SEEING THE WORLD THROUGH BOOKS

The imagined meeting of Sigmund Freud and Henry James at James’s residence, Lamb House, is the focus of this surprising novel of ideas, which conveys the intellectual ferment in Europe just prior to World War I in a style which is filled with warmth and good humor. Henry James and Sigmund Freud seem human and even fun-loving here, but the novel is no farce. Serious issues involving James’s writing, his style, his subjects, and his repressions all come into play, even as Freud admits to having his own problems trying to reconcile James’s creativity with the “scientific knowledge” which forms the basis of his psychoanalytical principles. Freud’s questions about his research become more acute when James agrees to undergo “short term analysis” during Freud’s stay at Lamb House. (My Favorite novel for 2007)

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In Wintering, her debut novel, Kate Moses recreates the heart, soul, and psyche of Sylvia Plath, a feat that is so extraordinary and so realistic in its execution that it is difficult to know where to start in describing it. In preparation for this novel, Moses did as much research as many doctoral candidates do, reading virtually every piece of Plath’s writing, both public and private, and most, if not all, of the resource material about Plath — her journals and letters, comments by contemporaries, letters to and from her mother, her daily calendars, audio recordings, biographies, manuscripts, notes by Ted Hughes, and even her baby book. So completely did she distill this material that the reader of the novel feels as if she or he is actually entering the mind of Plath, a Plath who is speaking and reminiscing, conjuring up events, aching, dreaming, and hoping. Astonishingly, Moses achieves this without ever deviating from a third person narrative and without ever speaking as Plath herself.

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What a tale this is! With care and sensitivity, Murr creates a complex psychological portrait of Daniel Mulvaugh, the people who have affected his life, and those who have been affected by him. Feeling “incomplete” as a personality, and guilt-ridden about some events from his childhood, Daniel, now thirty-eight, admits that “it was when feeling was expected, needed, directed, that something in him refused to respond.” Having always chosen to avoid, rather than confront, emotional challenges, he has never been able to expiate his sense of guilt for actions from his childhood, and is now virtually alone, unable to function successfully as an adult. Murr is able to accomplish literary magic not only because of his sensitive psychological insights, but also because of his finely developed style. His observations are acute, and his descriptions, sometimes appearing almost as “throw-aways,” are unique. This is a beautifully wrought, carefully constructed, and totally absorbing novel about selfhood, our need to deal with our pasts, and the role of imagination in making life bearable. Powerful, stunning, and ultimately hopeful, this novel is a thought-provoking can’t-put-it-downer. (On my Favorites list for 2003)

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Emma Woodhouse, “handsome, clever, and rich,” is the 21-year-old daughter of the elderly owner of Hartfield, the largest estate in Highbury. Though only a couple of hours away from London by carriage, Highbury regards itself as an isolated and virtually self-contained community, with the Woodhouse family the center of social life and at the top of its social ladder. Emma, doting on her hypochondriac father, whom she represents to the outside world, has grown up without a mother’s softening influence, and at twenty-one, she is bright, willful, and not a little spoiled. Austen shines in her depiction of Emma and her upperclass friends, gently satirizing their weaknesses but leaving room for them to learn from their mistakes-if only they can learn to recognize the ironies in their lives. Though Emma may be, in some ways, Austen’s least charming heroine, she is certainly vibrant and, with her annoying faults, a most realistic one.

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Though Lady Susan is considered part of Jane Austen’s “juvenilia,” having been written ca. 1805, it was not published till well after Jane Austen’s death and is still not counted among her “six novels.” In fact, this seventh novel, though not as thoughtful or thought-provoking as the “famous six,” is one of her wittiest and most spirited. Written in epistolary style, it is the story of Lady Susan, a beautiful, recent widow with no conscience, a woman who is determined to do exactly what she wants to do, to charm and/or seduce any man who appeals to her, and to secure a proper marriage for her teenage daughter, whom she considers both unintelligent and lacking in charm.

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