When Mamah, Frank Lloyd Wright’s long time lover, was brutally killed along with her children, Frank wrote to the papers. Frustrated with the old raking up of gossip and scandal, he defended her as

“..(a) noble woman (who) had a soul that belonged to her alone – that valued womanhood above wifehood or motherhood. A woman with a capacity for love and life made really by a … finer courage, a higher more difficult ideal of the white flame of chstity than was ‘moral’ or expedient and for which she was compelled to crucify all that society holds sacred and essential – in name…”

Loving Frank is a novel that imagines the journey of such a woman, from the beginnings of her affair (they were both married at the time – she with two children, he with six) to her death. The author noted in an end note that there wasn’t much documentary evidence regarding Mamah, just a few letters and her translations of a feminist author. There was also plenty in the newspaper archives regarding the then scandalous affair. The author, Nancy Horan, does a compelling job of bringing Mamah and her dilemma to life.

The imagined Mamah is proudly, staunchly feminist – a highly intelligent woman who married a kind but very ordinairy man. She wants more, and in meeting Frank she finds it. He is certainly her intellectual equal, he is highly creative, and above all they love each other. But the story doesn’t end when they finally run away together – they have children, and now a reputation. They need money, they need friends, they need for their relationship to work. Mamah worries about being cut off from her children, and realises that she may have alienated her sister with her actions. Frank has troubles getting commissions and with his mother. Troubles, mundane and extraordinairy, dog their relationship. They have the great love that they flouted convention for, but not the happy ever after ending, particularly when it comes to the children.

The book is really one long question – was it worth it? The sudden, senseless ending of Mamah’s life means that there is no final answer. It does make you think, though – if this happened now, even with the greatly reduced scandal – what would the costs be? And would it be worth it?

Henry Hill: [narrating] Anything I wanted was a phone call away. Free cars. The keys to a dozen hideout flats all over the city. I bet twenty, thirty grand over a weekend and then I’d either blow the winnings in a week or go to the sharks to pay back the bookies. 
[Henry leaves the witness stand and speaks directly to the camera] 
Henry Hill: Didn’t matter. It didn’t mean anything. When I was broke, I’d go out and rob some more. We ran everything. We paid off cops. We paid off lawyers. We paid off judges. Everybody had their hands out. Everything was for the taking. And now it’s all over. 
Henry Hill: [narrating] And that’s the hardest part. Today everything is different; there’s no action… have to wait around like everyone else. Can’t even get decent food – right after I got here, I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce, and I got egg noodles and ketchup. I’m an average nobody… get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099685/

Violent, bloody, full of foul language and foul people. But what a great movie. Even as the main character repels you, you come to understand him and his world, so that no matter how appalling his actions you can completely understand why he did what he did. And I love that they didn’t try to make them cute – these guys are nasty thugs, and they really don’t give a shit about people liking them. As Henry comes out in the final shot in his pyjamas and gown, bitching about the boringness of normal life, you can’t help but hope he has a tiresome, profitless life in sales, or perhaps is a middle manager at a fast food chain with a bunch of stoner high school kids for staff. A glimpse into the violent counterculture that dominated life for so many in the US back when (and perhaps now too?) that makes me very, very glad I’m not a gangster.

My mother was happy that day, we did not know why. And if she was sad the next, we did not know why. And if she was gone the next, we did not know why. It was as if she righted herself continually against some current that never ceased to pull. She swayed continuously, like a thing in water, and it was graceful, a slow dance, a sad and heady dance.

This quote, from the end of the book, is talking about the main character’s mother, but it could equally be talking about her aunt, or the main character, or the book itself. It’s a sad, slow book but it quickly pulls you into its current so that you join the characters in their heady, but sombre, dance

They say that this book breaks with conformity, depicting drifting as an alternative to the usual settled life. I suppose it does in a way; the protagonist, Ruth, eventually breaks with her conventional sister and joins her aunt in a vagrant life, travelling by rail and working when she feels like it. But it in no way glamorizes this life, and to me it seemed like her choice was similar to choosing death. Her sister indeed must presume her dead, since she is reported as being so after their disappearance when they were last seen crossing a precarious rail bridge across a deep and often fatal lake. Ruth’s own grandfather lies at the bottom, trapped forever in the carriage of his runaway train, and her mother is too, sitting at the wheel she drove deliberately (it seems) over a cliff. And her episodes of running away, starting with just to the lake shore and going further afield until her final disappearance, are always linked with fear, and cold. I was all for the heroine to turn from her career and start trying to fit in like her sister.

It seems though that the point of this book is not really the story, although it fascinated me despite it’s gentle and predictable trajectory. The writing, and the meditation on life and death, is the focus. It takes you to another place and another state of mind, a cold, dismal place but one that draws you in, just as Ruth is drawn. It’s a book that deserves rereading to understand fully, although I think I’ll wait for sunnier weather to revisit the foggy world that Robinson has so beautifully and compellingly created.

“Filled with warmth and humour, sadness and tenderness…” the back cover promised. #1 National Best Seller, the front cover trumpeted. Inside, it was like reading the longest Readers Digest story ever. Perhaps it makes more sense if you’re American. And from a small town. And don’t like new fangled rubbish like plots, or humor, or points to anecdotes. 

Even the stuff that I kind of got, just never got there in terms of interest or funniness. So, on page 181, despite having nothing else to read, I put it down for the last time with a deep feeling of relief. I’ll go back to reading the Japanese instructions on what paper to use in the toilet instead.

Miles, who had promise when he was young, is now disappointed and disappointing lives in a small town in Maine that is the civic equivilent of his own life. Sustained by the church and his love for his daughter, he passively accepts the misery his ex-wife and father give him. Furthermore, he, and the whole town, are manipulated by the former owner of the mills.

Since I’m moving to Maine, I found the book somewhat dismaying – life seemed dull, not only in the sense of boring but in the sense that all the things that makes life shine, like friendship and culture and ideas were emphatically not present. As I read on, though, it turned out that life wasn’t so bad, and that opportunities were there for the taking, even for Miles. I grew to love the town and its characters, which were all well described and were able to surprise even when I thought I had them all figured out. Best of all, for all the misery on the surface, this is a very funny book.

In The Age of Innocence, the customs of Newland Archer’s ’small tribe’ of the Old New York aristocracy prevents there being much action; deviations from the social norm are judged as ‘vulgar’ and can lead to social ostracism. Thinking himself in love with May Welland, a beautiful and exemplary example of a society maiden, Newland’s world is shaken when he meets May’s cousin Ellen. Ellen was raised in Europe, and after a stormy marriage to a Frenchman has returned to her family in New York and is seeking a divorce. Being unaware of the social codes and taboos, Ellen awakens Newland to the artificiality of his world while shocking the rest of her family with her lack of heed for convention.

Newland imagines himself as the prime actor in this drama, choosing between two women, but the females are more aware, and more resourceful, than he realises. It was interesting to contrast the direct, selfish plans of Newland with the subtle plans of the women, in which duty played a key part. There’s also a contrast between the vacillation of Newland, who often feels like he is in a dream state or that things are unreal, with the very practical and down to earth nature of the women. Ellen is the clearest example of this, where she refuses Newland’s appeals to run away with him, he claiming to be ‘beyond’ the conventions that bind him to his wife and his society. Ellen replies;

“No, you’re not! You’ve never been beyond. And I have,” she said in a strange voice, “and I know what it looks like there”

As he presses her with romantic reasons about being outside normal experience, she remains firm and practical, reminding him of his outside obligations that have not disappeared just because he has fallen in love. May, too, is aware of duty and the bonds it imposes, and when she feels herself threatened does not hesitate to use her pregnancy with both Ellen and Newland to remind them of Newland’s responsibilities.

May’s acceptance of the world she lives in is looked down upon by Newland, who despises her blind submission and lack of emotional development. Ellen is Newland’s idea of May’s antithesis; knowing, cultured and not one to bow to convention. The truth is, though, that both women are not what Newland thinks they are. Ellen, like May, is blind to certain aspects of the world – she doesn’t so much flout convention in New York as not even realise that it is there, any more than May deliberately ignores those outside her set; both just assume that life outside their immediate world is the same as theirs. Indeed, just as Newland expresses private annoyance at May’s innocence, he does so with Ellen’s when she first arrives and is as relaxed at her welcome party ‘as if’ she didn’t realise how nearly the event was a failure. The truth is, of course, that she didn’t realise this.

Likewise, May is not entirely the innocent that Newland assumes her to be. He is given warning of this when they are engaged, and Newland presses for an earlier marriage date. To his surprise, May’s reason for refusal is that it seems that he is not sure about her, and that is why he wants to be married soon. He resumes his complacency soon afterwards, when May suspects that her rival is an old flame of his with whom he had an affair – while surprised that she noticed what was meant to be clandestine, the romance seems so dead to him that he thinks her powers of perception weak. Of course, after being reassured that that particular woman is no threat, May quickly finds that he loves Ellen, and plays her moves very carefully until she is finally able to produce her trump card of a child.

She does this without ever telling Newland directly of her knowledge, although he suspects her and her family of knowing and conspiring to bring about the socially proper ending. When he does find out from his son that she knew how important Ellen was to him he is touched, never suspecting that the person who had understood his struggles the most had been his wife. He was just as blind in certain areas as he had perceived others to be.

One point my thoughts keep returning to after reading this book is Newland’s final proposal to Ellen. Resisting an adulterous affair, she finally says that she would accept him once, and then return to her husband who had treated her so cruelly. Newland at first revolts against this option, as we suspect she means him to, but shortly after he accepts it. He asks to meet her tomorrow – she prevaricates, and arranges for the day after tomorrow – and later we learn that she returned the key he sent her, arranged her grandmother to support her in Europe and fled to Washington until her departure. Still later, we learn that May paid her a visit and told her about her pregnancy leading the reader to believe that it was this news that made Ellen act the way she did. But it is not clear why, and I wonder if Ellen made her decisions before this. She had repeatedly expressed that she did not want to return to her husband, and Newland himself sees the cruelty of such a move, publicly defending her initial departure and her subsequent refusals to return. When he accepts her offer, he is implicitly saying that while he did not think she should return for the sake of others, he did think it worth it for his own sake – in other words, his own desires outweighed his ideas of what was right or what was good for her, if he was willing to trade a single night of pleasure for a lifetime of her misery. She had previously mentioned that part of his attraction for her was his unfailing kindness and championship of her; when he abandoned this side of him, could she still love him?

We do not know, as when he has a chance to meet her twenty six years later, his wife now dead, he comes as far as the door and then returns. Like the hero in his favorite scene, he would rather express his love in a silent, romantic but futile gesture, one that does not allow the heroine to know if she is loved or not. This final image reminded me of an earlier one in a garden, where he picks up the umbrella of the one he loves and inhales its scent, only to find out that it belonged to a completely different woman.

Did Newland truly love Ellen? Did he truly love May in the end? Did he truly know either of them, or just the images he had of them which, like the umbrella, were not their own? The signs are as contradictory as the recurring motif of a woman plucking a daisy to find out her lover’s feelings. Just as that was considered the artistic high point of the opera, so to me the ambiguity of all the characters is what draws me to this book.

This is a beautiful, satisfying story of a young girl’s search for understanding about her mother. The characters are wonderful, slightly eccentric but completely believable and the story follows a natural, unhurried pace to its end.

It is described as ‘inspiring’, and it is, but what I particularly liked is how it carefully avoided the unrealistic fervour that America is unfortunately known for. The message of ‘believe in yourself, you are a good person, the universe is on your side’ was not over done, and somehow conveyed the idea of limitless potential along with a good dose of common sense about how to react with dignity when life doesn’t live up to expectations.

Interesting that both the female authors I have read so far have been concerned with family and how to be a good member of a family, whereas the male authors so far have written about individuals, possibly connected but rarely bonded with another. The exception would be A Prayer for Owen Meany, but the story is about a bond severed by death, and the main character at the time of the book has been twenty years without closeness. Unsuccessful relationships litter the tales and an inablity to have sex for some reason was a theme in The Catcher in the Rye and A Prayer for Owen Meany. Whitman is the only one who seems to delight in relationships, although in his case it is with the world and everyman rather than with a special group or person.

This homey, simple story has been a favorite of mine since I was a child. Reading it again was like a breath of fresh air after all the dark symbols of decay and overreach I have been ingesting recently. I love that the central struggle for the girls is to be good and become the women that their father hopes they will. The father figure is about a well rounded enabling device as Citizen Kane’s Rosebud was, and the main action centers on the girls with a cameo role played by their male neighbours.

The values are old fashioned and very Protestant, but they were the ones I was brought up with and still respect, although some I consider a little too old fashioned. It is odd to think that at the same time Alcott was regretfully denouncing Meg for wearing a low cut silk dress and drinking champagne, Whitman was lying in the grass one transparent summer morning, a lover athwart his hips….despite their differences, how young and idealistic, how full of hope that the world can and should be better they both are!

I was in need of encouragement with my American cultural journey after The Catcher in the Rye, and Citizen Kane gave it in bucketloads. It started slow – and black and white is kind of an instant turn-off for those of us brought up with full color – but by the end I was hooked. Even the ‘dollar-book Freud’ plot enabling device of Rosebud didn’t bother me – after all, the movie needs some reason to carry on.

Had a quick look on the internet about it – plenty about parallels with a certain Mr Hearst (who would doubtless be all but forgotten now if he hadn’t raised hell about the slanderous nature of the film) and with Orson Welles himself; as he said ‘I started at the top and worked my way down’. I’m surprised there isn’t more about Mr Kane as a metaphor for America. After all, the ‘founding principles’ of the paper are openly compared to The Declaration of Independence, and as Kane starts his fall those same principles are sent back to him, as a reminder. The rural log cabin start, the sudden prosperity, the break with the mother (or mother country, in the case of America), the desire for free speech and democracy above all, the aquirement of allies and wealthy, powerful friends and precious objects; and then the slide down as, still rich, Mr Kane loses friends and influence, remembering at moments of crisis what was most important to him at the beginning, but never reaching to regain the arcadia. The symbol of Kane as America is not a perfect fit – I can’t see how forcing someone you love to do something they are not suited to could be transferred to America – but I like it the better for that. Imagery can get a little too neat sometimes, and whatever Kane did or did not represent, first and foremost there was a story to be told.

I had been talking with Isaac about the books I’d read so far before the movie. Because of that, one quote in particular made an impression on me;

A toast, Jedediah, to love on my terms. Those are the only terms anybody ever knows – his own.

I haven’t read so much American literature so far, but a central theme seems to be the desire to be loved, admired and successful – but not a desire to love, or to admire, or to aid another in their success. I guess that’s fairly true of most modern literature. It is an interesting contrast to Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter where the central character kept quiet for the sake of the man she loved. I also wonder if ‘love on my terms’ is necessarily bad, at least if the terms are reasonable. Few would advocate a woman standing by a man who beat her, for instance. Yet for all that, there is something cold and ruthless about such a demand. I wonder why that theme has recurred – I’m guessing it was just a central concern of the first part of the 1900’s in the US, although I suppose it could just be chance.

What a tiresome book. Holden Caulfield, the priveleged but discontented teenage protagonist and narrator, leaves his school a couple of days before the holidays after being told that he can’t come back the next semester. He spends a couple of discontented, self obsessed days moping around in New York, dismissing everyone else as a phony except little kids who ‘kill him’. He is fascinated with sex, but is equally drawn to celibacy. His life is aimless. The only thing he cares about is his family, particularly his younger sister and his dead younger brother. The girl he really fancies, who he met on holiday in Maine, he avoids talking to or meeting again, despite his strong feelings for her.

Salinger has probably captured the teen spirit of the age perfectly, and that is why I could not wait for the book to end. Bilsdungromans are only any good if the character actually develops into something, but Holden didn’t. There’s kind of a hint at the end, in an afterward, when he refers to someone as ‘affected’ rather than ‘a phoney’, that his language at least has evolved, but it’s too little, too late.