Joseph Andrews and other books, or The development of the novel

Hello friends, fans, and foes, I have just returned from Berlin. Joseph Andrews and Parson Adams were my companions on the work trip. Let’s jot down some thoughts. 

1/ The English novel is said to have two founders in the 18th century: Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding. As my friend Tom (Wuthering Expectations) explained, there were two major tracks: Richardson – Fanny Burney – Jane Austen – etc. and Fielding – Smollett – Dickens – etc. This divide seems to fit Himadri’s brushstroke metaphor: the Richardson novelists paint with small brushstrokes and focus on subtle things; the Fielding writers use broad brushstrokes and vivid colours, and have great vigour. 

As I’m interested in tradition and influence, I read Joseph Andrews and think of 19th century literature and find that the novelist closest to Fielding seems to be Thackeray. Just compare. Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, George Eliot… don’t particularly sound like Fielding. But if you look at Fielding and Thackeray, both Joseph Andrews and Vanity Fair are not very visual; both novels are not rich in metaphor; both novels have a warm, good-humoured narrator who constantly addresses the reader. Even Dickens feels further apart: he is visual (who doesn’t remember the fog in Bleak House?), and his novels abound in metaphors. 

I love Vanity Fair, I’m enjoying Joseph Andrews. Both have vitality.

Then if you look back chronologically, Joseph Andrews owes its existence to two novels: Pamela and Don Quixote. Its starting point is to parody Richardson’s novel, as Fielding himself has done in Shamela: Joseph Andrews is a brother of Pamela and, like her, has to defend his chastity from an older employer. Joseph Andrews rejects Lady Booby and thus loses his job, because he only loves Fanny. 

But that’s only the starting point. Joseph Andrews grows into something else, and even without the acknowledgement on the title page (“written in imitation of the manner of Cervantes, author of Don Quixote”), the influence would still be obvious. I’m gonna have to revisit the Fielding section in Fighting Windmills, the book about the greatness and influence of Don Quixote (how annoying to borrow books from the library and not have them right at hand for a quick check). Fielding takes from Don Quixote not only the form of the picaresque novel, he also includes interpolated tales, has a comic vision of life, and creates a quixotic character—Parson Adams is not a madman like Don Quixote, but he is naïve and absent-minded and idealistic, and he too is a combination of goodness and ridiculousness. 

(Isn’t it cool that many 18th century writers loved and took something from Don Quixote? I’m gonna have to read The Female Quixote, Tristram Shandy, and Humphry Clinker). 

Unlike Cervantes, Fielding doesn’t play with multiple narrators and unreliable narrators, but he expands the role of the narrator—like another character—something Thackeray later also does in Vanity Fair. 

2/ Pamela came out in 1740. Joseph Andrews, 1742. 

If we compare them to the works of 19th century novelists such as Dickens, Flaubert, Tolstoy, George Eliot, and so on, they appear a bit primitive, in both character development and the novel form. I’m not denigrating Richardson and Fielding—their masterpieces are said to be Clarissa and Tom Jones—I’m saying that at this point they were developing the novel and trying new stuff so there were a few things they didn’t quite figure out till presumably later on. Pamela for example uses the epistolary form in a very clumsy, awkward way. Dangerous Liaisons by Choderlos de Laclos, perhaps the most well-constructed of epistolary novels, was published in 1782. 

As for Joseph Andrews, I will quote my friend Himadri (Argumentative Old Git): 

“… despite many fine things, Joseph Andrews does, it must be admitted, have its longueurs. In the later Tom Jones, the better qualities of Joseph Andrews are consistently in view, and the flaws entirely absent. For one thing, Fielding, when he came to writing Tom Jones, realised that the kind of novel he was attempting required an interesting plot: otherwise, the final chapters would merely provide resolution for a plot that the reader has long lost interest in, and become merely tedious; and the rest of the novel would become merely a sequence of more or less unrelated set pieces.” 

(The piece as a whole, I should say, is positive about Joseph Andrews—I just picked out the negative bit, as journalists do).

The thing I find strange and fascinating is that Don Quixote (Part 1: 1605; Part 2: 1615) does not at all appear primitive in comparison. Of course, the descriptions are a bit basic. Of course, writers didn’t quite see colours in the 17th century. Of course, the supporting characters aren’t very complex. But if you consider its form and techniques, Don Quixote is spectacularly innovative and ingenious, especially in Part 2—look at the multiple narrators and the concept of the unreliable narrator, look at the dazzling layers of lies and fantasy, look at the meta aspect. Next to Don Quixote, even masterpieces such as Anna Karenina or Madame Bovary come across as conventional. 

3/ Yesterday I came across The Daily Telegraph’s 1899 list of “100 Best Novels in the World”. 

I’m sure you all would have lots of opinions about the list. See for yourself. I’m just gonna make some brief comments. 

First of all, “the world” naturally means the West. This is to be expected—the list is from 1899—even the majority of “greatest novels of all time” lists today ignore non-Western novels, especially those written before the 20th century. On this particular list of 100 best novels, only 10 are in a language other than English (I know). 

Tolstoy’s on the list—only Anna Karenina, not War and Peace—Dostoyevsky isn’t. But we shouldn’t be so harsh on it. At this point, Crime and Punishment was available, but The Brothers Karamazov wasn’t translated until 1912. 

The list has Dumas, Hugo, Balzac, and Eugène Sue (who’s this?) but not Flaubert or Zola. Madame Bovary was available in 2 English translations at this point.  

The most shocking part is the exclusion of Don Quixote—what’s wrong with these people?

If we ignore all the stuff about “foreign languages” and translations, it is in many ways still a curious list. The Dickens novels on the list are Martin Chuzzlewit, Nicholas Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Shop, Dombey and Son, and Oliver Twist—not Bleak House, not Little Dorrit, not Great Expectations. I’m not surprised that they name Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility for Jane Austen, rather than Emma or Mansfield Park, but to name Scenes of Clerical Life rather than Middlemarch as the George Eliot novel is absurd. The same about the three Thackeray novels not including Vanity Fair. Richardson isn’t on the list (I guess even in the 19th century, people didn’t read the over 950,000-word-long Clarissa), but Fielding is: Tom Jones and Joseph Andrews. Melville isn’t included, which does not surprise me, but even Henry James is absent. Charlotte Bronte is on the list with two novels—Jane Eyre and Shirley—but Emily, the genius of the family, isn’t. 

A rather odd list. See for yourself. But now we see that Joseph Andrews had a very good reputation in 1899. I don’t think most people now, even those who read classic literature, know about Joseph Andrews—those who know about classic literature would mostly be familiar with Tom Jones. 

Recent reads: Primo Levi, Flannery, Pamela, Shamela

In September, I read Moments of Reprieve, my third Primo Levi book after If This Is a Man (aka Survival in Auschwitz) and The Truce (aka The Reawakening). Wonderful writer. Primo Levi writes about the people he knew at Auschwitz—the moments of reprieve—he’s got a gift for portraiture and for images. Certain images get imprinted on one’s mind: a man playing the violin in the camp (at which point the listeners, for a brief moment, have a vision of a better world), the guided tour for Hitlerjugend, the “revenge” of the inmates through “bacteriological warfare”, etc. 

The last chapter, about Rumkowski, is thought-provoking.

The most moving chapter in the book is the one about Lorenzo, which is reminiscent of Vasily Grossman’s idea in Life and Fate about “senseless kindness”. Among my favourite writers, I especially like the temperament of Vasily Grossman and Primo Levi, men who have seen some of the worst horrors of the 20th century and yet still believe in salvation and goodness.  

(Today marks one year since the Simchat Torah Massacre, or the October 7 atrocities). 

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Is Flannery O’Connor the best writer of bigotry? She must at least be one of the best at depicting and dissecting it. 

In October, I read “Everything that Rises Must Converge” and “Greenleaf” from her second short story collection, but I’m also thinking of “The Artificial Nigger” and “The Displaced Person” from A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories. There’s something cold, uncompromising, even harsh about Flannery O’Connor, but she is so good, so striking—she hits you right in the face. Some writers (Tolstoy, Chekhov, Cao Xueqin, Carson McCullers…) depict their characters with love and compassion; some others (Flannery O’Connor, Flaubert, Ibsen…) dissect them. 

Over the past 2 years or so, I’ve discovered a few short story writers: Isaac Bashevis Singer, Isaac Babel, Alice Munro, etc. and Flannery O’Connor is the most striking one, much more interesting than Alice Munro. She’s got a distinct voice, she picks strong images, and her stories are “the axe for the frozen see within us.” 

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Speaking of “the axe, etc.”, I went to the Kafka exhibition in Oxford. Finally got to see the original manuscripts and drawings! 

Last year, on my work trip to Prague, I visited the Kafka Museum and realised, in disappointment, that most of the originals were in Oxford or in Germany. 

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I read and gave up, nearly halfway through, on Pamela. How many times is the wench going to faint? And she goes on and on and on about her virtue.

Is there a Richardson vs Fielding split (like Tolstoy vs Dostoyevsky)? I seem to be Team Fielding. I know I cannot say till I’ve read Tom Jones and Clarissa, but Shamela is a hoot, and I’m now having a blast with Joseph Andrews.

Funnily enough, I’ve noted that both of these works are spin-offs from Pamela, but Joseph Andrews accompanies Pamela rather than Shamela. 

Pamela: “what can the abject poor do against the mighty rich, when they are determined to oppress?”

1/ My first blog post about Pamela, I know, wasn’t very enthusiastic. Around page 100 is when the novel becomes more interesting: Samuel Richardson breaks the epistolary form with the appearance of a narrator and the perspective of other characters; we also hear Mr B’s voice for the first time that is not reported by Pamela. The story at this point also becomes more gripping. The horror! The deception! Pamela is only 15. And helpless. 

For the first 100 pages, Pamela writes letters to her parents about how her master Mr B, after the old lady’s death, has been trying to take her virtue, which she’d rather die than lose. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what we now call sexual harassment at the workplace. Around page 100 is when sexual harassment turns into an abduction. 

2/ Pamela, considering that it’s the 18th century, has some surprisingly progressive views that I assume are shared by the author: 

“… for my part, I cannot forbear smiling at the absurdity of persons even of the first quality, who value themselves upon their ancestors’ merits, rather than their own. For is it not as much as to say, they are conscious they have no other?” (Letter 23) 

“… I will only sit down with this sad reflection – That power and riches never want tools to promote their vilest ends…” (Journal) 

“But, O sir! my soul is of equal importance with the soul of a princess, though in quality I am but upon a foot with the meanest slave.” (Journal, but this is from a letter to Mr Williams, the clergyman). 

I’ve read that Pamela was shocking and scandalous at the time not because of the sexual harassment and abduction, but because it ended with the servant marrying her master. 

(I barely know the 18th century though, I have to explore more). 

3/ Pamela makes me think of some other characters: Cécile from Dangerous Liaisons, Fanny Price from Mansfield Park, the titular character of Jane Eyre, Esther Summerson from Bleak House. And the women in Spanish Golden Age literature.

The comparison with Cécile is obvious, especially when they’re the same age. Cécile is more human and more likeable. 

The comparison with Jane Eyre is also obvious: a maid is socially lower than a governess, but they’re both employees and their employers fancy them and treat them abominably, in different ways. Charlotte Bronte even mentions Pamela in her book. 

Pamela makes me think about Fanny and Esther because they’re all morally good characters who are not very popular among readers—I often see readers whine that Fanny is priggish, uptight, self-righteous, and boring; that Esther is passive, submissive, cloying, too modest, too good. Very odd. I have always defended Fanny and Esther and will continue defending them till death. Both are more interesting and more likeable than Pamela—not that likeability is particularly important for literature—Fanny loves nature and poetry, and she is insightful; Esther is funny and a strange, excellent writer. Pamela is not funny. She was getting on my nerves—I read Spanish Golden Age literature and said I was so done with the theme of a woman’s honour—here it is again, only that Richardson uses the word “virtue” instead. In the edition on Gutenberg, the word “virtue” pops up 86 times in the novel, not counting the title; “virtuous” 33 times; “honest” or “honesty” 158 times; “innocent” 66 times and “innocence” 76 times. 

(Did Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte find Pamela irritating? I wonder).

But we—I mean I—shouldn’t be so harsh on Pamela. After all, she is 15 and lives in 18th century England, and she gets this from her parents: 

“… we fear—yes, my dear child, we fear—you should be too grateful, and reward him with that jewel, your virtue, which no riches, nor favour, nor any thing in this life, can make up to you.” (Letter 2) 

With such (insufferable) parents, of course she would turn out like that. 

One can’t help feeling sympathy for Pamela when the dark plot against her unfolds—she is betrayed, abducted, held against her will, completely helpless with no one to turn to. I also appreciate that Pamela is not stupid and the novel is not an idiot plot (one that is “kept in motion solely by virtue of the fact that everybody involved is an idiot”).

But after a while, I have to say that Pamela gets on my nerves again: she faints, she weeps, she professes her virtue and innocence. It is one note. It’s more interesting when Mr B (the master) sends some letters and then shows up, as we get out of Pamela’s head and get another perspective—the character of Mr B puzzles me—but Pamela continues doing my head in. 

Should I continue? Tell me if I should continue. I’m on page 220 (out of about 550). 

Reading Pamela, thinking about Dangerous Liaisons

Samuel Richardson’s Pamela is foundational for the epistolary form. Not the first epistolary novel ever written, but the one to start the craze in the 18th century. Isn’t it interesting to read foundational texts? You read the first modern novel (Don Quixote) and realise it is indeed a contender for the title of greatest novel ever written. You read the first detective novel (The Moonstone) and feel amazed that Wilkie Collins already figured out all the elements of a detective story: locked room, “inside job”, red herrings, professional investigator, large number of false suspects, “least likely suspect”, reconstruction of the crime, plot twist, etc. But then you read Pamela and discover that at this point, in 1740, Richardson didn’t quite know what he was doing, or what could be done with the epistolary novel. 

I can’t help thinking of Dangerous Liaisons (1782), perhaps the most cleverly constructed of epistolary novels.

First of all, Dangerous Liaisons has a range of writers and a range of voices, and some of the characters (Merteuil and Valmont) also adopt different voices for different people, whereas Richardson’s novel mostly has Pamela, and a bit of her parents. I read Dangerous Liaisons and think it has to be an epistolary novel, or at least the form is perfect for it; I read Pamela and think that for a large part, it could just be a standard first-person narrative. Perhaps I’m talking nonsense, as usual, because I’m on page 89 and the book is about 550 pages, but I did leaf through the book. 

Dangerous Liaisons is also more captivating for two other reasons: there are multiple things going on at the same time, and before the reader gets impatient with the slow development of the Valmont – Tourvel plot, Laclos gives us the Prévan plot and grabs our attention again; it is always more interesting when a character may be hiding something, lying to others or lying to themselves, than when a character – narrator is a virtuous girl, a Mary Sue such as Pamela. 

(Frankly, Pamela gets on my nerves). 

As I have recently explained to a friend who didn’t particularly care for the book, I love Dangerous Liaisons because it deals with human complexity and contradictions, because it explores the way people deceive others and deceive themselves, because it’s not always certain whether the characters are telling the truth or playing a role or, whilst joking or being ironic, revealing something about themselves. These are the subjects that interest me in literature. I also like the way Laclos deals with longing, sexual desire, and love. 

Another thing I’ve noted is that Laclos includes the dates (it’s clear that he carefully plans everything), whereas Richardson doesn’t. How much time passes between the letters? How often does Pamela write? How long does it take for the parents to reply? What’s the gap? As Laclos includes the dates, you think about the actions that are happening around the same time; you think about the silence, the gap; you think about the letters that get delayed and perhaps the consequences; you think about the time that an action or a scheme takes, and so on and so forth. 

Such a well-constructed novel, Dangerous Liaisons. 

Let’s hope I later have something interesting to say about Pamela.

Is Dangerous Liaisons a cynical book?

Under my previous blog post about Dangerous Liaisons (or Les Liaisons dangereuses), Michael wrote: 

“I feel odd commenting because I’ve never read the book. But I think I still need some convincing that this is a book I would enjoy.

It sounds extraordinarily well written, but didn’t you find the ugliness and corruption of the characters off-putting? I recall, in reading Madame Bovary, feeling like the novel was extremely well-written and a deeply insightful picture of people whom I didn’t like and didn’t want to know (and maybe I’m wrong, but I felt Flaubert felt the same way.) Corrupt or ugly people can be fun to read about of course, but I find I don’t love books where they are the prime focus. There’s a novel by Trollope called The Eustace Diamonds that suffers from this problem; the main character is more or less a sociopath, and I find Thai [sic] tire of her company. Vanity Fair is a counter example, I suppose, but then Becky Sharp is just one character, and there are some other redeeming central characters in that novel that balance her out. Perhaps I’m just an unsophisticated and puritanical American, I don’t know. But Does [sic] Laclos have any redeeming central characters? I guess I just need some convincing that I’d enjoy it.” 

Interesting question, so I thought I’d answer in a blog post. 

To put it simply: is Dangerous Liaisons a cynical book that just focuses on people’s ugliness and corruption? 

I’d say no. 

Firstly, Dangerous Liaisons is not a celebration of cynicism and corruption. The sex games, the manipulation, the way Merteuil and Valmont play with others’ feelings bring misery to everyone involved, including themselves.

Secondly, Choderlos de Laclos dissects the cruelty and depravity of these two characters, but doesn’t depict these traits as universal or common traits of humanity—Merteuil is seen as exceptionally evil; she is, in the end, condemned and shunned by society. 

Contrast that with Balzac’s vision of life in Eugénie Grandet: “She has the noblest qualities of sorrow, the saintliness of one who has never soiled her soul by contact with the world…” (translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley). In Eugénie Grandet, the world is corrupt; everyone is materialistic, selfish, scheming, dishonest; the father has no humanity; the only good people are Eugénie Grandet, her mother, and Nana, who do not understand society and its lies and deceit, who are not soiled “by contact with the world.” 

That is not the vision of life in Dangerous Liaisons: Cécile de Volanges, her mother Madame de Volanges, Madame de Tourvel, Madame de Rosemonde (Valmont’s aunt) are good people; Danceny is also arguably good-natured, though his infidelity to Cécile is disappointing. 

Thirdly, evil doesn’t triumph. It corrupts, it destroys, but it doesn’t win in the end. Think about King Lear: evil destroys many things in its wake and kills Cordelia (and arguably Lear), but the evil characters of the play—Cornwall, Oswald, Goneril, Regan, Edmund—are all defeated. It is similar with Dangerous Liaisons. 

Choderlos de Laclos depicts two characters who like pulling the strings and manipulating other people and having power over them, but they gradually realise that many things are beyond their control. Despite their cleverness, despite their manipulation, despite their understanding of psychology, Merteuil cannot control Valmont, Valmont cannot control his own feelings for Tourvel, Merteuil cannot triumph over Cécile. Their little games are all futile. 

Contrast Laclos’s vision of life in Dangerous Liaisons and the vision of life in Naomi: Tanizaki’s book is a picture of perversity, control, and baseness; the manipulative character triumphs in the end; Naomi left a bad taste in my mouth. That is not the case for Dangerous Liaisons. 

Most importantly, Dangerous Liaisons is a masterpiece. Choderlos de Laclos’s psychological insight and talent for characterisation are astonishing. Even if it doesn’t end up as one of your favourite novels (which after all is personal), it is very much worth reading. 

Love, lust, and Les Liaisons dangereuses

1/ It was clearly a mistake to neglect French literature for so long. 

Up till now, the writer I’ve read who seems to have the best understanding of longing and sexual desire and especially female sexuality is Chekhov. But as a writer in Tsarist Russia, he couldn’t be very direct, and Laclos also has an advantage over him that we follow his characters for 400 pages. 

(Went for the original title in my headline so the alliteration works better—see, I think about little things). 

2/ Under my previous blog post about Dangerous Liaisons, Cathy Young wrote: 

“It took me several readings to notice this, but I think Valmont’s actions toward Cecile are very substantially motivated by the need to have a “victory” to counter Merteuil’s victory over Prevan.

[…] I think he waits to write back to Merteuil after he has a “success” of his own to report, especially since she’s been zinging him so much about his lack of success with Tourvel. Also notable: he starts putting the Cécile plan into action shortly after Merteuil sends him the long autobiographical letter in which she is absolutely brutal in putting him in his place and affirming her superiority, and which she concludes with, “As for Prévan, I want him, and I’ll have him; he wants to tell, and he won’t. That is our story.” That letter is sent on Sept. 20; Valmont presumably receives it Sept. 21; his letter to Cécile is sent Sept. 24, presumably after he’s had a bit of time to come up with the scheme with the second key. So I think he knows by then that Merteuil will succeed and is planning his own “victory” to match hers and maybe even beat her to it (but his plan is delayed because Cécile initially refuses).” 

That’s a very good point. 

Cathy also pointed out the parallels between the Valmont – Cécile scene and the Merteuil – Prévan scene, and between the Merteuil – Prévan plot and the Valmont – Tourvel plot. Again, these are great observations—you should read her comments for yourself.

Nothing to add, so I’ll make a different point: I think Merteuil seduces Danceny partly because she’s jealous of Cécile; partly because she wants to test her own power of seduction (as some women out there steal someone’s man just to prove that they can); partly because she wants Valmont to be jealous; and partly because she wants to triumph over Valmont, who won Cécile’s body but not her heart and not even her head.   

3/ Since Hadrian’s comments under my first blog post about Dangerous Liaisons, I’ve been toying with the idea that Valmont is not as attractive and seductive as he portrays himself to be.

Let’s see. Valmont is meant to seduce Cécile and Tourvel. Even if you don’t want to say Valmont rapes Cécile, he lays a trap for her, puts pressure on her, threatens her about reputation, and essentially forces himself on her. 

Now look at his “conquest” of Tourvel: 

“At this last word she threw herself or rather fell into my arms in a faint. As I was still doubtful of such a happy outcome, I pretended to be dreadfully alarmed. But at the same time I was leaving her or carrying her towards the place I had designed before as the field of victory. And, in fact, she only regained consciousness having already submitted and surrendered to her happy conqueror.” (Letter 125) 

(translated by Helen Constantine) 

Is that victory? In both cases, they yield after he forces himself on them—Cécile previously had no interest in him and Tourvel was resisting—it’s only after the sex that they yield, but Cécile is a 15-year-old virgin and Tourvel is sexually unfulfilled (where is the husband?) and vulnerable. They’re vulnerable like Natasha when separated from Andrei. Yes, Tourvel has fallen for Valmont, but you may have feelings for someone and not act on them.

Having said that, I still think John Malkovich is wrong for the role—Valmont has to be attractive—I’m merely pointing out that his two victories are not quite triumphs as he presents them to be.   

4/ For some time, I thought I understood Merteuil better than I understood Valmont. What kind of woman, however self-assured, would enjoy hearing a man with whom she has been involved speak in such praise about another woman? What kind of woman, however slutty, would enjoy being taken for granted and expected to run like a dog whenever some man calls? Laclos depicts so well her jealousy, her sense of rivalry, her wounded pride, her competitiveness and vengefulness, her need to triumph over Tourvel and to have control over Valmont, her love of freedom and of power. I even get why, when Valmont gives her an ultimatum, Merteuil chooses war, knowing it would ruin everybody involved. 

So for some time, I didn’t quite get Valmont, but now I do. To steal Hadrian’s ideas, this is a twisted love triangle—Tourvel appeals to the human side of Valmont and Merteuil attracts the demonic side, but that demonic side is so ingrained in him that he suppresses and denies and rejects his own love for Tourvel, to a disastrous end. He thinks he knows himself, but he does not—until it’s too late. 

5/ In Dangerous Liaisons, the characters all change. The most fascinating change is the deceitful, manipulative Valmont becoming more human, as his foil—the supposedly romantic and noble Danceny—turns out to be a false lover. Look at his letters to Merteuil! What kind of love does he have for Cécile that she is so easily supplanted? Cécile may be unfaithful to him physically, but he betrays her physically and emotionally. 

(With whom does he mean when Danceny writes in Letter 174 that he’s no longer in love?) 

6/ Now that I have finished reading Choderlos de Laclos’s book, I can say that it’s the greatest epistolary novel I’ve read, and the greatest novel about sexual desire, manipulation, and power.

It is also better than the films. It’s no wonder that Dangerous Liaisons has been adapted so many times, as Laclos creates two of the most devious, cunning, and memorable characters in fiction, and there’s a timeless appeal about their sex games—manipulating others for each other’s amusement and then manipulating each other. But it’s in the book where you can see the subtlety of characterisation, the different voices these characters adopt for different readers, the lies they tell others and tell themselves, the uncertainty about whether they’re being honest or playing a role. Laclos exploits the full potential of the epistolary form. 

Magnificent novel. 

Dangerous Liaisons and manipulation

1/ In some blog post about Don Quixote, I have noted that Shakespeare and Cervantes are both fascinated by disguise, pretence, and manipulation: if Shakespeare’s plays are full of actors (like Viola, Rosalind, Imogen) and playwrights/ theatre directors (like Iago or the Duke in Measure for Measure), Cervantes’s world is populated with storytellers (almost everyone in Don Quixote), who can be self-creators (like Don Quixote) or pranksters. 

What about the manipulators in Dangerous Liaisons—Merteuil and Valmont? I would say they are actors (in general, but especially in Merteuil’s handling of Prévan and Valmont’s acting towards Tourvel) and theatre directors (the way Merteuil and Valmont engineer the plot of Cécile and Danceny, especially when Merteuil adds conflict and drama) and self-creators (Merteuil writes in letter 81 “I am what I have created”). The two of them constantly compare their little games to theatre; Merteuil says she’s an actress and a writer. 

Here’s Valmont: 

“What more does one have in a larger theatre? Spectators? Ha! Just wait, I shall have plenty of them. Though they may not see me at work, I shall show them the finished product. All that will remain for them to do is admire and applaud.” (Letter 99) 

(translated by Helen Constantine)

Nobody would want to encounter a Valmont or a Merteuil in real life, but in literature, isn’t it fascinating to watch them?  

I especially like that Laclos adds the little Prévan plot. Up to that point, there have been 2 plots going on at the same time—the Cécile and Danceny plot, and the Valmont seducing Tourvel plot—which have started to drag on for a bit—then Laclos gives us the Prévan plot. Now that is fascinating! Before that point, Valmont has dominated the book, utterly thrilling as he switches between different voices for Merteuil, Cécile, and Tourvel. Now is Merteuil’s time to shine. And shine she does. 

2/ I would say that over the past few years, the most striking and compelling female characters I’ve come across in novels are Sử Tương Vân (Shi Xiangyun) and Vương Hy Phượng (Wang Xifeng) in Cao Xueqin’s Hong lou meng (Hồng lâu mộng by Tào Tuyết Cần), Becky Sharp in Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, and now Merteuil in Choderlos de Laclos’s Dangerous Liaisons. Sử Tương Vân (Shi Xiangyun) is the odd one out, delightful and lovable like Shakespeare’s Rosalind and Jane Austen’s Elizabeth Bennet and Tolstoy’s Natasha. 

The other three are manipulative, chameleon-like, immoral, deceitful, and yet utterly bewitching. 

Interestingly enough, I note that they’re all written by male writers. When I think of attempts by George Eliot (Middlemarch, maybe Daniel Deronda) and Edith Wharton (The Custom of the Country), I think they don’t quite succeed—those characters seem real enough, but they don’t bewitch. Jane Austen’s Mary Crawford is much better in comparison—so charming that many impressionable readers out there miss the entire point of the book—but she is not on quite the same level as Becky Sharp or Merteuil, is she? Lady Susan is more manipulative, but that’s quite a thin novel—I have always wished Austen had done something more with that character. 

To go back to Dangerous Liaisons, Laclos’s other female characters are also very good. One reads War and Peace and wonders how Tolstoy enters the mind of a 16-year-old girl in love (Natasha). One reads Dangerous Liaisons and asks the same question about Laclos and 15-year-old Cécile. He depicts well the pure innocence and naïve enthusiasm of a young girl raised in a convent and without experience, without making her sound sappy. 

Tourvel is even better. We don’t even need Valmont’s discovery of her copy of his letter to know—as we read between the lines—that for some time she has fallen for him. 

3/ Dangerous Liaisons has a good structure. Two significant things happen around the mid-point of the novel.

One is—shall I be nice and not reveal the spoiler?—what Valmont does to Cécile. He is the devil. 

His letters to Merteuil afterwards fill me with disgust, especially when he says he has been telling Cécile false stories about her mother: 

“For the girl who does not respect her mother will not respect herself.” (Letter 110)

The other thing is Tourvel’s departure, and the start of her downfall. 

Look at Valmont’s immediate reaction upon finding out she has run away: 

“What strange power draws me to this woman? Are there not a hundred others clamouring for my attention? […] Why chase after the one who flees from us and neglect those who offer themselves? Ah why? I do not know, but I feel it most grievously.” (Letter 100)

In the first half of Dangerous Liaisons, Merteuil and Valmont pull all the strings; in the second half, they slowly and gradually realise they’re not quite the puppeteers they think they are.

In other words, as Valmont turns more demonic in the second half, he also becomes more human. 

Dangerous Liaisons and the epistolary novel

As I’m enjoying Les Liaisons dangereuses or Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos (translated by Helen Constantine), I’ve been thinking about the epistolary form. Sometimes it’s rather clumsy and awkward, like The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Frankenstein too, I think. Sometimes it works quite well, like Dracula (series of documents in different forms) or The Moonstone (witnesses’ statements). The epistolary form can show different—and clashing—perspectives, like Lady Susan or The Lady in White.

But it’s in Dangerous Liaisons that I can see the author exploit the full potential of the form. We see the clashing perspectives. We read the sender’s words and imagine the receiver’s reaction, and if there is a second reader, also imagine the effect on them. We see the lies, the manipulation, the face-saving untruths. We read between the lines and examine the layers of meaning. We get different voices from different characters, but sometimes the same character—such as Valmont—can also put on different voices and play roles. We watch the schemer lay out her plan and embark on her project. We see the manipulator at work, as he explains his tactics and manoeuvres his way into a virtuous woman’s heart.

I think of Mansfield Park, for example. Jane Austen focuses on Fanny Price—she writes in the third person but always focuses mainly on one perspective in the 6 novels. It would be interesting, would it not, if we could enter the Crawfords’ minds, as Henry plays games with both Maria and Julia and also wants to capture Fanny’s heart but ends up falling for her, or if we had access to Maria’s thoughts, as she cheats on her dull husband with the charming Henry.  

In Dangerous Liaisons, we have two characters—Valmont and Merteuil—who are more evil, more demonic, more dangerous than the Crawfords. And it’s—should I say this?—thrilling to watch these manipulators at work! 

With Dangerous Liaisons, I have a situation similar to Anna Karenina: I watched multiple film adaptations before reading the book.

The 1988 American film: the film’s good; Glenn Close’s brilliant; but to this day, I still don’t understand how John Malkovich could have been cast as the irresistible womaniser. I don’t mean Valmont has to have good looks. Handsome and sexy are two different things. In the general sense, not in the should-be-cast-as-Valmont sense, Vincent Cassel is not handsome, but he is hot; Henry Cavill is handsome, but not charismatic; Tom Hiddleston and Benedict Cumberbatch aren’t particularly good-looking, but they’re charming. No disrespect to his acting skills, but I have never thought John Malkovich has the seductive qualities to play Valmont, I don’t buy it. 

Cruel Intentions: I frankly don’t remember the film, but it has always fascinated me that Les Liaisons dangereuses is moved to a modern setting and it works. 

Untold Scandal: I don’t remember the film (what’s up with my memory?), but I remember liking it. Bae Yong-joon is a heartthrob in East and Southeast Asia—he should be convincing as Valmont—I can’t remember. But again, it’s intriguing that Les Liaisons dangereuses is transported to South Korea and it works. 

Let’s hope I’ll have something more interesting to say about Laclos’s novel.

A few films I watched recently

Perfect Days (2023): 

I have never been fond of films in which nothing happens. It’s got a critics’ score of 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, and audience’s score of 89%, so it’s clearly a matter of temperament. Or maybe people are hardcore Wim Wenders fans. Or maybe they really like Japan. 

Kōji Yakusho plays a public toilet cleaner who listens to Lou Reed on cassettes, reads William Faulkner, looks at trees, takes B&W photographs, and dreams. Will something happen between him and the co-worker? Will the co-worker’s girlfriend do something? Will we discover the secret tic-tac-toe player? Will someone appear and stir up his life? Will something happen with the niece? Will we learn more about his past? Will we discover why he’s cleaning toilets? I kept wanting something to happen, but nothing did. It’s a slice-of-life of film and Kōji Yakusho is indeed very good, but it’s perhaps a matter of temperament that I want some conflict, some mystery, some dramatic interest. It has none. 

I did, however, enjoy the music. 

The Sound of the Mountain (1954): 

Why is Naruse not as well-known as Ozu or Mizoguchi outside Japan? I wondered. His name is not mentioned. His films are hard to find. I’m not comparing him to Kurosawa, the most Western of Japanese directors, influencing Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Sergio Leone, and many others, but my impression so far—I have watched this one and When a Woman Ascends the Stairs—is that at his best, Naruse isn’t inferior to Mizoguchi or Ozu. His films treat the same themes: selfish and cruel or sympathetic but ineffectual men, suffering women, generation gap, social changes, conflicts between parents and children… He has the same subtlety, the same sympathy and compassion, the same talent for getting great performances out of actors. Why then is he neglected?  

I like Naruse’s adaptation a lot more than Kawabata’s novel. Part of it is because the novel focuses on the perspective of the father—the passive, tactless, ineffectual father, who keeps thinking about breasts, even his own daughter’s—whereas the film can eschew all that and depict the sad lives of all the women in the film (it is probably for the same reason I prefer the adaptation of Woman in the Dunes to the book).

Another reason is that the characters in the book are a bit blurry—with a few exceptions, I’ve got the impression that characters in Japanese novels don’t have the same complexity and vividness as in Western novels, but tend to more blurry or more impressionistic—but that’s not the problem for the film as we all see them from the outside anyway. But at the same time, we have the actors’ performances—we see the pauses, the hesitation, the meaningful glances, the understanding smiles, the looks of reproach, the expressions of pain, and so on. This is my favourite Setsuko Hara performance: the perfect, childlike, lovable wife, who always smiles then suffers in silence. 

La chimera (2023): 

It’s been over a week and I still can’t put into words why I like this film so much. No, I don’t even know why I like it so much. Perhaps it touches something deep inside me. Perhaps it captures something—in images and music—that I can’t express in words. 

What Happens in Hamlet: John Dover Wilson on Hamlet

Every time I revisit a Shakespeare play or read a new piece of criticism, I see something new. His plays are so rich, so complex, so endlessly fascinating. Let other minds dwell on conspiracy theories and other trivia, I can just ponder over these plays for the rest of my life. 

1/ Unlike other critics I have read (such as Tony Tanner, G. Wilson Knight, or A. C. Bradley), John Dover Wilson places lots of importance on Claudius’s usurpation and Hamlet’s loss of the throne, which I think is an interesting point. Indeed, why does the throne go to the brother rather than the son? Hamlet mentions an election—is the tedious old fool Polonius part of the council that kicks out Hamlet? 

Wilson doesn’t mean that thwarted ambition is the only or even chief cause of Hamlet’s depression—he does talk at length about shock, disappointment in his mother, disillusionment with love and everything, the weight he has to bear, and so on and so forth—but he is saying that it’s a mistake to ignore Hamlet’s loss of the throne.

Once we think of that aspect—especially Claudius’s usurpation—we see everything in a different light, such as that exchange between Hamlet and his old friends Guildenstern and Rosencrantz. 

“GUIDENSTERN Which dreams indeed are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

HAMLET A dream itself is but a shadow.

ROSENCRANTZ Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow’s shadow.

HAMLET Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretch’d heroes the beggars’ shadows. Shall we to th’ court? for, by my fay, I cannot reason.” (Act 2 scene 2) 

2/ Like A. C. Bradley (and unlike G. Wilson Knight), John Dover Wilson sees Hamlet as noble—what would be the tragedy if Hamlet were not a noble character? (This is why I don’t like Andrew Scott’s performance). 

Then why, one must ask, does the sweet prince treat Ophelia like a whore? I think Wilson’s reading that Hamlet overhears Polonius saying “I’ll loose my daughter to him” makes perfect sense: she has abandoned him, she has offered him no consolation in time of crisis and anguish, and worse, she has agreed to be used as bait for his enemies to spy on him. 

His reading of Hamlet’s scenes with Ophelia, especially the nunnery scene, is also very good. 

3/ I like his reading of the play scene. Wilson thinks Shakespeare includes a dumb-show in order to tell the whole story to the audience, because later, when the actors reenact the murder, the play would be interrupted. 

Then why does Claudius not react till later? Isn’t the dumb-show enough to let him know Hamlet has known the truth? 

I think Wilson has argued rather convincingly that Hamlet does not plan the dumb-show himself—that he only adapts The Murder of Gonzago and inserts a speech—and he is extremely irritated with the insertion of the dumb-show (“the players cannot keep counsel; they’ll tell all”). 

As for why Claudius doesn’t react till later, Wilson argues that he, distracted by other things and more interested in plucking out the heart of Hamlet’s mystery, doesn’t watch the dumb-show (hence “Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in’t?”).

So far, my interpretation has been different, with influence from my friend Himadri (Argumentative Old Git): Claudius sits through the dumb-show, pretending to notice nothing—one may smile and smile and be a villain—but it is too much when it comes to that moment because Hamlet is not only revealing that he knows the truth, he is also threatening the king—look, in the play, the king is not murdered by his brother, as Hamlet’s father is killed by Claudius, but he is killed by his nephew—that is a threat.

But Wilson does address the threat, the double meaning of the play, and the way the play would appear to the court, and his interpretation makes sense, with good arguments. 

4/ John Dover Wilson has a section about the contradictions in Horatio, which I didn’t notice, even after 3 readings and 2 performances (but then, who cares about Horatio? that’s my excuse). 

Next time, I’m going to have to pay more attention to Horatio.  

5/ The chapters about the reception of the play at court, Gertrude’s reaction, Hamlet’s delay, and the conversation between Hamlet and Gertrude are full of interesting insights. 

John Dover Wilson argues, part of the reason Hamlet is paralysed from taking any action is that he has the heavy and complicated task of avenging his father but protecting his mother—her life and her name—what is he then meant to do? I have always thought Hamlet has more hate for his mother than for Claudius—he is more obsessed with her frailty, her incestuous sheets—he has to tell himself not to kill her. So Wilson makes a good point that after the play, rather than focusing on killing Claudius, Hamlet seems occupied with thoughts about Gertrude. 

I also like what he says about the scene in Gertrude’s bedchamber. Wilson destroys some critics’ nonsensical idea that the Ghost is only a figment of Hamlet’s imagination, a sign of his madness—Shakespeare has taken care to make it clear to the audience that the Ghost exists—but why does Gertrude not see him? And why does the Ghost appear in the bedchamber in the first place? 

His interpretations—I’m not telling you—make sense. 

6/ There are also lots of other fascinating points in the book—the funeral scene, Hamlet’s nobility, his change of mood, the fencing scene, Osric’s complicity, etc.—but I will not write everything down. You have to go read the book yourself. 

What Happens in Hamlet is a very good book. An excellent book. Makes you think and rethink about every scene in the play. 

PS: I just created a separate tag for Hamlet on the blog as I keep writing about it. Go back and see.