so we can say she knows something important is there but she just can't see it.
The typical unreliable narrator purposely withholds truth from the reader, so she's not being sneaky in that way.
I think she IS an unreliable narrator! She's not deliberately fooling anyone, though. She is self-constrained and unaware, so her reportage of events and details is left for the reader to interpret. She says more than once she doesn't know why she is writing something (have to look for the page)
Checking it out now. Thank you!
I think we expect interiority because it is a large novel. Dickens, to me, has never been about that. James was in his 20s when he critiqued Dickens for his lack of "philosophy," and we all know how James writes! Maybe this was the sign of a shift in literature.
So, Persuasion is the selection? Just double-checking.
In responding to the lack of interiority, we have Henry James and his criticism which may align with some folks' thoughts on Dickens. I also found it amusing even though I do like Dickens and BH. 🔒
metropolitanreview.com/the-art-of-t...
It was 4 am when I woke up and started thinking about BH, and at 530, I think my ideas are still sound. We shall see if they hold up at 10 or 2 later today!
about her when she is mostly writing is how she had no worth or value and is a complete drain on others. Yet that IS the tip of Esther's psychological cards to me.
Gosh, even Pip in GE only has interiority after the fact. He has wisdom and inner life in retrospect, not as life happens.
Whether the lack of interiority in his characters is by design or simply bc he did not know how may be in question but he seems much more interested in systems than self-examination or psychology. The most annoying part of Esther to me is her recording the great things others say...
In this essay, I will...
Just kidding there. But I do think that Dickens externalizes everything. Psychology of his characters shows in their behavior and experience (Krook and spontaneous combustion!). He seems interested in how systems manufacture the humans we see before us.
The character closest to showing any kind of interior process is, of all people, Richard. We hear his self-deception, see his decline, but even then, there is not a kind of satisfactory explanation as to why this happens.
The books I have read by him, almost none of the characters have the psychological interiority I associate with great novels. You understand his characters' inner life by seeing what an institution, a class position, or a shame structure has produced in them behaviorally.
I think her lack of interiority is deliberate; the two narrator structure is a specific choice he made. However, overall, Dickens seems more interested in depicting women as dramatic and thematic forces versus actual people.
However, I would argue almost no one has psychological interiority.
This is how she ends up being structurally groomed (I don't know how else to word it) by Mr. Jarndyce. From where she sits, she is obligated to him and therefore accepts his marriage proposal and would have gone through with it, even if it was something she did not want.
Okay, hear me out on this one. My theory is that we have 2 narrators, the omniscient narrator who treats everyone from the outside AND Esther who treats herself as someone from the outside. She has been raised to be self-effacing and always grateful for what she has been "given."
That was such an odd scene!
I just started watching it. She is a glorious Lady D.
His love seems to me to be confused and with his benevolent control, he ends up grooming her, at least structurally. I curiously don't read him as villainous like Smallweed.
I kind of think that Dickens, being a product of this society, didn't really think through the "ick" factor.
😂
She's doing an online class with Only Poetry called one sentence poems.
I have to say, the best part of reading this book together is reading everyone's theories, questions, and speculations.
But you had no idea WHO or HOW!!!
Aww. Don't let that discourage you.
I un-zuihitsued several pieces of mine, too. She is definitely a purist.
And after two years of discussion in our book group, we finally read it (well, as of tomorrow)! We did it!
I think that's how I felt, too. Only for me, the roller coaster was so fun that I forgot the slow ascent to the top.
But you see why I was so adamant about no prefaces, intros, googling. It wouldn't be as fun. I'm not even a person who reads for plot usually; this was different.
I've been so nervous I was going to tip the cards that I have not posted much! I wish everyone had the privilege of reading BH the way I did - clueless, breathless, recklessly stumbling over sentences in my zeal to find things out.
My replies aren't disabled! I don't even know how to do that. It was an entire workshop with lecture, handouts, packets, and practice from a year ago, so I really couldn't list all that from memory. She told us she has a forthcoming zuihitsu book with an intro that analyzes the criteria.
