“Grettir at Thorhall-stead” (1903)

About the closest I’ve ever got to the writer Frank Norris is the 1924 movie Greed, based on his novel McTeague. Norris, a Chicago native, died of appendicitis at the age of 32 but that was enough time to establish himself as a promising journalist and naturalist fiction writer, peer to Theodore Dreiser and under heavy influence of Emile Zola. But apparently, as this vampire tale seems to suggest, Norris also had some interest (perhaps only commercial?) in the dark and fantastical tales of European lore. This story is set in a dark, brooding, and unpleasantly cold and volcanic Iceland—not the exotic otherworldly home of Bjork and progressive politics we know from pictures today, but a harsh and remote cold rocky land. It sounds like Norris had been there, but maybe he only read accounts. The first section of this story introduces Glamr, a name associated with a 13th-century Icelandic saga and also used in an 1863 story by Sabine Baring-Gould. Another character here, Grettir, has similar origins. This Glamr is a big stocky handyman at Thorhall’s remote homestead, hired to be a shepherd. I’m not sure what to call Thorhall’s spread—a ranch? Plantation? Farm? What? Glamr threatens the harmony there as an “unbeliever” in a close-knit Christian community. But he’s the first victim along with some animals. This vampire has the strength and size to break the backs of both humans and horses. Before they can bury Glamr, however, his body disappears. Also there had been no trace of wounds on his body, not even the usual tell-tale puncture wounds on the neck. This is a different kind of vampire story, where the vampire is more a wild beast. No tuxedos required, and it’s not really that supernatural, except in a loose and ancient kind of way of thinking about things. Next, all household members, separately, are possessed by intense feelings of foreboding, followed shortly by a sighting by one of the maids of Glamr at a window. Summer comes and goes. Glamr’s replacement, Thorgaut, is more popular around the place than the ill-natured unbeliever Glamr. Grettir himself finally shows up well into the second half—the God of Thunder, more or less, a Hercules type, “well known and well beloved throughout all Iceland.” Nice color all along the way, seals and other things barking in the distance. A big fight ensues, which Grettir wins of course, but not before the vampire fills him with fear by telling him his future is bleak. A very strange story indeed from a young US American naturalist novelist, with not much online to tell when Norris wrote it. He died in 1902 and the story was published posthumously.

Vampire Tales: The Big Collection, pub. Dark Chaos
Read story online.

The Papers (1903)

This story from late in Henry James's career, which is long enough to qualify as a novella (whatever), bears interest for several reasons. First, it's more readable than usual for this part of his career. But the main attraction for me is that it reads like an early and prescient look at public relations, celebrity culture, and mass media. It feels very modern. The "papers" of the title are the tabloids and broadsheets of the time, published frequently and hawked on the streets, the Fleet Street of just over a century ago. The two main characters—with the usual ridiculous names: Maud Blandy and Howard Bight—are go-getters in their 20s attempting to carve out lives as freelance writers for the papers. They meet in coffee shops, stay up on all the latest news, and share information with one another. They're going to end up married but that's beside the point. The point is making a living in this fast-paced exciting world of eternal news. The story is also interesting because for some reason I sense more than anywhere else how much James relished being a Britisher, practically a European. One person who consumes Maud's and Howard's interest is a mysterious glittering celebrity who manages always to stay in the news and yet elude reporters. He has one of the most ridiculous names yet: Sir A.B.C. Beadel-Muffet K.C.B., M.P. (On the other hand, I just started reading my first Jeeves book by P.G. Wodehouse the other day and now I suspect these kinds of names are more like a British thing—perhaps the very reason this story feels so British to me.) Beadel-Muffet pulls off a cunning stunt of public relations, the kind of self-promotion still being worked by celebrities today. Howard intimates to others that he had something to do with it but that's likely more by way of impressing a client. Impressing clients is also something that feels modern in this story. Not that Beadel-Muffet's promotion is terribly original, as Jack the Ripper had already happened nearly 20 years earlier, a key harbinger of the celebrity and mass media times to come. James obviously has no better idea what to do about this phenomenon than we do now all this time later. Like us, he feels gravely suspicious of it. Also like us, he is fascinated by the way it moves and shines in the light.

"interlocutor" count = 2 / 97 pages

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

"The Birthplace" (1903)

This late Henry James story is lauded on Wikipedia as witty and hilarious, warm words from the typically staid crowdsourced online encyclopedia. Well, maybe it's witty and hilarious. It's intended primarily as a send-up of tourist Shakespeare worship. The principal characters, Mr. and Mrs. Gedge, once again hail from the over-refined and underpaid refuge of the upper classes, whom James admired. The Gedges, who are in circumstances, take positions as guides and managers of the original Shakespeare home, where the Bard was actually raised. James appreciated the work of Shakespeare even as he doubted the authorship. Like James, Mr. Gedge subscribes to a theory other than single authorship and now his half-hearted guide patter is starting to bum the people out. This in turn is causing Mrs. Gedge nervous complaints, especially when the big boss shows up to set her husband straight. In the end, Mr. Gedge gets the Shakespeare religion, extols the legend enthusiastically, earns a raise, and Mrs. Gedge is happy again. Droll, very droll. I have no dog in any fight about Shakespeare so a key aspect of the premise already falls a little flat for me. And then it's also typical of James's later stuff, which requires patience and parsing. I was short on the former, as he might say, and so my interest in carrying on with the latter, nay my very ability, was perforce diminished. On top of that, the proofreading in the electronic version can be off. Many confusing commas, or lacks thereof, I'll put it that way. I like the electronic version because I often need help in the first place with vocabulary and untranslated foreign terms. Folks, this is why I'm sold on e-books. These days, when I read a printed book, I sorely miss being able to look up words in context as I go (and lugging out the dictionary is inconvenient), which is practically a necessity with many Henry James passages. Also, Delphi editions let you buy everything an author ever wrote, including letters and criticism, all in one giant product. I call them shelf products. Amazing, wonderful, convenient. I love them except for glitches like the proofreading or occasional botched navigation (see, or rather don't see, the Balzac edition). This Henry James story is not that perfect, though I might like it better in another mood. Sorry about the testimonial for e-books. I had to say it somewhere.

"interlocutor" count = 1 / 55 pages

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

The Ambassadors (1903)

A marriage usually looms large in Henry James's tales, which is the case in The Ambassadors, the second of his late three masterpieces. This novel also sees further returns to his themes around relations between the New World and the Old. Our hero, Lambert Strether, has been dispatched from Woollett, Massachusetts, to Paris, France, to collect the lone male heir of the Newsome family, who is wanted to run the family industry. The woman who sent him, Mrs. Newsome, is a widow Strether is interested in marrying for her money. The lone male heir is her nephew, Chad Newsome (compare Christopher Newman). Chad is 30 and presently having an affair with a married woman, Madame Marie de Vionnet. It's quite a pickle and the complications only start there. There are more characters, more intrigue, and more, many more, words. The language as always takes patience, but I'm happy to find The Ambassadors and The Wings of the Dove are both a cut above some of his novels of the previous 20 years. I'm still a little resentful of all the parsing and unpacking required, but the rewards are there. Strether, who is 55, is so charmed by Chad and Madame de Vionnet that ultimately he fails at his ambassadorial mission. The daughter of Mrs. Newsome, Chad's sister Sarah Pocock, is then dispatched to follow on and close the deal. Thus the plural of the title—first Strether and then Mrs. Pocock. This second team of diplomats, the Pocock entourage, is comical and a little horrifying, an early version of ugly American. In retrospect, perhaps, Mrs. Pocock is the one of them all that keeps her eye on the prize and maintains perspective. When I put myself in her place, and imagine a brother committed to a woman he can never marry—Madame de Vionnet is already married and also a bit older than Chad—I see the point. On the other hand, Chad's easy life and the gentle ways of European society near its best—well, I can see the appeal for Chad too. Mostly what surprises me is how well James keeps such a microscopic story of typical human foible interesting and even mysterious. The strange characters who populate this novel don't entirely make sense. I'm not sure what they're all doing here. But nonetheless something about it is so inspired it is positively a pleasure to battle through. And probably worth going back to as well.

"interlocutor" count = 6 / 518 pages (includes "interlocutress")

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

The Call of the Wild (1903)

Have to say that I have really come to appreciate this Yukon by way of West Coast tale of the big dog Buck and his destiny—or make that "destiny," as some little use of scare quotes is appropriate under the circumstances. There's some wrong-ways understanding of evolution and a whole lotta anthropomorphizin'  goin' on. And though it is a story about a dog, and thus emotion bait for a certain strain of animal lover that includes me, it is also much more than a story about a dog. All human frailties are on display—greed, lust, cruelty, gluttony, etc., etc.—and the animals don't always come off looking so good either. Events unfold in this short novel with the feel of raw life, and are often vividly felt. But until the very end, after all the humans have left, and only after they have left, it's the humans' world and the dogs just live in it. That's a reasonable point of view. Yet even as the softening humanizing goes on, there is also a very effective kneecap-high point of view of the necessarily subservient dog, surviving. All the people who cross Buck's path, essentially random names and voices and behavior, come to define themselves within view of him. Buck is also an interesting case because he is a bit of a superhero and yet remains sympathetic. The noble beast and all that of course open to clichéd familiarity, but Jack London somehow makes it work. In many ways the huffing guff about ancient memories awaked and whatnot actually works for the sake of the dog—who, one senses, wants it made clear that he's not the one going on in such veins, it's rather the author of the tome. Thus we are put so far into the dog's head. Another thing London is good at is animalness, as when he describes Buck enjoying the sensation of warm blood on his gums from fresh kill. Yeah, must say—sounds like animal stuff to me!

In case it's not at the library.

"The Beast in the Jungle" (1903)

This late longish story by Henry James is both a fine example of his language at its most tangled, tentative, and nuanced—with approximately one million hedges before the arrival of any period at the end of any sentence—and also a tender and penetrating love story among the middle-aged. We have a good deal more psychological jargon now for the romance at hand—better make that "friendship," the term of choice by author and principals alike—and the general direction it takes between John Marcher and May Bartram. "Fear of commitment" will do, most of that on Marcher's side (of course). The title refers to a conviction Marcher has long held that he will one day be called upon to confront something great and fearsome in his life (the "beast in the jungle" of the title), and hopes only to be able to rise to the occasion when it comes. He admitted this to her spontaneously, when they had met once when they both were in their 20s. When they meet again in their 30s she raises it as a question and he confirms his continuing belief. This is not such an unusual fantasy in the scheme of things (or oops, maybe I gave away something about myself there), but May takes him as seriously as he takes himself, and designs to stay by his side, waiting with him. Waiting is as much what this story is about as anything, and one of its great surprises, as in life, is the swiftness of time. They enter their middle age together, waiting—with respect and even with affection, waiting. Then May becomes deathly ill, sees the beast itself that John must face—a very specific one, and not death—and spends the rest of the story trying to protect him from it, refusing to name it for him. It is almost maddening the way James dances around the point, but it is finally a real and profound one, and it finally gets through to us and to John too, after May has died. It's a remarkable achievement, I think. Terrifying, profound, and believable, tying up its loose ends with grace and humility, it pretty much has to be told the way James has done so.

"interlocutor" count = 0 / 42 pages

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