After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie by Jean Rhys

After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie by Jean Rhys (1931, 191 pages)


I  totally loved Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (1890 to 1979, Dominica).   Last week I read The Blue Hour:  A Life of Jean Rhys by Lilian Pizzichini.   I knew before I read this that Rhys had a troubled life but I admit I was shocked and saddened by how deeply unhappy her life was.    It made me sad to think that the author of a book that has given so much pleasure to millions of people, The Wide Sargasso Sea, walked the streets of Paris and London in order to secure food and lodging.   Rhys did not have to do this.    She was married to a decent well off man who would have been happy to support her.   When that did not work out because of the mental problems of Rhys, there were several other men who would have supported the beautiful brilliant Rhys.  She also had several jobs none of which she kept very long.    Rhys had a talent for ruining things for herself (and she was very hard to get along with long term) and as I see it she craved the excitement of the streets and the rough bars of London and Paris.    She was a life time alcoholic and she was nasty and sometimes violent when intoxicated (which was when ever she could be!)  

After Leaving Mr.  Mackenzie is a very honest bold for its times autobiographical novel.   Mr. Mackenzie is considered by everyone to be Ford Madox Ford, her one time mentor and lover.   As the novel opens the central character, Julia, is checking into a cheap hotel in Paris.   Her relationship with Mr. Mackenzie (who helped her financially) had just ended.    The characterization of Mr. Mackenzie (as by reference Ford) is more or less as an energy vampire who drained those around him to fuel his own drives.   Julie (and I expect Jean) also was very confused in her relationships with men.   Julie takes a relationship of any length of time beyond an hour or so as putting the man under permanent obligation to help her.   Not to be too blunt here but Julia (and I think Rhys) confused renting with buying but was skillful enough at emotional manipulation (and attractive enough) to extract funds from men after the relationship ended.   When the men stop giving her money when the relationship ends, she sees that as proof of the evil nature of people taken in general.  

After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie starts out in Paris but then Julia decides to go to London to visit her sister and mother (just like in Rhys own life).    She contacts some old acquaintances (she seems to have no friends), she finds a cheap hotel to stay in and she finds some men.   She drinks too much.   She wants to see her mother but she knows that her family, especially her sister, look down on the way she lives.     The meeting of Julia and her family is so well done it is almost painful to read.

After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie has a lot of beautiful prose.    When it depicted Julia's encounters with her customers from the streets it was chilling in its perception of the self deception of both parties to the transactions involved.   In one brilliantly done chapter, you can feel the fear one of  her customers has in going back to the shabby hotel where she lives.  His carnal drives over come his fear.   He is so relieved to get away from Julia when he sees how crazy she can be.  Neither Julia nor the men in her life quite want to admit to themselves that it is just a business transaction, over when it is over.    Julia is marvelous at seeing through those she encounters but cannot or will not apply this same scrutiny to herself.

After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie should be read after Wide Sargasso  Sea.    It is an excellent very well written novel.   It is not the equal in any way of  WSS but then not much else is either.    I think most people read this book because WSS leaves them wanting more Rhys.   That is the main reason I read it.  

I am very glad I read this book.   I recommend it to those who love WSS.   It  gives you a good feel for  what life was like for a single women on the rough side of Paris and London in the 1920s.    People interested in Ford Madox Ford, I am for sure, will be intrigued by the portrait of him painted in the novel.    I will, I hope, in time read her other three novels (none are very long)  and her 500 page collection  of short stories.   I might read WSS a second time before I do that.

Please let me know what your experience with Jean Rhys was like?

Mel ue

"The Case of Lady Saxxon" by Arthur Conan Doyle

"The Case of Lady Saxxon" by Arthur Conan Doyle (1983, 12 pages)

A Short Story by the Creator of Sherlock Holmes

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 to 1930-Edinburgh, Scotland) created the great fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes, like few other literary creations, has taken on a life way beyond the confines of the pages of a book. He is the first of the great fictional detectives solving crimes with logic and keen observation.  I am a bit embarrassed to admit I have never read any of the work of Doyle before today.

"The Case of Lady Saxxon" feels very much like late Victorian prose. It was meant to attract readers through its focus on the rich and their foibles. The vices of the poor do not sell as well as the vices of the rich. As the story opens we meet Douglas Stone and "the notorious Lady Saxxon". Douglas Stone is a very successful surgeon. Most of his patients are from the top levels of society. His income is high and his expenses at least match. He has developed a taste for exotic artifacts and seems to be a rather advanced voluptuary as well. He was captivated by Lady Saxxon on sight and nearly in plain view of her husband begins an affair with her.

The heart and the fun of the story is the revenge taken by Lord Saxxon on his wife and Dr. Stone. The ending is very clever and I liked it a lot.

Dolyle did a good job of making me feel I was out and about in Late Victorian London. The story is very easy to read and feels like newspaper man turned writer style prose. I enjoyed this story and will, I hope, at least read my first Sherlock Holmes story soon. ( I like the old movies from the 1930s and 40 and I cannot stand the newest one. )


Mel u

Muse India-A Great Source for South Asian Short Stories and a Powerful new story by Mangala Varma

"Some Kiss and Don't Tell" by Mangala Varma (3 pages, 2011)

Muse India

A Very Moving Story of a Universal Tragedy

I.    Today I want to let people know of another online only publication, Muse India .   I will also post on a powerful short story by Mangala Varma from that publication.

Muse India has a very clear statement of purpose.

"Started and run by a group of writers, Muse India is a literary e-journal with the primary objective of showcasing Indian writings in English and in English translation to a broad-based global readership. The journal publishes both creative and critical writing and offers a wide range of literary forms—poetry, short fiction, essays, conversations with writers, book reviews and the like. Bearing in mind the general readership on the Internet, it will, however, avoid highly academic articles. Besides presenting the work of more established authors, Muse India will also promote talented new and young writers. "

Muse India features new writers as well as established authors.   It also has cultural articles and human interest stories.   The current issue (number 37) has as its feature article "Food in Indian Literature".   Anyone interested in Indian and South Asian short fiction will find it a great resource.   All 36 back issues are online.   There are 100s of very interesting looking articles and promising short stories.    

Mangala Varma,  the author of "Some Kiss and Don't Tell",  has a strong academic background.   She has designed curriculum programs in English language for MBA and MCA students and taught at several prestigious universities.   She currently lives in Punjab, India.   

"Some Kiss and Don't Tell" is a very said, very poignant story set in modern India about the long term consequences of child abuse by a trusted  relative.   It starts out in a car with a young girl and her uncle ("uncle" is also used as a term of respect for an older male family friend).   The uncle forces himself on the girl.   What precisely happens is not made exactly explicit but for sure it was very traumatic for the girl.   Varma tells the story in a very interesting style that makes us feel we are there.  The prose has a kind of freeze frame cinematic feel that I really liked.    The girl never really tells her parents what happened as she is too ashamed.   


"Ashrafi came home. The dining table was set. Mom, papa, aunts, uncles were waiting for hero bhai sahib for dinner. Nobody noticed Ashrafi and her discomfort at that moment and Ashrafi too didn’t tell anything about the dirty room and the dirty hands to anybody. Time moved on and the child flowed like the river, nourished by the joint family milieu and Punjabiyat reminiscences. "


I thought the line "Time moved on and the child flowed like the river, nourished by the joint family milieu and Punjabiyat reminiscences" very beautiful.     "A Child flowing like the river" echos and evokes the sacred rivers of India.   


At midpoint in the story, the narration jumps to the young woman now 19 and in college.    I will not tell more of the plot but it is very well narrated and beautifully written.   The prose is not standard Victorian English but to expect that it would be is to miss much of the point of post colonial literature and of this story.    I totally endorse this work.


You can read "Some Kiss and Don't Tell" at Muse India




I am in the very opening stages in my reading of South Asian Short Stories.   I was very glad to see that in his landmark book on short stories which I am currently reading (The Lonely Voice: A Study of the Short Story, 1963) Frank O'Connor, says that the Indian Short Story is beginning to surpass the Irish Short Story.    Happily for me I do not have to choose between these two reading areas.    There is a significant mutual influence, it seems to me.   




Mel u

"Scorn" by Bama Faustina -leading woman Dalit Tamil Author

"Scorn" by Bama Faustina (2004, 3 pages, in translation from Tamil)

Caste Discrimination in Elementary Schools

A Story by a Leading Dalit Author

Bama Faustina is one of the first Dalit Tamil writers to achieve international attention for her work.   I confess I did not know what the word "Dalit" means when I first encountered it.   A Dalit person is one whose ancestors were members of discriminated against castes.    The Indian government has classified about ten percent of the populace of India as being of Dalit descent.   (The common western parlance for this   is "untouchable".)    Caste discrimination is illegal in Indian but it is still very widely practiced, especially in rural areas.   Members of Dalit castes by practice and custom live among themselves and face great prejudice.    There are 3000 plus recognized castes, 49 of them are considered Dalit castes.   

Seventy five percent of Christians in India are of Dalit caste background.  When Christian missionaries first entered India, they had their best success among the poorest of people, the untouchables.   I know this is a very complicated and sensitive issue which many prefer to sweep under the rug, but writers like Bama Faustina are bringing international focus on the problems of Dalits.    Oxford University Press has published translations of her novels and she has also published a successful collection of short stories.   She is a teacher in Uthiramerur.   She is a Roman Catholic (75 percent of Roman Catholics in India are of Dalit background.)

"Scorn" opens with a child and his mother arguing.   The boy, he seems about 10, does not want to go to school today.   He wants to go into the forest with his mother who works as a charcoal maker (once a very common occupation for members of Dalit castes in a country where most people still cook on charcoal).      His mother tells him that she and her father are working very hard and sacrificing to send him to school so he will not have to be a street sweeper, a charcoal cleaner,  or house boy.   She wants to know why he does not want to go and he will not give her a straight clear answer.   She finds out from her neighbors (everybody on her street are Dalits) that he was beaten by higher caste children at school because he forgot his lunch box and ate food  (with permission) from the lunch  box of a higher caste child.   When he went to complain to the teacher, the teacher beat him and said he is  was just an ignorant Dalit that does not even know the customs of his country.   

The next day the mother and the boy's father go to the school.   The father was terribly upset by what happens.    He accepts that he has always been treated as the lowest type of person by accident of his birth but he will not accept this as the fate of his son.

The next day the parents go to the head master of the school to complain.   They are told that what happened to their son is their fault.   If they had only taught him his place in life this would never have happened.     The parents begin to talk to other parents on their street.   They find out that one time money was missing and they searched only the Dalit Children.     The headmaster even tells them that the Dalit children at school are always assigned clean up duties as cleaning up after their betters is part of their heritage.   The headmaster tries to be nice about this and says, meaning it as a compliment, "Well the children from your street are just naturally made for clean up work".      Here is how one teacher explained it all to the  head master:


"Kattari ran and hugged his father and started crying. Meanwhile, a teacher came to the headmaster and said something to him. At once the headmaster told the headman of his street, “Let them be. Why should you beat a dog and earn the burden of sin? Why do you want to deal with them at all? Just touch these people and they’ll make trouble. These people are not like they used to be. Let them be.”


One of the very saddest aspects of discrimination is that children of discriminated groups begin to believe it is true.   There are even terrible TV commercials run here in the Philippines (by big international companies) selling skin whiting cream for early teenage girls.   


"Scorn" is a simple story that puts a whole world in a few pages.   It was translated from Tamil by Sarsa Rajagopal).     I suspect it took real courage to write it.   For sure it is worth the minute or two it will take you to read it.


You can read it online at The Little Magazine.


Mel u 

A Cat, a Man, and Two Women by Junichiro Tanizaki -谷崎 潤一郎

A Cat, a Man, and Two Women by Junichiro Tanizaki (1935, 99 pages)

A Great Cat Story by a Great Writer

or

"Your cat means more to you than I do"

A Link to my posts on Junichiro Tanizaki

A Link to my posts on Japanese Literature

Yesterday I was lying in bed reading A Cat, a Man, and Two Women by Junichiro Tanizaki (1886 to 1965-Tokyo Japan) laughing so loud at what I was reading that my wife came in to see what could be the source of such great hilarity.   I told her I thought somehow back in 1935  a great novelist must have been listening into one of our conversations.   Eighteen years ago Charles (my blog co-editor) joined my life along with his brother Yoda (who passed away at 16 and will always be greatly missed ) became part of my life.   Seven years ago my wife became part of my life.   She totally loves Charles and is more attuned to his emotions and feelings than I am at times and takes great care of him but, like many a cat or dog lover in similar circumstances we have had conversations exactly like this one from A Cat, a Man, and Two Women.

(To set the stage for the quote, the wife had just spent a lot of time fixing a special mackeral dish that her husband claims is one of his favorite.)

"That is just not true.   I always plan to eat them myself but Lilly (the cat) keeps after me, and I end up tossing them to her one at a time"  (the husband)

"What a liar!   You pretend to like them so you can give them all to Lilly.   Your cat  means more to you than I do!"  (the wife)

"How can you say that" (said with as much indignation as he could muster by the husband )

"Am I more important than your cat?" (the wife)

"Of course you are"  (said by the husband).

Junichiro Tanizaki is one of my favorite writers.   I have previously posted on eleven of his works and loved them all.   (There is background data on him in my prior posts for those interested.)   His best known work is The Makioka Sisters.  

I came to like him even more after reading the excellent short introduction to the book (it comes with two short stories) by the translator Paul McCarthy in which he reveals that Tanizaki was a total cat lover and lived with cats his whole life.   This really shows in A Cat, a Man, and Two Women.   It has the best descriptions of the emotional bond between cats and their people I have ever read.   Tanizaki does a truly wonderful job describing the movements, emotions, and attitudes of Lilly, the cat.   It really is a great cat book.   Tanizaki is famous for his brilliant treatment of women and this work is no exception.   The book is also a story of the man's relationship with the two women in the title and with his mother.   It also details the important part the cat plays in both relationships.   This is not just a cute lets gush about cats book, it is a wonderful book you make come to treasure as one of your all time favorite reads.

Of the characters in the book, Lilly is the only one that can be admired.   Her love is worth winning and taking pride in.    I think most readers will be disgusted with the man and the two women.    Lilly is by far the individual of best character in this story.   The book is also a good study of marriages and gives us a look at life in pre-WWII Japan.    Faced with the choice of either of the two women in this story or Lilly I would keep Lilly and you would also.

I really do not see anyone who likes a perfectly written story and is a cat lover not being crazy for A Cat, a Man, and Two Women.   It is out of print I think but you can buy it on Amazon.com for just a few dollars.

Mel u

Rabindranath Tagore-In Observation of his 150th Birthday-His Last Short Story

"The Story of a Muslim Woman" by Rabindrath Tagore (1941, 3 pages)

On The Occasion of the 150th 

Birthday of Rabindranath Tagore

May 7, 1861

Tagore (1861 to 1941) was born in Kolkata, Indian into a family whose wealth and life style can now only be seen in movies.    His father owned an estate so huge that at one point in his life Tagore traveled through it on a luxurious barge and was met on the river bank by tenants paying token rents to him.   Tagore was raised mostly by servants as his mother died young and his father was very busy administrating the vast estates he owned.   Tagore was educated in classical Indian literature and at age eight began to write poetry and ended up reshaping the Bengali Language.   Later in his life he founded a school and devoted himself entirely to his writing and teachings.   His moral authority became so great that he was able to write the national anthems of both India and Bangladesh, give Gandhi the title of Mahatma (teacher),  and  had a status as a moral leader on a par with  Gandi.   He traveled to the west and met William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound and other notable literary figures.   This was in a period when western writers were fascinated by Indian thinkers and Yeats wrote the preface for one of his first translations in English.   He wrote largely in Bengali.   His body of work is a great literary treasure.   He was a Hindu Bengali.   He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, the first Asian winner and the only winner 
from Indian to date.


 (I have already posted on two of his prior stories, "Hungry Stones" and "Subha".) 


"The Story of a Muslim Woman" is the very last short story that Tagore completed.   It was completed in 1941 but not published until 1955.   I do not know why it took so long to be published but it seems almost like a total prophecy of the events horrors caused by the 1947 partition of India and even the Bangladesh War for Independence in 1971.


The story opens in the home of an affluent of family.   The niece of the husband is in the care of their family because her parents are dead.   The wife hates her and wants her put out of the house, whatever it takes.   She feels a beautiful young girl will attract rapists and thugs to their household.   Daily life in the region had gone 
to conditions of near anarchy and their was no real leadership anywhere.


These words say much about the history and lot of women in India:


" Kamala was very beautiful, though her parents were dead. The family would have welcomed her death too; but that did not happen. Her uncle Banshi brought her up with great affection and extreme caution till now.
      However, her aunt would often complain to her female neighbours, "Look, her parents left her to add to my burden. Nobody knows what can happen to her any moment. I've children of my own, and among them she's like a burning torch of destruction. She can't escape the evil gaze of wicked fellows. She alone will sink my boat. For this reason I can’t sleep at night”


Her aunt wants her dead but she does at last receive an offer to become the second wife of a wealthy man of the same caste as her family.   The offer is at once accepted even though women want to be first wives, not second, third or fourth.   Her aunt is just so happy to be rid of her.  


In order to get to the house of her soon to be husband she has to pass through lawless countryside.     Her caravan is attacked and she is kidnapped by bandits.   As she is quite beautiful she is taken as bounty to the home of the bandit leader.    The bandit, a Muslim, allays her fears and tells her she will be allowed to live in peace in his house.   She and everyone knows she can no longer marry a Hindu and will be considered a disgrace to her family and caste.   In the culture of the time, if a  woman was raped it was considered her fault, she was damaged property and would often end up thrown out of her own house and family.   Her family would never believe that a Muslim leader would protect her and keep her totally safe in  better fashion than her birth family ever would.


The house of  the Muslim chief has apartments for eight wives.   He allows the woman to live in peace totally unmolested.   There is even a temple dedicated to Shiva which allows the woman to practice her religion.   He never attempts to force himself on her and does not allow her to be disrespected in any fashion.   In time she falls in love with a man from the leaders family.   She repudiates her old faith and her caste saying she has found her destiny in her new home.  She is proud to become a Muslim woman and falls in love with a man of her own choosing.   (spoiler alert)-


As the story closes, years have gone by, the woman is along on a raid on a caravan.  She discovers that in the caravan is her cousin, the daughter of the aunt who hated her and wished her dead.   As a gesture of the sincerity of her face, she allows the young woman to proceed on her way to her arranged marriage to a man she has never met.


I can see this story as perhaps at one time offending the core audience of Tagore.   That he would write such a story in 1941 shows deep wisdom and an incredible insight into the future of South India.   

I am currently reading what maybe the book most worth reading on the short story, The Lonely Voice:   A Study of the Short Story (1963) by Frank Connors.   I was very taken and I admit a bit shocked when O'Connor said the Indian Short Story was starting to surpass the current productions in Ireland.   

Mel u

John Updike: Two Short Stories

"Pigeon Feathers" (1962, 7 pages)
"A and P"  (1960, 5 pages)

Two John Updike Short Stories

John Updike (Reading, Pennsylvania, USA-1932 to 2009) is best known for his series of novels that began with Rabbit Run (1960).   Two of the four Rabbit novels won Pulitzer Prizes.    Updike also wrote lots of short stories and literary criticism.    Years ago I read his Rabbit novels.    Very recently I read his brilliant and very insightful introduction to a collection of three Henry Green novels.

I am glad I have now read two of his short stories.    They both have as their lead character a young American man from a humble background.    One of the young men is a grocery store check out clerk and the other lives and works on his parents farm.    Both young men are trying to figure out how to fit into the society in which they live.    Both men have conflicts with the authority figures in their lives.

"Pigeon Feathers" is the best of the two stories.    It centers on a young man raised on a farm.    His parents are far from fitting the stereotype of farmers.    His mother has a degree in chemistry and his father in classics.    The family has a very extensive library of the best of western culture.    The maternal grandmother also lives with them.   The young man in the story is beginning to seriously question the Christian faith in which he was raised.   In a very sad moment I read:

"He lost his appetite for reading. He was afraid of being ambushed again. In mystery novels people died like dolls being discarded; in science fiction enormities of space and time conspired to crush the humans; and even in P. G. Wodehouse he felt a hollowness, a turning away from reality that was implicitly bitter, and became explicit in the comic figures of futile clergymen."

Like in any traditionally structured short story, there is a conflict and resolution of the conflict followed by an explanation of the insight the man has received.  
"Pigeon Feathers" is a good story.   I have read numerous better ones in the last year but this is not a bad story at all.

"A and P" is about a young man working as a check out clerk in a grocery store.  (As a note of explanation, The A and P was a  now defunct chain of  grocery stores found over much of small town America.)     The man enjoys just one thing about his job.   That one thing is looking at the young women who come into the store.    His boss feels he has to say something like "quit talking with and flirting with the girls and pay more attention to your work!".   (This story is from a time before scanners codes and computerized check out terminals.)   Of course this sets up the conflict aspect of this traditional short story.     As the story ends the lead character seems to obtain a large insight into his future live or maybe it is just  the folly of many a young man whose hormones have taken over his mind.

Both of these stories are very traditional short stories with characters we understand, a conflict with a resolution and an account of the insight gained by the lead characters.   They both have the requisite drama.  

You can read both of these stories online HERE.

If you have never read any Updike, these short stories might be a good place to start.    I am glad I read them.  

Mel u