Edith Wharton -- Ethan Frome
Too Cool Daddy
extend, at first, no further than to the work, which from all
appearances, for a number of reasons, resided in the closest proximity
to her own heart, *Ethan Frome*, a mere slip of a novel in little more
than 180 pages, but one of such tremendous power and mystery that once
you've picked it up, you won't put it down until you've seen it unfold
entire, at one easy sitting in a few hours reading. It doesn't matter
if you've seen the movie (with Liam Neeson), but if you're real lucky,
you haven't, as yet.
And when I say, 'seen it unfold' I mean it literally because *Ethan
Frome* is in any case, a video that you push into your cerebral VCR,
it is itself a movie-before-its-time written during a time when
novelists had the craft to do that, in the same way that Rafael and
Rembrandt knew the arts of photography before it even came into
material existence. This she accomplishes by legerdemain of pen in
hand, by an elegant economy of words in metaphor powerful for
invocation of images, thus to provide a sensual edification of the
mind on so grand a scale of production, that as I say, she was an
auteur, a cinematographer who made movies before the actual making of
movies came to make obsolete the art as she practised it, only to
produce the abbreviated, slap-dash Expressionism of a Hemingway and a
Virginia Woolf. This is not in every case to disparage the latter, but
only to make it exceedingly evident that Van Gogh does not and cannot,
never will replace Vermeer and Botticelli.
That being said, painting is painting and literature is literature,
quite another thing; the art of the novel is painting and
architecture, music, fashion, drama, psychology and philosophy all
rolled into one medium which alas is made all the poorer for a loss of
the sort of uncluttered, Post-Baroque classical Romantic realism that
Wharton imparted to her work. And this has been to say nothing of the
satirical wit that is so sharp and subtle in the narrative that except
one is advised of its existence one might well make the grave error of
experiencing the real for the surreal in her work, or which may be
more to the point, the absurd for the serious.
Having recently made a further attempt to come to terms with Hemingway
in his *The Sun Also Rises*, I can only say that I give him far too
much credit to describe such hastily sketched, colorless drawings as
"Expressionism". The difference is this: in reading Wharton, one
*sees*, *hears*, *feels*, gains a *scent* of what one is reading,
whereas with Hemingway, the experience is largely limited to the
auditory, to blind hearing, while yet it is in no case a symphony that
one hears, it is not even the great jazz of that true literary
Expressionist, Scott Fitzgerald, but something more akin to a drunken
German polka band playing some off-key maritial air while some bawdy
clown sings the lyics.
In Wharton's prose you find the precision of fine needle-point
painstakingly rendered in sumptuous, tastefully chosen fabric to
perfect a cloak of experience that is never merely aesthetic but fully
tactile as its been executed to a purpose that it should be as
clothing to a reader's heart and mind; a snug, warm apparel, that for
a few hours' reading time, wards off all the cold drafts of one's own
surroundings to become a complete experience in itself.
I might add that her short introduction to *Ethan Frome*, the only one
she ever wrote to any of her novels, will immediately introduce one to
a quality of mind that is so rare to be found in this day as to be
nearly extinct in terms of the subtle content of its sensibility and
refinement. One can only read it in awe as one laments, "What ever
became of women like this?" Because she was a lady novelist, and not
by any means a strident "feminist" she has not attained even in this
day to the distinction she deserves in the view of the holders of the
literary canon. But the continuing market for her work gives the lie
to that. Compare the quality of prose she produces to that of Hardy,
James (those old bores) Dreiser, Dos Passos and Thomas Wolfe who
though they (these latter) came into it a mere decade later would seem
to hold far higher positions in the pantheon of literary giants, as in
that you will see an injustice which thanks to the efforts of Martin
Scorsese (even if his production of *the Age of Innocence* can't hold
a candle to the earlier, 30's production with Irene Dunne) and a
growing number of others, that is in process of being righted.
--
John http://jpdavid.topcities.com/index.html
Amador Green: http://www.xanga.com/home.asp?user=JPDavid
Amador Green, The Beginning: http://amadorgreen.blogspot.com
Hollywood Lullaby: http://jpdavid.blogspot.com
"We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when,
But I know we'll meet again some sunny day."
--Ross Parker, Hughie Charles
Peter Krynicki
>
> That being said, painting is painting and literature is literature,
> quite another thing; the art of the novel is painting and
> architecture, music, fashion, drama, psychology and philosophy all
> rolled into one medium which alas is made all the poorer for a loss of
> the sort of uncluttered, Post-Baroque classical Romantic realism that
> Wharton imparted to her work. And this has been to say nothing of the
> satirical wit that is so sharp and subtle in the narrative that except
> one is advised of its existence one might well make the grave error of
> experiencing the real for the surreal in her work, or which may be
> more to the point, the absurd for the serious.
>
> Having recently made a further attempt to come to terms with Hemingway
> in his *The Sun Also Rises*, I can only say that I give him far too
> much credit to describe such hastily sketched, colorless drawings as
> "Expressionism". The difference is this: in reading Wharton, one
> *sees*, *hears*, *feels*, gains a *scent* of what one is reading,
> whereas with Hemingway, the experience is largely limited to the
> auditory, to blind hearing, while yet it is in no case a symphony that
> one hears, it is not even the great jazz of that true literary
> Expressionist, Scott Fitzgerald, but something more akin to a drunken
> German polka band playing some off-key maritial air while some bawdy
> clown sings the lyics.
>
>
There is a lot of investigation into the relationship of the other art
forms and Hemingway's writing; the Impressionists, Expressionists,
Cubist, etc, and especially the Imagist poets.
For example, Emily Stipes Watts writes...
There are at least four methods of the painter which Hemingway was
able to transpose into words. The first of these is the use of a
series of planes for depth and structural development. Particularly in
his later pictures, which include the landscapes Hemingway studied,
Cezanne often used planes parallel to the surface of the canvas,
mounting one upon the other, or one behind another, or simply
scattered throughout the picture, all usually interjoining and
interpenetrating.
Hemingway used a series of larger planes united by a diagonal line.
Most often, these are landscapes of which the viewer has a very wide
vista, as in Jake’s view of Burgette form The Sun Also Rises:
“Looking back we saw Burgette, white houses and red roofs, and
the white road with a truck going along it. Ahead the road came out of
the forest and went out along the shoulder of the ridge of the hills.
The hills ahead were not wooded, and there were great fields of yellow
gorse. Way off we could see the steep bluffs with trees and jutting
with stone that marked the course of the Irati River.”
There are four planes clearly marked in this passage: the village, the
forest, the hill, and the bluffs. The first three are cut across and
through by the diagonal line of the road. Compare this verbal
landscape to any one of Cezanne’s works, which are primarily
landscapes, such as the Mont Sainte-Victoire paintings. In nearly all
of these, Cezanne has developed his landscapes by a series of planes
cut across and through by a road, river, line of trees, or simply
color modulations. The viewer is taken back into the depth of the
vista by the diagonal line.
Furthermore, both Hemingway and Cezanne concluded or topped these
series of spatial planes by a heavy mass of rocks; in Cezanne
paintings, Mont Sainte-Victoire itself, and in Hemingway’s
description, “the steep bluffs jutting with gray rocks.”
The series of smaller planes have been leading to this mass of rock,
and with the added emphasis of the diagonal line, the reader/viewer
must focus on the pyramid of Mont Sainte-Victoire or upon the
“steep bluffs.” Thus both artists have used these planes
not only to designate landscape elements and create depth but also to
form the basic structure of the vista itself.”
And as far as any so-called “visual blindness…”
“In “Big Two-Hearted River,” which is one on
Hemingway’s “colorful” short stories, color is more
than visible, it is tactile: “He sat on he logs smoking, drying
in the sun, the sun warm on his back, the river shallow ahead entering
the woods, curving into the woods, shallows, light glittering, big
smooth-water rocks, cedars along the banks and white birches, the logs
warm in the sun smooth to sit on, without bark, gray to the
touch.”
“Gray to the touch.” The integration of color and form.
The creation of form by color was obviously one of Cezanne’s
major contributions to the modern school. Perhaps Nick Adams’
tactile response to a visual quality can be associated with
Hemingway’s own observations concerning Cezanne’s
“Rocks in the Forest:” This is what we try to do in
writing, this and this, and the woods and the rocks we have to climb
over.” Hemingway’s specific reference to ‘the rocks
we have to climb over” indicates his own tactile response to the
volumes of those large gray rocks in the shadowy forests of
Fountainbleu. Cezanne had formed these volumes primarily by color
which, at least for Hemingway, had become something tactile, something
which it was neces
Thanks
Pjk