her badly. In such a state, he becomes cynical and passive, seemingly abandoning everything. So it's like he's existing, rather than living.


*: My view now, not necessarily Tolstoy's, not necessarily my view in the future. 



Update at 12.10pm:
From Volume II part III chapter 1: 

"Prince Andrey had been 2 years in the country without a single break. All the innovations introduced by Pierre on his estates without any concrete results, because of his continual flitting from 1 enterprise to another, had been carried through by Prince Andrey privately and without any noticeable effort on his part. He possessed in the highest degree the 1 quality that Pierre totally lacked: the practical application to get things going with no fuss or struggle." 

The next sentences list his successes. 
Thus, without much talking, without big words, Andrey does what he has to do and does a lot more good than Pierre.  
The chapter ends with these lines: 

"On the journey there he seemed to have reconsidered his entire life and come right back to his 1st conclusion, which was as reassuring as it was devoid of hope- that he needn't bother with anything new, all he had to do was live out his life without doing any harm, free from worry and any kind of desire."  

 

"Master and man" (Tolstoy)

"Master and man" shares with "The death of Ivan Ilyich" the same themes of approaching death and the meaning of life. A story set out to teach might very easily fail and become false, contrived, but like "The death of Ivan Ilyich", it doesn't. 
The story's deeply touching. 
Tolstoy raises an important question: what, after all, truly matters in life? I do have pleasures, and desires, and sometimes or most of the time can be a rather frivolous, fun-loving person, but, silly as it sounds, "Master and man" makes me think of those moments when I like something very much and want to buy it, then after holding it in my hands for about 5-10 minutes I don't want it any more, as though somehow some Buddhist thinking creeps in, reminds me that everything is transient and this thing is not needed. In fact, if you think about it, very few things are truly important and necessary. I don't mean that one should live a strictly simple life, let go of dreams and ambitions and be content, nor that it is wrong to strive to be famous and/or rich. What I'm thinking of is, rather, the people who have the wrong balance, prioritising false values above all else, throwing away more meaningful things, including people who accumulate wealth and like having money in their accounts but hardly ever use it, either for themselves or for others, as though forgetting that they can never bring money with themselves when they die. 
"Master and man" also makes me think of the NT lawsuit in VN, which has been going on for years. I'm baffled by that woman's greed- it's only because of the injustice and flexibility of the law in VN that she has got so much of what does not belong to her, yet she still isn't satisfied. When will it be enough?
Anyhow, these are merely fragmentary thoughts. I cannot go on without sounding phony and pretentious (actually I'm afraid that I already do), and at the same time I might give the wrong impression that "Master and man" is a parable with little literary merit, which isn't true. Will write more if I can organise my thoughts.

"To be all things to all men"

The idea for this post comes from here: http://freds-ramblings.blogspot.no/2011/04/something-to-think-about.html
"Know how to be all things to all men. A wise Proteus, he who is learned with the learned, and with the pious, pious: it is the great way of winning all to you: for to be like, is to be liked. Observe each man's spirit and adapt yourself: to the serious, or to the jovial, as the case may be, by following the fashion, through a politic change within yourself: a veritable necessity in those who are dependent. But this great rule of life calls for rich talent: being least difficult to that man of the world whose mind is filled with knowledge, and whose spirit is filled with taste." (Baltasar Gracian)

The topic is so interesting, I'd like to share some thoughts.
Well, let's say, I divide people roughly into 5 groups:
1/ Inflexible. Frank and straightforward to the point of being rude and unpleasant. Open. Cannot hide their own dislike, aversion, contempt. Can scarcely be insincere (though once in a while they have to). Sometimes tactless and insensitive, mistaking rudeness for frankness.
Not bothering to please others and win friends, these people can create difficulties for themselves- become unpopular, get into trouble with people, displease employers/ teachers/ colleagues, hamper their own careers and may even create many unnecessary enemies. There might even be something egoistic in their insistence on voicing their thoughts and staying true to themselves regardless of whom they're being with, in their refusal to adjust their own manners to different people.
E.g: Marianne Dashwood, Bazarov, LC, HT, me (especially back then in high school), etc.
2/ Inflexible. Can never be two-faced because they are simple, artless and genuine (and not good judges of character), rather than because they have a strong personality. Such people are more likeable than those in the 1st group, but may encounter problems of a different kind, such as being used.
E.g: Catherine Morland, Harriet Smith, Sj, etc.
3/ More flexible. Sensitive, tactful. Adjust themselves to different people. Talk about things in which the other person is also interested, avoid topics that might lead to unnecessary conflicts. Express opinions in a way that doesn't insult others, choose words and phrasing with care but do have opinions, especially in important matters. Civil and polite without becoming deceitful or insincere (e.g seeing something horrendously ugly, they say tentatively that it's OK/ nice/ all right..., not wonderful/ gorgeous/ amazing). These people do have a clear idea whom they consider friends, whom not, and generally keep a distance from those they don't like, unless they're forced to work with them, i.e don't try to be close to those they don't like.
E.g: Elinor Dashwood, Anne Elliot, J, M, DC, etc.
4/ Flexible. Can adapt to different people. Diplomatic. These people are not exactly deceitful and manipulative, but they try to maintain a relationship with everybody and create no enemy. Generally liked though possibly not to depend on. Stand up for no one and defend nothing. Stay away from trouble, never get involved in other people's problems, even friends'. Have no opinion. Survive.
E.g: Oblonsky, NT, MA, MT, etc.
5/ Chameleons. Hypocritical, manipulative, cunning, calculating, dishonest. Friendly and affectionate towards everybody. Say what others want to hear. Master the art of flattery. Talk around anything, can always justify themselves and change their own meanings. Very popular.
These people are very likely to have influence, to succeed and to move up the career track. Can easily achieve what they want. Can also have lots of acquaintances. But because they are unreliable and, due to their deceitful nature, are not open, I doubt that they can have very good friends. They can be very close friends with those of the same type, with whom they can discuss their schemes and everything, but these friends are also deceitful and therefore untrustworthy.
E.g: Lucy Steele, Isabella Thorpe, Caroline Bingley, Susan Vernon, Mary Crawford, William Elliot, George Wickham, S, V, QH, etc.

(This is very general, so don't give me a fictional character or a real person and ask me which group he or she belongs to). 

Baltasar Gracian's quote, if you look back at it, may refer to type 3, 4 or 5. As type 3 is the best way for which we should strive, there is a grain of truth in the advice, but I cannot completely agree with the quote- Baltasar Gracian's phrasing makes me think more of people in group 5, the obnoxious phonies. I detest hypocrites more than anything.
People in group 4 are, on principle, better, but they are less detectable and may sometimes cause much deeper pain. 
Me? I think like Anne Elliot: "She felt that she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue never slipped." 

On marriage, Charlotte Lucas and Fanny Price (and Elizabeth Bennet and Jane Fairfax)

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/02/on-charlotte-lucass-choice.html
http://www.jasnanorcal.org/ink5.htm

From the 2nd article: 
"... there seem to be two camps -- those who speak up for Charlotte Lucas and have little time for Fanny; and those whose ideal is Fanny Price, to whom Charlotte is anathema.
What is the problem? Well, when Elizabeth Bennet refuses the proposal of Mr. Collins, the pompous, snobbish curate who is her father's heir, Charlotte Lucas, Elizabeth's friend, deliberately sets out to catch him on the rebound, and succeeds. Charlotte Lucas marries Mr. Collins, whom we consider no intelligent woman can like, let alone love, for the security he can give her and the home he can offer. The pro-Charlotte brigade, which includes some feminists, finds this eminently sensible.
On the other hand, Fanny Price, although a penniless dependent, refuses to marry the charming and wealthy Henry Crawford whom she has seen flirting with both her cousins simultaneously, and whom she neither likes nor respects. Despite Sir Thomas Bertram's bullying, she sticks to her guns. The pro-Fanny brigade, which includes some feminists, finds this admirable..."

It goes without saying that I like and admire Fanny Price (and disagree with Elizabeth Newark for thinking that Fanny refuses Henry Crawford mostly because she's head over heels in love with Edmund- in fact, with Edmund in love with Mary Crawford, there seems to be no hope for Fanny, she rejects Henry rather because of his character). However, at the same time I understand Charlotte Lucas, and whilst doubting that I will ever do a similar thing, do admire the way she considers all of her options, makes a decision and does something for her situation. Twice in "Pride and prejudice", Elizabeth Bennet says no to wealth. Charlotte cannot afford to do so.
Having little experience, I'm still aware that in life people have different ideas about marriage, different expectations- some prioritise love, some wish the spouse to be a friend as well or even a soulmate, some only ask for stability, some see marriage as a kind of rescue (from spinsterhood, poverty, or from their own poor, unfair country), some get married for the mere sake of getting married; some hope to share the same hobbies and interests and views with their spouse, some don't have such concerns as they talk about nothing but bills and the like. I'm also aware that a marriage I see as boring, from my point of view, does not necessarily bore the couple, and a marriage without love is not necessarily unhappy (it should be noted, too, that 2 people who love each other are not necessarily happy when married). And above all, I can think of at least 1 arranged marriage couple who have lived peacefully and contentedly with each other for decades and are still doing that now. Charlotte Lucas is different from Elizabeth Bennet and cannot be expected to act like Elizabeth- "I am not romantic, you know. I never was." She's pragmatic, but not mercenary and manipulative like Isabella Thorpe or hypocritical and scheming like Lucy Steele. She knows what she wants and what she needs, and acts on it, then accepts her own decision and makes the best of it.

Furthermore, some comments below the 1st article are worth some attention: 
"Mr. Collins presents with many characteristics which we now recognize as being similar to some of those typical of people on the high functioning or Apserger's end of the autistic spectrum eg tendency to monologue and focus on details, limited ability to convey empathy, reliance on "scripts" for conversation etc. However, since he is still a young man of only twenty-five years of age, his social awkwardness is likely to decrease especially since, for the first time in his life, the primary influence in his life will come from someone who is perceptive about others. Charlotte is already gently curbing his excessively formal and fawning manners. Once he inherits Longbourn so is removed from Lady Catherine's dominance, these will diminish further. He will have independence and a respected social position in a different community plus will profitably direct his energies and attention to detail towards improving not just a garden but an entire farm/estate (which has been somewhat neglected by Mr. Bennet as he retreated from social interaction and responsibility into his library). As the novel ends, both Mr. and Mrs. Collins have achieved the specific if limited goals they desired from marriage; therefore, basking in this small warm glow of success, they do not feel bitterness or resentment towards each other. They are content and treat each other pleasantly as they probably will throughout their marriage. Their future holds the promise of children, an increased income and the eventual return to Charlotte's former community." 

"Perhaps you are not giving credit to other things that Mr. Collins is not, while he may be appalling tedious, he is not cruel, he will not subject Charlotte to mental or physical torture, he is not a spender or a drinker, subjecting Charlotte to those kinds of worry, nor is he a womanizer, in short, he is a safe choice from a variety of perspectives that Charlotte has reasoned. It is as if she said the marriage is a crapshoot, and I choose the devil I know over the devil I don't know." 

In other words, it's perhaps not so bad after all, that is, for someone like Charlotte Lucas. I would even go as far as saying that there might be more hope in the marriage between her and that silly Mr Collins than in that between Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill. One knows what to expect. The latter is too uncertain.

Reading "Persuasion" || Jane Austen's sense of balance

"Anne wondered whether it ever occurred to him now, to question the justness of his own previous opinion as to the universal felicity and advantage of firmness of character; and whether it might not strike him, that, like all other qualities of mind, it should have its proportions and limits. She thought it could scarcely escape him to feel, that a persuadable temper might sometimes be as much in favour of happiness, as a very resolute character."
("Persuasion", Jane Austen) 
This quote sums up Jane Austen's view of life and the importance she places on balance, which has been expressed many times in her works- balance between sense and sensibility, between emotional display and restraint, between love and money in marriage, between the dismissal of and obsession with novels..., and now, between a persuadable temper and a resolute character. 

______________________________________________________

Among her heroines in the 6 novels, 3 are introverts- Elinor Dashwood, Fanny Price and Anne Elliot, and 3 are extroverts- Marianne Dashwood, Catherine Morland and Emma Woodhouse. I don't know yet how to categorise Elizabeth Bennet, not having read "Pride and prejudice".

______________________________________________________ 

"One man's ways may be as good as another's, but we all like our own best." 
(also from "Persuasion")

______________________________________________________ 

Her novels are valuable and significant both as literary works and as guides to life and self-awareness (and as sources of delight, amusement and comfort). I read them 1st as a reader, 2nd as a human being, and 3rd as a woman (and perhaps 4th, in a way, as a writer).  







Update on 1/1/2014: 
I've finished reading "Persuasion". A sad, beautiful work. I am pleasantly surprised to find myself loving and admiring Jane Austen more than I could ever imagine, having expected to only acknowledge, with moderation and hesitation, her talent and appeal. A wonderful feeling.

"... you see but half"

"My dear child, there must be a little imagination here. I beg your pardon, but I cannot quite believe you. Depend upon it, you see but half. You see the evil, but you do not see the consolation. There will be little rubs and disappointments everywhere, and we are all apt to expect too much; but then, if one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better: we find comfort somewhere—and those evil–minded observers, dearest Mary, who make much of a little, are more taken in and deceived than the parties themselves."



(Mrs Grant in "Mansfield park", by Jane Austen)

Toni Morrison's quotes

I know I haven't written much about Toni Morrison, but she's my favourite authoress of all time. I love her works and admire her, for the music in her language, for her compelling storytelling, for her vivid imagery and rich metaphors, for her shocking and thought-provoking and haunting stories, for her lively and convincing characters and her ability to see things from different points of view and to understand and help us understand her characters, and above all, for the inspiration she has given me. 


http://www.uuworld.org/ideas/articles/117810.shtml

"There is no place you or I can go, to think about or not think about, to summon the presences of, or recollect the absences of slaves; nothing that reminds us of the ones who made the journey and of those who did make it. There is no suitable memorial or plaque or wreath or wall or park or skyscraper lobby. There’s no 300-foot tower. There’s no small bench by the road. There is not even a tree scored, an initial that I can visit or you can visit in Charleston or Savannah or New York or Providence, or better still, on the banks of the Mississippi. And because such a place doesn’t exist (that I know of), the book had to."

"It’s true that when I first began to write, my work was much criticized—even despised I think—because I was not writing happy stories, about people who were able to put it all together in spite of difficulties, about people who had risen to a certain status. I realized that it was a problem, and I realized how important positive images could be, but I thought that nobody intelligent would take that seriously as criticism of a writer. If the critics felt that they could force me to “write positive images,” then clearly they assumed that I was writing for white people. It was a demand that I create an image for the “other” as opposed to my making an intimate and direct account to the people in the book and to black people. I thought the complaint was just headline stuff: things to say to reporters."

"I didn’t think about being a writer as a young person. I was content to be a reader, an editor, a teacher. I thought that everything that was worth reading had probably been written, and if it hadn’t somebody would write it eventually. I didn’t become interested in writing until I was about thirty years old. I didn’t really regard it as writing then, although I was putting words on paper. I thought of it as a very long, sustained reading process—except that I was the one producing the words. It doesn’t sound very ambitious or even sensible now. But I’m very happy with that attitude. The complicated way in which I try to bring the reader in as co-author or a complicitous person really stems from my desire to be engaged as a reader myself."

"It’s humiliating to be asked to write propaganda. That’s not literature."

"With regard to inspiration, I have to tell you that I was so self-conscious about developing a style of my own, about going to a place that I thought was virgin territory, that I was terrified of reading. Most writers don’t read anybody while they are writing, because they don’t want anything to rub off. I was very concerned about developing this sound that I thought would be my own. I was not convinced I had done it until Sula. That book seemed to suggest that I had hit on a voice that was mine, that I didn’t write like anybody else."

"Experience just for the sake of it is almost pointless. If you can’t make anything coherent out of it then it’s not information. It’s not knowledge. And it certainly may not be creatively handled. Some people sit on the edge of bank and fish all day. They don’t even talk and yet they’re complex and fascinating. You have to work within your own life.
My life now is as uneventful as you can imagine. And that’s just the way I like it. I’m interested in what I think. I’m interested in what I imagine. I am not fascinated with my autobiography however. I’m reminded of a number of biographies about the wives of great writers that I’ve just been reading. It’s amazing how the fecund imagination of certain powerful gentlemen has been in fact almost a theft of the fecund existence of the mate. So I don’t have an answer for you. If you find that your work is mediocre it may not be because you haven’t lived. It may be because you have not learned enough about the craft."



Some other quotes by Toni Morrison:

"You think because he doesn't love you that you are worthless. You think that because he doesn't want you anymore that he is right -- that his judgement and opinion of you are correct. If he throws you out, then you are garbage. You think he belongs to you because you want to belong to him. Don't. It's a bad word, 'belong.' Especially when you put it with somebody you love. Love shouldn't be like that. Did you ever see the way the clouds love a mountain? They circle all around it; sometimes you can't even see the mountain for the clouds. But you know what? You go up top and what do you see? His head. The clouds never cover the head. His head pokes through, because the clouds let him; they don't wrap him up. They let him keep his head up high, free, with nothing to hide him or bind him. You can't own a human being. You can't lose what you don't own. Suppose you did own him. Could you really love somebody who was absolutely nobody without you? You really want somebody like that? Somebody who falls apart when you walk out the door? You don't, do you? And neither does he. You're turning over your whole life to him. Your whole life, girl. And if it means so little to you that you can just give it away, hand it to him, then why should it mean any more to him? He can't value you more than you value yourself."

"She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order."

"Don't ever think I fell for you, or fell over you. I didn't fall in love, I rose in it."

"What difference do it make if the thing you scared of is real or not?"

"I never asked Tolstoy to write for me, a little colored girl in Lorain, Ohio. I never asked Joyce not to mention Catholicism or the world of Dublin. Never. And I don't know why I should be asked to explain your life to you. We have splendid writers to do that, but I am not one of them. It is that business of being universal, a word hopelessly stripped of meaning for me. Faulkner wrote what I suppose could be called regional literature and had it published all over the world. That's what I wish to do. If I tried to write a universal novel, it would be water. Behind this question is the suggestion that to write for black people is somehow to diminish the writing. From my perspective there are only black people. When I say 'people,' that's what I mean."

"Lonely, ain't it?
Yes, but my lonely is mine. Now your lonely is somebody else's. Made by somebody else and handed to you. Ain't that something? A secondhand lonely."

"Anything dead coming back to life hurts."

"And talking about dark! You think dark is just one color, but it ain't. There're five or six kinds of black. Some silky, some woolly. Some just empty. Some like fingers. And it don't stay still, it moves and changes from one kind of black to another. Saying something is pitch black is like saying something is green. What kind of green? Green like my bottles? Green like a grasshopper? Green like a cucumber, lettuce, or green like the sky is just before it breaks loose to storm? Well, night black is the same way. May as well be a rainbow."

"The systematic looting of language can be recognized by the tendency of its users to forgo its nuanced, complex, mid-wifery properties for menace and subjugation. Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge. Whether it is obscuring state language or the faux-language of mindless media; whether it is the proud but calcified language of the academy or the commodity driven language of science; whether it is the malign language of law-without-ethics, or language designed for the estrangement of minorities, hiding its racist plunder in its literary cheek - it must be rejected, altered and exposed. It is the language that drinks blood, laps vulnerabilities, tucks its fascist boots under crinolines of respectability and patriotism as it moves relentlessly toward the bottom line and the bottomed-out mind. Sexist language, racist language, theistic language - all are typical of the policing languages of mastery, and cannot, do not permit new knowledge or encourage the mutual exchange of ideas."

"Every now and then she looked around for tangible evidence of his having ever been there. Where were the butterflies? the blueberries? the whistling reed? She could find nothing, for he had left nothing but his stunning absence."

"If you surrender to the wind you can ride it."

"All of our waste which we dumped on her and which she absorbed. And all of our beauty, which was hers first and which she gave to us. All of us--all who knew her--felt so wholesome after we cleaned ourselves on her. We were so beautiful when we stood astride her ugliness. Her simplicity decorated us, her guilt sanctified us, her pain made us glow with health, her awkwardness made us think we had a sense of humor. Her inarticulateness made us believe we were eloquent. Her poverty kept us generous. Even her waking dreams we used--to silence our own nightmares. And she let us, and thereby deserved our contempt. We honed our egos on her, padded our characters with her frailty, and yawned in the fantasy of our strength.
And fantasy it was, for we were not strong, only aggressive; we were not free, merely licensed; we were not compassionate, we were polite; not good, but well behaved. We courted death in order to call ourselves brave, and hid like thieves from life. We substituted good grammar for intellect; we switched habits to simulate maturity; we rearranged lies and called it truth, seeing in the new pattern of an old idea the Revelation and the Word."

"It was a fine cry—loud and long—but it had no bottom and it had no top, just circles and circles of sorrow."

"Something that is loved is never lost."

"It was not death or dying that frightened him, but the unexpectedness of both. In sorting it all out, he hit on the notion that if one day a year were devoted to it, everybody could get it out of the way and the rest of the year would be safe and free. In this manner he instituted National Suicide Day."

"When I was a little girl the heads of my paper dolls came off, and it was a long time before I discovered that my own head would not fall off if I bent my neck. I used to walk around holding it very stiff because I thought a strong wind or a heavy push would snap my neck. Nel was the one who told me the truth. But she was wrong. I did not hold my head stiff enough when I met him and so I lost it just like the dolls."

"People say to write about what you know. I'm here to tell you, no one wants to read that, 'cause you don't know anything. So write about something you don't know. And don't be scared, ever."

"I don't believe any real artists have ever been non-political. They may have been insensitive to this particular plight or insensitive to that, but they were political, because that's what an artist is--a politician."

"The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power."

"If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it."