Month: July 2016

A Ghost Post

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When one thinks of the supernatural in literature, one immediately thinks of ghost stories. Yet some non-ghost tales and novels also have moments of a paranormal nature. This post will discuss both kinds of works.

Supernatural fiction is of course appealing for a variety of reasons. It offers vicarious thrills (we’re not experiencing the spookiness in real life), piques our curiosity about how characters will react to the scares, sparks our interest in how inventive authors will be in creating the eeriness, etc.

I got to thinking about all this not by seeing the current Ghostbusters movie but by reading The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton. A really good collection, including “The Lady’s Maid’s Bell” tale that memorably chronicles a household with the specter of a dead servant still hanging around.

Then there’s The Turn of the Screw by Wharton’s friend Henry James, whose novel makes readers wonder about the age-old question posed by many ghost stories: Are the apparitions real or are they the products of anxious characters’ imaginations? Heck, the alarming eyes that appear in the dead of night in Wharton’s “The Eyes” are just the protagonist’s conscience, aren’t they? Aren’t they?

Sometimes, phantasms are partly played for laughs, as in Oscar Wilde’s hilarious yet poignant story “The Canterville Ghost” — whose title character can be rather bumbling when it comes to frightening people. Or with the funnier of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter ghosts — including Nearly Headless Nick (named Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington when alive) and poetry-spouting Peeves the Poltergeist (“oh Potter, you rotter…”).

In other recent fiction, Stephen King’s work has periodically been ghostly in addition to being in the genres of horror, etc. One example is his low-key, spine-tingling novel From a Buick 8, in which a supernatural car is a sort of portal to another world.

There are more haunted houses than haunted cars in literature, and one of them is the mansion in Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. Strange noises and presences seem to dwell in that dwelling — and one character might be getting “possessed” by the house — but the story is told with such skillful understatement that readers are not sure what to think.

Or how about Peter Straub’s aptly named Ghost Story, in which the past psychologically and literally haunts a group of old men who might be getting targeted for something they did wrong in their youth? The grapes of wraith and all that…

A mild-mannered but also-vengeful specter appears in Edith Wharton’s story “Afterward,” a cautionary tale about what happens when a businessman gets a little too greedy. Which reminds me of the spooky visits in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, though Marley’s ghost never sings the reggae tune “No, Scrooge Guy, No Cry.”

Then there are the understandably vengeful, long-dead dogs in Wharton’s chilling tale “Kerfol.” (Yes, animals can be ghosts, too.)

But, as noted before, the supernatural can be just a part of “general interest” works. For instance, think of the magic realism novels — such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude and Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits (yes…SPIRITS!) — that have humans occasionally fly and do other strange things.

Think also of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, which is realistic in its way yet has the famous, pivotal scene in which a despairing Edward Rochester calls Jane’s name and she hears him despite being too far away to hear him.

Even “lighter” novels can have seemingly supernatural moments. For instance, Fannie Flagg’s heartwarming A Redbird Christmas has a crucial scene in which a girl’s life is saved because it snows in just one small southern Alabama town as scores of redbirds descend. If that seems confusing, read the delightful novel — it will all make sense.

And I haven’t even discussed the writings of Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce, H.P. Lovecraft, etc.!

What are your favorite ghost stories? What are your favorite non-ghost works with occasional supernatural moments?

I’ll be skipping a July 31 post (vacation!) but will return Aug. 7.

(The box for submitting comments is below already-posted comments, but your new comment will appear at the top of the comments area — unless you’re replying to someone else.)

I’m writing a literature-related book, but still selling Comic (and Column) Confessional — my often-funny memoir that recalls 25 years of covering and meeting cartoonists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), columnists such as “Dear Abby” and Ann Landers, and other notables such as Coretta Scott King, Walter Cronkite, and various authors. The book also talks about the malpractice death of my first daughter, my remarriage, and life in Montclair, N.J. — where I write the award-winning weekly “Montclairvoyant” humor column for The Montclair Times. You can email me at dastor@earthlink.net to buy a discounted, inscribed copy of the book, which contains a preface by “Hints” columnist Heloise and back-cover blurbs by people such as “The Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson.

Nicknames in Novels

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Among the many things memorable in works of fiction, character nicknames are probably far down the list. But those informal monikers can be fun, interesting, make protagonists seem more approachable, and/or offer insight into their personalities, accomplishments, and looks.

My nickname today? “The Man Who Was Desperate for a Blog Topic During This Summer Week.”

In literature, Natty Bumppo of James Fenimore Cooper’s five “Leatherstocking” novels might be the king of different designations — a good thing considering how silly “Natty Bumppo” sounds. He’s known as Hawkeye and La Longue Carabine (The Long Rifle) in The Last of the Mohicans, by the books’ titles in The Deerslayer and The Pathfinder, as “the trapper” and “the old man” in The Prairie, etc.

Hopefully no one who met The Scarlet Letter author Nathaniel Hawthorne called him Natty…

Another character with more than one nickname is Lord Voldemort in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. Voldemort (born Tom Marvolo Riddle) is called “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named” and “The Dark Lord,” among other things. Some of the series’ other characters have nicknames such as “The Boy Who Lived” (Harry himself) and “Mad-Eye” (Alastor Moody).

Speaking of eye issues, there’s the patch-wearing Reuben “Rooster” Cogburn in Charles Portis’ novel True Grit. (Sadly, John Wayne didn’t portray another rooster — Chanticleer of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. Was the “Duke” too American for that role?)

Another novel with various nicknames is Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Jean Louise “Scout” Finch, Jeremy Atticus “Jem” Finch, Charles Baker “Dill” Harris, Arthur “Boo” Radley (who those kids initially feared)…

There are also many casual monikers in Fannie Flagg’s Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, another novel of the American South. Imogene “Idgie” Threadgoode, the Buddy character (“Stump”) who lost his arm in a railroad accident, the hobo “Smokey Lonesome” Phillips, “Big George”…

Which reminds me of “Chicken George” (George Lea), who trained chickens in Alex Haley’s Roots.

Charles Dickens’ novels also have a number of nicknamed characters: the pickpocketing Artful Dodger (Jack Dawkins) of Oliver Twist, Tiny Tim (Tim Cratchit) of A Christmas Carol, Pip (Philip Pirrip) of Great Expectations…

And if you haven’t overdosed on “P” and “i” names, there’s Piscine Molitor “Pi” Patel of Yann Martel’s Life of Pi — which is longer than 3.14 pages when the tiger character doesn’t eat most of the book.

Then there are the Mirabal sisters (Las Mariposas — The Butterflies) from Julia Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies, which partly fictionalizes the story of those brave opponents to Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo.

A couple more examples: Captain “Aarfy” Aardvaark of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, and the wondrous baseball player Roy Hobbs whose nickname is the title of Bernard Malamud’s The Natural. Incidentally, “Roy Hobbs” was a moniker mix of real-life baseball legends Rogers Hornsby and Ty Cobb — who had more hits than Taylor Swift, but less romantic angst on YouTube.

Of course, it almost goes without saying that countless characters have predictable nicknames: Sue for Susan, Jim for James, etc.

What are your favorite nicknames in literature?

Here’s a somewhat-related 2015 post about author aliases.

(The box for submitting comments is below already-posted comments, but your new comment will appear at the top of the comments area — unless you’re replying to someone else.)

I’m writing a literature-related book, but still selling Comic (and Column) Confessional — my often-funny memoir that recalls 25 years of covering and meeting cartoonists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), columnists such as “Dear Abby” and Ann Landers, and other notables such as Coretta Scott King, Walter Cronkite, and various authors. The book also talks about the malpractice death of my first daughter, my remarriage, and life in Montclair, N.J. — where I write the award-winning weekly “Montclairvoyant” humor column for The Montclair Times. You can email me at dastor@earthlink.net to buy a discounted, inscribed copy of the book, which contains a preface by “Hints” columnist Heloise and back-cover blurbs by people such as “The Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson.

When Gender Enters a Blender in Literature

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I like a lot of literature in which women display so-called “masculine” behavior and men display so-called “feminine” behavior.

That not only applies to recent fiction written during a time when gender roles are thankfully becoming less defined, but also applies to older lit by the occasional authors who weren’t totally rigid about gender roles in an era when that kind of tolerance was considered “out there.” Sometimes, older lit was dismissive of the gender-role flexibility it was depicting; other times, it was more sincere.

Why do I like it when female and male characters are not put in gender boxes? Besides the fact that gender roles should be more fluid, that fluidity can make for stories that are more interesting, unconventional, etc.

Two works I read this summer exemplify how compelling all this can be. One of them was Julia Alvarez’s superb novel In the Time of the Butterflies (1994), a part-fictionalized tale of four real-life sisters who riskily (three were murdered) became prominent in the effort to depose despicable dictator Rafael Trujillo — ruler of the Dominican Republic from 1930 until he was assassinated himself in 1961. The other work was Bret Harte’s memorable short story “The Luck of Roaring Camp” (1868), in which hard-bitten California Gold Rushers act maternally with a baby born in an all-male camp (the mother died in childbirth).

I read Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White a couple of decades ago, but still vividly recall one of its most original characters: Marian Halcombe, who was depicted as kind of “masculine” even as her main attributes were intelligence, resourcefulness, and bravery displayed while helping unravel the 1859 novel’s mystery.

There’s the also-brave Judith Hutter in James Fenimore Cooper’s The Deerslayer — which, despite being published in 1841 and set in the 1740s, has her be the one to propose marriage to frontiersman Natty Bumppo.

In John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1939), Ma Joad becomes the decision-maker (and her husband takes a more subsidiary role) as intense hardship befalls their family.

Then there are novels in which women run for high political office — as does the title character in Robert L. Haught’s engaging Here’s Clare (2014) when she seeks the California governorship. (I’m now reading the 2016 sequel, Clare’s New Leaf.) Of course, politics is less of a male’s world than it used to be, but still unfortunately a majority-men realm.

Or novels in which women work in other professions many still tend to associate with men — as does the Sheila character who runs a New Orleans bar in the memorable Grail Nights (2015) by Amanda Moores (wife of commenter jhNY).

When it comes to female characters who are girls, there are many examples of “tomboys”: Scout Finch of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), Jo March of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women (1868), Maggie Tulliver of George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss (1860), Frankie Addams of Carson McCullers’ The Member of the Wedding (1946), and Idgie Threadgoode of Fannie Flagg’s Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (1987), among others. Some grow out of their “tomboy” ways, some don’t; some are definitely or seemingly gay, some aren’t.

Adult males who don’t fit the conventional masculine mold? The gentle giant King of Elizabeth Berg’s Open House (2000) cooks like a chef and has had just one sexual experience as he approaches middle age. And there’s the also-gentle Forney Hull, who works in a library in Billie Letts’ Where the Heart Is (1995).

Heck, being gentle is not that unusual a male trait, but there’s still an expectation that many male characters will be macho, sexist, domineering, sports-talking people reluctant to share their feelings.

Other male characters defy the “conventional wisdom” by being much better parents than their wives; one example is Subhash of Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland (2013).

Young fictional males acting in non-stereotypical ways include Paul Irving, the sweet, daydreaming boy in L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Avonlea (1909) who eventually becomes a published poet; and John Grimes, the sensitive teen protagonist in James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953).

(In Baldwin’s novel, John’s nice-guy biological father Richard died because of police racism that’s still tragically with us in 2016 as trigger-happy white cops yet again shot and murdered defenseless African-Americans — this time, Alton Sterling of Louisiana and Philando Castile of Minnesota, after which there was retaliatory violence against police in Dallas.)

Sadly, many female and male characters are thwarted when trying to break free of gender boxes. For instance, the wife in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s riveting 1892 story “The Yellow Wallpaper” just wants to work and have some mental stimulation, but — like many 19th-century women — has to deal with monotony and oppression at the hands of her patronizing husband and society in general.

What are some of your favorite literary works that scramble gender expectations?

(The box for submitting comments is below already-posted comments, but your new comment will appear at the top of the comments area — unless you’re replying to someone else.)

I’m writing a literature-related book, but still selling Comic (and Column) Confessional — my often-funny memoir that recalls 25 years of covering and meeting cartoonists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), columnists such as “Dear Abby” and Ann Landers, and other notables such as Coretta Scott King, Walter Cronkite, and various authors. The book also talks about the malpractice death of my first daughter, my remarriage, and life in Montclair, N.J. — where I write the award-winning weekly “Montclairvoyant” humor column for The Montclair Times. You can email me at dastor@earthlink.net to buy a discounted, inscribed copy of the book, which contains a preface by “Hints” columnist Heloise and back-cover blurbs by people such as “The Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson.

The Unexpected in Famous Novels

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When people crack open a famous novel, they often have certain expectations. But sometimes surprises are in store.

Part of the reason is that many of us (myself included) try not to read too much about iconic books before starting them for the first time. This means not clicking on Wikipedia entries, ignoring Amazon summaries and reviews, and skipping the forewords and introductions in the novels themselves — all of which avoids spoilers and allows for the books to unfold in a fresh way.

My most recent experience with a classic novel that surprised me was D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers (1913). Just about all I knew of it was that its original publisher deleted a number of passages that were “risque” or otherwise “controversial” — passages that were fairly tame by today’s standards. But I was struck by how much more there was to the excellent novel than sexual references. A portrait of a working-class family, an exploration of a mismatched marriage, a depiction of a frustrated mother and her emotionally too-close relationship with her second son, a chronicle of that son’s complicated romantic life, etc.

Then there are those challenging classics that have a reputation for being SERIOUS, yet one discovers when reading them that they contain moments of hilarity — as with the devil “cameo” in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov and the Ishmael/Queequeg room-share scene in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick.

Then there’s Silas Marner, which has been the bane of some high school students who found it (allegedly) tedious, moralistic, and not something to be read unless assigned by a teacher. But I thought George Eliot’s short novel was warm, affecting, inspiring, and more.

Or Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, who has a reputation for writing excellent novels set in New York City’s high society. But EF pulls us in with a tale of far-from-rich folk in rural Massachusetts.

I knew a little something about Of Human Bondage‘s plot before I read W. Somerset Maugham’s masterpiece, but was still shocked by just how much the would-be-doctor protagonist degraded himself with a woman totally wrong for him.

I also knew that Cormac McCarthy’s riveting Blood Meridian was going to be violent. But the intensity of the mayhem (very graphic for a literary novel) took me aback.

Another big surprise was the sympathetic portrayal of a Jewish character (Rebecca) in a novel published in 1820, when anti-Semitism was rampant. The book: Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe.

Along those lines, Alexandre Dumas’ 1843 novel Georges contains exceptionally positive portrayals of black characters for its time. Then again, I shouldn’t have been that surprised given that Dumas was partly black himself, though he usually focused on white characters (as in The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers).

All those unexpected things mentioned above are examples of why reading literature can be so wonderful.

What surprises have you found in famous novels?

(The box for submitting comments is below already-posted comments, but your new comment will appear at the top of the comments area — unless you’re replying to someone else.)

I’m writing a literature-related book, but still selling Comic (and Column) Confessional — my often-funny memoir that recalls 25 years of covering and meeting cartoonists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), columnists such as “Dear Abby” and Ann Landers, and other notables such as Coretta Scott King, Walter Cronkite, and various authors. The book also talks about the malpractice death of my first daughter, my remarriage, and life in Montclair, N.J. — where I write the award-winning weekly “Montclairvoyant” humor column for The Montclair Times. You can email me at dastor@earthlink.net to buy a discounted, inscribed copy of the book, which contains a preface by “Hints” columnist Heloise and back-cover blurbs by people such as “The Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson.