An Indiscreet Journey | Katherine Mansfield #ShortStory

An Indiscreet Journey was a short story written in 1915 by Katherine Mansfield but published posthumously in the 1924 collection, Something Childish and other stories by her husband John Middleton Murry. Initially it reads like a fairly straight forward story about a woman on a train journey to visit her aunt and uncle in the middle of the French war zone during WWI. Except she's not really visiting her aunt and uncle, she's meeting up her with her lover, a soldier. A very brief internet research also reveals this short story is based on the actual visit of Mansfield to her lover Carco in February 1915.

John Middleton Murry introduced Mansfield and Carco back in 1913. Murry and Mansfield were not married at until 1918, but their on again/off again bohemian relationship had begun in 1911. The affair between Carco and Mansfield seems to have run over the winter of 1914/1915.

With this story, we can see Mansfield exploring the idea of documenting the war as a social historian, as someone who is living through the thing she is describing. She shows us wounded soldiers, checkpoints and a mother reading a letter from her soldier son. She talks about gassing, firing lines, travel documents and curfews.

Mansfield leaves a lot unsaid here. The clandestine nature of the visit is alluded to but not directly approached. Most of the story is about the journey, not the actual purpose of the visit. The danger and tension of the war acts as a cover for the danger and tension of a secret assignation with a lover.

It turns out that the letter in the story, from the aunt, Julie Boiffard, inviting her to visit, is based on the real letter from Carco to Mansfield, that is now held in the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington, New Zealand. The fake nature of this letter explains, why the niece in the story keeps forgetting the surname of her aunt and uncle. 'Again I read the unfamiliar letter in the familiar handwriting.'

One of the curiosities that caught my eye was the 'ordinary little woman' sitting in the same carriage as as our narrator. 'She wore a black velvet toque, with an incredibly surprised looking seagull camped on the very top of it. Its round eyes, fixed on me so enquiringly, were almost too much to bear. I had a dreadful impulse to shoo it away.' 

I imagined something like this in my mind's eye:

However, it more likely resembled the image below. 

Birds and feathers were a feature on hats at this time, with many cartoons sending up this particular fashion by suggesting the addition of kittens and puppies. Mansfield seems to be tapping into this humorous vein to make fun of her own distress or guilt at her secret rendezvous, imagining that all eyes were on her and that everyone knew what she was up to.

Francis Carco depicted Mansfield as a magpie, a purloiner of gems from the lives and characters of those around her, who was incapable of putting a word on paper without having personally witnessed or experienced the sentiments it expressed. For all the distortion of his caricature, there is an element of truth in his notion that she was a writer who fed off her surroundings to an exceptional extent.1 If she didn't 'prey' off life, as Carco put it, she was certainly deeply 'rooted' in it.

Parkin-Gounelas Ruth. (1991) Katherine Mansfield: Far, Far Nearer. In: Fictions of the Female Self

I'm not particular surprised that Carco was dismissive of Mansfield's writing style. The two stories that feature him in some way are not very flattering. In fact Je ne parle pas Francois (1918) shows us a very unattractive, unlikable man indeed.

In An Indiscreet Journey we see a man who seems to get off on the secretive details of the tryst - the dash in a cab, through the streets where 'policemen are as thick as violets' to the door of the aunt and uncle, before being quickly bundled inside and shut up in the white room. He drops the suitcase and paper, she tosses her passport in the air and he catches it. End scene. 

Their time spent in the unnamed town is filled with visits to the local cafe for lunch and dinner every day, where they have a special table, that she has decorated with a little vase of violets. The final scene is the woman sitting at the table on her, imagining the passing years, watching the passing parade on the other tables...until her lover and his friend arrive. At the end we see the two men, quite drunk, discussing the merits and differences between the English whiskey and the French mirabelle as they eat their way through a little charcuterie platter.

Mansfield wrote to Virginia Woolf in 1919, "What the writer does is not so much to solve the question but to put the question. There must be the question put. That seems to me a very nice dividing line between the true & the false writer".

So what is the question being asked here?

Is it, once again, the difference between the English and the French.

Who do you trust?

Escape and freedom versus fear and guilt?

The joy of these stories is that we will never really know.

The delight is in the interpretation for each and every reader.

Part of the joy for me, is the researching, as I dig deeper into Mansfield's short life. Getting to know this fascinating woman has certainly been a highlight of my 2020 reading life so far.

Facts:

• From 20 – 22 February 2015, the town of Gray, near Dijon in France, hosted a weekend of celebrations, to commemorate the centenary of the visit by Katherine Mansfield to Gray in order to see Francis Carco.

My other Katherine Mansfield posts:

• Miss Brill (1920)
• The Wind Blows (1920)
• Psychology (1920)
• Je ne Parle pas Français (1918)
• An Indiscreet Journey (1915)

#ParisinJuly

The Wind Blows | Katherine Mansfield #1920Club

The Wind Blows was first published in the Athenaeum on 27th August 1920 and then included in Bliss and Other Stories (1920), although I have also spotted on the Katherine Mansfield Society page that they claim it was published in 1915. So I dug a little deeper.

I discovered a reference in J. McDonnell's Katherine Mansfield and the Modernist Marketplace: At the Mercy of the Public (2010) that refers to an earlier story titled, Autumns: II that Mansfield published under her pseudonym, Matilda Berry in Signature in 1915. She claims that this was an

important precursor to her mature work. Indeed, she later returned to the story, rewriting it from a first-person to a third-person narrative perspective for publication as The Wind Blows in the Athenaeum,

Phew! I'm always pleased when I can sort out a discrepancy.

I read one of Mansfield's short story collections about thirty years ago (egad! where did that time go?) on the recommendation of a friend. I enjoyed them, but remember nothing about them now. Back then, I would treat a short story collection much like a novel. I would just keep reading one chapter after the next until I tired or had something else to do. As a result, the stories blur together into an homogeneous mess.

Since then, I have learnt to take it slow with short story collections. One at a time. Let each one sit and settle before attempting another. If I'm not done with my reading time, then I change books and authors completely.

The Wind Blows is one of the stories set in New Zealand during Mansfield's nostalgic phase, it also feels rather biographical. A young girl, Matilda, all fidgety and flighty thanks to a windy day is straining against the boundaries put in place by her mother. She doesn't want to darn the socks or bring in the washing and escapes instead to her music lessons. She feels misunderstood and out of place. Until she and younger brother, Bogey, run down to the sea to watch the ships leave port.

A sudden twist in the story and we realise that Matilda is remembering this windy day by the sea with her brother. She and Bogey are, in fact, already on board the ship, leaving New Zealand for good. Liberty and freedom is theirs!

"Look, Bogey, there's the town. Doesn't it look small? There's the post office clock chiming for the last time. There's the esplanade where we walked that windy day. Do you remember? I cried at my music lesson that day-how many years ago! Goodbye little  island, good-bye. . . . "

I've been in Wellington on a windy day. It really does howl around your legs and hair and clothes, unsettling even the most placid temperament. Matilda is a typical teen chaffing against authority and the confines of family life. She's ready to fly the coop, but has nowhere to go. The windy day exacerbates her angsty feelings; it's another form of opposition.

As Bogey and Matilda sail away, we see this as Matilda (KM) saying goodbye not only to her home town but childhood as well. Gillian Boddy's Katherine Mansfield: The Woman and the Writer (1988) confirms the biographical element in this story. My understanding of the timeline is that her first draft in 1915 was written prior to her brother, Leslie's death in October. The rewrite, obviously reflects her grief at this unimaginable loss.

Clearly based on the memories she had shared with Leslie during the summer of 1915, this story has a strange power. Matilda is K.M., she used the pseudonym Matilda Berry at this time, while Bogey was the family name for Leslie, which K.M. later transferred to Murry (her husband).

Thank you to Kaggsy and Simon for once again hosting the #1920Club. Hopefully I can fit in one more short story before the end of the week.

My other Katherine Mansfield posts:

• Miss Brill (1920)
• The Wind Blows (1920)
• Psychology (1920)

Psychology | Katherine Mansfield #1920Club

William Lipincott | Loves Ambush | 1890

Psychology is a short story by Katherine Mansfield first published in Bliss and Other Stories (1920).

As luck would have it, I've managed to select three very different types of Mansfield stories for the #1920Club reading week.

Miss Brill was set in post-war France with a focus on loneliness and that confronting moment when we see ourselves as others see us. The Wind Blows was set in New Zealand and reflected Mansfield nostalgic phase after her brother was killed towards the end of WWI. Psychology is probably set in Europe with it's mentions of a studio apartment, a sommier, and the importance of taking tea (which could be English or NZ I grant you). It is also one of her more highly developed interior stories, with narrative shifts, mutable personalities and oodles of symbolism.

All three share the Modernist style that Mansfield was renown for. Modernism is a late nineteenth/early twentieth century movement that grew out of industralism and the rise of city living. It was also a rejection of the certainty that embodied Enlightenment thinking. It reflected the chaos and upheaval felt during WWI and it's aftermath. It was a time of innovation, experimentation and embracing everything new. Old cultural norms were considered out-dated and of no use in this brand new world. Parody, irony and revisionism were employed to critique the past. Stream of consciousness, technological advances and abstraction became the new philosophy.

It's not always easy to remember that Mansfield's modern style of writing was unusual and innovative at the time; it now seems so normal and natural.

In Psychology, she explores the idea of an individuals public, private and secret self. What should be or could be revealed, what should be suppressed or ignored and what is bubbling away underneath influencing our behaviours and actions almost against our wills?

Their secret selves whispered: “Why should we speak? Isn’t this enough?”

Her two main characters torture themselves with their unspoken sexual desires versus their desire for freedom and the maintenance of their individual selves. There is an attempt to separate the sexual from the emotional with plenty of symbolism in the form of lamps, fires and tea sets.

For the special thrilling quality of their friendship was in their complete surrender. Like two open cities in the midst of some vast plain their two minds lay open to each other. And it wasn’t as if he rode into hers like a conqueror, armed to the eyebrows and seeing nothing but a gay silken flutter — not did she enter his like a queen walking soft on petals.

They complicate matters with denial and restraint and aloofness, resulting in both of them finishing the afternoon tea feeling unsatisfied and out of sorts.

A curious bohemian ending surprises us with the arrival of the 'elderly virgin, a pathetic creature who simply idolised her (heaven knows why).' Instead of turning her away as usual, this time she embraces her and her dead bunch of violets (more symbolism). It made me wonder if this was Mansfield exploring her own complicated sexual feelings about men and women.

Especially as we then see the writer at work, critiquing the psychological novel and dashing off a quick note to the gentleman that mirrors the conversation she just had with the virgin. Quixotic and contrary to be sure!

This barely touches on the depths within this brief story. I suspect I could spend hours and write pages and pages on all the symbolism, psychological nuances and themes explored by Mansfield. But I will spare you that this time, and merely suggest that if you want to experience a quintessential Mansfield short story that gives you lots to chew over, then Psychology is the one for you.

A big thank you to Kaggsy and Simon for hosting the #1920Club.

My other Katherine Mansfield posts:

• Miss Brill (1920)
• The Wind Blows (1920)
• Psychology (1920)

Miss Brill | Katherine Mansfield #1920Club

Miss Brill is a short story by New Zealand author Katherine Mansfield. It was first published in Athenaeum on 26 November 1920 and later included in The Garden Party and Other Stories (1922). 

I knew I wouldn't have the time or reading energy to tackle a novel published in 1920 for this week's 1920's Club with Kaggsy and Simon; so I chose a short story (or two). Just a little dipping of the toes into the bohemian waters of 1920!

Until I read this story, I knew very little about Mansfield's rather short and tragic life. I had thought that I might find a story which referenced WWI and the Spanish Flu that swept around the world in 1919, little realising that Mansfield had enough health concerns of her own to go on with. In December 1917, she was diagnosed with tuberculosis at the age of 29. She was dead five years later.

For someone so young, she managed to leave behind a huge body of work, mostly in the form of short stories, book reviews and letters. She grew up in a 'socially prominent family' in Wellington. Her childhood included a few years finishing off her schooling in Europe. She returned to NZ and started writing seriously, but found the 'provincial life' not to her liking and in 1908 she moved permanently from NZ to London.

She enjoyed a bohemian lifestyle in London, having relationships with men and women, as well as meeting Virginia Woolf and D H Lawrence. There was a miscarriage, a couple of on again/off again marriages, eventually resulting in her mother cutting her out of her will.

Her beloved baby brother was killed in Ploegsteert Wood, Belgium, 6th October 1915 causing her to feel nostalgic about their childhood in NZ. Her reminiscences eventually lead into a prolific period of writing.

She died on the 9th January 1923 and was buried at Cimetiere d’Avon, Avon, France.

But let's get back to poor Miss Brill.

Her story may be short, but it packs a punch. Miss Brill is an ageing, unmarried woman who lives quietly on her own, her only pleasure is walking around the Jardins Publiques to people watch. The story opens with a sense of excitement and anticipation. The long winter is over; the new Season is begun. Miss Brill brings out her fox stole from storage for the occasion. She freshens it up, brushing it's fur, and rubbing the life back into it.

She heads out feeling smart and self-contained.

But, as you learn to expect from Mansfield, there is an underlying sadness or melancholy that swells up when you (or Miss Brill) least expect it.

By the end of this short story, Miss Brill is confronted to see how others perceive her. She goes from feeling like all the world's a stage with everyone a player, including herself, to realising that she is a figure of ridicule, on the outside of a brand new world dominated by youth.

Loneliness, isolation and illusion. Themes that have taken on a new meaning in our own brand new coronavirus world.

Thank you to Kaggsy and Simon for hosting the #1920Club.

My other Katherine Mansfield posts:

• Miss Brill (1920)
• The Wind Blows (1920)
• Psychology (1920)

Je ne Parle pas Français | Katherine Mansfield #ShortStory

Je ne Parle pas Français, or I Do Not Speak French was written in early 1918 and published in Bliss and other stories (1920).

There is a rather long and complicated story about the publication of this particular short story. It started life as a pamphlet published by Heron Press, which was run by John Middleton Murry (Katherine's husband at the time) and his brother, Richard Arthur Murry. They produced only 100 copies of the story in this format. The press was situated in the home of Murry and Mansfield in Hampstead Heath. Of the 100 copies, 20 were damaged. From the 80 left over, about 60 were sent out to reviewers in early 1920.

Anthony Alpers (The Life of Katherine Mansfield |1980) writes that "this little private-press edition in which it first appeared is very rare... Few know the story in its intended form." 

The December 1920 Constable publication of Bliss and other stories, contains an edited version of Je ne Parle pas Français. Apparently the end of the story in the original is rather different. 

The Norton Critical Edition edited by Vincent O’Sullivan (2006) contains the unedited version. The highlighted text below reveals the original story.

One day when I was standing at the door, watching her go (the African laundress who worked for his family when he was 10 yrs old), she turned round and beckoned to me, nodding and smiling in a strange secret way. I never thought of not following. She took me into a little outhouse at the end of the passage, caught me up in her arms and began kissing me. Ah, those kisses! Especially those kisses inside my ears that nearly deafened me. 

"And then with a soft growl she tore open her bodice and put me to her. When she set me down she took from her pocket a little round fried cake cover with sugar and I reeled along the passage back to our door.

My reaction:

• Wow! That's a HUGE reveal!
• The edited version left me wondering why this memory was so significant to Raoul.
• Did the lack of attention from his parents, make the affection from the laundress significant?
• But instead, we have a situation of power and sexual abuse of an older woman over a young boy.

Raoul never yet made the first advances to any woman:

"Curious, isn’t it? Why should I be able to have any woman I want? I don’t look at all like a maiden’s dream . . . ."

My reaction:

• By this point of the short story, I was convinced that Raoul was gay. 
• The extra sentence would seem to suggestion that perhaps he was bisexual.

Towards the end of the story Raoul says goodnight to a prostitute:

Not until I was half-way down the boulevard did it come over me—the full force of it. Why, they were suffering . . . those two . . . really suffering. I have seen two people suffer as I don’t suppose I ever shall again. . . . And . . . . ‘Goodnight, my little cat,’ said I, impudently, to the fattish old prostitute picking her way home through the slush . . . . I didn’t give her time to reply.

My reaction:

• One of the few times in this story where we see Raoul thinking about others.
• The extra sentence reminds us that he inhabits a fairly squalid part of Paris, despite his higher aspirations.

And so on and so on until some dirty gallant comes up to my table and sits opposite and begins to grimace and yap. Until I hear myself saying: ‘But I’ve got the little girl for you, mon vieux. So little . . . so tiny. And a virgin.’ I kiss the tips of my fingers—‘A virgin’—and lay them upon my heart.

My reaction:

• Without the 'virgin', this paragraph reads like a boast.
• With the 'virgin' it makes Raoul sound like a pimp!

The story’s original ending continues on from the 1920 censored text:

I must go. I must go. I reach down my coat and hat. Madame knows me. ‘You haven’t dined yet?’ she smiles. ‘Not, not yet, Madame. I’d rather like to dine with her. Even to sleep with her afterwards. Would she be pale like that all over? But no. She’d have large moles. They go with that kind of skin. And I can’t bear them. They remind me somehow, disgustingly, of mushrooms.

My reaction:

• The edited end, just ends.
• A man in a cafe, thinking about his next meal.
• The original reasserts the sexual nature that infuses the whole story.
• As well as reinforcing Raoul's ambivalence about the female body.

Francis Carco 1923

Raoul is apparently based on Mansfield's lover Francis Carco, a man with whom she had a brief affair with in 1915. Alpers claims that Mansfield is referring to Carco's cynical attitude towards love and sex via Raoul. 

Her story An Indiscreet Journey (1915) is also based on her journey through the war zone to spend four nights with Carco in Eastern France. 

I wonder if Mansfield was writing a homage to Carco's style of writing or did she think that Carco was gay but didn't know it, bisexual or was this her dig at a failed lover? Either way, Raoul is about as camp as you get in 1918 literature. And a not very pleasant fellow. I suspect the affair did not end well (I hope to know more when the bio about Mansfield that I've ordered finally arrives).

Raoul's penchant for stylish clothes, his flamboyant mannerisms, delusions of grandeur, cutting remarks, and his love/lust infatuation with Dick, the Englishman are all textbook versions of Havelock Ellis' sexual inversion theory, that was prevalent at the time.

My name is Raoul Duquette. I am twenty-six years old and Parisian, a true Parisian. About my family - it really doesn’t matter. I have no family; I don’t want any. I never think about my childhood. I've forgotten it.

Raoul was a gigolo, a dandy, crass, conceited, superficial and sexually ambiguous. He was an unreliable narrator with huge gaps in his story. The whole time I was reading this story, I had a Carly Simon earworm of 'You're So Vain' playing in the background. Raoul loved being front and centre and seemed to be playing to an imaginary audience the whole time. At the same time he was a social outcast, with no family that he will speak of, hanging out in seedy bars and cafes, pretending to be something he isn't, or just hoping that acting the part will make him so.

If a person looks the part, he must be that part.

He pretends to take us into his confidence, but we can never really trust him. He ends up revealing more than he thinks, although we're still left in the dark about pretty much everything. Perhaps this is how Mansfield felt after her brief affair with Carco?

There were a number of themes explored from the use of public and private spaces, the English vs the French and life as a stage (a homage to Shakespeare perhaps?). Metaphors abound with dogs, cats and a mouse, suitcases (to be unpacked) and mirrors (that reflect the surface not the substance).

‘But after all it was you who whistled to me, you who asked me to come! What a spectacle I’ve cut wagging my tail and leaping round you, only to be left like this while the boat sails off in its slow, dreamy way . . . Curse these English! No, this is too insolent altogether. Who do you imagine I am? A little paid guide to the night pleasures of Paris? . . . No, monsieur. I am a young writer, very serious, and extremely interested in modern English literature. And I have been insulted – insulted.’

Ultimately, Raoul is not very likeable.

He's selfish and mean and judgemental. 

He's careless and thoughtless. 

One feels pity for him and fears that he will never find the love and happiness he is so desperately searching for. He may speak French fluently, but he does not know the language of love. And maybe never will.

My other Katherine Mansfield posts:

• Miss Brill (1920)
• The Wind Blows (1920)
• Psychology (1920)
• Je ne Parle pas Français (1918)

#ParisinJuly

Only Happiness Here | Gabrielle Carey #AWW

 

Gabrielle Carey, with this book about Elizabeth von Armin, had the honour of being the very first author event by zoom, that I participated in during this Covid year. Also in attendance was Lisa from ANZLitLovers, who had alerted me to the event in the first place. It was lovely to be able to wave hello to someone I knew before proceedings started proper. For a thorough account of the author talk, please read Lisa's post here.

I had not read Only Happiness Here prior to the event, but it was high on my list for AusReading Month possibilities. By the end of the discussion, though, with Jessica White, it had moved up to be next on the pile! As had my desire to read Elizabeth and Her German Garden. 

Only Happiness Here refers to the sign that Elizabeth von Armin had over the door of her Swiss chalet. As Carey states in her book, Elizabeth may have been one of the 'earliest proponents of positive psychology.' It was this approach to happiness that attracted Carey. Enough so for her to reread all twenty-one of von Armin's books before embarking on a trip to the British Library to read her letters and diaries as well.

This is very firmly in the camp of biblio-memoir or bio-memoir. Carey is very much a part of the story, as she rereads the books and interprets what she finds there. It is also her personal search for happiness and peace of mind, as she delves into von Armin's life, looking for clues or signs on how to be happy. 

My quest was about how to understand Elizabeth's temperament and her way of seeing things, how she maintained such buoyancy, such apparent relish of daily living.

She eventually hits upon nine Principles of Happiness According to Elizabeth von Armin - freedom, privacy, detachment, nature & gardens, physical exercise, a kindred spirit, sunlight, leisure and finally, creativity. 

Carey developed each principle into a chapter or section that interspersed von Armin's writing with known facts about her life. Of which, there are not as many as a biographer would usually like. This was all part of von Armin's desire to remain very private, and happy. Towards the end of her life, she burned a large number of her 'notes and diaries in what she referred to as "the holocaust"'. Which, naturally, leads the rest of us to surmising stuff about how she felt and thought via the actions and words of her characters. 

So the first fact many of you may not know about Elizabeth is that she was born in Australia. In the prestigious suburb of Kirribilli in Sydney, to be precise, on the 31st August, 1866. She was christened Mary Annette Beauchamp, and known as May by her family and friends. Her home for the first three years of her life was most likely Beulah House (converted into an apartment block in 1908 and now only remembered by the name of nearby Beulah St and wharf). I've said it before, but Australians are hopeless at commemorating the birth places and homes of our well-known authors.

Her father, Henry Heron Beauchamp, came from an artistic, well-to-do family in London. He emigrated to Australia in 1850 to set up a business as a shipping merchant. His business thrived and in 1855 he married Elizabeth Weiss Lassetter (known as Louey). All six of the Beauchamp children were born in Sydney.

One of Henry's brothers, Arthur, moved with his young family to New Zealand in 1869. His son Harold is the father of Katherine Mansfield, making May and Katherine first cousins once removed. Katherine's last letter, before her untimely death, was to her cousin May.

In 1870, Henry and his Lassetter brother-in-law, decided to move their families back to the Continent. Enjoying three years in Switzerland together, before settling in London.

As May got older, she kept her Australian heritage very quiet. Any odd accent or 'twang' that people noticed in her voice, she would put down to 'Irish connections'.

Being a 'colonial' in class-conscious England was not much fun and could often be a hindrance to making one's way into good society. Curiously, this slur of the 'convict stain' still loomed large in the imagination of many of the Brits that I got to know in the year I lived in London (1991). I imagine that the 'good-natured' ribbing I received was a watered down version of attitudes a hundred years prior.

Carey wonders if May's 'awareness of her Australianness (was) just another one of Elizabeth's deep secrets?'

She married Count Henning August von Armin-Schlagenthin on the 6th February, 1891, effectively becoming a Prussian Countess overnight. She had three daughters in quick succession - Eva (1891), Elisabeth (1893) and Beatrix (1894), after which, the Count was apparently banished from her bedroom...until 1899 when Felicitas was born, then Henning-Bernd in 1902.

At the beginning of 1898, she sent her first manuscript, Elizabeth and Her German Garden, off to the publishers. It was published in September of that year under the pen-name, Elizabeth. After an initial celebratory remark in her diary, the following days were scrawled angrily with 'rows with H'. May never provided any detail about these rows, which leaves the reader to look for clues in her novels.

If happiness was something she often enjoyed privately, depression was also something she believed should be borne individually....Elizabeth believed that sharing misery only increased the gloom and risked infecting others. 

We know some of the basic facts about the less happy times in Elizabeth's life - the Count's arrest for embezzlement, the death of Felicitas as a teenager, her fear of ageing, the loss of their family home in Pomerania and Henning's sudden death in 1910 - but not how May felt about them. Once again, the only clues are in her books when her characters go through similar experiences.

Despite times of depression and sadness, May continued to find joy and solace in nature, especially gardens and appreciating beauty.

The rest of her books where published with the tag 'by the author of Elizabeth and Her German Garden' causing a lifetime of supposition and speculation in literary circles, although her friends, like E. M. Forster, H. G. Wells and Bertrand Russell, were well aware of her writing.

I finished Carey's book with a very strong desire to get to know May better. I will try to source her two more recent biographies, but in the meantime, I will start at the beginning of EvA's oeuvre with Elizabeth and Her German Garden, which will have the happy coincidence of counting for an #AusReadingMonth title as well as the #NovNov challenge.

Did Carey also find happiness in the end?

Like the rest of us, and like May, the answer is yes and no.

The trick, it seems, is to focus on the happy.

Not long after, the lockdown was announced and during the weeks of working from home, I took to having lunch under the frangipani tree. Oftentimes, following my salad and cheese and seeded bread, I stretched out on the picnic blanket, and as the world turned in turmoil, I lay in the dappled sunlight pretending I was Elizabeth von Armin.

Facts:

• The International Society Devoted to Scholarship on Elizabeth von Armin has some amazing articles and essays, including the one that led me to them, Family Life on Kirribilli Point in the 1860's: The Enigma of Elizabeth's Birthplace (Jennifer Walker, posted October 27. 2019). This piece includes a copy of G W Peacock's Government House ca 1850, which when blown up to expose the background, we can clearly see Beulah House and its gardens.
• There is a 1958 biography by one of her daughters, Elizabeth of the German Garden.
• Another in 1986 by Karen Usborne, Elizabeth the Author of Elizabeth and Her German Garden.
• And again in 2013 with Jennifer Walker's, Elizabeth of the German Garden - A Literary Journey.

Elizabeth von Arnim Monument in Buk, Poland

#AusReadingMonth2020

Moving Among Strangers by Gabrielle Carey

Writing regularly blog posts seems to be something quite beyond right now. But thanks to Karen @Booker Talk I've be revisiting some of my older posts to find fresh inspiration. This post about the rather silent author, Randolph Stow, was originally published on the 29th August 2015.

I've been thinking about Gabrielle Carey a lot, over the past 24 hrs, after learning that she has a new book coming out in October with University of Queensland Press about Elizabeth von Armin called Only Happiness Here. 

Her website explains that von Armin has been one of her literary passions for quite some time, and like me, Carey is amazed that this Australian born writer (along with her cousin, Katherine Mansfield) is so little known and appreciated here. 

New Zealander's have done a much better job of being loud and proud about Mansfield. Admittedly, von Armin only lived in Australia for the first three years of her life (whereas Mansfield grew up in NZ before moving permanently to Europe). But given our tendency to claim famous folk with far less tenuous links than that, it's curious that we have been so silent on our relationship with von Armin.

I want to know more about the friendship and authorial support that existed between von Armin and Mansfield and how they influenced each other. And I'm keen to find out why Carey is so fascinated by von Armin. Weaving together the biography of an author with her own personal reflections was one of the things I really enjoyed about her Randolph Stow book. 

It has stayed with me for five years now. 

Given how many books pass through my hands each year, for one to stick in my memory so clearly, says something about the strength of the story within, as well as it's ability to get under my skin.

So I give you a slightly revised and updated look at my 2015 post for Moving Among Strangers.

Today I had the pleasure of attending the Honouring Randolph Stow event at the NSW Library.

The Honouring series is the brainchild of my friend Julia Tsalis, the Program Manager at the NSW Writers Centre. 

On their website she says:

Sometimes we forget about the great when revelling in the new. In its annual Honouring Australian Writers series, the NSW Writers’ Centre pays tribute to writers who have made an important contribution to our literary culture.  

In 2015 we turn to the West Australian writer Randolph Stow. Perhaps best known for The Merry-Go-Round in the Sea and To The Islands, which won the Miles Franklin Award, Australian Literary Society Gold Medal and the Melbourne Book Fair Award in 1958. He was also awarded the ALS Gold Medal for his poetry in 1957 and won the Patrick White Award in 1979.  

A writer fond of silence, known for the metaphysical and existential qualities of his writing but also a master at evoking the Australian landscape, Randolph Stow embodied contradictions. Geordie Williamson, says of him in The Burning Library, ‘In him, as in no other non-indigenous writer in our literature, landscape and mindscape are one.’  

Honouring: Randolph Stow brings together Gabrielle Carey, author of Moving Among Strangers a memoir about her family’s connection to Stow, Suzanne Falkiner whose biography will be released in 2016, Richard Tipping a poet and producer of a documentary on Stow, and West Australian author Alice Nelson (The Last Sky) whose career has been inspired by him.

In preparation for the event, I read Gabrielle Carey's Moving Among Strangers: Randolph Stow and My Family.

Carey's award winning book is a curious, but very pleasing mix of family memoir and grief journal as well as a homage to little known Australian author and poet, Randolph 'Mick' Stow.

I say little known, because when I told family, friends and colleagues (yes, even colleagues!) where I was going today. Only a couple of them had heard of Stow.

My relationship with Stow is not much better. I've only read one of his books and that was his children's story about Midnite, the not-so-bright bushranger and his talking cat. The talking cat put me off too much to ever really enjoy it properly though!

But, like Carey, I do seem to have this fascination for Australia's long lost, forgotten authors.

I'm curious about why we, as a nation, do not seem to celebrate, embrace or cherish our award winning, highly acclaimed authors.

Their childhood homes do not become museums.

No "so and so was born here" plaques pop up on suburban streets and rarely do they have university or school wings named after them. They're lucky to have a street named in their honour!

Carey echoes my concerns in her book when she reminds us that:

Other countries seem to be able to preserve significant writers' houses - why are there so few in Australia?

However, after the Honouring Randolph Stow event today, I wonder if part of this lack of recognition starts with the authors themselves.

All four panelists spoke of Stow's famous silence.

Suzanne called it his "authorial invisibility". 

Richard told us how Stow had said, "writers are writers because they're not talkers." 

And Alice quoted poet Louise Gluck's "eloquent deliberate silence" to describe Stow's personality.

Meanwhile Carey's tender memoir is an endless parade of Stow's reticence and quietness which she sums up towards the end by saying,

Stow's silence doesn't appear to have been an unfriendly one. His temperament and philosophical bent both point towards a faith in silence and deep doubt about language.

 

This is not someone searching for the limelight or to have his name forever blazoned across the skies. His story writing and poetry were personal, they were part of his search for home. Home, for Stow, was not one house or place either.

Maybe we don't need to make a fuss about his childhood home or where he went to school, except of course, there is no denying, that it is these things, these places of our childhoods that shape us is so many ways, consciously and unconsciously.

Stow himself also said (in reference to Joseph Conrad) that "I think one does need to know a great deal - well, a certain amount, anyway, about an author's life...and not only what he chooses to have known."
(my highlight).

So, what have I learnt about Stow in the past week?

He could speak and read about five languages, he was fascinated by the Batavia wreck (so much so that he taught himself to read Old Dutch so he could research the source materials), he loved to read Conrad and Joyce and he 'wrote' his books in his head whilst walking and only physically wrote them down once he had it complete in his head. Sadly, he had two such books in his head when he died. 

Stow also had an incredibly mellifluous voice (not unlike Princes Charles but with an Australian undertone) that we heard thanks to the resurrecting of Richard Tipping's interview with Stow from the 1988 film A Country of Islands. More than preserving old homes and the placing of plaques, we need to ensure that archival films and interviews like this are conserved for future reference. The 8 minute excerpt we heard today was one of the highlights of a stimulating afternoon.

I look forward to reading one of Stow's adult novels (now republished by Text Publishing) or seeing one on the big screen soon. I also highly recommend Carey's memoir for those who love their family memoirs and author biographies entwined in a happy embrace.

• The 2020 Honouring Event will be for Katherine Susannah Prichard on the 22nd August.
• Carey also has a biography about Ivan Southall called Falling Out of Love With Ivan Southall that sounds intriguing.

My Favourite & Best Classics

When the Classics Club originally asked this question in August 2012, I waffled on a bit about my love for all things Jane Austen, but eventually I came to the conclusion that my favourite classic of all time was Persuasion by Jane Austen.

Eight years later, it is hard to top this.

Persuasion is a story that bears repeated readings, never gets tired, constantly provides solace and comfort and still amazes me every time with its exquisite writing and plotting. Oh! and the dramatic irony, the social satire that cuts deep but sweet like a cake knife, the on point dialogue and the so, so satisfying relationship arcs. And if by some weird quirk of fate this is not quite the right thing for my mood, then one of Austen's other books will be for sure! She delights me at every turn, every page, every book. Austen is the only author that I have read so consistently and so often throughout my adult life. 

However in the eight years since I last answered this Classic Club question, I've read so many more classic titles and authors, from a far more diverse range of genres, regions and cultures. None of them have had the pleasure of multiple rereads, like my Austens. But some of the titles listed below are classics I do plan on rereading one day. 

My Best of Classics List

In Translation:

• French - Germinal by Emile Zola
• Russian - Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
• I have read many more foreign classics, from all around the world, but these are the two books I really want to reread and delve into deeper...so far! 
• Both these books packed an emotional punch that still reverberates years later. They are both set in radical, rapidly changing times - times that the authors also lived through. The personal, the facts and the fiction are interwoven into a seamless, satisfying, epic whole.

Short Stories:

• Katherine Mansfield - I'm still making my way through her short stories. Each and every one is like peeling an onion in reverse. Each story adds another layer of understanding and insight into Mansfield's mind and heart.

Australian:

• The Fortunes of Richard Mahony by (Ethel) Henry Handel Richardson - how on earth this book is not required reading for anyone serious in their English studies at high school, is beyond me. Yes, all three volumes together are HUGE, but the insights into colonial Australia, wrapped up as they are, in the story of Richardson's own childhood, are exceptional.

English:

• North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell - this list is for the books discovered by me in the last eight years. If I was to include an all-time reading list, then Jane Eyre, David Copperfield and Middlemarch would also have to be listed here.

American:

• Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston - Janie has an astounding voice. She keeps whispering my name hoping to tempt me back into her world again soon.
• Moby-Dick by Herman Melville - the effort required to read this book is worth it if you have the time and patience to do so.

Sci-fi:

• Absolutely anything by John Wyndham. Yes, I'm pretty tame when it comes to sci-fi. 

Fantasy:

• My recent reread of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J R R Tolkien only confirmed how magnificent these books are. For pure escapism, detailed world building and characters to love (and hate), they are hard to bet.

Biography:

• Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain. If you haven't read this extraordinary account of WWI yet, you really should stop everything and source a copy now.

Children's:

• I've loved Ethel Turner's Seven Little Australians my whole life, but only recently have I explored her other young fiction titles. The Wonder Child and In the Mists of the Mountains have been the stand-out titles so far.

Ancient World:

• Herodotus' The Histories - what a wonderful old gossip he was! One day I will write a post about my own history with Herodotus....

Honourable Mentions: (For those classics from my pre-blogging days that couldn't quite beat out Jane Austen):

• The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
• Anne of Green Gables by L M Montgomery
• Diary of Young Girl by Anne Frank
• The Color Purple by Alice Walker
• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
• Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
• Dangerous Liaison by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
• Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
• The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy

Each and everyone of these stories is now a part of my story.

They helped to form my view of the world.

They have given me a sense of belonging and connection and fellowship.

They have satisfied my soul and slaked my cravings.

They have asked impossible questions and answered many more.

They have taken me out of myself, to another place, another time, another possibility.

They have inspired me to do better, be better, live life more fully, deeply, kindly and whole-heartedly. 

They have given me hope in dark times, lifted me up when I was down and been a friend to lean on when I thought I was all alone.

I'm sure there are sub-categories and genres that I've over-looked (like modern-day classics), but for now, these are my favourite and best classics.

A Few Days in the Country by Elizabeth Harrower

A Few Days in the Country and Other Stories has been shortlisted for this year's Stella Prize.

I find short story collections a curious choice for a major award (and this year, the Stella has two short story collections) and I'm trying to work out why.

I really enjoy a good short story - over the years I've loved the short stories of Alice Munro, William Trevor and Katherine Mansfield in particular. I'm fascinated by their ability to capture the everyday details of life and give them meaning. I like their snappy emotional energy. And I adore how they can embrace the unexpected.

I had very high hopes for this collection of short stories after reading The Watch Tower a while back, especially in the emotional energy area. I was also a little in love with the fabulous cover portrait of Harrower on the new paperback edition painted by W.H. Chong. Her piercing blue eyes followed me around the house the whole week I was reading this!

Some of the stories contained the emotional punch I was expecting and hoping for - especially the stories that examined the mother/daughter or older/younger woman dynamic (Alice, Summertime and The Cornucopia).
Most of us have experienced or witnessed toxic female friendships and we have learnt to keep those people at a distance. The hard part, of course, is when that toxic female is your mother or your boss and escape becomes very difficult. That's what makes Harrower's stories so disturbing. That sense of entrapment and 'stuckness' can make the reader feel suffocated and frustrated.

However, there weren't enough of these emotional moments to keep me fully engaged. I was able to admire the writing, but failed to connect at a deeper level to many of the stories.

What's your relationship with short stories? And Elizabeth Harrower?

Women's Classic Literature Challenge

The Classics Club is hosting a new event, or more accurately, they are hosting a celebration, a joyous exaltation of all things to do with women and classic literature.

Starting now with a planned finished date of 31st December 2016, it's time to get your booty on, get in touch with your inner sassy and embrace your feminine mystique!

The event? Read classic literature by female authors, & share your thoughts (or links to your thoughts) at #ccwomenclassics on Twitter, or in our quarterly check-ins, which we’ll have here in January, April, July, October, & December of 2016.

 You can choose any genre you like....You could do a deep exploration of a single author’s work, or pick a couple authors whose works you’d like to compare and contrast.

 If the title was penned by a female and written or published before 1960, it counts.

 Biographies on classic females count, too. (Even if they were written recently.)

 The point is to get people thinking about women writers & sharing favorite reads.

Over the years, my reading has become more and more female focused. So much so, that I have to occasionally remind myself to read the male perspective as well!

So this event is perfect for me and my reading habits. The challenge will be to broaden my horizons.

I have spent this past year focusing on Australian women writers thanks to my involvement with the Australian Women Writers Challenge. But it has meant that my Classics Club list was left languishing on the sidelines.

Next year I was planning on reading more classics written by Australian women.
For anyone else who'd like to explore more Australian classics please check out this link. I also have some classics lists under my AusReadingMonth tag and the Miles Franklin tab at the top of my page.

I'm hoping the WCLC will inspire, excite and encourage me to read those female writers currently on my CC list as well as explore the lists created by other Clubbers.

I would like to find more women's classics from other cultures and countries.
Recommendations welcome in the comments below.

I'm not usually one for surveys, but to answer a few of the questions posed by The Classics Club...

I have read a lot of Colonial, Victorian and Regency female classics over the years.

Jane Austen, L.M. Montgomery, Louisa May Alcott and Edith Wharton are perennial favourites.

At different times I have also been fascinated by Ruth Park, the Bronte's, Monica Dickens, George Sand, Nancy Mitford, Virginia Woolf , Agatha Christie, Colette, Muriel Spark, Daphne du Maurier, Janet Frame, Katherine Mansfield and George Eliot.

In recent years Elizabeth Gaskell, Willa Cather, Barbara Pym, Elizabeth Harrower, Madeleine St John and Henry Handel Richardson have caught my attention.

It has been hard to think of female characters written by men that don't fall into the 'saints or sinners' mould - Anna Karenina, Lara Guishar (Dr Zhivago), Esther Summerson (Bleak House), Penelope (Homer), Miss Haversham (Great Expectations), Emma Bovary all saints or sinners - and even Shakespeare fell into this way of developing his female characters - think the virtuous Juliet and the scheming Lady Hamlet. Which isn't to say that they aren't fascinating character studies...they're just like no woman I've ever met.

Whereas I have met a real life Scarlett O'Hara, I know many wanna-be Lizzie Bennett's and I am Elinor Dashwood!

The most true-to-life, well-written female by a male author that springs to mind right now, would be Irene in The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy. She not only reminds me of a friend of old but also brings to mind Helen from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. (my desire to watch/rewatch the DVD's has only increased now that I've discovered that Rupert Graves is in both productions!)

Female authors I hope to get to during the WCLC are Karen Blixen, Elizabeth Bowen, Pearl S Buck, Simone De Beauvoir, E.M. Delafield, Elaine Dundy, Edna Ferber, Patricia Highsmith, Elizabeth Jenkins, Margaret Kennedy, Doris Lessing, Toni Morrison, Sylvia Plath, Christina Rossetti, Dodie Smith and Elizabeth Taylor.

I'm hosting a readalong during November for AusReadingMonth of The Fortunes of Richard Mahony.

Written by Henry Handel Richardson - the pen name of Ethel Florence Richardson born in Melbourne in 1870.

The Fortunes of Richard Mahony is Richardson's well-known trilogy about the slow decline, due to character flaws and an illness, of a successful Australian physician and businessman and the emotional/financial effect on his family. It was loosely based on Richardson's own family experiences.

Richardson and her sister, Lillian, were active supporters of the suffragette movement. Ethel also explored lesbian relationships at various times throughout her life.

If you'd like to tackle a fascinating classic Australian female writer, this could be your chance!

I also plan to host my annual Edith Wharton readalong in January 2016 (Edith's birthday month).

Three books to get you started with classic female writers - Persuasion by Jane Austen, My Antonia by Willa Cather and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Three personal favourites with three strong and independent (in very different ways) female protagonists.

I also feel that everyone joining in this challenge should read (or reread as the case may be) Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own to get into the right frame of mind. 

And finally - a favourite inspirational quote from a classic female writer....?

It has to be Jane Austen in Persuasion:

Do you have a favourite female classic author that I haven't mentioned above?

Let me know below - I'm always up for more #ccwomenclassics!

Six in Six

When it's cold and grey outside, the only solution is books. And when you can't decide which one to read next, then the next-best thing is to blog about books!

Thankfully, FictionFan came to my rescue today with her recent post Six in Six.

The meme originates with Jo @The Book Jotter, who has been writing about Six in Six since 2012.

The idea is to reflect on the first 6 months of your reading experience for this calendar year. Then throughout July:

share 6 books in 6 categories, or if time is of the essence then simply share just 6 books. Whatever combination works for you as long as it involves 6 books. Of course the same book can obviously feature in more than one category.

Jo has an ever expanding list of six categories to choose from, or you create your own. I have done a mix of both.

Six best books of 2020 (so far):

My favourite and best books tend to be big on character, with a definite sense of place, and I do love fine writing.

• The Dutch House - a genuine delight with lots to saying about mothering.
• Girl, Woman, Other - rich, diverse story-telling. Immensely satisfying
• In Love With George Eliot - gentle, insightful peek into Eliot's writing life and marriage.
• Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line - my hidden gem for the year.
• The Parisian - an extraordinary, rich, classic story of a man out of time and out of place. Review to come.
• The Thursday Murder Bookclub - entertaining from start to finish. A September release. Can't wait for book 2.

Six shortlisted books:

• Actress - shortlisted 2020 Women's Prize - not as good as I had hoped, but enjoyable enough.
• Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line - shortlisted 2020 Women's Prize & one of the reasons why I love shortlists. I may never have found this gem if not for it's nomination.
• Girl Woman Other - Winner Booker Prize 2019, shortlisted 2020 Women's Prize
• Middle England - Winner of the 2019 Costa Book Award & all about Brexit.
• Redhead by the Side of the Road - shortlisted 2020 Women's Prize & just missed out on being in the list above with it's lovely characters with issues.
• The Parisian - Winner 2019 Palestine Book Awards

Six books in translation:

• The Forest of Wool and Steel - a bit of a slog to be honest. 
• The Conquest of Plassans - Zola never disappoints. The fiery ending in this one was a surprise.
• The German House - thoughtful story about post-WWII Germany coming to terms with the Holocaust - who did what and who knew what.
• One Hundred Years of Solitude - a reread of this South American classic that made more sense second time around.
• The Plague - review to come.
• War and Peace - reading one chapter-a-day for the entire year. I'm half way through.

Six From the Non-Fiction Shelf:

• The Feel Good Guide to Menopause - because it will happen to at least half of us one day! Might as well be prepared.
• The Fast 800 - the latest update by Mosley on his diet that actually works for me.
• A Month in Siena - exquisite, beautiful and thoughtful essays on art, loss and family.
• Ten Doors Down - an adoption memoir.
• Fathoms - glorious stuff all about whales.
• 488 Rules for Life - lots of fun.

Six classics I've read this year:

• Moby-Dick - if you have the time, and you're in the mood for a long meander at sea, pondering the meaning of life, then this is a classic you should not overlook. Worth the effort.
• Under Milk Wood - read as you listen to the sultry tones of Richard Burton narrate this wonderful play with words.
• The Dyehouse - a forgotten Australian story thankfully rediscovered by Text Classics.
• The Tempest - not my most favourite Shakespeare. I've learnt that listening to and watching plays is much better than reading them!
• The Cardboard Crown - another little known Australian classic, part memoir, part fiction and part of a quartet.
• Katherine Mansfield short stories - so far I've read 5 this year - 2 still to be reviewed. I love her!

Six books set in Australia or written by an Australian:

• Cherry Beach - starts in Melbourne, finishes in Canada, lots of YA angst in the middle.
• The Rain Heron - just missed out on being in the top 6 as well. The ending wasn't as strong as the start, but, oh, the beginning was tremendous stuff indeed!
• The End of the World is Bigger than Love - a YA eco-dystopian 
• Truganini - an insightful bio into the life and times of a Tasmanian Aboriginal woman.
• Sand Talk - fascinating look at Indigenous thinking.
• The Secret Library of Hummingbird House - fabulous time-travelling primary school aged fiction. Review to come.