Tuesday, October 31, 2023

Reading Those Classics #20

Classic Conversation Novel: A novel of conversation provides commentary on issues about gender, sex, class, status, and conflict, encrypted as dialogs. This 1944 novel has this discussion with father Benjamin and his three sons.

“It is a modest but pleasant house,” said Reuben’s voice, “and a home is where a family is gathered together.”

“That is what makes family problems,” said Bernard.

“We have none of those,” said Benjamin, in a tone that defied contradiction.

“None,” muttered Esmond. “Problems imply a solution.”

Compton-Burnett’s families are unhappy in their own over-the-top fashion - excessively, one wants to feel, since it seems unlikely the folks next door in what we laughingly refer to as the real world could be as monstrous to each other as the characters in her novels. One never knows, do one? If you’ve ever been in a conflict over family inheritance issues, you know that real kin can be as outrageous as characters in novels.

Elders and Betters - Ivy Compton-Burnett

The modernist author does not even tell the reader the time period in which the story set. No cars or phones, the large families, with plenty of servants, and wide class divisions imply the 1890s or 1900s.  She does not bother to describe weather, rooms, or clothes. None of that is essential to her austere and savage examination of family members, loving and not loving each other, under pressure but sotto voce, murmuring like Esmond above, saying so lightly as to be inaudible.

The author just drops the reader into a cauldron, where an upper-middle-class family of civilized intellectuals is already simmering. Aunt Sukey is tyrannizing one branch of the family, wielding her impending demise of heart disease like a cudgel. Her relations want her to be comfortable and comforted, but her nagging and grousing, spiced as it is with bitterness and anger, have worn her family down. Like the uncle in Cousin Henry, Aunt Sukey has multiple last wills and testaments – a situation bound to be ruthlessly exploited.

Another branch of the family has moved nearby to help out. Father Benjamin, Sukey’s brother, and his daughter, Anna, take over a bit of the care-giving. About 10 years before, Anna, at the time only 18 years old, became mistress of the house after her mother died. This responsibility made her disturbingly fond of laying down the law and people hopping to it made her spoiled. The story revolves around Anna, who is also determined and opportunistic. She is so callous that in a fine comic scene her vanity is pricked when she announces her engagement and her flummoxed relatives stammer their congratulations, unable to take in that anybody would marry Anna of the Hard Soul.

Anna commits three wicked acts, none of which I dare describe lest I spoil the surprises of the consequences of her felonies. Much suspense in conversation is stoked as unused to improvising or obfuscating, Anna risks exposure. Other action revolves around instances of cousin marriage and an oddly close relationship between father and daughter.

Comic relief is provided by two eloquent tweens, Dora and her older brother Julius. They are conversing about their benign but clueless and unreliable father. Their adult brother Terence is in the room, probably fearing the kids have read too much Bulwer-Lytton.

“He gives us food and clothes and has us taught.” said Dora in a dubious tone as if uncertain if mere fulfillment of duty should operate in her father’s favor

“The minimum that a man could do,” said Julius. “The least amount of expense and thought that would save him from the contempt of all mankind. Would you have him turn us out into the waste to starve? Would you have him cast us forth, as if no tie bound us?”

“As if we were not his kith and kin,” said Dora, falling into her brother’s tone. “As if we were penniless orphans, driven to seek a moment shelter within his doors. As if no sacred tie of blood bound us, hand and heart to heart.”  

“Let him take thought for the dark retribution that is gathering,” said Julius, with a deep frown. “Let him take counsel with himself. That is all I have to say.”

“The bread he has cast upon the waters will return after many days,” said Dora. “Then he will repent the grudging spirit that stayed his hand.”

 Terrence rose and left the room, disturbed by the activities of his brother and sister, whom he believed to be acting some kind of play, a view in which he was right.

In other comic scenes – much needed after Anna’s cool calculated hypocrisy – Dora and Julius pray to their God Chung: “… grant that we may live to a ripe old age. For it would not be worthwhile to suffer the trials of childhood if they were not to lead to fullness of days.”

This one is longer than previous novels, as if ICB wanted to explore manipulation in conversation at greater length. The sharp focus on only one character is also a departure for ICB. A point similar to the families in previous novels is that the two branches of the family are too much together, they have become sordid and live in a sinister atmosphere that comes to feel natural to them. Disquieting at the end is the prospect of cousins marrying, thus preventing new people from influencing the seamy milieu for the better. One feels the sooner these people get away from each other, the better for themselves and other people.

Other Reviews of ICB Novels: click the title to go to the review

Click on the title to go to the review.

 

 

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