The Humiliated and Insulted (1861)

Humiliated and Insulted, The Insulted and Humiliated, The Insulted and the Injured, Injury and Insult
There are various problems with this novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky, early and arguably his first true novel. That’s in part because it’s under influence of Charles Dickens, who Dostoevsky reportedly read in his years of exile. It’s his biggest to date, well over 300 pages by my estimate, managing multiple storylines with foreshadowing and cross-cutting. It’s still pretty crude and awkward, but it’s apparent he is absorbing and learning the craft. When I first saw the title I thought it was perfect for Dostoevsky, though it travels under various titles—some translators drop the “The,” which changes the sense too much for me. I’d even like another “the,” which appears in The Insulted and the Injured. But I prefer “Humiliated” and think it should go first. The Dickens influence is seen most clearly in the orphan girl Nellie, a 13-year-old suffering from epilepsy and homelessness, among other things. The first-person narrator is himself published, and now working on a second novel. His first novel roughly resembles Dostoevsky’s own first, Poor Folk. The best thing about The Humiliated and Insulted is probably Prince Valkovsky, who develops into one of Dostoevsky’s memorable villains. He’s even worse (or better), ultimately, than Foma Fomitch from the previous novel, The Village of Stepanchikovo. There’s a scene here that blew my mind in which this prince takes this narrator to supper and schools him on the depths of human depravity. Dostoevsky was particularly good at these evil souls. The reason I like the title as given above is because that’s how things generally go here. First these struggling poor folks are humiliated—given hopes for something, for example, that are subsequently dashed. Then followed by gratuitous insult, so it really stings. Again, this is what Dostoevsky can be particularly good at and he’s really coming into it here. The plots and subplots generally involve marriage and the grasping needs for money. An Englishman appears in Petersburg, as if to fix the Dickens influence. The structure, as I say, is somewhat awkward, but it is nonetheless compulsively readable, even as you can see the seams and how he is learning to write novels. It’s probably not necessary to read this for a better understanding of Dostoevsky, but it won’t hurt and it’s a good fix if you are jonesing for more of him.

In case the library is closed due to pandemic, which is over.

"Horror: A True Tale" (1861)

The title and date of publication make it clear this Christmassy horror story by John Berwick Harwood will lean toward the antiquated. Super-popular Charles Dickens in many ways was responsible for yoking together Christmas and spooky stories, not just with the much beloved A Christmas Carol but in many other stories and in his novels as well. Harwood chips in a classic with this one. He published it and many of his ghost stories as by "Anonymous," and it is still often published that way, presumably to make it more convincing as true, which it is not of course, and likely also because of the enduring disreputability of horror. As with much of Dickens (I understand), it may be best enjoyed by listening to someone read it aloud. But you'd better make sure you've got an hour because it does take its time getting to its points, proceeding with the slow-burn approach of ratcheting tension. You have a feeling you know where you are headed and it is also agony getting there. Yes, this story is often overdone, sometimes in comical ways, but it's certainly good for spooky story time around Christmas if anyone is still doing that and has the patience for 19th-century rhythms—indeed, the tradition is part of this story just as the story is part of it. It's a young woman's story told by her as an old woman, recalling the experience that changed her life. It is heavy with setup, foreshadowing, and angst, but eventually pays off well. She was 19. It turned her hair white overnight and made her old and withered. Hair turning white from a bad scare is a detail I remember well from being told ghost stories myself when I was a kid. The story takes place in a mansion, on Christmas Eve, in a house crowded with guests, on a stormy night. There's a family matriarch, the narrator's godmother, whom they want to please. She has had some longstanding grudge against the young woman's family, over something that happened at the narrator's christening. It was the last anyone in the family had seen of her until this Christmas Eve. She also might have paranormal powers but she's more inscrutable than anything. After an evening spent swapping ghost stories, the narrator is exiled off to an isolated chamber next to the lumber room for the night as part of making accommodations for all the guests, and then, well, ghost. And/or possibly an escaped lunatic—this proposed rational explanation actually seems more unlikely than a ghost, but either way the young woman turns 75 overnight. I take it as a ghost, one of those corporeal types, which reliably get right to me, and this is a good version, presented as a kind of silent ravening beast and predator. If I were her, I would have taken her sisters up on their invitation to bunk with them for the night. Now look what's happened. And listen to her story. At Christmastime.

The Big Book of the Masters of Horror, Weird and Supernatural Short Stories, pub. Dark Chaos
Chillers for Christmas, ed. Richard Dalby (out of print)
Listen to story online (note: I'm not convinced this is a good reading but I'm also not a connoisseur of spoken-word recording).

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861)

One of the interesting side points of slave narratives is parsing the politics behind them. They were intended in part as an element of information campaigns and picked and chose what they did and did not disclose. Much as today's white US population refuses to believe that unwarranted police abuses happen regularly, let alone disproportionately to African Americans, so back then most whites refused to believe in the worst aspects of slavery. Harriet Jacobs, writing originally as Linda Brent, was unusually clear about the abuses suffered by women, whose children if they became pregnant were the property of their masters—and valuable property. The perverse incentives to rape come in many forms, but siring your own crop of slaves for profit has to be one of the more compelling ones. Jacobs also goes into more detail than usual about how slaves were treated and the punishments they endured. In many cases they were murdered, on purpose or by accident, and buried in unmarked graves. Her narrative is also in line with others as the 19th century went along in terms of more and more rejecting white Christianity as hypocritical. She professes her own faith, influenced by her grandmother, who mostly raised her. In the Library of America collection Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is one of the longest and most detailed narratives, and probably the single best one, though they all deserve to be read, of course. But this might be the one to read if it's only going to be one. Another continuing theme is how hard the laws make it to do anything. Slaves were property and couldn't testify in court any more than domesticated animals. Another perverse incentive—a slave can never testify against you. This narrative has many good stories and lots of description of the way slaves lived and got along. It's the best one yet on the impact of the Fugitive Slave Law, a huge setback for abolitionists in 1850. And it has powerful feminist themes. Jacobs is a deeply moral person but makes no apology for becoming pregnant, given her circumstances. Indeed, as much as anything choosing the father was a way to assert herself with her master, who was determined to have her body and soul. The sad and ridiculous way it plays out after his death is only one more example of how depraved slavery was. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is one of our great books, whose best counterpart might be Anne Frank's diary.

In case it's not at the library. (Library of America)

Silas Marner (1861)

I can't say I know George Eliot well—I have attempted Middlemarch with no success yet—but when I connected this title with her I thought I might take a chance. I read it first way back in 7th grade for extra credit and was awfully proud of myself for getting through it. As well I should have been—the language strikes me still as too often cramped, awkward and delicate, full of long sentences, monolithic paragraphs, and dialect (it appears, for example, that people once said "I doubt" when they meant "I don't doubt," among other grievous annoying misdemeanors). Still, it's a wonderful story, with a villain, a few saints, and lots of people between. Silas Marner, our hero, is deeply sad and deeply likable. I was rereading it in a week when everything in my life seemed to be going wrong and my heart went out for him with every setback he suffers and every piece of good fortune too. There is an overall very satisfying movement and growth to so many of the characters, and much transition from dark to light. It's also well plotted—there's a twist that fooled me nearly up to the moment it's revealed, and looking back it's clear Eliot mastered the magician's trick of misdirection. But more than that it's a fascinating character study across a man's life. Descriptions of him often focus on his protuberant eyes, which somehow made him vivid to me. The trajectory of his entire life is given by pieces. We witness the second and third acts and are told of the first. Marner suffers, and we feel it, but it is ultimately heartening in all the best ways. The deadening passages were what I expected, so the surprise was when it slipped into being engaging and compelling. I think I came away from it originally, at 12 going on 13, with something wrong about misers. Silas Marner is more directly about loneliness, alienation, and isolation. It is also about integrity, and about powerlessness, and it is all quite affecting. Yes, there is some resort to convenient coincidence in how it's put together. But I can look the other way because there are just so many very good points about it. The characters are so many of them so interesting. There is a convincing scene with an opium addict. There is a crime that makes one groan with pain. And there are many shades of good people here too. Glad I wandered back to this one.

In case it's not at the library.