Mary C. M. Phillips

I spent the other day at Starbucks with my laptop.

It’s one of my favorite things to do:  get highly caffeinated, then write.

After finishing a first draft of an essay I’m currently writing on Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, I suddenly had the keen urge to read Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre again.  Not cover-to-cover; just a few passages.

So I went home, cracked it open, and once again…tears began to flow.  Jane’s conversations with Helen Burns are so intense, so lovely, so prayer-like.  Charlotte was a genius.  She truly was. Then it dawned on me: Why haven’t I read her other books?

A quick trip to Barnes and Noble ensued and I’m now on page 75 of Villette.  I’m already feeling a sense of satisfaction (maybe not the level of satisfaction I get when reading Jane Eyre…but close).

…I sat at the fireside sewing.  The wind was wailing at the windows:  it had wailed all day; but, as night deepened, it took a new tone-an accent keen, piercing, almost articulate to the ear; a plaint, piteous and disconsolate to the nerves, trilled in every gust. 

“Oh, hush! hush!” I said in my disturbed mind, dropping my work, and making a vain effort to stop my ears against that subtle, searching cry.  I had heard that very voice ere this, and compulsory observation had forced on me a theory as to what it boded.  Three times in the course of my life, events had taught me that these storage accents in the storm–this restless, hopeless cry–denote a coming state of the atmosphere unpropitious to life.   –  Villette 

Poetry.

Today, the wind is wailing here in New York as well (weakly, but there’s some minor wailing going on), and I am indoors reading Charlotte’s words.  

And, it is well with my soul.

Let it rain!

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I thought I’d share a couple of items from our March 10th lecture/discussion, The Life and Works of Edith Wharton, at The Malverne Public Library:

• a short video clip from the event.  It’s approximately five minutes long and the quality is less than impressive.   However, John Peter Tamburello does a fine job introducing our subject to a very receptive audience.

• a nice mention in The Long Island Herald.  We’re grateful  that they took the time to cover the event. Great literature should never go unnoticed and although we’re technically  not “literary scholars” as reported, we’re very flattered at the assumption.  Beyond!

Article from The Herald

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This past Monday, the Malverne Public Library hosted our tribute to Edith Wharton and I could not be happier!

It was a wonderful evening of lively discussion covering several of Edith Wharton’s books:  The Custom of the Country, Ethan Frome, and The House of Mirth. 

My co-host, John B. Tamburello, focused on the lovely and tragic Lily Bart while I ripped apart Custom’s Undine Spragg.

We’ve been asked to return next March (again for Women’s History Month) and intend on focusing on various other works by Wharton.

I’m feeling blessed all around having such a wellspring of creative work to dig into and share with other readers of classic literature.

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While preparing for our Edith Wharton tribute at the Malverne Public Library, I decided to read Thackeray’s most celebrated novel, Vanity Fair.  

I admit the only reason I decided the open this book is that Undine Spragg (the heroine from Edith Wharton’s The Custom of the Country) is often compared to Thackeray’s heroine (or is it non-heroine?), Becky Sharp.

I’m only 125 pages into the book and must admit…I love Becky Sharp.

Uh oh.  Is that a bad thing?  I don’t know. I’ll have to read more to see if my opinion changes.  I know, I know, she’s a shameless social climber.  But I haven’t met any other characters in the book that deserve my respect…yet.

I certainly don’t admire any character traits in Undine Spragg, the heroine of  The Custom of the Country (and that’s an understatement).  Undine is everything I try NOT to be:  overly ambitious, materialistic, selfish, vain.  She has no scruples and her lack of maternal instinct is downright depressing.

Undine Spragg, Becky Sharp, Scarlett O’Hara.  These are the characters taking up the space in my brain these days.

Heroines.

With admiration or contempt, they are incredibly interesting and complicated heroines.

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