Review: The Elfland Prepositions, by Henry Wessells

Review: The Elfland Prepositions, by Henry Wessells

by Rich Horton

Henry Wessells is a bookseller, writer, and publisher. His imprint, Temporary Culture, has published a number of books in the SF/Fantasy genre as well as some critical works. He also runs a website and newsletter devoted to Avram Davidson. I first encountered his fiction with a remarkable story in the New York Review of Science Fiction back in 2003, "Ten Bears; or, A History of the Weterings: A Critical Fiction". Shortly thereafter he published a beautiful collection, Another Green World, which also displayed his bookbinding talents. (The allusion to one of my favorite Brian Eno albums also delighted me.) Since then I have met Henry in person a few times at the science fiction convention Readercon. 

His latest book is this collection of four more "critical fictions", a label which I take to mean works of fiction that openly acknowledge, and comment on, their debt to previous works. These stories, written between 2017 and 2024, depict the interactions of people from our world and Elfland from the point of view of the lower classes; and rather cynically. The main charactes are a cleaner, a barmaid, a dry-cleaner (and automobile manufacturer!) and a detective. The afterword directly cites Lord Dunsany's The King of Elfland's Daughter, Hope Mirrlees' Lud-in-the-Mist, and Sylvia Townsend Warner's Kingdoms of Elfin; and the stories themselves directly allude to many other writers (a helpful list of works cited is included.)

In "Cleaning Up Efland" the narrator wants to go to Elfland but not as a changeling or slave, and learns how to get jobs there as a house cleaner -- there's not much more to the story than that except of course for the language, and sly references, and the way we see something real about life (if that's what it is) in Elfland. In "The Barmaid from Elfland" the narrator recognizes the title character as an elf and falls for her -- which we know is dangerous! And things go, more or less, as the rules for these stories say they must -- and the story gets there beautifully. "John Z. Delorean, Dry Cleaner to the Queen of Elfland" gives the notorious automaker a backstory in which he makes an Elfland fortune by doing dry cleaning for the elves, which leads to some good fortune as he starts his business -- but of course bad fortune when the Queen turns against him. The last line here is a killer. And "A Detective in Efland" has a man hired to retrieve a young girl who has disappeared -- kidnapped by elves, the mother says. Of course there is more going on -- this is a hardboiled detective story after all -- and we learn a little more about the seamy underside of Elfland, especially the uses a certain school has for kidnapped humans.

These stories are elegantly done, very clever, beautifully dark in implication. The tricks of making Elfland effectively mysterious are ready to Wessells' hand, and so too the ways of showing both the glamour and the danger. It is nice but not necessary to pick out the allusions. Henry Wessells is not prolific at all (in fiction) but what he does is outstanding.

Review: The Tents of Wickedness, by Peter De Vries

Review: The Tents of Wickedness, by Peter De Vries

A review by Rich Horton

Peter De Vries is one of my favorite midcentury American writers, and one somewhat neglected these days. This is in part because he was a comic novelist, and his primary subject, suburban adultery, may have lost centrality as time passed. For all that though, he could be very funny indeed; and he could also be very serious, in the midst of comedy, as with my choice for his greatest novel, The Blood of the Lamb.

The Tents of Wickedness (1959), however, is not quite a success. It's a sequel to Comfort Me With Apples, from 1956. The main character, Charles (Chick) Swallow, was also the main character in Comfort Me With Apples, and in both novels he is tempted into adultery, though in very different ways. In the first novel, he had just taken a job as advice columnist for the local paper in Decencey, CT, the Picayune Blade; and through the course of the novel his advice had at times backfired, in particular in the case of his brother-in-law Nickie. He still has that job in the new novel, and Nickie is still a problem -- indeed, Chick's sister is ready to divorce him.

But the main engine of the plot is Beth ("Sweetie") Appleyard, a girl he had dated in high school but had never managed to get into bed. As The Tents of Wickedness opens, he and his wife are going to a neighborhood party -- and it turns out Sweetie is to be their babysitter. This is a bit of a problem for Chick, as he's convinced his wife will ferret out their shared past. But the big problem is Sweetie herself, who has gotten stuck in an extended adolescence. And her father seems to blame Chick -- for an incident in the coalbin when they were very young; and then, paradoxically, for not deflowering Sweetie when they were teens. 

So Chick ends up entangle in various schemes to get Sweetie to mature. This involves at first a number of parodies she has written of prominent poems, which Chick manages to get published. On the strength of this Sweetie moves to Greenwich village, but, disappointed that the boys she meets seem too serious, she returns to Decency, and tells Chick that she wants a child, but doesn't want to get married. Chick refuses to impregnate her until is seems she'll choose Nickie instead, and so to try to save his sister's marriage, he nobly sleeps with Sweetie.

The results of Chick's various maneuverings, along with Nickie gaining a second personality as a master thief, not surprisingly gets Chick in more and more trouble. Add in Sweetie's father getting involved with a British woman who might have her eyes on the family fortune; plus changes at the newspaper, and then an attempt to place Sweetie's child with an appropriate adoptive family, and ... well, lots of tangles.

The problem is, these tangles end up being a bit tiresome, and not terribly convincing. The characters are not as well realized as many of De Vries' characters -- particularly Sweetie, who never really comes to life. And the novel itself is a stylistic tour-de-force, that only works about half the time -- the chapters are written in the style of a series of well-known novelists. For me, alas, while I had no trouble figuring out when the novelist was Austen, or Hemingway, or Kafka; I was stymied by the likes of John P. Marquand. More importantly, though, the effort of mimicry -- well enough pulled off -- seemed to interfere with De Vries' comic timing, and the book just isn't as funny as his best work. 

Review: I Who Have Never Known Men, by Jacqueline Harpman

Review: I Who Have Never Known Men, by Jacqueline Harpman

by Rich Horton

Jacqueline Harpman (1929-2012) was a Belgian novelist, filmmaker, and psychoanalyst; a woman of many parts who was also fascinated by physics and astronomy. She was of Jewish heritage, and her family spent the war years in Casablanca to escape the Nazis. (Several relatives were killed in the Holocaust.) Her first husband was a film director and she collaborated on several of his films, and turned to writing and then to psychiatry. She published a couple of dozen books, with considerable success. I Who Have Never Known Men (1995) was the first of her books to be translated into English, in 1997 as Mistress of Silence; and several further novels have been translated since then. Mistress of Silence was reissued in 2022 as I Who Have Never Known Men, a more direct translation of the French title (Moi qui n'ai pas connu les hommes) and also a direct quote from the novel. It gained considerable popularity at the time. The translator is Ros Schwartz. I listened to the audiobook, read very well by Nikki Massoud.

The unnamed (even to herself) narrator opens by telling us that she is alone as she writes this account, and will likely die soon. And then she tells of her life. Her first memories are of life in an underground cage. She is the only child in a group of 40 women, who are kept prisoner by a group of men, guards. They never leave the cage, and the men never enter the cage. They are kept in order by whips, though by the time of the story, the women never seem to be hit -- the snap of the whip near them is enough. They are not allowed to touch each other, and they have no books, no paper, no clock. The single toilet is out in the open.

This goes on for years, until the narrator, called the "child" by the other women, is about 15. She is pubescent, and has what seem to be sexual fantasies, but is not wholly developed sexually. She has passed from a feeling of anger with the other women to some accommodation -- after years of refusing to tell her anything, they begin to tell her what they know of their situation, and what they remember of their past life -- very little in either case. The narrator learns simple math, learns to count time, and becomes friends with a 40ish woman named Anthea. 

Then, one day as food is passed into their cage, there is an alarm, and the guards suddenly flee, leaving the keys in the lock -- and so the women escape. They head upstairs and go outside, and find themselves on a large and almost featureless plain. There is lots of food stored in their prison, and some equipment. They set up a camp outside, and then, led by the narrator, begin exploring. In time they discover additional prisons, in which they inevitably find 40 dead people -- sometimes all women, sometimes all men. They make themselves homes. And, of course, the women begin to die, of old age, illness, and suicide. Meanwhile the narrator is ever learning, learning eventually to read and write, and after everyone else has died, making a couple more significant discoveries.

But still, never an understanding of what disaster led to their imprisonment (and that of so many more.) Nor do they even know where they are -- this planet can hardly be Earth. In this way this novel -- rightly acknowledged as a work of science fiction -- radically differs from most genre SF, for there is no explanation, no understanding. What is it about, then? It is most definitely NOT, unlike what some remarkably obtuse critics have suggested, anything at all like The Handmaid's Tale. And while in many ways it describes a terrible, and very sad, situation, it is oddly not bleak in tone. This is largely a function of the narrator's voice, and of her innocence, resulting in her knowing nothing of the Earth where she was born. But nor is it at all triumphalist. The narrator knows that her life in the end means nothing, solves nothing. She appears to -- to the extent possible -- live a good life, if a lonely life; but she certainly mourns what she missed. The story does have something to say about organizing a life, a small society, in a nearly hopeless situation. It does have something to say about life without men -- but remember that the men imprisoned here had a life without women. It's a strange and mysterious book -- more involving than I expected on first encountering it. I don't think it's as good as its reputation suggests -- perhaps I am so much a genre reader that I really do miss some explanation -- but it's worth reading. 

Review: Bewilderment, by Richard Powers

Review: Bewilderment, by Richard Powers

by Rich Horton

Richard Powers is a very successful literary novelist whose works always address scientific ideas, and often cross the ill-defined border into actual science fiction. He became a bestseller with his 2018 novel The Overstory, about trees and forests. He is roughly my age, and we were at the University of Illinois at the same time (though I didn't know him), so I've long kept track of his work, and I loved his early novel The Gold Bug Variations. He has won a MacArthur Fellowship, a Pulitzer Prize, and a National Book Award. 

His most recent novels have been intensely concerned with ecological systems and with ecological catastrophe. Bewilderment, from 2021, certainly fits that template. And it is definitely science fiction -- set in the present day more or less, but in a slightly alternate history.

Theo Byrne is an astrobiologist at the University of Wisconsin, with a nine year old son, Robin, who has some problems. Robin presents to this reader, at least, as somewhere on the autism spectrum (quite high-functioning.) He is prone to fits of rage, and he is very sensitive. Also, his mother Alyssa died in an accident a couple of years before the events of the novel -- a loss that has devastated both Theo and Robin. As the novel opens, the two are on vacation in the Smoky Mountains, near where Theo and Alyssa had honeymooned, and we see Robin's fascination with the stars (Theo's focus) and wildlife (Aly's focus.)

Back in Madison, we learn about Robin's troubles in school, and about Theo's impatience with the "medicate first, ask questions later" attitudes of school officials and doctors -- he doesn't think that treatment will help his son. The two are vegan -- learned from Aly, who was an animal rights activist. One of their shared pastimes is virtually visiting simulations of exoplanets, using a program Theo has developed with the intent of understanding how to detect signatures of life in the data from worlds circling other stars. One of Robby's obsessions is following in his mother's footsteps: doing everything he can to protect animals from the ecological devastation caused by humans. In pursuit of this he starts drawing animals from the Endangered Species List, and even stages a protest at the state capitol building.

Under pressure to enter Robin in a treatment regimen, especially after he broke a classmate's cheekbone in an understandable fit of rage, Theo takes up another Professor's offer of seeing if an experimental treatment will help. The technique is real -- Decoded Neurofeedback, or DecNef, and Professor Currier is hoping to use the treatment for emotional problems, indeed, to induce empathy in subjects. Theo and Aly had contributed some early brain state readings, but Theo has come to suspect that Aly and Currier had had an affair. Still, any hope for Robin is worth it, and Robin enters into the program, with good results that become astonishing when he trains himself using Aly's brain scans. Indeed, he begins to feel that his mother is somehow present in his mind.

But all this is set against an horrifying political backdrop. The President is viciously anti-Science, for essentially religious reasons. In many ways he resembles Trump -- though in his case his attempt to overturn an election result is successful. And his stance against science imperils not just the program Robin has been using; but Theo's life work, which depends on the Next Gen Space Telescope, and then on a follow on project which will allow very precise observations of exoplanets. Alongside all this, their are increasing climate-related catastrophes, and serious threats of plagues, and other more mundane issues.

I won't detail the way the book is resolved, though we are given hint after hint. (Most obviously, a book Robin and Theo read is Flowers for Algernon.) But it's a remarkable achievement. I did find myself arguing with it at times, and I do feel that Theo (and perhaps the author) failed to show empathy for some of the characters cast as villains, which I found ironic in a way. But the ultimate message comes through, and does so very powerfully, and the final scene is beautiful indeed. The various themes are wonderfully intertwined -- our empathy, for humans and other species is important. Understanding life on other planets is important. The various different forms of life Theo's simulations show is important. Alyssa's life, death, and lifework is a sort of running commentary. Beauty is everywhere, and so is ugliness and tragedy. And the scientific ideas are not only interesting in themselves but truly reinforce the novel's themes. Even the title is an intertwined them: "bewilderment" at the way people ignore science, "bewilderment" at the way Robin's mind works, and also a command, sort of, to "be wilder", or to engage in "bewilderment" as a sort of analog to "rewilding".

An outstanding book, and one of the best SF novels of the past several years, which, sadly, was not noticed with the field as much as it should have been.

Review: The English Air, by D. E. Stevenson

Review: The English Air, by D. E. Stevenson

by Rich Horton

(I reviewed a few novels already by Robert Louis Stevenson's cousin Dorothy: so, biographical details can be found here.)

D. E. Stevenson published two novels in 1940 -- The English Air, and Rochester's Wife. Both novels are set in the late '30s. Both novels feature families with men in the military. Rochester's Wife was the first Stevenson novel I read, and I thought it kind of a mess -- though it was just good enough in certain ways that I decided to keep trying her novels. (Also, I had enough friends eagerly promoting her work that I figured something was going on!) Since then I've read a few more of her novels, and the best of them are quite delightful, so I'm happy I kept up with it.

One of the things that bothered me about Rochester's Wife was how oblivious the characters seemed to the coming catastrophe. So it was interesting to get to the The English Air (which I believe was written right after she wrote Rochester's Wife, though it may have been published earlier in the year.) The English Air opens in 1938, when Franz Heiden, a young German man, whose father is a midlevel official in the Nazi regime, but whose late mother was English, comes to stay with his mother's first cousin, Sophie, at Chellford, a seaside town. This visit is on the surface a reason for Franz to (at long last) visit his mother's family (his father's controlling nature, and anger at the English role in WWI, had previously prevented this.) He also wants to improve his English, and his father wants him to report on English morale (not strictly spying, just observation.)

Sophie's daughter, Wynne, is a free-spirited and attractive girl just a few years younger than Franz, and so any reader of D. E. Stevenson knows where that's going right away. And there are really no surprises in that romance plot. But that's not really the heart of the novel. For one thing, it's an ensemble piece, and we see things via several characters. Sophie herself is an important character -- a fortyish woman with a reputation for a sort of silliness, but with a way with people so that everyone likes her, and a way with her silliness that's rather deep. Sophie's husband has died, and his half-brother Dane, who is independently wealthy, manages the house and Sophie's finances. Dane himself, Major Worthington, is an interesting and mysterious character -- he had a "good war" in the first War, but suffered some sort of injury, and so doesn't do any particular work, and spends a fair amount of time overseas, for his health. (Again, most readers will quickly cotton to what Dane really does with his time.) Wynne's brother Roy is in the Navy, and their local friends include members of the military as well. 

As time goes by, Franz learns colloquial English, and sends increasingly puzzled reports to his father. At first he finds the English lazy and unprepared, but slowly learns that there is steel behind this attitude. (It could be said that there is a bit of English bias behind some of Stevenson's depictions.) He realizes his feelings for Wynne, but knows it is impossible for them to have a relationship (plus his father would never consent.) His frustrated father begins to ask him to return to Germany, but he doesn't want to leave, and eventually Dane (who also is worried about his attraction to Wynne) gets him a job in London. The Munich Agreement comes in September, and Franz is overjoyed. No war! Peace in our time! Germany and England friends forever! But of course these hopes are dashed when Hitler takes Czechoslovakia -- and Franz's eyes are fully opened. He quickly converts to complete opposition to Hitler -- but he knows his place is back in Germany ...

All along the English characters realize that war will surely come. And Stevenson is really very good in portraying the months before the War, and the few months after it starts. (The book ends on February 29, 1940 -- exactly when Stevenson finished writing it, and a couple of months before Dunkirk.) Each of the characters is affected, of course. Franz (now called Frank by his English friends) is back home, but alienated from his father. Wynne and her friends set up a hospital. Roy and the others in the military are in active service of course. And Dane -- Dane has a pretty important role himself. I won't detail what happens, but there is adventure and sweetness and surprise -- and an ending that is meant to be hopeful but, as written, almost certainly means that (as with so many in the War!) the final fates of some of the characters will be sad. 

Oddly, the specific conclusion to the novel -- at least, Franz's plans -- became impossible within days of Stevenson finishing the book, and this edition (from the Furrowed Middlebrow imprint of Dean Street Books) reproduces some correspondence between Stevenson and her publishers, in which she wonders if she should alter the ending, and even if the book should be shelved until after the War. But the publishers felt that wasn't necessary, and settled for a brief explanatory note. (Apparently, Stevenson did provide a replacement conclusion, but it has been lost.)

This is quite a fine book -- much better than Rochester's Wife. The romances (there are two) are well enough done but kind of minor. Where the book shines is simply the portrayal of life in England (and a bit of life in Germany) in the runup to the War. And the characters are nicely done as well, particularly Sophie -- another wonderfully captured middle-aged woman -- Stevenson (a middle-aged woman herself at the time) was really good with those characters in many of her books.

Review: Den of Thieves, by Daniel Hatch

Review: Den of Thieves, by Daniel Hatch

by Rich Horton

Starting in 1990, Daniel Hatch published a couple of dozen stories, mostly in Analog. I always looked forward to them, and I've missed them over the past decade or so. They were well done science fiction, careful with the scientific details, interesting with the social organization.

I met Daniel in person just recently at Boskone, and he revealed that he is beginning to self-publish a number of novels. The first two (and I don't know how many more) are part of a series called Slow Space -- the basic conceit being that space travel is roughly instantaneous to the traveler, but lightspeed to the rest of the universe, via the "soliton drive". The novels are based in part on stories that first appeared in Analog. I bought the first one, Den of Thieves.

Den of Thieves is assembled from four separate long stories, the last three of which appeared in Analog ("Den of Foxes" (December 1990), "Den of Sorrow" (March 1991), and "Den of Wolves" (July 1991).) There is a long opening novella length section as well. The stories are set on a planet of Mu Casseiopia, Asgard. A crowded Earth has started a planetary colonization project, first by sending smallish groups ("dens") of "scouts" to survey a promising planet and prepare the way for the colonists. As the novel opens, young Guy Stanger, just a short time before official adulthood, is leading a group of young scouts on a routine inspection tour to Glacier Valley. The kicker is that not long after this is "Colony Day", the date when the "breakthrough" colonists will arrive, 20 ships with 5000 people each. Guy's feelings are bit mixed -- for one thing, the scouts won't have the planet to themselves anymore. 

This story continues to set up the main conflict of the novel. The colony ships arrive, but so does another ship. This latter one is from the Eta Casseiopia system, which had been colonized some time earlier. A group led by one Peter Kolberg is offering advice on how to avoid the mistakes they had made at Eta Cass -- in exchange, of course, for some room on Asgard. But there is a lot of suspicion as to their motives -- from Guy Stanger, for sure, and also from one of the leaders of one of the colony "dens", Suzanne Baxter. As the first section ends, Guy and Suzanne (and others) manage to keep the Kolbergs from achieving all their goals, but they remain a threat. And Suzanne's daughter Emily and Guy quickly become an item. A couple of other significant characters are introduced: Emily's precocious younger brother Joey, and a struggling but hardworking colonist, Lin Palmer

The rest of the novel details the Kolberg's continuing machinations, mostly political, but involving some pretty slimy stuff as well (rape and murder included.) At the same time, the Kolbergs do have some beneficial experience to offer, and the ending of the novel reveals a the pretty clever (and science fictional) plan they are really following. The novel also interestingly treats basic issues of the colonization process -- from the way the den organization works, to the choice between a more centralized political structure and a more dispersed structure, to the really impressive amount of equipment the colonists bring -- this is something that few SFnal stories seem to deal with. Add some crises -- adapting to severe weather (and setting up weather prediction systems), finding a way to at least minimize the inevitable ecological damage a huge human population will cause, setting up a durable government, and so on.

It would be fair to call this "old-fashioned" science fiction (and after all the bulk of this novel is over 30 years old.) But the political issues are still pertinent (and a bit sneaky at times.) And stories like this can be great fun -- and Den of Thieves is great fun. If I were to nitpick -- the first three sections end in slightly over-convenient and swift resolutions to the main plot problems. But the novel as a whole ends in a more satisfying fashion, and also sets up a continuing conflict that I assume will play out in future books.

Den of Thieves can be bought at various places online, and here's a link to where I buy most of my books these days, an online place to order from many of your favorite independent bookstores: Den of Thieves at bookshop.org. As it happens, the second book in the Slow Space series, The Long Game, is officially released tomorrow! And here's a link to Daniel's webpage.

Review: Annie Bot, by Sierra Greer

Review: Annie Bot, by Sierra Greer

by Rich Horton

Annie Bot is a 2024 novel, the first adult novel from a successful writer of YA books. "Sierra Greer" is a pseudonym, presumably to differentiate the author's adult work from her YA novels. It's a striking book, one of the best novels I read from last year.

Annie, the point of view character of Annie Bot, is a "cuddle bunny" -- essentially a sexbot -- owned by Doug Richards, who bought her as he was going through a divorce. As the novel opens, Doug has had Annie for a couple of years, and his friend Roland is coming to visit him, to aak Doug to be his best man. Doug has turned Annie into an "autodidactic" robot, converting her from the baseline "Stella" he had bought. "Autodidactic" robots have the capacity to learn, and the capacity for independent action -- within strict limits imposed by the owner. So, Annie essentially never leaves Doug's apartment, and is always ready for sex, which she quite enjoys (partly because she is programmed to desire to please Doug.) But on this day Doug lectures her about her lax cleaning skills (and, after all, she is not an "Abigail", a type of robot programmed for housemaind duties. We learn, over time, that there are also "Nannies", "Hunks", and "Handies".) 

Roland immediately notices that Annie resembles Doug's ex-wife Gwen, except for slightly lighter skin and different eye color, and he teases Doug about that, and about the cleaning issue. And, that night, he opens the closet door where Annie is recharging, and half-coerces her, half-seduces her. And thus Annie now has a secret to keep from Doug -- which bothers her, but also excites her. And in a sort of payment for sex, Roland gives her instructions on how to learn to program robots. 

Over the next few months her relationship with Doug has severe ups and downs. At times he is terribly controlling, insistent on her absolute loyalty and on his privacy. At other times he is very affectionate, buys her nice dresses, and they have lots of sex. He buys another robot, named Delta, to do the cleaning, but he also has sex with her, making Annie jealous. He powers Annie off for a long time as a punishment. We see Annie visiting the manufacturer for updates, which include tweaks Doug asks for to her weight and breasts; and also leads to a revelation that Annie's brain is becoming quite special -- enough so that the manufacturer want to pay Doug for copies.

The reader sees -- though Annie doesn't -- that this is a profoundly abusive relationship, complete with gaslighting and verbal abuse but mostly nothing physical (not counting the episode where Doug left her off for weeks!) And then things seem to change -- Doug is nicer to her, their relationship reaches new heights of affection, Annie gets permission to talk to AI friends, and to learn to ride a bicycle; and Doug even plans to take her to Las Vegas for Roland's bachelor party. But then it all comes crashing down when Doug figures out what Annie and Roland did that one night, and Annie fears she'll be discarded or have her memory erased, and runs away (along with Delta.)

What follows is scary, and liberating, and eventually horrifying, as Doug's rage is titanic. And he devises a truly dreadful punishment for Annie ... but then comes a period of repentance, and a return to a happier and apparently healthier relationship. Doug even agrees to a form of couples therapy, and is willing to continue to give Annie more independence ... he really is a changed man. But does that make their relationship any fairer? Then Doug does something quite remarkable for Annie ...

This is an excellent science fiction novel, exploring admittedly familiar ideas but very intelligently, and very movingly. The novel at one level reads almost like a metaphorical depiction of a particularly bad sort of sexual relationship between humans. But it is also a really thoughtful look at AI rights, and AI needs. I was reminded a bit of Rachel Swirsky's great story "Eros, Philia, Agape". It's well told, and Annie is a very believable character. Doug is perhaps less convincing, and there are some plot developments, and personality developments, that seem a bit forced to me -- the plot at times is clearly driven by the novel's didactic requirements. But that's a small complaint -- the book knows what it wants to do, and it works. I won't tell the ending, but I will say I think it sticks the landing. Highly recommended. 

Review: The Artistry of Magic, by Helen De Cruz

Review: The Artistry of Magic, by Helen De Cruz

by Rich Horton

Helen De Cruz is a Professor of Philosophy at Saint Louis University, and a writer of SF and Fantasy. She is also one of my collaborators on a forthcoming anthology of science fiction stories with philosophical themes. We know each other quite well, and have worked together not just on that anthology but on a writing seminar for philosophers, so calibrate this review as you will! The Artistry of Magic is a novella, about 18,000 words, her longest story to date, published by an intriguing South Africa based concern, The Pink Hydra.

The Artistry of Magic is set in a version of Belgium, in the late 18th Century. It is told in two threads, one from the point of view of Maarten, an unhoused man; and the other from the point of view of Johanna, a middle-aged librarian. Maarten is an unlicensed magician (having been born to a sheep farmer) and Johanna discovers him drawing pictures and enhancing them with magic outside the library. This is illegal, ostensibly because the magic might interfere with the powerful magic contained in some of the books, so Johanna must stop him. But she too came from a lower-class background, and had to battle to get her position, and she feels sympathy for Maarten.

Soon they are meeting regularly for coffee, which serves partly as a way to feed Maarten somewhat unobtrusively. Their relationship grows more personal, and soon they are lovers. And Johanna, learning of Maarten's ambition to learn more about magic and to gain a license, lends him a book from the library.

In the background, we begin to realize that there are knottier social issues impacting the characters' lives. Some of this we see through Maarten -- his life on the streets, with two friends, the three of them helping each other, as they travel from city to city depending on the attitude of the law towards unhoused people. Some we see through Johanna -- her somewhat tenuous position at the library, and her awareness of the revolutionary sentiments in neighboring France. And we see how both Maarten and Johanna don't really understand the other's positions.

Eventually Maarten learns enough, and earns enough, to get a ring to help with his magic, and to get licensed. But this puts some tension in his relationship with his friends -- and, too, there are problems with Johanna -- the missing book, and Maarten's wandering ways. There is also a sense that both Maarten and Johanna need their consciousness raised about social issues -- and the way magic in this story mirrors to an extent class divisions. All these aspects are interesting and well presented. The one weakness here, I thought, is that the story is concluded rather quickly, leaving certain questions unanswered, and resolving the central story a bit conveniently. Still, this is a sweet and enjoyable story, with the magical art a nice background, and with the sympathy for the lives of unhoused people front and center and believably conveyed.

Review: Evelina, by Frances Burney

Review: Evelina, by Frances Burney

by Rich Horton

Frances Burney (1752-1840) was the daughter of Charles Burney, a musician, composer, and writer. She was a writer from a very early age, and eventually wrote novels, plays, a biography of her father, and diaries. She also had a rather remarkable personal life -- for example, "Keeper of the Robes" for the Queen; a significant supporter of the French revolution (not the violence, but the political changes), married a French refugee, had a mastectomy -- without anesthesia! She wrote four novels, and several plays though only one was produced in her lifetime, besides her diaries, which when published posthumously were much admired, though now I think her novels are the foundation of her repuation. She was often called Fanny Burney; and Madame D'Arblay after her marriage.

Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World (1778) was Frances Burney's first published novel, though curiously it is a sequel. As a teenager Burney wrote a novel called Caroline Evelyn, about Evelina's mother. But at the age of 15 she burned all her early writing efforts, apparently out of doubt that it was proper for a woman to write for publication. Happily, she had changed her mind by her 20s, though she did bow to her father's wishes and did not seek public performance of any of her plays save one. The plays survived in manuscript, but her juvenilia obviously did not. So it's hard to say whether Caroline Evelyn was any good -- my guess is, probably not that good! -- or even how long it was. It was surely tragic, however, for at the beginning of Evelina we learn that the title character's mother was abandoned by her dissipated husband, Sir John Belmont, after she became pregnant, and that she died bearing Evelina, who has been raised to the age of 17 by her grandfather's close friend, the Reverend Arthur Villars.

Arthur Villars is a good if very morally conservative man, and has given Evelina an excellent education. She is a very beautiful young woman, very shy, and very moral. Mr. Villars only hopes to find her a good husband before he gets too old, and for her to have a happy life in the country. And he hopes to keep the secret of her birth a secret, for her father has long refused any contact, and has even refused to acknowledge that he was married to Caroline Evelyn. As the novel opens, he sends her to visit a close friend of his, Lady Howard, and eventually accedes to Evelina accompanying her friend, Lady Howard's granddaughter Miss Mirvan, to London. As Caroline Evelyn's rackety French mother (who had disowned Caroline and only recently learned of Evelina's existence) thinks Evelina is still with Mr. Villars, and Sir John Belmont is supposedly in France, there should be no trouble in the visit.

In London, Evelina and her friend go to a couple of social events, and Evelina creates something of a minor sensation with her great beauty. She is the object of unwelcome, and often quite rude, attention from various young men, including a foppish M.P., Mr. Loval; and a handsome Baronet with questionable manners, Sir Clement Willoughby. She also meets Lord Orville, a much more decent-seeming man, and dances with him. But trouble arrives when her Grandmother, Mme. Duval, tracks her down in London, and insists Evelina stay with her. This forces her to spend time with some exceedingly boorish social-climbing cousins, the Branghtons, who insist on her accompanying them to some much less savory places, where, indeed, Evelina is violently accosted by some young men. At last she manages to return to Lady Howard's, though in the mean time she has had further encounters with Sir Clement and with Lord Orville, as well as meeting a very sad young man named Mr. Macartney. Sir Clement makes more unwelcome advaances, while Lord Orville remains the perfect gentleman. But as she leaves London she sends Lord Orville a letter of thanks, and is shocked to receive an unpleasantly insinuating reply.

Now convinced that a life in the country is all she wants, she still must deal with Mme. Duval's importunities, which include a plan to sue Sir John Belmont to force him to acknowledge Evelina -- which would be fine in its way except that Mme. Duval hopes to marry her off to the loutish Tom Branghton. Captain Mirvan, meanwhile, Miss Mirvan's father, a very coarse Navy man, acts with absurd rudeness to Mme. Duval, as he hates all things French. After additional tribulations (some of them quite comic in the telling) Evelina returns to Mr. Villars, but having fallen ill is sent to Bristol to recover. And there again she encounters Sir Clement Willoughby and Lord Orville, along with some additional mostly comic characters, and over time finally gets to meet her real father, learn a secret of Mr. Macartney's, and resolve her issues with Lord Orville and with Sir Clement.

The novel is really very entertaining throughout. There is plenty of implausibility and coincidence, to be sure. Evelina's otherworldly beauty has long been a staple of romance novels, so it's hardly a surprise. Her virtue is so carefully held that at times one wishes she (and Mr. Villars) would be a bit more tolerant. Also, her dislike of causing too much of a fuss led me to wonder why she didn't give Sir Clement, or Tom Branghton, or any of a number of other men, a ringing slap from time to time. There are two threads to the novel, in a sense -- the love story, combined with the mystery of Evelina's birth (which ends up entangled with Mr. Macartney's story) is one; and the other is the lightly satrical and often quite funny observation of English social life. Both are interesting, though it's the satirical parts that make it special.

Review: Martin Chuzzlewit, by Charles Dickens

Review: Martin Chuzzlewit, by Charles Dickens

by Rich Horton

To be honest, I had planned for Great Expectations to be my next Dickens novel. But a friend had decided to attack Martin Chuzzlewit, so I figured I'd read along. I got impatient, though -- and read it through faster than advertised. I listened to much of it on my commute, but of course I also have a print copy, the Oxford World Classics edition originally from 1982, edited and with an introduction and notes by Margaret Cardwell.

Martin Chuzzlewit was published in 1843. Dickens was by then an extremely popular and financially successful novelist, and was very proud of his achievement in this book, apparently because he spent a lot of effort making the book work as an examination of a consistent theme -- that of selfishness. For all that, the novel was a comparative failure commercially -- though it must be said it still sold well. It's interesting to note that around that time Dickens turned to his Christmas novellas, with A Christmas Carol appearing in 1843, The Chimes in 1844, and The Cricket on the Hearth in 1845. 

Dickens was very open about his aim in this novel, and said aim is pretty clear. He was portraying the effects of selfishness on people, and showing the harm -- to others and often to themselves -- that selfishness does. With four exceptions (not counting minor characters) everyone exhibits selfishness -- of differing kinds. Two characters reform (not necessarily convincingly) -- these are the two title characters, Martin Chuzzlewit and his grandfather, who shares his name. The other significant selfish characters are all punished, though, again, there's reason to believe that some of the punishment is wielded by the author, and might not have resulted in the real world.

In brief terms -- hard to do for such a long novel (Martin Chuzzlewit is about 700 pages in my edition, around 340,000 words) -- this is the story of Martin Chuzzlewit, the grandson of a rich miser of the same name. Martin the younger offends his grandfather by falling in love with Martin the elder's ward, the orphan Mary Graham. Martin is disinherited, and in the process loses his position as an architect in training working for Seth Pecksniff, another relation of the elder Martin. Martin the younger travels to America to try to make his fortune, in company with his friend Mark Tapley. Meanwhile, the other parts of the Chuzzlewit family are angling for the elder Martin's good will -- the egregious hypocrite Mr. Pecksniff, the vicious Jonah Chuzzlewit, the, er, slimy Chevy Slyme. Mr. Pecksniff tries to up his odds for a piece of old Martin's fortune by dangling his somewhat unpleasant daughters in front of Jonas. Mr. Pecksniff's much put upon assistant Tom Pinch, nearly saintly in his self-abnegation, does his best to  help his friends, particularly Martin and Mary Graham, until he finally realizes Mr. Pecksniff's villainy. Jonah and Mr. Pecksniff are both entangled in the doings of the Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life Assurance Company, a pretty overt Ponzi scheme (before Ponzi!) run by Montague Tigg, or Tigg Montague, who was also involved with Chevy Slyme. Martin and Mark return from America, completely unsuccessful, and everything starts to unravel ... There are murders, thefts, terrible marriages, multiple fraudulent schemes in both England and America, plague, even an early literary detective ...

The novel is baggily structured, and there is a lot of coincidence driving the plot. The supposed main character, young Martin Chuzzlewit, isn't terribly interesting, and his romance with Mary Graham is very flat. Martin also takes up very little of the book for a protagonist -- perhaps a fifth of it. Dickens does not seem to have been able to portray love interests well -- the two virtuous young women in this book, Mary and Tom Pinch's sister Ruth, are both cyphers as characters, much like Dora and Agnes in David Copperfield. The conversion of the nice but unthinking and quite self younger Martin Chuzzlewit and the repentant elder Martin are both more convenient than believable.

All of the above are reasons why this is not one of Dickens' more highly regarded novels. But for all that -- it's really a very entertaining book. There are longueurs of course -- but there are longueurs in the much greater David Copperfield. The joys of this novel lie primarily in two areas. One is Dickens' prose, full of extended and strange but apposite descriptions of just about everything -- people, nature, buildings, schemes. The other, of course, is the characters, especially the villains. Mr. Pecksniff is one of Dickens' great creations, one of the most obscenely hypocritical of humans, full of borrowed aphorisms and borrowed ideas, constantly presenting a facade of virtue while keeping an eye on the main chance. Jonas Chuzzlewit is less interesting -- he's simply so horrible a person one can only gasp. The nurse Mrs. Gamp, not so much a true villain as a hopelessly almost innocently self-involved person, along with her imaginary friend Mrs. Harris. The various Americans don't get much space, but they are in their brief compass satisfyingly mean. Montague Tigg is in his way a somewhat conventional fraudster, but still holds the interest. There is a variety of less villainous but still involving characters -- Mark Tapley, ever convinced that for him to gain "credit" in life he must maintain jollity in the face of terrible circumstances, and who finally gets his wish in America; Mr. Nadgett, the almost invisible detective; the lugubrious Augustus, the much persecuted fiance of the elder Pecksniff girl; the energetic and ambitious boy Bailey and his friend Mr. Sweedlepipe, the barber and bird seller. There is always (well, almost always) something going on in the book, so one's interest doesn't flag. Is this a great novel? By no means, but it's a demonstration that Dickens had the magic gift of entertainment.