The Complete Goofy Quizzes on Victorian Novels (2008): Villette, Mill on the Floss, The Woman in White, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Dracula
First installment of Elisabeth’s Really Goofy Unauthorized and Unofficial Quiz on Victorian Novels: Villette
(This quiz is cumulative. No right or wrong answers.)
1. Short answer:
Mrs. Jellyby arranges a field trip to Borrioboola-Gha for the students at Madame Beck’s boarding school. At the last minute, she has a dawning realization of England’s own social problems, and decides to take a number of orphans (including Jo) off the streets of London, and re-settle them in Borrioboola-Gha in hopes of a better life growing coffee. Mrs. Jellyby and the street urchins arrive at the Rue Fossette to stay overnight before traveling on the next day to Borrioboola-Gha, and Jo wanders into one of M. Paul’s lectures. M. Paul begins to interrogate Jo on the extent of his learning, first in French, then resorting to the abominable English, but finds that Jo is in utter darkness as to the meaning. To each question, Jo only replies, “I don’t know nothink.” He has not the least idea of all that language – he is, to every scrap of it, stone blind and dumb!
“Est-ce que vous avez l’intention de m’insulter?” demands M. Paul.
Jo only thinks (for perhaps Jo does think, at odd times) what does it all mean, and if it means anything to anybody, how comes it that it means nothing to me?
“Je te deteste, mon garcon!” cries M. Paul.
Is this the occasion that M. Paul finally falls down foaming at the mouth and has a coronary over all of this deplorable ignorance? Does he leap from his estrade in a passion of anger and attack the stove, demanding that Jo move on? Or does he weep tears of mercy declaring, “Decidedly I am a monster and a ruffian!”, and dedicate the tiny amount of money he is not already giving to charitable causes to Mrs. Jellyby’s Borrioboola-Gha Orphan Project? Explain.
Choose an answer and very briefly explain why:
2. Which Sexy Victorian Doctor would you marry? A. Mr. Woodcourt or B. Dr. John
Or which Flawless Angel of the House would you marry? A. Ada or B. Paulina
3. Which narrator would you be best pals with? A. Esther Summerson or B. Lucy Snowe
4. Your Sexy Victorian Doctor or your Flawless Angel of the House has been cheating on you, and you need to engage the perfect Spy/Investigator to get to the bottom of things.
do you choose: A. Mr. Bucket or B. Madame Beck?
5. Who does the guilty adulterer/adultress turn out to be?
Lady Dedlock
Ginevra Fanshawe
Colonel de Hamal
Sir Launcelot du Lac
Other
6. Bonus Question for those also in the Middle English class (or anyone else interested):
Dr. John, in league with Morgan Le Fay and the ghostly nun of the Rue Fossette, makes a bet with the Green Knight over who can teach the better moral lesson through a beheading game. Dr. John dyes himself and a horse red, charges into Madame Beck’s fete calling himself the Red Knight, and demands that someone come forth and cut off his head with an ax. At first, no one speaks or moves, and Madame Beck, for the sake of honor and reputation, nearly has to do it. But then Lucy Snowe steps in with perfect poise and humility, and cuts off the Red Knight’s head. He retrieves it from where several of the girls have been kicking it around on the dance floor and remounts his horse, carrying the head under his arm. Before riding off, he calmly decrees that Lucy must seek him out a year later to have the blow returned to her own neck. Meanwhile, Sir Gawain sets off on his quest to find his own green-hued challenger. He stops and dawdles at a castle, partying and flirting with maidens, somehow failing to recognize (despite striking similarities), that his host at the castle is the very same Green Knight he’s seeking. In Lucy’s quest, she proceeds to take us through several months and hundreds of pages, describing complex personifications of Hope, Love, and Reason, but Unreasonably withholding from us (even though we’ve already figured it out for ourselves a long time ago) that she’s known all along that the Red Knight and Dr. John are the same man. Who exasperates us more? Gawain, who acts like a clueless numbskull? Or Lucy, who knows things but refuses to tell us? When Lucy arrives for her beheading, does the Red Knight/Dr. John go through with it, or does she learn her lesson and narrate less mysteriously?
The Really Goofy Quiz in Victorian Novels: Mill on the Floss edition
(This quiz is cumulative. No right or wrong answers.)
1. God grows weary of Maggie Tulliver’s endless agonizing, and decides to use a deus ex machina to put her out of her misery as rapidly as possible, along with all of England while he’s at it. Because he is God, his decision cannot be questioned by critics. He resolves on a spectacular apocalypse of seven plagues, but is having trouble deciding the best order. Help God put the plagues in the most pleasing and logical order:
a. Fog. Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, fog down the river, fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping onto the cabooses of collier-brigs, fog lying out on the yards, and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats, fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners.
b. Mud. As much mud in the streets, as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill.
c. Smoke. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full grown snow-flakes – gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun.
d. Flood. That awful visitation of God’s which Maggie’s father used to talk of – which had made the nightmare of her childish dreams.
e. Spontaneous Combustion of all tipplers across England. Say it might have been prevented how you will, it is the same death eternally – inborn, inbred, engendered in the corrupted humours of the vicious body itself, and that only – Spontaneous Combustion, and none other of all the deaths that can be died.
f. Storm. Not till the destroying angel of tempest had achieved his perfect work, would he fold the wings whose waft was thunder – the tremor of whose plumes was storm.
g. A plague of millions of Harold Skimpoles visited simultaneously upon every household in England. They are each a mere child in the world! All they ask is, to let them live. That isn’t much. Their wants are few. Give them the papers, conversation, music, mutton, coffee, landscape, fruit in the season, a few sheets of Bristol-board, and a little claret, and they ask no more. Why should they regret their incapacity for details and worldly affairs, when it leads to such pleasant consequences?
2. Here pause: pause at once. There is enough said. Trouble no quiet, kind heart; leave sunny imaginations hope. Let if be theirs to conceive of the delight of joy born again fresh out of great terror, the rapture of rescue from peril, the wondrous reprieve from dread: the seven plagues will not be visited upon England, for God has changed his mind, deciding that Maggie is worthily conscientious after all, and not just a drama queen. Who does he send as his harbinger from Heaven to impart glad tidings of mercy to the British people?
Jo, the innocent.
Richard Carstone, the repentant.
M. Paul, the true-believing philanthropist.
Lady Dedlock, the martyr.
Sir Gawain, the licentious, with a number of fair ladies with him.
All of the above, in a burst of heavenly light.
3. Forget duty, honor, and internal conflicts. Forget dying in an eternal embrace with your brother. God has pulled back those floodwaters, and you get a second chance. Do you:
Keep on floatin’ down that river with Stephen Guest, out of passion, enjoying a good sex life as long as it lasts.
Marry Phillip Wakem, out of friendship and honor, living out your days enjoying mutual understanding and an active intellectual life.
Form a ménage a trois with Bob Jakin and his wife, enjoying that wacky sense of humor and refreshingly laid back attitude toward life.
Persuade Sir Galahad to lose his holier-than-thou virginity and give up the Grail Quest.
All of the above.
4. Which of these conflicts is most complicated and difficult to comprehend?
The outbreak of World War I
Mr. Tulliver’s lawsuit over the mill
Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce
The Dodson family quarrels
The Wars of the Roses
Lucy Snowe’s relationship with M. Paul
5. Best comedic couple:
Mr. and Mrs. Badger (He admired her exceedingly, but principally, and to begin with, on the curious ground - as it seemed to us - of her having had three husbands.)
Mr. and Mrs. Glegg (“Well!” said Mrs. Glegg, rising from her chair, “I don’t know whether you think it’s a fine thing to sit by and hear me swore at, Mr. Glegg; but I’m not going to stay a minute longer in this house. You can stay behind, and come home with the gig – and I’ll walk home.” “Dear heart, dear heart!” said Mr. Glegg in a melancholy tone, as he followed his wife out of the room.)
Mr. and Mrs. Pullet (Mrs. Pullet had married a gentleman farmer, and had leisure and money to carry her crying and everything else to the highest pitch of respectability.)
Mr. and Mrs. Bagnet (Old girl, give him my opinion!)
Ginevra Fanshawe and Alfred de Hamal (During the first year or two, it was only of herself and Alfred she wrote; then, Alfred faded in the background; herself and a certain new comer prevailed; one Alfred Fanshawe de Bassompierre de Hamal began to reign in his father’s stead.)
Sergeant George and Phil Squod (“How old are you, Phil?” asks the trooper. “I’m something with a eight in it,” says Phil. “It can’t be eighty. Nor yet eighteen. It’s betwixt ‘em, somewheres.”)
6. Middle English bonus question. Read the following passage and answer the question that follows.
Le Morte D’Maggie
Chapter 6: How Sir Launcelot was revealed to be the third lover of Maggie Tulliver, how he acted like a sexist bastard and an annoying twit, and of other matters
As the French book maketh mention, when the corpses of Maggie and Tom Tulliver were fished from the flood, they were put in a fair bed with all their richest clothes laid about them; and they were put within a barget, and the barget covered with black samite over and over; and so Bob Jakin steered the barget unto the Deanes’ house, and there he rowed a great while to and fro or any espied it.
So by fortune Stephen Guest and Lucy Deane were speaking together at a window, and so as they looked into the Floss they espied the black barget, and had marvel what it meant. Then Stephen Guest called Philip Wakem and showed it him.
“Sir,” said Philip, “wit you well there is some new tidings.”
Then these three departed and came to the barget and went in; and there they found the two fair corpses lying in a rich bed, and poor Bob Jakin sitting in the barget’s end, and no word would he speak.
“Alas,” said Stephen, “Now is my joy gone.” And then he fell down and swooned, and long he lay there as he had been dead. And then, when he arose out of swoon, he cried out sorrowfully, and said, “Alas!”
And then Stephen wept again, and Lucy and Philip also; and so they fell on swooning. And when they were revived, Lucy espied a letter in Maggie’s right hand, and told it to Stephen.
Then Stephen took it and said, “Now am I sure this letter will tell us what has happened, and why they are come hither.”
So then they went out of the barget and brake the seal. This was the intent of the letter:
“Most noble knight, Sir Launcelot, I drowned myself in the flood, for I was your lover, that men called Maggie Tulliver; therefore unto all ladies I make my moan. A clean maiden I died, I take God to witness, but I am going straight to hell, for I wrapped my arms fast around Tom to take the heartless sadistic pig down with me.”
This was all the substance in the letter. And when it was read, Stephen, Lucy, and Philip all wept for pity of the doleful complaints.
Then Phillip stood ever still afore the barget, and ever he apelled Maggie of treason for the willful murder of Tom; for the custom was such that time that all manner of shameful death was called treason; and he was a passing heavy man. And Lucy stood still and was sore abashed, that she nist not what to say. And Stephen made sorrow out of measure, and took Philip in his arms, and thrice there they swooned.
“Jesu mercy,” said Stephen, “Alas that ever I should endure this much swooning and weeping. I am come to mine end. But would to God that I wish where were that traitor Sir Launcelot, that hath caused all this mischief.”
Then was Sir Launcelot sent for, for he was lodging nearby on way to a tournament; and when he was come Stephen made the letter to be read to him. And when Launcelot heard it word by word, he said,
“My lord Stephen Guest, wit ye well I am right heavy of the death of this fair damosel. God knoweth I was never causer of her death by my willing, and that would I report me to her own brother, were he not lying here dead as well. She was both fair and good, and much I was beholden unto her, but she loved me out of measure.”
“Ye might have showed her,” said Lucy, “some bounty and gentleness that might have preserved her life.”
And when Sir Launcelot had heard this answer, then the tears ran down by his cheeks. “Wit you well my heart was never so heavy as it is now, but much more I am sorrier for the loss of Tom Tulliver than for the loss of this maiden; for maidens I might have enow, but such a noble Dodson shall never be again;” and ever among these complaints, Sir Launcelot wept and swooned.
And Stephen answered him: “Good knight, thou speakest truly. As for our most noble Tom Tulliver, I love him and honour him as well as ye do, and as for Maggie I love her not anymore, for she is a destroyer of good gentlemen.”
Then Philip looked upon the corpse of Tom Tulliver and the tears brast out of his eyen, thinking on the great courtesy that was in Tom more than in any other man; and therewith he turned away, and might no longer behold him, and said, “Alas, that ever this novel began.”
What event immediately follows this passage?
a. They all kiss together, and weep as people out of their minds.
b. Stephen and Philip go with Launcelot on a quest to Rome to have Tom Tulliver
formally canonized as a saint.
c. Lucy falls for Launcelot and lays herself down with the corpses in the barget to pine
away and die.
d. Launcelot goes to London to share some wine with Mr. Tulkinghorn and trade
misogynist complaints.
e. In lieu of visiting Maggie’s tomb, Stephen and Philip go barefoot in their shirts
founding convents every ten miles to sing and read day and night for Tom Tulliver’s
sake.
f. All of the above.
g. None of the above.
The Really Goofy Quiz in Victorian Novels: Woman in White edition
(This quiz is cumulative as always. No right or wrong answers.)
Read the following passage and answer the question that follows:
It is the grand misfortune of Frederick Fairlie’s life that nobody will let him alone. There he is, reclining, with his art-treasures about him, and wanting a quiet evening. Because he wants a quiet evening, of course Louis comes in. It is perfectly natural that Fairlie should inquire what the deuce Louis means by making his appearance, when he has not rung his bell. Louis replies, with a devilish grin, that he has had enough of Fairlie’s damned complaints, and has taken the liberty of inviting thirty or so party guests to his study for the evening. Fairlie seldom swears – it is such an ungentlemanlike habit – but when Louis grins, Fairlie thinks it is perfectly natural that he should damn him for grinning. At any rate, he does. Louis is so obliging as to leave off grinning, and informs him that the guests are outside, waiting to see him. He adds that their names (in Fairlie’s opinion remarkably vulgar ones) are Mr. and Mrs. Smallweed, Mr. Gilmore, King Arthur with his companion Sir Lucan (wounded in a recent battle), and Alfred de Hamal, who thought it was a costume party and has come dressed as a nun. As if that isn’t enough for Fairlie’s nerves, also in attendance are Lords Coodle, Doodle, Foodle, Goodle, Hoodle, Joodle, Koodle, Loodle, Moodle, Noodle, Poodle, Quoodle, Cuffy, Duffy, Fuffy, Guffy, Huffy, Juffy, Kuffy, Luffy, Muffy, and Puffy.
Fairlie is obliged to ask Louis if their shoes creak. Creaking shoes invariably upset him for the day. He is resigned to see the Party Goers, but he is not resigned to let the Party Goers’ shoes upset him. Louis affirms distinctly that their shoes are to be depended upon. Fairlie waves his hand. The Party Goers enter. Their shoes do not creak. But many of them shut their mouths and breathe through their noses, and they all perspire at the hands. And why have they all got fat noses and hard cheeks?
Before Fairlie can object, Mr. Gilmore approaches his chair and speaks. “I have come here not for a party,” he announces, “but at great personal inconvenience to inform you that for your niece’s sake you shall take the whole responsibility of this discreditable settlement of Miss Fairlie’s twenty thousand pounds—“
Mrs. Smallweed begins to shake her head, and screeches like a horrible old parrot without any plumage, “Twenty pound five and fivepence! Twenty thousand bags of money! Twenty hundred thousand million of parcels of bank notes!”
“Will somebody hand me anything hard and bruising to pelt at her?” exclaims Mr. Smallweed, looking helplessly about him, and finding no missile within his reach. “You hag, you cat, you dog, you brimstone barker!” Here Mr. Smallweed, wrought up to the highest pitch by his own eloquence, actually throws what appears to be a nun (but is actually Alfred de Hamal) at Mrs. Smallweed in default of anything else.
“Pray excuse me,” begs Fairlie, “But could you contrive to speak in a lower key? In the wretched state of my nerves, both sound and movement of any kind are exquisitely painful to me. You will pardon an invalid?”
Lord Coodle begins admiring the portfolios on the shelves near Fairlie’s chair, and Fairlie sees an opportunity for bringing out his art-treasures for the general admiration. He surmises he can have the red and green portfolios brought over by Lord Coodle and Sir Thomas Doodle –supposing it to be impossible for the Duke of Foodle to act with Goodle, which may be assumed to be the case in consequence of the breach with Hoodle. Then, giving the task of holding the coins to Joodle, the adjustment of the reading easel to Koodle, touching the bell to Loodle, and balancing the portfolio to Moodle, what is he to do with Noodle? He can’t offer him the fetching of the tablettes; that is reserved for Poodle. You can’t put him to work holding the magnifying glass; that is hardly good enough for Quoodle. What follows?
But while Fairlie is contemplating this, Gilmore approaches his chair again.
“Mr. Fairlie, I must insist. As to the matter of the twenty thousand pounds—“
Mrs. Smallweed instantly begins to shake her head, and pipes up, “Twenty thousand pounds, twenty twenty-pound notes in a moneybox, twenty guineas, twenty million twenty percent, twenty—“
Grandfather Smallweed throws a cushion at Mrs. Smallweed. “You brimstone chatterer! You’re a scorpion! You’re a sweltering toad. You’re a chattering clattering broomstick witch, that ought to be burnt!”
But the effect of this act of jaculaton is twofold. It not only doubles up Mrs. Smallweed so that her bosom falls against Mr. Fairlie’s face (what has he to do with her bosom?), but the necessary exertion recoils on Mr. Smallweed himself, whom it throws back into Arthur’s wounded companion, Sir Lucan, like a broken puppet. Sir Lucan falls in a swoon, that the part of his guts fall out of his body, and therewith the noble knight’s heart bursts. And when King Arthur looks over, he beholds Sir Lucan, how he lays foaming at the mouth, and part of his guts lay at his feet.
“Alas,” says the king, “this is to me a full heavy sight, to see this noble duke so die. Alas, he would not complain him, his heart was so set to attend this party with me: now Jesu have mercy upon his soul.” And the tears brast out of the king’s eyen. Also overcome with weeping over the fate of Sir Lucan are Lords Coodle, Doodle, Foodle, Goodle, Hoodle, Joodle, Koodle, Loodle, Moodle, Noodle, Poodle, Quoodle, Cuffy, Duffy, Fuffy, Guffy, Huffy, Juffy, Kuffy, Luffy, Muffy, and Puffy. The tears brast from their eyen, and there is much, much swooning.
All of their faces have become sadly unfinished, thinks Fairlie, especially about the corners of the eyelids. In fact, he thinks they have begun to cry. He certainly sees something moist about King Arthur’s eyes. Tears or perspiration? He checks with Louis. Louis is inclined to think, tears. Let us say, tears. Fairlie distinctly objects to tears. Tears are scientifically described as a Secretion. Fairlie can understand that a secretion may be healthy or unhealthy, but he cannot see the interest of a secretion from a sentimental point of view. He closes his eyes, and says to Louis,
“Endeavour to ascertain what they mean.”
Louis endeavours and King Arthur endeavours. They succeed in confusing each other to such an extent that Fairlie is bound in common gratitude to say, they really amuse him. He thinks he shall send for them again, when he is in low spirits.
But we will not try to repeat King Arthur’s Middle English explanation of his tears interpreted in the English of Fairlie’s Swiss valet. The thing is manifestly impossible.
1. What is Frederick Fairlie’s next reaction?
To throw out the Party Goers. Then tepid water strengthened with aromatic vinegar for himself and copious fumigation for his study were the obvious precautions to take; and of course he adopts them.
He remarks to Louis that something outside or inside Sir Lucan suddenly creaked.
Louis says Sir Lucan creaked when he collapsed. Curious. Was it his shoes that creaked, his bones, or his guts falling out of his body? Louis thinks it was his guts. Most extraordinary!
He enjoys his customary siesta, and awakes moist and cool.
To wonder: was Sir Lucan very yellow, when he came in? or had he turned very yellow, in the last minute or two?
He declares that he is not answerable for this deplorable calamity with Sir Lucan, which it was quite impossible to foresee. He is shattered by it; he has suffered under it, as nobody else has suffered. He wishes to mention, in justice to himself, that it was not his fault, and that he is quite exhausted and heartbroken. Need he say more?
2. Help Wilkie Collins complete his novel!
In Charles Dickens’s Bleak House, Miss Flite’s birds are called Hope, Joy, Youth, Peace, Rest, Life, Dust, Ashes, Waste, Want, Ruin, Despair, Madness, Death, Cunning, Folly, Words, Wigs, Rags, Sheepskin, Plunder, Precedent, Jargon, Gammon, and Spinach. (Twenty-five names, count ‘em!) In Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Tess’s eight cows are named Dumpling, Fancy, Lofty, Mist, Old Pretty, Young Pretty, Tidy, and Loud. But good old Wilkie Collins was just in too much of a hurry to bother naming Count Fosco’s cockatoo, two canaries and five white mice. Drat the deadlines of those pesky serial novels and the pressures of writing-as-you-go! Help Wilkie Collins complete his most famous work by naming Fosco’s pets! (Note: the youngest mouse is possibly named Benjamin, but Fosco might also just be speaking figuratively).
The pets are called:
Mick, Keith, Sonny, Cher, John, Paul, George, and Ringo.
Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sneezy, Bashful, Sleepy, Dopey, and Snow White.
Charles, Wilkie, Thomas, George, Bram, Emily, Charlotte, and Anne.
Benjamin, Cenjamin, Denjamin, Fenjamin, Genjamin, Henjamin, Jenjamin, and Lenjamin.
Or fill in your own creative names!
The cockatoo is named…?
The two canaries are called…?
The five white mice are called…?
3. You open your big fat mouth and tell Anne Catherick about the old taboo of not wearing white after Labor Day. She kills herself, and Mrs. Clements accuses you of murder. Who do you hire as your lawyer to defend your case?
Mr. Tulkinghorn
Mr. Vholes
Mr. Wakem
Mr. Gilmore
Mr. Kyrle
The Pearl Maiden, with her incisive mind (if it’s capable of the subtleties of Middle English theology it can certainly handle 19th century law) and intuitive understanding of the color white.
A defense team made up of all six.
4. Prove that you are a better detective than Walter Hartright. What is the real cause of the mysterious vestry fire that kills Sir Percival?
Sir Percival was known to drink heavily, and God chose that moment to begin his Plague of Spontaneous Combustion of all tipplers to punish England for the dramatics of Maggie Tulliver.
God spontaneously combusted Sir Percival for reasons unconnected with Maggie Tulliver.
Sir Percival spontaneously combusted of natural causes, with no supernatural intervention.
Lucy Snowe was in the church praying at the time and spontaneously combusted – an inward fire of shame so quenchless, and so devouring, that it soon licked up the very life in her veins.
Actually, Walter Hartright is correct – Sir Percival had an accident with his matches or his light coming into contact with the quantity of combustible objects in the vestry.
Walter Hartright has vastly overrated Sir Percival’s intelligence, and the laughable nincompoop lit the fire on purpose to destroy the register, then managed to get himself stuck in the vestry.
5. You are a Victorian gentleman. Help! Fire!! Fire! is repeated, re-echoed, yelled forth: and then, and faster than pen can set it down, comes panic, rushing, crushing – a blind, selfish, cruel chaos. It is your expected duty to at least pretend to be competent and do something about it. Do you:
Realize spontaneous combustion has occurred and think “O Horror!” while running away, striking out the light, overturning people in the streets, and shrieking, Help, help, help! Come into this house for Heaven’s sake!
Adopt a look of comely courage and cordial calm, and thrust back the panicking mob, saving a girl you coincidentally knew as a five-year-old back in England and who is fated to become your wife.
Try to save your villainous archrival out of good Christian decency by organizing a crowd to knock down the door of the burning building with a beam.
Help along the demise of your villainous archrival by “accidentally” breaking a window of the burning building, “forgetting” that this will accelerate the flames.
Throw Laura Fairlie onto the fire for good measure, and marry Marian Halcombe.
6. You are a Victorian lady. The Indian summer closes and the equinoctial storms begin; they rage on for nine dark and wet days, of which the hours rush on all turbulent, deaf, disheveled. Strong and horizontal thunders the current of the wind from north-west to south-east; it brings rain like spray, and sometimes, a sharp hail-like shot; it is cold and pierces you to the vitals.
In other words, it rains and you get a little wet. Do you:
Catch fever and confess your sins to a Catholic priest even though you’re a vehement Protestant, then swoon and wake up in the home of your unrequited love.
Catch fever, swoon, and get carried around a smelly old house in your bed while an obese Count is busy ruining the life of your wimpy dolt of a sister.
Get swept away in a flood in an eternal embrace with your brother before you have time to catch fever or swoon.
Catch fever, swoon, then lift up your skirts and do a tap dance to “Singin’ in the Rain,” swinging around a gas lamp pole.
Catch fever, swoon, then ride laughing on the handlebars of a Victorian gentleman’s bicycle to the tune of “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on my Head.”
Catch fever, swoon, and run to a shelter, discovering that you are the illegitimate daughter of Lady Dedlock.
Skip the fever and swooning and go fight a fire with a Victorian gentleman.
The Really Goofy Quiz in Victorian Novels: Tess of the D’Urbervilles edition
(This quiz is cumulative as always. No right or wrong answers.)
1. Read the following passage and answer the question that follows:
Tess was milking Old Pretty, and the sun chancing to be on the milking-side, it shone flat upon her pink-gowned form and her white curtain-bonnet, and upon her profile, rendering it keen as a cameo cut from the dun background of the cow. Soon the sound of Old Pretty’s milk fizzing into the pail came through the hedge, and then Angel felt inclined to go round the corner also. Tess did not know that Clare had followed round and that he sat under his cow, watching.
An influence passed into Clare like an excitation from the sky and did not die down. Resolutions, reticences, prudences, fears, fell back like a defeated battalion. He jumped up from his seat, leaving his pail to be kicked over if his milcher had such a mind. Tess saw him now and advanced forward to meet him, but Clare stepped aside so that Tess fell to the ground, and went quickly towards the desire of his eyes. Kneeling down beside Old Pretty, he clasped her in his arms.
Tess was taken completely by surprise as Old Pretty yielded to Clare’s embrace with unreflecting inevitableness. Having seen that it was really her lover who had advanced, and no one else, Old Pretty’s lips parted, and she sank upon Clare in her momentary joy with something very like an ecstatic moo as he struggled to support her.
He had been on the point of kissing that too-tempting mouth, but he checked himself, for tender conscience’s sake.
“Forgive me, Tess dear!” he whispered. “I ought to have asked. I—did not know what I was doing. I do not mean it as a liberty.”
Old Pretty by this time had looked round, puzzled, and seeing two people crouching under her where by immemorial custom there should have been only Clare, lifted her hind leg crossly.
“She is angry—she’ll kick over the milk!” exclaimed Tess, her eyes concerned with the quadruped’s actions, her heart more deeply concerned with the relationship between the quadruped and Clare.
Tess got up from the ground and they stood together, Clare’s arm still encircling Old Pretty. Tess’s eyes, fixed on distance, began to fill.
“Why do you cry, my darling?” he asked.
“Oh—I think you know!” she murmured.
As she saw and felt more clearly the position she was in she became agitated and tried to withdraw.
“Well, I have betrayed my feeling, Tess, at last,” said Clare, with a curious sigh of desperation, signifying unconsciously that his heart had outrun his judgement. “That I – love Old Pretty dearly and truly I need not say. But I – it shall go no further now – it distresses you—I am as surprised as you are. You will not think I have presumed upon her defenselessness –been too quick and unreflecting – will you?”
“Oh, I won’t tell anyone,” Tess sighed in exasperation.
Clare had allowed Old Pretty to free herself, and in a minute or two the milking of both Tess and Clare was resumed. Nobody had beheld the gravitation of Angel and Old Pretty into one, and when the dairyman came round by that screened nook a few minutes later, there was not a sign to reveal that the markedly sundered pair were more to each other than mere acquaintance. Yet in the interval since Crick’s last view of them something had occurred which changed the pivot of the universe for their two natures; something which, had he known its quality, the dairyman would have despised; yet which was based upon a more stubborn and resistless tendency than a whole heap of so-called practicalities. A veil had been whisked aside; the tract of each one’s outlook was to have a new horizon thenceforward—for a short time or for a long.
END OF PHASE THE THIRD
What event immediately follows this passage?
The Reverend and Mrs. Clare recognize that though Old Pretty is of a humble background, her basic nature is good and simple, and they approve of Angel’s relationship with her.
Clare elopes with Old Pretty but then discovers she has been with a bull and has born a calf that died; Old Pretty, broken-hearted and rejected by Clare, returns to live out her days with Dumpling, Fancy, Lofty, Mist, Young Pretty, Tidy, and Loud.
The young Tom Tulliver comes along on a serial animal-torturing spree and drives Old Pretty to madness; she drowns herself in the river.
Tess slaughters Old Pretty with a knife in a ritualized sacrifice scene at Stonehenge.
2. Help Thomas Hardy edit his novel!
Just like all the characters in his novel, Thomas Hardy got a little carried away in his zeal for Tess, and added too many colors to describe her eyes in the following sentence: “At first she would not look straight up at [Angel], but her eyes soon lifted, and his plumbed the deepness of the ever-varying pupils, with their radiating fibrils of blue, and black, and grey, and violet, while she regarded him as Eve at her second waking might have regarded Adam.”
Help Hardy edit his most famous novel by choosing no more than two evocative colors for Tess’s eyes!
Choose from: Blue, black, grey, violet.
Or mix and match as many colors as you want from the following list and help Hardy by writing an even more colorful sentence!
List of colors to choose from: Asparagus, burnt orange, caput mortuum, carnation pink, chartreuse, cosmic latte, cyan, coral red, deep magenta, electric indigo, eggplant, firebrick, harlequin, Hollywood cerise, mauve, ochre, peach-yellow, puce, raw umber, rich carmine, ruby, salmon, shocking pink, sepia, teal, ultramarine, viridian, yellow, zinnwaldite.
Ex. “At first she would not look straight up at him, but her eyes soon lifted, and his plumbed the deepness of the ever-varying pupils, with their radiating fibrils of shocking pink, and harlequin, and Hollywood cerise, and zinnwaldite, and electric indigo, while she regarded him as Eve at her second waking might have regarded Adam.”
3. One day as Angel Clare studied the curves of Tess’s lips, they sent an aura over his flesh, a breeze through his nerves, which well nigh produced a qualm, and actually produced, by some mysterious physiological process, a prosaic sneeze. God witnesses this curious phenomenon and is inspired to add an extra plague to punish the world for Maggie Tulliver; he sends a pandemic whereby everyone all over England goes into an allergic sneezing fit any time he or she studies the curves of an attractive person’s lips.
In order to please God and safeguard yourself against lip fetishes and everlasting sneezes, you decide to strengthen your faith and your soul. Who do you choose as your personal adviser for your spiritual training?
Lucy the Protestant
M. Paul the Catholic
The whole Clare gang: Reverend and Mrs. Clare, Reverends Cuthbert and Felix, and Miss Mercy Chant
The Pearl Maiden and Sir Galahad the chaste
Mr. Chadband, the oleaginous
Angel, the failed free-thinker
4. Clare persistently woos Tess in undertones like that of the purling milk, as no milkmaid was ever wooed before by such a man. Which of these suggestive pastoral activities would you choose as the best atmosphere for wooing your own love?
The milking
The skimming
Among broody poultry (translation: they’re sitting on their eggs)
Among farrowing pigs (translation: they’re giving birth)
The cheesemaking, where you can kiss your love’s arm and tell him or her, “Your arm is as cold and damp to my mouth as a new gathered mushroom, and tastes of whey.”
All of the above, like Clare.
5. That dastardly trickster Alec D’Urberville is at it again with his ghastly comicality, putting on yet another disguise and jumping out of nowhere as he emits a long, low laugh to scare the daylights out of Tess! He has already dressed up as a preacher and affected the classic Halloween costumes of a devil (with a real fire for special effects) and a ghost (with an authentic tomb). What other classic costumes and pranks does Alec use to chill Tess?
A clown costume with a squirting flower on his lapel and a rubber chicken.
A skeleton with wind-up chattery teeth.
Richard Nixon with a hand buzzer.
A zombie with fake vomit.
No costume this time; he just places a whoopee cushion on her seat.
All of the above.
The Really Goofy Quiz in Victorian Novels: Dracula edition
(This quiz is cumulative as always. No right or wrong answers.)
1. Read the following passage and answer the question that follows:
Dr. Seward’s Diary – 18 September
As I was going out of the room, Quincey Morris said, “When you come back, Jack, may I have two words with you all to ourselves?” I nodded in reply and went up to Lucy’s room to check on her. She was still sleeping, and the Professor seemingly had not moved from his seat at her side. So I went back down to Quincey and took him into the breakfast-room. When we were alone, he said to me:
“Jack Seward, I don’t want to shove myself in anywhere where I’ve no right to be; but this is no ordinary case. You know I loved that girl and wanted to marry her; but although that’s all past and gone, I can’t help feeling anxious about her all the same. What is it that’s wrong with her? The Dutchman—and a fine old fellow he is; I can see that—said, that time you two came into the room, that you must have another transfusion of blood, and that both you and he were exhausted. Now this is no common matter, and, whatever it is, I have done my part. Is not that so?”
“That’s so,” I said, and he went on:
“I take it that both you and Van Helsing had done already what I did today. Is not that so?”
“That’s so.”
“And I guess Art was in on it too.”
“That’s right.”
“And probably Tom Tulliver.”
“You guess correctly.”
“And Inspector Bucket?”
“That’s so.”
“What about Walter Hartright?”
“Yes.”
“And Alec D’Urberville?”
“He was in on it.”
“Stephen Guest?”
“That’s so.”
“What about Mr. Tulkinghorn? Has he been in on it?”
“Of course.”
“And Henry Irving, I suppose.”
“Yes.”
“Sir Percival and Sir John Durbeyfield?”
“No. We rejected spurious sirs.”
“What about Sir Gawain?”
“Naturally.”
“Count Fosco?”
“Si, Signore.”
“John Jarndyce and Lawrence Boythorn?”
“Right.”
“And Angel Clare? Has he been in on it?”
“That’s so.”
“Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet?”
“Certainly.”
“Lords Coodle, Doodle, Foodle, Goodle, Hoodle, Joodle, Koodle, Loodle, Moodle, Noodle, Poodle and Quoodle?”
“That’s so.”
“And Cuffy, Duffy, Fuffy, Guffy, Huffy, Juffy, Kuffy, Luffy, Muffy, and Puffy?”
“Yes, except for Juffy.”
“And how long has this been going on?”
“About eleven years.”
“Eleven years! Then I guess, Jack Seward, that that poor pretty creature that we all love has had put into her veins within that time the blood of 1,144 strong men. Man alive, her whole body wouldn’t hold it.” Then, coming close to me, he spoke in a fierce half-whisper; “What took it out?”
I shook my head. “That,” I said, “is the crux. Van Helsing is simply frantic about it, and I am at my wits’ end. I can’t even hazard a guess. There has been a series of little circumstances over the years which have thrown out all our calculations as to Lucy being properly watched.”
What event immediately follows this passage?
a. They resort to Mr. Guppy, Mr. Vholes and Conversation Kenge as a source of blood.
b. They have “bad luck” for another eleven years with missed telegrams, the removal of garlic from Lucy’s room and other assorted calamities. Surely there is some horrible doom hanging over them that every possible accident should thwart them in all they try to do.
c. They realize that Harold Skimpole and Grandfather Smallweed are the bloodsuckers responsible, and they drive a stake through each of their hearts.
d. They give Lucy a transfusion of Mr. Krook’s blood, and she goes up in flames.
e. Van Helsing promises that later, give or take a few hundred pages, he will explain all, but for now he has sown his corn, and Nature has her work to do in making it sprout; if it sprouts at all, there’s some promise, and he waits till the ear begins to swell.
f. During one of Van Helsing’s particularly long and winding metaphor-filled speeches, Lucy is finally sucked dry down to the last sip, and expires, ending the Eleven-Year Blood Brotherhood.
2. Come on, turn to the dark side. You know you want to. Overlook the weight problems and the blood sucking issues and choose a Count as your lifetime partner in crime:
a. Count Fosco: maybe not conventionally sexy in body, but his mind is a knockout
b. Count Dracula: tall, dark, handsome bisexual older man – and growing younger by the day
c. The Count on Sesame Street: the man – er, muppet – taught us everything we know about our numbers
d. The Count of Monte Cristo: rich, smart, good with his sword
e. Count Olaf: an over-the-top performance of eccentric villainy, and a chance to pick on the Baudelaire children
f. Count Chocula: an unlimited lifetime supply of chocolate – who can resist?
g. Count Dooku: actually, never mind on that one – Star Wars Ep. II is a lousy film. Let’s pretend instead that Darth Vader circa The Empire Strikes Back is a count…not so hard to do if we’re going to think of Van Helsing as Yoda.
3. Most exciting scene with a speeding carriage or cart:
a. Alec D’Urberville’s attempt to seduce Tess on the way to Trantridge with his sexy, fast dog-cart driving, the wheels humming like a top and the flinty sparks from the horse’s hoofs outshining the daylight.
b. The hunt for Lady Dedlock.
c. The cart racing for the sunset carrying Dracula’s chest, with the vampire hunters pursuing on horseback, the wolves converging, and Mina and Van Helsing brandishing their revolvers.
d. Speeding carriages and carts are not very exciting now that we have cars.
4. Favorite colorful and eccentric foreigner (as in not British):
a. Count Fosco
b. Count Dracula
c. Professor Van Helsing
d. Hortense
e. M. Paul
f. Madame Beck
5. Which fictional woman would you rather strangle in a jealous rage: Tess Durbeyfield, whose face (and other attributes) makes her so irresistible that she’s forced to try to make herself look ugly to keep the men away; or Lucy Westenra who receives three different proposals in a single day from dashing, well-to-do vampire hunters, and later gets to mingle her bodily fluids with all three of them plus a vampire and a professor. Explain.
6. Bonus Middle English question
Read the following passage and answer the question that follows:
Dr. Seward’s Diary – 22 September
All the time of Lucy’s burial Van Helsing was, I could see, putting some terrible restraint on himself. When it was all over, we were standing beside Arthur, who, poor fellow, was speaking of his part in the operation where his blood had been transfused to his Lucy’s veins; I could see Van Helsing’s face grow white and purple by turns. Arthur was saying that he felt since then as if they two had been really married and that she was his wife in the sight of God. None of us said a word of the other 1143 operations, and none of us ever shall. Arthur and Quincey went away together to the station, and Van Helsing and I came on here. We were joined in the carriage by Frederick Fairlie, his servant Louis, Sir Launcelot, and Arthur – not Arthur Godalming, but Arthur, King of the Britons – who had all attended Lucy’s funeral with us. But the moment we were in the carriage, Van Helsing gave way to a regular fit of hysterics. He laughed till he cried, and then he cried till he laughed again; and laughed and cried together, just as a woman does. I tried to be stern with him, but Arthur and Launcelot joined Van Helsing and weeped as men out of their minds. In their words, the tears “brasten” from their eyes to see such noble manhood, and then they actually swooned on the floor of the carriage. I was going to attend to them and try to revive them, but then Van Helsing went again into a laughing stage of his fit, and I had to draw down the blinds lest any one should see us and misjudge. Mr. Fairlie also began to laugh with him and said that he was bound in common gratitude to say that Van Helsing really amused him, and he thought he should send for him any time when he was in low spirits. But when Van Helsing laughed so hard that the tears burst from his eyes again, Mr. Fairlie asked Louis if it were tears or perspiration. When Louis said he thought it was tears, Mr. Fairlie said that he could not understand the interest of a secretion from a sentimental point of view, and I was inclined to agree with him.
“For the life of me, Professor,” I said, “I can’t see anything to laugh at in all this. Why, poor Art’s heart was simply breaking back there at the funeral.”
“Just so. Said he not that the transfusion of his blood to Lucy’s veins had made her truly his bride?”
“Yes, and it was a sweet and comforting idea for him.”
“Quite so. But there was a difficulty, friend John. If so that, then what about the 1143 others? Ho, ho!”
“I don’t see where the joke comes in there either!” I said; and I did not feel particularly pleased with him for saying such things.
“Ah, you don’t comprehend, friend John. You see, King Laugh he come to me and shout and bellow in my ear, ‘Here I am! Here I am!’ till the blood come dance back and bring some of the sunshine that he carry with him to my cheek.”
By this time, Launcelot and Arthur had recovered from their swoon and were listening intently to Van Helsing.
“Sir Professor,” said King Arthur to Van Helsing, “I require you tell me where to find this heathen King Laugh that we may do battle with him.”
“No, friend Arthur,” said Van Helsing, “You misapprehend. When King Laugh come he make them all dance to the tune he play. And believe me that he is good to come, and kind.”
“So God me help,” said Sir Launcelot, “either King Laugh shall slay me or I him, but that he shall be christened or ever we depart in sunder.”
“King Laugh, he is not something to fight or christen,” Van Helsing said. “But he come like the sunshine and he ease off the strain again; and we bear to go on with our labour, what it may be. Ah, now King Laugh have pack up his crown, and all that is to him – for he go far, far away from me, and for a long, long time.”
“If King Laugh flee from us we shall slay him, and he shall never the sooner be quit,” said Arthur. “Now we must depart, so pray we Our Lord that we may meet together in short time.” And he and Launcelot took off their helms and kissed together, and Van Helsing laughed until he cried at their departing while Mr. Fairlie asked Louis to translate.
What event immediately follows this passage?
a. It is manifestly an impossible thing to repeat on his phonograph Arthur and Launcelot’s Middle English and Van Helsing’s Dutch English interpreted in the English of Fairlie’s Swiss valet, so Dr. Seward does not try.
b. Arthur and Launcelot find King Laugh and convert him to Christianity; he joins the vampire hunters, is martyred with Quincey Morris in the effort to kill Dracula, and both are canonized as saints seventy years later.
c. King Laugh steps into the carriage and becomes acquainted for the first time with Dr. Seward, whose diary entries are never the same again; their soberness and reliability destroyed, no one believes the account, Dracula’s reign of terror goes unstopped, and the whole world is converted to vampirism.
d. Arthur and Launcelot succeed in converting King Laugh to Christianity, and Mina falls in love with him and leaves Jonathan; the vampire hunters’ faith in the wonderful Madam Mina, and thus all of womanhood, is destroyed, and they cease pursuing Dracula; his reign of terror goes unstopped, and the whole world is converted to vampirism.
e. Arthur, Launcelot, and King Laugh are all disappointed that they did not get a chance to take part in the Blood Brotherhood, so Van Helsing and Dr. Seward use Mina as a replacement for Lucy; with a little help from Dracula they go on another eleven-year transfusion spree.
“Manifesto” to John Kessel (October 8, 2007)
My Actual Statement of Purpose
Not that I was guilty of intentionally trying to deceive others when I applied to NC State; it’s myself that I’ve always been determined to deceive. This is more of a manifesto than an essay, per se. But I would rather err toward being too personal these days in order to offset what’s been wrong with my writing for the past ten years. That is, it hasn’t been personal for a long, long time. I’m extremely uncomfortable with this disjunction between story and self. Over the years I’ve justified it in a variety of ways, each of which probably has some truth to it: all creative work has some kind of value in it; I got awarded something for it or it got a good grade, so it must be okay; somebody found value in what I was writing, even if I didn’t. But I can’t go on forever not getting anything out of it. This truth must seem self-evident to most writers. Why would we go through the things we have to go through in order to write, only to write things we don’t care about? But the fact that I’ve possessed this disjunction for so long perhaps underscores how deep the problem is, that I’ve grown so used to it that I’ve refused to even fully recognize it, let alone stand up and fight for myself.
So in the name of standing up and fighting for myself, I would like to start at the beginning of the epic that is my life and take a look at what went wrong between myself and fantasy, which is the same as saying what went wrong between myself and writing. Some major themes will be isolation, shame, and self-doubt. There will be heroic deeds and cowardly betrayals (but no magic swords). And the eucatastrophe will be a collection of ideas to address fixing some of the issues. I’m not sure that qualifies as a happy ending, let alone anything to inspire wonder, but it’s the best I can do at the moment.
I’ll start my story at a clichéd point – my decision to write at age fifteen. At that tender age, I never questioned for a second that I would write anything but fantasy. Nor did I think of it consciously as fantasy. I just wrote what felt natural, and it came out as something that would be put into the fantasy genre. I didn’t have enough access to the genre to be called a fan of it. I ran into a crisis with my decision right away, though it wasn’t a crisis of genre but of gender. Gender is an epic unto itself, but I’ll brush on it here, because as much as I’ve always hated the fact, there’s never been a moment of my life when gender was not an issue. The crisis was that, though there were quite a few female writers represented in my high school literature textbooks, I didn’t like any of them. I only liked the male writers. The result was that I quickly changed my mind, deciding I shouldn’t become a writer after all. My reasoning was that if women were lousy writers, if they only dirtied the art form that I loved so much, then I, a woman, would keep away from it so as not to debase it any further. Though my attitudes toward my own sex matured somewhat as I got older, this was not a conflict that I ever fully resolved to my satisfaction (even today, I’d say 90% of writers I admire are male, but at least I’ve found a few female ones I admire). After about six months I began writing again despite my grudge against my own sex, because I found I couldn’t be happy if I wasn’t doing it. But from the start, I was my own worst enemy.
The crisis in gender bridged into a crisis of genre. When I was 16, I was asked by a talented artist (he’s gone on to do pretty successful work) to write his comic book. I was actually so naïve that it wasn’t until years later that I realized that at least half his object had nothing to do with my talent but was to get me to go out with him. I became his girlfriend and wrote almost full time for about six months. He had a group of all-male friends who read fantasy, drew comic books, and played role-playing games. At that time and place, fantasy was exclusively a boys’ club. And while my boyfriend seemed happy enough with my writing, his friends seemed to find my role awkward, if not downright laughable. I remember that I felt deeply intimidated. I had no idea how to go about structuring such a complex story let alone how to script a comic book, and I was afraid to ask questions because I thought it would reveal a vulnerability and ignorance that would be laughed at and rejected. But because I failed to ask the questions, I didn’t end up with enough knowledge to know how to bring the vision into reality. The project stalled, the relationship ended. I lost months of work, and was heartbroken, not over the guy, but over the comic book.
Related to this incident was a specific piece of self-doubt that plagues me still, which is what I think of as my “lack of inventiveness.” As a little girl, I always envied certain boys the way they played, spontaneously inventing hundreds of details, but I couldn’t seem to play like that. And in fantasy books I read, both as a child as well as later, I was so discouraged by the complex rollicking worlds I admired (The Scar by China Mieville is a fine example) that I gave up before I started. What I imagine tends to focus quietly on a very few locales with the sense of isolation I’ve always known. Further, any talent I have for insight is not anthropological but emotional and relationship-driven. I suppose one answer to this conundrum is that not all fantasy involves the kind of immensely detailed world building that intimidates me. Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirlees seems to be a more “quiet,” self-contained world. Another answer might be that if I simply tried, it’s possible I could do it. For the comic book, I had managed to develop a complex mythology, though I ended up losing all my work. Hell, I probably could do it if I took seventeen years like Tolkien (longer, if you consider however much he developed even before that). Also, I might differentiate here: complex mythologies and complex details are not exactly the same thing. I’d probably have better luck with complex mythologies than complex details.
Through ages 17-18 I wrote a little collection of fantasy short stories; started several fantasy novels but didn’t have a clue how to structure them and abandoned each in turn; and decided against going to college to focus on writing and help in my family’s music business. Then I had a digression between 18-22 where I decided I should devote myself to a spiritual calling and duty to my fellow humans. I had not changed my mind about writing. In fact, I was devastated at giving it up. But I became convinced that I had higher obligations for a few years and that I was ethically bound to give up writing. Many of the fantasy writers I admired (and still admire) seem to have deep spiritual convictions through which they channel their work. I admire people who devote themselves to a good cause and high ideals and stick with them. Ultimately I ended up ashamed, caught between different worlds, not quite able to be in any of them. My unforgivable sin was that I was capable only of being what I was. That is, I couldn’t make myself stop wanting to write. So, I turned back toward that path, though I no longer had any confidence that I could do it. Like many with deep spiritual convictions, my own emotions were turned up during those years of my life, distilled to an idealistic purity. I wonder if one reason I avoid the big, pure archetypal themes and emotions in fantasy is because they frighten me. During undergrad I retreated into ambiguity and cuteness in my fiction. It was an attempt to conform, but it was also a response to fears I didn’t want to face – like C.S. Lewis’s famous blurb about The Lord of the Rings, “beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron.”
A lot happened during the ten year period after I went back to Indiana: I wrote an opera libretto; I read my father’s beloved copy of The Lord of the Rings for the first time (my only legacy from him); I turned back to writing prose; I earned a degree; I learned through a horrible experience on my undergraduate capstone project how not to tackle a fantasy novel.
But what really dominates that period is what didn’t happen. Basically, I hid for ten years. My own cowardice and timidity were happy to go into collusion with a situation of being overprotected, and the result was that nothing valuable developed in my life for ten years. Nothing grew. I only wrote one story during this period that I like (a fantasy story). Moreover, the goals I needed in my life, the events that would have helped me to move forward, didn’t happen – friends, marriage, children. And it has led to the ridiculous ongoing farce that this MFA and my life here in Raleigh are my first foray into any kind of independence.
Fine, so I sabotaged my life. But why didn’t I at least do something about my writing at that time? I had plenty of opportunities, plenty of time. One answer is that it’s difficult for most people to be very productive when the majority of their life is broken. Another answer is that I did do something. I have multiple notebooks of extremely disorganized fantasy material from those years that I have to deal with one of these days. But I didn’t do nearly enough.
I think the most interesting reason goes back to something much deeper, way back to the very nature of imagination. I was one of those exceptionally introverted and introspective child with vivid, complex daydreams, definitely of a fantastic nature. And that was my favorite pastime. I called it “telling myself a story.” Around age four or five, I ventured to make this strange hobby known to my family and told them what some of the stories were about. But my mother reacted with strange looks, derisive laughter and such, and it became a point over which other family members made fun of me. They were quick to tell me that this was a temporary phase that fell into the category of “imaginary friends.” In essence, I got the message from my parents and from teachers that it was something abnormal to be ashamed of. I wonder how many gifts, and how much natural joy we bash to the ground in the name of conforming, or making kids manageable, or selling the latest designer drug.
In any case, my “forbidden place” was also the source of my greatest joy, and to have been encouraged to use it, to develop it in harmony with my outer life, to direct it in some kind of outward pursuit, would have had much happier results for me in the long run, I think, than fighting against it and exiling it as an enemy. It’s striking to me that in his book Strategies of Fantasy, Attebery says that, “Dream, daydream, hallucination, and visionary states have all provided guidance for writers of fantasy” (7). Also, that “many fantasy writers describe the composition process as the cultivation of such states, in which the mind generates vivid and unexpected scenes which can then be assembled into narratives.” And according to C.S. Lewis, many of his books “began with seeing pictures in my head. At first they were not a story, just pictures” (8). That all sounds awfully familiar to me, and if it’s good enough for C.S. Lewis, it’s good enough for me.
It was my own timidity and lack of integrity that allowed me to be railroaded, and it’s my own responsibility to fix things. The point is just that I quickly learned that the “forbidden place” was something abnormal to be ashamed of and to be hidden from all adults and all peers. I never spoke of it again and I directed it even further inward, looking on it as some kind of festering, malignant disease. My shame increased as I got older and it didn’t “go away,” didn’t pass as a “phase.” Remarkably, even after I decided I wanted to write, I thought creativity came from “someplace else” other than the source of where these thoughts came from. It wasn’t until I was in my mid-twenties that I realized that the enormous “thing” I had been suppressing all my life was 90% of the source of my own imagination.
It’s hard trying to write while running on only 10%. Most of the time it results in no writing at all. But I’ve found it’s even harder learning how to access the 90% when it’s something you’ve been ashamed of all your life and have worked hard to suppress. This difficulty is one that I’ve already been working on for a few years now. I think it’s the primal source of the disjunction I talked about in the first paragraph. It’s a disjunction within myself that causes the majority of my creative life to remain without expression. But I think it can be healed through thoughtful reflection and through the writing process itself. I think of it as building a bridge. In recent years I have reclaimed perhaps another 20% from the “forbidden place,” putting me now at about 70/30. A good goal for the work that I do here would be, I think, to get to at least 50/50; that is, to write work that reaches toward a fuller expression of fantasy. I would go for 100%, except that I don’t think that’s realistic. I don’t have the maturity, either emotionally or technically, to get there yet.
Having brought my story up to the present, now comes the part where I try to learn from it. I see that a common thread that runs through it is shame over a variety of failures: failing to be male, failing to know enough about fantasy, failing to be bold, failing to be inventive, failing my own conscience, failing to establish a successful life, failing to be a normal child, failing to have enough integrity. And a lot of these failures turned into vicious circles. For example, the older I got, the more ashamed I was that I didn’t write the way I wanted to, and so the less I tried. The most basic answer I have for myself in regards to my many issues of shame and fear is: Tough. Get over it. The problem with a vicious circle is that there isn’t any way to stop it except to simply act, to break out of it no matter how difficult or painful. And truthfully, I think these fears get blown out of proportion the longer they’re maintained. The first story I workshopped this semester incorporated some fantastic elements, and in most respects it was a pretty silly story. But everyone was very nice about it, and some liked it. They didn’t bite my head off and drink my blood, or anything like that.
Isolation is another common element throughout my life (and above I didn’t even mention other events like a long childhood illness that tended to isolate me, and the death of my father when I was ten). But though my lifelong isolation may be a problem, I think it’s also a solution. Once, in an undergrad class, my instructor Jim Powell mentioned strengths and weaknesses as two edges of the same blade. I’ve felt for a long time that if isolation has contributed to my weakness, then it also plays a strong part in my writing. In a sense, it must; I can’t become a completely different person.
Beyond that, here are a few more ideas that occur to me, not intended as a rigorous plan, but as some jumping off points:
Often to examine a demon or a ghost under a bright light is to cause it to vanish. In other words, simply to recognize some of the problems may be enough to exorcise them without any other fixes. In fact, while writing this, a greater number of fantastic elements wiggled into my fiction on their own accord, apparently as a result of just having acknowledged the issues.
Surround myself with people who encourage me and help me to be productive and independent. Even if I’m coming from a ten-year period of mostly wandering in the desert, I’m surrounded by friendly people in the program here, so it would seem I’ve taken a step in the right direction.
As I’ve already said, be brave enough to test whether or not I can be a little inventive, and patiently work toward drawing from the “forbidden place.” There’s one simple word that sums up what I’m going for: integrity.
Resign myself to the fact that I may not be able to write work that I like, no matter how hard I try. Because of gender and many other factors, what I’m capable of writing may be different from the writers and work I admire, from what I wish I could write. However, I think the gap can at least be narrowed.
It might help force me to write fantasy if I also acknowledge that I have no choice but to write it. As I read the more, well, normal fiction of my compatriots, it strikes me that I seem to lack almost all of the ordinary experiences of life. I still hope to gain some of those experiences, but at the moment, the bizarre is all I know.
Fix my life. If the likes of Tolkien, Lewis and Gene Wolfe had faith, hope, and love in their lives, and the greatest of these is love, and I have none of them, where exactly does that leave me? I’m not sure what the answer is, but it’s not pretty, let alone any beauty that cuts and burns. Fixing my life is a tall order, and it will be a slow process. At the beginning of Gene Wolfe’s The Citadel of the Autarch, Severian brings the dead soldier/Jonas back to life, and reflects on how difficult the experience must be. The soldier comes back in slow stages, at last managing some death rattles and groaning. I’d say that’s about where I’m at in the process. But that’s not to say that I can’t do good writing in the meantime.
I’ve always possessed an enormous number of stories (from the “forbidden place”) with no structure or vessel to put them in. The challenge is to be true to those stories and ruthlessly practical at the same time. That is, to find a form that makes them useful and valuable to a group of readers. What I have failed to do all my life is gather enough knowledge of genre, craft, etc., to form a vessel. I sense being close to a major breakthrough, but it’s still just out of grasp. It’s necessary then to do what I can to grow tall enough to reach it. As Tolkien recently reminded me in “On Fairy Stories,” one can consciously think about one’s principles and goals in writing and formulate an approach. I need to deliberately analyze what I like and don’t like in a variety of books within the fantasy genre and without, decide what to borrow for my own writing and what to banish. A lot of the contradictions have to be resolved through the constant accidents of the writing process itself.
This concludes my manifesto and my list of commitments. Now to see if I can keep them.
Letter to Jill McCorkle at the Start of My MFA (Sept. 5, 2007)
Dear Jill,
I wish I knew something more specific about my current strengths and weaknesses, but I haven’t written anything for almost a year. I guess I’ll find out soon in workshop (and probably wish I hadn’t). I can only put vague labels on what I want to accomplish. I want to be useful. I want to contribute something. I don’t consider myself a “literary” writer by any stretch of the imagination, and am surprised to find myself here. I’m just here to learn whatever I can about myself, about writing, about others, and to improve my ability to help others. It’s a pretty open-ended proposition. More than anything, moving to North Carolina to get an MFA was part of a larger and very necessary lifestyle shift for me. Even if I do poorly at this, it will still be a success if I become a better person in any way.
After four years of being an undergrad hypocrite, one of my goals is to be more honest. It’s hard in this world to have complete integrity, but I would be happy to at least become less of a hypocrite and state some of my actual goals instead of a bunch of pretended goals that “sound good.”
My writing background: I started when I was 14, and it was encouraged because I’m from a family of musicians and English teachers. I had the opportunity to write a comic book with a talented artist when I was 16. I flubbed it. I’d still like to write a comic book one day. I wrote a little collection of short stories at 17 and tried to start a novel. I lived in NYC between the ages of 18-22 and didn’t write at all. After losing that time, I went back to Indiana and wrote a libretto at the urging of my best friend, a composer. Our show was workshopped and performed by a local theater group. It was kind of bad, but showed promise. Then I did my undergrad work at IUPUI, where I got a few short stories written and a few published, and they gave me a couple of awards, God help them.
I’ve just spent four years writing things I don’t care about. For example, the last story I wrote that won one of the IUPUI fiction awards, I designed to win an award. Frankenstein-like, I pieced together elements I knew the judges would be looking for. And it won. And I absolutely hate how cynical that is. I don’t like the story. To be frank, I also don’t like the stories that got me into the program here. It’s just that they were all I had. They weren’t what I wanted to write. What I would like to do for this workshop (and for my two years in the program) is to write work that I at least half-care about. I’m not sure that full-caring is possible for me. But half-caring would be a big improvement, and improvement is, I think, what we’re looking for.
Other miscellaneous things about my writing: I guess the way I sometimes describe my writing is that it’s barely holding on to reality. My story concepts are rarely subtle, usually bold and dramatic. I think one day I might make a good writer of adolescent lit. I’m drawn toward the fantasy/sci-fi genre, but I can’t seem to find my place in it. I’m not at all prolific. I like my stories clean and simple, with clean and simple language. Devices and fancy tricks don’t interest me. I don’t like clever phrases or insightful observations. To take it a step further, I don’t like words and language. And I want to keep it that way. I used to love words back when I was in high school. But something happened in NY. I became angry with words, and I believe it’s better that way. I think tension is more productive than complacency, and less insulting to all concerned.
I only like the most direct way I can find to tell a story. I like very straightforward forms, mainstream forms, classical forms. I’m not an innovator or an inventor or even an experimenter. But I’m smart enough to know I at least have to pay attention to what other people are doing and learn from it. My current tentative agenda is to write at least two very different ghost stories for this workshop (and one other story about who knows what). I’ve never written a ghost story, and it’s a challenge that interests me for some reason. Of course, I’m willing to do something different if I get tired of it, or if it doesn’t work out.
I have very little background in lit. Given a choice, I’d read classics (like the 25-book required reading list for the MFA program) and comic books/graphic novels with some sci-fi and fantasy thrown in. Beyond that, I’m not much of a reader. I can’t seem to get into it. However, I do like engaging with the work of someone I know to see if I can encourage them with it in any way.
One thing I learned in undergrad is that I’m not very good at criticism, but I’m good at enthusiasm and encouragement. And if it had to be an either/or proposition, I’m not unhappy with how things turned out. At IUPUI it seemed to me I met twenty people good at criticism for every one person good at enthusiasm and encouragement. I know that the most rewarding thing I’ve done in recent months was to show my excitement over the work of a massively talented 20-year-old back in Indiana (has made three movies, has just completed his first novel, has an ongoing comic book series). What I’m occasionally good at tends to occur one-on-one, or in writing. And ironically, I think I’ll do okay as a TA, because I tend to do fine as a mediator or if specifically put in a position of responsibility where I’m “given the floor.”
But I’m afraid I suck in workshop. Part of it is painful shyness and part of it is just that I’m terrible in a group dynamic. I’m not at all an articulate person or a flashy person or a confident person. I will probably (if past experience proves anything) get better as the semester goes along. Whatever strengths I have are essentially just in endurance, in never giving up. Definitely in the long run, never in beginnings. But for all I know, my strengths may only show up two years from now, when I’m finished. All I can say is that I’m doing the best I can with the challenges I’m faced with. As my father used to say, “Any landing you walk away from is a good one.”
I’m a bit terrified and overwhelmed by my course load this semester. My goals are to get grades good enough that I don’t lose my TAship, and to complete enough credit hours that next year I can be at my apartment often enough to have a dog again. If I can get a dog, I’ll be grounded again, and will have the benefit of being reminded daily of the very simple things that provide me with most of my joy. Those are the factors motivating my writing right now – terror and love.
Sincerely,
Elisabeth