I think I was rather let down by this book. I was expecting something grand. A few people had hinted in their blogs that they felt somewhat the same. Anyone of a different opinion? Am I missing something?

Well, I had absolutely no expectations, but suspected I wasn’t going to like it, but I ended up enjoying it.  I think it deserves a reread, with the whole story already in mind.  I skimmed over the first chapter again, and there is Dowell (John or Arthur?  What IS his first name?) astonished that Ashburnham could inspire sentiment in anyone--"How could he arouse anything like a sentiment, in anybody?”

At the end of book, he declares that Ashburnham is one of the only two people he has ever loved, and goes on and on about it:

“For I can’t conceal from myself the fact that I loved Edward Ashburnham--and that I love him because he was just myself. If I had had the courage and virility and possibly also the physique of Edward Ashburnham, I should, I fancy, have done much what he did....And you see, I am just as much of a sentimentalist as he was.”

So which is it, Dowell? 

I didn’t find it disappointing, no.  But then, my expectations were not very high.

I had very mixed feelings about it.  I’m still not sure what I think of the characters.  Should I feel sympathetic?  Disappointed?  I don’t know that I particularly liked any of them.  I feel like I need to read the book again with a more careful eye trained on the character build up--especially the narrator.  What I really appreciated about the book was the manner in the way Ford wrote.  Although it was confusing getting the story in the way he told it--I thought it was really well done.  I did read some criticism and one of the writers likened the story to a Cubist painting--the way the events and stories of the four are layered on top of each other--making it three dimensional.  I posted some quotes on my blog that explain it better than I can.  In any case it has made me think (maybe more about the act of writing and telling a story rather than the story itself--but the story, too).

Someone asked some questions in the comment area of my post, and I thought they were quite good:

“You talk about layering and, it sounds like, the effort to use words almost to obscure or at least reconstruct instead of make the facts plain - does it feel like poetry? I’m curious if you found that there was something to be gained by the complication of the narrative (beauty or a specific point of view?) or was it just frustrating?”

Does anyone else have any thoughts on these questions?

Danielle

When Dowell says he has nothing to show for nine years, and the characters all seem to be without moral compass, perhaps the narrative technique emphasizes that wandering aimless feeling? It didn’t feel like poetry to me, but I like the idea of the Cubist story.

Since I didn’t know what to expect of the book I wasn’t disappointed. In fact, I was rather engrossed with the story and had to make a real effort to read slowly and carefully and not zip through it.

I like the cubist idea Danielle mentions. I didn’t think of poetry while reading the book though. John Dowell is such an unreliable narrator that I understood all of the layering to be purposeful obfuscation. I wonder if John doesn’t feel a bit of guilt over all of it, especially allowing Edward to kill himself when he could have stopped him? And so, in telling the story, he feels the need to distance himself from it in order to make himself appear less culpable. Just thinking off the cuff here…

Quillhill--I like that idea of the aimless wandering feeling in terms of the narrative--as it certainly had an aimless feel to how he told the story. 

I didn’t think the writing was particularly poetic either--the prose was pretty simple, but just sort of all over the place. 

Stefanie--I wonder if he was feeling guilty as well.  Do you think there was a thing between, or at least Dowell felt for Edward?  More than just “admiration”?  Maybe there was guilt over that as well--he admired him, but he also didn’t seem to like him very much. 
Danielle

I think the narrative is constructed in a way to conceal the story-teller’s almost stupidity.  Anyone left behind after a suicide is usually full of questions and self-doubts, as well as self-condemnation, but the fact that the deaths, which we know about from the first page, are suicides is left out until the very end, practically.  And he lets you believe through much of the story that Florence really does have a weak heart, when she has been shamming all along.

I think he feels some guilt, but isn’t looking it in the face.

I wouldn’t call the book poetic, either.  I think describing it as cubist is brilliant--a facet here, a facet there, and they don’t exactly seem to fit seamlessly together.  Actually, I don’t think this “saddest story” would be half as interesting if it were told in a conventional way.  Two boring (on the outside, anyway) couples spend a lot of time together doing nothing much, but a pair of them are committing adultery together.  And?

I still don’t understand why Florence committed suicide, although I can understand Edward better.  Was it a dramatic gesture intended to punish Edward (who seemed largely unaffected because he had a new interest) for his unfaithfulness?  She didn’t really care about John, so why would she be that upset about the revelation of her character?

One more thing--I think pushing the introduction of Nancy nearly to the end of the book is another indication that the narrator is feeling some guilt about her.  He was clearly attached to her before his wife died.

dtorres - 31 May 2007 06:51 PM

I had very mixed feelings about it.  I’m still not sure what I think of the characters.  Should I feel sympathetic?  Disappointed?  I don’t know that I particularly liked any of them.

I read two of Ford’s essays on literary impressionism and his techniques (directly linked to the former of course) and they were quite revealing. In his opinion the purpose of literary impressionism, and novel writing in general, I gather, is to build up an illusion. As far as impressionism goes then the view of either the narrator or the omniscient author in the book should be entirely subjective; one should “render” not report. If the story is told from a first-person perspective the writer can allow the character to indulge his biases and vices, but if not then he should show all caution in conveying no moral judgement, no brutal interjection of the author himself, lest he shatter the illusion. As an example he uses Thackeray’s Vanity Fair as a novel which yanks the readers out of the story because the author is too concerned in confirming his moral righteousness.

So I think your reaction was intended—I know that I felt the same!

Someone asked some questions in the comment area of my post, and I thought they were quite good:

“You talk about layering and, it sounds like, the effort to use words almost to obscure or at least reconstruct instead of make the facts plain - does it feel like poetry? I’m curious if you found that there was something to be gained by the complication of the narrative (beauty or a specific point of view?) or was it just frustrating?”

Does anyone else have any thoughts on these questions?

Danielle

Like the others I would agree that it didn’t work as poetry but more to me like actual impressionist work that anticipated abstract art, or more properly the symbolists too (Maurice Denis specifically). Anyway I think Ford was simply trying to emulate how memory works, how it replays in one’s head, especially since John—the narrator’s name which I had to check for on Wiki as I had no idea what it was either Karen, after finishing the novel—was recalling 9 or so years from memory and writing it out. So you go through a sequences of events, reach a point, then you remember something else and go back and forth etc. I do think there was deliberate obfuscation as well, but on a very basic level that’s what it read like.

Oh, I have a host of things buzzing in my head and I’m trying to settle it all out since I do want to do a proper post. (So sorry that my contribution is late!)

Karen in Krakow - 01 June 2007 12:12 AM

I still don’t understand why Florence committed suicide, although I can understand Edward better.  Was it a dramatic gesture intended to punish Edward (who seemed largely unaffected because he had a new interest) for his unfaithfulness?  She didn’t really care about John, so why would she be that upset about the revelation of her character?

By the time I discovered that her “bad heart” condition was a sham I wasn’t too far from wondering whether she was a bit cracked? But I don’t trust my opinion because it seemed to me as though Dorrell did his best to put her and even Lenora in the most unsympathetic light possible. (Which didn’t work as I felt sorriest for Lenora out of the whole sorry bunch.)

I think more details pertaining to Florence’s past would have been very revealing. It was odd to me the way her aunts thought the worst of her (in a delicate, polite manner) and were all but warning John away from her; so I wonder what her home life was like. Considering the sort of melodramatic and manipulative disposition it would take to keep up the pretence of a) a serious illness and b) fidelity, perhaps she became so invested in this image of herself in John’s eyes, that the thought of him knowing the truth was too much. Even if she didn’t love him he was her security, a base from which she could carry on as she pleased and retain some respectability.

Actually, now that I think of that, wasn’t she rather keen on that specifically? She was intent on owning some grand estate in England I think, and being a proper lady.

Danielle--I thought, very briefly at the end when John actually manages to get up som emotion about Edward being dead and writes so admiringly of him that maybe there was something between them. But in the end, I don’t think there was. I think John just wished he was the kind of person like Edward was .

Imani--I like what you say about Florence. I don’t think she was a bit cracked. I do think she was very calculating. She married John to escape from home and go to Europe so she could carry on her affair with Jimmy while appearing to be a respectable married lady. I didn’t see her suicide coming, but since she carried the--was it purssic acid?--with her everywhere I gather she planned for the possibility of using it someday. Perhaps she decided to not because of Edward but because of the gentleman in the hotel lobby who saw her and knew about her affair with Jimmy. Maybe she thought all that time that no one knew about her affairs and when she realized someone did then she figured she could never reach the level of respectability she so desired?

I really enjoyed the detail about her August 4th superstition (for lack of something better to call it).

Like Imani, I also felt sorriest for Leonora out of all of them.

Why would someone carry around with them Prussic acid?  Is your life so desperate you think you might need it?  Or are you so completely deceptive towards everyone around you?  That seems so extreme.  I suppose she thought she was finally going to lose it all, so it wasn’t worth going on.  I do think Florence was a little cracked--what a shallow life.  I would also have liked to know more about her past. 

Don’t you wish you could have gotten into the heads of the other characters--just for a little while? 

(and for some reason I keep thinking John is called Arthur--so I probably used Arthur in my posts--too much confusion in this story).

Danielle

I strongly believe there is a degree of homoerotic feelings in Dowell for Edward. He may not recognise them, and I don’t think they ever acted on them as such. My memory is shady, but in their feelings their relationship kind of reminds me of the relationship between the two men in Lawrence’s Women in Love.

I think from the comments I can see it turns out to be a more complex book than I first thought. It’s not my kind of thing, though. I recently posted about a theory that Vermeer didn’t paint objects, but colors. So relating this to writing, perhaps Ford is not writing about characters, or events, but colors, so to speak, that build up the impression and the illusion, as Imani says.

I think Dowell has come to the realisation that his life (at least the last nine years) has been a complete waste.

I thought that the discontinuous path of the narrative felt to me like a man picking away at his wounds in turn, rubbing and rubbing at them until you wish he’d let them alone, and then moving onto the next when finally he had made one unbearable.

The prussic acid caught me entirely off-guard but I more or less readily accepted it because, of course, she’d be carrying around something like that to off herself when convenient. The irony of it being in a vial typically used for proper medication was painful.

That added another level to it, them always staying at various locations that were good for people with heart conditions—especially Florence who didn’t even have one. But really, getting fresh, temperate air was the least of their problems—neither Florence nor Edward died naturally! Only poor Maisie Maiden, the one with the actual health condition.

I flip flop on Florence’s mental state because it almost seems too facile to use the “crazy” solution—a bit too similar to what went on then when any slight deviation from the public social norm doomed you to a crack mental “hospital”. At the same time though...she does seem a bit extreme. I’d give up two pages put together of all John’s moaning about public facades for a glimpse into Florence’s past.

litlove—oh I won’t get that image out of my head for a while.

Quillhill--I like that idea of Vermeer painting colors--it’s an interesting thought anyway!

Litlove--Yes, he did pick, he didn’t stop. It was painful to read really at times.

Imani--I swear I read somewhere the Maisie also offed herself, too.  Or maybe everyone else did, so now I am projecting that upon her as well.  That’s the problem with reading articles and essays of the text after--you start forgetting what you actually read.

That’s why I limited myself to three articles (one of which was entirely worthless).

But no Maiden’s heart had stopped. Thank goodness for free e-books, I was able to handily find the passage and quote part of it here.

She had not cared to look round Maisie’s rooms at first. Now, as soon as she came in, she perceived, sticking out beyond the bed, a small pair of feet in high−heeled shoes. Maisie had died in the effort to strap up a great portmanteau. She had died so grotesquely that her little body had fallen forward into the trunk, and it had closed upon her, like the jaws of a gigantic alligator. The key was in her hand. Her dark hair, like the hair of a Japanese, had come down and covered her body and her face.

Leonora lifted her up−−she was the merest featherweight−−and laid her on the bed with her hair about her. She was smiling, as if she had just scored a goal in a hockey match. You understand she had not committed suicide. Her heart had just stopped.

It’s right at the ending of Part I.