A Tale of Two Writers

Long before I knew Harri got a letter from Chaz I was thinking that the two should really strike up a dialog, I mean, they have so much in common.

First of all, both authors are writing to elicit social change.  Dickens is working to bring awareness of the dismal situation of the poor to his fellow Londoners, and Stowe is obviously working to abolish slavery.  They have chosen literature as their medium.

Both authors rely heavily on humor to carry their message.  I didn’t see this coming with HBS.  For some reason, I always assumed Uncle Tom’s Cabin was nothing more than a dark, sad tale, I didn’t expect to read hillarious scenes like the one with Sam and Andy leading Haley on a wild goose chase down a nonexistent road.  It reminded me a little bit of Fagin’s gang, but with a moralistically superior cause for raising a ruckus.

Both authors utilize sarcasm in their writing, as well.  The narrator’s voice in Dicken’s work drips with the stuff, while HBS is more apt to reserve her sarcasm for specific characters’ dialogs.  My favorite example of this sort of writing is, well, practically every single sentence St Clare speaks in response to his wife.  Even Stowe can’t help but let a little snarkiness out at Marie.  Here’s a bit where the Omnicient Royal We has just given us a full page of hope that the African people will become the highest and noblest kingdom as a result of God’s chastening, and then she turns her attention to the mistress of the house:

Was this what Marie St. Clare was thinking of, as she stood gorgeously dressed, on the verandah, on Sunday morning, clasping a diamond bracelet on her slender wrist?  Most likely it was.  Or, if it wasn’t that, it was something else; for Marie patronized good things, and she was going now, in full force – diamonds, silk, and lace, and jewels, and all, – to a fashionalbe church, to be very religious.  Marie always made a point to be very pious on Sundays.

All these little hints at similarities between the two writers were nothing compared to what I encountered in the last five chapters.  Granted, Stowe didn’t depict Tom’s murder with the gory detail that we encountered in Nancy’s death, but the remainder of the story was completed much like Oliver Twist.  Long lost relatives came out of the woodwork.  There was an end to all the misfortune and bad timing that had plagued the characters thus far.  No story was left hanging, and futures were hopeful on the horizon.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of happy endings, but both books tied up all the loose ends almost too perfectly.  Really, George’s sister just happened to be in the cabin next door?  Rose is Oliver’s aunt?  Quimbo and Sambo were both converted at Tom’s death?  Topsy becomes a missionary?  Oliver gets to live with Brownlow?

Stowe obviously admired Dicken’s work, and it shows in her own writing.  A bit of research on the connection between the two told me that she initiated their professional friendship by sending him a lavender copy of UTC.  She was an amazingly bold woman, wasn’t she?  Apparently their professional relationship continued for years, although he remained somewhat critical of the book.

Maybe she should have sent him a blue copy instead.

 

You Choose

canaille –  n.  rabble, riffraff, common people

Classical Usage:  The word is actually from the French for dog, which makes it even more fitting for Stowe’s context.  Augustine St Clare and his twin brother Alfred are discussing slavery.  Alfred has this to say, “It is the educated, the intelligent, the wealthy, the refined, who ought to have equal rights, and not the canaille.“  His brother replies, “If you can keep the canaille of that opinion.  They took their turn once, in France.”

Classically Mad Usage:  We’re going to focus on pronunciation today.  You can either say it with a French snobby-air that tells everyone you are above the masses:  ”Can I be part of the canaille?”  or, you can identify yourself with the everyman, the plumber, the waitress, the carpenter, and say,: “I can nail that as good as any canaille.”

 

Head’s Up . . . or Down

We often converse about how soon we should let you know that we’ve finished a novel and will begin another.  Do you want more warning?  Less?  Have we hit the sweet spot in the past?  Or are we way off base?

Anyway, we’re all finished with Uncle Tom’s Cabin, but we haven’t had our wrap-up yet, and we probably have at least a week or two of posts to follow.

I just thought you might want to know.  Then again, maybe not.  Whatever.

 

What the Dickens?

I’m reading the Modern Library Classic version of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (nope, no volumes) and in the back, there are commentaries from Stowe’s contemporaries.  The first is a letter from Charles Dickens to Mrs. Stowe.

I hope she was totally geeked when she got the letter.  I would have been, dear mother, had I received a letter from this master of social satire.

Imagine what it would have been like as she sat there with her seven children- strike that – she wouldn’t be sitting, not with seven children, no, there would be a lot of hurryscurryation.  She probably sent the middlest child out to get the mail, who then got so excited about the introductory Lincoln Log pamphlet that arrived that he left the rest of the mail on the front porch chair, and it wasn’t until one of the twins accidentally pushed his way out the screen door that she saw the abandoned pile of envelopes lying there, only to adeptly scoop them into into the pocket of her apron.   It wouldn’t have been until later that evening, after the final bits of laundry were folded, the last fork had been washed and dried, and all fourteen eyes were closed in sleep, that Harriet dared to untie her apron strings.  I’m sure that at first the appearance of the stack of unopened mail left her sighing with the knowledge that there was yet one more task to do, but as soon as the foreign postage caught her eye her interest was surely rejuvenated.  I bet she tore that letter open, squealed with delight, read it aloud eight times to her husband, and then flew to her writing desk to send a quick message to her sister and best writing friends.

This is the instagram photo of Charlie writing his letter to Harriet, don’t you think?

Sorry, sometimes I get a little caught up in thinking about how this simple Christian mother made such a huge difference in our society with the simple use of powerful words, and it gets my romantic expectations all piqued.

Anyway, back to Charles Dickens.  This is a portion of what he wrote to my new BFF Harriet:

I have read [Uncle Tom’s Cabin} with the deepest interest and sympathy, and admire, more than I can express to you, both the generous feeling which inspired it, and the admirable power with which it is executed.
If I might suggest a fault in what has so charmed me, it would be that you . . .

Okay, this is the part I’m going to skip, folks, because if Harri (can I call her that?) is anything like me, this is the part that kept her awake at night, and possibly brought her to tears, and left her husband saying things like, “Honey, remember that part where he talks about how much he admires your book?  Really, he used the word ‘inspired.’   I think he likes you.”  Let’s just say that Dickens thought she went overboard with her kindness of slaves.  Your husband is right, Har, his criticism is actually a compliment.  Okay, back to the letter:

Your book is worthy of any head and any heart that ever inspired a book.  I am much your debtor, and I thank you most fervently and sincerely.

Forget the squealing, I might have just fainted right over.  Charles Dickens thought she was cool.  So cool.  But I believe it, because I saw the similarities between the two.  But that, my friends, will have to wait until tomorrow, because I’m still a little swooney from reading that letter from Chuck.  I always did like that guy.

 

Wrong Number

dunning - v. persistently demanding payment of debt

Classical Usage:  While Tom is at the St Clare’s we momentarily flash up to Kentucky to find the Shelby’s still in financial distress.  As Mr. Shelby puts it, “Once get business running wrong, there does seem to be no end to it.  It’s like jumping from one bog to another, all through a swamp; borrow of one to pay another, and the borrow of another to pay one, – and these confounded notes falling due before a man has time to smoke a cigar and turn around, – dunning letters and dunning messages, – all scamper and hurry-scurry.”

Classically Mad Usage:  We used to get dunning phone calls here for someone who shared our last name, but was of no relation.  I wish I would have known then that I could have said, “Please stop dunning us, we don’t know any Monicas.”  I bet they don’t hear that sentence much, it surely would have been a nice change of pace for the collectors.

 

The Mother-in-law Challenge

picayune - n.  a coin of little value
__________adj.  petty, worthless

Classical Usage:  St Clare treats the poor child Topsy sort of like a family pet, and when she hid behind his chair because she was in some bit of trouble he would coax her out.  “From him she got many a stray picayune, which she laid out in nuts and candies, and distributed, with careless generosity, to all the children in the family; for Topsy, to do her justice, was good-natured and liberal, and only spiteful in delf-defense.”  I love how HBS breaks away from Augustine’s image of her by showing us her true kind colors.

Classically Mad Usage:  My husband was reading over my list of vocab words, and when he got to this one he was shocked that I didn’t know what it meant.  You see, his mother used this word all of the time when they were growing up to talk about things that didn’t really matter.  So now I have just one goal:  I will get my mother-in-law to use this word in a conversation.  I’ll report back when it happens.

 

Always Good

I did it.  I made myself read the chapter titled ”Death”.  As I suffered along with the St. Clare family during Eva’s final days, something Ophelia said made me think of a hymn.

Eva has given all her curls away to the slaves.  The only people left in the room are Eva, Ophelia and St. Clare.  The father is crushed by the thought of his sweet daughter’s impending death.

     When they were all gone, he sat so still.
“Papa!” said Eve, gently, laying her hand on his.
He gave a sudden start and shiver; but made no answer.
“Dear papa!” said Eva.
“I cannot,” said St. Clare, rising, “I cannot have it so!  The Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me!”  and St. Clare pronounced these words with a bitter emphasis, indeed.
“Augustine! has not God a right to do what He will with his own?” said Miss Ophelia.

Ophelia’s rhetorical question made me think of the hymn “What God Ordains Is Always Good” (Lutheran Service Book 760).   The text is by Samuel Rodigast (1649-1708).  Here’s the last stanza of this hymn of hope and comfort.

What God ordains is always good:
This truth remains unshaken.
Though sorrow, need, or death be mine.
I shall not be forsaken.
I fear no harm.
For with His arm
He shall embrace and shield me:
So to my God I yield me.

Later at Eva’s death-bed…

     Tom had his master’s hands between his own; and, with tears streaming down his dark cheeks, looked up for help where he had always been used to look.
“Pray that this may be cut short!” said St. Clare, — “This wrings my heart.”
“O, bless the Lord! it’s over, –it’s over, dear Master!” said Tom; “look at her.”

…

“O, Eva, tell us what you see!  What is it?” said her father.
A bright, a glorious smile passed over her face, and she said brokenly,–”O! love, –joy, –peace!” gave one sigh and passed from death unto life!

“What God Ordains Is Always Good”
stanza 5

What God ordains is always good.
     Though I the cup am drinking
Which savors now of bitterness,
     I take it without shrinking.
          For after grief
          God gives relief,
My heart with comfort filling
And all my sorrow stilling.

I love that Harriet Beecher Stowe says Eva passed from death into life.
For a Christian, this is hope and comfort in the midst of grief.

Beautiful response, Ophelia.

 

I don’t mean to moo.

Don’t feel like you need to show fealty to me by completing the Hebdomadal Review, but at the same time, don’t  be cowed by it, if you have to put it in several sentences you won’t be sent to the calaboose, so take a deep sniff from your vinaigrette, grab a rusk to nibble on, and comment away.

No stress.  Just grab some or all of the words, and put them in a sentence, or two, or six:
vinaigrette
calaboose
fealty
hurryscurryation
rusks
cowed

 

Frozen Stories

Before children, I watched the tv show Friends.

I’ve read chapter XXIV of Uncle Tom’s Cabin: the one that’s titled Foreshadowings and is all about Eva’s beginning to “fail rapidly.”  I quickly read through the following chapter and I’ve peeked ahead, seeing that chapter XXVI is titled “Death”.  I don’t want to read “Death”.

I keep thinking of the episode of Friends where Joey and Rachel trade favorite books.

Anyone else remember this?

Rachel’s favorite book is Little Women.
Joey’s favorite book is The Shining.
During the course of the episode Joey admits that when The Shining gets too scary, he puts it in the freezer.  He’s safe from it there.

Rachel and Joey are reading each other’s books.  This clip shows what happens when Joey gets to the part where Beth March is very sick.

I’m seriously wondering if the kindle will suffer any lasting effects from low temperatures.

 

Moo.

cowed - v. intimidated

Classical Usage:  Rosa, one of the fairer skinned slaves, attempts to advise young Eva in how to handle her slaves, particularly Topsy.  Her suggestion is that “there’s no way but to cut ‘em well up. . . ”  Eva is horrified at the thought, “hush! Don’t you say another word of that sort!” and the eye of the child flashed, and her cheek deepened its color.  Rosa was cowed in a moment.

Classically Mad Usage:  Despite the fact that I grew up on a farm, cows cow me.