Washington Irving explained America to England and England to America — His stories rely heavily on sentiment, and I like it — Miranda July’s latest novel is extremely depressing — Melville wrote two great stories — The future is Nigerian — A British naval tale makes the case for hierarchy and inequality — I’ll be at AWP in LA from March 26th through 29th
On
and and ’s recommendation, I decided to look into Washington Irving. His major work is a book called The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, which is I guess what you’d call a short story collection, except that many of the pieces are essays.Washington Irving was born in 1783, and he was from a bourgeois New York family. Back in this era, there were plenty of books in America, there was plenty of literacy, and a fair amount of newspaper writing and religious writing, but few home-grown American literary figures of repute. Washington Irving traveled to England in 1815 to manage some of his family’s business affairs, but after their merchant house went bankrupt, he stuck around, writing the sketches that would become part of The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon.
At some point, he sent this book home to America, and his brother paid to have it published. The book was a huge success in both England and America, and it’s easy to see why, because to a large extent it functions as a travelogue about a native-born American who finds himself in what he still, to some degree, continues his ancestral homeland. He writes about English life and English customs just as quaintly as if he was writing about traveling to, say, India.
I’ve noticed this with a lot of 19th-century American writers. They oftentimes succeeded by managing the dual desire of American readers to know about the outside world, and of English readers to know about America. For maybe the first fifty or sixty years of American literary history, it was quite difficult to achieve a durable reputation (or even lasting financial success!) if you didn’t have an English audience, so you needed to appeal to readers on both sides of the pond.1 Sketchbook does this by informing English readers about America, and American readers about England.
I found The Sketchbook very charming. It’s all told from the perspective of this fictional gentleman, Geoffrey Crayon, who rambles around England, talking about their picturesque customs, even though he’s very aware that these customs are even now fading.
There is a strong sentimental streak in his writing. First there is the antiquarian element: everywhere Irving is drawn to old, ancient, stately things. For instance, he tries to track down the Boar’s Head tavern that Shakespeare used as a model for the tavern where Falstaff hung out. He also lingers for several chapters on the customs of Christmas: the Wassail bowls and the tableaus and the processions.
And he tells these extremely sentimental stories. For instance, one take is about a poor woman whose only consolation is her beautiful son. But then the son is impressed by the navy, and the woman’s husband dies. She lives in crushing poverty until her son comes back, himself at death’s door due to wounds incurred in service. And then he dies, and she dies shortly thereafter.
Another story is about a woman who loved an Irish patriot, who was hanged. After his death, she also wastes away:
The love of a delicate female is always shy and silent. Even when fortunate, she scarcely breathes it to herself; but when otherwise, she buries it in the recesses of her bosom, and there lets it cower and brood among the ruins of her peace. With her the desire of the heart has failed. The great charm of existence is at an end. She neglects all the cheerful exercises which gladden the spirits, quicken the pulses, and send the tide of life in healthful currents through the veins. Her rest is broken—the sweet refreshment of sleep is poisoned by melancholy dreams—‘dry sorrow drinks her blood,’
This is unbelievably sentimental. And people loved these stories back then. Lord Byron himself was like, this story, about this woman, is fantastic. Love this story about the woman wasting away because her man is dead.2
Honestly, these two sentimental stories? I was pretty into them. It’s made me want to try and read more sentimental literature. Because the emotional effect of these tales is undeniable. They’re meant to manipulate your feelings, and they succeed. Even after two hundred years, it’s pretty sad that the lady’s son got taken away and she died. And every element of these stories is calculated to dial up that sentimental effect. For instance, the the lovelorn woman tries to get over her heartbreak, she even marries another good, decent-hearted man (who accepts that she can never fully love him), but her heartbreak is just too much.
I’m no better than anyone else. I really enjoy feeling things. I felt things when I read these stories. There are so many stories in here that rely on sentiment for their primary effect. For instance, there's an episode where Crayon is in Westminster Abbey, and he opens up a dusty old book, and the book starts complaining that nobody ever reads it, and the book should be out in the world, getting ready, and Irving has to explain to it that all the book’s contemporaries are lost and gone now, and it’s only through being locked up in the library that the book has managed to survive. When the book argues that surely some of its fellows lived—what about Sir Philip Sidney for instance, surely he’s immortal, Crayon answers:
‘There you are again mistaken,’ said I; ‘the writers whom you suppose in vogue, because they happened to be so when you were last in circulation, have long since had their day. Sir Philip Sydney’s Arcadia, the immortality of which was so fondly predicted by his admirers, and which, in truth, is full of noble thoughts, delicate images, and graceful turns of language, is now scarcely ever mentioned. Sackville has strutted into obscurity; and even Lyly, though his writings were once the delight of a court, and apparently perpetuated by a proverb, is now scarcely known even by name. A whole crowd of authors who wrote and wrangled at the time, have likewise gone down, with all their writings and their controversies. Wave after wave of succeeding literature has rolled over them, until they are buried so deep, that it is only now and then that some industrious diver after fragments of antiquity brings up a specimen for the gratification of the curious.
Although he has a presentiment of his own obscurity, the truth is that two tales from Irving’s book have indeed lasted, even unto the present day: “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”. They book-end the volume, with Rip coming at the beginning and Sleepy Hollow at the end. What’s funny about these stories is that they’re not really dialed up to eleven the way the sentimental tales are. These stories are mostly humorous stories, told to comic effect. Rip is a henpecked husband who goes out fowling in the woods, runs afoul of some dairies, and wakes up twenty years later. When he comes home, Rip is initially confused, but…he’s also happy his shrew of a wife has died. Finally he can live in peace!
Similarly, Ichabod Crane is so sleazy and self-important that it's impossible to feel any true foreboding or pathos in his story, and, moreover, it’s unclear if the horseman actually killed him (or even if it might not’ve just been a joke by someone who disliked him). Crane is trying to romance the daughter of a wealthy local man, and then as he’s walking home, he’s chased down by the horseman. The the story ends with the suggestion that maybe he wasn’t killed, maybe he just ran away to New York, where he eventually managed to achieve high office. There’s even a postscript where someone asks, “Wait a second, what was the moral of the tale?” And the response is a big shrug:
The story-teller, who was just putting a glass of wine to his lips, as a refreshment after his toils, paused for a moment, looked at his inquirer with an air of infinite deference, and, lowering the glass slowly to the table, observed, that the story was intended most logically to prove:—
‘That there is no situation in life but has its advantages and pleasures—provided we will but take a joke as we find it:
‘That, therefore, he that runs races with goblin troopers is likely to have rough riding of it. ‘
Ergo, for a country schoolmaster to be refused the hand of a Dutch heiress, is a certain step to high preferment in the state.’
It’s easy to see why both of these stories lasted. They have striking central characters: it's quite simple to summon up a mental picture the short, hen-pecked, confused Rip drinking from a jug of fairy-wine up in the hills or the tall, gawky Ichabod oozing over some poor woman. And they tell short, sharp tales that can’t easily be assimilated or explained. It’s very hard to say what either story means.
Everything I read in February, 2025
After I started posting on Notes about White-Jacket,
said something like, “You’re reading some pretty obscure books. Is there some method here?”The method is that if I really like something, I often read other books by that author or from a similar era. So while re-reading Huckleberry Finn recently (a piece on this book is forthcoming from Arc), I read six other works by Twain. Then, because Twain has an essay critiquing James Fenimore Cooper, I read five works by Cooper. Afterwards, while looking into other 19th-century Americans, I ran across Herman Melville’s White-Jacket, which started my my Melville kick.
In February, I read fourteen books:
Five books by Herman Melville
Three other nautically-themed books from the 19th-century
One other classic work of early 19th-century literature
One work of contemporary non-fiction
Three novels by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
One other contemporary American literary novel
Many of these books I’ve already written about, and some of them I’m going to write about in a forthcoming piece. The Adichie novels I read because I’m reviewing her latest, Dream Count, for Arc.
Some of you might be wondering: What about the Mahabharata? Well I’m reading that too. But I cannot over-emphasize the arcane-ness of the current section of the Mahabharata: it’s all about providing general principles for how to conduct religious ceremonies and rituals. I just read a long chapter on the proper way to fast, for instance.
Here’s the full list of books:
Typee - Herman Melville
Omoo - Herman Melville
Moby-Dick - Herman Melville
Redburn - Herman Melville
Midshipman Easy - Frederick Marryat
Piazza Tales - Herman Melville
Two Years Before The Mast - Richard Henry Dana
Nigeria: What Everyone Needs To Know - John Campbell and Matthew T. Page
Half Of A Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Americanah - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Dream Count - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
All Fours - Miranda July
The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon - Washington Irving
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket - Edgar Allan Poe
I’ve already written posts about the major books I’d want to discuss, I wrote about Typee and Omoo and Two Years Before The Mast, about White-Jacket, and about Moby-Dick.
But I did have some shorter thoughts on a few of these books.
Miranda July’s latest novel is extremely depressing
This book, All Fours, is about a successful artist who’s married and has a child. On a road-trip across the country, she develops a sexual fixation on a man who works at a Hertz rental car agency, and she maneuvers her way into an erotically-charged relationship with him. I think the novel might be a good novel. It’s well-written, heartfelt. I don’t think the narrator is lying or keeping anything back. Everything in the book feels somewhat-true. Not realistic (the protagonist’s life is absurd), but true on a deeper level.
Her husband is a good husband, but she doesn’t enjoy sex with him—perhaps she’s never truly enjoyed sex with anyone, because she’s always been so mired in expectation, in some sense of who she’s supposed to be. With this man, she experiences a sexual awakening—he’s a dancer, and he helps her become more fully embodied, more connected to her flesh, and that in turn creates new sexual opportunities for her, new ways of experiencing sex, which she longs to explore with other people.
I think it’s a good novel. At the same time, I found it extremely painful to read. If I wasn’t facilitating a book club discussion on this book, I probably would not have finished. I just kept thinking, “Is this really the play? That we just seek new experiences forever, until we die?” It was so dark, so depressing, to think that we have this woman who’s unable to accept that she’s aging, that she’s not young anymore, and that a certain part of her life is over. And, moreover, that this vain striving after youth is…celebrated! Admired! That many women somehow find it empowering.3
I kept being reminded of Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women where she argued that the reason so many women seem vain and frivolous is that they’ve been taught to see their life’s purpose in romance. And because romance terminates in marriage, most women eventually find themselves bored and adrift, constantly yearning for the past, like athletes who spent their lives training for a game they’re now too old to play.
Similarly, I was reminded of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, and her “problem with no name”, where she talked about the legions of unsatisfied housewives, who yearned for meaningful work. The way July describes middle-age in this book is very reminiscent of Friedan—that same vague dissatisfaction—but her prescription (polyamory, essentially) seems so much darker and more sterile than Friedan’s call for more meaningful work.
Melville wrote two great stories, and then…some other ones
Let’s be real, Melville’s Piazza Tales is mostly famous for two stories: “Bartleby the Scrivener” and “Benito Cereno”. Bartleby is a story you all read in English class, and if you haven’t you definitely should: it’s about an office-worker who refuses to do his work. Isaac Kolding wrote a great post about quite recently! Benito Cereno is about an American captain, Amasa Delano, who boards a Spanish ship that’s in distress, and he’s struck by this aura of gloom and foreboding that seems to hang over it for some reason. And he only realizes midway through the tales that actually it’s been hijacked by the slaves it’s carrying, and they’ve been forcing the Spanish captain to act as if he’s still in charge.
It’s a phenomenal story, because there’s so much irony. Amasa Delano isn’t pro-slavery necessarily, but he’s completely on the Spanish captain’s side. By nature, he sees Black people, whether free or enslaved, as being happy and congenial companions.
When at ease with respect to exterior things, Captain Delano’s nature was not only benign, but familiarly and humorously so. At home, he had often taken rare satisfaction in sitting in his door, watching some free man of color at his work or play. If on a voyage he chanced to have a black sailor, invariably he was on chatty and half-gamesome terms with him. In fact, like most men of a good, blithe heart, Captain Delano took to negroes, not philanthropically, but genially, just as other men to Newfoundland dogs.
By the end of the voyage, we can tell that Delano sees things quite differently.
There’s also four other stories in this collection. The only other one that seems truly worthy of comment is The Encantadas. It’s a set of ten sketches about the Galapagos, which are remote and largely-uninhabited, except by a succession of rogues, runaways, and pirates. It’s worth reading if you haven’t read either of Melville’s island travelogues, since it carries much the same feel.
The future is Nigerian
I read Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s three previous novels because I am reviewing her latest, Dream Count, for a journal called Arc. I’m not sure if I have any more more to say about them that I didn’t put into my review, but I came away from this experience with a lot of respect for Adichie. I think whenever her characters engage in arguments that touch on American politics or culture, the result can be quite flat, but it’s a thrill to read about Nigeria, which seems like such a fascinating, lively place.
It’s insulting, I am told, to read an author sociologically, as your guide to a different place and culture. You’re supposed to separate out the artistry, which is universal, from the subject matter, which is particular. But…doesn’t that cut both ways? If we aren’t interested in learning about other cultures, then what need is there to read any books by non-white people? I think Adichie is a world-class author, certainly much better than many others who’ve achieved equivalent fame. She makes a careful study of the human heart, and she’s able to paint human motivations with an unstinting eye.
But…I also really enjoyed learning about Nigeria! I had no idea the country was so large, population-wise. I've learned quite a bit about their fantastically complex history, politics, demography, and governmental system—I’ve read a few Nigerian authors before (Chinua Achebe and Oyinkan Braithwaite are the ones that are coming to mind), but I am certainly under-read on their literature. The country has two-hundred and twenty million people, and one of the largest population growth rates amongst the more-populous nations. Since English is their official language, they are likely to play an increasingly large role in Anglophone letters.
Melville tests out some light nihilism
The last Melville book that I read before Moby-Dick was his fourth book and second novel, Redburn. It’s a fictionalized account of Melville’s first voyage, a six-week journey to Liverpool. The book bears a strong resemblance to Moby-Dick in that the characters are heightened and grotesque. For instance, the villain of the book is the sailor Jackson, who everyone can tell is consumptive and exhausted and close to death, but who possesses some terrible malevolent force that allows him to dominate the rest of the crew. In Liverpool, the main character, Wellingborough Redburn, comes across a woman and her two children starving to death in a little empty space under a house. He tries to toss them food, get them help, but everyone advises to leave them alone.
Eventually, he comes back to see they’ve passed, and their hole has been sealed up with lime. He also picks up Bolton, who claims to be the scion of an English lord, and wants to ship out to America on a lark. But on the voyage home, Bolton reveals himself to be a coward, afraid of climbing into the rigging, and Redburn gets terribly afraid for his future. It’s clear that this brash kid really has nothing going on, nowhere to go, has lied about his past and his prospects. It’s quite a haunting book, sort of the inverse of Irving’s sentimentality. There is no redemption, no meaning, no after-life, no Christ. But, as with Moby-Dick, it’s rescued by its emphasis on the quotidian and by the forward-momentum inherent in a sea voyage.
A British naval tale makes a bold case for…hierarchy and inequality
Midshipman Easy is a British novel, highly recognizable as one of the inspirations for C.S. Forester and every subsequent naval fiction. It’s about Mr. Jack Easy, who is raised by his father to believe in democratic principles and the equality of all mankind. Easy ships out to the navy, because he is convinced that on the sea everyone is equal. Well…he discovers differently, obviously. He gets into a series of scrapes and adventures that test his belief in equality, and he eventually settles down into a good old-fashioned belief in hierarchy. Even his Black friend, Mephistopheles, stops believing in the equality of man as soon as he’s promoted from steward to corporal.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” replied Jack thoughtfully; “I came to sea on account of equality and the rights of man.”
“Eh, Massa Easy, you come to wrong place anyhow; now I tink a good deal lately, and by all de power, I tink equality all stuff.”
“All stuff, Mesty, why? you used to think otherwise.”
“Yes, Massa Easy, but den I boil de kettle for all young gentleman. Now dat I ship’s corporal and hab cane, I tink so no longer.”
The book really palls after the midway point, when it degenerates into a series of somewhat-repetitive adventures, but until then it’s great.
Elsewhere on Substack…
I enjoyed this piece on Compact’s Substack, about how viral dynamics play just as strong a role on the right as they once played on the left.
writes about one of the weirder memoirs in existence: The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, the book where Gertrude Stein tells her own life story (and settles old scores) by writing a book in the voice of her life partner, Alice.The new bluecheck aristocracy is posting astonishing levels of cringe in part because it now occupies a position comparable to that of the old bluechecks five to ten years ago. It is a symptom of hubris from the group that has rapidly achieved what we might call viral hegemony. Viral hegemony is arrived at not through a “long march through the institutions,” but a rapid stampede across the algorithmically mediated public sphere, which the logic of the attention economy tends to push far more rapidly into cycles of extremist one-upmanship. As River Page noted this week, its ascendancy has made the online right “high on its own supply,” prompting overreach—notably, like its predecessor, the promotion of views on race and sex very out of sync with the mainstream of public opinion—that will eventually bring about a backlash.
What is the book really about anyway? Mostly, friendship. Meeting people and getting to know them when they happen to end up famous later on, in other centuries. Also, it’s a lot about Gertrude Stein’s literary career. When people like her work, when they don’t. When they don’t like her work but still quote her work. What books she’s working on and when and what starts her up and what slows her down. What’s successful and how she’s so unknown for so long. How it’s Alice who saves the note that reads, “a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose” (138). How she’s really proud of that fact, Alice is, or Alice-Gertrude, Gertrude through Alice, both of them recounting Gertrude’s career.
Later this month…
I am going to be in Los Angeles for the Association of Writing Programs conference from March 26 through 29th. My signing will be at the Feminist Press table on March 29th from 2 PM to 3:30 PM.
Is anyone else going to AWP?
As an aside, this situation is similar to India’s 20th-century literary history. Having an audience in America and Britain really helped an Indian writer achieve an audience in India. This situation has changed somewhat now, however.
Got this anecdote about Byron loving this extremely maudlin tale from the Wikipedia entry for the book.
Freddie DeBoer makes essentially this same point in a recent post.
I just want to say that I consider myself a big Washington Irving fan, and I cannot tolerate most of the Sketchbook—I lament that, because of two admittedly good stories (Rip Van Winkle and the Spectre Bridegroom), this is the Irving that gets reprinted and the Penguin Classics treatment etc. Much better (I think) are his Tales of the Alhambra and his nonfiction on Islamic and Spanish history. There’s a lot I haven’t read, but everything I’ve ever read by Irving has been better than the vast majority of the Sketchbook.
All of this I say merely in case someone tries out the Sketchbook and gets turned off. There’s more to the man and it’s very witty, engaging, and beautifully written!
I'll be at AWP!